Beverly Boos

Academic interests

My research brings together perspectives from the fields of cognitive and evolutionary psychology, archaeology, and biology toward a naturalized account of social affliation with a focus on the duality of kinship. This research incorporates identity as dynamic in the shaping of social groups and intergroup conflict patterns.

Using eye tracking technology, I’m currently exploring social affiliation and kin groups in the social cognitive development of infants, and with field experiments I look at how these are represented within language and culture groups in children and adults, primariliy in contexts of intergroup conflict and adversity.

Background

University of Oxford (2014) –Master of Science in Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology. Research thesis title: “Traumatic Causes of Identity Fusion and the Consequences for Sacred Values and Acts” 

Harvard University (2013) –Bachelor of Liberal Arts in Psychology, Archaeology and Anthropology. Thesis: The adaptive choice: empathy is the little red pill, all the rest (the altruistic emotions) are blue

Photojournalist and Director of Opening of the Heart: An Exhibit of Israelis and Palestinians

Trained by the Honorable Al Gore as a presenter with The Climate Reality Project