Dr Alejandro Sanchez Amaro

Lecturer in Psychology

Psychology Cottrell Building Room 3B144c, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Natural Sciences

Dr Alejandro Sanchez Amaro

Contact details

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http://www.stir.ac.uk/people/alejandrosanchezamaro

About me

I studied Biology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and an MSc in Primatology at the Universitat de Barcelona. In 2014, I obtained a "la Caixa" Fellowship to conduct my PhD in the Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology under the supervision of Prof. Michael Tomasello and Prof. Josep Call. After I graduated in 2017, I moved to the University of California San Diego with a DAAD Fellowship to conduct my first postdoc in Prof. Federico Rossano's lab in the Cognitive Science Department. In 2019, I visited the University of Zurich as a postdoc guest in the Anthropology Department, where I collaborated with Prof. Judith Burkart. In 2021 I joined the Comparative Cultural Psychology Department led by Prof. Daniel Haun at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Psychology, where I held my second postdoc. I joined the University of Stirling as a lecturer in Psychology at the beginning of 2024.

Research

My work focuses on human and non-human primates resolving social dilemmas in which their individual interests do not align with the group interest. To do so, I have presented the participants with game theory settings resembling some of the most influential games, such as The Prisoner's Dilemma.

Besides my work on social dilemmas, I have recently become interested in how social factors such as bonding and dominance influence cognitive outcomes in great apes--and vice versa: how apes' experiences in comparative cognitive paradigms may influence their group dynamics.

Finally, I am generally interested in several other topics, including curiosity, risk-taking, and cognitive fallacies such as the decoy effect.

Outputs (27)

Outputs

Article

Responsible Research is also concerned with generalizability: Recognizing efforts to reflect upon and increase generalizability in hiring and promotion decisions in psychology

Stengelin R, Bohn M, Sánchez-Amaro A, Haun DBM, Thiele M, Daum MM, Felsche E, Fong FTK, Gampe A, Giner Torréns M, Grueneisen S, Hardecker D, Horn L, Neldner K, Pope-Caldwell S & Schuhmacher N (2024) Responsible Research is also concerned with generalizability: Recognizing efforts to reflect upon and increase generalizability in hiring and promotion decisions in psychology. Sanchez Amaro A (Researcher) Meta-Psychology, 8. https://doi.org/10.15626/mp.2023.3695

Article

Functional fixedness in chimpanzees

Ebel SJ, Völter CJ, Sánchez-Amaro A, Helming KA, Herrmann E & Call J (2023) Functional fixedness in chimpanzees. Sanchez Amaro A (Researcher) Scientific Reports, 14 (1), Art. No.: 12155. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-62685-w

Article

The evolution of primate short-term memory

Primates M, Aguenounon G, Allritz M, Altschul D, Ballesta S, Beaud A, Bohn M, Bornbusch S, Brandão A, Brooks J, Buhnyar T, Burkart J, Bustamente L, Call J & Canteloup C (2022) The evolution of primate short-term memory. Animal Behavior and Cognition, 9, pp. 428-516. https://doi.org/10.26451/abc.09.04.06.2022

Research centres/groups