Select Academic Research
đź“š Academic Research
Network Diversity Relates to Racial Bias
Demonstrated how micro-level social structures interact with macro-level environmental demographics to shape systemic cognitive frameworks and biases. This research reveals that human attitudes cannot be predicted by geographic diversity alone; social networks provide a fine-grained analysis that highlights the importance of exploring enviornments at both the micro- and macro-levels.This project showcases an advanced capability to analyze complex, multi-layered human ecosystems, translating abstract behavioral concepts into rigorous, data-driven insights directly applicable to workplace culture and user demographics.
The Question
Does children's network and neighborhood diversity relate to their racial bias and how they conceptualize systemic inequalities?
What I Did
Conducted a multi-method behavioral study blending custom survey design, extracing US Census data, and experimental behavioral data.
Impact & Metrics
For White children in small networks only, as their macro-neighborhood diversity increased, their cognitive explanations for inequality shifted significantly depending on immediate social network density. This confirmed a statistically significant interaction effect, proving that environmental diversity alone is insufficient to shift social cognitions without deliberate micro-network structural exposure.
đź“š Academic Research
Social Network Size Predicts Perspective-Taking
Investigated how social network properties, in particular social network size, relates to visual perspective-taking (PT) capabilities. We found that children in larger social networks demonstrated superior PT skills, which validates the Social Brain Hypothesis. While these findings are correlational and it is impossible to determine a causal effect, they suggest that the enviornment does play a role in shaping children's early socio-cognitive skills.
The Question
Does social network size relate to children's visual perspective-taking (PT) skill?
What I Did
Conducted a multi-level study where I used a custom survey instrument to measure children's social networks and used behavioral experimental methods to measure children's PT skills.
Impact & Metrics
Identified a statistically significant interaction effect (Ăź = 0.22, p < 0.05) revealing that larger network sizes relates to children's PT skill, while controlling for child age. This study demonstrates that network properties are related to children's socio-cognitive skill.
Academic Publications
Selected Papers
- Burke, N., Rizzo, M.T., Britton, T., & Rhodes, M. (2023). Does racial diversity affect White children’s explanations for racial inequalities? Depends on where they live and how their social world is structured. Developmental Psychology. [Paper]
- Burke, N., Brezack, N., Meyer, M., & Woodward, A. (2023). Children’s social network size is related to their perspective-taking skills. Frontiers in Developmental Psychology. 1:1221056. doi: 10.3389/fdpys.2023.1221056 [Paper]
- Arnold, S., Burke, N., Leshin, R., & Rhodes., M. (2023). Infants’ visual attention to own- and other-race faces is moderated by experience with people of different races in their daily lives. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. [Paper]
- Burke, N., Brezack, N., & Woodward, A. (2022). Children’s social networks in developmental psychology: A network approach to capture and describe early social environments. Frontiers in Psychology, 13:1009422. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1009422 [Paper] [OSF]
- Okocha, A., Burke, N., & Lew-Williams, C. (2024). Infants and toddlers in the United States with more close relationships have larger vocabularies. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. [Paper]
- Colomer, M., Hwang, H.G., Burke, N.**, & Woodward, A. (2024). Development of infants’ preferential looking toward native language speakers across distinct social contexts. Developmental Psychology. [Paper]