A kiss tells the story
Young humans are notoriously helpless and completely dependent on the adult humans around them for survival. However, not all adults are as involved in the care of a particular child, and it is beneficial to be able to determine from a very early age which relationships are close.
Tomas et al. tested toddlers and babies to determine whether they could identify close or “thick” relationships based on whether people engaged in activities that involved sharing saliva, such as eating, kissing, or sharing utensils. Children expected relationships like these to be closer than other relationships, indicating that they can distinguish closeness very early in life.
Summary In all human societies, people form "dense" relationships characterized by strong ties, obligations, and mutual responsiveness. People in strong relationships share food utensils, kiss, or engage in other distinctive interactions that involve sharing saliva. We found that toddlers and infants infer that dyads that share saliva (as opposed to other positive social interactions) have a different relationship. Children expect saliva exchange to occur in nuclear families. Toddlers and babies expect people who share saliva to respond to each other in distress. Parents confirm that sharing saliva is a valid signal of relationship thickness in their children’s social environments. The ability to use distinctive interactions to infer categories of relationships emerges early in life, without explicit teaching. |
Comments
One of the great tasks of child development is to make sense of other people’s behavior by appealing to their inner thoughts, beliefs, and desires [“intuitive psychology”], as well as the groups and relationships of which they are a part [“intuitive sociology”]. . The extent to which these intuitions can be learned from social experience or whether they require some evolved ability to interpret and categorize behavior has long been debated.
Thomas et al. examined children’s intuitions about so-called “dense” relationships: intimate ties that people have with relatives or romantic partners that are characterized by certain behaviors and obligations. The authors suggest that sharing saliva between individuals is a cue that young children use to infer strong relationships, and that these inferences are based on evolutionary processes that have shaped how young children interpret the social world.
Toddlers, toddlers, and babies infer that people who share saliva through activities such as kissing, sharing food, or wiping drool are in so-called "thick" relationships, intimate bonds that people often share with other members. of the family.
The findings, based on experimental techniques from developmental science, reveal social cues that young people use to inform their earliest understanding of the conceptual structure of family. Young children depend on adults to survive; However, not all adults are equally committed to caring for a particular child. Therefore, it is important for children to be able to determine which relationships are especially close or intense at a very young age.
Some researchers claim that toddlers and infants need to be sensitive to how relationships are communicated through distinctive behavioral interactions, such as deliberate and consensual saliva sharing, which often occurs in dense relationships.
To test this hypothesis, Ashley Thomas and her colleagues conducted a series of experiments using storybook-like cartoons and people interacting with puppets. Tomas et al. found that children expected relationships in which saliva was shared to be closer than other relationships; young children (ages 5 to 7) expected such sharing to occur in nuclear families, and infants and toddlers expected people who shared saliva to respond to each other in distress.
Experiments in a larger, more economically, geographically, and racially diverse sample of young children also found that saliva sharing is a signal of relationship density, suggesting that saliva sharing within dense relationships is culturally pervasive. “The findings transcend disciplinary boundaries and provide insight into how young children make sense of the complex social structures around them,” writes Christine Fawcett in a related Perspective.
