My research examines, from a developmental perspective, how people think about others’ minds. From a young age children understand other people as experiencing agents with goals, desires, emotions, beliefs, and thoughts, and they use this understanding to reason socially (e.g., who might be a credible source of knowledge) and morally (e.g., whether one has moral standing or can be held morally accountable). What’s particularly fascinating is that children (and adults) also extend minds (and human internal states more generally) to non-human entities, such as inanimate nature and technology—what is often referred to as anthropomorphism. The overarching aim of my research program is to elucidate the nature, causes, and consequences of anthropomorphism within the context of social cognition more broadly.

To this end, I am pursuing three main lines of research in my current program:

1. One line of research focuses on the nature of anthropomorphism. Here, I seek to address basic research questions on anthropomorphism, such as whether and how children anthropomorphize, how this may differ across development and culture, and how anthropomorphism relates to other aspects of social cognition (e.g., theory of mind).
2. A second line of research looks at potential explanations of anthropomorphism. For example, one possibility is that what looks like anthropomorphism of robots may in fact be something else altogether. A likely candidate is pretense, whereby children are not committed to their anthropomorphic attributions, rather they are just pretending, much in the way they do with stuffed animals and other toys. Another possibility is that children’s attributions to robots reflect more general tendencies to anthropomorphize, rather than it being specific to the robot.
3. My third line of research examines the broader consequences of thinking about others’ minds. Here, my approach builds on research on social perspective taking and moral psychology. Perspective taking lies at the heart of social cognition providing the foundation for empathic concern, reduced prejudice, and moral regard for others.

• Psychological Statistics (PSYX 222)
• Child Development (PSYX 330) 
• Advanced Developmental Psychology (PSYX 540)
• Advanced Social-Developmental Psychology (PSYX 555)
• Graduate Reading Seminar (PSYX 596)