#589 Ashley Thomas: Naïve Sociology, and How Children Think About Hierarchies and Social Relations
Dr. Ashley Thomas is a postdoctoral fellow at the center for research on open and equitable scholarship at MIT. She is interested in humans as a social species. She investigates what infants, toddlers, and children think about social relationships (i.e., their naive sociology). She has studied how they think and feel about social hierarchy (i.e. situations where there is a 'winner' and a 'loser' or when someone is 'in charge.'). Currently, she is working with Elizabeth Spelke and Rebecca Saxe, and they are investigating how infants interpret social interactions that involve their own caregivers as well as how infants, toddlers, and children think about social intimacy. She has also studied people's moral judgments of parenting decisions. More»