Five-year-olds know right from wrong.
In a 2025 study, researchers showed young children videos of either a robot or a peer grabbing something that wasn’t theirs or refusing to share. Then they asked a simple question: Was the behavior right or wrong?
The children’s verdict was clear. Stealing and refusing to share were always wrong, period. It didn’t matter whether the bad actor was a playmate or a machine programmed to misbehave.
The children even attributed guilt to the robot, as if it should have known better. “Morality is present even in the youngest children—and it is powerful,” Antonella Marchetti, a professor of developmental and educational psychology known for her work in children’s moral development, said in a press release.
The study naturally invites a question: If five-year-olds condemn wrongdoing, do these judgments begin even earlier—before language?
The Seeds of Virtue
The fourth-century Confucian philosopher Mencius believed that children are born with seeds of virtue—“moral sprouts” that start emerging even before a child’s first birthday. However, these seeds, he argued, need careful cultivation through education, socialization, and self-reflection to blossom into greater virtues, such as compassion, justice, and propriety.
Modern developmental psychology echoes age-old wisdom: We are born to be good, but must be nurtured to stay good.
Evidence for the early roots of a moral code exists even in infants before the onset of language and reasoning. Developmental research views babies not as passive observers but as active interpreters of what is happening around them, capable of moral evaluation.
Infants, as young as 6 months, can recognize whether a person is a helper or a hinderer based on that person’s behavior toward others.
In classic experiments, infants watched a puppet show where a “climber” was trying to ascend a hill, and was either helped up by one character (the helper) or pushed down by another (the hinderer). When the infants were later offered either the helper or the hinderer puppets, they overwhelmingly reached for the helper—87.5 percent of the time. Researchers suggested that the infant’s choice was because they perceived the helper as helping the climber achieve its “go.
Infants, as young as 6 months, can recognize whether a person is a helper or a hinderer based on that person’s behavior toward others.
In classic experiments, infants watched a puppet show where a “climber” was trying to ascend a hill, and was either helped up by one character (the helper) or pushed down by another (the hinderer). When the infants were later offered either the helper or the hinderer puppets, they overwhelmingly reached for the helper—87.5 percent of the time. Researchers suggested that the infant’s choice was because they perceived the helper as helping the climber achieve its “goals."
Infants, as young as 6 months, can recognize whether a person is a helper or a hinderer based on that person’s behavior toward others.
In classic experiments, infants watched a puppet show where a “climber” was trying to ascend a hill, and was either helped up by one character (the helper) or pushed down by another (the hinderer). When the infants were later offered either the helper or the hinderer puppets, they overwhelmingly reached for the helper—87.5 percent of the time. Researchers suggested that the infant’s choice was because they perceived the helper as helping the climber achieve its “goal.”
Remarkably, babies don’t just evaluate what happens, but can also perceive intentions behind actions.
In one study, infants watched animated characters attempt to distribute strawberries fairly between two recipients. In one scenario, a character tried to give each recipient a strawberry but failed to climb the second hill after multiple attempts. In another, a character kept trying to give both strawberries to the same recipient. Both trials ended in unequal distribution, but babies preferred the character who tried to be fair—suggesting that “a basic sense of fairness that includes reasoning about intentions is present already in preverbal infants,” the researchers noted.
Neuroscience evidence aligns with these behavioral findings.
In a 2018 study, researchers tracked how toddlers’ brains reacted when they viewed images of others in pain. Painful scenes triggered a stronger early brain response than “neutral” images that showed no pain.
Later, when parents prompted toddlers to feel concern for others, the neural response was less immediate but more pronounced, suggesting more sustained processing of the other person’s suffering.
“The roots of morality aren’t simply taught, they are felt,” Kumar said. “I see this moral compass as an innate sensitivity to others’ emotions, their ability to attune to distress, respond to care, and seek harmony.” ....