Evolutionary psychology, intergroup conflict, moral psychology, individual differences, social inequality
My research touches on topics that cut into broad, existential questions of life, such as why do we love and hate? And how are we able to be so giving and capable of self-sacrifice, yet so damned tribal in its outcomes? 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 social neuroscience.
A recent CV available here: CV
Current projects include: (1) life history and achievement inequality; and, (2) biases in moral, group, and political judgments, and (3) cooperation and conflict .
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.
Sample virtual reality content can be found here
Acknowledgement and disclaimer: This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. SES-1728923. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
