Infants Choose Those Who Defer in Conflicts

For humans and other social species, social status matters: it determines who wins access to contested resources, territory, and mates [1–11]. Human infants are sensitive to dominance status cues [12, 13]. They expect conflicts to be won by larger individuals [14], those with more allies [15], and those with a history of winning [16–18]. But being sensitive to status cues is not enough; individuals must also use status information when deciding whom to approach and whom to avoid [19]. In many non-human species, low-status individuals avoid high-status individuals and in so doing avoid the threat of aggression [20–23]. In these species, high-status individuals commit random acts of aggression toward subordinates [23] and even commit infanticide [24–26]. However, for less reactively aggressive species [27, 28], high-status individuals may be good coalition partners. This is especially true for humans, where high-status individuals can provide guidance, protection, and knowledge to subordinates [2, 29, 30]. Indeed, human adults [31–33], human toddlers [34], and adult bonobos [35] prefer high-status individuals to low-status ones. Here, we present 6 experiments testing whether 10- to 16-month-old human infants choose high- or low-status individuals—specifically, winners or yielders in zero-sum conflicts—and find that infants choose puppets who yield. Intriguingly, toddlers just 6 months older choose the winners of such conflicts [34]. This suggests that, although humans start out like many other species, avoiding high-status others, we shift in toddlerhood to approaching high-status individuals, consistent with the idea that, for humans, high-status individuals can provide benefits to low-status ones. •Infants were shown zero-sum conflicts•In four experiments, infants chose the yielding puppet•In win-win situations, infants did not show a preference•When there was not conflict, infants did not show a preference Status determines how individuals act in conflicts. Thomas and Sarnecka present six experiments testing whether 10- to 16-month-olds choose (i.e., reach for) yielders or winners in conflicts and find that infants choose the puppets who yield. This suggests that humans start out like many other species, avoiding high-status others.