Sometimes you have one of those days when you feel, more than usual, how lucky it is to have a great team. As I walk into the weekend, grateful for the team of @amormino.bsky.social @jokretz.bsky.social @farvk.bsky.social @jdweng.bsky.social. It was a day when the holism of the EMP Lab stood out.

Also, yes, empathy matters. Normalizing empathy, or cruelty, through policy may shape when and for whom citizens feel appropriate empathizing. Empathic choices lace together in support or separation, and don't exist in a vacuum. Empathy matters, science matters, and communicating that is vital. 5/n

@spspnews.bsky.social @isreorg.bsky.social @affectscience.bsky.social @ispp-pops.bsky.social @psuliberalarts.bsky.social @prcpennstate.bsky.social @ssripennstate.bsky.social @rockethics.bsky.social @psychscience.bsky.social @socphilpsych.bsky.social 4/n

The article is open-access at the link, please share! The journal is associated with @fabbs.org and connects science to society and policymakers. I'm excited to see many of the other excellent social psychology articles that are coming out in this special issue, as well! 3/n

As a matter of motivated choice, we suggest our empathic decisions are interwoven with one another's. Ultimately we suggest this is a matter of applied moral psychology, considering how people navigate moral disagreements and the need to care for one other (or not) within a complex social world 2/n

Excited to see this out in print in Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences. It's the first publication with @amormino.bsky.social in the EMP Lab, along with Joel Segel from Health Policy and Administration. At a pivotal moment for empathy, we consider its role for policymaking 1/n

Wintry walk with the EMP Lab @amormino.bsky.social @jokretz.bsky.social @farvk.bsky.social @jdweng.bsky.social @psuliberalarts.bsky.social @prcpennstate.bsky.social @ssripennstate.bsky.social @rockethics.bsky.social

First paper with post doc @amormino.bsky.social! Policy as applied moral psychology. We discussed how motivated empathy & moral pluralism matter, for the public-facing FABBS Policy Insights journal. An opportunity to cross disciplines with health policy scholar Joel Segel @prcpennstate.bsky.social

Empathy & moral judgment are motivated by many different values. To understand the role that empathy & morality can play in policy, we consider how constituents & policymakers balance costs & benefits of moral emotions & regulate themselves & each other. osf.io/preprints/ps... @dcameron.bsky.social

The team: @stysyropoulos.bsky.social, Bren O’Connor, @amormino.bsky.social, @drcharlie.bsky.social, Brock Bastian, Abigail Marsh & @lianeleeyoung.bsky.social

Across 6 European countries, people feel more responsible to protect future generations than to directly reduce climate change. Both forms of responsibility predict climate policy support. 🔗 authors.elsevier.com/a/1lcgHzzKDP... New paper w/ Zhaoquan Wang, @stysyropoulos.bsky.social, & many others.

The (stellar) team behind this work: David Markowitz, Thomas Mazzuchi, @stysyropoulos.bsky.social, me, and @lianeleeyoung.bsky.social

Taken together, obituaries show how societies remember the dead by encoding values, responding to cultural upheavals, and reinforcing scripts of age and gender. They are cultural time capsules that reveal what we believe makes a life well lived.

With @jowylie.bsky.social, Gordon Kraft-Todd, @nathanliang.bsky.social, @lianeleeyoung.bsky.social, and @stysyropoulos.bsky.social!

Practically, if people expect their own virtue to be judged more favorably, this could (potentially) make them more willing to act publicly, which may support norm setting. Still, the consistent discounting of public relative to private virtue suggests those acts may carry a credibility cost.

Public displays of virtue like donating or speaking up can set norms, but they’re often met with skepticism (“virtue discounting”). Our new paper asks: do people expect their own public virtue to be judged differently than others’ similar actions? bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

🪦 New in @pnas.org: we analyzed 38 million U.S. obituaries to ask what signals a life well lived: What values are people most remembered for? How do legacies shift with cultural events? How do age and gender shape what it means to have lived well? www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

As a reminder, the Moral Psychology Research Group online 2025 fall meeting starts today at 4pm EST on Zoom. Open to all! Details below (and note that the Zoom link has been updated). @amormino.bsky.social from the EMP Lab will be talking tomorrow at 11am EST. sites.google.com/view/mprg/on...

Which kids with early ODD/CD symptoms will grow out of them, and which may struggle long-term? Our ML models predict risk 3 years later with >90% accuracy. The strongest protective factor? Prosocial behavior—helping, sharing, caring. doi.org/10.1111/jcpp... Open Access report out now in JCPP

Check out the Moral Psychology Research Group online conference in November! EMP Lab and @prcpennstate.bsky.social post-doc @amormino.bsky.social will be talking about her work. A lot of great talks scheduled, a treat for folks who enjoy interdisciplinary work sites.google.com/view/mprg/on...

This paper grew out of my undergrad seminar: students collaborated on the replication project (Study2) & all earned co-authorship—it was a rare opportunity for undergrads to engage in journal-quality empirical work in the classroom & it’s a win for open science www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

This paper grew out of my undergrad seminar: students collaborated on the replication project (Study 2) & all earned co-authorship—it was a rare opportunity for undergrads to engage in journal-quality empirical work in the classroom & it’s a win for open science www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

We are excited to welcome @amormino.bsky.social to the Prevention Research Center as a postdoctoral scholar in our Prevention and Methodology Training program! Her PAMT mentors will be @dcameron.bsky.social and Joel Segel. For more about PAMT for pre- and postdoctoral scholars, visit pamt.psu.edu.

It's been great to welcome @amormino.bsky.social here to Penn State, she's already brought wonderful energy to the EMP Lab, the social psych area, and to @rockethics.bsky.social. Looking forward to her working with us as part of our team! @prcpennstate.bsky.social @psuliberalarts.bsky.social

A snapshot of our last summer meeting of the EMP Lab. A Happy Valley welcome to new members, graduate student @jokretz.bsky.social & post-doc @amormino.bsky.social, & farewell to alum @rachelbuterbaugh.bsky.social, who's off to grad school. With @jdweng.bsky.social @farvk.bsky.social, a great team!

Welcome, Paige! 💙

Excited to announce that @amormino.bsky.social has joined the EMP Lab as a post-doctoral fellow through @prcpennstate.bsky.social Prevention and Methodology Training Program! Excited to work with her on prosociality, moral judgments, & prevention science. Check out her work below, cheers to Paige!

We asked over 8,700 people in 6 countries to think about future generations in decision-making, and this is what we found theconversation.com/we-asked-ove... @stysyropoulos.bsky.social

Excited to share @seoyeonbae211.bsky.social's first preprint—an ambitious global study of human motivation! Using data from 900,000+ people in 100+ countries, we find altruistic motives consistently outweigh egoistic ones across cultures. osf.io/preprints/ps...

Inspired by research from @mattiwilks.bsky.social @amormino.bsky.social @shawnrhoadsphd.bsky.social @eranhalperin75.bsky.social and others: www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mora...

Hoping that the Social Discounting Task - Short Form (SDT-SF) Resource Page on osf will be an accessible implementation & analysis guide for all levels of researchers, from professors to undergrads. osf.io/nsv3k/files/...

New preprint! Do people who care about future generations actually do less to help others today? Across 3 studies—including both deceased and non-directed living organ donors—we find the opposite: Concern for the distant future predicts altruism now. 🌍🫀 👉 tinyurl.com/23r4cakh

New paper w Georgetown’s Abigail Marsh & Wharton’s Annie Wilson. We develop & validate a short form of the Social Discounting Task—a behavioral measure of generosity that reliably tracks w other forms of altruism. Perfect for tight surveys or large-scale studies journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10....

New paper by @amormino.bsky.social and colleagues! They develop and validate a short form of the Social Discounting Task—a fast, reliable measure of how altruism declines with social distance. Perfect for tight surveys or large-scale studies. journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10....

New Preprint: Social Discounting reliably predicts prosociality in meta-analysis & replication. Increased relational mobility (but not Ind-Col) predicts generosity toward distant others. All undergrads from our replication course are co-authors: tinyurl.com/4acvnbrb @kendraseaman.bsky.social

Check out our new preprint where we revisit ideological differences in the moral circle.

Big thanks to @spspnews.bsky.social and everyone who attended our symposium on barriers and pathways to altruistic equality! We appreciate the engaging discussion and insights. Special thanks to Stephanie Preston for providing stellar moderation—your expertise and guidance was outstanding!

We (@stysyropoulos.bsky.social, @jowylie.bsky.social, Gordon Kraft-Todd, @nathanliang.bsky.social, @lianeleeyoung.bsky.social) found striking self-serving asymmetries in how people judge others’ public virtue and how they expect their own to be judged. Check it out below!

In another preprint, we (@stysyropoulos.bsky.social & @lianeleeyoung.bsky.social) found that Americans underestimate how many future generations others see as worthy of consideration in policy and collective decisions, a form of pluralistic ignorance that may hinder long-term action.

New preprint! When people have more resources, they allocate more to future generations—but not proportionally more. SES also predicts greater willingness to sacrifice for future welfare. Tackling inequality and poverty might be key for longterm concern! tinyurl.com/46kcst28

New Preprint! How do scientific journal endorsements of political candidates impact trust in science? We find declines in trust, especially among moderates & conservatives, supporting research on motivated reasoning. Link: shorturl.at/76W4G #psychology

Massive thanks are also in order for Bren O’Connor, @lianeleeyoung.bsky.social and Abigail Marsh as well as for the John Templeton Foundation!

Join us Saturday afternoon for a #SPSP2025 symposium on the real & perceived boundaries of altruistic equality—and how moral learning can help transcend them! Featuring talks by @amormino.bsky.social, @stysyropoulos.bsky.social, Falk Lieder, and me, with moderation by Stephanie Preston!

Here's another short panel, between @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social @kyleflaw.bsky.social and Simone Tang, complementing one another after their talks on groups and morality. From the MPRG/Consortium conference bit.ly/3PqPpgA @ssripennstate.bsky.social @prcpennstate.bsky.social

Excited to share our new paper in PSPB! @stysyropoulos.bsky.social, Gordon Kraft-Todd, @lianeleeyoung.bsky.social and I validate a method for assessing impartial intergenerational beneficence––high levels of concern for ALL future generations. Read here: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Impartial altruism theoretically undermines prioritizing close relationships. Yet we found that impartial altruists—who donated a kidney & performed impartially in lab tasks—had close others who reported high relationship quality & showed high impartiality in tasks (vs controls).

Challenges like pandemics and climate change face the future of society. But present-oriented bias limits our moral concern for distant generations. Broadening our moral circles across time and space is therefore crucial for a better tomorrow — imagination may point the way. tinyurl.com/bdhrfuru

Blueksy! I will be recruiting a PhD student and a lab manager in the Fall of 2025. The lab will study rules and curiosity from a moral psychology lens—exploring how we judge rule-breakers, reason about rules, and what sparks our curiosity in the moral domain.

Interested in rules? Interested in rule breakers? Interested in why people break rules and why rule breakers are interesting? Well go figure this stuff out in Jordan’s cool new lab! 😀

Hi All! I created a starter pack of folks who study altruism and prosocial behavior, with a particular focus on those exploring how helping happens across boundaries, divides, and spans of distance. If you'd like to be added to the list, feel free to reply or DM me! go.bsky.app/D8mSgTy