Babies: Born To Be Good?

When award-winning filmmaker Eileen Thalenberg decided to make the documentary Babies: Born To Be Good? she headed to the laboratories of U of T's Kang Lee in Canada and China. The result airs on CBC's The Nature of Things with David Suzuki, October 25 at 8 p.m. "A great deal of the breakthrough research in the area of moral development is being done by Canadians," said Thalenberg. "As we travelled around Canada, the U.S. and China, we watched them at work with children from a few months old and up. What they are discovering is providing a whole new way of looking at the complexity of what even the youngest babies may be thinking." Lee, a University Distinguished Professor with the University of Toronto's Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study, is the author of leading research about the early development of honesty and lying. He explained the importance of what is called prosocial behaviour - voluntary actions that help others. "Humans are evolved to be highly social and there are biological predispositions in all of us (babies included) to be prosocial from early on," said Lee. "Young children not only increasingly become dishonest about their transgressions but also learn to tell prosocial lies." Lee cited the example of a toddler telling a white lie that an undesirable gift they receive is something they like.