Shuai Shao, Ph.D. | 邵率

Hello! I am Shuai Shao (he/him), a final-year Ph.D. student (defended on April 29th, 2026!) in Psychology at UC San Diego. I am a social-developmental psychologist interested in how people perceive the complex social world, with a major focus on economic and moral socialization.

For example, how do children reason about social inequality and distribution systems? How do children judge prosocial lies? I take developmental, evolutionary, and cross-cultural approaches to answer these questions.

I feel honored to work in Dr. Gail Heyman's Social Cognitive Developmental Lab. I am also affiliated with Dr. Michael McCullough's Center for Research on Experimental Evolutionary Psychology (CREEP). Before joining UC San Diego, I worked as a lab manager at Tsinghua University Child Cognition Center (PI: Dr. Stella Christie) and as Mitacs Gloabalink Research Fellow at UBC Child & Teen Studies Lab (PI: Dr. Cathrine Ann Cameron). I earned my M.A. from the University of Chicago and B.S. from Beijing Normal University. 

I am fortunate to be funded by the Rita L. Atkinson Interdisciplinary Fellowship in 2025-2026. I am joining Dr. Katherine McAuliffe's Cooperation Lab at Boston College in Summer 2026!

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