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Published on:

20th Feb 2025

Decoding Academia 32: Do Babies REALLY like good guys?

In this episode, Matt and Chris take a look at a recent developmental psychology paper on the social evaluation of young babies. Do they display a preference for agents who are nice to others or could they care less at the babbling age? This is a large-scale, multi-lab, preregistered replication effort of a rather influential paper so it ticks all of Chris' Open Science boxes, but how does Matt react? Is he stuck in his pre-replication crisis paradigms? Join us to find out and along the way find out about baby Matt's psychotic tendencies, how cats feel about cucumbers, and how Matt narrowly escaped being eaten by a big ol' crocodile.

Paper Reference: Lucca, K., Yuen, F., Wang, Y., Alessandroni, N., Allison, O., Alvarez, M., ... & Hamlin, J. K. (2025). Infants’ Social Evaluation of Helpers and Hinderers: A Large‐Scale, Multi‐Lab, Coordinated Replication Study. Developmental Science, 28(1), e13581.

Original Study: Hamlin, J. K., Wynn, K., & Bloom, P. (2007). Social evaluation by preverbal infants. Nature, 450(7169), 557-559.

Decoding Academia 32

00:00 Introduction

00:59 Matt's Close Shave with a Crocodile

03:15 Discussion on Crocodile Behavior

05:13 Introduction to the Academic Paper

06:18 Understanding Registered Reports

07:49 Details of the Replication Study

12:07 The Many Babies Study

18:23 Challenges in Developmental Psychology

20:35 Original Study and Replication Efforts

26:27 HARKing and the QRP problem in psychology

34:24 Discussing the Results

36:58 Exploring the Red Ball Experiment

39:38 Forest Plot Analysis

41:19 Infant Preferences and Social Evaluation

43:24 Failure to Replicate the Original Study

47:06 Exploratory Analysis and Moderators

50:03 Interpretations and Implications

54:21 Evolutionary Perspectives on Social Behavior

58:34 Prosocial Evolutionary Speculation

01:05:10 Psychopathic Baby Matt

01:06:28 Concluding Thoughts and Reflections

01:11:20 Comparative Psychology on Snake Hatred!

The full episode is available for Patreon subscribers (1hrs 15 mins).

Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus

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About the Podcast

Decoding the Gurus
A psychologist and an anthropologist try to make sense of the world's greatest self-declared Gurus.
An exiled Northern Irish anthropologist and a hitchhiking Australian psychologist take a close look at the contemporary crop of 'secular gurus', iconoclasts, and other exiles from the mainstream, offering their own brands of unique takes and special insights.

Leveraging two of the most diverse accents in modern podcasting, Chris and Matt dig deep into the claims, peek behind the psychological curtains, and try to figure out once and for all... What's it all About?

Join us, as we try to puzzle our way through and talk some smart-sounding smack about the intellectual giants of our age, from Jordan Peterson to Robin DiAngelo. Are they revolutionary thinkers or just grifters with delusions of grandeur?

Join us and let's find out!
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About your hosts

Christopher Kavanagh

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A Northern Irish cognitive anthropologist who occasionally moonlights as a social psychologist. Chris has long standing interests in the psychology of conspiracy theorists and pseudoscience. His academic research focuses on the Cognitive Science of Religion and ritual psychology. He lives happily in Japan with his family.

Matthew Browne

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An Australian psychologist and numbers-guy. He does research on all kinds of stuff, but particularly enjoys looking into why people believe the things they do: religion, conspiracy theories, alternative medicine and stuff. He's into social media in the same way people slow down for car accidents.