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Connecting the Moral Core: Examining Moral Baby Research Through an Attachment Theory Perspective

Published Online:February 2021https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.2021.39.1.4

Abstract

Infants care for and are cared for by others from early in life, a fact reflected in infants' morality and attachment. According to moral core researchers, infants are born with a moral sense that allows them to care about and evaluate the actions of third parties. In attachment theory, care manifests through infants' relationships with caregivers, which forms representations called internal working models that shape how babies think, feel, and act. Although accumulating evidence supports the existence of a moral core directed toward others, nevertheless, without a notion of care connected to infants' own lives, the core is an incomplete and underpowered construct. We show how the moral core, like attachment, could emerge in first- and second-person working models that develop through social interaction and incorporate representational forms (embodied, social, cognitive, emotional, moral), which contribute to the emergence of third-person representations and give infants' moral sense its vitality and meaning.

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