Philippe Rochat
Biographic Data
| ID | 89133 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Philippe Rochat |
| GIVEN NAMES | Philippe |
| FAMILY NAME | Rochat |
| SIGNATURE | ROCHAT P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Emory University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6000-5979 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 38 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 62 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 38 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1988 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Les enfants portent en eux le besoin de comprendre
The Evolution of Developmental Theories Since Piaget
History counts and cannot be overlooked. As a case in point, the origins of major theoretical tensions in the field of developmental psychology are traced back to Piaget (1896–1980), who paved the way to major discoveries regarding the origins and development of cognition. His theory framed much of the new ideas on early cognitive development that emerged in the 1970s, in the footsteps of the 1960s’ cognitive revolution. Here, I retrace major con…
Reputation and prosocial lies in development
Children start to engage in self‐serving deception from approximately 21⁄2 years of age. This emerging self‐centered propensity toward the deliberate covering of truth is predicted by the child's degree of executive function and level of theory of mind. In contrast, existing studies on the emergence of other‐oriented lies point to a significant developmental lag—children begin to produce prosocial lies not prior to 3–4 years of age. What may acco…
Finitude
Sensitivity to the evaluation of others emerges by 24 months
Although the human proclivity to engage in impression management and care for reputation is ubiquitous, the question of its developmental outset remains open. In 4 studies, we demonstrate that the sensitivity to the evaluation of others (i.e., evaluative audience perception) is manifest by 24 months. In a first study, 14- to 24-month-old children (N = 49) were tested in situations in which the attention of an audience was systematically manipulat…
Learning From Others
Humans are unique in their propensity to intentionally instruct and subsequently learn a wide range of information from others. We investigated when and how young children become socially resourceful in using others' expertise, and whether the early propensity to request for help varies across diverse societies. We tested and compared 44 two- to four-year-old children growing up in urban United States and Japan, and rural Canada. Children were fa…
Fairness and Distributive Justice by 3- to 5-Year-Old Tibetan Children
We asked whether young children raised in an environment strongly promoting compassion for others, as in the case of Tibetan Buddhism, would show less proclivity toward self-maximizing in sharing. We replicated the procedure of Rochat et al. with a group of 3- and 5-year-old Tibetan children living in exile and attending a traditional Buddhist school where the Dalai Lama resides. We report that Tibetan children, like children of seven other cultu…
The Uncanny Valley
More than 40 years ago, Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori (1970/2005) proposed the “uncanny valley” hypothesis, which predicted a nonlinear relation between robots’ perceived human likeness and their likability. Although some studies have corroborated this hypothesis and proposed explanations for its existence, the evidence on both fronts has been mixed and open to debate. We first review the literature to ascertain whether the uncanny valley exi…
Empathy≠sharing
Layers of awareness in development
White Bias in 3–7-Year-Old Children across Cultures
In three studies we report data confirming and extending the finding of a tendency toward a White preference bias by young children of various ethnic backgrounds. European American preschoolers who identify with a White doll also prefer it to a Black doll. In contrast, same age African American children who identify with a Black doll do not show a significant preference for it over a White doll. These results are comparable in African American ch…
Origins of Possession
Comment la honte vient aux enfants
Lorsqu'on se réfère à la réputation, on parle de ce qui a trait à l'identité, car le calcul constitutif de la réputation est un calcul sur la valeur de l'identité d'un individu ou d'un groupe. En analysant le développement de l'identité chez l'enfant, cet article tente de mieux comprendre ce qui peut motiver l'enfant à développer un sens de la réputation, c'est-à-dire cette propension unique et exacerbée de notre espèce à se préoccuper du regard …
Social awareness and early self-recognition
The self as phenotype
The uncanny mirror
Possession and morality in early development
From the moment children say "mine!" by two years of age, objects of possession change progressively from being experienced as primarily unalienable property (i.e., something that is absolute or nonnegotiable), to being alienable (i.e., something that is negotiable in reciprocal exchanges). As possession begins to be experienced as alienable, the child enters "moral space," a socially normative and evaluative space made of perceived values that a…
Cultural Variations in Children’s Mirror Self-Recognition
Western children first show signs of mirror self-recognition (MSR) from 18 to 24 months of age, the benchmark index of emerging self-concept. Such signs include self-oriented behaviors while looking at the mirror to touch or remove a mark surreptitiously placed on the child’s face. The authors attempted to replicate this finding across cultures using a simplified version of the classic “mark test.” In Experiment 1, Kenyan children ( N = 82, 18 to…
Others in Mind
In this book, Philippe Rochat explores self-consciousness, how it originates and how it shapes our lives, arguably the most important and revealing of all psychological problems. Why are we so prone to guilt and embarrassment? Why do we care so much about how others see us, about our reputation? What are the origins of such afflictions? Rochat argues that it is because we are members of a species that evolved the unique propensity to reflect upon…
Others in mind
Why are we so prone to guilt and embarrassment? Why do we care so much about how others see us, about our reputation? What are the origins of such afflictions? It is because we are members of a species that evolved the unique propensity to reflect upon themselves as the object of thoughts, an object of thoughts that is potentially evaluated by others. But, Philippe Rochat's argument goes, this propensity comes from a basic fear: the fear of rejec…
Fairness in Distributive Justice by 3- and 5-Year-Olds Across Seven Cultures
This research investigates 3- and 5-year-olds' relative fairness in distributing small collections of even or odd numbers of more or less desirable candies, either with an adult experimenter or between two dolls. The authors compare more than 200 children from around the world, growing up in seven highly contrasted cultural and economic contexts, from rich and poor urban areas, to small-scale traditional and rural communities. Across cultures, yo…
Distinguishing Mother–Infant Interaction From Stranger–Infant Interaction at 2, 4, and 6 Months of Age
Observers watched videotaped face‐to‐face mother–infant and stranger–infant interactions of 12 infants at 2, 4, or 6 months of age. Half of the observers saw each mother paired with her own infant and another infant of the same age (mother tapes) and half saw each infant paired with his or her mother and with a stranger (infant tapes). Observers were asked to judge which was the mother–infant dyad in each pair. Observers' accuracy improved as inf…
Contribution of Motion Information to Maternal Face Discrimination in Infancy
The contribution of motion and feature invariant information in infants' discrimination of maternal versus female stranger faces was assessed. Using an infant controlled habituation–dishabituation procedure, 4‐ and 8‐month‐old infants (N = 62) were tested for their ability to discriminate between their mother and a female stranger in 4 different conditions varying whether motion or feature information about the faces was available. The faces were…
Two‐Month‐Old Infants' Sensitivity to Social Contingency in Mother–Infant and Stranger–Infant Interaction
Two‐month‐old infants ( N = 29) participated in face‐to‐face interactions with their mothers and with strangers. The contingent responsiveness for smiles and vocalizations, while attending to the partner, was assessed for each partner in both interactions. For smiles and for vocalizations, infants were less responsive to the stranger relative to the mother when the stranger's contingent responsiveness was either more contingent or less contingent…
Imitative Games by 9‐, 14‐, and 18‐Month‐Old Infants
Two experiments used a mutual imitation paradigm to assess 9‐, 14‐, and 18‐month‐old infants' developing understanding of intentions in others. In the first study, 1 experimenter imitated the infants' actions, and another experimenter performed contingent but different actions on an identical toy. From 9 months of age, infants show discrimination between the mimicking and the contingent experimenter. In a second study, same‐age groups of infants …
Object manipulation and exploration in 2- to 5-month-old infants
The early development of explorarory behavior was studied. One study documents changes in free exploration of infants aged from 2 to 5 months. Another compares 3- and 4-5 month-olds when manipulating and exploring an object in the light or in the dark (no visual control over exploration). The third study compares multimodal exploration in 3- and 4-month-olds when presented with two different objects varying in multiple properties. Results show th…
Fairness in Distributive Justice by 3- and 5-Year-Olds Across Seven Cultures
This research investigates 3- and 5-year-olds' relative fairness in distributing small collections of even or odd numbers of more or less desirable candies, either with an adult experimenter or between two dolls. The authors compare more than 200 children from around the world, growing up in seven highly contrasted cultural and economic contexts, from rich and poor urban areas, to small-scale traditional and rural communities. Across cultures, yo…
Oropharyngeal control of hand-mouth coordination in newborn infants
This research identifies a coordinative structure of action that integrates hand and mouth activities within hours after birth. Infants in the supine position received 7 presentations of 12% sucrose solution. Differences in hand-mouth coordination relative to preceding and succeeding epochs of nonsucrose presentation were striking: 32% of the sucrose period was spent by infants with hands inside the mouth or in contact with it, and 18%, for the s…
Emerging sensitivity to the timing and structure of protoconversation in early infancy
Spatial determinants in the perception of self-produced leg movements in 3- to 5-month-old infants
Sensorimotor and motivational determinants of hand-mouth coordination in 1-3-day-old human infants
Hand-mouth coordination was studied in l-3-day-old human infants by delivering 0.2 ml of sterile 12 % sucrose solution intraorally once every 2 min. Sucrose was extraordinarily calming and caused sustained hand-in-mouth contact. The calm state persisted well beyond sucrose termination. Hand-in-mouth behavior, however, stopped upon sucrose termination, demonstrating stimulus control over this integrated behavior. In subsequent s udies we demonstra…
Sensitivity to the evaluation of others emerges by 24 months
Although the human proclivity to engage in impression management and care for reputation is ubiquitous, the question of its developmental outset remains open. In 4 studies, we demonstrate that the sensitivity to the evaluation of others (i.e., evaluative audience perception) is manifest by 24 months. In a first study, 14- to 24-month-old children (N = 49) were tested in situations in which the attention of an audience was systematically manipulat…
Reputation and prosocial lies in development
Children start to engage in self‐serving deception from approximately 21⁄2 years of age. This emerging self‐centered propensity toward the deliberate covering of truth is predicted by the child's degree of executive function and level of theory of mind. In contrast, existing studies on the emergence of other‐oriented lies point to a significant developmental lag—children begin to produce prosocial lies not prior to 3–4 years of age. What may acco…
Learning From Others
Humans are unique in their propensity to intentionally instruct and subsequently learn a wide range of information from others. We investigated when and how young children become socially resourceful in using others' expertise, and whether the early propensity to request for help varies across diverse societies. We tested and compared 44 two- to four-year-old children growing up in urban United States and Japan, and rural Canada. Children were fa…
White Bias in 3–7-Year-Old Children across Cultures
In three studies we report data confirming and extending the finding of a tendency toward a White preference bias by young children of various ethnic backgrounds. European American preschoolers who identify with a White doll also prefer it to a Black doll. In contrast, same age African American children who identify with a Black doll do not show a significant preference for it over a White doll. These results are comparable in African American ch…
Oropharyngeal control of hand-mouth coordination in newborn infants
This research identifies a coordinative structure of action that integrates hand and mouth activities within hours after birth. Infants in the supine position received 7 presentations of 12% sucrose solution. Differences in hand-mouth coordination relative to preceding and succeeding epochs of nonsucrose presentation were striking: 32% of the sucrose period was spent by infants with hands inside the mouth or in contact with it, and 18%, for the s…
Oropharyngeal control of hand^mouth coordination in newborn infants
Object manipulation and exploration in 2- to 5-month-old infants
The early development of explorarory behavior was studied. One study documents changes in free exploration of infants aged from 2 to 5 months. Another compares 3- and 4-5 month-olds when manipulating and exploring an object in the light or in the dark (no visual control over exploration). The third study compares multimodal exploration in 3- and 4-month-olds when presented with two different objects varying in multiple properties. Results show th…
Sensorimotor and motivational determinants of hand^mouth coordination in 1-3-day-old human infants
Sensorimotor and motivational determinants of hand-mouth coordination in 1-3-day-old human infants
Hand-mouth coordination was studied in l-3-day-old human infants by delivering 0.2 ml of sterile 12 % sucrose solution intraorally once every 2 min. Sucrose was extraordinarily calming and caused sustained hand-in-mouth contact. The calm state persisted well beyond sucrose termination. Hand-in-mouth behavior, however, stopped upon sucrose termination, demonstrating stimulus control over this integrated behavior. In subsequent s udies we demonstra…
Spatial determinants in the perception of self-produced leg movements in 3- to 5-month-old infants
Intermodal Calibration of the Body in Early Infancy
Three experiments are reported addressing the issue of what kind of visual-proprio- ceptive information is picked up by young infants when engaging in the visual exploration of self-produced movements of their legs projected onto a video display. Results of the first experiment indicate that 3- to 5-month old infants show discrimi- nation between a normal view of their own legs and a view that reverses the left-right location of both legs on the …
Primacy of Action in Early Ontogeny
(1937/1954). The article of Muller and Overton provides a hum-bling reexamination of this critique, bringing back to us how much has been thoughtand is accounted for in the monumental work Piaget left behind. But who can afford athorough reading of Piaget in the current ‘publish or perish’ culture of academia? Mullerand Overton seem to have managed, providing an eloquent demonstration that Piaget’saction-centered view on cognitive development can…
Emerging sensitivity to the timing and structure of protoconversation in early infancy
Emergence of Selective Social Referencing in Infancy
Seven and 10‐month‐old infants were presented with a remote‐controlled toy dog that intermittently barked at 30‐sec intervals as they faced an experimenter who either attended to them (look toward condition) or looked away (look away condition). Seven‐month‐old infants' looking toward the experimenter was significantly greater after the dog barking events compared to before regardless of experimental condition. In contrast, 10‐month‐old infants' …
Naissance de la co-conscience
Lorsque Rimbaud écrit «Je est quelqu’un d’autre » il suggère que la conscience de soi passe par celle d’autrui, ou plus exactement qu’elle n’existe pas indépendamment de la conscience de l’autre. Dès la deuxième année, le regard d’autrui devient effectivement un déterminant majeur des comportements. Mais comment l’enfant en arrive-t-il là ? Qu’elles sont les origines et les étapes qui le mènent à un état d’esprit qui devient dominé, sinon envahit…
Five levels of self-awareness as they unfold early in life
The role of modelling and request type on symbolic comprehension of objects and gestures in young children
In a first study, we considered whether modelling and the type of an adult's request influenced children's ability at 1;8 and 2;2 to comprehend gestures and replica objects as symbols for familiar objects. In a second study, we evaluated whether modelling and type of request influenced children's ability at 1;8 ( N =24) to understand unfamiliar (i.e. unconventional) objects as symbols. Results of Study 1 indicated that children at 2;2 comprehende…
Imitative Games by 9‐, 14‐, and 18‐Month‐Old Infants
Two experiments used a mutual imitation paradigm to assess 9‐, 14‐, and 18‐month‐old infants' developing understanding of intentions in others. In the first study, 1 experimenter imitated the infants' actions, and another experimenter performed contingent but different actions on an identical toy. From 9 months of age, infants show discrimination between the mimicking and the contingent experimenter. In a second study, same‐age groups of infants …
Two‐Month‐Old Infants' Sensitivity to Social Contingency in Mother–Infant and Stranger–Infant Interaction
Two‐month‐old infants ( N = 29) participated in face‐to‐face interactions with their mothers and with strangers. The contingent responsiveness for smiles and vocalizations, while attending to the partner, was assessed for each partner in both interactions. For smiles and for vocalizations, infants were less responsive to the stranger relative to the mother when the stranger's contingent responsiveness was either more contingent or less contingent…
Contribution of Motion Information to Maternal Face Discrimination in Infancy
The contribution of motion and feature invariant information in infants' discrimination of maternal versus female stranger faces was assessed. Using an infant controlled habituation–dishabituation procedure, 4‐ and 8‐month‐old infants (N = 62) were tested for their ability to discriminate between their mother and a female stranger in 4 different conditions varying whether motion or feature information about the faces was available. The faces were…
Distinguishing Mother–Infant Interaction From Stranger–Infant Interaction at 2, 4, and 6 Months of Age
Observers watched videotaped face‐to‐face mother–infant and stranger–infant interactions of 12 infants at 2, 4, or 6 months of age. Half of the observers saw each mother paired with her own infant and another infant of the same age (mother tapes) and half saw each infant paired with his or her mother and with a stranger (infant tapes). Observers were asked to judge which was the mother–infant dyad in each pair. Observers' accuracy improved as inf…
Others in Mind
In this book, Philippe Rochat explores self-consciousness, how it originates and how it shapes our lives, arguably the most important and revealing of all psychological problems. Why are we so prone to guilt and embarrassment? Why do we care so much about how others see us, about our reputation? What are the origins of such afflictions? Rochat argues that it is because we are members of a species that evolved the unique propensity to reflect upon…
Others in mind
Why are we so prone to guilt and embarrassment? Why do we care so much about how others see us, about our reputation? What are the origins of such afflictions? It is because we are members of a species that evolved the unique propensity to reflect upon themselves as the object of thoughts, an object of thoughts that is potentially evaluated by others. But, Philippe Rochat's argument goes, this propensity comes from a basic fear: the fear of rejec…
Fairness in Distributive Justice by 3- and 5-Year-Olds Across Seven Cultures
This research investigates 3- and 5-year-olds' relative fairness in distributing small collections of even or odd numbers of more or less desirable candies, either with an adult experimenter or between two dolls. The authors compare more than 200 children from around the world, growing up in seven highly contrasted cultural and economic contexts, from rich and poor urban areas, to small-scale traditional and rural communities. Across cultures, yo…
The self as phenotype
The uncanny mirror
Possession and morality in early development
From the moment children say "mine!" by two years of age, objects of possession change progressively from being experienced as primarily unalienable property (i.e., something that is absolute or nonnegotiable), to being alienable (i.e., something that is negotiable in reciprocal exchanges). As possession begins to be experienced as alienable, the child enters "moral space," a socially normative and evaluative space made of perceived values that a…
Cultural Variations in Children’s Mirror Self-Recognition
Western children first show signs of mirror self-recognition (MSR) from 18 to 24 months of age, the benchmark index of emerging self-concept. Such signs include self-oriented behaviors while looking at the mirror to touch or remove a mark surreptitiously placed on the child’s face. The authors attempted to replicate this finding across cultures using a simplified version of the classic “mark test.” In Experiment 1, Kenyan children ( N = 82, 18 to…
Social awareness and early self-recognition
Psychology (34 works) · Child and Animal Learning Development (24 works) · Developmental psychology (24 works) · Cognitive psychology (18 works) · Social Psychology (18 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Neuroscience (8 works) · Social Psychology (8 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Cognition (6 works)