Jasmine DeJesus, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Department of Psychology

University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Email: jmdejes2@uncg.edu

Website: https://www.devculturehealth.com/

Research Interests and Goals:

Dr. DeJesus’ research broadly investigates the development of social cognition. Her research employs both experimental and observational methods to examine to study questions such as (1) how children’s attitudes and knowledge states change (or do not change) across development; (2) how children’s social and cultural experiences shape their choices and attitudes; and (3) how developmental science methods can be leveraged to study health outcomes and promote child/family health and well-being. She is especially interested in examining children’s social reasoning in the context of food. The domain of food provides particularly interesting opportunities to examine questions about social learning and cultural group membership and to consider the implications of basic research for pressing public health issues. DeJesus’ research on food is situated within a broader interest in understanding the development of cultural cognition. She has studied the development of social categorization and social biases (particularly in regard to language and nationality), how ideals about fairness and resource distribution develop, and how early social cognition may differ across diverse socio-cultural contexts. Her research has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Child Development, Developmental Science, Developmental Psychology, and the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, and has been funded by the National Science Foundation, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the American Heart Association.