Dr. J. Kiley Hamlin (she/her) is a Professor of Psychology at the University of British Columbia, and formerly held 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 on the editorial boards of Infancy, Cognitive Development, Child Development Perspectives, and Cognition, and is the Communications Chair for the International Congress for Infant Studies.

Dr. Hamlin runs the Centre for Infant Cognition at UBC and is a member of the Early Development Research Group, a consortium of seven research centers interested in the development of language, learning, and social understanding in infants and children.

My research focuses on the role of evaluative processes in our everyday cognitions about the world. In particular, I examine 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. I examine 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.

Dr. Hamlin’s secondary research area is Social/Personality.

Tsoi, L., Hamlin, J. K., Waytz, A., Baron, A. S., Young, L. (2021). A cooperation advantage for theory of mind in children and adults. Social Cognition, 39(1), 19-40. https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.2021.39.1.19

Byers-Heinlein, K., …Hamlin, J.K. … (2021). A multi-lab study of bilingual infants: Exploring the preference for infant-directed speech. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 4(1), 1-30. https://doi.org/10.1177/2515245920974622

Byers-Heinlein, K., Bergmann, C., Davies, C., Frank, M.C., Hamlin, J.K., Kline, M., Kominsky, J.F., Kosie, J.E., Lew-Williams, C., Liu, L., Mastroberardino, M., Singh, L., Waddell, C.P.G., Zettersten, M., & Soderstrom, M. (2020). Building a collaborative Psychological Science: Lessons Learned from ManyBabies 1. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie Canadienne, 61(4), 349-363. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dmhk2

Tan, E., Mikami, A. Y., Luzhanska, A., & Hamlin, J. K. (2020). The homogeneity and heterogeneity of moral functioning in preschool. Child Development. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13458

Koenig, M.K., Tiberius, V., & Hamlin, J.K. (2019). Children’s Judgments of Epistemic and Moral Agents: From Situations to Intentions. Perspectives on Psychological Science.

Van de Vondervoort, J. W., & Hamlin, J. K. (2018). Preschoolers focus on others’ intentions when forming sociomoral judgments. Frontiers in Psychology, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01851

Steckler, C.M., Liberman, Z., Van de Vondervoort, J.W., Slevinsky, J., Le, D.T., & Hamlin, J.K. (2018). Feeling out a link between feeling and infant sociomoral evaluation. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 36(3), 482-500. doi: 10.1111/bjdp.12232.

Hamlin, J. K., & Van de Vondervoort, J. W. (2018). Infants’ and young children’s preferences for prosocial over antisocial others. Human Development, Online first: DOI:10.1159/000492800

Tan, E., Mikami, A., & Hamlin, J.K. (2018). Do infant sociomoral evaluation and action studies predict preschool social and behavioral adjustment? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 176, 39-54. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2018.07.003

Steckler, C.M., Liberman, Z., Van de Vondervoort, J.W., Slevinsky, J., Le, D., & Hamlin, J.K. (2018). Feeling out a link between feeling and infant sociomoral evaluation. British Journal of Developmental Psychology. doi: 10.1111/bjdp.12232

Van de Vondervoort, J.W., Aknin, L.A., Kushnir, T., Slevinsky, J., & Hamlin, J.K. (2018). Selectivity in Toddlers’ Behavioral and Emotional Reactions to Prosocial and Antisocial Others. Developmental Psychology, 54(1), 1-14. doi: 10.1037/dev0000404

 Van de Vondervoort, J. W., & Hamlin, J. K. (2018). The early emergence of sociomoral evaluation: Infants prefer prosocial others. Current Opinion in Psychology, 20, 77-81. doi: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.08.014

Aknin, L. B., Van de Vondervoort, J. W., & Hamlin, J. K. (2018). Positive feelings reward and promote prosocial behavior. Current Opinion in Psychology, 20, 55-59. doi: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.08.017

Pun, A., Ferera, M., Diesendruck, G., Hamlin, J.K., & Baron, A. S. (2018). Foundations of infants’ social group evaluations. Developmental Science, 21(3), e12586. doi: 10.1111/desc.12586

Steckler, C.M., Hamlin, J.K., Miller, M., King, D., Kingstone, A. (2017). Moral judgment by the disconnected left and right cerebral hemispheres: A split-brain investigation. Royal Society Open Science, 4(7): 170172. doi: 10.1098/rsos.170172

Hamlin, J.K. (2017). Is psychology moving in the right direction? An analysis of the evidentiary value movement. Perspectives on Psychological Science. 12(4), 690-693. doi: 10.1177/1745691616689062

Van de Vondervoort, J. W., & Hamlin, J. K. (2017). Preschoolers’ social and moral judgments of third-party helpers and hinderers align with infants’ social evaluations. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 164, 136-151.

Woo, B. M., Steckler, C. M., Le, D. T., & Hamlin, J. K. (2017). Social Evaluation of Intentional, Truly Accidental, and Negligently Accidental Helpers and Harmers by 10-months-old Infants. Cognition, 168, 154-163. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2017.06.029

Pun, A., Ferera, M., Diesendruck, G., Hamlin, J.K., & Baron, A. S. (2017). Foundations of Infants’ Social Group Evaluations. Developmental Science. doi: 10.1111/desc.12586

Steckler, C.M., Woo, B.M., & Hamlin, J.K. (2017).The limits of early social evaluation: 9-month-olds fail to generate social evaluations of individuals who behave inconsistently. Cognition. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2017.03.018

Eason, A.*, Hamlin, J.K.*, Sommerville, J.* (2017).A Survey of Common Practices in Infancy Research: Description of Policies, Consistency Across and Within Labs, and Suggestions for Improvements.Infancy. doi: 10.1111/infa.12183  *All authors contributed equally

Zhao, W., Baron, A.S., & Hamlin, J.K. (in press). Using Behavioral Consensus To Learn About Social Conventions In Early Childhood. Frontiers in Psychology.

Van de Vondervoort, J. & Hamlin, J.K. (2016). Evidence for intuitive morality: preverbal infants make sociomoral evaluations. Child Development Perspectives. DOI: 10.1111/cdep.12175.

Steckler, C.M., & Hamlin, J.K. (2016). ‘Theories of moral development’. In H. Miller (Ed.) Encyclopedia of theory in psychology. Sage Reference. Submission 9 pages

Van de Vondervoort, J.W., & Hamlin, J.K. (in press). The infantile roots of sociomoral evaluations. In K. Gray & J. Graham (Eds.), The atlas of moral psychology. New York: Guilford Press. Submission 26 pages.

Aknin, L.A., Broesch, T., Hamlin, J.K., & Van de Vondervoort, J.W. (2015). Prosocial behaviour leads to happiness in a small-scale society. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 144(4), 788-95.doi:10.1037/xge0000082

Hamlin, J.K. (2015). The case for social evaluation in preverbal infants: Gazing toward one’s goal drives infants’ preferences for Helpers over Hinderers in the hill paradigm. Frontiers in Psychology, 5:1563. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01563

Van de Vondervoort, J.W., & Hamlin, J.K. (2015). Commentary: Young children remedy second- and third- party ownership. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2015.07.006.

Hamlin, J.K., & Steckler, C.M. (2015). The moral infant: On the roots of moral reasoning and behavior in the first two years, in Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. R. Scott & S. Kosslyn (Eds.), Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons. Submission 9 pages.

Hamlin, J.K. (2015). The infantile origins of our moral brains. In J. Decety & T. Wheatley (Eds.), The moral brain: A multidisciplinary perspective. Pp 105-122. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Hamlin, J.K. (2015). Does the infant possess a moral concept?. In E. Margolis & S. Laurence (Eds.), The Conceptual Mind: New Directions in the Study of Concepts. Pp 477-518. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Aknin, L.B., Fleerackers, A. L., & Hamlin, J. K. (2014). Can third-party observers detect the emotional rewards of generous spending? Journal of Positive Psychology, 9(3): 198 – 203. doi: 10.1080/17439760.2014.888578.

Earp, B. D., Everett, J.A.C., Madva, E. N., & Hamlin, J.K. (2014). Out, damned spot: Can the “MacBeth Effect” be replicated? Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 36: 91-98. DOI: 10.1080/01973533.2013.856792.

Hamlin, J.K. (2014). Context-dependent social evaluation in 4.5-month-old human infants: The role of domain-general versus domain-specific processes in the development of social evaluation. Frontiers in Psychology, 5: 614. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00614

Hamlin, J.K., & Baron, A.S. (2014). Agency attribution in infancy: Evidence for a negativity bias. PLoS ONE, 9(5): e96112. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0096112

Hamlin, J.K. (2014). The conceptual and empirical case for social evaluation in infancy: Commentary on Tafreshi, D., Thompson, J.J., & Racine, T.P. (2014). An analysis of the conceptual foundations of the infant preferential looking paradigm. Human Development, 57(4), 250-258. DOI:10.1159/000365120.

Hamlin, J.K. (2014). Moral Blank Slate-ism. For Edge.org’s annual question, 2014: What scientific idea is in need of retirement? DOI: http://edge.org/annual-question/what-scientific-idea-is-ready-for-retirement

Hamlin, J.K. (2013). The origins of human morality: Complex sociomoral evaluations by preverbal infants. In J. Decety, & Y. Christen (Eds.), Research and Perspectives in Neurosciences. Pp 165-188. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.

Hamlin, J.K. (2013a). Moral judgment and action in preverbal infants and toddlers: Evidence for an innate moral core. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 22(3): 186 – 193. doi: 10.1177/0963721412470687

Hamlin, J.K. (2013b). Failed attempts to help and harm: Intention versus outcome in preverbal infants’ social evaluations. Cognition, 128(3): 451 – 474. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2013.04.004

Hamlin, J.K., Mahajan, N., Liberman, Z. & Wynn, K. (2013). Not like me = bad: Infants prefer those who harm dissimilar others. Psychological Science, 24(4): 589 – 594. doi:10.1177/09056797612457785

Hamlin, J.K., Ullman, T., Tenenbaum, J., Goodman, N., & Baker, C. (2013). The mentalistic basis of core social cognition: experiments in preverbal infants and a computational model. Developmental Science, 16(2): 209 – 226. doi: 10.1111/desc.12017

Hamlin, J.K., Wynn, K., & Bloom, P. (2012). ‘Nuanced social evaluation: Association doesn’t compute. In response to Scarf, D., Imuta, K., Colombo, M., & Hayne, H. (2012). The golden rule or valence matching? Methodological problems in Hamlin et. al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), 109(22), E1427.

Hamlin, J.K., Wynn, K., & Bloom, P. (2012). The case for social evaluation in infants. Response to Scarf, D., Imuta, K., Colombo, M., & Hayne, H. (2012). Social evaluation or simple association? Simple associations may explain moral reasoning in infants. Public Library of Science (PLoS ONE), http://www.plosone.org/annotation/listThread.action?root=52853.

Aknin, L.B., Hamlin, J.K., & Dunn, E. W. (2012). Giving leads to happiness in young children. PLoS ONE, 7(6): e39211. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0039211.

Hamlin, J.K., & Wynn, K. (2012). Who knows what’s good to eat? Infants fail to match the food preferences of antisocial others. Cognitive Development, 27(3): 227 – 239. doi: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2012.05.005.

Hamlin, J.K. (2012). A developmental perspective on the moral dyad: A commentary on Gray, K., Young, L. & Waytz, A. (2012). The moral dyad: A fundamental template unifying moral judgment. Psychological Inquiry, 23(2), 166 – 171.

Hamlin, J.K., Wynn, K., Bloom, P., & Mahajan, N. (2011). How infants and toddlers react to antisocial others. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), 108(5): 19931 – 19936. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1110306108

Hamlin, J.K. & Wynn, K. (2011). Young infants prefer prosocial to antisocial others. Cognitive Development, 26(1): 30 – 39. doi: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2010.09.001

Hamlin, J.K., Wynn, K., Bloom, P. (2010). 3-month-olds show a negativity bias in social evaluation. Developmental Science, 13(6): 923 – 939. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2010.00951.x

Hamlin, J.K., Newman, G. E., & Wynn, K. (2009). 8-month-old infants infer unfulfilled goals, despite ambiguous physical evidence. Infancy. 14(5): 579 – 590. doi: 10.1080/15250000903144215

Hamlin, J.K., Hallinan, E.V., & Woodward, A.L. (2008). Do as I do: 7-month old infants selectively reproduce others’ goals. Developmental Science. 11(4): 487 – 494. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00694.x

Hamlin, J.K., Wynn,K., & Bloom, P. (2008) Social evaluation by preverbal infants. Pediatric Research, 63(3), 219 – 219.

Hamlin, J.K., Wynn, K., & Bloom, P. (2007). Social evaluation by preverbal infants. Nature, 450: 557 – 559. doi:10.1038/nature06288

• Canada Research Chair (2011-2021)
• Society for Philosophy and Psychology Stanton Prize (2018)
• Killam Faculty Research Prize (2015)
• APS Rising Star Award (2015)
• APS Rising Star Award (2015)
• APS Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformational Early Career Contributions to Psychological Science (2014)
• Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies – Early Career Scholar (2012)
• International Congress for Infant Studies Dissertation Prize (2012)