All of my research is ultimately about morality. I study how people come to know what is right and wrong, how this knowledge is based in emotions and intuitions, and how morality varies across cultures. At the heart of my research and theory is the “Social Intuitionist Model,” which lays out an account of how moral reasoning and moral emotions work together to produce moral judgments. In brief, the model says that moral judgments are like aesthetic judgments -- we make them quickly and intuitively. We know what is right and wrong in much the same way we know what is beautiful. When called on to explain ourselves we make up reasons after the fact. Moral reasoning does affect judgment, but this happens primarily in between people, as they talk, gossip, and argue (hence the “social” part of the model). The model lays out the beginning of a theory in which five innate psychological systems form the foundation of “intuitive ethics,” but each culture constructs its own sets of virtues on top of these foundations. The current American culture war can be seen as arising from the fact that Liberals try to create a morality using only the Harm/Care and Fairness/Reciprocity modules; conservatives, especially religious conservatives, use all five modules, including Ingroup/Loyalty, Authority/Respect, and Purity/Sanctity. (See publications marked [MP] below). I strive for a complete explanation of morality, including its evolutionary origins, brain basis, development within cultural context, and cognitive mechanisms. I have been particularly interested in moral judgments about harmless yet offensive situations, often involving sexuality or food taboos, for these topics allow us to see moral judgments that cannot be said to be about protecting innocent victims.
For information about Moral Foundations Theory, including scales to measure people's endorsement of the five foundations, click here.
To participate in research on moral psychology and to see how you score on the "five foundations", please visit www.yourmorals.org.
** indicates most important
[MP] indicates things related to morality and politics
** Haidt, J., Koller, S., & Dias, M . (1993). Affect, culture, and morality, or is it wrong to eat your dog? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 613-628.
Shweder, R., & Haidt, J. (1993). The future of moral psychology: Truth, intuition, and the pluralist way. Psychological Science, 4, 360-365.
Haidt, J. & Baron, J. (1996). Social roles and the moral judgement of acts and omissions. European Journal of Social Psychology, 26, 201-218.
[MP] Haidt, J., & Hersh, M. (2001). Sexual morality: The cultures and emotions of conservatives and liberals. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 31, 191-221.
**Haidt, J . (2001). The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychological Review. 108, 814-834.
Greene, J., & Haidt, J. (2002). How (and where) does moral judgment work? Trends in Cognitive Science, 6, 517-523.
**Haidt,
J. (2003). The moral emotions. In R. J. Davidson, K. R. Scherer, & H.
H. Goldsmith (Eds.), Handbook of
affective sciences.
Haidt, J., Rosenberg, E., & Hom, H . (2003). Differentiating diversities: Moral diversity is not like other kinds. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 33, 1-36.
[MP]Haidt, J., & Joseph, C. (2004). Intuitive Ethics: How Innately Prepared Intuitions Generate Culturally Variable Virtues. Daedalus, pp. 55-66, Special issue on human nature.
Haidt, J. (2004). The emotional dog gets mistaken for a possum. Review of General Psychology, 8, 283-290.
Wheatley, T., & Haidt, J. (2005). Hypnotically induced disgust makes moral judgments more severe. Psychological Science, 16, 780-784.
**Haidt, J., & Bjorklund, F. (2008). Social intuitionists answer six questions about moral psychology. In W. Sinnott-Armstrong (Ed.), Moral Psychology, Volume 2: The Cognitive Science of Morality: Intuition and Diversity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
[MP] **Haidt, J., & Graham, J. (2007). When morality opposes justice: Conservatives have moral intuitions that liberals may not recognize. Social Justice Research, 20, 98-116.
Haidt, J., & Joseph, C. (in press). The moral mind: How 5 sets of innate moral intuitions guide the development of many culture-specific virtues, and perhaps even modules. In P. Carruthers, S. Laurence, and S. Stich (Eds.) The Innate Mind, Vol. 3.
[MP] Haidt, J., & Graham, J. (n.d.). Planet of the Durkheimians, Where Community, Authority, and Sacredness are Foundations of Morality. Invited Submission to J. Jost, A. C. Kay, & H. Thorisdottir (Eds.), Social and Psychological Bases of Ideology and System Justification
**Haidt, J. (2007). The new synthesis in moral psychology. Science, 316, 998-1002.
Haidt, J. (2007) Response (to a letter by David Barash), Science, 317, 596-597.
Haidt, J. (2008). Morality. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3, 65-72
Schnall, S., Haidt, J., Clore, G., & Jordan, A. (in press). Disgust as embodied moral judgment. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
Graham, J., Haidt, J., & Rimm-Kaufman, S. E. (in press). Ideology and intuition in moral education. European Journal of Developmental Science.
[MP]**Haidt, J. (2007) Moral psychology and the misunderstanding of religion. Published on www.edge.org, 9/9/07,
Less academic, more popular stuff:
Interview in The Believer, August 2005, on moral psychology, conducted by Tamler Sommers.
[MP] Here is some advice for Democratic candidates, on using moral psychology to inspire voters, written after the uninspiring 2004 presidential elections.
The morality of a billiard table versus the morality of a hive, on www.science-spirit.org, June 2006
[MP] The Spirit of Dharmacracy. Los Angeles Times, Op-Ed article, January 14, 2007
[MP] Video: 15 minute lecture on morality and politics at the New Yorker 2012 conference, May 8, 2007
Video: 30 minute lecture on morality and religion at the Beyond Belief conference, Nov. 2007
[MP] Honey I Shrunk the President. Los Angeles Times, Op-Ed article, December 16, 2007
For information about Moral Foundations Theory, including scales to measure people's endorsement of the five foundations, click here.
Return to homepage
Last Updated May 24, 2008