About me

Lancaster University
Department of Psychology
Fylde College
United Kingdom
Office: D25
Tel: +44(0)1524 594869
Email: jaredpiazza13 [at] gmail [dot] com
j [dot] piazza [at] lancaster [dot] ac [dot] uk

:: BIO ::

I did my PhD at Queen's University Belfast with Dr. Jesse Bering. I currently work at Lancaster University in the UK, as a Lecturer in the Psychology Department. Here's my departmental webpage. 

My research focuses mainly on issues from moral psychology, particularly questions about the way people reason about harm, injustice, the universality of moral propositions, the role different emotions play in moral judgment, the rationalizations people use to justify harm to animals, and the role religion plays in shaping people's moral decisions and behavior. 

I am a member of the Moral Cognition and Behaviour (MCAB) Lab at Lancaster.

Some areas of inquiry I am interested in and/or have done research on:

(i)  how does religiosity influence moral thinking and behavior? (e.g., why do religious individuals seem to disregard outcomes and focus on rules when evaluating the morality of an act?);

(ii) how are different moral emotions, such as anger and disgust, structurally and functionally unique? (e.g., does disgust respond to aberrant sexual appetites, while anger responds to unjust actions and an actor's reasons for causing harm?);
(iii) how do people understand the relationship between harm and moral wrongdoing? (e.g., under what conditions do people believe it's justifiable to cause harm or take a life? Are only unjust harms seen as universally forbidden to perform? How do people determine whether a harmful act is justifiable?);
(iv) is moral character a fundamental dimension of social cognition, and how is character conceptualized vis-a-vis other personality dimensions, like competence or sociability?;

(v) what factors influence our moral regard for animals? (e.g., are aggressive animals perceived as deserving less moral standing than benevolent animals? How do people rationalize killing/eating animals and resist going vegetarian?).

Photo Location: Lyon, France

[previous posts, education]

2011-2014 Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, Department of Psychology, Philadelphia, PA

2009-2011 Postdoctoral Research Assistant at the University of Kent, School of Psychology, Canterbury, UK

2006-2009 Ph.D. at the Institute of Cognition and Culture, Queen's University Belfast, UK. Dissertation supervisor Dr. Jesse Bering, awarded 2010. 

2005-2006 Masters student at the
University of Arkansas, Department of Experimental Psychology,  AR. Thesis supervisor Dr. Jesse Bering.

1999-2003 B.A. Religious Studies at Houghton College, NY

External Research Collaborators

Paulo Sousa (Institute of Cognition and Culture, Queen's University Belfast)

Colin Holbrook (UCLA Center for Behavior, Evolution & Culture)

Roger Giner-Sorolla
(University of Kent)

Pascal Sophie Russell (University of Surrey)

Geoff Goodwin (University of Pennsylvania)

Paul Rozin (University of Pennsylvania)

Justin Landy (University of Pennsylvania)

Gordon Ingram (Bath Spa University)

Matt Ruby (University of Pennsylvania)

Stephen Loughnan (University of Edinburgh)

Azim Shariff (University of Oregon)

[other affiliations/memberships]

International Society for Research on Emotion

Porto X-Phi (Experimental Philosophy) Lab 

Society for Judgment and Decision Making

Society for Personality and Social Psychology

International Association for the Cognitive Science of Religion

Subpages (1): Media Coverage