Shona Duguid

Dr. Shona Duguid is a Lecturer within the School of Education, Language and Psychology at York St John University. Her research focuses on understanding the cognitive and behavioral foundations of cooperation in humans and other primates, particularly chimpanzees, bonobos, and Japanese macaques. She employs behavioral experiments to explore how individuals coordinate actions, communicate, and manage risks during collaborative tasks. Duguid completed her PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, followed by postdoctoral research at Warwick University and St Andrews University before joining York St John in 2023.

Her work examines cross-species comparisons of cooperative problem-solving, including studies on communication strategies, social leverage understanding, and decision-making under uncertainty. She is a core member of the Many Primates collaboration, leading the Delay of Gratification project (MP2) to investigate primate cognition across global species. Duguid also contributes to open science initiatives, promoting fair practices in primate research.

In teaching, she instructs developmental, biological, and comparative psychology, alongside quantitative methods in undergraduate psychology programs. She serves as a series editor for Routledge Research in Comparative Psychology and reviews for journals like Cognition, PLoS Biology, and Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

• Education: PhD in Evolutionary Anthropology (Max Planck Institute)
• Key Research: Comparative psychology of cooperation, primate cognition evolution, and collaborative behavior
• Professional Roles: Many Primates coordination team, Routledge series editor

Her research highlights the evolutionary and developmental roots of cooperative abilities, bridging insights from child psychology and primate studies to uncover shared and unique mechanisms across species.