Dr. Daniel Yonas
I study how children and adults make sense of harm and intent, and how race and group membership shape those judgments.
I hold a PhD in Psychology from Columbia University and am a Postdoctoral Researcher at Cornell's Purpose Science & Innovation Exchange. My research draws on moral psychology, intergroup relations, and education to examine how children and adults judge morally charged situations, in the lab and in the institutions where those judgments play out.
About
Psychology has usually treated racism and morality as separate topics, and findings from one literature rarely make it into the other. My research treats them as connected. I examine how developmental and social-cognitive mechanisms, particularly those tied to racial and ethnic group membership, shape moral reasoning about harm and about the people who cause it.
I studied Cognitive Science at the University of Virginia, earned an MEd in Educational Psychology, and worked in a research program at Carnegie Mellon before completing my doctorate at Columbia with Larisa Heiphetz Solomon. Throughout, I've pushed for methods that take the perspectives of historically marginalized groups seriously, both as participants in research and as the people conducting it.
Long term, I want to build a research program around a developmental science of moral justice: how people learn to interpret harm when bias and inequality are part of the picture, and what that learning process implies for education and policy.
Research interests
Four related lines of work on how moral cognition develops and how social identity and inequality figure into it.
Intent & moral judgment across development
How children and adults weigh intent versus outcome when evaluating harm, and why curiosity about intent emerges earlier for transgressions than for prosocial acts.
Intergroup dynamics, race & moral judgment
How group membership and firsthand experience with prejudice change whom people blame, how much intent matters to them, and what they expect accountability to look like.
Moral essentialism & redemption
Whether people believe moral character can change, and how that belief affects judgments about punishment and the possibility of redemption after wrongdoing.
Purpose development across the lifespan
Current work at Cornell's Purpose Science & Innovation Exchange on how young people develop a sense of purpose in relation to moral concern and social responsibility.
Selected publications
Building a developmental science of redemption
Yonas, D., & Solomon, L. H. (2025). Developmental Review, 75, 101183.
doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2024.101183Age-related changes in information-seeking behavior about morally relevant events
Yonas, D., & Solomon, L. H. (2024). Child Development, 00, 1–16.
doi.org/10.1111/cdev.14200An alternative to “No Excuses”: Considering Montessori as culturally responsive pedagogy
Lillard, A. S., Taggart, J., Yonas, D., & Batson-Seale, M. N. (2023). Journal of Negro Education, 92(3), 301–324.
muse.jhu.edu/article/934318The role of intent in evaluating intergroup and intragroup harms
Under ReviewYonas, D., & Solomon, L. H. Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology.
When AI becomes “Other”: Racial representation and the uncanny valley in human–AI relationships
Under ReviewMosley, A. J., & Yonas, D. Journal of Experimental Psychology.
A full list of publications and 15+ conference presentations appears in my curriculum vitae.
Teaching & mentoring
Students bring personal stakes to topics like moral judgment and prejudice, so my first job in the classroom is making it safe to disagree out loud. As a Teaching Fellow at Columbia, I went back through my student evaluations each term and used them to adjust how I ran discussions.
Through Developmental Discovery Days and the Arts & Sciences Graduate Council DEI Committee, I've mentored underrepresented students and worked on programs that make research experience and graduate study easier to get into.
Honors & awards
- Black Social and Personality Psychologists' Retreat (2025)
- Jenessa Shapiro Graduate Research Award (2023)
- Towards 2044 Horowitz Early Career Scholar (2023)
- SPSP Graduate Diversity Award (2021)
- Provost Diversity Fellow / Dean's Fellow (2020)
- Distinguished Major in Psychology, High Distinction (2018)
Contact
For research collaborations, talks, or graduate mentorship.
dy375@cornell.eduBronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research
Cornell University · Martha Van Rensselaer Hall
Ithaca, NY 14850
Open to collaborations on
- Purpose science
- Moral & developmental psychology
- Intergroup relations and race
- Educational equity and inclusion
- Digital moral cognition