Psychology Faculty Profiles
Douglas L. Medin, Ph.D.
Professor
Cognitive Psychology
Office: Swift 222
Phone: (847) 467-1660
E-mail: medin@northwestern.edu
Links
Research Interests
Categorization and Reasoning: We are currently developing and testing theories that we hope will extend beyond the typical undergraduate subject pool to other populations. Our work shows patterns that systematically diverge from data collected from undergraduates, suggesting that theory and data based on undergraduates may not generalize to the world at large.
Decision Making: Like many other researchers we are trying to understand the role of protected or moral values and decision making as well as the role of emotions in decision making. As always, the role of culture in cognition remains an important theme.
Culture and Nature : This research is a collaboration between the University of Washington and the American Indian Center of Chicago (Megan Bang), the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin (Karen Washinawatok), and Northwestern University (Sandra Waxman and Doug Medin). We are studying the role of culture as it relates to knowledge and reasoning about the natural world in children and adults. We are also involving community members in the development of preschool science teaching tools as well as the development of Community Based Citizen Science projects related to forests, lakes and invasive species.
Selected Publications
Atran, S. & Medin, D.L. (2008). The Native Mind and the Cultural Construction of Nature. Boston, MA.: MIT Press.
Sachdeva, S., Singh, P. and Medin, D. (2011). Culture and the quest for universal principles in moral reasoning. International Journal of Psychology, 46: 3, 161 — 176.
Leddon, E.M., Waxman, S.R., Medin, (2011). What does it mean to 'live' and 'die'? A cross-linguistic analysis of parent-child conversations in English and Indonesian. British Journal of Developmental Psychology. 29 (3): 375-395.
Dehghani, M.,Atran, Iliev, R., Sachdeva, S., Medin, D. & Ginges, J. (2010). Sacred values and conflicts over Iran's nuclear program. Judgment and Decision Making, 5, 540-546.
Medin, D. Bennis, W. & Chandler, M. (2010). The Home-field disadvantage. Perspectives on Psychological Science. 5(6), 708-713, doi: 10.1177/1745691610388772
Bang, M. & Medin, D. (2010). Cultural processes in science education: Supporting the navigation of multiple epistemologies. Science Education, online, DOI: 10.1002/sce.20392
Medin, D., Waxman, S., Woodring, J., & Washinawatok, K. (2010). Human-centeredness is not a universal feature of young children’s reasoning: Culture and experience matter when reasoning about biological entities. Cognitive Development. 25(3), 197-207.
Bennis, W., Medin, D., & Bartels, D. (2010). The costs and benefits of calculation and moral rules. Perspectives on Psychological Science. 5(2), 187-202.
Anggoro, F., Medin, D. & Waxman, S. (2010). Language and experience influence children’s biological induction. Journal of Cognition and Culture. 10, 171-187.
Herrmann, P., Waxman, S.R., & Medin, D.L. (2010). Anthropocentrism is not the first step in children's reasoning about the natural world. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 107 (22) 9979-9984.
