I am a developmental scientist interested in how differing cultural & ecological environments shape the mind.
I am currently a postdoctoral research fellow in the Cooperation Lab at Boston College.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
My research explores the diversity of human behavior from a cross-cultural, developmental perspective.
Most of my work focuses on decision-making, trying to understand the forces that shape our choices throughout our lifetime. To explore this topic, I bring together a diverse set of tools from fields like anthropology, psychology, evolutionary biology, and behavioral economics.
FIELDWORK
As most of what we know about human behavior still comes from people living in WEIRD populations — those that are Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic — my research employs a cross-cultural perspective to explore the diversity of human behavior around the world.
My primary fieldwork takes place among the Shuar, an indigenous forager-horticulturalist group living in Amazonian Ecuador, in collaboration with the larger Shuar Health and Life History Project.
I complement this work with fieldwork in India and Uganda, in addition to research collaborations involving field sites across five continents.
COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH NETWORKS
SCIENCE OUTREACH
PRESS COVERAGE
Can You Tell a Real Laugh from a Fake One?
Science Magazine↗
GET IN TOUCH
Boston College
Department of Psychology
140 Commonwealth Ave
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
dorsa.amir@bc.edu