Adriana Galvan: UCLA Department of PsychologyAdolescence is a developmental period marked by heightened sensitivity to reward and increased proclivity towards risk-taking behavior. These behavioral changes are paralleled by significant developmental changes in neural circuitry related to reward processing and cognitive control. In this talk, I will describe recent data on adolescent brain development, propose a […]

Lynn Fairbanks: UCLA Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral SciencesThe ability to form and maintain social relationships is an important attribute that has broad implications for health and fitness in humans and nonhuman primates. In this presentation, I will describe the development of a quantitative measure of sociability in the Vervet Research Colony, a multigenerational pedigreed […]

Tim Waring: UC Davis Department of Environmental Science and PolicyNumerous scholars have shown that increasing ethnic diversity is correlated with reduced cooperation and fewer public goods. This result has significant implications for development policy, lowering expectations for success in public infrastructure investment with ethnically diverse populations. I present evidence that ethnic hierarchy may be driving […]

Nameera Akhtar: UCSC Department of PsychologyParents and researchers in Western middle-class societies emphasize dyadic interactions and teaching children new skills directly. This emphasis obscures the fact that young children can learn much through observation of others’ interactions. I will describe the results of several recent studies of young children’s learning from third-party interactions. Some of […]