Dr. Katherine McAuliffe is an accomplished developmental psychologist whose research has significantly advanced our understanding of social behavior development across diverse cultural contexts. She currently serves as Associate Professor in the Psychology Department at Boston College where she leads a thriving research laboratory focused on the developmental foundations of human cooperation. Her academic trajectory reflects a commitment to interdisciplinary scholarship that bridges psychological science, anthropology, and evolutionary biology to investigate how children develop cooperative behaviors across societies. Dr. McAuliffe has established herself as a leading authority in cross-cultural developmental research through rigorous comparative studies conducted across multiple international settings.
Dr. McAuliffe's groundbreaking research has fundamentally illuminated how children develop critical aspects of social cognition including fairness, honesty, and trustworthiness across different cultural environments. Her influential 2013 study on social influences on inequity aversion in children has become a cornerstone in developmental psychology with over 128 citations, demonstrating how children's responses to unfairness are shaped by cultural norms and social learning mechanisms. Her work has been published in premier journals including Nature Human Behaviour, Cognition, and the Journal of Experimental Psychology, establishing her as a leading authority on the developmental foundations of human cooperation. With a substantial citation count exceeding 6000, her research has reshaped theoretical frameworks regarding how cooperative behaviors emerge in childhood and vary across global communities.
As a recipient of the prestigious Jacobs Foundation Research Fellowship, Dr. McAuliffe has expanded her influential work to explore how individual differences in cooperative behavior can be leveraged to foster more supportive learning environments for children. She is currently investigating how exceptionally cooperative peers serve as role models for others, with the goal of developing practical applications for educational settings that enhance children's social development. Her research continues to bridge disciplinary boundaries as she leads international collaborations examining cooperative behavior across diverse cultural contexts that include both traditional and industrialized societies. Dr. McAuliffe remains at the forefront of developmental science, mentoring the next generation of researchers while advancing innovative work on how social learning mechanisms transmit cooperative norms across generations.
