ManyBabies (MB) is a collaborative project for replication and best practices in developmental psychology research. Our goal is to bring researchers together to address difficult outstanding theoretical and methodological questions about the nature of early development and how it is studied. For example:

  • Do infants prefer helpers over hinderers?
  • When do infants like familiarity and when do they like novelty?
  • Do babies find infant-directed speech (babytalk) more interesting than adult-directed speech?

Learn more about MB’s origin, goals, people, and stay up to date. Also, for a detailed index of collaborators (+ institutions, countries, studies), check the MB collaborator dashboard.

Projects

The broader goals of ManyBabies come together in a set of collaborative projects. They are organized in main projects (either empirical or methodological), spin-off projects, and secondary analyses. Check out our main projects, together with their affiliated spin-off projects and secondary analyses:

Empirical


MB1: Infant-Directed Speech Preference

Do infants prefer infant-directed speech? Do age, method, and native language background matter? Learn more

MB2: Theory of Mind in Infancy

Do infants show anticipatory looking that reflects the false belief of another agent? Learn more

MB3: Rule Learning

Do infants learn and generalize identity-based rules from speech stimuli? Learn more

MB4: Social Evaluation

Do infants prefer agents who are seen to help over those who are seen to hinder? Learn more

MB5: The Hunter & Ames Model of Infant Looking Preferences

What factors shape infants’ preferences for familiar and novel stimuli? Learn more

Methodological


MB-AtHome: Online Infant Data Collection

Solutions for testing infants in their home, with a focus on measuring looks. Learn more

MB-Demographics: Unified Demographics for ManyBabies Projects

In this project we are creating unified demographic forms for ManyBabies projects, with standardized and custom questions. Learn more

Publications

Check out ManyBabies reports and conference presentations.

Get involved

We encourage everyone who is interested in developmental research to get involved! Access to infants/infant lab is not a prerequisite.

Updates

If you are a ManyBabies collaborator, don’t forget to keep an updated record of your MB-related activities and initiatives (e.g., workshops, talks etc.). In this spreadsheet you can check a more complete list of MB activities and initiatives. To add new activities and initiatives, please complete this form.