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Pat Barclay
Program
About your research...
My research expertise is on human cooperation, the evolutionary reasons for its existence, and the psychological mechanisms that underlie cooperative action. In particular, I investigate the importance of reputation within human social relationships, including competition over a reputation for generosity (i.e., competitive altruism), and how people signal their cooperative intent to others. This research draws from evolutionary biology, animal behaviour, social psychology, cognitive psychology, experimental economics, and mathematical game theory.
How does your research "Improve Life"?
Why do people help one another, and under what circumstances does it pay for them to do so? The better we understand the incentives for cooperation, the better we are at creating situations that will foster cooperation, promote moral behaviour, and decrease antisocial behaviour. This is what my research seeks to uncover: why does cooperation evolve, what incentives make cooperation work, and how can we harness this knowledge to Improve Life?
Why choose to pursue studies in Psychology at UofG?
Are you interested in understanding the evolutionary basis of behaviour? Do you want to know why natural selection can result in people helping one another? Students in my lab learn evolutionary theory - an incredibly powerful means of generating testable predictions - and how to test their hypotheses with rigorous experimental methods.