I am an evolutionary and cognitive social scientist. I connect insights from cognitive science, behavioral ecology, and evolutionary biology, with the “thick descriptions” of cultures produced by historians, sociologists, and anthropologists. I explore questions like: Why has romantic love become increasingly important in modern societies? Why are people interested in imaginary worlds? Why do people condemn victimless “purity violations”? Why do gods reward virtue and punish bad people? Specifically, I use phenotypic plasticity to explain the variability of human cultures, the gene-centered view of evolution to explain the emergence of cultural adaptations such as puritanism, supernatural beliefs, social control and entertainment, and reciprocity theory to explain human morality.

My work is thus at the intersection of the natural sciences (evolutionary biology, behavioral ecology, experimental psychology), the social sciences (social anthropology, economic history, political sciences) and the humanities (cultural history, moral philosophy, literary theory). I use all kinds of methods (evolutionary modelling, experiments, surveys, online data) and materials (portraits, novels, movies).

I have an interdisciplinary academic training, combining degrees in the Humanities (BA and MA in Philosophy), Social Sciences (Licence in History, Master in Sociology), and the Natural Sciences (BA in Biology, MA in Cognitive Science). I did a PhD in Social Sciences under the supervision of cultural and cognitive scientist Dan Sperber. I then did a first post-doc at the School of Anthropology & Museum Ethnography of the University of Oxford and a second one at the Philosophy, Politics and Economics Program of the University of Pennsylvania before creating the Evolution and Social Cognition in the Department of Cognitive Sciences at the Ecole Normale Supérieure – PSL University in Paris.

I am now Research Director at the CNRS and Professor at the Ecole Normale Supérieure – PSL University in Paris. I am also the co-founder of Bunka, an exploration engine using social media data.

I supervise the ‘Social Sciences’ track of the Master of Cognitive Sciences and the PhD Program of Cognitive Sciences where I teach Introduction to Evolutionary Anthropology, Integrative Anthropology: From Environment to Culture, Data Science and Pop Culture and Evolutionary anthropology of the future (here are some tips if you want to join our programs).

Here are some representative articles:

My current research projects are:

My publications are indexed on Google Scholar. I used to blog at the International of Cognition and Culture Institute and to write a monthly column on psychology and public policies in Cerveau&Psycho (in French).

Funding