Professor Jessica Sommerville said: ‘At the time, about half of the research assistants in my lab were Asian-American and the other half were Caucasian, and most of the babies in our experiments are Caucasian.

‘We know that by preschool, children show in-group bias concerning race, but results in infants have been mixed.

‘It’s surprising to see these pro-social traits of valuing fairness so early on, but at the same time, we’re also seeing that babies have self-motivated concerns too.’