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Paul L. Harris

Paul Harris

Faculty Info

Victor S. Thomas Professor of Education

(On Leave Spring 2026)

Degrees

D.Phil., Oxford University, (1971)

Vitae/CV

paul-harris-CV.pdf

Areas of Expertise

Paul Harris

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Email

paul_harris@gse.harvard.edu

Office

Larsen 503A

Office Hours

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Faculty Coordinator

Joelle Mottola

Paul Harris is interested in the early development of cognition, emotion, and imagination. His most recent book, Trusting What You're Told: How Children Learn from Others, was published by Harvard University Press in May 2012. This book discusses how far children rely on their own firsthand observation or alternatively trust what other people tell them — especially when they confront a domain of knowledge in which firsthand observation is difficult. For example, many aspects of history, science, and religion concern events that children cannot easily observe for themselves. How far do children believe what they are told about these domains? When and how do they become aware of the conflicting claims made by science as compared with religion? Please note, because of retirement plans, Paul Harris will no longer be taking on new doctoral student advisees.

  • Zhao, L., Li, Y., Sun, W., Zheng, Y., & Harris, P. L. (in press). Hearing about a story character's negative emotional reaction to having been dishonest causes young children to cheat less. Developmental Science.
  • Harris, P. L. (in press). From Charitable Inference to Active Credence. Scientia et Fides.
  • Cottrell,,S., Torres, E., Harris,, P. L., & Ronfard, S. (in press). Older children verify adult claims because they are skeptical of those claims. Child Development.
  • Harris, P. L. (in press). Young children share imagined possibilities: Evidence for an early-emerging human competence. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.
  • Chernyak, N., Harris, P. L. & Cordes, S. (in press). A counting intervention promotes fair sharing in preschoolers. Child Development.
  • Harris, P. L. & Cheng, L. (2022). Evidence for similar conceptual progress across diverse cultures in children’s understanding of emotion. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 46, 238–250.
  • Payir, A., Heiphetz, L., Harris, P. L. & Corriveau, K. H. (2022). What could have been done? Counterfactual alternatives to negative outcomes generated by religious and secular children. Developmental Psychology, 58, 376-391.
  • Viana, K. M. P, Lucena, J., Zambrana, I. M., Harris, P. L. & Pons, F. (2022). Children's emotion understanding and cooperative problem-solving in educational settings. In D. Dukes, A. C. Samson & E. A. Walle (Eds). The Oxford Handbook of Emotional Development (pp. 566-580). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Zhang, Y. & Harris, P. L. (2022). Talking about people who are not there: Children's early references to absent caregivers and absent friends. First Language, 42(3), 405-425.
  • Davoodi, T., Jamshidi-Sianaki, M., Payir, A., Cui, Y. K., Clegg, J., McLoughlin, N., Harris, P. L. & Corriveau, K. H. (2022). Miraculous, magical, or mundane? The development of beliefs about stories with divine, magical, or realistic causation. Memory and Cognition.
  • Harris, P. L. (2022). Children's imagination. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Harris, P. L. (2022). Child psychology in 12 questions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Bazhydai, M. & Harris, P. L. (2021). Infants actively seek and transmit knowledge via communication. Behavioral and Brain Sciences , 44, e142-e142.
  • Payir, A., McLoughlin, N., Cui, Y. K., Davoodi, J., Clegg, J., Harris, P. L. & Corriveau, K. H. (2021). Children’s ideas about what can really happen: The impact of age and religious background. Cognitive Science, 45, e13054.
  • Orm, S., Holmberg, E. H., Harris, P. L., Nunez, M. & Pons, F. (2021). Diachronic tendency and thinking style across the broader autism spectrum: Sources of individual differences? Advances in Neurodevelopmental Disorders, 5, 326-338.
  • Hermansen, T. K., Harris, P. L., Zambrana, I. M., & Ronfard, S. (2021). Preschool children rarely seek empirical data that could help them complete a task when observation and testimony conflict. Child Development., 92, 2546-2562.
  • Yang, T., Leech, K. & Harris, P. L. (2021). Missing persons: Young children's talk about absent members of their social network. Mind and Language
  • Harris, P. L. (2021). Omniscience, preexistence, doubt and misdeeds. Journal of Cognition and Development, 22, 418-425.
  • Harris, P. L. (2021). Early constraints on the imagination: The realism of young children. Child Development, 92, 466-483.
  • Payir, A., Davoodi, T., Cui, Y. K., Clegg, J., Harris, P. L. & Corriveau, K. H. (2021). Are high levels of religiosity inconsistent with a high valuation of science? Evidence from the United States, China, and Iran. International Journal of Psychology, 56, 216–227.
  • Hermansen, T., Harris, P. L., Ronfard, S. & Zambrana, I. M. (2021). Young children update their trust in an informant's claim when experience tells them otherwise. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 205, 105063.
  • Ronfard, S., Chen, E. E. & Harris, P. L. (2021). Testing what you're told: Young children's empirical investigation of a surprising claim. Journal of Cognition and Development, 22, 426-447.
  • McLoughlin, N., Davoodi, T., Cui, Y. K., Clegg, J. M., Harris, P. L. & Corriveau, K. H. (2021). Parents' beliefs about their influence on children's scientific and religious views: Perspectives from Iran, China and the United States. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 21, 49-75.
  • Chernyak, C. Turnbull, V., Gordon, R., Harris, P. L. & Cordes, S. (2020). Counting promotes proportional social evaluation in preschool-aged children. Cognitive Development, 56, 100969.
  • Tang, Y., & Harris, P. L. (2020). The relationship between emotion understanding and social skills in preschoolers: The mediating role of verbal ability and the moderating role of working memory. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 1854217.
  • Kirby. A. L. & Harris, P. L. (2020). The case of common humanity: towards a deeper understanding of children’s social ideas. Journal of Moral Education. 1798745.
  • Davoodi, T., Cui, Y. K., Clegg, J. M. Fang, E. Y., Payir, A., Harris, P. L. & Corriveau, K. H. (2020). Epistemic justifications for belief in the unobservable: The impact of minority status. Cognition, 200, 104273.
  • Harris, P. L. & Corriveau, K. H. (2020). Beliefs of children and adults in religious and scientific phenomena. Current Opinion in Psychology, 40, 20-23.
  • Di Dio, D., Manzi, F., Peretti, G., Cangelosi, A., Harris, P. L. Massaro, D., & Marchetti, A. (2020). Shall I trust you? From child-robot interaction to trusting relationships. Frontiers in Psychology: Developmental Psychology, 11, 469.
  • Ronfard, S., Unlutabak, B., Bazhydai, M., Nicolopoulou, A. & Harris, P. L. (2020). Preschoolers in Belarus and Turkey accept an adult’s counter-intuitive claim and do not spontaneously seek evidence to test that claim. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 44, 424-432.
  • Chen, E., Ng, C., T. K., Corriveau, K. H., Yang, B. & Harris, P. L. (2020). Talking about personality: evidence for attributions to self and others in early childhood. Journal of Cognition and Development, 21, 191-212.
  • Chen, X. & Harris, P. L. (2020). Children's conception of heroes, villains, the self and others in China: A developmental study. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 17, 447-464.
  • Harris, P. L. (2020). The point, the shrug and the question of clarification. In L. P. Butler, S. Ronfard, and K. H. Corriveau (Eds.), The questioning child: Insights from psychology and education. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
  • Davoodi, T., Soley, G., Harris, P. L. & Blake, P. R. (2020). Essentialization of social categories across development in two cultures. Child Development, 91, 289-306.
  • Cui, Y. K., Clegg, J. M, Yan, E. F., Davoodi, T., Harris, P. L., Corriveau, K. H. (2020). Religious testimony in a secular society: Belief in unobservable entities among Chinese parents and their children. Developmental Psychology, 56, 117-127.
  • Harris, P. L. (2020). Can young children draw what does not exist? Empirical Studies of the Arts, 38, 71-80.
  • Bascandziev, I. & Harris, P.L. (2020). Can children benefit from thought experiments? In A. Levy & P. Godfrey-Smith (Eds.). The Scientific Imagination: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press
  • Tang, Y., Harris, P. L., Zou, H., & Xu, Q. (2019). The impact of emotional expressions on children’s trust judgments. Cognition and Emotion
  • Harris, P.L. (2019). Affective social learning: from biology to culture. In D. Dukes and F. Clément (Eds.), Foundations of Affective Social Learning: Conceptualising the transmission of social value. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  • Harris, P.L. (2019). Infants want input. In V. Grover, P. Uccelli, M.L. Rowe, & E. Lieven (Eds). Learning through language: Towards an educationally informed theory of language learning. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press
  • Chernyak, N., Harris, P.L. & Cordes, S. (2019). Explaining early moral hypocrisy: Numerical cognition promotes equal sharing behavior in preschool-aged children. Developmental Science
  • Clegg, J. M., Cui, Y. K., Harris, P. L., & Corriveau, K. H.(2019). God, germs, and evolution: Belief in unobservable religious and scientific entities in the U.S. and China. Integrative Psychological & Behavioral Science
  • Davoodi, T., Sianaki, M. J., Abedi, F., Payir, A., Cui, K. Y., Harris, P. L., & Corriveau, K. H. (2019). Beliefs about religious and scientific entities among parents and children in Iran. Social Psychological and Personality Science
  • Hussar, K. M. & Harris, P.L. (2018). Vegetarian and non-vegetarian children’s judgments of harm to animals and humans. Ecopsychology, 10, 36-43
  • Ronfard, S., Chen, E. E., & Harris, P. L. (2018). The emergence of the empirical stance: Children’s testing of counterintuitive claims. Developmental Psychology, 54, 482-493
  • Harris, P.L., Koenig, M. A., Corriveau, K. H., & Jaswal, V.K. (2018). Cognitive foundations of learning from testimony. Annual Review of Psychology, 69, 251-273
  • Harris, P.L. (2018). Revisiting privileged access. In. J. Proust & M. Fortier, Eds., Metacognitive diversity: an interdisciplinary approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press
  • Ronfard, S. & Harris, P.L. (2018). Children's decision to transmit information is guided by their evaluation of the nature of that information. Review of Philosophy and Psychology
  • Tang, Y., Harris, P. L., Pons, F., Zou, H., Zhang, W. & Xu, Q. (2018). The understanding of emotion among young Chinese children. International Journal of Behavioral Development
  • Payir, A., Davoodi, T., Sianaki, M.J., Harris, P.L. & Corriveau, E. (2018). Coexisting religious and scientific beliefs among Iranian parents. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 24, 240-244
  • Harris, P.L. & Tang, Y. (2018). Peering into the opaque mind. European Journal of Developmental Psychology
  • Einav, S., Rydland, V., Grover, V., Robinson, E., & Harris, P.L. (2018). Children’s trust in print: What is the impact of late exposure to reading instruction? Infant and Child Development
  • Harris, P.L. (2018). Children's understanding of death: From biology to religion. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B
  • Harris, P.L., Ronfard, S. & Bartz, D. (2017). Young children's developing conception of knowledge and ignorance: Work in progress. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 14, 221-232
  • Hoicka, E., Butcher, J., Malla, F., & Harris, P. L. (2017). Humor and preschoolers' trust: Sensitivity to changing intentions. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 154, 113-130
  • Harris, P.L., Yang, B. & Cui, Y. (2017). "I don’t know": Children's early talk about knowledge. Mind and Language, 32, 283-307
  • Smith, C. E., Noh, J.Y., Rizzo, M.T. & Harris, P.L. (2017). When and why parents prompt their children to apologize: The roles of transgression type and parenting style. Journal of Family Studies. 23, 38-61
  • Harris, P.L., Bartz, D.T., & Rowe, M. L. (2017). Young children communicate their ignorance and ask questions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114, 7884-7891
  • Watson-Jones, R. E., Busch, J. T. A., Harris, P. L., & Legare, C. H. (2017). Does the body survive death? Cultural variation in beliefs about life everlasting. Cognitive Science, 41, 455-476
  • Ronfard, S., Lane, J.D., Wang, M. & Harris, P.L. (2017). The impact of counter-perceptual testimony on children's categorization after a delay. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 163, 151-158
  • Harris, P.L. (2017). Tell, ask, repair: Early responding to discordant reality. Motivation Science, 3, 275-286
  • Lucas, A.J., Burdett, E. R. R., Burgess, V., Wood, L., McGuigan,N., Harris, P. L. & Whiten, A. (2017). The development of selective copying: Children's learning from an expert versus their mother. Child Development, 88, 2026-2042
  • Harris, P. L. (2017). Emotion, imagination and the world’s furniture. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 14, 672-683
  • Kory Westlund, J. M., Jeong, S., Park, H. W., Ronfard, S., Adhikari, A., Harris, P. L., DeSteno, D. & Breazeal, D. (2017). Flat versus expressive storytelling: young children’s learning and retention of a social robot’s narrative. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 11
  • Galindo, J.H. & Harris, P.L. (2017). Mother knows best? How children weigh their first-hand memories against their mothers’ reports. Cognitive Development, 44, 69-84
  • Kory Westlund, J.M., Dickens, L., Jeonga, S., Harris, P.L., DeSteno, D, & Breazeal, C.L. (2017). Children use non-verbal cues to learn new words from robots as well as people. International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction
  • Davoodi, T., Corriveau, K, H., & Harris, P.L. (2016). Distinguishing between realistic and fantastical figures in Iran. Developmental Psychology, 52, 221-231
  • Lane, J. D., Ronfard, S. L., Francioli, S. P., & Harris, P.L. (2016). Children’s imagination and belief: Prone to flights of fancy or grounded in reality? Cognition, 152, 127-140
  • Bascandziev, I., Powell, L., Harris, P.L. & Carey, S. (2016). A role for executive functions in explanatory understanding of the physical world Cognitive Development, 39, 71-85
  • Breazeal, C., Harris, P.L., DeSteno, D., Kory Westlund, J. M., Dickens, D., & Jeong, S. (2016). Young children treat robots as informant. Topics in Cognitive Science, 8, 481–491
  • Legare, C. H. & Harris, P.L. (2016). The ontogeny of cultural learning. Child Development, 87, 633-42
  • Hofmann, S. G., Doan, S., Sprung, M., Wilson, A., Ebesutani, C., Andrews, L., Curtiss, J. & Harris, P.L. (2016). Training children's theory-of-mind: A meta-analysis of controlled studies. Cognition, 150, 200-212
  • Harris, P. L., de Rosnay, M., & Pons, F. (2016). Understanding emotion. In & L. Feldman Barrett, M. Lewis & J. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (4th edition), pp. 293-306. New York: Guilford Press
  • Chen. E.E., Corriveau, K. H. & Harris, P.L. (2016). Person perception in young children across two cultures. Journal of Cognition and Development, 17, 447-467
  • Bascandziev, I & Harris, P.L. (2016). The beautiful and the accurate: are children’s selective trust decisions biased? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 152, 92-105
  • Chernyak, N., Sandham, B., Harris, P.L. & Cordes, S. (2016). Numerical cognition explains agerelated changes in third-party fairness. Developmental Psychology, 52, 1555-1562
  • Ganea, P. A., Fitch, A., Harris, P.L. & Kaldy, Z. (2016). 16-month-olds can use language to update their expectations about the visual world. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 51, 65-76
  • Harris, P.L. (2016). Missing persons. In J. Dodd (Ed.), Art, mind, and narrative: Themes from the work of Peter Goldie. Oxford: Oxford University Press
  • Ronfard, S., Was, A. & Harris, P.L. (2015). Children teach methods they could not discover for themselves. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 142, 107-117
  • Morgan, T.J.H. & Harris, P.L. (2015). James Mark Baldwin and contemporary theories of culture and evolution. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 12, 666-678
  • Corriveau, K. H., Kipling, R., Ronfard, S., Biarnes, M. C., Jeye, B. M., & Harris, P. L. (2015). Living Laboratory® - A mutual professional development model for museum-based research partnerships. In D. Sobel & J. Jipson (Eds.), Relating research and practice: Cognitive development in museum settings. New York: Psychology Press
  • Sprung, M., Münch, H.M., Harris, P.L., Ebesutani, C., & Hofman, S. (2015). Children's emotion understanding: A meta-analysis of training studies. Developmental Review, 37, 41-65
  • Harris, P.L. (2015) Les enfants, croient-ils tout ce qu'on leur dit? LEssentiel: Cerveau & Psycho, 20, 8-13
  • Lane, J.D. & Harris, P.L. (2015) The role of intuition and informants' expertise in children's epistemic trust. Child Development, 86, 919-926
  • Harris, P.L. (2015) Children make good anthropologists. Social Anthropology, 23, 211-212
  • Rakoczy, H., Ehrling, C., Harris, P.L., & Schultze, T. (2015) Young children heed advice selectively. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology,138, 71-87
  • Ronfard, S. & Harris, P.L. (2015) The active role played by human learners is key to understanding the efficacy of teaching in humans. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 38
  • Breazeal, C., Harris, P.L., DeSteno, D., Kory, J., Dickens, D., & Jeong, S. (2015) Young children treat robots as informant. Topics in Cognitive Science
  • Bernard, S., Harris, P.L., Terrier, N., & Clement, F. (2015) Children weigh number of informants and perceptual uncertainty when identifying objects. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
  • Harris, P.L., de Rosnay, M., & Pons, F. (2015) Understanding emotion. In M. Lewis, J. Haviland-Jones, & L. Feldman Barrett (Eds.) Handbook of Emotions (4th Edition) Guilford Press
  • Corriveau, K.H., Kipling, R., Ronfard, S., Biarnes, M.C., Jeye, B.M., & Harris, P.L. (2015) Living Laboratory - A mutual professional development model for museum-based research partnerships. In D. Sobel & J. Jipson (Eds.) Cognitive Development in Museum Settings: Relating Research and Practice. New York: Psychology Press
  • Sprung, M., Munch, H.M., Harris, P.L., Ebesutani, C., & Hoffman, S. (2015) Children's emotion understanding: A meta-analysis of training studies. Developmental Review
  • Harris, P.L. (2015) Missing persons. In J. Dodd (Ed.) Art, Mind and Narrative: Themes from the Work of Peter Goldie. Oxford: Oxford University Press
  • Harris, P.L. (2015) What children learn from questioning. Educational Leadership
  • Chen, E.E., Corriveau, K.H. & Harris, P.L. (2015) Person perception in young children across two cultures. Journal of Cognition and Development
  • Corriveau, K.H., Chen, E.E. & Harris, P.L. (2015) Judgments about fact and fiction by children from religious and non-religious backgrounds. Cognitive Science
  • Corriveau, K.H. & Harris, P.L. (2015) Children's developing realization that some stories are true: Links to the understanding of beliefs and signs. Cognitive Development
  • Morgan, T.J.H., Lanand, K.N. & Harris, P.L. (2015) The development of adaptive conformity in young children: Effects of Uncertainty and consensus. Developmental Science. 18, 511-212

  • Association for Psychological Science: Mentor Award in Psychology (2017)
  • American Psychological Association: Mentor Award in Developmental Psychology (2015)
  • President-Elect of the Cognitive Development Society (CDS) (2015)
  • American Psychological Association: Eleanor Maccoby Book Award. (2014)
  • Cognitive Development Society Book award (2013)
  • Morningstar Teaching Award, Harvard Graduate School of Education (2010)
  • William Thierry Preyer Award: European Society for Developmental Psychology (2009)
  • Guggenheim Fellowship, John Simon Gugenheim Memorial Foundation (2005)
  • Emeritus Fellow, St John's College (Oxford) (2001)
  • Research Readership, British Academy (2000)
  • Elected Fellow, British Academy (1998)
  • Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (1992)

  • British Academy,(1998-present)
  • Elected as foreign member of The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters,(2006-present)
  • Member, Scientific Advisory Board, Max-Planck-Institut fur evolutionare Anthropologie (Leipzig),(2001-2006)
  • Editorial Board, Child Development,(2000-2001)
  • Editorial Board, Human Development,(1995-2001)
  • Editor, British Journal of Developmental Psychology,(1994-1997)
  • American Academy of Arts and Sciences,(2015-)

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