Alison Gopnik: UC Berkeley Department of PsychologyHow do we accurately infer the causal structure of the world around us? Thirty years of developmental research has shown that human children form and revise intuitive theories of everyday physics, biology and psychology. These theories are similar to the formal theories of science. Recent work in philosophy of […]
Hanna Kokko: University of Helsinki Department of Biological and Environmental SciencesI will present results on both `love´ (sexual selection) and `hatred´ (territorial conflict). In both cases I will investigate the role of `feedback´, that is, ask the question how strongly individual behaviour influences population dynamics, which then feeds back to influence what is adaptive at […]
Mark Kleiman: UCLA Department of Public PolicyThe threat of punishment can facilitate cooperation by discouraging defection and aggression. Because punishment is scarce, costly, and painful, optimal enforcement strategies will minimize the amount of actual punishment required to effectuate deterrence. If potential offenders are deterrable, increasing the conditional probability of punishment (given violation) can reduce the […]
Mary Towner: UC Davis Department of AnthropologyCultural traits are distributed across human societies in a patterned way. Study of the mechanisms whereby cultural traits persist and change over time is key to understanding human cultural diversity. For more than a century, a central question has engaged anthropologists interested in the study of cultural trait variation—what […]
Gian Gonzaga: eHarmony.comRelationships are often studied through one of two questions. How does the relationship benefit the individual and/or how does the relationship benefit the dyad? This talk will address the challenges of balancing what is good for me, what is good for my partner, and what is good for the relationship. It will then […]
Andrew Shaner: UCLA VA HospitalVariation in the age at onset of a multifactorial disease often reflects variation in cause. In this talk, I show a linear latitudinal gradient in the mean age at onset of schizophrenia in 13 northern-hemisphere cities, ranging from 25 years old in Cali, Columbia (at 4 degrees north) to 35 years […]
Rob Kurzban: Penn PsychologySubstantial debate remains about the ultimate and proximate explanations for why people choose to punish third parties, individuals involved in interactions that have had and will have no direct effect on the punisher. Here, one particular type of third-party punishment is explored, moralistic punishment, enduring a cost to inflict costs on an […]
Kerri Johnson: UCLA Communication StudiesIn the 1950s, Doris Troy famously sang, “Just one look...that’s all it took,†implying that attraction can begin with little more than a glance. Contemporary research in person construal generally corroborates this observation, but debate continues about precisely how physical cues come to convey attractiveness. One unresolved question centers on whether […]
Richard Lippa: Cal State University, Fullerton Department of PsychologyBBC data from 53 nations and from more than 200,000 participants provide new insights into sex differences in: (1) sexual traits (e.g., sex drive and sociosexuality), (2) mate preferences (e.g., the value assigned to physical attractiveness, intelligence, honesty in a mate), (3) personality traits (e.g., extraversion, agreeableness, […]
Russ Poldrack: UCLA PsychologyIt has become common practice amongst neuroimaging researchers to infer the presence of mental processes from activation in particular parts of the brain. The validity of this practice, which I refer to as "reverse inference", depends upon how selectively specific brain regions are associated with specific mental processes. I will present evidence […]
