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    About Me

    My name is Yuchen Tian (田雨晨).

     

    I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Boston University.

     

    Born and raised in China, I completed my B.A. in North China Electric Power University, where I was trained as an English-Chinese translator and interpreter. During my undergrad, I have translated a novel and worked as the interpreter for multiple academic conferences. In my junior year, I discovered my passion in developmental psychology and then applied to work with Dr. Qi Wang and Dr. Lin Bian as a Master’s student at Cornell University. In 2021, I became a PhD student working with Dr. Tara Mandalaywala at UMass Amherst. In 2024 summer, I transferred with my advisor to Boston University.

     

    I plan to graduate in 2026 Jan and I am actively looking for faculty or post-doctoral positions in developmental psychology, social psychology, or human development fields.

  • Research Interests

    My research interests are at the intersection of social cognition, social inequalities and culture. I study how people think about social structures, with an emphasis on leadership and socieoeconomic inequalities. My research focuses particularly on children’s reasoning about leadership, social status and soical mobility (the change of people’s social status). In asking these questions, I pay particular attention to how culture (U.S. vs. China) shapes differences in children’s social thinking.

     

    Some of the research questions I am asking include:

     

    1. How do young children (5-12 years old) reason about social mobility? Do they perceive different social groups (e.g., people with different race, ability-status, heritage country) have an equal opportunity to achieve upward social mobility?

     

    2. How do children's beliefs about social mobility predict their behavior (e.g., social preference, social liking and resource allocation behavior)?

     

    3. How do children develop their cognition around leadership? What do they preceive as a good leader and when do their gender and racial stereotypes about leadership emerge?

     

    4. How do cultural and context factors (macro-level cultural conetxt and micro-level intergroup exposure) impact children's thinking about the above questions?

     

    Please read more about these in the "ongoing projects" section and "publication" section:)

  • Exciting News

    Here is the exciting news about my research, teaching, mentorship and career development!

     

    09/24: I was awarded $1000 as the Conference Travel Grant by the Graduate Student Organization of Boston University! This money will fund my trip to SPSP 2025 in Denver, CO!

     

    08/24: I have taught Developemental Psychology independently in the 2024 summer session. Check the "Teaching" session for more information about this course.

     

    08/24: After 3 years of PhD study at UMass Amherst, I moved to Boston University. I am happy to meet all the new colleagues and friends in this beautiful city.

     

    07/24: I have completed a 3-month data collection fieldwork in China. This oversea fieldwork experience has helped me collect data from over 400 children for 4 projects. I have also practiced my cross-cultural communication skills and team management skills.

     

    03/24: I went to CDS 2024 at Pasadena, CA. In this second CDS trip, I gave an oral talk featuring the project in collaboration with Dr. Lin Bian on children's leadership cognition. My colleague Jordan Legaspi also presented a lab collaborative project with me as a co-author.

     

    02/24: I went to SPSP 2024 at San Diego, CA. I presented a poster on a project about children's group-based beliefs about upward soical mobility.

  • Publications

    Peer-reviewed papers

     

    5. Tian, Y., González, G. T., &Mandalaywala, T. M. (2024). Beliefs about social mobility in young American
    children. Developmental Science, e13527. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13527

    4. Wang, Q., Mert, N., & Tian, Y. (2024) Remembering the Good and Bad and theSelf and Others in a Culturally Modulated Self-Memory System. Memory.

    3. Tian, Y., & Bian, L. (2023). Shouldleaders conform? Developmental evidence from the United States and China. Journalof Experimental Psychology: General, 152(11), 3153–3166. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001451

    Media coverage: PBS website, UMass Amherst

    2. Legaspi, J. K.,Pareto, H. G., Korroch, S. L., Tian, Y., & Mandalaywala, T. M.(2023). Do American children automatically encode cues to wealth? Journal ofExperimental Child Psychology, 234, 105706. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2023.105706

    1. Jiang, X., & Tian,Y. (2016). Cultural confidence of Chinese people: Reflection on “The Spirit of the Chinese People”. Higher Education of Social Sciences, 11(4),8-13.

    Work in progress:

     

    Shachnai, R.,Leshin, R., Wang, M., Tian Y., & Cimpian., A. (Revise and Resubmit) A Cross-Cultural Investigation of Young Girls’ and Boys’Political Ambition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (Special Issue in Political Thinking).

     

    Tian, Y., Ukairo, O.*, Yu, X.*,& Mandalaywala, T. M. (in prep) American children’s beliefs in group-based disparities of upward social mobility: race and heritage country.

     

    Liu, R.^, Tian,Y.^, & Bian, L. (in prep) Increasing children's recognition of structural causes of the gender gap in STEM in China.

    Tian, Y., X, Zhao., & Mandalaywala,T. M. (in prep) They cannot move upward because of their origin: Chinese children’s geography-based beliefs about upward social mobility beliefs.

    Tian, Y., & Mandalaywala, T. M. (in prep) The development of children’s social mobility belief: A review of the cognitive foundations.

    Tian, Y., Zhao. X., & Mandalaywala,T. M. (in prep) Children’s attitudes and stereotypes for people with different geographical origins: Evidence from China and the U.S.

    Conference Proceedings

    9. Mandalaywala,T., Tian, Y., & Gonzalez, G., (June 2024) Beliefs About SocialMobility in Young American Children. Talk presented at the 53rdAnnual Meeting of the Jean Piaget Society, Toronto, Canada.

    8. Legaspi, J.K., Tian, Y., Gonzalez, G., & Mandalaywala, T., (March 2024) Americanchildren’s inferences of wealth and occupational status: an early- emerging endorsement of the myth of meritocracy. Talkpresented at the Biennial Conference 2024 of Child Development Society,Pasadena, CA.

    7. Tian, Y., & Bian, L., (March 2024) Shouldleaders conform? Developmental evidence from the United States and China.Oral Paper presented at the Biennial Conference 2024 of Child Development Society, Pasadena, CA.

    6. Tian, Y., & Mandalaywala, T., (February2024) Children’s Beliefs in Group-based Disparities of Social Mobility.Poster to be presented at the 2024 Society for Personality and Social Psychology Annual Convention, San Diego, CA.

    5. Tian, Y., & Mandalaywala, T., (March 2023)Children’s preferential attention to and memory for stereotypicalinformation. Paper presented to the Biennial Conference 2023 of Society ofResearch in Child Development, Salt Lake City, Utah.

    4. Tian, Y., & Mandalaywala, T., (March 2022)Children’s inferences about and explanations for occupation-based wealth. Paperpresented to the Biennial Conference 2022 of Child Development Society, Madison, WI.

    3. Shachnai, R., Leshin, R., Tian Y., Wang, M., Bian,L., & Cimpian., A., (March 2022) The development of gendered concepts ofpolitical leaders: Evidence from the US and China. Paper presented to the47th Annual Meeting of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology.

    2. Tian, Y., Bian, L., (April 2021) Morepower, more freedom: 4- to 8-year-old children approve of powerful group
    members’ non-conformity. Paper presented to the 2021 Biennial Meeting ofthe Society for Research in Child Development.

    1. Tian, Y., Wang, Q., (February 2021)Remembering the good and the bad: Culture, memory, and well-being.Poster presented at the 2021 Society for Personality and Social Psychology Annual Convention.

  • Ongoing projects

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    The development of children's beliefs about social mobility

    People in our societies are experiencing different opportunities for upward social mobility. How do young children think about it? Do they think people from different social grousp have an equal likelihood to achive upward soical mobility?

    My dissertation includes 5 studies to empriracal test these questions in a cross-cultural context.

     

    Click the button below to read more about published paper and conference presentations from this proejct.

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    The development of children's leadership cognition

    Leadership is prevalent across cultures and history. Every now and then, we see from real life that leaders break norms and do something different from other group members. How are leadership and group norms initially represented in children's minds? And how does this association differ across cultures?

    I have a active line of research that is exploring how children think about group leader's nonconforming behaviors.

     

    Click the button below to read more about published paper and conference presentations on this topic.

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    The development of children's geographical stereotypes

    People from a rural area of some socities are usually discrminated and perceived to have some negative traits. How do young children's stereotypes for people with either a rural or urban origin look like? How does cultural conetxt (rural urban economic inequalities) impact the expression and development of these stereotypes? How do the stereotypes predict children's decision and attitudes towards people with different geographical origin?

     

    In an ongoing project, I am studying these questions with children from two cultural conetxt (U.S. and China).

  • Teaching Experiences

    to be inserted

  • In BU lab space with RAs!

    photo credit to Tara!

    Collecting data in Holyoke Children's museum with RAs!

    Presenting my poster at SPSP 2024 @ San Diego

    Running a study with a kid participant in China!

    Giving a talk at SRCD 2023 @ Salt Lake City

  • Contact

    Leave a message or email me for inquiries.

    64 Cummington Mall #149, Boston, MA 02215
    413-416-5886
    413-416-5886
    yctian@bu.edu
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