David F. Bjorklund

Professor
Ph.D. UNC-Chapel Hill '76
Research Area: Evolutionary, Developmental, Cognitive

Editor, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jecp



Contact Information:
Office: 112 Behavioral Science
Telephone: (561) 297-3367
Fax: (561) 297-2160
E-mail: dbjorklu@fau.edu

General Research Interests

David Bjorklund's research interests are in the areas of cognitive development and evolutionary developmental psychology. Research projects conducted in his lab include the use of simple arithmetic strategies while playing a board game ("Chutes and Ladders"), as well as how parents interact with children during such games to facilitate children's mathematical performance; children's developing afterlife beliefs; sex differences in the relationship between tool use and style of play in preschool children; factors associated with children's utilization deficiencies (using strategies but not benefiting from them) on arithmetic and memory tasks; the development of deferred imitation in juvenile chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus); and the role of enculturation (human-rearing) on the cognitive development of great apes. Related scholarly interests include issues of the possible role of development in human cognitive evolution and the establishment of evolutionary developmental psychology as a subdiscipline within psychology.

Representative Publications

Ellis, B. J., & Bjorklund, D. F. (Eds.) (2005). Origins of the social mind: Evolutionary psychology and child development. New York: Guilford.

Bjorklund, D. F., & Bering, J. M. (2003). A note on the development of deferred imitation in enculturated juvenile chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Developmental Review, 23, 389-412.

Bering, J. M., & Bjorklund, D. F. (2004). The natural emergence of afterlife reasoning as a developmental regularity. Developmental Psychology, 40, 217-233.

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