Congratulations, Melissa Kibbe (@levelsof.bsky.social), on winning the Society for Philosophy and Psychology’s 2026 Stanton Prize and, more generally, for your rich research program demonstrating the origins of abstract, generative thought in human infants.

New paper in Open Mind! 2-to-4-year-olds find it easier to reason about an object's possible identity than its possible location, and we argue this asymmetry traces back to the architecture of early object representations. 🧵

🎉 New paper w/ honors student Majo Guerrero & @lindseypowell.bsky.social: 4–7-year-olds did not expect girls to be more empathic than boys, nor did they judge girls more harshly for counter-empathizing, suggesting stereotypes about empathy may emerge later in development. doi.org/10.1080/1524...

New review paper on the development of friendship psychology/ cognition (w/ @zoeliberman.bsky.social): By age 6, children appear to recognize friendship as a ranking-based relationship with outstanding social expectations and obligations. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

One-year-olds watching cartoon characters help each other don’t necessarily expect a helper to also help new characters, suggesting that infants assume prosocial behavior is based on relationships rather than innate dispositions. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/6bTH50YPGUo

Job alert! @brandonwoo.bsky.social and I are searching for a new lab manager. We are excited to add a new member to our awesome community of soc cog dev researchers! Spread the word :) Full ad here: recruit.ap.ucsb.edu/JPF03106

This project was so fun to work on with this stellar team!! It also has some cool age-related findings: older children think that people should make objects they don't like more accessible to others, but that liked objects should be protected from others by putting them in a hard-to-reach place!

Highly recommend @cogdevsoc.bsky.social falling on your birthday week. Celebrated 30 early by giving a talk at the ECR symposium, seeing mentees present cool posters, and catching up with some of my favorite people!

CDS 2026 was full of excellent science and good times! A big thanks to all the speakers in the intuitive theories of care preconference, organized by @rtompkins.bsky.social -- so many new ideas and findings to think about!

Our paper finding that infants infer helpers’ relationships, and not their dispositions, is now out in PNAS! Sharing in case anyone needs something to read on the way home from #CDS2026 ;) doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Members of the SoCal lab are presenting their work at #CDS2026! Check out where to find us below

Can't wait for #CDS2026! My lab is excited to share some of our ongoing work featuring collaborations with Madison Pesowski's KIDS Lab at UFV! I hope you'll stop by and chat :)

Looking forward to #CDS2026! Come learn about the work that my students and I are doing @emmayu23.bsky.social @cogdevsoc.bsky.social

Job ad linked below: Postdoc, Wesleyan U, Psychology Dept, to work with me & Dr. Royette Dubar. I’ll be at CDS in Montreal for Qs from potential applicants. Please share! wesleyan.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/careers/job/...

My lab at UW Madison is hiring a new lab manager! I’m looking for a motivated and detail-oriented person to help run the lab’s day-to-day, including our ongoing neuroimaging and behavioral studies. This is especially well suited for graduating undergrads thinking about grad school. Link below

Trust in leadership is essential to success A new study found that PhD students who had greater trust in their graduate advisor finished their first year more motivated, higher in well-being, and more academically successful than those with lower advisor trust. academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

New w/ @drbarner.bsky.social! We argue that children's struggle to represent the past and future in common tests of knowledge may stem from difficulties in hypothetical reasoning about imaginary timelines, rather than a lack of knowledge about time. 1/n academic.oup.com/chidev/advan...

So excited to share this new paper, out in JEP:G with the incredible @jamieamemiya.bsky.social, Gail Heyman, and @carenwalker.bsky.social! We tested how children and adults reason about disparate impact policies: formally neutral laws or rules that are indirectly discriminatory. (1/7)

Want to contribute to the work right now and you’re in MA, NH, or PA? Call your state reps and senators about these bills!

Second this! I really like Owlstown for easy & effective academic websites.

Academic PSA: Encourage your trainees to have some sort of online presence, or at the very least an email on the lab website, so they can be invited to give talks at other places. Sincerely, Someone who has spent a cumulative total of 3 hours unsuccessfully trying to track down email addresses

And that’s a wrap on my lab’s first semester 🎉 So grateful to work these wonderful folks (and Arya’s grateful that they are generous in their pets)

There’s a fantastic developmental science resource called Children Helping Science, at MIT (childrenhelpingscience.com). Researchers run child studies online, Parents sign up & participate with their kids. CHS got an offer from an anonymous donor: matching gifts up to $100K through December!

The Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Lab at UNL is hiring a Research Assistant Professor! Work with my wonderful colleague Tim Nelson on NIH-funded developmental/health projects and grow your own line of research. The DCN Lab is an amazing team with lots of opportunities and support.

I'm recruiting a grad student! My lab at NYU (psych dept) studies the computational basis of moral cognition and aims to build AI systems that are aligned with human values. Now admitting a PhD student for Fall 2026. Apps due 12/1. sites.google.com/corp/site/sy...

Are humans really the only rational animals? Our NEW PAPER 🎉 out in @science.org suggests otherwise! In a large collaboration led with my joint first author @hanna-schleihauf.bsky.social, we show that “Chimpanzees rationally revise their beliefs” 🧵

Have a student considering applying to Lehigh for graduate school? The CAS application fee is waived (!!!) if they submit their application between Nov 3rd and Nov 8th or between Dec 1st and Dec 6th! If they have questions, please direct them to email [email protected]! #psychologyphd #gradschool

Just in: @drbarner.bsky.social & I find that blind adults and children who have symbols for large numbers, and use 1:1 correspondence to count, do not extend a similar 1:1 strategy to a set-matching task, which assesses their knowledge of Hume’s principle. A 🧵: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Lehigh Psychology is hosting a virtual open house Monday, 10/27 @ 4:15 pm for prospective PhD students! If you have students considering our program, encourage them to register! They'll have a chance to chat w/ faculty & current grads + learn more about our department! lehigh.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

New paper in Open Mind, with @emmayu23.bsky.social, Megan Richardson, and @ashleyjthomas.bsky.social! We find that by 6 years of age, children think that close friends know the content of each other’s minds. direct.mit.edu/opmi/article... @openmindjournal.bsky.social

We’re recruiting a postdoctoral fellow to join our team! 🎉 I’m happy to share that I’ve opened back up the search for this position (it was temporarily closed due to funding uncertainty). See lab page and doc below for details!

Ever wonder how habituation works? Here's our attempt to understand: A stimulus-computable rational model of visual habituation in infants and adults doi.org/10.7554/eLif... This is the thesis of two wonderful students: @anjiecao.bsky.social @galraz.bsky.social, w/ @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social

Excited to share that my lab will be accepting applications for our very first PhD student to start in Fall 2026! Interested applicants can learn more about the lab here: wordpress.lehigh.edu/littlelearne... And Lehigh’s graduate program here: psychology.cas.lehigh.edu/graduate

Year 2 of Temple's Demystifying Graduate Applications Event!

UCDavis Psych is hiring an Assistant Professor in Human Cognition or Cognitive Neuroscience 🧠✨ Come join a vibrant, collaborative dept and live in a fun college town near Sacramento, San Francisco, Napa, and Lake Tahoe. Applications due Oct.21. Please share widely! recruit.ucdavis.edu/JPF07300

Thinking about a PhD in Psychology? 🎓✨ Stanford Psych is hosting Paths to a Psychology PhD—a free virtual info session + workshop. 📅 Oct 18, 2025 | Apply by Sept 25! psychology.stanford.edu/diversity/pa...

My lab has an open post-doc position! We will begin reviewing applications as they come in. The post-doc will work with a vibrant research team at Penn State in the Department of Psychology and the Child Study Center. psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/PSU_Academic... 1/3

Join me in sending a rubber ducky to your House member!

When an animals' groupmates go out of sight, do they also go out of mind? In a new paper in Proc B @royalsocietypublishing.org, Luz Carvajal and I show that a bonobo (Kanzi) can keep mental tabs on the whereabouts of multiple hidden social partners royalsocietypublishing.org/eprint/4GI7G...

📢 Come join us on Sunday, November 9th for the Rutgers Symposium of Learning with an amazing list of speakers and great company! More details: sites.rutgers.edu/symposium-le...

At 18:30 UK time, I will be presenting my work on learning and exploration across development at the @cogscisociety.bsky.social Glushko Dissertation Prize Session! #CogSci participants can join at this link: underline.io/events/489/s...

I'm recruiting a lab manager for my soon-to-be-launched lab at Ohio State! If you know of any recent grads who may be interested both in helping to build the lab and in developing skills in the cognitive neuroscience of memory, please share! osu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/OSUCar...

New preprint! Led by Bill Pepe, with @brandonwoo.bsky.social and @ashleyjthomas.bsky.social. We asked if infants think helping and hindering stem from actors' dispositions (i.e. good/nice v bad/mean) or their social relationships, by testing expectations for future behavior: osf.io/preprints/ps...

🚨 Postdoc Opportunity!!! The Toronto Early Cognition Lab (@UofT) is hiring a postdoc to study early optimism in infants & young children. Work w/ multi-method approach, amazing undergrads & grads. Start: Fall 2025 or later. Details: [email protected] RTs appreciated 💫

UC San Diego Psychology hosted the first Southern California Meeting for Investigations in Developmental Science (SoCal MInDS) this Saturday. We were joined by wonderful folks from the southernmost UC campuses, SDSU, CSULA, Occidental College, and USC.

Yesterday @asmithflores.bsky.social successfully defended her PhD and became Dr. Smith-Flores! Then she celebrated with her fantastic committee and lab members :) Congratulations, Alexis!!

Gave my talk “The role of harm salience on children’s and adults’ perceptions of unfairness” at #SRCD25 yesterday (forgot to post here because it was the last session). Grateful to present among such thoughtful and inspiring researchers: #SRCD2025

Come check out our symposium at #SRCD2025: "Navigating social groups and relationships"! There'll be talks by Sarah Ramsey, Rongzhi Liu, @rtompkins.bsky.social, and me. Thursday at 10 am.

The last chapter of my dissertation is out now in Child Development! 🎉 OA: srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/KEAHK8...