Explaining Beauty: The Hidden Functions Behind Aesthetics

Bethany Burum's research integrates evolutionary game theory with laboratory experiments to study the hidden incentives that shape our preferences, beliefs, and ideologies, including our sense of morality, justice, beauty, and altruism. She draws on tools and evidence from multiple fields, including economics, history, philosophy, and studies of cultural evolution, with a particular emphasis on using psychological experiments to test theory. Burum teaches several courses on these topics, including courses on what game theory can explain about social behavior, the psychology of cults, the origins of our political and moral ideologies, functional explanations for classic findings in social psychology, and how hidden incentives explain art and beauty.