{"id":31,"date":"2017-07-14T10:24:07","date_gmt":"2017-07-14T14:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/plaks.psych.utoronto.ca\/?page_id=31"},"modified":"2025-10-29T16:38:51","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T20:38:51","slug":"home","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/plaks.psych.utoronto.ca\/","title":{"rendered":"Motivation and Social Cognition Laboratory"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Motivation and Social Cognition Laboratory conducts basic and applied social psychological research that examines the interplay between motivation and social cognition.<\/p>\n

Current lines of research are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Moral judgment.<\/b> We conduct studies that examine processes that\u00a0 underlie moral judgments. Recently, we have extended this work to examine when and why people trust non-human entities, including A.I. agents. A related line of research investigates lay beliefs about intentionality. In other words, what do laypeople believe to be the key ingredients that make an act \u2018intentional\u2019? This work stands at the nexus of psychology, philosophy, and law.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    A sampling of relevant articles:<\/p>\n

      \n
    • Borthakur, D., Diep, P., & Plaks, J.E. (2025).\u00a0 Inequity aversion toward AI counterparts. Scientific Reports<\/i>, 15, <\/i>37916.<\/i><\/li>\n
    • <\/i>Ayad, R. & Plaks, J.E. (2025).\u00a0 Attribution of intent and moral responsibility to AI agents. Computers in Human Behavior: Artificial Humans, 3,<\/i> 100107.<\/i><\/i><\/li>\n
    • <\/i>Plaks, J.E., Bustos-Rodriguez, L. & Ayad, R. (2022).\u00a0 Identifying psychological features <\/span>of robots that encourage and discourage trust. Computers in Human Behavior, 134,<\/span><\/i>107301<\/span>.<\/span><\/i><\/li>\n
    • Plaks, J.E, Robinson, J.S., & Forbes, R. (2022). Anger and sadness as moral signals. <\/span>Social Psychological and Personality Science, 13, <\/span><\/i>362-371.<\/span><\/li>\n
    • Plaks, J.E., Lv, J., Zhao, M., Staples, W., & Robinson, J.S. (2021). Using conflict negativity to index psychological tension between impartiality and status-upholding principles. Social Neuroscience, 16, <\/i>500-512.<\/li>\n
    • Robinson, J.S., Xu, X. & Plaks, J.E. (2019). \u00a0Disgust and deontology: \u00a0Trait sensitivity to pathogens promotes a preference for clarity, hierarchy, and rule-based moral judgment. Social Psychological and Personality Science,<\/i> 10, 3-14. <\/i><\/span><\/li>\n
    • Plaks, J.E. & Robinson, J.S. (2017). \u00a0Proximal and distal intent: \u00a0Toward a new folk theory of intentional action. \u00a0<\/span>Review of General Psychology,\u00a0 21, <\/span><\/i>242-254<\/span>.<\/span><\/i><\/li>\n
    • Robinson, J.S., Page-Gould, E, & Plaks, J.E. (2017). \u00a0I appreciate your effort: \u00a0Asymmetric effects of actors\u2019 exertion on observers\u2019 consequentialist versus deontological judgments. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 73, <\/i>50-64.<\/li>\n
    • Plaks, J.E., Fortune, J.L., Liang, L., & Robinson, J. (2016). \u00a0Effects of culture and gender on judgments of intent and responsibility. \u00a0PLOS ONE, 11(4),<\/i> e0154467.<\/i><\/li>\n
    • Robinson, J.S., Joel, S., & Plaks, J.E. (2015). \u00a0Empathy for the group versus indifference to the victim: Effects of anxious and avoidant attachment on moral judgment. \u00a0Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 56, <\/i>139-152.<\/i><\/li>\n
    • Laurin, K. & Plaks, J.E. (2014). \u00a0Religion and punishment: Opposing influences of orthopraxy and orthodoxy on reactions to unintentional acts. \u00a0Social Psychological and Personality Science, 5, <\/i>835-843.<\/li>\n
    • Plaks, J.E., McNichols, N.K., & Fortune, J.<\/i>L. (2009). \u00a0Thoughts versus deeds: \u00a0Distal and proximal intent in lay judgments of moral responsibility. \u00a0Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35, <\/i>1687-1701.<\/i><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
        \n
      1. \u00a0 Political Psychology.\u00a0 <\/b>This is a line of studies that investigates dispositional and motivational processes that move people to different ends of the political spectrum.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Relevant articles:<\/p>\n

          \n
        • Xu, X. & Plaks, J.E. (2025).\u00a0 The 4D Model of American political conservatism:\u00a0 Disgust, disorder aversion, deontology, and (social) dominance.\u00a0 Review of General Psychology, 25,\u00a0<\/i>85-96.<\/span><\/li>\n
        • Xu, X. & Plaks, J.E. (2023).\u00a0 Aspect-level personality characteristics of U.S. Presidential <\/span>candidate supporters in 2016 and 2020.\u00a0 Social Psychological and Personality Science, <\/i><\/i>14, <\/i>588\u2013598.<\/li>\n
        • Xu, X., Burton, C., & Plaks, J.E. (2022). Three dimensions of American conservative political orientation differentially predict negativity bias and satisfaction with life. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 13, <\/i>1230-1245.
          \n<\/i><\/li>\n
        • Xu, X, Soto, C., & Plaks, J.E. (2021). Beyond Openness to Experience and Conscientiousness:\u00a0 Testing links between lower-level personality traits and American political orientation.\u00a0 Journal of Personality, 89,<\/i> 754-773.<\/li>\n
        • Xu, X., Burton, C., Plaks, J.E. (2021). Distinct types of conservative attitudes mediate the link between media preferences and presidential candidate endorsement.\u00a0 Media Psychology, 24, <\/i>190-213.<\/li>\n
        • Xu, X., Chapman, H., Karinen, M., Peterson, J.B., & Plaks, J.E. (2020). An orderly personality partially explains the link between trait disgust and political conservatism. Cognition and Emotion, 34<\/i>, 302-315.<\/li>\n
        • Xu, X., Plaks, J.E., & Peterson, J.B. (2016).\u00a0 From dispositions to goals to ideology:\u00a0 Toward a synthesis of personality and social psychological approaches to political orientation.\u00a0 Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 10, <\/i>267-280.<\/i><\/li>\n
        • Joel, S., Burton, C., & Plaks, J.E. (2014).\u00a0 Conservatives anticipate and experience stronger emotional reactions to negative outcomes.\u00a0 <\/span>Journal of Personality, 82, <\/span><\/i>32-43<\/span>.<\/span><\/i><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
            \n
          1. \u00a0Lay theories about the fixedness or malleability of personality.<\/b>\u00a0 For over 20 years, we have consistently found that people who believe that personality is fixed (\u201centity theorists\u201d) tend to understand people\u2019s actions (including their own) in terms of broad, underlying traits or stereotypes. Several studies have shown that these people engage in selective attention and memory distortion to screen out information that contradicts their trait-based views other people or themselves. In contrast, people who believe that personality is malleable (\u201cincremental theorists\u201d) show greater openness to such unexpected information. In current research, we are examining how older adults\u2019 lay theories influence their memory performance and motivation. We have also begun to explore neural process associated with these phenomena, using the lab\u2019s electroencephalography (EEG) equipment. A sampling of relevant articles:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
              \n
            • Marquet, M., Plaks, J.E., Balasubramaniam, L., Brunet, S., & Chasteen, A.L. (2021).\u00a0 Older adults\u2019 lay theories predict their willingness to engage in preventive health behaviors.\u00a0 Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics, 93, <\/i>104291.<\/li>\n
            • Plaks, J.E. (2017). \u00a0Implicit theories: \u00a0Assumptions that shape social and moral cognition. \u00a0<\/span>Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 56<\/span><\/i>, 259-310.<\/span><\/li>\n
            • Tullett, A. & Plaks, J.E. (2016). Testing the link between empathy and lay theories\u00a0of happiness. \u00a0Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 42, <\/i>1505-1521.<\/li>\n
            • Xu, X. & Plaks, J.E. (2015). \u00a0The neural correlates of implicit theory violation. Social Neuroscience, 10, <\/i>431-447.<\/i><\/li>\n
            • Plaks, J.E. & Chasteen, A. (2013). \u00a0Entity versus incremental theories predict older\u00a0adults\u2019 memory performance. \u00a0Psychology and Aging, 28, <\/i>948-957.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

              The Motivation and Social Cognition Laboratory conducts basic and applied social psychological research that examines the interplay between motivation and social cognition. Current lines of research are: Moral judgment. We conduct studies that examine processes that\u00a0 underlie moral judgments. Recently, we have extended this work to examine when and why people trust non-human entities, including […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"content-sidebar","footnotes":""},"class_list":{"0":"post-31","1":"page","2":"type-page","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/plaks.psych.utoronto.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/plaks.psych.utoronto.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/plaks.psych.utoronto.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plaks.psych.utoronto.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plaks.psych.utoronto.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":36,"href":"https:\/\/plaks.psych.utoronto.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":520,"href":"https:\/\/plaks.psych.utoronto.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31\/revisions\/520"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plaks.psych.utoronto.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/plaks.psych.utoronto.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}