Research – Cushman Lab

The topics we study are diverse and always changing as new people join the team, but here are a few themes:

Contractualism

Recently we have asked how people might make decisions about what is right and wrong by asking themselves, “what would other people agree to?” In philosophy, versions of this idea are sometimes called “contractualism”, or “contractarianism”. Our work explores whether ordinary people use contractualist methods in everyday situations. Here are some representative papers:

Levine, S., Chater, N., Tenenbaum, J., & Cushman, F. A. (in press). Resource-rational contractualism: A triple theory of moral cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sceinces.

Levine, S., Kleimen-Weiner, M., Schulz, L., Tenenbaum, J. & Cushman, F. (2020) The logic of universalization guides moral judgment Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117 (42) 26158-26169

Le Pargneux, A., Cushman, F., Zeitoun, H., & Chater, N. (2024). From team rationality to morality: We-reasoning, joint plans, and proto-moral intuitions.

Levine, S., Kleiman-Weiner, M., Chater, N., Cushman, F. A., & Tenenbaum, J. (in press). When rules are over-ruled: Virtual bargaining as a contractualist method of moral judgment. Cognition.

Le Pargneux, A., & Cushman, F. (in press). Bargaining power, outside options, and moral judgment. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

Social learning

From technologies to moral principles, a lot of what we learn, we learn from each other. Right now, there are lots of different models of how this might work. Some are simple: For instance, we could simply imitate others’ behavior. Others are more sophisticated: We could reason about why people act the way they do. Our work tries to define the different ways that people can learn from each other, and then to determine which learning methods we use in different situations. Here are some representative papers:

Cushman, F. (2020) Rationalization is rational Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Vélez, N., Chen, A. M., Burke, T., Cushman, F., & Gershman, S. J. (2023). Teachers recruit mentalizing regions to represent learner’s beliefs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Ho, Mark; Cushman, F.; Littman, M. & Austerweil, J. Communication in action: Planning and interpreting communicative demonstrations (2021). Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.

Morris, A. & Cushman, F.A. (2018). A common framework for theories of norm compliance. Social Philosophy & Policy: Special issue on “Learning and Changing Norms”. 35(1), 101-127

Ho, M.K., MacGlashan, J., Littman, M.L. & Cushman, F.A. (2017). Social is special: A normative framework for teaching with and learning from evaluative feedback. Cognition. 167: 91-106

Cumulative culture

Social learning eventually allows for the construction of culture: Norms, technologies, beliefs, and practices that persist across generations via social learning, and differ between human populations. Our work seeks to understand how social learning mechanisms add up to the accumulation of culture over time. Here are some representative papers:

Wu, C., Velez, N. & Cushman, F. (2022) Representational exchange in human social learning: Balancing efficiency and flexibility In I. Cogliati Dezza, E. Schulz & C. Wu (Eds.) The drive for knowledge: the science of human information-seeking. Cambridge University Press.

Roberts-Gaal, X. & Cushman, F. (2023). Computational principles underlying the evolution of cultural learning mechanisms. Proceedings of the Cognitive Science Society

Punishment

When do we think that other people’s actions should be punished? How do we think about the punishment of accidental or uncontrollable behaviors? Our work on punishment often begins with the assumption that the function of punishment is to modify others’ behavior, and then asks if we can understand the structure of punishment–and how people learn from it–from that perspective. Here are some representative papers:

Cushman, F.A., Sarin, A. & Ho, M. (2022). Punishment as communication in Oxford Handbook of Moral Psychology. Eds. Doris, J. & Vargas, M. Oxford University Press

Cushman, F. A. (2008). Crime and punishment: Distinguishing the roles of causal and intentional analyses in moral judgment. Cognition 108(2): 353-380. Cognition 108(2): 353-380.

Ho, Mark; Cushman, F.; Littman, M. & Austerweil, J. (2019) People Teach with Rewards and Punishments as Communication not Reinforcements Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 148(3), 520

Sarin, A., Ho, M., Martin, J. & Cushman, F. (2021) Punishment is organized around principles of communicative inference Cognition 208, 104544

Bernhard, R. M., Cushman, F. A., & LeBaron, H. (2022). The paradox of aversive punishment. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/tcsve

Sarin, A., & Cushman, F. A. (2024). One thought too few: An adaptive rationale for punishing negligence. Psychological Review. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/mj769

Martin, J.W. & Cushman, F.A. (2016). Why we forgive what can’t be controlled. Cognition, 147, 133-143.

Martin, J.W. & Cushman, F.A. (2015). To punish or to leave: Distinct cognitive processes underlie partner control and partner choice behaviors. PLoS ONE, 10(4), 1-14.

Cushman, F. A. (2014). Punishment in humans: From intuitions to institutions. Philosophy Compass, 1-16.

Cushman, F. A., Dreber, A., Wang, Y., & Costa, J. (2009). Accidental outcomes guide punishment in a ‘trembling hand’ game. PLoS One 4(8): e6699.doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0006699.

What comes to mind

When making decisions, from what to do on a lazy sunday to which move to make in chess, often the first problem we face is to come up with good candidate solutions. In other words, before we choose between two options, we need to generate the options in the first place. Our work draws in principles of reinforcement learning to understand “what comes to mind” when making decisions. Here are some representative papers:

Phillips, J., Morris, A. & Cushman, F.A. (2019) How we know what not to think Trends in Cognitive Science

Phillips, J. & Cushman, F.A. (2017). Morality constrains the default representation of what is possible. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114 (18), 4649-4654

Knobe, J. & Cushman, F. (2023). The common effect of value on prioritized memory and category representation. Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

Morris, A., Phillips, J., Huang, K., & Cushman, F. Generating Options and Choosing Between Them Depend on Distinct Forms of Value Representation. (2021). Psychological science, 32(11), 1731-1746.

Zhang, A., Langenkamp, M., Kleiman-Weiner, M., Oikarinen, T., & Cushman, F. (2023). Similar failures of consideration arise in human and machine planning.

Cushman, F.A. & Morris, A. (2015). Habitual control of goal selection in humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Bear, A., Bensinger, S., Jara-Ettinger, J., Knobe, J. & Cushman, F.A. (2020) What comes to mind Cognition 194

Bernhard, R. M., Phillips, J. S., Cushman, F. A., & Cameron, A. (in press). The neural instantiation of spontaneous counterfactual thought. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

Sarin, A., & Cushman, F. A. (2024). One thought too few: An adaptive rationale for punishing negligence. Psychological Review. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/mj769

Theory of mind

People are generally very good at guessing what other people are thinking. This helps them make moral judgments, communicate, learn from others, predict their behavior, and so forth. Much of our work asks how theory of mind works, and how it influences moral judgment and decision-making. Here are some representative papers:

Ho, M., Saxe, R. & Cushman, F. Planning with a theory of mind (2022). Trends in Cognitive Science

Phillips, J., Buckwalter, W., Cushman, F., Friedman, O., Martin, A., Turri, J., Santos, L., Knobe, J. Knowledge before belief (2021). Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

Martin, J., Buon, M., Cushman, F. The effect of cognitive load on intent-based moral judgment (2021). Cognitive Science 45(4)

Cushman, F.A. (2015). Deconstructing intent to reconstruct morality. Current Opinion in Psychology.

Gershman, S.J., Gerstenberg, T., Baker, C.L., & Cushman, F.A. (2016). Plans, habits and theory of mind. PLoS One. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0162246

Cushman, F. A., Sheketoff, R., Wharton, S., & Carey, S. (2013). The development of intent-based moral judgment. Cognition, 127(1), 6-21.

Young, L., Cushman, F. A., Hauser, M. D., & Saxe, R. (2007). The neural basis of the interaction between theory of mind and moral judgment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 104(20): 8235-8240.

Metacontrol in reinforcement learning

Reinforcement learning (RL) is a computational framework for understanding how people make value-based decisions. Some methods of RL control are easy but less accurate, while others are hard but more accurate. Our work asks: How do people decide, from moment to moment, which method of control to use? Here are some representative papers:

Kool, W., Cushman, F.A. & Gershman, S.J. (2018). Competition and cooperation between multiple reinforcement learning systems. in R. W. Morris, A. M. Bornstein, & A. Shenhav (Eds.) Understanding Goal-Directed Decision Making: Computations and Circuits, Amsterdam, NL: Elsevier

Kool, W., Gershman, S.J. & Cushman, F.A. (2017). Cost-benefit arbitration between multiple reinforcement learning systems. Psychological Science

Kool, W., Gershman, S.J. & Cushman, F.A. (2018). Planning complexity registers as a cost in metacontrol. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 30(10):1-14

Morris, A., Cushman, F. (2019) Model-free RL or action sequences? Frontiers Psychology

Kool, W., Cushman, F.A., & Gershman, S. J. (2016). When does model-based control pay off? PLOS Computational Biology. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005090

Intuition and reasoning in moral dilemmas

We study how people make moral judgments. Sometimes their judgments seem to come from quick, automatic intuitions. Other times their judgments seem to involve more thoughtful reasoning. And, in situations where intuition and reasoning conflict, they have to decide which to follow, or how to reconcile them. We have studied each of these processes. Here are some representative papers:

Cushman, F. A. (2013). Action, outcome and value: A dual-system framework for morality. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 17(3), 273-292.

Cushman, F. A., Young, L., & Hauser, M. D. (2006b). The Role of Conscious Reasoning and Intuition in Moral Judgments: Testing three principles of harm. Psychological Science 17(12): 1082-1089.

Patil, I., Zucchelli, M., Kool, W., Campbell, S., Fornasier, F., Calo, M., Silani, G., Cikara, M. & Cushman, F. (2021) Reasoning supports utilitarian resolutions to moral dilemmas across diverse measures Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 120(2), 443

Cushman, F.A. (2017). Is non-consequentialism a feature or a bug? In Julian Kiverstein (ed), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of the Social Mind. New York, p. 262-279

Schwitzgebel, E. & Cushman, F.A. (2015). Philosophers’ biased judgments persist despite training, expertise and reflection. Cognition, 141, 127-137.

Cushman, F. A., Murray, D., Gordon-McKeon, S., Wharton, S., & Greene, J. D. (2011). Judgment before principle: Engagement of the frontoparietal control network in condemning harms of omission. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, DOI:10.1093/scan/nsr072.

Hauser, M. D., Cushman, F. A., Young, L., Kang-Xing Jin, R., & Mikhail, J. (2007). A dissociation between moral judgments and justifications. Mind and Language 22(1): 1-21.

The aversion to harmful action

People are very averse to doing harm to each other. This is a key foundation of moral judgment and behavior. What psychological process underly this aversion? Here are some representative papers:

Cushman, F. A., Gray, K., Gaffey, A., & Mendes, W.B. (2012). Simulating Murder: The aversion to harmful action. Emotion, 12(1), 2-7.

Miller, R. M. & Cushman, F. A. (2013). Aversive for me, wrong for you: First-person behavioral aversions underlie the moral condemnation of harm. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 7(10), 707-718.

Miller, R. M., Hannikainen, I., & Cushman, F. A. (2014). Bad actions or bad outcomes? Differentiating affective contributions to the moral condemnation of harm. Emotion 14(3), 573-587.

Greene, J. D., Cushman, F. A., Stewart, L. E, Lowenberg, K., Nystrom, L. E., & Cohen, J. D. (2009). Pushing Moral Buttons: The interaction between personal force and intention in moral judgment. Cognition 111(2): 364-371.

Koenigs, M., Young, L., Adolphs, R., Tranel, D., Cushman, F. A., Hauser. M.D., & Damasio, A. (2007). Damage to ventromedial prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgments. Nature 446: 908-911.

Causal judgment

How do people make judgments of what caused an event, or who is responsible for an outcome? Our work tries to connect theories of the function of causal judgment with theories of its structure. Here are some representative papers:

Morris, A., Phillips, J., Icard, T., Knobe, J., Gerstenberg, T. & Cushman, F.A. Judgments of actual causation approximate the effectiveness of interventions

Xiang, Y., Landy, J., Cushman, F., Velez, N., Gershman, S.J. (in press). People reward others based on their willingness to exert effort. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

Xiang, Y., Landy, J., Cushman, F. A., Vélez, N., & Gershman, S. J. (2024). Produced and counterfactual effort contribute to responsibility attributions in collaborative tasks. Cognition. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/jc3hk

Kurdi, B., Morris, A. & Cushman, F. The role of causal structure in implicit cognition (2022). Cognition

Morris, A., Phillips, J., Gerstenberg, T. & Cushman, F.A. (2019) Quantitative causal selection patterns in token causation PLoS One