Penn State’s Consortium on Moral Decision-Making will be hosting an event on April 19 at 2 p.m. for seed grant recipients to present their planned research. The event will take place in Moore Building room 130 and on Zoom.
The seed grant program supports faculty researchers in initiating and advancing projects that explore various aspects of moral decision-making. With a focus on promoting empathy and ethical behavior, the grants aim to catalyze innovative interdisciplinary research initiatives that address pressing societal issues.
This initiative, made possible by a Social Science Research Institute (SSRI) Level 4 Seed Grant, represents the consortium's mission to foster collaboration and advance understanding in this crucial area of study.
Daryl Cameron, the Sherwin Early Career Professor in the Rock Ethics Institute and associate professor of psychology at Penn State, is the director of this seed grant initative.
Each of the eleven successful proposals chosen for seed grants will be presented at the event:
- Dr. Catherine Wanner, Dr. Lena Suzkho-Harned, “Moral Decision-making Concerning War Crimes.”
- Dr. Daryl Cameron, Joshua Wenger, “Empathy from Artificial Intelligence.”
- Dr. David Puts, Dr. Mark Shriver, Dr. Nancy Williams, Dr. Laura Weyrich, Sojung Baek, "Activational Effects of Ovarian Steroids on Empathy."
- Dr. Evan Bradley, “Promoting Pronoun Fluency: Individual Factors and Group Dynamics.”
- Dr. Emily Rosenman, Dr. Louisa Holmes, “Geographies of corporate harm: unveiling opioid industry targeted marking strategies to develop effective counter-interventions at multiple scales.”
- Huaiyuan Zhang, “Love of the Self, Ethics of the Other: Phenomenological Platonism.”
- Dr. Andrew High, Kelly Sweeney, “A communication interdependence perspective on roommate relationships: examining how and why college roommates support each other through multiple media.”
- Dr. Robert Schrauf, Minghui Sun, “Knowledge negotiation, relationship cultivation, and community building: A linguistic ethnographic study of shared decision-making among older adults in retirement communities.”
- Dr. Sean Laurent, Becca Ruger, Iris Chung, “Clarifying Relationships Between Evaluations of Moral and Immoral Behavior: Sometimes One Coin, Sometimes Two.”
- Dr. Sophia McClennen, Dr. Reginald Adams, Dr. Janet Swim, Dr. Joseph Wright,“No Laughing Matter: Can Humorous Activism Boost Climate Action Success?”
- Dr. David Puts, Dr. Mary Shenk, Sojung Baek, "Empathic signaling as a mechanism of Formation and Maintenance of Social capital among women of Matlab, Bangladesh."
By providing researchers with the resources and support needed to pursue their work, the program aims to foster impactful research that contributes to the understanding of human behavior in moral contexts.
The launch of the Consortium on Moral Decision-Making's seed grant program continues to position Penn State as a hub for groundbreaking research in this critical area.
Sponsored through joint funding by SSRI along with The Rock Ethics Institute and the College of Liberal Arts, with additional funding from the McCourtney Institute for Democracy and the Department of Philosophy, the consortium looks forward to fostering innovative research that sheds light on the complexities of moral decision-making.