Evolutionary psychology, social psychology, intergroup bias, moral judgment

My research interests touch on topics that cut into broad, existential questions of life, such as why do we love and hate, and why are we moral yet so damned tribal?  In framing my approach to these questions, I contemplate how evolutionary pressures such as disease transmission, coordination problems, and intra-sexual competition might be relevant to the emergence of the psychological mechanisms that produce within-group cooperation and between-group conflict. Crucial to this enterprise is an investigation of the decision rules that tie within- and between-group processes together, and how such rules are represented in the human mind as social norms, "gut feelings" or moral intuitions. Theory and method are adopted from emerging perspectives across the social and natural sciences, including social psychology, behavioral ecology, and neuropsychophysiology.

Current projects include: (1) fear conditioning in intergroup contexts; (2) life history and academic achievement; and, (3) biases in perception and moral judgment.

For a fuller view of my current research interests, click here. Selected publications and manuscripts can be found here. Information about working as a graduate researcher or an undergraduate experimenter in my lab can be found on my lab pages.