Publications
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Baker, A., Amir, D., Ahl, R., & McAuliffe, K. (in prep) Norm transmission and virtuous behavior: How do children respond to the content of norms and the age of their source?
Amir, D., Baker, A., & McAuliffe, K. (in prep) Does advantageous inequity aversion signal cooperative intent?
Amir, D., Ahl, R., Baker, A., & McAuliffe, K. (in prep) The effect of norm model age on children’s virtuous giving across five diverse societies.
Topics
Roles
Consider how many people each of us interacts with over the course of a year. How do we know what to do with each of them? Now think about how you would describe those people. You might think of cashiers, coworkers, Uber drivers, or baristas.Â
Social roles are powerful representations that allow us to quickly deploy expectations for social interactions. Instead of learning about all of these unique individuals, we can learn about a collection of social roles and identify when someone occupies one. This branch of my work explores why social roles are important and how they integrate with other aspects of our social cognition.Â
Cooperation
One of our great strengths is the ability to work together and look out for one another. By sharing resources and combining our efforts, we secure more stable and prosperous lives. But we also put ourselves at risk of those who exploit these systems. Another branch of my work is related to how we learn to cooperate with one another.Â
Other Interests
Social implications of computing
Were we destined to live in an optimized world? Are we optimized to live in the world we're destined for? Computing has become a pervasive part of our society, and in many ways it has improved our lives. But it also has unintended consequences, warping our perceptions of the world and our place in it. As a cognitive scientists, I think it's important to be critical of the relationship between our minds and our tools.Â
