Source Themes

Investigating the relationship between self-perceived moral superiority and moral behavior using economic games

Most people report that they are superior to the average person on various moral traits. The psychological causes and social consequences of this phenomenon have received considerable empirical attention. The behavioral correlates of self-perceived …

Doing good vs avoiding bad in prosocial choice: A refined test and extension of the morality preference hypothesis

Prosociality is fundamental to human social life, and, accordingly, much research has attempted to explain human prosocial behavior. Capraro and Rand (*Judgment and Decision Making, 13*, 99–111, 2018) recently provided experimental evidence that …

Do the folk actually hold folk-economic beliefs?

Boyer and Petersen argue that folk-economic beliefs are widespread—shaped by evolved cognitive systems—and they offer exemplar beliefs to illustrate their thesis. We highlight evidence of substantial variation in one domain of these exemplars; …

The heart trumps the head: Desirability bias in political belief revision

Understanding how individuals revise their political beliefs has important implications for society. In a preregistered study (N = 900), we experimentally separated the predictions of 2 leading theories of human belief revision—desirability bias and …

The illusion of moral superiority

Most people strongly believe they are just, virtuous, and moral; yet regard the average person as distinctly less so. This invites accusations of irrationality in moral judgment and perception—but direct evidence of irrationality is absent. Here, we …

Choosing the right level of analysis: Stereotypes shape social reality via collective action

In his 2012 book Jussim argues that the self-fulfilling prophecy and expectancy effects of descriptive stereotypes are not potent shapers of social reality. However, his conclusion that descriptive stereotypes per se do not shape social reality is …