Dr Sarah Beck PhD

 

Reader

School of Psychology

Contact details

Telephone +44 (0)121 41 44902

Email s.r.beck@bham.ac.uk

School of Psychology
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

About

My research examines children’s and adults’ thinking about time and knowledge. I am interested in how children become able to speculate about events in the past and future and how they handle uncertainty, and how adults’ apparently sophisticated thinking in these areas is often irrational. More information about my research and my lab can be found at www.sarahruthbeck.net

Qualifications

  • PhD (Birmingham)
  • BA (Oxford)

Biography

Dr Beck completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Oxford in Psychology and Philosophy (PPP) before moving to become a research assistant at the University of Birmingham, where she has studied and worked ever since.

Teaching

Sarah Beck teaches a 3rd year optional module on comparative and developmental cognition: Higher Cognitive Functions.

Postgraduate supervision

Current PhD students:

Caroline Putt: Counterfactuals and regret in neuropsychological patients, co-supervised with Prof Glyn Humphreys

Livia Colda: Counterfactual thinking in children (MSc by Research)

Nina Powell: Moral reasoning, co-supervised with Dr Kim Quinn

Catherine Carver: Children’s decision making under uncertainty

Victoria Johnson, co-supervise with Prof Chris Oliver

Previous PhD students:

Amélie Gourdon (2013) Communicating nonverbal probabilities

Nicola Cutting (2012) Children’s tool innovation, co-supervised with Prof Ian Apperly

Jane Waite (2012) Repetitive behaviours in Rubenstein Taybi Syndrome, co-supervised with Prof Chris Oliver

Daniel Weisberg (2011) Children's regret and relief

Clare Eddy (2009) Social cognition in basal ganglia patients, co-spervised with Dr Ian Mitchell

Gill Waters (2009) Children’s source monitoring  

If you are interested in working with me you can email me or see more information on my FindAPhD page.

Research

  • Counterfactual thinking
  • Executive function
  • Metacognition and uncertainty
  • Tool use

Other activities

  • Awarded the 2011 Margaret Donaldson Early Career Prize by the British Psychological Society Developmental Section
  • Sits on the committee for the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology and was the Psychology
  • Programme Chair for the Society between 2008 – 2011
  • Member of the University ESRC Doctoral Training College Board

Publications

Representative publications

A full list of publications with reprints can be found at: www.sarahruthbeck.net

Hoerl, C., McCormack, T., & Beck, S.R. (Eds.) Understanding counterfactuals, understanding causation. Oxford University Press (2011).

Weisberg, D.P. & Beck, S.R. (2012). The development of children’s regret and relief. Cognition and Emotion, 26, 820-835.

Beck, S.R., McColgan, K.L.T., Robinson, E.J., & Rowley, M.G. (2011). Imagining what might be: why children under-estimate uncertainty. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 110, 603-610. DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2011.06.010

Beck, S.R. & Guthrie, C. (2011). Almost thinking counterfactually: children’s understanding of close counterfactuals. Child Development, 82, 1189-1198. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01590.x

Beck, S.R., Apperly, I.A., Chappell, J., Guthrie, C., & Cutting, N. (2011). Making tools isn't child's play. Cognition, 119, 301-306.

Beck, S.R., Riggs, K.J., & Gorniak, S.L. (2009) Relating developments in children’s counterfactual thinking and executive functions. Thinking and Reasoning, 15, 337-354.

Robinson, E.J., Rowley, M., Beck, S.R., Carroll, D.J., Apperly, I.A. (2006) Children's sensitivity to their own relative ignorance: Handling of possibilities under conditions of epistemic and physical uncertainty. Child Development, 77(6), pp. 1642 - 1655

Beck. S.R., Robinson, E.J., Carroll, D.J, & Apperly, I.A. (2006) Children's thinking about counterfactuals and future hypotheticals as possibilities. Child Development, 77(2), pp. 413 - 426.

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