Welcome to Culture and Morality Lab!

Dr. Mohammad Atari runs the Culture and Morality Lab (CAM-L) at UMass Amherst. At CaM-L, we study how culture shapes moral values and norms. We use diverse methods, including computational techniques, lab experiments, and fieldwork. Our research falls under three interrelated lines. The first line of research examines the “how” and “why” of cultural variation in psychological variables both across historical time (i.e., historical psychology) and space (i.e., cross-cultural psychology). The second line of research takes a pluralistic approach to human morality to understand how different flavors of morality can bind people together in ultra-cooperative groups or divide them into an “us vs. them” mindset that justifies violence and hatred. Our lab’s third stream of research focuses on both developing and using state-of-the-art computational methods, particularly Natural Language Processing, to tackle social psychological questions.