Who has the time to be moral?
Consider this:You and a group of others are hiding in a basement. It’s wartime. Enemy soldiers are in the house.Your baby begins to cry. You fear that the soldiers will hear your child’s cries and give...
View ArticleWhy we endorse torture
In 2008, Vanity Fair and Slate columnist, Christopher Hitchens, underwent a session of ‘water boarding,’ an extreme ‘interrogation technique’ the torture-status of which was up for debate at the...
View ArticleEnvironments shape morality
Many moral dilemmas pit conflicting moral rules against one another. This is no more striking than in that set of problems that moral philosophers and psychologists typically study: trolley dilemmas....
View ArticleNo more guilt for the sweet tooth
Gluttony is my favourite deadly sin. And according to research soon to appear in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, this sinful preference of mine may well be justified. Brian Meier of...
View ArticleThe upside of anger
Despite anger’s status as a deadly sin, this ubiquitous emotion is quite functional. Anger serves as a motivational force, keeping us on track when we face obstacles to our goals. It focuses us on...
View ArticleWhy do we believe in God?
According to recent research by Amitai Shenhav and colleagues at Harvard, soon to appear in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, those of us who are more inclined to trust our intuitions...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Forget about love this Valentine's Day, celebrate lust instead.
Below is a post I did for my new blog at Psychology Today "The Science of Sin"As you stare longingly into your lover’s eyes this Valentine’s Day, forget about love. Think instead about good,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sloth = Helpfulness
The Slow Movement – that lumbering, late 20th century-early new millennium cultural shift towards taking it easy – is a welcome effort to install much-maligned sloth in the ranks of the virtues. It...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pride and Prejudice
My latest Psychology Today post on the influence of pride on prejudice towards stigmatized groups.Tags: prideseven deadly sinsFacebook LikeTweet Widget
View ArticleAnger and mental distancing
Check out Christian Jarrett's latest BPS digest blog on mental distancing and anger. Short story: imagining yourself as a fly on the wall reduces some of the negative aspects of anger.Tags:...
View Article
