Kyle Law

I’m a moral psychologist at the intersection of social-cognitive psychology and ethical philosophy trying to make the world a better place for living beings now and in the future. My research investigates the psychological factors that shape exceptional prosocial behavior––impact-maximizing altruism that transcends parochial boundaries––with the aim of inspiring individual and collective action to solve both present (e.g., poverty, inequality) and future (e.g., climate change, future pandemics, AI) societal challenges. Despite people today having unprecedented capacity to help others, this capacity is often underused; human prosociality is relatively insensitive to the consequences of prosocial action, while being surprisingly sensitive to seemingly inconsequential features like the social and temporal distance, identity, and number of beneficiaries. But effectively addressing global challenges requires prosociality towards the often distant, often faceless multitudes, and sometimes even the too-be-realized populations of tomorrow––precisely the beneficiaries it is hardest to get humans to care about. My work seeks to overcome these biases by cultivating a more impactful and equitable approach to altruism at the levels of individuals and society. Specifically, my research builds out knowledge across four distinct but intimately-related domains: (1) prosocial behavior across distance in special populations, (2) prosocial behavior across distance in typical populations, (3) prosocial behavior across the intergenerational divide, and (4) the relationship between individual-level prosociality and indicators of societal welfare.