My research program investigates the role of emotion in social judgment, with a specific focus on how affective processes shape moral decisions and prosocial/antisocial behavior at both the individual and intergroup levels.

I view morality as serving a social function and am interested in the discrete emotional states which are thought to have evolved to promote adaptive behavior and decision making in the moral domain (e.g. compassion, jealousy, gratitude, embarrassment).

I am currently conducting two lines of research. One focuses on the role of synchronous movement in arousing prosocial emotional responses to victims of moral transgressions (as well as the effect of synchrony more generally on promoting social skills). The second looks at the psychological biases that contribute to unethical decision making and corruption within institutions and organizations (e.g. medicine, law, politics). Both lines of research emphasize the importance of social processes in moral judgment and behavior relative to the importance of principled reasoning.