Dr. Baker has interests in understanding how the ability to think about social situations influences the way people behave in social situations, given their changing capacity to form judgments and decisions as people grow. In particular, her focus is on behavior outcomes such as aggression and pro-sociality. Dr. Baker examines this within two general age levels: early childhood and adolescence; these are two ages at which thinking of social understanding develops quite rapidly. She is also interested in how parent-child relationships influence this developing decision-making process, and the influence of parenting behaviors on children’s cognition in general.
