Abstract Thomas’s account suggests that infants are limited to reasoning about interpersonal relationships. We argue that this account fails to do justice to infants’ sociomoral reasoning. We describe an alternative account that grants infants expectations of harm avoidance, ingroup support, authority, fairness, and reciprocity. We highlight differences between the two accounts and suggest research directions for moving beyond these differences.
Baillargeon et al. (2026) studied this question.