This article studies a principal-agent problem with discrete outcome and effort level spaces. The principal and the agent are risk neutral and the latter is subject to limited liability. We consider the ratio between the first-best social welfare to the social welfare arising from the principal’s optimal pay-for-performance contract, i.e., the welfare loss. In the presence of moral hazard, we p...

Social norms involve observation by others and external sanctions for violations, while moral norms involve introspection and internal sanctions. We develop a simple model of individual preferences that incorporates moral and social norms. We then examine dictator choices, where we create a shared understanding by providing advice from peers with no financial payoff at stake. We vary whether ad...

If humans have an evolved moral psychology, then we should not expect it to function in an identical way between individuals. Instead, we should expect a diversity in the function of our moral psychology between individuals that varies along genetic lines, and a corresponding diversity of moral attitudes and moral judgements that emerge from it. This is because there was no one psychological ty...

A vigorous research literature focused on early childhood conscience, prosocial behavior, and empathy— and also theory of mind, emotion understanding, and social cognition—has important implications for moral development theory. It offers a new understanding of the early conceptual, affective, and relational foundations of moral development. In addition, it provides the opportunity to create a ...

We present a new six-cell Model of Moral Motives that applies a fundamental motivational distinction in psychology to the moral domain. In addition to moral motives focused on the self or another, we propose two group-based moralities, both communal in orientation, but reflecting distinct moral motives (Social Order/Communal Solidarity vs. Social Justice/Communal Responsibility) as well as diff...

Social information processing and moral domain theories have developed in relative isolation from each other despite their common focus on intentional harm and victimization, and mutual emphasis on social cognitive processes in explaining aggressive, morally relevant behaviors. This article presents a selective summary of these literatures with the goal of showing how they can be integrated int...

Morality has been at the center of informal talks and metaphysical discussions since the beginning of history. Recently, converging lines of evidence from evolutionary biology, neuroscience and experimental psychology have shown that morality is grounded in the brain. This article reviews the main lines of investigation indicating that moral behavior is a product of evolutionary pressures that ...

Moral emotions are critically important in guiding appropriate social conduct. Empirical investigation of these emotions remains a challenge, however, because of the difficulty in eliciting them reliably in controlled settings. Here we describe a novel prejudice paradigm that aimed to elicit both negatively and positively valenced moral emotions in real-time. Low-prejudice females (N = 46) who ...