Gail Heyman, Ph.D.

Email: gheyman@ucsd.edu

I study a wide range of topics at the intersection of children’s social and cognitive development, including how they make sense of the social world, and the factors that affect their sociomoral behavior. Much of this work is conducted as part of international collaborations with colleagues in China, Canada, Singapore, Japan, and Cameroon. My most recent work focuses on deception, implicit bias, reputation management, and how children learn from others.

Google Scholar | Personal Website

Dr. Heyman will be accepting applications for PhD students for the 2025-2026 cycle.

Shuai Shao

Email: s2shao@ucsd.edu

I am interested in how people perceive the complex social world, with a major focus on economic and moral development. For example, how do children reason about social inequality and distribution systems? How do children judge prosocial lies? I take developmental, evolutionary, and cross-cultural perspectives to answer these questions. Before joining UC San Diego, I earned my M.A. from the University of Chicago and B.S. from Beijing Normal University. 

Google Scholar | Personal Website

Rose Reagan

Email: reagan@ucsd.edu

I am broadly interested in how we come to make sense of the social world and our place in it, especially integrating concepts of social identity and group membership. How does who we are influence the ways in which we learn, make decisions, and integrate information? How do we craft representations of complex social categories and hierarchies? I am also fascinated by the function of language as a vehicle for socialization, and am currently investigating the ways language shapes (and is shaped by) sociality. 

Before coming to UCSD, I was Dr. Alison Gopnik’s Lab Manager at UC Berkeley, and I’m (proudy!) from Pittsburgh, PA. Outside of lab, you can find me bothering my cats, Squeaker and Purrogi.

Personal Website

Tal Waltzer, Ph.D.

Email: twaltzer@ucsd.edu

I'm an assistant professor at the State University of New York - Albany. My research focuses on moral reasoning and cognitive development. My team's projects include studies on youths' everyday decisions about academic integrity, keeping secrets, climate change, and generative AI in education.

Google Scholar | Personal Website | HEROES Project

Haleh Yazdi, Ph.D.

Email: hyazdi@ucsd.edu

I am a postdoctoral fellow with the Developing Belief Network and received my Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from UC San Diego under the mentorship of Profs. David Barner and Gail Heyman. I am interested in understanding how children develop group prejudices, notions of fairness and justice, and moral intuitions. I have conducted studies in Canada, India, Iran, Mexico, and the U.S. to identify how cultural factors, such as extreme class divisions and political instability, affect children’s social and cognitive development. A primary goal of my work is to understand the role that cultural input plays in shaping cooperative behaviors from childhood to adulthood, with the larger aim to improve group relations globally.

Google Scholar

Jamie Amemiya, Ph.D.

Email: amemiya@oxy.edu

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Occidental College. I am broadly interested in the development of social cognition as it relates to how children and adults think about societal problems. My current research interests include how children and adults reason about the causes of social inequality, how they represent social categories and societal hierarchies, and their reasoning about why people disagree. Broader topics of interest include causal reasoning, counterfactual thinking, science education, social categorization, and achievement motivation.  

Google Scholar | Personal Website