Jan Engelmann

Jan Engelmann is an Associate Professor specializing in developmental, comparative, and cross-cultural psychology. He leads the Social Origins Lab, where he investigates the evolutionary and developmental origins of human cooperation and social cognition.

Education:

• Ph.D. from Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

Dr. Engelmann's research focuses on understanding how human children develop cooperative skills and motivations, and how these compare with those of chimpanzees. His work examines the role of reputation, fairness, and social relationships in prosocial behavior across different cultural contexts. Key findings include the emergence of fairness concepts in early childhood and the influence of group membership on prosocial decisions.

His recent publications (2013-2019) reveal consistent themes: the importance of reputation in children's prosociality, the partiality of helping behavior toward friends, and the evolutionary roots of cooperation as evidenced by comparative studies with chimpanzees. These studies employ experimental methods with children and non-human primates to uncover the cognitive mechanisms underlying human sociality.

Dr. Engelmann directs the Social Origins Lab, which brings together researchers from psychology, anthropology, and cognitive science to explore the social and cognitive foundations of human cooperation. The lab's work has implications for understanding the development of moral behavior and the evolution of human uniqueness.