Faculty of Human-Environment Studies, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.
Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University, Suita, Japan.
Sci Rep. 2021 May 25;11(1):10884. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-89821-0.
Claims to supernatural power have been used as a basis for authority in a wide range of societies, but little is known about developmental origins of the link between supernatural power and worldly authority. Here, we show that 12- to 16-month-old infants expect agents exhibiting counterintuitive capacities to win out in a two-way standoff over a contested resource. Infants watched two agents gain a reward using either physically intuitive or physically counterintuitive methods, the latter involving simple forms of levitation or teleportation. Infants looked longer, indicating surprise, when the physically intuitive agent subsequently outcompeted a physically counterintuitive agent in securing a reward. Control experiments indicated that infants' expectations were not simply motived by the efficiency of agents in pursuing their goals, but specifically the deployment of counterintuitive capacities. This suggests that the link between supernatural power and worldly authority has early origins in development.
声称拥有超自然能力被广泛用于确立权威，但对于超自然能力与世俗权威之间联系的发展起源却知之甚少。在这里，我们表明，12 至 16 个月大的婴儿期望表现出反直觉能力的主体在争夺有争议资源的双向僵持中获胜。婴儿观看了两个主体使用直观的物理方法或简单的悬浮或瞬移等反直觉方法来获得奖励。当直观的物理主体随后在获得奖励方面胜过反直觉的物理主体时，婴儿会注视更长时间，这表明他们感到惊讶。控制实验表明，婴儿的期望不是简单地受到主体追求目标效率的驱动，而是受到反直觉能力的具体应用的驱动。这表明，超自然能力与世俗权威之间的联系在发展过程中有其早期起源。
