Matthew Gervais

My work investigates human emotions from an evolutionary anthropological perspective. I’m particularly interested in the psychological bases of derived (and possibly unique) forms of human social behavior, including sharing, punishment, and tolerance, as these scale out to social relationships and social network dynamics. I’ve published on laughter and humor, psychopathy, moral parochialism, and contempt. Methodologically I’m a pluralist, combining naturalistic lab experiments and mixed-methods ethnographic field work. I have a regional focus in the Pacific, where I’ve conducted research in Fiji since 2009. I am currently an Assistant Professor at Brunei University.