The WyLab is broadly interested in the moral mind—studying everything from how morality influences and guides reasoning and information-seeking, to its role in judgment and decision-making. We draw inspiration from what James called the “rich thicket of reality”, looking to answer questions that intersect with real life, like why are people so curious to learn about bad guys on TV? We apply theory and methods from many fields, including social psychology, cognitive science, affective science, neuroscience, and philosophy.
KEYWORDS: Curiosity in Moral Domain | Pursuits for Truest Self | Is Morality Gendered? | Rules + Who Can Break Them | Emotion / Cognition / Perception
Selected Publications
Wylie, J., Lindauer, M., & Gantman, A. (2026). People can find their true selves outside moral pursuits. Cognition.
Wylie, J., Bostyn, D., & Gantman, A. (2025). People use norms, values, codification, and enforceability to determine if a rule was broken. Open Mind.
Wylie, J., Chiu, P.Y., Dakin, N., Cunningham, W., & Gantman, A. (2025). The psychology of state punishment. European Journal of Social Psychology.
Wylie, J. & Gantman, A (2024). Cooperation, Domination: Twin Functions of Third-Party Punishment. Social and Personality Psychology Compass.
Wylie, J., Milless, L. K., Sciarappo, J., & Gantman, A (2024). The biased enforcement of rarely followed rules. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
Wylie, J. & Gantman, A. (2023). Doesn’t everybody jaywalk? On codified rules that are seldom followed and selectively punished. Cognition, 231, 105323.
Wylie, J. & Gantman, A. (2023). People are curious about immoral and morally ambiguous others. Scientific Reports. 13(1), 7355.
Austin, C. & Wylie, J. (2026). The Temporal Discounting of Moral Judgments. Submitted to Proceedings of the 48th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. Cognitive Science Society.
Acierno, J., Liang, N., Handley-Minder, I., Constantino, S., Kleinman-Weiner, M., Young, L., & Wylie, J. (2025). Curiosity is linked to information seeking in the moral domain. Proceedings of the 47th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. Cognitive Science Society.
Dubourg, E., Thouzeau, V., ..., Wylie, J., Zhong Y., & Baumard, N. (2026). Carving Stories at their Natural Joints. Psychological Review.