Allison Williams-Gant

Dr. Williams-Gant completed her PhD at the University of Louisville before moving on to complete a post-doctoral fellowship at Boston University. As a post-doctoral fellow, she worked with the Developing Belief Network, a global research collaborative studying religious development in diverse social-cultural settings, with a focus on the intersection of cognitive mechanisms and cultural beliefs and practices in early and middle childhood. 

^FJoint first author; ^UMentored undergraduate student

^FWilliams-Gant, A. J., ^FWeisman, K., Amin, T. G., Ghossainy, M. E., Soueidan, G., Nissel, J., Kenderla, P., Abdel-Hak, M., Anggoro, F. K., Bangayan, S., Burdett, E. R. R., Chau, E., Chen, E. E., Chua, J., Coetzee, L., Coley, J. D., Dahl, A., Dautel, J. B., Davis, E. L., Davis, H. E., DeLeon, A., Diesendruck, G., Evans, D., Feeney, A., Fong, F. T. K., Foo, X., Garcia, A., Gonzalez-Rubio, I., Guerrero Galaz, E., Gurven, M., Hu, Y., Huachorunto, K., Indrawati, K., Jee, B. D., Kahwa, M., Kahwa, U., Korah, R., Kramer, H. J., Kushnir, T., Kyriakopoulou, N., Lebepe, S., Lee, H. J., Lesage, K. A., Leshabana, P., Li, D., Li, P. H., Llacua, J. T., Maluleke, V., Marin, A., Marshall, J., Masebe, N., McAuliffe, K., McLaughlin, A., McMullan, A., McShane, C., Min, C., Mutegeki, M., Namara, O., Nichols, S., Nicolopoulou, A., Nielsen, M., Otali, E., Parise, K., Paucar, X. A., Payir, A., Poonawalla, S., Reyes-Jaquez, B., Riddick, S., Rockers, P. C., Ruiz, J. K., Sanjidah, R., Shneidman, L., Skopeliti, I., Srinivasan, M., Stegall, J., Stephens, J., Stutesman, M. G., Sun, J., Tarullo, A., Taylor, L. K., Theogen, I., Toong, D., Turan-Küçük , E. N., Tusiime, P. T., Ventura, E. P., Xu, J., Ye, N., Yu, Y., Yucel, M., Zhang, W., Zhao, X., Corriveau, K. H., Richert, R. A., & Developing Belief Network (in press). Working across religions, cultures, settings, and development: Protocol for Wave 2 data collection with children and parents by the Developing Belief Network. PLoS ONE

Girouard-Hallam, L. N., Williams, A. J., Danovitch, J. H., & Corriveau, K. (2025). When is it OK not to know?: Children and adults’ beliefs about smart speaker virtuous ignorance. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4kj5f4ff

Williams-Gant A. J., ^UHarden I. and Corriveau K. H. (2024). The influence of entertainment and brand characters on children’s object preferences and monetary judgments. Frontiers in Developmental Psychology, 2, https://doi.org/10.3389/fdpys.2024.1438391

Weisman, K., Ghossainy, M. E., Williams, A. J., Payir, A., Lesage, K. A., Reyes-Jaquez, B., Amin, T. G., Anggoro, F. K., Burdett, E. R. R., Chen, E. E., Coetzee, L., Coley, J. D., Dahl, A., Dautel, J. B., Davis, H. E., Davis, E. L., Diesendruck, G., Evans, D., Feeney, A., Gurven, M., Jee, B. D., Kramer, H. J., Kushnir, T., McAuliffe, K., McLaughlin, A., Nichols, S., Rockers, P. C., Shneidman, L., Srinivasan, M., Tarullo, A. R., Taylor, L, K., Yu, Y., Yucel, M., Zhao, X., Corriveau, K. H., Richert, R. A., & the Developing Belief Network (2024). The development and diversity of religious cognition and behavior: Protocol for Wave 1 data collection with children and parents by the Developing Belief Network. PLoS ONE 19, e0292755. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0292755

Williams, A. J., & Danovitch, J. H. (2024). The role of accuracy in children’s judgments of experts’ knowledge. Child Development, 95(1), 128–143. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13965

J. H., Scofield, J., Williams, A. J., DaVila, L., & Bui, C. (2023). Children’s selective information transmission in STEM and non-STEM domains. Cognitive Development, 66, 101332. doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2023.101332

Boyle, B., Duncan, R. G., Williams, A., Danovitch, J., & Mills, C. (2023). Elementary students’ reasoning about explanation-evidence relationships. In Blikstein, P., Van Aalst, J., Kizito, R., & Brennan, K. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 17th International Conference of the Learning Sciences - ICLS 2023. International Society of the Learning Sciences. https://repository.isls.org//handle/1/9865

Williams, A. J., & Danovitch, J. H. (2022). Is what Mickey Mouse says impossible? Informant reality status and children’s beliefs in extraordinary events. Journal of Cognition and Development, 23, 1-17 doi:10.1080/15248372.2021.2022680

Tong, Y., Wang, F., Danovitch, J., Williams, A., & Li, H., (2021). Unsafe to eat? How familiar cartoon characters affect children’s learning about potentially harmful foods. Appetite, 167, doi:10.1016/j.appet.2021.105649

Danovitch, J. H., Mills, C. M., Williams, A., & Sands, C. (2021). Mind the gap: How incomplete explanations influence children’s interest and learning behaviors. Cognitive Psychology, 130, doi:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2021.101421

Danovitch, J. H., Mills, C. M., Duncan, R. G., Williams, A., & Girouard, L. (2021). Developmental changes in children’s recognition of the relevance of evidence to causal explanations. Cognitive Development, 58, doi:10.1016/j.cogdev.2021.101017

Williams, A. J., Danovitch, J. H., & Mills, C. (2020). Exploring sources of individual differences in children’s interest in science. Mind, Brain, and Education, 15, 67-76. doi:10.1111/mbe.12263

Danovitch, J. H., Mills, C. M., Duncan, R. G., Williams, A., & Girouard, L. (2020). “How helpful is this observation?”: Children’s evaluations of scientific evidence. In S. Denison., M. Mack, Y. Xu, & B.C. Armstrong (Eds.), Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Cognitive Science Society. https://cogsci.mindmodeling.org/2020/papers/0416/0416.pdf

Williams, A. J., & Danovitch, J. H. (2019). What does Mickey Mouse know about food?: Children’s trust in favorite characters versus experts. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 187, 104647. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2019.05.014