I am a social-cognitive psychologist broadly interested in studying people’s judgments, beliefs, and social perceptions. My research program has covered different topics over the years, but my predominant and ongoing research interest lies in the moral domain. I combine computational modeling tools with observational and experimental research designs to investigate the following questions:

How do people judge whether an action is morally right or wrong? Do our identities and the stances we take on contentious issues shape our moral judgments of what is right and wrong and who is moral and immoral?

Given the centrality of harm in morality, knowledge of how people resolve moral problems, the conditions under which moral judgments shift, and the factors that shape moral perceptions of outgroups is crucial for understanding responses to policies with potential implications for harm and for identifying moral sources of sociopolitical conflict.

In this line of work, I primarily use a computational model of moral-dilemma judgments–the CNI model of moral judgments and decisions–to quantify morally-relevant behavioral response patterns. My research (1) examines individual and contextual factors shaping people’s judgments of moral acceptability and endorsements of moral actions, (2) investigates how political identity shapes moral judgments and perceptions of political ingroups and outgroups, and (3) addresses limitations of dominant paradigms in moral psychology.

For an overview of research relevant to this topic, see:

• Beyond trolleyology: The CNI model of moral-dilemma responses (2024). Personality and Social Psychology Review.