Annie E. Wertz receives the 2023 Don Symons Adaptationism Award

Recognition for her novel research program 

Annie E. Wertz, Head of the Max Planck Research Group Naturalistic Social Cognition, was awarded the inaugural 2023 Don Symons Adaptationism Award for her paper How plants shape the mind. Therein she provides an overview of her novel research program exploring how infants and young children learn about plants.  

With the Don Symons Adaptationism Award, the Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES) honors the best paper exemplifying the adaptationist program, for example using principles of evolution to make testable predictions about the design of the human mind.  

The HBES is a society for all those studying the evolution of human behavior. Scientific perspectives range from evolutionary psychology to evolutionary anthropology and cultural evolution. 

Original publication 
Wertz, A. E. (2019). How plants shape the mind. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 23(7), 528–531. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2019.04.009