John A. Johnson

I have spent the past 50 years elaborating an evolutionary and developmental theory of how spontaneous moral emotions interact with more deliberate, conscious thinking to manage social cooperation and conflict. The theory has generated hypotheses about (1) the development of inner-directed, other-directed, and autonomous moral behavior; (2) why people confuse strong emotions with perceptions of moral truth and human rules with natural laws; (3) how people use pronouncements about moral truths and laws to influence others; (4) factors that shape perceptions of the fairness of wealth inequality, and (5) how liberal and conservative moral values are influenced by perceptions of resource abundance/scarcity and environmental safety/danger.