Psychological Development and Education ›› 2025, Vol. 41 ›› Issue (2): 284-291.doi: 10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2025.02.14

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Infants’ Learning in Second-person Interpersonal Interaction: The Natural Pedagogy Hypothesis

XU Huiyan1,3, WANG Xiaoying1, CHEN Wei2,3   

  1. 1. Faculty of Education, Northeast Normal University, Changchun 130024;
    2. Department of Psychology, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092;
    3. Centre for Brain, Mind and Education, Shaoxing University, Shaoxing 312000
  • Published:2025-03-17

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Abstract: Social cognition theories have increasingly highlighted the importance of second-person dynamic interactions on learning. The Natural Pedagogy hypothesis proposed by cognitive developmental psychologists Csibra and Gergely suggests that infants are able to quickly understand what “you” (the adult) are teaching and effectively complete “my” (the infant’s) knowledge learning based on teleological representations of behavior during face-to-face interactions. It occurs during communication, modeling, and generalization. Specifically, human infants are sensitive to ostensive signals, tend to develop referential expectations and interpret information as generalized knowledge. The second-person interaction approach led by the Natural Pedagogy hypothesis has a profound impact in social cognition and can be essential in children’s early social learning. In the future, relevant empirical research should be strengthened.

Key words: natural pedagogy, teleology, second-person interpersonal interaction

CLC Number: 

  • B844
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