FIRST Fellow - Sarah Brosnan, Ph.D.



	Sarah Brosnan, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Psychology Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA

Education B.A., Biology, Baylor University, Waco, TX, 1998 Ph.D., Population Biology, Ecology and Evolution, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, 2004 FIRST Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Anthropology, Emory University, 2004-2007

Research Statement My main interests are the evolution of social behavior and social cognition, particularly the cognitive processes underlying cooperation and reciprocity and economic behavior. Specifically, I am interested in the proximate mechanisms underlying such behaviors, particularly how animals perceive the value of different commodities in their reciprocal interactions (i.e. goods and services exchanged within a biological market) and how the social environment affects the acquisition and use of such a concept of value. I am currently working on a number of different projects in both humans and nonhuman primates (particularly chimpanzees) in an effort to understand more about the evolution of cooperative and economic behavior across the primate lineage.

Current Funding Funding Agency: NSF/SES (Division of Social and Ecomonic Sciences) Project Title: CAREER: Understanding Responses to Inequitable Outcomes in Non-Human Primates Project Period: 7/01/2009 - 6/30/2014 Total Award: $677,462 See: Notice of Award Funding Agency: NSF/SES (Division of Social and Ecomonic Sciences) Project Title: Collaborative Research: Understanding Strategic Economic Interactions Through Cross-Species Analysis Project Period: 10/01/07 - 9/30/2010 Total Award: $514,658 See: Notice of Award


Recent Publications Brosnan, S.F., Newton-Fisher, N.E., Vugt, M.V. (2009) A Melding of the Minds: When Primatology Meets Personality and Social Psychology. Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2009 Apr 28. [Epub ahead of print] Brosnan, S.F., Silk, J.B., Henrich, J., Mareno, M.C., Lambeth, S.P., Schapiro, S.J. (2009) Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) do not develop contingent reciprocity in an experimental task. Anim Cogn. 2009 Mar 4. [Epub ahead of print] Brosnan, S.F. (2009) Animal behavior: the right tool for the job. Curr Biol. 19(3):R124-5. Review. Brosnan, S.F., Grady, M.F., Lambeth, S.P., Schapiro, S.J., Beran, M.J. (2008) Chimpanzee autarky. PLoS ONE. 3(1):e1518. Brosnan, S.F. (2007) Our social roots. Nature. 450(7173):1160-1161. van Wolkenten, M., Brosnan, S.F., de Waal, F.B. (2007) Inequity responses of monkeys modified by effort. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 104(47):18854-9. Brosnan, S.F., Jones, O.D., Lambeth, S.P., Mareno, M.C., Richardson, A.S., Schapiro, S.J. (2007) Endowment effects in chimpanzees. Curr Biol. 17(19):1704-7. Brosnan, S. F., Freeman, C., and de Waal, F. B. M. (2006) Partner's behavior, not reward distribution, determines success in an unequal cooperative task in capuchin monkeys. Am J Primatol. 68(7):713-24. Brosnan, S. F. and de Waal, F. B. M. (2006) Partial support for a non-replication: Commentary on Roma, Silberberg, Ruggiero, and Suomi. Journal of Comparative Psychology 120(1): 74-75. Silk, J. B., Brosnan, S. F., Vonk, J., Henrich, J., Povinelli, D., Richardson, L., Susan, A., Mascaro, Jenny, and Shapiro, Steve. (2006) Animal Behavior: Chimpanzee choice and prosociality (Reply). Nature 440: E6. Brosnan, S. F. (2006) An exploration of culture: Review of “The cultured Chimpanzee: Reflections on cultural primatology” by William McGrew. American Journal of Primatology 68: 425-427. Silk, J. B., Brosnan, S. F., Vonk, J., Henrich, J., Povinelli, D., Richardson, L., Susan, A., Mascaro, J., and Shapiro, S. (2005) Chimpanzees are indifferent to the welfare of unrelated group members. Nature 437: 1357-1359.. Chapters, Reviews and Commentaries Brosnan, S. F., (2007) Fairness and Other-regarding Preferences in Nonhuman Primates. In: MORAL MARKETS: THE CRITICAL ROLE OF VALUES IN THE ECONOMY, Paul J. Zak, ed., Princeton University Press, Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=928966. de Waal, F. B. M. and Brosnan, S. F. (2006) Simple and complex social reciprocity in monkeys and apes. In: Cooperation in Primates and Humans: Mechanisms and Evolution. ed. Peter Kappeler & Carel van Schaik. Springer Press. Brosnan, Sarah F. and de Waal, F.B.M. (2005) A cross-species perspective on the selfishness axiom. Behav. Brain Sci. 28(6):818, Commentary. Brosnan, Sarah F. (2004) A sense of fairness in monkeys. In The Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior (ed. Marc Bekoff). Greenwood Press.

Georgia State University Department of Psychology Language Research Center P.O. Box 5010 Atlanta, GA 30302-5010 Tel: 404.413.6300 Fax: 404.413.6207 Email: sbrosnan@gsu.edu Lab webpage: http://www2.gsu.edu/cebuslab Personal webpage: http://www2.gsu.edu/sbrosnan

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