Staff profile

About Me

I am a PhD student in the Department of Psychology at Durham University, supervised by Dr Bruce Rawlings and Professor Rachel Kendal. 

My research focuses on social learning, cultural transmission, and the development of imitation and innovation. Specifically, my PhD project investigates how cultural orientation (independent vs interdependent), parenting style, and community background (urban vs rural) shape adults'evaluations of children's over-imitation and innovation in the UK, Malaysia, and China. A further aim is to explore whether evaluative differences feed back into children's own learning strategies, positioning adult appraisal as a potential mechanism of cultural transmission.

I am using behavioral experiments, questionnaires, interviews, and focus group methods.

Before starting my PhD, I completed an MSc in Developmental Psychopathology at Durham University and a BA in Psychology at Hubei University.

Before entering academia, I founded and managed two mind-body wellbeing centres in China, providing consultation and one-to-one body-mind wellbeing services. The centres offered aromatherapy, yoga, meditation, dance therapy, physical contact improvisation, Esalen massage, and singing bowl therapy. 

• Social learning
• Over-imitation
• Innovation
• Cultural transmission
• Cultural evolution
• Developmental psychology
• Child development
• Cultural psychology
• Parenting
• Cross-cultural research