Second-year graduate student, April Young, gave a presentation regarding her thesis plans on February 15th. Her thesis examines if perspective-taking and empathy differentially impact moral judgments of blame and praise. Perspective-taking is considered to be a more cognitively engaging behavior relative to being empathetic, which may lead people to attend to different aspects of moral events. Specifically, perspective taking is predicted to direct our focus to the mental states of moral agents, whereas, empathizing may make us sensitive to how moral actions affect others. These differences, in turn, may lead to differences in judgments of praise and blame. April is mentored by Dr. Andrew Monroe.
April Young
