In collaboration with Jared Piazza at the University of Pennsylvania, Azim and Stephanie have published a new brief review article attempting to explain the differences in moral behavior and decision-making between religious believers and non-believers. A pdf of the paper is available here. The abstract is appended below: Religions have come to be intimately tied to morality and much recent research has shown that theists and nontheists differ...

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In collaboration with an all-star list of researchers, Azim’s new article on how learning about the brain reduces people’s attitudes about blame and retributive punishment is now published in Psychological Science. A pdf of the paper is available here. The abstract is appended below: If free-will beliefs support attributions of moral responsibility, then reducing these beliefs should make people less retributive in their attitudes...

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June’s issue of Scientific American contains Azim’s article with Kathleen Vohs on how diminished belief in free will may change our psychology and society. The article is available here (paywall) or in the print issue.   Some of our research that features in the article is available here.  

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CaML and the SPELab are looking for a bright, organized and interested candidate to jointly manage our labs for the 2014-15 academic year (with the option of longer). Detailed information posted below.   The Social Psychoneuroendocrinology Lab (SPEL), directed by Pranjal Mehta, Ph.D., and the Culture and Morality Lab (CaML), directed by Azim Shariff, Ph.D., are seeking a full-time lab manager to begin work in late summer or fall of 2014...

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Azim and Stephanie have just had their paper with collaborator Jared Piazza, Morality and the Religious Mind: Why theists and non-theists differ, accepted at Trends in Cognitive Sciences. The short review paper details and explains the differences between religious believers and non-believers on issues of moral decision-making and behavior. The abstract is appended below, and you can read the in press version of the paper here.    ...

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Our latest paper, Free Will and Punishment: Diminished Belief in Free Will Reduces Retribution, co-authored with a long list of collaborators (Joshua Greene, Johan Karremans, Jamie Luguri, Cory Clark, Jonathan Schooler, Roy Baumeister and Kathleen Vohs) was just accepted at Psychological Science. In four studies, the paper shows that diminishing people’s beliefs about free will reduces the amount of retributive punishment they seek for...

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