Quentin Douglas Atkinson

I am a Professor in the School of Psychology at the University of Auckland, where I also co-direct the Behavioural Insights Exchange, and an affiliate of the Centre for Social Cohesion in the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography at the University of Oxford. I use lab and field experiments, computer modelling and evolutionary theory to shed light on the evolution of human culture and cognition. This work answers questions including the origins of linguistic diversity, the function of religion, the psychology of climate change, how evolved cognitive biases shape our social behaviour and why political systems vary the way they do around the globe. My research is inherently interdisciplinary, drawing on psychology, evolutionary biology, linguistics, anthropology and behavioural economics.