ABOUT ME

There is an old story about someone who found a treasure on a plot of land, who then sold all their possessions to buy the land and get the treasure. I remembered this story one Saturday after midnight, on Edgewood Avenue in Atlanta in the summer of 2016, while standing in the back of a club that is almost never open and perceiving some fundamental connection between morality and being. At the time, it seemed to me that this idea was a treasure. I am still in the process of excavating my Edgewood vision.

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I recently left my position as a lecturer in Clemson University's Department of English and moved back to Atlanta to start a family. In the coming months I will be working as a writing instructor, while helping my wife raise our daughter and continuing to theorize about moral psychology.  

PUBLICATIONS

2020

Perspectives on Psychological Science

Beal, Bree. “What are the Irreducible Basic Elements of Morality? A Critique of the Debate over Monism and Pluralism in Moral Psychology.” Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2020, 15(2), pp. 273-290.

2018

Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Beal, Bree, and Philippe Rochat. “Innate Valuation, Existential Framing, and One Head for Multiple Moral Hats.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, vol. 41, 2018, p. e38., doi:10.1017/S0140525X17000632.

EDUCATION + EXPERIENCE

2012-2018

PhD

Emory University

Institute for the Liberal Arts

​I earned my PhD from Emory University's Institute for the Liberal Arts (ILA) in 2018. My dissertation was a "Dostoevskyan" model of moral psychology. While at Emory, I also did some cognitive neuroscience research in the Dilks Lab. 

2010-2011

Master of Arts

Arizona State University

New College

I earned my Masters of Arts, with a focus on Philosophy, Rhetoric, and Literature, from Arizona State University's New College in Decemer, 2011. 

2000-2004

Bachelor of Music

Grand Canyon State University

I earned a bachelor's of music, vocal performance, in 2004. 

CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS

Cognition in Moral Space: A Minimal Model

My coauthor Guga Gogia and I recently submitted a manuscript developing a "minimal model" of moral cognition. 

The Nonmoral Conditions of Moral Cognition

In an article under review, I decompose a simple moral judgment into its constituent parts, revealing the "molecular" structure of moral cognition.

Testing the "Ontological Framing Model" of Moral Cognition

I'm currently working with psychologist Joshua Rottman on some empirical studies of my "ontological framing" model of moral cognition.