Our people in the Social Cognition Lab

Professor Jamin Halberstadt

Interaction of emotion and cognition, intuition and reasoning in decision making, social cognition.

Ruth Hughes

The relationship between people's afterlife beliefs and grave goods.

Evan Balkcom

My main area of focus is the cognitive science of religion. Specifically, I research differences between religious and non-religious people and the way that unbelief develops and is maintained in light of religious intuitions and unexplainable experiences. I am also interested in irrational decision making, especially the sort that is driven by essentialist beliefs and moral contagion.
Email evanbalkcom@gmail.com

Josh Boeke

My current interests revolve around virtual reality as a research methodology. Future research will likely include studies on identity fusion, costly altruism and embodiment. Further research may examine whether fused member embodiment makes self-sacrifice more likely to occur.
Email jboeke2@gmail.com

Tyler Atkinson

Honours student

The effects of religious belief on judgements of living and deceased targets.

Ruth Hughes

Undergraduate student

Researching the relationship between peoples' afterlife beliefs and grave goods.