Kids hate dumb people. That's the gist of this article by Susan A.J. Birch, et al. I find that mildly surprising, as kids also tend to find stupid things hilarious, but this is science, and I will not doubt it.
Actually, it's not that surprising. Recent studies have shown that young kids and even babies show social intelligence, and are able to assess motives and intentions from a very early age. Debra van Ausdale and Joe R. Feagin wrote The First R: How Children Learn Race and Racism, wherein van Ausdale's fieldwork in a multiracial preschool showed that even 3- and 4-year-olds were competent with racial terminology, including slurs, and that they learned this language not by parroting a bigoted adult, but by observing the social inequalities and public narratives that made that language "make sense".
Birch, et al., write: "[Children] are more likely to learn new words [...] and new object functions [...] from someone who has been accurate in the past than from someone who showed signs of incompetence." "Incompetence" was shown by puppets who tried to tell 3- to 4-year-olds that you tie your shoe with a spoon, for example. Fascinating.
Other smart babies:
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