Babies born helpful

Are we born helpful by nature? Could altruism bebuilt into our genes? Why do we seem to lose that focus as we age?

Digging through some old web links I had collected, I came across one to an article about research indicating that babies are naturally helpful.

Children can also be selfish, but Dr. Michael Tomasello says that we can encourage the almost reflexive behavior to help others. How? By inductive parenting -- telling children about the effect of their actions on others and stressing the logic of cooperating with others.

Don't you wish that more politicians had received good inductive parenting?

• "We may be born with an urge to help", NY Times article
• "Why We Cooperate" book synopsis, MIT Press