Leda Cosmides (born May 1957) is an American

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and explanation, interpretatio ...

, who, together with

anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...

husband

John Tooby John Tooby (July 26, 1952 – November 10, 2023) was an American anthropologist who, together with his psychologist wife Leda Cosmides, pioneered the field of evolutionary psychology. Biography Tooby received his PhD in Biological Anthropology ...

, pioneered the field of

evolutionary psychology Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach in psychology that examines cognition and behavior from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify human psychological adaptations with regard to the ancestral problems they evolved ...

Biography

Cosmides was born into a Greek family. Her parents, George Cosmides and Nasia Cosmides (

née The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...

Murlas), founded the St George Greek Orthodox Church in

Bethesda, Maryland Bethesda () is an unincorporated, census-designated place in southern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. Located just northwest of Washington, D.C., it is a major business and government center of the Washington metropolitan region ...

. Cosmides originally studied

biology Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that was founded in 1879. In 1999, it was fully incorporated into Harvard Colle ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, receiving her BA in 1979. While an undergraduate, she was influenced by the renowned evolutionary biologist Robert L. Trivers, who was her advisor. In 1985, Cosmides received a PhD in

cognitive psychology Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of human mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and reasoning. Cognitive psychology originated in the 1960s in a break from behaviorism, whi ...

from Harvard. After completing postdoctoral work under

Roger Shepard Roger Newland Shepard (January 30, 1929 – May 30, 2022) was an American cognitive science, cognitive scientist and author of the "universal law of generalization" (1987). He was considered a father of research on spatial relations. He studied m ...

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

, she joined the faculty of the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an ...

in 1991, becoming a full professor in 2000. In 1992, together with Tooby and Jerome Barkow, Cosmides edited '' The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture''. She and Tooby also co-founded and co-direct the Center for Evolutionary Psychology. Cosmides was awarded the 1988 American Association for the Advancement of Science Prize for Behavioral Science Research, the 1993

American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the main professional organization of psychologists in the United States, and the largest psychological association in the world. It has over 170,000 members, including scientists, educators, clin ...

Distinguished Scientific Award for an Early Career Contribution to Psychology, a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

, the 2005 National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award, and the 2020 Jean Nicod Prize. In 2023, she was elected to the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

Selected publications

Books *Barkow, J., Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J., (eds) (1992) ''The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture'' (New York: Oxford University Press). *Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L. (2000) ''Evolutionary psychology: Foundational papers'' (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). *Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J. (in press) ''Universal Minds: Explaining the new science of evolutionary psychology'' (Darwinism Today Series) (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson). Papers *Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J. (1981) Cytoplasmic inheritance and intragenomic conflict. ''Journal of Theoretical Biology'', 89, 83-129. *Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J. (1987) "From evolution to behavior: Evolutionary psychology as the missing link" in J. Dupre (ed.), ''The latest on the best: Essays on evolution and optimality'' (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press). *Cosmides, L. (1989) "The logic of social exchange: Has natural selection shaped how humans reason? Studies with the Wason selection task," ''Cognition'', 31, 187–276. *Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J. (1992) "Cognitive adaptations for social exchange," in Barkow, J., Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J., (eds) (1992) ''The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture'' (New York: Oxford University Press). *Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J. (2003) "Evolutionary psychology: Theoretical Foundations," in ''Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science'' (London: Macmillan). *Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L. (2005) "Evolutionary psychology: Conceptual foundations," in D. M. Buss (ed.), ''Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology'' (New York: Wiley). *

References

External links

Leda Cosmides's Website

Detailed CV

Center for Evolutionary Psychology
by Leda Cosmides & John Tooby

Barkow, Jerome H., Leda Cosmides, and John Tooby (eds), New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1992 {{DEFAULTSORT:Cosmides, Leda American women psychologists American cognitive psychologists Evolutionary psychologists Human Behavior and Evolution Society Stanford University alumni Harvard College alumni University of California, Santa Barbara faculty Scientists from Philadelphia Radcliffe College alumni 1957 births Living people Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences fellows Jean Nicod Prize laureates 21st-century American women scientists 21st-century American psychologists 20th-century American psychologists 20th-century American women scientists Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni

Biography

Selected publications

See also

References

External links