Development and Social Behaviour Research Group

Developing Solutions

The Developmental and Social Behaviour Research Group (DaSB) comprises an interdisciplinary team of developmental, social, and evolutionary psychologists who examine the development of motor, behavioural, and cognitive processes, and the social psychological processes affecting interpersonal, intergroup, and interspecies attitudes, cognition, emotion, and behaviour.

Areas of expertise include child safety, language development, decision-making, attention and memory, human-animal interaction, perspective-taking, handedness, identity, emerging adulthood, parenting, citizenship, justice and morality, wellbeing, dehumanization, emotion, prejudice, prosocial behaviour, warfare and neurodevelopmental disorders such attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism.

We focus on a range of species, including humans (from pregnancy and newborn babies to older adults), dogs, non-human primates and fish. The School of Psychology's modern facilities and equipment provides the perfect setting for research including the Lincoln infant and child development lab, motor lab, and field sites for primate research. Our methods include intermodal preferential looking, eye-tracking, adult EEG, motion analysis, safety education training, elicitation methods, interviews, and response time measures.

Group research is funded by a variety of prestigious funding bodies including the Economic and Social Research Council, British Academy, European Commission, US National Institute of Health, Templeton Religion Trust, and Arts Council England.

Our Research is Different

As well as directly contributing to developmental and social psychology theory and knowledge, our work has significant and wide-ranging impacts on real world issues, policy, and practice. Our group members actively engage in consultancy work for government departments, businesses, and third-sector organisations such as the World Health Organisation, People United, Department for Work and Pensions, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, and the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education.

We believe there is clear scientific value in crossing boundaries between psychology and traditionally distinct scientific disciplines such as anthropology, economics, linguistics, veterinary medicine, and physiology. Our academic staff and large community of postgraduate students collaborate with researchers at national and international universities, charities and businesses.