Co-Director:Program in Cognitive Studies of the Environment
School of Education and Social Policy
Research Interests
Categorization and Reasoning: We are currently developing and testing theories that we hope will extend beyond the typical undergraduate subject pool to other populations. Our work shows patterns that systematically diverge from data collected from undergraduates, suggesting that theory and data based on undergraduates may not generalize to the world at large.
Decision Making: Like many other researchers we are trying to understand the role of protected or moral values and decision making as well as the role of emotions in decision making.
Science Inside and Outside the Classroom: In collaboration with researchers on the Menominee Reservation in Wisconsin and the American Indian Center in Chicago, we are exploring children's reasoning about biology and science across cultures (Native American/Majority) and across rural/urban populations. We hope to develop this line of research into workable interventions that improve students' understanding of science and preserve the biological knowledge that Native American students bring with them into the classroom.
Culture and Biological Thought: We are focusing on how our notions of the natural world unfold - across development, across cultures, and across languages, asking fundamental questions which include, “What is the place of humans within the natural world?”, “What does it mean to be ‘alive’?”, and “How do children across cultures develop these concepts?”
Selected Publications
Atran, S. & Medin, D.L. (2008).The Native Mind and the Cultural Construction of Nature. Boston, MA.: MIT Press.
Bartels, D. M., Bauman, C.W., Skita, L.J. & Medin, D.L. (in press). Psychology of Learning and Motivation, Vol. 50: Moral Judgment and Decision Making.San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Medin, D.L. & Bang, M. (2008).Perspective Taking, Diversity and Partnerships. American Psychological Association. 22(2) online.
Anggoro, F. K., Waxman, S.R. & Medin, D.L. (2008).Naming practices and the acquisition of key biological concepts: Evidence from English and Indonesian.Psychological Science. 19(4) 314-319.
Burnett, R. & Medin, D.L. (2008). Reasoning across cultures. In Rips, L. & Adler, J. (Eds.)Reasoning: Studies of Human Inference and its Foundations. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Tanner, C., Medin, D. & Iliev, R. (2008).Influence of deontological versus consequentialist orientations on act choices and framing effects: When principles are more important than consequences.European Journal of Social Psychology,38(5), 757-769.Bang, M., Medin, D., & Atran, S. (2007). Cultural Mosaics and Mental Models of Nature. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 104, 13868-13874.
Medin, D. L. & Waxman, S. R. (2007).Interpreting asymmetries of projection in children's inductive reasoning. In A. Feeney & E. Heit (Eds.), Inductive Reasoning, 55-80. New York , NY : Cambridge University Press.
Medin, D.L., Unsworth, S.J., Hirschfeld, L. (2007). Culture, Categorization and Reasoning. In S. Kitayama & D. Cohen (Eds.),Handbook of Cultural Psychology.Guilford.
Bartels, D. M. & Medin, D. L. (2007).Are morally-motivated decision makers insensitive to the consequences of their choices? Psychological Science. 18(1), 24-28.
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