Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology
Director: Prof. Dr. Daniel Haun
Understanding the mind is one of the most fundamental scientific challenges. The mind is also the defining feature of Homo sapiens. It is how we coordinate social life at unprecedented levels of complexity, create cumulative cultures, develop language, and transform environments through technology. Understanding the origins of the human mind is therefore central to who we are as a species—and to how our mental capacities are shaped by, and continue to shape, the world we inhabit.
The Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology studies cognition across the lifespan, across diverse human societies – including Indigenous and underrepresented populations worldwide – and across species, embedding the human mind in its biological, social, and ecological contexts. Our goal is to understand uniquely human cultural diversity and the universal cognitive mechanisms that enable and constrain it, and to contribute to an encompassing theory of human cognition that is grounded in biological continuity, sensitive to cultural diversity, and capable of explaining both stability and change in cognitive systems.
Understanding cognition is not only central to explaining who we are as a species, but also to how we shape our future. Knowing why we do what we do is essential for identifying sustainable ways of living with ourselves, one another, and our environment.
