Research Topics
Understanding Social & Moral Development
Research in the Mind & Morality Lab focuses on the foundations of human moral and social cognition, with a particular emphasis on how these processes develop in childhood. Her work explores questions such as: Do children have an early-emerging sense of morality, fairness, and justice? How do these moral concepts develop and evolve across different cultures and social contexts? To address these questions, she conducts experimental research with children aged 4 to 12, employing a cross-cultural lens to examine both universal patterns and cultural variations. In addition to her work with children, Julia also extends her research to adult populations to trace the developmental trajectory of moral and social understanding.
While our lab explores a wide range of topics, several core questions guide our research:
1. How do children respond to wrongdoing?
Children encounter moral transgressions from an early age, whether through personal experiences or by observing others. We investigate how children react to different forms of wrongdoing, including norm violations, harm, and unfairness. Do they prefer punishment, reconciliation, or other forms of justice? How do these responses change across development and cultural contexts?
2. How do social factors shape children’s cooperative behavior?
Cooperation is essential for navigating social life, but not all interactions are the same. We study how factors like social group membership, kinship, and social hierarchy influence children’s willingness to share, help, and collaborate. Are children more likely to cooperate with those they perceive as similar or close to them? How do these biases emerge and shift over time?
3. To whom do children extend moral concern?
From family and friends to strangers, animals, and even abstract entities, children’s moral circles evolve as they grow. Our research examines the boundaries of children’s moral concern—who they care about, who they believe deserves protection, and how these beliefs develop across cultures and contexts.
4. How can we use citizen science to better characterize social behavior?
Traditional lab studies offer deep insights into social development, but they often rely on small, WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) samples. We explore how large-scale, citizen science approaches—such as online games, interactive experiments, and community-based research—can provide a broader, more ecologically valid understanding of social behavior in children and adults.
5. What cognitive mechanisms support the development of prosocial behavior?
Helping, sharing, and cooperation require a complex interplay of cognitive processes. We investigate how foundational abilities—such as theory of mind, executive function, memory, and causal reasoning—contribute to prosocial decision-making. By understanding these underlying mechanisms, we gain insight into how and why prosociality emerges and varies across individuals and cultures.
Publications
Papers are separated by topic. Representative publications are marked with a ☆.
Other
Gollwitzer, A., Marshall, J., Lee, Y., Deutchman, P., Warneken, F., & McAuliffe, K. (2024). Parental and community political orientation predicts children’s health behaviors. British Journal of Social Psychology.
Gollwitzer, A., McLoughlin, K., Martel, C., Marshall, J., Hohs, J., & Bargh, J. (2021). Linking self-reported social distancing to real-world behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 13, 656–668.
Marshall, J., Gollwitzer, A., Santos, L. (2018). Two tests of an implicit mentalizing system: Evidence for the submentalizing position. PLoS One, 13, e0194101.
Lilienfeld, S.O., Marshall, J., Todd, J. T., & Shane, H. C. (2015). The persistence of fad interventions in the face of negative scientific evidence: Facilitated communication for autism as a case example. Evidence-Based Communication Assessment and Intervention, 8, 1–40.
Moral Judgment
☆ Marshall, J., Watts, A., & Lilienfeld, S.O. (2016). Do psychopathic individuals possess a misaligned moral compass? A meta-analytic examination of psychopathy’s relations with moral judgment. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 9, 40–50.
Hauser, N., Felthous, A., Hsass, H., Neumann, C., Marshall, J., & Mokros, A. (2022). Rational, emotional, or both? Subcomponents of psychopathy predict opposing moral decisions. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 39, 541–566.
Marshall, J., Watts, A.L., Frankel, E., Lilienfeld, S.O. (2017). An examination of psychopathy’s relationship with two indices of moral judgment. Personality and Individual Differences, 113, 240–245.
Marshall, J., Lilienfeld, S.O., Mayberg, H., & Clark, S. (2017). The mixed effects of neurological information and brain images on perceptions of psychopathic wrongdoers. Journal of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology, 28, 212–436.
Social Groups and Moral Decision-Making
☆ Marshall, J.*, Gollwitzer, A.*, Mermin-Bunnell, N., & Mandalaywala, T. (2022). The role of status in the emergence of pro-white bias in rural Uganda. Developmental Science, e13240. *joint first authorship.
Marshall, J. & McAuliffe, K. (2024). How retributive motives shape the emergence of third-party punishment across intergroup contexts. Child Development.
Gollwitzer, A. & Marshall, J., & Bargh, J. (2019). Pattern deviancy aversion predicts prejudice via a dislike of statistical minorities. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 149, 828–854.
Gollwitzer, A., Marshall, J., Wang, Y., & Bargh, J. (2017). Relating pattern deviancy aversion to stigma and prejudice. Nature Human Behaviour, 1, 920–927.
Obligations and Social Relationships
☆ Marshall, J., Gollwitzer, A., Mermin-Bunnell, N., Shinomiya, M., Retelsdorf, J., & Bloom, P. (2022). How development and culture shape intuitions about prosocial obligations. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 151, 1866–1882.
Marshall, J., & Wilks, M. (2024). Does distance matter? How physical and social distance shape our perceived obligations to others. Open Mind. 8 511–534.
Marshall, J., Lee, Y., Deutchman, P., Warneken, F., & McAuliffe, K. (2023). When not helping is nice: Children’s changing evaluations of helping during COVID-19. Developmental Psychology, 59, 953–962.
Marshall, J., Mermin-Bunnell, K., & Bloom, P. (2020). Developing judgments about peers’ obligation to intervene. Cognition, 201, 103215.
Marshall, J., Wynn, K., & Bloom, P. (2020). Do children and adults take social relationship into account when evaluating other peoples’ actions? Child Development, 91, 1395–1835.
Marshall, J. (2019). Obligations without cooperation. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 43.
Wynn, K., Bloom, P., Jordan, A., Marshall, J., & Sheskin, M. (2017). Not noble savages after all: Limits to early altruism. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 27, 3–8.
Punishment and Cooperation
☆ Marshall, J. & McAuliffe, K. (2022). Children as assessors and agents of third-party punishment. Nature Reviews Psychology, 1, 1783–1792.
☆ Marshall, J., Yudkin, D., & Crockett, M. (2021). Children punish third parties to satisfy both consequentialist and retributive motives. Nature Human Behaviour, 5, 361–368.
Lee, Y., Marshall, J., Deutchman, P., McAuliffe, K., & Warneken, F. (2022). Children’s judgments of interventions against norm violations: COVID-19 as a naturalistic case study. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 221, 105452.
Marshall, J., Gollwitzer, A., & Bloom, P. (2022). Why do children and adults think other people punish? Developmental Psychology, 58, 1783–1792.
Marshall, J., Gollwitzer, A., Wynn, K., & Bloom, P. (2019). The development of third-party corporal punishment. Cognition, 190, 221–229.