Dr Kirsty Ross 

Lecturer in Psychology 

Humanities and Social Sciences 

Email:

Kirsty.Ross@winchester.ac.uk 

Phone:

+44 (0)1962 827151 

Address:

Biography

• MA (Hons) Psychology (University of Glasgow)
• Msc Research Methods (University of Reading)
• PhD Psychology (University of Portsmouth)

Expertise

• Positive emotions in infancy;
• Socialisation of emotions;
• Comparative perspectives on infant development across cultures and species.

Publications

Ross, K.M., Bard, K.A., Keller, H., Matsuzawa, T., Yovsi, R.D., & Otto, H. (in prep). The playful contexts of facial joy in one-year-old human and chimpanzee infants. 

Thorsteinsson, K., Ross, K., & Bard, K.A. (2008). Positive emotional expressions in chimpanzee infants [Abstract]. Primate Eye: Primate Society of Great Britain, 96 – Special Issue, 37.

Under previous name, Brown:

Brown, K.M. & Bard, K.A. (2007). Playful expressions and their contexts in one-year-old chimpanzees [Abstract].  Abstracts of the 2nd Congress of the European Federation for Primatology, Prague, Czech Republic, 11.

Invited talks

Ross, K.M. (2011, June). Joyful expressions in infancy: Cross-species comparisons. Paper presented at the Mini-Conference on Primate Enculturation, University of Portsmouth.

Conference presentations

Bard, KA, Butler, LA, Ross, K, & Keller, H.  (2011).  Socio-emotional contexts of naturally occurring joint attention events in 1-year-old Nso humans and 1-year-old chimpanzee infants.  In symposium organized by G Deak & K De Barbaro, entitled "How (Measuring) Moment-to-Moment Changes in Behavior can Help Explain Processes of Human and Non-Human Infants' Social Development", held at the Society for Research in Child Development, Montreal, Canada, 31 March - 3 April 2011.

Ross, K., Bard, K., & Thorsteinsson, K. (2008, March). The form and context of smiles in infancy across cultures and across species.  In K. Bard (Chair), Smiling and laughter in infants in comparative and developmental perspective. Symposium conducted at the meeting of the International Society of Infant Studies, Vancouver, BC.

Under previous name, Brown:

Brown, K.M., Bard, K.A., Keller, H., Yovsi, R.D., & Otto, H. (2007, August). Joyful emotions in one-year-old British and Cameroonian infants. In K. Bard (Chair), The first years of life: Broadening our understanding of development by taking a cultural models perspective. Symposium conducted at the meeting of the 13th European Conference on Developmental Psychology, Jena, Germany.

Brown, K.M., Bard, K.A., Keller, H., Yovsi, R.D., & Otto, H. (2007, March). Joyful emotions in infancy: Cross-cultural and cross-species comparisons. Poster session presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Boston, MA.

Brown, K.M., Bard, K.A., Tomonaga, M., Keller, H., & Yovsi, R.D. (2006, July). The experience of joy in infancy: Cross-cultural and cross-species comparisons. Poster session presented at the 18th International Congress of the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology, Isle of Spetses, Greece.

Research Interests

My research interests centre on emotional development during infancy. Alongside Professor Kim Bard, my PhD supervisor, and other collaborators, I investigated the contexts of one-year-old infants’ joyful emotional expressions through a method of naturalistic observation.

My research has a comparative perspective both across cultures (British and Cameroon Nso infants) and across species (human and chimpanzee infants).  A comparative approach helps to understand the flexibility of emotion socialisation across cultures and species while also highlighting fundamental similarities and their evolutionary significance.

Funding Awards and Professional Membership

Awards

2005-2009 ESRC Research Studentship, University of Portsmouth

Membership

Member of the British Psychological Society