When people judge acts of kindness or cruelty, they often look beyond the act itself to infer
the agent's motives. These inferences, in turn, can powerfully influence moral judgements …

Why do many societies moralize apparently harmless pleasures, such as lust, gluttony,
alcohol, drugs, and even music and dance? Why do they erect temperance, asceticism …

Does my life have any deeper meaning? Does God really care about me? How can I find
and follow my moral compass? What do I do when my faith is shaken to the core? Spiritual …

Although psychologists have paid scant attention to the sense of obligation as a distinctly
human motivation, moral philosophers have identified two of its key features: First, it has a …

Morality indicates what is the 'right'and what is the 'wrong'way to behave. It is one of the most
popular areas of research in contemporary social psychology, driven in part by recent …

How do people judge whether someone deserves moral praise for their actions? In contrast
to the large literature on moral blame, work on how people attribute praise has, until …

The ability to engage in counterfactual thinking (reason about what else could have
happened) is critical to learning, agency, and social evaluation. However, not much is …

Adults' judgments regarding punishment can have important social ramifications. However,
the origins of these judgments remain unclear. Using the legal system as an example …

Recent work identified a shift in judgments of moral praiseworthiness that occurs late in
development: adults recognize the virtue of moral actions that involve resolving an inner …

Adults report that moral characteristics—particularly widely shared moral beliefs—are
central to identity. This perception appears driven by the view that changes to widely shared …