Not so motivated after all? Three replication attempts and a theoretical challenge to a morally motivated belief in free will.

Free will is often appraised as a necessary input to for holding others morally or legally responsible for misdeeds. Recently, however, Clark and colleagues (2014) argued for the opposite causal relationship. They assert that moral judgments and the desire to punish motivate people's belief in free will.

The dark side of morality: Prioritizing sanctity over care motivates denial of mind and prejudice toward sexual outgroups.

Moral values bind communities together and foster cooperation, yet these same values can lead to the derogation and marginalization of outgroups. Five studies tested a theoretical framework proposing that preferentially endorsing moral values of sanctity versus care (the sanctity-care trade-off) produces a motivational bias whereby people perceive sexual outgroup members as less human. This denial of mind, in turn, legitimizes expressions of prejudice and discrimination toward sexual outgroups.

People systematically update moral judgments of blame.

Six experiments examine people's updating of blame judgments and test predictions developed from a socially regulated blame perspective. According to this perspective, blame emerged in human history as a socially costly tool for regulating other's behavior. Because it is costly for both blamers and violators, blame is typically constrained by requirements for "warrant"-evidence that one's moral judgment is justified.

Two paths to blame: Intentionality directs moral information processing along two distinct tracks.

There is broad consensus that features such as causality, mental states, and preventability are key inputs to moral judgments of blame. What is not clear is exactly how people process these inputs to arrive at such judgments. Three studies provide evidence that early judgments of whether or not a norm violation is intentional direct information processing along 1 of 2 tracks: if the violation is deemed intentional, blame processing relies on information about the agent's reasons for committing the violation; if the violation is deemed unintentional, blame processing relies on information about how preventable the violation was.

Perceptions of intentionality for goal-related action: behavioral description matters.

Perceptions of intentionality critically guide everyday social interactions, though the literature provides diverging portraits of how such judgments are made. One view suggests that people have an "intentionality bias," predisposing them toward labeling behaviors as intentional. A second view focuses on a more complex pattern of reasoning whereby judgments of intentionality are shaped by information about social context and mental states.

Bringing free will down to Earth: people's psychological concept of free will and its role in moral judgment.

Belief in free will is widespread, and this belief is supposed to undergird moral and legal judgment. Despite the importance of the free will concept, however, there remains widespread confusion regarding its definition and its connection to blame. We address this confusion by testing two prominent models of the folk concept of free will-a metaphysical model, in which free will involves a soul as an uncaused "first mover," and a psychological model, in which free will involves choice, alignment with desires, and lack of constraints.

The infection of bad company: stigma by association.

Stigma by association represents the process through which the companions of stigmatized persons are discredited. Conduits for stigma by association range from the strong and enduring bonds of kinship to the arbitrary occasions of being seen in the company of someone who is stigmatized. A theoretical model is proposed in which both deliberative and spontaneous processes result in the spread of stigma to the companions of stigmatized persons.

Impressions of Milgram's obedient teachers: situational cues inform inferences about motives and traits.

The research investigated impressions formed of a "teacher" who obeyed an experimenter by delivering painful electric shocks to an innocent person (S. Milgram, 1963, 1974). Three findings emerged across different methodologies and different levels of experimenter-induced coercion.