Misinformation Lab Seminar Series Invited Talk - Milan Andrejevic - Process dynamics and individual differences in moral judgement updating

Date: October 22nd 2021

Time: 11am Melbourne local time

**Process dynamics and individual differences in moral judgement updating ** Moral judgements play an important role in society - they are at the crux of political issues, shape interpersonal relationships, and form the basis for our legal systems. Yet, moral judgements are not made in isolation, but in a complex informational context. Further, moral judgements often need to be updated in response to ever-evolving changes in our information environments. However, process dynamics and individual differences in moral judgement updating are poorly understood. In this talk I will present my PhD thesis, which developed a new framework for studying moral judgements of fairness-related actions, and used it across three studies to:

1. characterize moral judgement updating, showing that people flexibly switch between relying on context-independent to relying on context-dependent moral norms, as they learn contextual information;
2. characterize individual differences in moral judgements, showing that importance people assign to selfishness and generosity norms when making these judgements correlate with several basic personality traits;
3. characterize moral decision processes, showing that people slow their moral judgements when expecting contextual updates and when judging negatively valenced actions, and that these slowing effects can be understood as changes in distinct aspects of the unfolding decision process (within the Diffusion Decision Modelling framework). Across these studies, the thesis presents a new understanding of moral judgement as a highly context-sensitive and dynamic decision process, and suggests that this context-sensitivity may be supported by decision-making processes related to caution.

The Misinformation Lab Seminar Series is a monthly event open to all members and friends of the lab. The seminar series is primarily motivated by a shared curiosity about the myriad of awesome perspectives and insights out there on information processing, behaviour change, open science, and promoting social progress. Our aim is to invite speakers from a diverse range of interests, lived-experiences, and research backgrounds to deliver their insights and perspectives on topics that they are excited about! The series also aims to provide our Psychology students at the undergraduate level to with the opportunity to hear, and engage with, talks by real-world researchers.

Whether you are a seasoned academic, Ph.D Student, or working in Industry - if you are interested in giving a Seminar Series talk, we would love to hear from you!