She earned her PhD at the University of California Santa Barbara at the Center for Evolutionary Psychology. The central goal of Debra’s research is to understand how evolution has shaped the social mind. To this end she applies theoretical tools from evolutionary biology and cognitive science to generate and test information-processing models of particular functions. Dr Lieberman studies a range of topics including kin detection, cooperation, mate choice, disgust and morality. Most recently, Dr Lieberman has been researching gratitude and its role in the formation of cooperative relationships as well as the role disgust plays in social policy and law.