CV

Education
Institution	Qualifications	Subjects Studied	Date
Queen’s University Belfast	PhD	Cognition & Culture	2005–2009
Manchester University	MSc	Cognitive Science	1997–1998
Oxford University	BA (1st class)	Archaeology & Anthropology ­	1994–1997

 

Experience

PhD research

I was awarded my PhD in October 2009. My thesis, entitled Young children’s reporting of peers’ behaviour, was on the development of preschool children’s social communication from an evolutionary, interactionist perspective, using a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods. I undertook observational studies of young children’s behavioural reporting in two Belfast preschools. I showed that this behaviour could be seen as an early form of gossip, an activity whose developmental roots are poorly understood; and argued that the overwhelming negativity of children’s descriptions of peers’ behaviour provides clue as to why the destructive power of gossip on reputations is so feared in many societies. I also carried out a couple of simple experiments on children’s recall of narratives about antisocial versus prosocial behaviour. Being concerned with cross-cultural variation in children’s behaviour, I analyzed instances of behavioural reporting and gossip in the CHILDES and eHRAF online databases, and concluded that cultural differences in adult responses to children’s behavioural reporting are likely to lead to differences in adult attitudes to gossip in later life.

Work experience

• September 2010–ongoing: Research Officer at the Interactions Lab, School of Management, University of Bath. Working on the EU-funded SIREN project (Social games for conflIct REsolution based on Natural interaction), my responsibilities include interviewing children, teachers and educational policymakers about conflict resolution in schools; observing actual examples of conflict resolution between children; and engaging with children in collaborative design of an educational game about conflict resolution.
• October 2009–June 2010: Departmental Lecturer at the School of Anthropology, University of Oxford. Responsible for teaching postgraduate courses on “Mind and Culture” and “Quantitative Methods in the Human Sciences” and an undergraduate course on “Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology”. My duties have included writing and delivering two series of eight lectures each; chairing weekly postgraduate discussion classes; organising and leading practical lab classes using SPSS; conducting undergraduate tutorials; setting and marking three examination papers; and serving as academic advisor to five MSc students, whose dissertations will involve original research in each case.
• April–August 2009: Research Assistant on the “Translating a Developmentally Appropriate Curriculum into Practice” project at Stranmillis University College. My duties included reviewing relevant literature on developmentally appropriate practice, educational transitions and play-based learning; producing and transcribing video cameos of classroom activities; and conducting focus groups with early years teachers to develop guidelines for effective practice.
• January–March 2009: Temporary Research Fellow on the Sesame Tree project—an intervention in children’s social and emotional learning—in the Centre for Effective Education, Queen’s University Belfast. My duties included working in partnership with Sesame Workshop in New York to design and produce the research instrument; liaising with principals and teachers at 28 schools across Cos. Antrim and Derry; and training and managing a team of 12 fieldworkers.

 

Publications, Presentations and Grants

Articles

Ingram, G. P. D., & Bering, J. M. (2010). Children’s tattling: The reporting of everyday norm violations in preschool settings. Child Development, 81, 945–957.

Ingram, G. P. D. (2009). Review of Anthropology and the Bushman, by Alan Barnard. Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford (n. s.), 1, 228–230. 

Ingram, G. P. D. (in press). Review of Origins of human communication, by Michael Tomasello. Journal of Cognition and Culture. Manuscript accepted for publication.

Ingram, G. P. D., Piazza, J. R., & Bering, J. M. (2009). The adaptive problem of absent third-party punishment. In H. Høgh-Olesen, P. Bertelsen, & J. Tønnesvang (Eds.), Human characteristics: Evolutionary perspectives on human mind and kind (pp. 205–229). Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England: Cambridge Scholars.

Piazza, J. R., Bering, J. M., & Ingram, G. P. D. (2011). “Princess Alice is watching you”: Children’s belief in an invisible person inhibits cheating. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 109, 311-320.

Conference papers

Cheong, Y., Khaled, R., Grappiolo, C., Campos, J., Martinho, C., Ingram, G. P. D., et al. (2011). A computational approach towards conflict and conflict resolution for serious games. Foundations of Digital Games, Bordeaux, France, June 2011.

Ingram, G. P. D., & Piazza, J. R. Cognitive adaptations to the spread of social information via language: Recent developmental investigations. Annual meeting of the European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association, University of St Andrews, April 2009.

Ingram, G. P. D., & Bering, J. M. Tattling and the emergence of social norms. Annual meeting of the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology, University of Utrecht, June 2008.

Ingram, G. P. D. Mixing methods: A plea for the use of quantitative analysis and experimentation in anthropology. Annual meeting of the Anthropological Association of Ireland, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, April 2008.

Ingram, G. P. D. Tattling: Preschool children’s use of language to gain third-party support in peer conflicts. 6^th Göttinger Freilandtage, University of Göttingen, December 2007.

Ingram, G. P. D., Piazza, J. R., & Bering, J. M. The adaptive problem of absent third-party punishment. “Human mind, human kind,” An interdisciplinary conference on human uniqueness, Ǻrhus University, August 2007.

Ingram, G. P. D. Tattling among pre-school children: The development of strategic social cognition. Annual meeting of the Jean Piaget Society, Amsterdam, May 2007.

Conference posters

Ingram, G. P. D. Tattling and the emergence of social norms. Annual meeting of European Society for Philosophy & Psychology, University of Utrecht, June 2008.

Ingram, G. P. D., & Piazza, J. R. Two empirical approaches to the study of absent third-party punishment. “Human mind, human kind,” An interdisciplinary conference on human uniqueness, Ǻrhus University, August 2007.

Awards and scholarships

• Northern Ireland Department of Employment & Learning PhD studentship (fully funded), September 2005 – September 2008.
• Second prize, student oral presentations, 6^th Göttinger Freilandtage (see above), December 2007.
• Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council MSc studentship (fully funded), September 1997 – September 1998.

Advertisement