Shuai Shao | 邵率

Hello! I am Shuai Shao (he/him), a sixth-year Ph.D student 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 actively seeking postdoctoral opportunities (in developmental, social, and cognitive psychology; cognitive science; and education), starting in 2025. I would love to connect and chat!

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