Kristin Shutts
Ph.D., Harvard University
Assistant Professor, Psychology

Contact Information:
Office phone: (608) 265-8949
Lab phone: (608) 263-5853
Email: kshutts@wisc.edu
Website for Parents
Website for Students and Researchers

Research Statement

My research interests lie in the origins of object cognition and social cognition. I have a long-standing interest in how infants and children perceive and categorize objects, as well as a more recent, and now primary, interest in how infants and children apprehend their social world.

I am particularly interested in the development of social categories and preferences in infancy and early childhood. When do children come to see themselves and others as belonging to different social categories (e.g., gender, ethnicity, social class), which distinctions matter most to children, and how does this change over development and a result of immersion in a particular culture? What mechanisms support the development of social categories and preferences, and what are the cognitive and affective consequences of children's earliest social category formation?

Representative Publications

Shutts, K., Banaji, M.R., & Spelke, E.S. (in press). Social categories guide young childrens preferences for novel objects. Developmental Science.

Shutts, K., Kinzler, K.D., McKee, C.B., & Spelke, E.S. (2009). Social information guides infants selection of foods. Journal of Cognition and Development, 10, 1-17.

Shutts, K., Condry, K., Santos, L.R., & Spelke, E.S. (2009). Core knowledge and its limits: The domain of food. Cognition, 112, 120-140.

Kinzler, K.D., Shutts, K., DeJesus, J., & Spelke, E.S. (2009). Accent trumps race in guiding childrens social preferences. Social Cognition, 27, 623-634.

Shutts, K., & Kinzler, K.D. (2007). An ambiguous-race illusion in childrens face memory. Psychological Science, 18, 763-767.