Malinda Carpenter,Ph.D, FRSE is a professor of developmental psychology at the University of St Andrews, an international researcher specialising in infant and child communications,[1] prosocial behaviour and group reactions, in how people learn to understand others, and building self esteem;[2] her work includes research between ape and human social cognition,[3] and more recently in considering human-robotic communication futures.
Her studies have formed part of international research bases, cited for psychology and developmental behavioural themes, such as Her earlier experiments were described in detail so they could be replicated.
[29] Her international interests in 2017 extended to bilingualism in young children,[30] and she was nominated by the students union in St. Andrew's for a 2019 Teaching Awards and shortlisted as a finalist for her academic mentorship.
[33] She was interviewed in the Greater Good podcast, from Berkeley on how her experiment on using familiar objects and dolls positioning, to see if they influenced children's behaviour towards acting helpfully to adults.
The series 2 episode 4 Relationships was described as 'A coy smile, a puppet show and a pointed finger lead to discoveries in how babies get along with others using humor, morality and shared experiences', and featured Carpenter's team's studies.