Cog Lunch: Kiera Parece

December 16, 2025
12pm
Location: 46-3037

Zoom: https://mit.zoom.us/j/92334640878

Speaker: Kiera Parece

Affiliation: Schulz Lab

Title: Negotiating prosociality in a complex world

Abstract: Humans are prosocial from early in development: babies and toddlers prefer helpers to hinderers, they help others, and they collaborate with others (Hamlin, Wynn, & Bloom, 2007; Warneken & Tomasello, 2006; Warneken, Chen, & Tomasello, 2006). However, the world is complicated — and it isn’t always easy to figure out how to behave prosocially. Here, I will discuss three different projects that explore the nuances and subtleties of acting prosocially in a complicated world. First, I will briefly review some completed work exploring adults' and children’s reasoning about intentional misunderstandings or loopholes, then I will discuss new work exploring children’s intuitions of when helping might backfire and cause offense. Finally, I’ll preview a new project that focuses on the reasons someone might be silent in a conversation and the inferences we can draw from the absence of an utterance.