Qi Wang

My research interests are at the intersection of cognitive and social development. Integrating developmental, cognitive, and sociocultural perspectives, my research examines the mechanisms underlying the development of a variety of cognitive and social-cognitive skills, including autobiographical memory, self, future thinking, emotion knowledge, and metacognition. I am particularly interested in how cultural beliefs and goals influence cognitive representations and processes by affecting information processing at the level of the individual and by shaping social practices between individuals (e.g., sharing memory narratives between parents and children). Currently I am conducting studies to examine cultural effects on the perceptual, retention, and retrieval processes of episodic remembering; personal and collective future thinking; temporal moral reasoning; memory from the COVID-19 pandemic as it relates to mental health; and the unique characteristics, functions, and mechanisms of autobiographical memory in our digitally mediated society.

Wang, Q., & Mert, N. (2025). Collective future thinking at a time of geopolitical tension. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 29(5), 393-396. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2025.02.004 Wang, Q., Suo, T., Mei, L., Guan, L., Hou, Y., & Dai, Y. (2025). Do future actions matter more than past deeds? Temporal moral attribution in US and Chinese school-age children. Developmental Psychology, 61(2), 228-240. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001825 (APA Editor’s Choice article) Wang, Q., & Hoskins, A. (2024) (Eds). The Remaking of Memory in the Age of the Internet and Social Media. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Pan, X., Hou, Y., & Wang, Q. (2023). Are we braver in cyberspace? Social media anonymity enhances moral courage, Computers in Human Behavior, 148, 107880. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2023.