Malinda Carpenter

Prof. Malinda Carpenter is a Professor in Developmental Psychology at the University of St Andrews, School of Psychology and Neuroscience. Her research focuses on infants' and young children’s social cognition, including joint attention, prosocial behavior, intergroup reactions, and comparative cognition between humans and apes. She holds editorial roles at Cognition and Child Development Perspectives.

Research Interests: Her work examines mechanisms underlying social learning, communicative gestures, and the emergence of shared understanding in early childhood. Key topics include how infants interpret others' mental states, form social bonds, and navigate group dynamics. She also investigates parallels and differences in social cognition between humans and great apes.

• Awards: Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2021), Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science (2012)
• Supervision: Currently advising PhD candidates Jinzhi Feng and Christina Ruiz-Mendoza
• Lab Affiliations: Centre for Research into Equality, Diversity & Inclusion; Institute of Behavioural and Neural Sciences

Public Engagement: Her team addresses methodological challenges in child research and emphasizes ethical participant recruitment. Recent work explores how time constraints and social contexts influence prosocial behavior in young children.