About this Fellow
Andrew Whiten is Emeritus Wardlaw Professor of Evolutionary and Developmental Psychology in the School of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of St Andrews, and is past and founding Director of the Centre for Social Learning and Cultural Evolution. His research interests focus on social cognition, in the last two decades particularly the topics of social learning, traditions and the evolution of culture. These topics are pursued through interdisciplinary approaches that incorporate ethological and experimental studies of a wide range of non-human primates as well as humans, especially children. He was elected a Fellow of the international Cognitive Science Society in 2013 (~100 Fellows worldwide). He has been awarded the Rivers Medal of the Royal Anthropological Institute and the Osman Hill Medal of the Primate Society of Great Britain, and is the first and only scientist to receive both the senior life sciences prize of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the James Black Medal, and its Senior Prize and Medal for Public Engagement. He was the senior author of the proceedings of the joint British Academy and Royal Society meeting, "Culture Evolves", in 2011, and from 2011-2013 chaired the Academy's main Research Awards Committee.
Appointments
Current post
- Professor of Evolutionary and Developmental Psychology and Wardlaw Professor, University of St Andrews
Past Appointments
- Lecturer, Reader in Psychology, Professor of Evolutionary and Developmental Psychology, University of St Andrews, 1970
- Emeritus Wardlaw Professor of Evolutionary and Developmental Psychology, University of St Andrews, 1970
- Professor of Evolutionary and Developmental Psychology and Wardlaw Professor, University of St Andrews, University of St Andrews, 1997
Publications
Potent social learning and conformity shape a wild primate’s foraging decisions. Science, 6131, 483-5. 2013
The human socio-cognitive niche and its evolutionary origins. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 367 2119-2129. 2012
Experimental studies illuminate the cultural transmission of percussive technology in Homo and Pan. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 370, 20140359. 2015
Cultures in chimpanzees Nature, 399, 682-5. 1999
Other Psychology Fellows
Professor Ann Phoenix
Social identities; psychosocial processes; parenting practices and everyday family lives; intersectionality; young people; racialisation, ethnicity and gender; narrative research and mixed methods
Professor Francesca Happé
Typical and atypical socio-cognitive development, with particular focus on impairments and assets in autism spectrum disorder
Professor Oliver Braddick
Visual perception and its development in early childhood; in particular, spatial, motion, binocular vision, and vision for action, and their underlying brain mechanisms in typical development and developmental disorders
Professor Chris Brewin
Clinical psychology; phenomenology, diagnosis, neural basis, & treatment of depression & post-traumatic stress disorder; psychological care following major incidents
