What infant research can—and cannot—tell us about human universals

Abstract The search for human universals—capacities thought to be shared across human species—is often associated with the study of infancy. Infants are viewed as a major source of insight into the initial state of psychological organization. In this article, I outline three constraints on this approach: insufficiency of empirical evidence, conflation of related constructs, and rich interpretation from readouts. I argue that inquiries into human universals may be more productive if they are accompanied by a conceptual shift from privileging universals to privileging both variation and consistency. I propose scaling up infant research, validity considerations, and cautious generalization as key advances toward an empirically grounded science of infancy.