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Open research questions in Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment

544 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 5,052 Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.

What the literature leaves open

  • The paper identifies the challenge of conceptual drift and moral relativism in defining and understanding moral injury. It highlights the need for a sharper philosophical definition of moral injury to assist clinicians and other professional practitioners. The paper notes the challenge of developing a definition of moral injury that can be applied across different disciplines and contexts.

    Defining Moral Injury: A Natural Scaffold · 2026 · DOI

  • The concept of moral injury remains under-theorised philosophically. Current definitions often rely on subjective intuitions of what is right. There is a lack of a commonly agreed definition of moral injury.

    Defining Moral Injury: A Natural Scaffold · 2026 · DOI

  • The gap is that the intentional standard of correctness is challenged by AI-generated synthetic images. The gap also includes the lack of a satisfactory theory of depiction in synthetic images. The paper identifies the need for a new approach to account for depiction in synthetic images.

    Depiction and synthetic images · 2026 · DOI

  • The lack of understanding of how intentionalism can account for the motivational force of painfulness. The lack of attention to the experience-directed status of painful pains. The need for a clear explanation of how subjects can know their pains are bad.

    Why intentionalists can’t take painkillers · 2026 · DOI

  • One challenge is to develop AI systems that can provide effective and responsible moral advice, while avoiding the potential risks of blind deference to AI. Another challenge is to understand the mechanisms underlying the effects of AI-generated moral advice on human moral judgments, and to develop strategies for mitigating any negative effects. A third challenge is to address the potential concerns and limitations of the study, including the use of a limited sample size and the potential for biases in the experimental design.

    People defer to AI moral advice, but not blindly · 2026 · DOI

  • The study used a simulation-based power analysis, - The study had a limited sample size of 189 participants, - The study only examined the effects of LLM-generated advice in everyday moral dilemmas

    People defer to AI moral advice, but not blindly · 2026 · DOI

  • Investigating the neural mechanisms of source credibility in different contexts, - Examining the role of patient ratings and work experience in modulating brain responses to veracity cues, - Studying the effects of source credibility on health decisions and outcomes

    Neurocognitive mechanisms of source credibility: how work experience and patient ratings modulate the processing of medical veracity cues · 2026 · DOI

  • The gap is the limited understanding of the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying source credibility in medical contexts. There is a need to investigate how doctor's credibility affects the processing of medical veracity cues.

    Neurocognitive mechanisms of source credibility: how work experience and patient ratings modulate the processing of medical veracity cues · 2026 · DOI

  • Investigating the evolutionary advantage of anger in the context of pandemic threats, - Examining the impact of ancestral and modern threats on human emotional responses in different cultures, - Studying the adaptation of psychobehavioral circuits to pandemic threats in more detail

    Human emotional evaluation of ancestral and modern threats: fear, disgust, and anger · 2024 · DOI

  • The study identifies a gap in the understanding of how disgust or the behavioral immune system has adapted to safeguard against pandemic risks or poisoning by modern toxic substances, - The research notes that it is unclear what qualifies as salient modern disgusting stimuli, - The study aims to address the lack of integration of the evolutionary concepts of the fear module and behavioral immune systems

    Human emotional evaluation of ancestral and modern threats: fear, disgust, and anger · 2024 · DOI

  • The study identifies challenges in defining and measuring empathy, with multiple definitions and meanings in the literature. It highlights the limitations of self-reported assessment tools and the need for further research on their validity.

    Expanding the empirical study of virtual reality beyond empathy to compassion, moral reasoning, and moral foundations · 2024 · DOI

  • Small sample size, - Limited to student participants from a university in the United States, - The study is comprised of two pre-post experiments, - The study does not compare the direct level of effects between the VR experiences, - The study requires a larger sample size to increase the statistical power necessary to hypothesize and test for possible significant differences in effect

    Expanding the empirical study of virtual reality beyond empathy to compassion, moral reasoning, and moral foundations · 2024 · DOI

  • While prior research has linked personality traits to unethical behavior, little is known about how different combinations of personality traits shape students' misuse of GAI.

    A configurational exploration of how personality traits influence GAI academic misconduct behaviors using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis · 2026 · DOI

  • Although extensive research has examined immoral behavior, little is known about how the role of episodic simulation plays on immoral behavior.

    Episodic simulation in immoral behavior: Inflation or inhibition? · 2025 · DOI

  • While previous research has examined individual, economic, social and political factors, the impact of religious beliefs, particularly Buddhism, remains underexplored.

    Does Buddhist belief matter to pesticide application? Evidence from rice farmers in southern China · 2025 · DOI

  • Potential reasons for our inconsistent results with those of previous studies and the implications of our current findings were discussed.

    No evidence for the influence of head-heart conceptual metaphor on moral decision making and personality · 2024 · DOI

  • Limited knowledge exists regarding the factors influencing the perceptions of individuals who may have transmitted a contagious virus.

    “It’s Your Fault!”—Said the Vaccinated to the Unvaccinated. The Effect of COVID-19 Vaccination on Responsibility Attribution · 2024 · DOI

  • However, literature on how moral decisions are made under time pressure reports conflicting results.

    Pulling the lever in a hurry: the influence of impulsivity and sensitivity to reward on moral decision-making under time pressure · 2024 · DOI

  • This finding is consistent with the observance of a "second-order" cognitive effect as the impact of the persuasive communication is not limited to the attributes disclaimed in the message, a tribute to the robustness of the appeal.

    Two-Sided versus One-Sided Appeals: A Cognitive Perspective on Argumentation, Source Derogation, and the Effect of Disconfirming Trial on Belief Change · 1987 · DOI

  • First, they may be limited to the particular messages used in this study and it is possible that similar results would not be obtained with different messages. Thus, there is some evidence that these results are not limited to the particular messages used in this study.

    The evaluational consequences of topic reciprocity and self‐disclosure reciprocity · 1987 · DOI

  • Future research should explore the impact of other ecological factors on environmental sustainability practices. Future research should examine the role of pathogen stress in other contexts, such as individual-level decision-making. Future research should develop and test interventions to promote environmental sustainability practices in areas with high pathogen stress.

    Pathogen Stress Theory in Business Ethics: Bio-ecological Influences on Firms’ Environmental Sustainability Practices · 2026 · DOI

  • The role of ecological factors, such as disease prevalence and climate patterns, remains largely unexplored in the context of environmental sustainability practices. Prior research has concentrated on the influence of socioeconomic, cultural, and institutional factors on environmental sustainability practices.

    Pathogen Stress Theory in Business Ethics: Bio-ecological Influences on Firms’ Environmental Sustainability Practices · 2026 · DOI

  • The sample size was limited to 40 participants in the pilot study and 150 participants in the main experiment. The experiment only examined the impact of time pressure and self-relevance on moral decision-making in a laboratory setting.

    The influence of self-relevance under time pressure on moral decision-making · 2026 · DOI

  • The existing research has not fully explored the impact of time pressure on moral decision-making. The study aims to address the gap in the literature by examining the joint effects of time pressure and self-relevance on moral decision-making.

    The influence of self-relevance under time pressure on moral decision-making · 2026 · DOI

  • Future research should examine the neural mechanisms underlying the relationship between mental imagery perspective and moral evaluation. The study suggests that considering multiple perspectives can influence moral decision-making, and this could be explored in future research.

    The perspective-simulating mind: internal representations in moral judgment and action · 2026 · DOI

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544 open questions have been extracted from the limitations and future-work passages of 5,052 Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment papers in our library. Each one below links back to the study that raised it, so you can read the original claim in context.

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