Need help? Ask a 2- year-old: Dr. Felix Warneken at TEDxAmoskeagMillyard

Psychology professor Dr. Felix Warneken wonders how we developed the impulse to help each other. His research suggests that young children aren't as selfish as conventional wisdom would have us believe. Indeed, altruism appears at the earliest stages of development.

Warneken's research is concerned with the processes that constitute early forms of cooperation such as altruistic helping and collaboration, identifying the factors which influence its developments throughout childhood, and exploring its origins in human evolution. One striking finding of this research is that even very young children engage in various forms of altruistic behaviors such as helping others with their problems or sharing resources with them, suggesting that human infants have a biologically-based predisposition for altruism. Recent projects aim at determining how children's developing apprehension of norms shapes their cooperative tendencies through later childhood.

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