Leda Cosmides

41.8k total citations · 8 hit papers
120 papers, 18.2k citations indexed

About

Leda Cosmides is a scholar working on Sociology and Political Science, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience. According to data from OpenAlex, Leda Cosmides has authored 120 papers receiving a total of 18.2k indexed citations (citations by other indexed papers that have themselves been cited), including 66 papers in Sociology and Political Science, 56 papers in Experimental and Cognitive Psychology and 35 papers in Cognitive Neuroscience. Recurrent topics in Leda Cosmides's work include Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation (59 papers), Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior (51 papers) and Child and Animal Learning Development (25 papers). Leda Cosmides is often cited by papers focused on Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation (59 papers), Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior (51 papers) and Child and Animal Learning Development (25 papers). Leda Cosmides collaborates with scholars based in United States, Australia and Denmark. Leda Cosmides's co-authors include John Tooby, Jerome H. Barkow, Aaron Sell, Robert Kurzban, Daniel Sznycer, Stanley B. Klein, Debra Lieberman, Andrew W. Delton, Joshua New and Michael E. Price and has published in prestigious journals such as Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

In The Last Decade

Leda Cosmides

117 papers receiving 16.2k citations

Hit Papers

The Adapted mind : evolutionary psychology and the genera... 1989 2026 2001 2013 1992 1989 1990 1996 1992 1000 2.0k 3.0k
What are hit papers?

Hit papers significantly outperform the citation benchmark for their cohort. A paper qualifies if it has ≥500 total citations, achieves ≥1.5× the top-1% citation threshold for papers in the same subfield and year (this is the minimum needed to enter the top 1%, not the average within it), or reaches the top citation threshold in at least one of its specific research topics.

  1. The Adapted mind : evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture
    1992 3.1k citations Jerome H. Barkow, Leda Cosmides et al. Oxford University Press eBooks profile →
  2. The logic of social exchange: Has natural selection shaped how humans reason? Studies with the Wason selection task
    1989 1.4k citations Leda Cosmides Cognition profile →
  3. The past explains the present
    1990 1.1k citations John Tooby, Leda Cosmides profile →
  4. Are humans good intuitive statisticians after all? Rethinking some conclusions from the literature on judgment under uncertainty
    1996 743 citations Leda Cosmides Cognition profile →
  5. The Adapted Mind
    1992 644 citations Leda Cosmides, Jerome H. Barkow profile →
  6. On the Universality of Human Nature and the Uniqueness of the Individual: The Role of Genetics and Adaptation
    1990 546 citations John Tooby, Leda Cosmides profile →
  7. Can race be erased? Coalitional computation and social categorization
    2001 528 citations Robert Kurzban, John Tooby et al. profile →
  8. Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture, part II
    1989 476 citations Leda Cosmides, John Tooby profile →

Peers — A (Enhanced Table)

Peers by citation overlap · career bar shows stage (early→late) cites · hero ref

Name h Career Trend Papers Cites
Leda Cosmides United States 57 7.5k 6.7k 5.4k 5.2k 2.3k 120 18.2k
John Tooby United States 54 6.7k 0.9× 6.0k 0.9× 4.9k 0.9× 4.3k 0.8× 1.6k 0.7× 112 15.3k
Ara Norenzayan Canada 48 10.0k 1.3× 4.2k 0.6× 10.8k 2.0× 4.4k 0.9× 1.9k 0.8× 106 22.3k
Joseph Henrich United States 75 16.6k 2.2× 6.8k 1.0× 11.6k 2.2× 6.0k 1.1× 2.8k 1.2× 163 33.0k
Daniel C. Dennett United States 52 3.2k 0.4× 4.8k 0.7× 4.2k 0.8× 8.0k 1.5× 2.7k 1.2× 255 19.8k
Steven J. Heine Canada 50 8.1k 1.1× 3.9k 0.6× 10.6k 2.0× 3.5k 0.7× 1.5k 0.6× 105 20.2k
Timothy D. Wilson United States 53 6.3k 0.8× 4.3k 0.6× 7.1k 1.3× 5.2k 1.0× 2.1k 0.9× 131 22.3k
Frans Β. Μ. de Waal United States 74 5.3k 0.7× 4.9k 0.7× 15.7k 2.9× 4.9k 0.9× 3.1k 1.3× 244 23.3k
Michael A. Hauser United States 73 2.7k 0.4× 4.0k 0.6× 8.1k 1.5× 9.4k 1.8× 5.4k 2.3× 273 22.3k
Dan Sperber France 43 3.6k 0.5× 5.3k 0.8× 3.1k 0.6× 2.6k 0.5× 3.2k 1.4× 143 15.5k
Robin Dunbar United Kingdom 105 9.9k 1.3× 9.0k 1.3× 20.5k 3.8× 6.0k 1.1× 2.9k 1.2× 506 40.4k

Countries citing papers authored by Leda Cosmides

Since Specialization
Citations

This map shows the geographic impact of Leda Cosmides's research. It shows the number of citations coming from papers published by authors working in each country. You can also color the map by specialization and compare the number of citations received by Leda Cosmides with the expected number of citations based on a country's size and research output (numbers larger than one mean the country cites Leda Cosmides more than expected).

Fields of papers citing papers by Leda Cosmides

Since Specialization
Physical SciencesHealth SciencesLife SciencesSocial Sciences

This network shows the impact of papers produced by Leda Cosmides. Nodes represent research fields, and links connect fields that are likely to share authors. Colored nodes show fields that tend to cite the papers produced by Leda Cosmides. The network helps show where Leda Cosmides may publish in the future.

Co-authorship network of co-authors of Leda Cosmides

This figure shows the co-authorship network connecting the top 25 collaborators of Leda Cosmides. A scholar is included among the top collaborators of Leda Cosmides based on the total number of citations received by their joint publications. Widths of edges represent the number of papers authors have co-authored together. Node borders signify the number of papers an author published with Leda Cosmides. Leda Cosmides is excluded from the visualization to improve readability, since they are connected to all nodes in the network.

All Works

20 of 20 papers shown
1.
Tooby, John & Leda Cosmides. (2025). The evolution of war and its cognitive foundations. Evolution and Human Behavior. 46(3). 106687–106687. 1 indexed citations
2.
Ermer, Elsa, Gary Charness, John Tooby, & Leda Cosmides. (2025). Coalitional support regulates resource divisions in men. Evolution and Human Behavior. 46(5). 106715–106715.
3.
Barlev, Michael, Sakura Arai, John Tooby, & Leda Cosmides. (2025). Willingness to protect from violence, independent of strength, guides partner choice. Evolution and Human Behavior. 46(6). 106745–106745.
4.
Tooby, John, et al.. (2023). Rational inferences about social valuation. Cognition. 239. 105566–105566. 2 indexed citations
5.
Arai, Sakura, John Tooby, & Leda Cosmides. (2022). Motivations to reciprocate cooperation and punish defection are calibrated by estimates of how easily others can switch partners. PLoS ONE. 17(4). e0267153–e0267153. 2 indexed citations
6.
Delton, Andrew W., John Kane, Michael Bang Petersen, Theresa E. Robertson, & Leda Cosmides. (2021). Partisans use emotions as social pressure: Feeling anger and gratitude at exiters and recruits in political groups. Party Politics. 28(5). 845–853. 4 indexed citations
7.
Cosmides, Leda & John Tooby. (2016). Better than rational: Evolutionary psychology and the invisible hand. American Economic Review. 84(2). 327–332. 80 indexed citations
8.
Sznycer, Daniel, Eric Schniter, John Tooby, & Leda Cosmides. (2015). Regulatory Adaptations for Delivering Information: The Case of Confession. Chapman University Digital Commons (Chapman University).
9.
Sznycer, Daniel, Eric Schniter, John Tooby, & Leda Cosmides. (2014). Regulatory adaptations for delivering information: the case of confession. Evolution and Human Behavior. 36(1). 44–51. 24 indexed citations
10.
Delton, Andrew W., et al.. (2013). Merely opting out of a public good is moralized: An error management approach to cooperation.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 105(4). 621–638. 16 indexed citations
11.
Sznycer, Daniel, Kosuke Takemura, Andrew W. Delton, et al.. (2012). Cross-cultural differences and similarities in proneness to shame: an adaptationist and ecological approach.. PubMed. 10(2). 352–70. 65 indexed citations
12.
Delton, Andrew W., et al.. (2012). The psychosemantics of free riding: Dissecting the architecture of a moral concept.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 102(6). 1252–1270. 89 indexed citations
13.
Klein, Stanley B., et al.. (2009). Evolution and Episodic Memory: An Analysis and Demonstration of a Social Function of Episodic Recollection. Social Cognition. 27(2). 283–319. 40 indexed citations
14.
Tooby, John, Leda Cosmides, & Michael E. Price. (2006). Cognitive adaptations forn‐person exchange: the evolutionary roots of organizational behavior. Managerial and Decision Economics. 27(2-3). 103–129. 164 indexed citations
15.
Cosmides, Leda. (2004). Knowing Thyself. 4. 93–128. 21 indexed citations
16.
Cosmides, Leda, John Tooby, & Robert Kurzban. (2003). Perceptions of race. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 7(4). 173–179. 248 indexed citations
17.
Klein, Stanley B., et al.. (2002). Decisions and the evolution of memory: Multiple systems, multiple functions.. Psychological Review. 109(2). 306–329. 291 indexed citations
18.
Fiddick, Laurence, Leda Cosmides, & John Tooby. (2000). No interpretation without representation: the role of domain-specific representations and inferences in the Wason selection task. Cognition. 77(1). 1–79. 181 indexed citations
19.
Barkow, Jerome H., Leda Cosmides, & John Tooby. (1992). The Adapted mind : evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture. Oxford University Press eBooks. 3129 indexed citations breakdown →
20.
Tooby, John & Leda Cosmides. (1989). ADAPTATION VERSUS PHYLOGENY: THE ROLE OF ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY IN THE STUDY OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR. International Journal of Comparative Psychology. 2(3). 18 indexed citations

Rankless uses publication and citation data sourced from OpenAlex, an open and comprehensive bibliographic database. While OpenAlex provides broad and valuable coverage of the global research landscape, it—like all bibliographic datasets—has inherent limitations. These include incomplete records, variations in author disambiguation, differences in journal indexing, and delays in data updates. As a result, some metrics and network relationships displayed in Rankless may not fully capture the entirety of a scholar's output or impact.

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