This is a set of web collections curated by Mark Graham using the Archive-IT service of the Internet Archive. They include web captures of the ISKME.org website as well as captures from sites hosted by IGC.org.These web captures are available to the general public.For more information about this collection please feel free to contact Mark via Send Mail ||||| CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- A new study finds that 21-month-old infants can distinguish between respect-based power asserted by a leader and fear-based power wielded by a bully. 
 
 The study, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, analyzed infants' eye-gazing behavior, a standard approach for measuring expectations in children too young to explain their thinking to adults. This "violation-of-expectation" method relies on the observation that infants stare longer at events that contradict their expectations. 
 
 Previous studies had shown that infants can recognize power differences between two or more characters, said University of Illinois Psychology Alumni Distinguished Professor Renee Baillargeon, who conducted the new research. 
 
 "For example, infants will stare longer at scenarios where larger characters defer to smaller ones. They also take note when a character who normally wins a confrontation with another suddenly loses," she said. "But little was known about infants' ability to distinguish between different bases of power." 
 
 To get at this question, Baillargeon developed a series of animations depicting cartoon characters interacting with an individual portrayed as a leader, a bully or a likeable person with no evident power. 
 
 She first tested how adults - undergraduate students at the University of Illinois - responded to the scenarios and found that the adults identified the characters as intended. Next, she measured the eye-gazing behavior of infants as they watched the same animations. 
 
 "In one experiment, the infants watched a scenario in which a character portrayed either as a leader or a bully gave an order ("Time for bed!") to three protagonists, who initially obeyed," Baillargeon said. "The character then left the scene and the protagonists either continued to obey or disobeyed." 
 
 The infants detected a violation when the protagonists disobeyed the leader but not when they disobeyed the bully, Baillargeon found. This was true also in a second experiment that repeated the scenarios but eliminated previous differences in physical appearance between the leader and the bully (see graphic). 
 
 A third experiment tested whether the infants were responding to the likeability of the characters in the scenarios, rather than to their status as leaders or bullies. 
 
 "In general, when the leader left the scene, the infants expected the protagonists to continue to obey the leader," Baillargeon said. "However, when the bully left, the infants had no particular expectation: The protagonists might continue to obey out of fear, or they might disobey because the bully was gone. The infants expected obedience only when the bully remained in the scene and could harm them again if they disobeyed. 
 
 "Finally, when the likeable character left, the infants expected the protagonists to disobey, most likely because the character held no power over them," Baillargeon said. 
 
 The new findings confirm earlier studies showing that infants can detect differences in power between individuals and expect those differences to endure over time, Baillargeon said. 
 
 "Our results also provide evidence that infants in the second year of life can already distinguish between leaders and bullies," she said. "Infants understand that with leaders, you have to obey them even when they are not around; with bullies, though, you have to obey them only when they are around." 
 
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 Editor's notes: 
 
 To reach Renee Baillargeon, call 217-333-5557; email rbaillar@illinois.edu. The paper "Infants distinguish between leaders and bullies" is available to members of the media from PNAS. ||||| A new study from a Canadian researcher has found that infants can distinguish between true leaders and bullies. 
 
 “There was already research showing that babies kind of understand power relations,” the study’s senior author, Dr. Renee Baillargeon, told CTVNews.ca. “We wanted to know whether babies would be able to distinguish between two types of social power; whether they would understand that there are leaders that are respected and obeyed… and there are bullies who (are) maybe obeyed out of fear.” 
 
 Baillargeon is a Quebec-born psychologist and University of Illinois professor who specializes in infant cognition and development. 
 
 In the study, which was recently published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Baillargeon and her team presented nearly 100 infants, aged 20 to 22 months, with several animated videos that depicted a respected leader telling a group of characters to go to bed and a violent bully who does the same. In some of those videos, the leaders or bullies stuck around to see if their commands were being followed. In others, they left after issuing their orders. In some scenarios, moreover, the characters followed the commands while in others they did not. 
 
 To gauge the infants’ responses to each video, Baillargeon and her team analyzed their eye behaviour. 
 
 “We took advantage of one of babies’ natural responses, which is to look longer at events that are puzzling to them,” she said. “So babies tend to look longer at events that are puzzling as opposed to events that are just what they expected.” 
 
 The infants, Baillargeon concluded, expected the characters to follow the respected leader’s orders, regardless of whether or not they were present to see them through, and they also expressed surprise when the characters didn’t listen. The infants, moreover, expected the characters to follow the bully’s orders when they were present, but interestingly, they also expressed no surprise when the characters disobeyed absent bullies. 
 
 “Previous work has shown that… babies can tell the difference between someone who acts nicely and someone who acts not nicely,” Baillargeon explained. “And what our study does is kind of extend that to say, when someone beats you up, that person has some power over you in the sense that you may be afraid of them, and you may do what they say when they’re around and could harm you, but of course when they leave then you’ll do what you want.” 
 
 The study, Baillargeon argues, gives us a glimpse into the basis of human morality -- and it also offers lessons to parents and early childhood educators. 
 
 “A number of researchers… have suggested that human babies are born with a number of moral principles that guide their expectations about how individuals will act toward each other,” she said. 
 
 Those principles include fairness, in-group support and authority. 
 
 “There’s a very common idea that young children don’t understand authority and have to be taught,” Baillargeon added. “But what our study shows is… when someone has legitimate power, you have to respect and obey. And of course children may not obey because their self-interest says, ‘That’s not what I want to do now, I don’t want to go to bed,’ but you can remind them of what they know. You’re not really teaching them fairness or authority -- they already are born with these very abstract ideas, they know what those are -- you just have to remind them of what they know and sort of help them kind of keep their self-interest in check.” 
 
 Working with infants, Baillargeon adds, can also teach us a lot more about the current state of our world. 
 
 “Babies do have rich expectations about leaders and it’s so interesting when you look at the world we live in to think about, (if) this is what babies expect leaders to do, how well do our leaders measure up on what they’re expected to do?” she said. “Are they more along the bully side, or are they more along the leader side who care for their group and are willing to sacrifice themselves for their group?”
– A new study suggests that even toddlers know the difference between an authentic leader and a bully—and they're willing to defy the bully if they can safely do so. The study out of the University of Illinois and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences analyzed the reactions of about 100 toddlers aged 20 to 22 months to animated scenarios. The kids watched videos in which a group of characters were told to go to bed by a respected leader or a violent bully, reports CTV News. The toddlers expected the characters to follow the leader's orders and expressed surprise when they didn't, even if the leader disappeared. They also expected the characters to follow the bully's orders—but they showed no surprise when the characters disobeyed if the bully was no longer present. The study shows that "when someone beats you up, that person has some power over you in the sense that you may be afraid of them, and you may do what they say when they're around and could harm you, but of course when they leave then you'll do what you want," says lead researcher Renee Baillargeon. The researchers gauged the children's reactions by studying how long they stared, a previously documented way to understand whether an event syncs with their expectations. The more something doesn't jibe for them, the longer they'll stare, per a release at Eureka Alert. The study tested a third scenario, too, one in which the characters were told to go to bed by a nice but apparently powerless figure. "The infants expected the protagonists to disobey, most likely because the character held no power over them," says Baillargeon.