Max Krasnow, Ph.D.
Max Krasnow, received his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of California at Santa Barbara in the area of Developmental and Evolutionary Psychology. His primary line of research focuses on the evolutionary origins and computational design of the mechanisms underlying human cooperation and social behavior. One line of this research, appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has explored how facets of the ancestral information landscape—that the future of any interaction is uncertain—conspire with distinctive features of the hominin social niche to select for organisms that are more generous, trusting and cooperative than an otherwise rational analysis would predict. In related work, he has shown how fundamental components of human social behavior show intricate design to support the cultivation of mutually beneficial cooperative relationships and to improve their terms when they begin to function poorly.