Shock news from the world of academic research that young children can tell when adults fake being upset.
A study by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology concludes that three-year-olds can evaluate the authenticity of other people's agitated reactions to a particular incident.
I may have observed too many weans in supermarkets or watched too many episodes of Supernanny. But I knew before the Planck people told me that babies come into this world already equipped with a full working knowledge of the use of distress as a control mechanism.
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