Motional goals particularly when the social goals are ambiguous and paired

Motional goals particularly when the social goals are ambiguous and paired with a less emotionally evocative instrumental goal.General DiscussionThe overarching goal of the present research was to begin to address the question of why some early social reasoning appears universal, while some shows marked Neuromedin N site individual differences. Specifically, using both free-response and eyetracking Vorapaxar web methodologies, we attempted to bridge two related domains of literature examining attachment security and other-oriented behavior in order to determine if this apparent contradiction could serve as a starting point for future research. Across a series of three studies we demonstrate that the individual difference variable of attachment security affects the representation of instrumental needs differently than socialemotional distress (Studies 2 and 3). However, this was only the case when the stimuli were complex and afforded multiple potential interpretations (Studies 1A, B). Together these results suggest that attempting to understand and integrate divergent findings within a single theoretical framework can lead to more nuanced understanding. Though these studies approach the question of social reasoning from a novel perspective, the findings are largely consistent with existing literature. As predicted by attachment theory we observed an influence of attachment security on the representation of social-emotional stimuli (Dykas and Cassidy, 2011), particularly when the stimuli were complex and afforded multiple construals (Baldwin, 1992). In addition, these findings are consistent with a growing body of literature examining the social cognitive constraints on early other-oriented behaviors; particularly that the ability to recognize and respond to instrumental needs emerges prior to, and independent from, the ability to respond to emotional distress (see Dunfield, 2014, for a review). Further, these results may help to explain why the ability to provide instrumental help appears more robust, and earlier emerging, than the ability to offer social help (Beier et al., 2014). Finally, these results are consistent with the finding that infants appear to universally evaluate helpers positively and hinderers negatively (e.g., Kuhlmeier et al., 2003; Hamlin et al., 2007), while showing individual differences in their expectations of responsive versus unresponsive caregivers (Johnson et al., 2007, 2010). Indeed, by considering both the underlying task demands and bodies of related research, we can gain insight and support for the perspective that attributing instrumental goals to agents acting on objects requires different underlying representations than attributing social emotional goals to agents acting on other agents (e.g., Spelke, 2014). By taking a broad approach to social-cognitive development, and attempting to integrate a diversity of findings into a single theoretical account, we demonstrate an important role for examining how an individual difference variable, such as attachment security, can influence both similarities andFIGURE 3 | Participant’s total fixation duration to the instrumental (hill) versus social (reunion) outcome by attachment security. The “*” indicates the difference is significant at p < 0.05.[F(1,65) = 3.12, p < 0.08, 2 = 0.05]. In contrast, insecurely p attached participants showed a marginal interaction between outcome and location [F(1,123) = 3.75, p < 0.06, 2 = 0.03] p but no main effect of outcome [F(1,123) = 0.92, p = 0.34, 2 = 0.Motional goals particularly when the social goals are ambiguous and paired with a less emotionally evocative instrumental goal.General DiscussionThe overarching goal of the present research was to begin to address the question of why some early social reasoning appears universal, while some shows marked individual differences. Specifically, using both free-response and eyetracking methodologies, we attempted to bridge two related domains of literature examining attachment security and other-oriented behavior in order to determine if this apparent contradiction could serve as a starting point for future research. Across a series of three studies we demonstrate that the individual difference variable of attachment security affects the representation of instrumental needs differently than socialemotional distress (Studies 2 and 3). However, this was only the case when the stimuli were complex and afforded multiple potential interpretations (Studies 1A, B). Together these results suggest that attempting to understand and integrate divergent findings within a single theoretical framework can lead to more nuanced understanding. Though these studies approach the question of social reasoning from a novel perspective, the findings are largely consistent with existing literature. As predicted by attachment theory we observed an influence of attachment security on the representation of social-emotional stimuli (Dykas and Cassidy, 2011), particularly when the stimuli were complex and afforded multiple construals (Baldwin, 1992). In addition, these findings are consistent with a growing body of literature examining the social cognitive constraints on early other-oriented behaviors; particularly that the ability to recognize and respond to instrumental needs emerges prior to, and independent from, the ability to respond to emotional distress (see Dunfield, 2014, for a review). Further, these results may help to explain why the ability to provide instrumental help appears more robust, and earlier emerging, than the ability to offer social help (Beier et al., 2014). Finally, these results are consistent with the finding that infants appear to universally evaluate helpers positively and hinderers negatively (e.g., Kuhlmeier et al., 2003; Hamlin et al., 2007), while showing individual differences in their expectations of responsive versus unresponsive caregivers (Johnson et al., 2007, 2010). Indeed, by considering both the underlying task demands and bodies of related research, we can gain insight and support for the perspective that attributing instrumental goals to agents acting on objects requires different underlying representations than attributing social emotional goals to agents acting on other agents (e.g., Spelke, 2014). By taking a broad approach to social-cognitive development, and attempting to integrate a diversity of findings into a single theoretical account, we demonstrate an important role for examining how an individual difference variable, such as attachment security, can influence both similarities andFIGURE 3 | Participant's total fixation duration to the instrumental (hill) versus social (reunion) outcome by attachment security. The "*" indicates the difference is significant at p < 0.05.[F(1,65) = 3.12, p < 0.08, 2 = 0.05]. In contrast, insecurely p attached participants showed a marginal interaction between outcome and location [F(1,123) = 3.75, p < 0.06, 2 = 0.03] p but no main effect of outcome [F(1,123) = 0.92, p = 0.34, 2 = 0.