Dominik Deffner
Guest
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture
Deutscher Platz 6
04103 Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 3550 341
E-mail: dominik_deffner@[>>> Please remove the text! <<<]eva.mpg.de
Research Interests
I am an evolutionary and computational behavioral scientist with a background in Psychology and Anthropology. My research broadly focuses on the individual-level learning processes and population-level social dynamics underlying human cultural adaptation. I mostly use behavioral group experiments, computational and statistical modeling as well as formal mathematical theory to better understand the unique adaptability of our species. At the moment, I am developing a causal inference framework for generalizability in cross-cultural research. I am also a committee member of the Early-career Social Learning Researchers (ESLR) society.
Curriculum Vitae
Publications
* joint first author
ǂ joint senior author
Sibilsky, A., Colleran, H., Deffner, D., & Haun, D. B. M. (2023). Copying fideliy of functional and non-functional features in ni-Vanuatu children: A transmission chain study. PLoS One, 18: e0274061. |
Open AccessDeffner, D., Rohrer, J. M., & McElreath, R. (2022). A causal framework for cross-cultural generalizability. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 5: 251524592211063. |
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Redhead, D., Minocher, R., & Deffner, D. (2022). Towards a computational network theory of social groups. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 45: e120, pp. 46-48. |
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Deffner, D., & McElreath, R. (2022). When does selection favor learning from the old? Social Learning in age-structured populations. PLoS One, 17(4): e0267204. |
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Deffner, D., Kandler, A., & Fogarty, L. (2022). Effective population size for culturally evolving traits. PLoS Computational Biology, 18(4): e1009430. |
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Dötsch, D., Deffner, D., & Schubö, A. (2022). Color me impressed: A partner's target feature captures visual attention. Cognition, 220: 104989. |
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Logan, C. J., McCune, K., MacPherson, M., Johnson-Ulrich, Z., Rowney, C., Seitz, B., Blaisdell, A., Deffner, D., & Wascher, C. (2022). Are the more flexible great-tailed grackles also better at behavioral inhibition? Animal Behavior Cognition, 9(1), 14-36. |
Blaisdell, A., Seitz, B., Rowney, C., Folsom, M., MacPherson, M., Deffner, D., & Logan, C. J. (2021). Do the more flexible individuals rely more on causal cognition? Observation versus intervention in causal inference in great-tailed grackles. Peer Community Journal, 1(1): e50. |
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Deffner, D. (2021). Social learning in structured populations: Theoretical and empirical approaches. PhD Thesis, Universität Leipzig, Leipzig. |
Deffner, D., Kleinow, V., & McElreath, R. (2020). Dynamic social learning in temporally and spatially variable environments. Royal Society Open Science, 7. |
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Deffner, D., & McElreath, R. (2020). The importance of life history and population regulation for the evolution of social learning. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B: Biological Sciences, 375(1803). |
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Clark, A. D., Deffner, D., Laland, K., Odling-Smee, J., & Endler, J. (2020). Niche construction affects the variability and strength of natural selection. The American Naturalist, 195(1), 16-30. |
Deffner, D., & Kandler, A. (2019). Trait specialization, innovation and the evolution of culture in fluctuating environments. Palgrave Communications, 5: 147. |
Smolla, M., Invernizzi, E., Bazhydai, M., Casoli, M., Deffner, D., Faria, G. S., Jones, N., Kanwal, J., Staehler, A., & Uchiyama, R. (2018). Second annual workshop of the Association of Early‐Career Social Learning Researchers in St Andrews, Scotland. Evolutionary Anthropology, 27(5): 21746, pp. 184-187. |