What are the cultural and biological origins of human social behavior?

Coren Apicella is a Professor of Psychology and Director of the Human Behavior and Origins Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a member of Penn’s Anthropology Graduate Group.

Coren Apicella also serves as Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Psychology, Director of Communication within the Curriculum, and as Chair of the Committee on Undergraduate Education, where she has helped shape the College’s new undergraduate curriculum.

To learn more about the College’s new undergraduate curriculum, read an overview of the proposed reforms co-authored by Coren Apicella and Coren Apicella’s case for adopting the new curriculum.

Coren’s research examines how biology and culture—both independently and in interaction—shape individual and social behavior, including mate choice, cooperation, and competition. In addition to conducting laboratory-based research, she has carried out extensive fieldwork with the Hadza, a hunter-gatherer population in Tanzania.