Published May 01, 2015
Dr. Kilian Garvey, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Louisiana
at Monroe, delivered four research presentations at the 9th Annual North Eastern Evolutionary
Psychology Society meeting in Boston, Mass., in early April.
Garvey’s presentations were co-authored with colleagues from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and
New York.
One of Garvey’s projects was a paper, titled “Terror Management and Moral Inclusiveness:
Death, Pain, and Saving the Family Dog,” which explored regional differences in resolving
the ethical dilemma of saving a family member rather than five strangers on a railroad
track.
In addition, Garvey presented the results of three different studies: “Regional Variation
in Grooming;” “Exposure to Pathogens Predicts Increased Motivation to Coif, Environmental,
Political, and Social Effects on Intellectual Creativity: Regional Differences in
the MacArthur Genius Awards;” and “Beauty Pageants, Mating Effort, and Life History:
De Facto Debutant Balls in Regions of the U.S. with Lower Life Expectancy.”
All of these studies have the common theme of exploring the relative pressures of
regional differences in environmental threat and how it might affect a variety of
judgement and decision tasks.
Garvey earned a B.A. in philosophy, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuropsychology.
He has taught at ULM since 2012.
