A Behavioral-Science Framework for Understanding College Campus Sexual Assault.

We propose a behavioral-science approach to sexual assault on college campuses. In this framework, people commit assault when aspects of the immediate situation trigger certain psychological states. No set of mental processes or situational configurations is a precise predictor of assault.

Binding moral values gain importance in the presence of close others.

A key function of morality is to regulate social behavior. Research suggests moral values may be divided into two types: binding values, which govern behavior in groups, and individualizing values, which promote personal rights and freedoms. Because people tend to mentally activate concepts in situations in which they may prove useful, the importance they afford moral values may vary according to whom they are with in the moment.

Attentional capture helps explain why moral and emotional content go viral.

Our social media newsfeeds are filled with a variety of content all battling for our limited attention. Across 3 studies, we investigated whether moral and emotional content captures our attention more than other content and if this may help explain why this content is more likely to go viral online. Using a combination of controlled lab experiments and nearly 50,000 political tweets, we found that moral and emotional content are prioritized in early visual attention more than neutral content, and that such attentional capture is associated with increased retweets during political conversations online.

Why did I do that? Explaining actions activated outside of awareness.

We review the latest research investigating how people explain their own actions when they have been activated nonconsciously. We will discuss evidence that when nonconsciously activated behavior is unexpected (e.g.

Exposure to justice diminishes moral perception.

Evidence suggests that people have a lower threshold for the conscious awareness of moral words. Given the potential motivational relevance of moral concerns, the authors hypothesized and found that motivational relevance of moral stimuli enhanced the detection of moral words. People who saw a CrimeStoppers advertisement in which a majority (vs.

Behavior is multiply determined, and perception has multiple components: The case of moral perception.

We introduce two propositions for understanding top-down effects on perception. First, perception is not a unitary construct but is composed of multiple components. Second, behavior is multiply determined by cognitive processes.

Moral Perception.

Based on emerging research, we propose that human perception is preferentially attuned to moral content. We describe how moral concerns enhance detection of morally relevant stimuli, and both command and direct attention. These perceptual processes, in turn, have important consequences for moral judgment and behavior.

The moral pop-out effect: enhanced perceptual awareness of morally relevant stimuli.

People perceive religious and moral iconography in ambiguous objects, ranging from grilled cheese to bird feces. In the current research, we examined whether moral concerns can shape awareness of perceptually ambiguous stimuli. In three experiments, we presented masked moral and non-moral words around the threshold for conscious awareness as part of a lexical decision task.