Mason Garrison

Mason Garrison is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Wake Forest University's College of Arts & Sciences. His research focuses on behavior genetics, quantitative methods, and family studies with applications to mental health, developmental psychology, and social inequality. He specializes in leveraging large datasets like the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) to explore genetic and environmental influences on behavior.

Key research interests include:

• Biometric modeling of complex traits
• Sibling comparison designs for causal inference
• Cross-cultural behavior genetics using datasets like China Family Panel Study
• Methodological innovations in statistical analysis

His work frequently addresses societal issues such as gender discrimination trajectories, SES-health gradients, and vaccine willingness determinants. Over 20 peer-reviewed articles demonstrate his expertise in applying advanced statistical techniques to behavioral science questions.

Leveraging the NLSY kinship links, he has developed tools like BGmisc R package and contributed to collaborative networks like the Psychological Science Accelerator. Current research emphasizes dismantling WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) bias in genetic studies through diverse population analyses.