David DeSteno
Papers
7
Total Citations
676
H-Index
7
About
David DeSteno is a psychologist whose research lies at the intersection of social cognition, moral psychology, and human-robot interaction. His work has fundamentally reshaped how we understand trust—not as a vague feeling, but as a set of behaviors that can be detected, modeled, and even taught. In a landmark 2012 study (182 citations), he demonstrated that humans can accurately infer a stranger’s trustworthiness from nonverbal cues, a finding with profound implications for economics and social cooperation. He later developed a computational model that predicts interpersonal trust with greater accuracy than human judges (95 citations). DeSteno has also pioneered studies on how young children learn from robots, showing that children as young as three treat robots as reliable informants (155 citations) and can acquire new vocabulary from robotic storytellers (128 citations). His work bridges developmental psychology and artificial intelligence, revealing how social-emotional cues shape learning and attention. Beyond academic journals, DeSteno’s insights reach a broader audience through his acclaimed book *The Truth About Trust*, which explores how trust determines success across life domains. His research continues to influence fields from robotics to behavioral economics.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1Detecting the Trustworthiness of Novel Partners in Economic Exchange182 citations · 2012
- 2Young Children Treat Robots as Informants155 citations · 2016
- 3
- 4Computationally modeling interpersonal trust95 citations · 2013
- 5
- 6Role of Speaker Cues in Attention Inference13 citations · 2017
- 7