the science of morality

Welcome to the Morality Lab at Boston College! We use behavioral measures, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), and neuroimaging (fMRI) to understand moral judgment and social cognition.

Here are a few of the questions we've been working on:

What dimensions organize person space and action space?

How do we update our impressions of others when they violate our expectations?

Do we update our impressions differently when close friends behave unexpectedly, relative to strangers?

Does the failure to negatively update impressions of close others help to maintain close relationships?

What special obligations do people think others have to their family, relative to strangers?

How do we decide which social partners to choose, and which ones to leave behind?

Do we discount virtue when it is signaled publicly? Does discounting depend on the type of virtue being signaled?