Kiley Hamlin

Dr. J. Kiley Hamlin is an Associate Professor of Psychology at UBC, and holds a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Developmental Psychology. She received her doctorate from Yale University in 2010, and her undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago in 2005. Her work explores the earliest developmental origins of the human moral sense, by examining precursors to moral cognition and action in preverbal infants. She is currently an Associate Editor at Cognition, and on the editorial boards of Developmental Psychology, Child Development Perspectives, and Perspectives on Psychological Science.

Hamlin is also part of the Early Development Research Group, a consortium of six research centres interested in the development of language, learning, and social understanding in infants and children. Her research focuses on the role of evaluative processes in our everyday cognitions about the world. In particular, she examines our tendency to judge individuals’ actions as good or bad, as deserving of reward or punishment, and as morally praiseworthy or blameworthy, asking whether and how these social and moral evaluations influence our understanding of others’ future acts, their mental states, and their underlying personalities. She examines these questions using preverbal infants and young toddlers, in order to study the foundational origins of these processes before complex cognitive abilities (such as language and inhibitory control) fully develop, and prior to extensive influence from cultural norms and values. She is the recipient of numerous awards including Canada Research Chair (2011-2021), Society for Philosophy and Psychology Stanton Prize (2018), and the Killam Faculty Research Prize (2015).