Elizabeth Gunderson, Ph.D.
Email: lizgunderson@uchicago.edu
Bio: Elizabeth Gunderson, Ph.D., will be an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology beginning in January of 2013. She received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from the University of Chicago in 2012 and her B.A. in Computer Science & Psychology from Yale University in 2005.
Dr. Gunderson’s research focuses on the cognitive and socio-emotional factors that affect young children’s academic achievement, especially in the domain of mathematics. She is currently investigating how verbal interactions facilitate preschoolers’ development of number concepts; how visuo-spatial skills relate to children’s early numeracy skills and number line knowledge; how teacher’s and children’s anxieties influence students’ math performance; and how praise affects children’s development of achievement motivation.
Representative publications:
Gunderson, E. A., Gripshover, S. J., Romero, C., Dweck, C. S., Goldin-Meadow, S., & Levine, S. C. (in press). Parent praise to 1-3 year-olds predicts children’s motivational frameworks 5 years later. Child Development.
Gunderson, E. A., Ramirez, G., Beilock, S. L., & Levine, S. C. (2012). The relation between spatial skill and early number knowledge: The role of the linear number line. Developmental Psychology. Advance online publication.
Gunderson, E. A., Ramirez, G., Levine, S. C., & Beilock, S. L. (2012). The role of parents and teachers in the development of gender-related math attitudes. Sex Roles, 66(3), 153-166.
Ramirez, G., Gunderson, E. A., Levine, S. C., & Beilock, S. L. (2012). Spatial anxiety relates to spatial abilities as a function of working memory in children. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 65(3), 474-487.
Gunderson, E. A., & Levine, S. C. (2011). Some types of parent number talk count more than others: Relations between parents’ input and children’s number knowledge. Developmental Science, 14(5), 1021-1032.
Beilock, S. L., Gunderson, E. A., Ramirez, G., & Levine, S. C. (2010). Female teachers' math anxiety affects girls' math achievement. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(5), 1860-1863.