Dorsa Amir

I'm a psychologist studying how culture shapes the developing mind.

My research program explores cognitive development through an interdisciplinary perspective — bringing together tools from psychology, anthropology, and behavioral economics — to better understand human behavioral diversity. My approach is built upon two central pillars: (1) cross-cultural fieldwork to explore the breadth of human behavior and its regularities, and (2) laboratory experiments to elucidate the cognitive mechanisms underlying observed patterns. 

Since 2014, I have been working among the Shuar — an Indigenous forager-horticulturalist group in Amazonian Ecuador — and I regularly engage in research collaborations with researchers and participants across five continents. 

I am particularly interested in the ontogeny of judgments, preferences, and decision-making in children and adults of diverse societies. Most recently, I have focused my research on the development of cooperative behaviors across age and cultures and the role that norms can play in guiding social behavior.