title: Infants' use of social partnerships to predict behavior.
abstract: The experiences of social partners are important motivators of social action. Can infants use such experiences to make predictions about how social agents will behave? Sixteen-month-old infants were introduced to two social pairs. Initial events established within-pair cooperation as well as between-pair conflict involving an individual from each pair. Following these events, infants looked longer when between-pair members who had never previously interacted now cooperated - instead of conflicted - with each other. Thus, infants tracked the third-person allegiances and inferred that the conflict would generalize across social partnerships. These findings demonstrate a critical feature of early social cognition and promote needed, further research on the role of social allegiances in social cognition across development.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, New York University, USA.
authors.forename: Marjorie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rhodes
authors.affiliation: Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, USA.
authors.forename: Chelsea
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hetherington
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, USA.
authors.forename: Kimberly
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Brink
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, USA.
authors.forename: Henry M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Wellman
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D012919:Social Behavior; D013997:Time Factors