Alexaner Noyes, Ph.D.

Alexander is interested in concepts of social institutions. He studies how people use relations to social institutions as a basis for inductive generalization. For example, how we use the relation between lawyers and the legal system, Jews and Judaism, and Black Americans and the healthcare system to infer “lawyers defend clients”, “Jews keep kosher”, and “Black Americans are undertreated for pain.” Alexander shows that people see social institution—such as courts, congregations, and sports teams—as structured wholes. For example, a court is a way of designing a system of rules to organize people into a functional unit. Alexander is interested in when and how this insight emerges during childhood.