Cailin O'Connor is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science at University of California Irvine. She is also a member of the Institute of Mathematical and Behavioral Sciences there. O'Connor is currently administering the NSF grant 'Dynamics and Diversity in Epistemic Communities', which is to use evolutionary game theoretic and game theoretic models to explore issues regarding diversity in epistemic communities. Her work has used formal tools to shed light on such diverse topics as vagueness, perceptual categorization, guilt, and bargaining between classes.
Dates of Visit: 2 August – 30 September 2016
Project Title: Dynamics of Sex and Gender
Project Description: While at the LSE, I will be working on my monograph which explores cultural evolution in groups with social categories such as gender and race. In particular, the book focuses on the emergence of norms that employ gender categories to solve problems related to coordination, bargaining, and division of labor. Evolutionary models of this emergence are used to gain insight into the prevalence and character of such norms in real societies. Many of these models expand traditional rational choice models of the household.