Debra Lieberman
Professor
Assistant Chair for Academic Affairs (Psychology Department)
Psychological Sciences Faculty
Education
| 2003 | Ph.D. Psychology, University of California Santa Barbara |
| 1995 | B.S. Biochemistry, SUNY Binghamton |
Professional Experience
| 2018 - | Editor-in-Chief, Evolution and Human Behavior |
| 2008 - | Faculty, University of Miami |
| 2003 - 2008 | Faculty, University of Hawaii |
Research
Currently, my research focuses on social relationships (e.g., kinship and friendships) and emotions, most notably disgust and its relationship with morality, law, and psychopathology. I also investigate the evolved function of gratitude. In my research I generate and test information-processing models that begin with a consideration of the selection pressures that forged our psychology over human evolutionary history. When possible, I seek to test these models in diverse cultural settings, in humans young and old, and by using various behavioral, cognitive, and neuroscientific methods.Publications
Lieberman, D. & Patrick, C. (2018). Objection: Disgust, Morality and the Law. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/objection-9780190491291?cc=us&lang=en&
Billingsley, J., Boos, B., & Lieberman, D. (in press). What evidence is required to determine whether infants infer the genetic relatedness of third parties? A commentary on Spokes and Spelke (2017). Cognition.
Lieberman, D., Billingsley, J., & Patrick, C. (2018). Consumption, contact, and copulation: How pathogens have shaped human psychological adaptations. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, B: Biological Sciences, 373: 20170203.
Billingsley, J., Lieberman, D., & Tybur, J. (2018). Sexual disgust trumps pathogen disgust in predicting voter behavior during the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. Evolutionary Psychology April-June, 1-15.
Patrick, C. & Lieberman, D. (2017). Not from a wicked heart: Testing the assumptions of the provocation doctrine. Nevada Law Journal, 18(1), 33-59.
Smith, A., Pedersen, E., Forster, D., McCullough, M.E., & Lieberman, D. (2017). Cooperation: The roles of interpersonal value and gratitude. Evolution and Human Behavior, 38, 695-703.
Lieberman, D., & Patrick, C. (2014). Are the behavioral immune system and pathogen disgust identical? Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, 8, 244-250.
Lieberman, D. & Billingsley, W.J. (2016). Kinship and cooperation. Current Opinions in Psychology, 7, 57-60.
Tybur, J., Lieberman, D., Kurzban, R., & DeScioli, P. (2013). Disgust: Evolved function and structure. Psychological Review, 120, 65-84.
Lieberman, D. & Lobel, T. (2012). Kinship on the Kibbutz: Coresidence duration predicts altruism, personal sexual aversions, and moral attitudes among communally reared peers. Evolution and Human Behavior, 33, 26-34.
Oum, R. E., Lieberman, D., & Aylward, A. (2011). A feel for disgust: Tactile cues to pathogen presence. Cognition and Emotion, 25, 717-725.
Lieberman, D., Pillsworth, E. G., & Haselton, M. G. (2011). Kin affiliation across the ovulatory cycle: Females avoid fathers when fertile. Psychological Science, 22, 13-18.
Tybur, J., Lieberman, D., & Griskevicius, V. (2009). Microbes, mating, and morality: Individual differences in three functional domains of disgust. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97, 103-122.
Schaich Borg, J., Lieberman, D., & Kiehl, K. A. (2008). Infection, incest, and iniquity: Investigating the neural correlates of disgust and morality. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20, 1529-1546.
Lieberman, D., Tooby, J., & Cosmides, L. (2007). The architecture of human kin detection. Nature, 445 (7129), 727-731.
