app03 Wed, 26 Aug 2026 00:20:04 +0000 Fireside (https://fireside.fm) The It's Innate! Podcast - Episodes Tagged with “Developmental Psychology” http://itsinnate.fireside.fm/tags/developmental%20psychology Fri, 14 Aug 2026 17:00:00 -0400 Two opinionated developmental cognitive scientists wax theoretical about how infants and children acquire knowledge! en-us episodic A podcast by two developmental cognitive scientists Deon Benton & Jenny Wang Two opinionated developmental cognitive scientists wax theoretical about how infants and children acquire knowledge! no cognitive development, developmental psychology, cognitive science, nature vs. nurture, psychology, social science, science Deon Benton & Jenny Wang theitsinnatepodcast@gmail.com Episode 42: Change starts with believing that things can be different (with Tamar Kushnir) https://itsinnate.fireside.fm/42 d8d19647-672e-4ea3-8cd8-029b839fc2ff Fri, 14 Aug 2026 17:00:00 -0400 Deon Benton & Jenny Wang full Deon Benton & Jenny Wang 1:59:32 no <p>What a lovely episode! We began by chatting with Professor Tamar Kushnir about her childhood, her love of math, her academic background, and how she got involved with research in the first place. We then spent some time talking about what it was like training under the world-renowned developmental scientist Alison Gopnik and being surrounded by the likes of Josh Tenenbaum, Dave Sobel, Tom Griffiths, among others. She shares how she dealt with the imposter syndrome that came from that experience but also how working with folks like that was extremely formative for her career.</p> <p>In the second segment, we turn our focus to one of her recently published papers in <em>Cognition</em> entitled "Children expect prior belief strength to constrain belief revision". That discussion largely focused on how 4- to 8-year-old children believe that others find it is easier to change a weaker belief than a stronger one, but that how all of that depends on the type of belief a person has (e.g., whether the belief moral, social, or factual in nature). Deon and Tamar then have a friendly back-and-forth about whether the findings can be boiled down to associative learning. Tamar makes a convincing case why they cannot (at least entirely).</p> <p><strong>Links</strong></p> <p>Li, P. H., Soter, L. K., &amp; Kushnir, T. (2026). Children expect prior belief strength to constrain belief revision. <em>Cognition</em>, <em>276</em>, 106668. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027726002374" rel="nofollow noopener">Link</a> Special Guest: Tamar Kushnir.</p> social cognition, developmental psychology, imposter syndrome, social cognitive development, cognitive science What a lovely episode! We began by chatting with Professor Tamar Kushnir about her childhood, her love of math, her academic background, and how she got involved with research in the first place. We then spent some time talking about what it was like training under the world-renowned developmental scientist Alison Gopnik and being surrounded by the likes of Josh Tenenbaum, Dave Sobel, Tom Griffiths, among others. She shares how she dealt with the imposter syndrome that came from that experience but also how working with folks like that was extremely formative for her career.

In the second segment, we turn our focus to one of her recently published papers in Cognition entitled "Children expect prior belief strength to constrain belief revision". That discussion largely focused on how 4- to 8-year-old children believe that others find it is easier to change a weaker belief than a stronger one, but that how all of that depends on the type of belief a person has (e.g., whether the belief moral, social, or factual in nature). Deon and Tamar then have a friendly back-and-forth about whether the findings can be boiled down to associative learning. Tamar makes a convincing case why they cannot (at least entirely).

Links

Li, P. H., Soter, L. K., & Kushnir, T. (2026). Children expect prior belief strength to constrain belief revision. Cognition, 276, 106668. Link

Special Guest: Tamar Kushnir.

]]> What a lovely episode! We began by chatting with Professor Tamar Kushnir about her childhood, her love of math, her academic background, and how she got involved with research in the first place. We then spent some time talking about what it was like training under the world-renowned developmental scientist Alison Gopnik and being surrounded by the likes of Josh Tenenbaum, Dave Sobel, Tom Griffiths, among others. She shares how she dealt with the imposter syndrome that came from that experience but also how working with folks like that was extremely formative for her career.

In the second segment, we turn our focus to one of her recently published papers in Cognition entitled "Children expect prior belief strength to constrain belief revision". That discussion largely focused on how 4- to 8-year-old children believe that others find it is easier to change a weaker belief than a stronger one, but that how all of that depends on the type of belief a person has (e.g., whether the belief moral, social, or factual in nature). Deon and Tamar then have a friendly back-and-forth about whether the findings can be boiled down to associative learning. Tamar makes a convincing case why they cannot (at least entirely).

Links

Li, P. H., Soter, L. K., & Kushnir, T. (2026). Children expect prior belief strength to constrain belief revision. Cognition, 276, 106668. Link

Special Guest: Tamar Kushnir.

]]> Episode 32: Moral kombat (with Kiley Hamlin) https://itsinnate.fireside.fm/32 b42e2353-1d70-4b21-a770-e31f7b999010 Sat, 17 Jan 2026 09:00:00 -0500 Deon Benton & Jenny Wang full Deon Benton & Jenny Wang 1:56:20 no <p>We were so lucky to be joined in this episode by the inestimable Professor Kiley Hamlin. In the first segment, we chatted about how Kiley got interested in developmental science as well as about what it was like to be trained by Amanda Woodward (undergrad), Karen Wynn (grad), Paul Bloom (grad), and Laurie Santos (grad). </p> <p>In the second segment, we chat about her recent paper in Nature Communications — this paper tested whether sociomoral evaluation is innate in 5 day olds. We also chat about how to reconcile the main finding of this paper — that 5-day-olds prefer helping events over hindering events — with the recent ManyBabies failure (you'll definitely want to hear her thoughts), as well as about her recent struggles to replicate classic findings in the lab but not online. We pondered about whether this is unique to Professor Hamlin or in fact is indicative of a much larger issue in the field. You're in for a treat with this one.</p> <p><strong>Links</strong></p> <p>Geraci, A., Surian, L., Tina, L. G., &amp; Hamlin, J. K. (2025). Human newborns spontaneously attend to prosocial interactions. Nature Communications, 16(1), 6304. <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/desc.70124" rel="nofollow noopener">Link</a> </p> moral cognition, developmental psychology, nativism vs. empiricism, nature vs. nurture We were so lucky to be joined in this episode by the inestimable Professor Kiley Hamlin. In the first segment, we chatted about how Kiley got interested in developmental science as well as about what it was like to be trained by Amanda Woodward (undergrad), Karen Wynn (grad), Paul Bloom (grad), and Laurie Santos (grad).

In the second segment, we chat about her recent paper in Nature Communications — this paper tested whether sociomoral evaluation is innate in 5 day olds. We also chat about how to reconcile the main finding of this paper — that 5-day-olds prefer helping events over hindering events — with the recent ManyBabies failure (you'll definitely want to hear her thoughts), as well as about her recent struggles to replicate classic findings in the lab but not online. We pondered about whether this is unique to Professor Hamlin or in fact is indicative of a much larger issue in the field. You're in for a treat with this one.

Links

Geraci, A., Surian, L., Tina, L. G., & Hamlin, J. K. (2025). Human newborns spontaneously attend to prosocial interactions. Nature Communications, 16(1), 6304. Link

]]> We were so lucky to be joined in this episode by the inestimable Professor Kiley Hamlin. In the first segment, we chatted about how Kiley got interested in developmental science as well as about what it was like to be trained by Amanda Woodward (undergrad), Karen Wynn (grad), Paul Bloom (grad), and Laurie Santos (grad).

In the second segment, we chat about her recent paper in Nature Communications — this paper tested whether sociomoral evaluation is innate in 5 day olds. We also chat about how to reconcile the main finding of this paper — that 5-day-olds prefer helping events over hindering events — with the recent ManyBabies failure (you'll definitely want to hear her thoughts), as well as about her recent struggles to replicate classic findings in the lab but not online. We pondered about whether this is unique to Professor Hamlin or in fact is indicative of a much larger issue in the field. You're in for a treat with this one.

Links

Geraci, A., Surian, L., Tina, L. G., & Hamlin, J. K. (2025). Human newborns spontaneously attend to prosocial interactions. Nature Communications, 16(1), 6304. Link

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