Eric Walle

Eric Walle is an Associate Professor of Developmental Psychology at the University of California, Merced, affiliated with the School of Social Sciences, Humanities & Arts and the Department of Psychological Sciences. His research focuses on social and emotional development in infancy and early childhood, particularly exploring how infants respond to discrete emotions and navigate developmental transitions like walking. He leads a lab dedicated to these studies, with a recent focus on cross-cultural comparisons, including research in Shanghai, China.

Education: Earned a Bachelor of Science from Vanderbilt University (Developmental Psychology, Cognitive Studies, Elementary Education), followed by a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology at UC Berkeley under Joseph Campos. His work emphasizes infant sensitivity to emotional cues, language development post-locomotion, and cultural brokering in immigrant families.

Research Interests:

• Emotion recognition and appraisal in infants
• Social-cognitive development during locomotor transitions
• Cross-cultural studies of emotional communication
• Parent-child interactions and language acquisition

Publications Trends: Recent work (2021-2025) emphasizes cultural contexts of emotion, intercultural communication challenges, and neurocognitive mechanisms linking motor skills to language. Studies often bridge developmental psychology with social and cultural factors.

Awards: None explicitly listed in provided materials.

Advising & Grants: Active in mentoring graduate students in developmental psychology, though no named advisees are listed. Research supported by studies on infant language and locomotion, cultural brokering, and emotion socialization.

Labs/Teams: Maintains an active research lab at UC Merced focusing on infant emotional and social development, collaborating with international teams on cross-cultural projects.