BEC FACULTY

Clark Barrett, Department of Anthropology
barrett@ucla.edu

I am interested in the evolutionary origins of the ability to predict and interpret the behavior of other living things, in both social contexts and nonsocial contexts such as predator-prey interactions. Previous studies have examined children’s intuitive knowledge about predators, prey, and death, children’s ability to categorize dangerous animals, the ability of adults and children to perceive intention in movement and to categorize types of intentional interaction, and adults’ category-based inductive inferences about the functional properties of animals. I am also interested in the social dimensions of behavior interpretation and prediction. I have examined the influence of intentionality attributions on social contract reasoning in adults, children’s ability to predict emotions in contract situations, and I am currently working on a project on decision-making about resource exchange in a social network of Amazonian hunter-horticulturalists.

 
 

Robert Boyd, Department of Anthropology
rboyd@anthro.ucla.edu

Unlike other organisms, humans acquire a rich body of information from others by teaching, imitation, and other forms of social learning, and this culturally transmitted information strongly influences human behavior. Culture is an essential part of the human adaptation, and as much a part of human biology as bipedal locomotion or thick enamel on our molars. My research is focused on the evolutionary psychology of the mechanisms that give rise to and shape human culture, and how these mechanisms interact with population dynamic processes to shape human cultural variation. I have done much of this work in collaboration with Peter J. Richerson.

 

P. Jeffrey Brantingham, Department of Anthropology
branting@ucla.edu

I am a Paleolithic archaeologist interested in human behavioral ecology and the evolution of so-called modern human behavior. Many of the behavioral features that distinguish us as a species evolved not as a single, tightly-integrated package, but as mosaic of semi-autonomous systems--technology, mobility and foraging strategies, social organization and complex symbolic behavior. At a theoretical level, I am interested in how each of these systems are organized and why they respond as they do to different sets of ecological constraints and selective pressures. My methodological interests center on agent-based simulation modeling as a tool for developing hypotheses that may be tested against the archaeological record. I lead the Tibet Paleolithic Project, which is concerned with understanding Pleistocene hunter-gatherer colonization of the Tibetan Plateau.

 

Greg Bryant, Department of Communication Studies
gabryant@ucla.edu

I am interested broadly in the evolution of communication and cognition. In my research, I examine how acoustic structure in speech is shaped by communicative goals. I have done work on infant-directed speech across cultures, how people use vocal cues to communicate pragmatically relevant information, and the acoustic features of other vocal phenomena such as laughter and speech disfluencies.

 

Daniel M.T. Fessler, Department of Anthropology
dfessler@anthro.ucla.edu

I am interested in emotions, including their phylogeny and ontogeny, their use as mechanisms of social control, their role in cooperative behavior, and the relationship between emotion, culture, and social structure.  More specifically, I explore shame, pride, and disgust as they relate to conformity, prestige seeking, risk taking, and sexual behavior (particularly inbreeding/incest).  Other interests include culturally shaped time preferences, socially distributed willpower, the timing of sexual maturation, third party influence in mate selection, and grandparenting.  Oh, and I like dogs.
 
 

Alan Page Fiske, Department of Anthropology
afiske@ucla.edu

My interests are focused on the theoretical integration of cultural, social, psychological, developmental, evolutionary, and neurological processes involved in human sociality. I am interested in the evolution of the human capacities for culture-specific forms of social relations.  I work on basic problems in social theory.  I also study ritual, food and sex taboos, responses to misfortune, personality disorders and OCD.  Geographically, my principal expertise in in Africa, especially Burkina Faso, where I did fieldwork among the Moose.

Current research:  I am studying the constitutive modalities, cognition and semiotics of sociality: the modalities in which people construct and conduct their social relationships.  I am writing a book on food & sex taboos.  I am doing fMRI studies of the functional anatomy of the four elementary relational models in adults and their development in children.  I am also collaborating on studies of the social functioning of schizophrenics.
 

Linda Garro, Department of Anthropology
lgarro@ucla.edu

Cognitive anthropology, medical anthropology, research methods; Mesoamerica, northern North America.

 

Candy Goodwin, Department of Anthropology
mgoodwin@anthro.ucla.edu

One of my current research projects examines forms of children's informal social learning across peer-controlled settings on the playground. A principal concern of mine has been how, in the midst of interaction with their peers, children elaborate and dispute their notions about ethnicity, social class, and gender-appropriate behavior, as they play or work together and sanction those who violate group norms This fieldwork, situated in a Los Angeles elementary school with children of mixed ethnicities and social classes, has involved following a group of children over three years as they moved from fourth to sixth grade. In all over 80 hours of audio and video taped interaction were recorded while children ate lunch, played at recess, and interacted in the classroom. During play (and outside of teachers' awareness) children decide who is to be included or excluded within their playgroup; through their language choices children propose forms of inclusiveness or, alternatively, differentiation among players. Through forms of ridicule such as ritual insults, storytelling, and directives, children socialize one another regarding in- and out-group membership and notions of social class. Most psychological studies of children's friendships and "relational aggression" are based on interview data; subsequently, though we know much about how children report incidents to researchers, we know little about how they conduct themselves in the midst of such episodes. I feel it is important to document ethnographically the lived practices that children use to build their social worlds, as within interaction members of a peer group collaboratively establish their own perspectives on how relevant events are to be interpreted.

Patricia Greenfield
greenfield@psych.ucla.edu
Department of Psychology


Professor Greenfield's central theoretical and research interest is in the relationship between culture and human development. She is a past recipient of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Award for Behavioral Science Research, and has received teaching awards from UCLA and the American Psychological Association. Her books include Mind and Media: The Effects of Television, Video Games, and Computers (Harvard, 1984), which has been translated into nine languages. In the 90s she coedited (with R.R. Cocking) Interacting with Video (Elsevier, 1996) and Cross-Cultural Roots of Minority Child Development (Erlbaum, 1994). She has done field research on child development and socialization in Chiapas, Mexico since 1969. She also heads the UCLA Children's Digital Media Center, which researches chatroom culture and other internet issues. A current project in Los Angeles investigates how cultural values influence relationships on multiethnic high school sports teams. She is also engaged in a cross-cultural teacher-training project called "Bridging Cultures." She currently serves as Director for the FPR-UCLA Center for Culture, Brain, and Development

 

Martie Haselton
haselton@ucla.edu
Departments of Communication and Psychology

I study human behavior from the perspective of evolutionary psychology. My recent research focuses on two main areas. In the first, I examine how women's experiences, desires, and behaviors change across the ovulatory cycle. I am particularly interested in discovering the "hidden side of female desire" that reveals itself only at peak fertility within the cycle. In the second, using error management theory, I explore the hypothesis that evolution has shaped biased social judgment strategies that can lead to systematic errors—including miscommunication between the sexes.

 

Jack Hirshleifer  In Memoriam
Department of Economics

Jack Hirshleifer was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. on August 26, 1925. After serving on active duty in the U.S. Naval Reserve in 1943-1945 he received an S.B. degree in 1945 and a Ph.D. in economics in 1950, both from Harvard University. He was employed as an economist at The Rand Corporation from 1949 to 1955, he taught a the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business from 1955 to 1960 and at the Department of Economics, UCLA since that date. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the Econometric Society. He has served as Vice-President of the American Economic Association and as President of the Western Economic Association, and as a member of the Editorial Boards of the American Economic Review, the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, and of the new Journal of Bioeconomics. In 2000 he was elected a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association. His fields of specialization have included water supply and resource economics, investment and capital theory, applied theory of the firm, uncertainty and information, political economy, bioeconomics, and the economic theory of conflict.

http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/General/hirshleifer.htm

 

Mark Kleiman, Department of Public Policy
kleiman@ucla.edu

 

Neil M. Malamuth, Communication and Psychology
nmalamut@ucla.edu

I was trained as a social psychologist and personality researcher and have become involved in the emerging field of evolutionary psychology. My research primarily consists of a series of studies analyzing the characteristics of men who commit aggression against women, particularly sexual aggression.  We have found that for an individual to commit sexually aggressive acts several factors typically converge that may be meaningfully organized into three major statistical "paths."  (i.e., sexual aggressors have relatively high scores on characteristics comprising these "paths").  In several studies we successfully tested an evolutionary-based model based on this theoretical framework.  A related aspect of our research program focuses on mass media effects, including sexually explicit media.  

 

Joe Manson, Department of Anthropology
jmanson@anthro.ucla.edu

I am interested in primate behavioral ecology and the adaptive significance of social relationships.  My research has focused on mate choice, dominance rank acquisition and maintenance, the role of signaling in social relationships, methodological issues involved in measuring the quality of social relationships, and interactions between evolved psychology and environmental novelty in nonhuman primates.  I have done fieldwork on free-ranging rhesus macaques, and I maintain an ongoing field project on wild capuchin monkeys.  My current specific interests are infant handling and lethal aggression.
 

Susan Perry, Department of Anthropology
sperry@anthro.ucla.edu

I am interested in the evolution of primate social behavior and cognition.  My past research has included work on mate choice in macaques, and the dynamics of social relationships in wild white-faced capuchin monkeys.  Current research includes work on social traditions in capuchins, and communication (particularly communication about social relationships). I maintain a long-term capuchin monkey field site in Lomas Barbudal, Costa Rica. I regularly teach undergraduate courses in primate behavior and the evolution of human behavior.

 

John Schumann, Department of Applied Linguistics and TESL
schumann@humnet.ucla.edu

Research interests:  Language acquisition, the neurobiology of language, the neurobiology of learning, the evolution of language, evolutionary psychology, evolutionary biology.


  

Joan B. Silk, Department of Anthropology
jsilk@anthro.ucla.edu

My research focuses on the evolution of social behavior and reproductive strategies among nonhuman primates. My most recent empirical work has examined the form and effects of  post-conflict behavior (reconciliation) among baboons; the effects of kinship, dominance rank, and reciprocity on the structure of social relationships among adult female baboons, and evidence for third party knowledge of rank relationships among male bonnet macaques. Current theoretical projects include work on the evolution of post-conflict behavior and evolution of low-cost signals of intent.

 

Francis Steen, Department of Communication Studies
steen at commstds dot ucla dot edu

 

Lynn Stout, Paul Hastings Professor of Corporate and Securities Law
stout@law.ucla.edu

My research focuses on the phenomenon of apparently unselfish cooperation and its importance for economic development and the rule of law.

 

Andreas Wilke, BEC Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of Anthropology

My research focuses on the proximate mechanisms that people use to decide when to give up on one task and switch to another. Specifically, I am interested whether the heuristic rules that evolved to guide animals in deciding when to leave a patch of food also underlie human decision making when foraging for physical objects or information (e.g. in memory). For this purpose, I study people in controlled laboratory settings as well as plan to conduct field studies with traditional foraging societies.

 

 

Anthropology Department

Psychology Department

Program for Psychocultural Studies and Medical Anthropology

Department of Applied Linguistics and TESL

Communications Studies Program

Cognitive Science

College of Letters and Science