My research mainly revolves around the evolution of morality and cooperation. I explore why individuals endorse different moral values and how these values change over historical periods and cultural contexts from a cultural evolutionary perspective. More specifically, I’m interested in how ecologies, cultural practices, and institutions act together to influence cooperation and morality. Religion stands out as a special interest of mine, given its key role in shaping moral values and who we cooperate with in different parts of the world. I use various methods, from computational to experimental, to answer my research questions. See my CV for my publications and in progress papers.

Research Concentration

Historical Forces Shaping Cooperation

I investigate how ecologies, cultural practices, and institutions shape human psychology. More specifically, I am interested in how social behavior and norms change in response to selective pressures, why some social groups create successful societies and others do not, and how distinct patterns of cultural practices emerge throughout history and around the globe.

Evolution of Religion, Morality, and Cooperation

Morality is indistinguishable from religion for a lot of people, perhaps because of the role religions played in sustaining large scale cooperation throughout history. I investigate the link between religion and cooperation from a historical psychological lens, studying whether the relationship between religion and moral behavior was stable throughout history or if religions fostered different types of moralities in response to different environments.

Cognitive Style and Morality

Cognitive style reveals a lot about how people process information and react to the world around them. I’m interested in how individuals who rely more on deeper thinking differ from those who mainly rely on intuition in moral decision-making. The differences between intuitive and reflective thinking can shed light on which cooperative norms and moral behaviors are intuitive in different cultural contexts.