This study examined whether infants assume that people will help others to achieve specific goals. Seventeen‐month‐old infants watched familiarization events in which a competent agent succeeded in climbing hills while an incompetent agent failed to do so. In subsequent test events, the competent agent either helped the incompetent agent reach the top of the hill (helping event) or simply passed the incompetent agent and reached the top of the hill alone (ignoring event). The infants looked reliably longer at the ignoring event than at the helping event. These findings suggest that, by at least the age of 17 months, infants expect a competent agent to help an incompetent agent. Our findings provide evidence that infants in their second year of life possess some expectations of others’ prosociality.

中文翻译：

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婴儿是否希望别人有帮助？

这项研究检查了婴儿是否认为人们会帮助他人实现特定目标。17个月大的婴儿观看了熟悉事件，其中有称职的代理人成功爬山，而没有胜任的代理人没有这样做。在随后的测试事件中，胜任的特工要么帮助不称职的特工到达山顶（帮助事件），要么简单地使不胜任的特工通过而仅到达山顶（忽略事件）。婴儿在忽略事件上的看待时间肯定比在帮助事件上看的要长。这些发现表明，至少在17个月大时，婴儿期望有胜任的药物帮助无能的药物。我们的发现提供了证据，表明婴儿在出生后的第二年就对他人的亲近感抱有某些期望。