Several studies indicate that infants prefer individuals who act prosocially over those \udwho act antisocially toward unrelated third parties. In the present study, we focused on a \udparadigm published by Kiley Hamlin and Karen Wynn in 2011. In this study, infants were \udhabituated to a live puppet show in which a protagonist tried to open a box to retrieve a toy \udplaced inside. The protagonist was either helped by a second puppet (the “Helper”), or hindered by a third puppet (the “Hinderer”). At test, infants were presented with the Helper and the Hinderer, and encouraged to reach for one of them. In the original study, 75% of 9-month-olds selected the Helper, arguably demonstrating a preference for prosocial over antisocial individuals. We conducted two studies with the aim of replicating this result. Each \udattempt was performed by a different group of experimenters. Study 1 followed the methods \udof the published study as faithfully as possible. Study 2 introduced slight modifications to the \udstimuli and the procedure following the guidelines generously provided by Kiley Hamlin and \udher collaborators. Yet, in our replication attempts, 9-month-olds’ preference for helpers over hinderers did not differ significantly from chance (62.5% and 50%, respectively, in Studies 1 and 2). Two types of factors could explain why our results differed from those of Hamlin and Wynn: minor methodological dissimilarities (in procedure, materials, or the population \udtested), or the effect size being smaller than originally assumed. We conclude that fine \udmethodological details that are crucial to infants’ \udsuccess in this task need to be identified to \udensure the replicability of the original result.
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