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Despite its adaptive value for social life, the emergence and the development of the ability to detect agents that cause aversive interactions and distinguish them from potentially affiliative agents (approachers) has not been investigated. We presented infants with a simple interaction involving two agents: one of them (the “repulser”) moved toward and pushed the other (the “approacher”) which reacted by simply moving toward the repulser without contacting it. We found that 8‐month‐olds (N = 28) looked longer at the approacher than at the repulser (Experiment 1), whereas 4‐month‐olds (N = 30) exhibited no preference (Experiment 2). To control for low‐level cues (such as the preference for the agent that moved after the contact), two new groups of 4‐ and 8‐month‐old infants were presented with a series of interactions in which the agents inverted their social roles. Older infants (N = 30) manifested no …