Assistant Professor
Ph.D., Yale University
Developmental, Social, and Cognitive Psychology

Email: candice.mills@utdallas.edu
Phone: 972-883-4475
Office: GR 4.202A

Think Lab Website

About Candice Mills

Candice Mills is an assistant professor in Psychological Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas. Dr. Mills earned her bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, in cognitive neuroscience from the University of Florida, and a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from Yale University.

Dr. Mills’ research explores the development of social cognition: how children evaluate the knowledge and beliefs of others as well as themselves, and what changes over the course of development. Her research incorporates methods and theories from developmental, social, and cognitive psychology, with participant populations spanning from early childhood through adolescence and adulthood.

One line of research examines how children and adults think about their own knowledge, and how they determine what others are likely to know and understand about the world. Adults often overestimate how much they know about complex phenomena (like how the stock market functions, or how a helicopter works). The act of providing an explanation, however, can sometimes help adults recognize the gaps that exist in their understanding. In several studies with children, Dr. Mills is examining how children evaluate their own knowledge, and when they might be able to recognize what they know or don’t know (Mills & Keil, 2004; Keil, Rozenblit, & Mills, 2004).

A second line of research explores how children evaluate the messages they hear, specifically focusing on how self-interests and desires may influence people’s statements and beliefs. One study revealed that second and fourth graders were able to take into account the self-interests of characters when deciding how much to believe them. When told stories in which the outcome of a contest was ambiguous, second and fourth graders were less likely to believe characters who claimed to have won the race than those who claimed defeat. Kindergartners, on the other hand, were quite trusting of self-interested statements, assuming that they were accurate (Mills & Keil, 2005). Continuing work on this topic examines what children understand about biased reasoning and impartial decision-making.

Research Interests

My research focuses on the development of social cognition. Because children are flooded with information from many sources, it is important for them to evaluate the quality of these sources, determine how much to believe the information they hear, and decide which information they should discard due to inaccuracy or bias. In one line of research, I examine how children evaluate the testimony of others by examining the factors that children use to decide whether or not to trust a piece of information. In another line of research, I examine how preschool and elementary school children ask questions of others to obtain information. Together, this research reveals important developments in how children think about and learn from the world around them.

Recent publications

Mills, C. M., & Grant, M. G. (in press). Biased decision-making: Developing an understanding of how positive and negative relationships may skew judgments. Developmental Science.

Mills, C. M., & Keil, F. C. (2008). Children’s developing notions of (im)partiality. Cognition, 107, 528-551.

Mills, C. M., & Keil, F. C. (2005). The development of cynicism. Psychological Science. 16, 385-390.