Infants use helping to infer the existence and strength of caring relationships

Prosocial and antisocial behaviors can reflect care or antipathy for a specific person. They can also reflect broader dispositions toward others’ welfare. The motive an observer infers will shape their expectations about the actor’s future behaviors. In four preregistered studies, we investigated 14- and 15-month-old infants’ inferences about social motives by testing their expectations following observations of helping and hindering. After observing two actors help or hinder a common target, infants expected the helper, rather than the hinderer, to help the same target in a new situation. However, this expectation did not generalize to a new target. Infants also used patterns of selective helping amongst multiple targets to infer whose needs the helper would prioritize. These findings show that infants tend to interpret helping as evidence for the existence and strength of target-specific interpersonal care, forming a foundation for understanding social relationships.