Faculty Associate Director and Associate Professor of Psychology
Yarrow Dunham is an associate professor of psychology and cognitive science and the director of the Social Cognitive Development Lab at Yale. His research focuses on the development of social cognition across cultural contexts. How do developing children come to understand the complex web of groups and identities that constitutes the social fabric of modern life? How does social knowledge constructed in childhood play out in adult minds?
Recent topics include: how children and adults make sense of unequal distributions of wealth and other resources; the ways in which we think about and judge the intergenerational transmission of inequality; how Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts are understood as well as how we can avoid “backfire” effects in which qualified candidates are devalued due to the perception that they were selected primarily on the basis of a social identity; and finally, how children and adults understand and navigate hierarchies and power dynamics embedded in social institutions.
His work blends social, cognitive, and developmental psychological approaches while also drawing on philosophical theories of institutional and social structures. In the context of the PRISE Center he hopes to leverage insights from this work to support interventions to reduce intergroup animosity and interrupt the cultural transmission of stereotypes and prejudice.
Contact
+1 (203) 436-1315