Humans are a remarkable species, numbering in the billions and inhabiting every single ecology on the planet. How do we pull this off?

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One secret to our success is culture. We have incredibly diverse bodies of knowledge that orient us to our social and ecological worlds.

 

But another big part of our success concerns development. Humans have a unique developmental trajectory, with an extended period of dependence we call childhood. Childhood is an incredibly flexible and sensitive life stage primarily devoted to learning — both individually and socially — about the very specific world we inhabit, in contrast to the many million possible worlds we could inhabit.

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My research examines this dynamic and uniquely human process, focusing on how our behavior, preferences, and decision-making are shaped across diverse cultural environments.

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