Moral psychology is a field of study at the intersection of philosophy and psychology. It covers areas such as reasoning, moral development, moral motivation, and the evolutionary origins of morality.

Effective altruists have taken a special interest in several topics moral psychology, including the psychology of effective giving;^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5]^[6]^[7] the psychology of existential risk;^[8] the psychology of population ethics;^[9] the psychology of the future;^[10] the psychology of speciesism;^[11]^[12]^[13] the psychology of utilitarianism;^[14]^[15] the link between giving and happiness;^[16]^[17] the personality traits of effective altruists;^[18] and the psychology of altruistic motivation.^[19]

Further reading

Greenberg, Spencer (2021) Episode 046: EA efficacy and community norms with Stefan Schubert, Clearer Thinking, May 29.

Related entries

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Karlan, Dean, John A. List & Eldar Shafir (2011) Small matches and charitable giving: evidence from a natural field experiment, Journal of Public Economics, vol. 95, pp. 344–350.
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Caviola, Lucius et al. (2014) The evaluability bias in charitable giving: saving administration costs or saving lives?, Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 9, pp. 303–315.
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Caviola, Lucius, Stefan Schubert & Jason Nemirow (2020) The many obstacles to effective giving, Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 15, pp. 159–172.
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Burum, Bethany, Martin A. Nowak & Moshe Hoffman (2020) An evolutionary explanation for ineffective altruism, Nature Human Behaviour, vol. 4, pp. 1245–1257.
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Caviola, Lucius, Stefan Schubert & Joshua D. Greene (2021) The psychology of (in)effective altruism, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, vol. 25, pp. 596–607.
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Schubert, Stefan (2018) Why aren’t people donating more effectively?, Effective Altruism Global, June 8.
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Berman, Jonathan Z. et al. (2018) Impediments to effective altruism: The role of subjective preferences in charitable giving, Psychological Science, vol. 29, pp. 834–844.
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Schubert, Stefan, Lucius Caviola & Nadira S. Faber (2019) The psychology of existential risk: moral judgments about human extinction, Scientific Reports, vol. 9, pp. 1–8.
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Caviola, Lucius et al. (2022) Popul

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Debunking argument

Further reading

Related entries