Colin Holbrook

Colin Holbrook is an Associate Professor of Cognitive and Information Sciences at the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts, University of California, Merced. His research examines decision-making under contexts of threat, with a focus on social and emotional determinants of trust, cooperation, aggression, and human-AI interaction during crises.

Research interests center on threat management systems, social cognition in adversarial contexts, and the psychological underpinnings of human-robot interaction. Key domains include evolutionary psychology, moral decision-making, and cross-cultural behavioral patterns in high-stakes environments.

Publications demonstrate strong emphasis on experimental approaches to threat perception and coalitional psychology, with recent expansion into AI ethics and emergency robotics. Major themes include moral judgments in protest movements, anthropomorphism in trust calibration, and cross-cultural pandemic responses.

Laboratory work involves virtual reality simulations for human-robot teaming in crisis scenarios and cross-cultural experimental paradigms examining moral cognition.