hello! my name is min yeshara feldman & i'm a third-year student studying psychology, cognitive science, and religion at ohio state.

my coursework & research experiences focus in social cognition and development.

broadly, i am interested in understanding children's intuitive theories about morality, science, religion, economics, political thought, justice and punishment, and other ways they learn to think as adults do. i am also interested in how imaginative play facilitates the development and sophistication of these theories.

i hope to research child development, particularly how children form intuitive theories about social institutions (e.g., economy, governing and legal systems, religion) and how those theories are maintained or revised throughout the lifespan. research tells us children demonstrate social preferences for resource-rich individuals (ahl & dunham, 2019), punish moral transgressors more harshly versus other rule-breakers (bregant, 2017), and have a tendency to attribute agency, design, and stories to even the vaguest of actors (heider & simmel, 1944; boyer, 2001). i’d like to know how these early intuitions form larger frameworks underlying how children choose to cooperate with and operate within social institutions they don’t yet understand — agreeing to trade and barter fairly on the playground, sit in timeout when they’ve done something wrong, or go to church even if they can’t grasp a God. children are typically told, not asked, to participate in these social contracts, and they most often cooperate without question (with exceptions). why is this? is it blind trust in authority, or are children operating under a more nuanced understanding that communities and societies function when individuals feel morally obligated to one another through cooperation and rule-following?

previously, i have been an undergraduate researcher at the ohio state language perception lab and a visiting undergraduate researcher at the harvard laboratory for developmental studies, where i continue to collaborate on ongoing projects.

in my free time, i love to read and write fiction, play the piano, watch studio ghibli movies, pick up new skills and projects (this website being one of them), and go on bookstore-coffeeshop crawls (favorite boston bookstore, brookline booksmith; favorite columbus bookstore, german village book loft. favorite boston coffeeshop, cicada coffee bar; favorite columbus coffeeshop, fox in the snow).

inquiries, feldman.307@osu.edu