Research

In the MSB lab, we combine social, cultural, and evolutionary perspectives to understand how people make difficult decisions, navigate tradeoffs associated with everyday life, and the motivations underlying those decisions.

Childhood ecologies
Humans are remarkably flexible. People consistently respond to contingencies in their environment in ways that help them take advantage of the opportunities and overcome or avoid the challenges presented by their immediate ecology. In the MSB lab, we use theories of adaptive calibration (guided by principles from life-history theory) to understand how people adapt developmentally to key challenges and opportunities afforded by their local ecologies. Two crucial ecological affordances that influence a range of cognitive, behavioral, and neuroendocrinological processes involve the extent to which the environment is unpredictable (i.e., characterized by uncertainty or instability due to stochastic changes in the environment) and/or harsh (i.e., characterized by a lack of essential resources, leading to high risk of mortality and morbidity.

Currently, we’re exploring the implications of exposure to unpredictable (and/or harsh) environments in early childhood on a range of adult outcomes in domains as far-reaching as parenting, economic decisions, morality, and health.

Social Hierarchy
Hierarchy is an ever-present feature of human social groups. Throughout human history, a small number of people at the top have enjoyed the benefits of high social rank (e.g., greater resources, autonomy, health, happiness, and well-being), whereas a larger number of people at the bottom have been deprived of those benefits. Consequently, humans have a fundamental motivation for high social.
 
In the MSB lab, our work is aimed at understanding the strategies people use to navigate hierarchies. Much of our work focuses on the distinction between dominance and prestige as social rank-striving strategies. Our work also considers classical social psychological perspectives on power and status. Often, our work combines both perspectives to highlight unique aspects of dominance- and prestige-based approaches in power- and status-based groups.