Cillian McHugh
LightNews LightNews
banner
cillianmchugh.bsky.social
Cillian McHugh
@cillianmchugh.bsky.social
2.4K followers 1.6K following 87 posts
End Genocide now🍉
Associate Professor in Psychology at @unioflimerick.bsky.social #MoralPsychology #OpenScience
Interests: music, reading, chess, TV, walking
www.cillianmchugh.com
Posts Replies Media Videos
cillianmchugh.bsky.social
Serious moon tonight
September 7, 2025 at 10:31 PM
cillianmchugh.bsky.social
This is true for both good and bad characters.

Though it is more robust for bad than for good characters

It is also distinct from a possible "humanization" effect.
Study 3: Differences in moral perception depending on information type. Forest plot showing effect sizes for each study and pooled effect size.
August 5, 2025 at 10:35 AM
cillianmchugh.bsky.social
Wild rabbits in the garden this morning causing great excitement!
June 25, 2025 at 10:42 AM
cillianmchugh.bsky.social
Looking forward to this session on Morality machines and AI (with @jimaceverett.bsky.social and colleagues)
February 22, 2025 at 6:04 PM
cillianmchugh.bsky.social
Very excited for our Symposium this morning on context effects in Moral Judgment.
With @kathrynbfrancis.bsky.social Dries Bostyn & Connie Chiu
#SPSP2025
February 22, 2025 at 1:45 PM
cillianmchugh.bsky.social
Lovely day in Denver ahead of #SPSP2025
Cold but got to see plenty!
February 19, 2025 at 2:41 AM
cillianmchugh.bsky.social
Poster for #SPSP2025 in #Denver sent to print. Now back to working on the slides... Looking forward to seeing everyone there!
#psychology
Conference Poster. Central message reads: Choosing to act (causing harm) in sacrificial dilemmas depends on whether harm occurs as a means or as a side-effect, and this matters more than whether direct force is used. Full text available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103124000283?via%3Dihub#s0110
February 12, 2025 at 10:46 AM
cillianmchugh.bsky.social
Unexpected laugh from auto-captions. I actually said "bunched around" but captions say "Busta Rhymes" 😅😅
Screenshot of a slide describing the Median with captions saying "Busta Rhymes" instead of "bunched around"
February 7, 2025 at 3:35 PM
cillianmchugh.bsky.social
Love teaching across the walking bridge in @unioflimerick.bsky.social when the weather is nice and you get scenes like this on the way to class
January 31, 2025 at 12:53 PM
cillianmchugh.bsky.social
Took the opportunity to make a snow lantern this evening. #snow #sneachta
A snow lantern A snow lantern
January 5, 2025 at 10:15 PM
cillianmchugh.bsky.social
Really nice to find hard copies of this on my desk after class today 😊

(With @MarekMcGann.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy , Miranda Lucas, & Louise Barrett, and a host of great authors )
Photo of print copies of theme issue of philosophical transactions b "people places things and communities: expanding behaviour settings in the 21st century"
November 20, 2024 at 5:43 PM
cillianmchugh.bsky.social
Looks like one of my students is confused about who their lecturer is...
screenshot of assignment page containing: University of Limerick PS4168 - Economic Psychology Dr Cillian Murphy 16.10.2024
October 21, 2024 at 7:34 AM
cillianmchugh.bsky.social
I always assumed it was a snobby "higher quality" / longer life / tracking thing. Less grooves, less densely packed... but I have not looked into this, my intuition could have no grounding in reality at all.

On double vinyls, a double vinyl should have four songs, one per side... (see photo)
October 1, 2024 at 2:23 PM
cillianmchugh.bsky.social
Very excited to share the #SPSP2025 Moral Psychology pre-conference will be taking place on
Feb 20th in Denver
Poster submissions are open - Deadline is Oct 17 spsp.wufoo.com/forms/2025-p...
co-organised with @jowylie.bsky.social & @diegoreinero.bsky.social
Keynote Speakers: Molly Crockett, Joe Henrich, Joshua Knobe, Jessica Sommerville Invited Talks: Jim Everett, Kathryn Francis, Ivar Hannikainen, Pearl Han Li, Arunima Sarin, Mikaela Spruill, Hongbo Yu Pre-conference Organizers: Cillian McHugh, Diego Reinero, Jordan Wylie
September 9, 2024 at 6:17 PM
cillianmchugh.bsky.social
Our "Behaviour Settings/Roger Barker" Theme Issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B is out!
Very proud to have been a part of this project, with @MarekMcGann.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy, Miranda Lucas, and Louise Barrett, and all Authors.
royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/202...
screenshot of the front cover of the Theme Issue
August 8, 2024 at 12:14 PM
cillianmchugh.bsky.social
And Published!!
(at www-sciencedirect-com.proxy.lib.ul.ie/science/arti... )

We clarify the influences of and instrumentality (means/side-effects) personal force on moral judgments
Again thanks to coauthors @kathrynbfrancis.bsky.social @jimaceverett.bsky.social & Shane Timmons!
April 9, 2024 at 9:45 AM
cillianmchugh.bsky.social
Beautiful views on the walk to Spanish Point today
March 29, 2024 at 7:05 PM
cillianmchugh.bsky.social
Did somebody say Proofs???
March 27, 2024 at 3:05 PM
cillianmchugh.bsky.social
After a short hiatus, we're excited to announce the next IMP Seminar Series talks:
Monday March 4th at 12pm EST.

Talks from @mbialek82.bsky.social & @annayahprosser.bsky.social

Registration: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

With @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social and @jimaceverett.bsky.social
Annayah Prosser “Nobody’s perfect”: Constructing and negotiating vegan, vegetarian and flexitarian moralities through ingroup talk Michał Białek The Utilitarian Hive Mind: CNI Modelling of the Group Morality Reducing meat and dairy consumption is a vital way to reduce carbon emissions associated with animal agriculture, improve health, and reduce animal suffering worldwide. People can act collectively to reduce their environmental impact and encourage others to change their behaviour, taking on moralised pro-environmental identities centred around social and behaviour change efforts. In this study, we use a novel remotely moderated focus group paradigm to explore the moral boundaries of veganism, vegetarianism, and flexitarianism, as characterised by ingroup talk and discussion. Through critical realist thematic analysis, we explore how understandings of morality are influenced by consumption, situational, activist, and identity boundaries. We identify practical limits of meat and animal product reduction, and examine how vegans, vegetarians, and flexitarians use group talk to reconcile ‘slip ups’ and ‘accidents’ with maintaining a generally meat reductionist or exclusionary diet. We also In our investigation, we harnessed the CNI model to advance beyond the limitations identified in prior research on moral decision-making within groups. This approach challenged the prevailing notion that groups inherently exhibit a more utilitarian bias compared to individuals. Our hypothesis suggested that this perceived bias might be less about collective ethical judgment and more about a shared readiness to act. In traditional moral psychology, taking action is synonymous with utilitarian choices. Our study included 100 individuals and 107 groups of three, putting the hypothesis to the test. Consistent with previous findings, groups did indeed show a stronger preference for utilitarian decisions. However, this wasn't due to a disregard for deontological norms; rather, it stemmed from a prioritization of outcomes, as our process dissociation analysis revealed. Even when controlling for a general hesitancy to take action (with CNI modelling), groups remained more outcome-focused, with
February 29, 2024 at 3:36 PM
cillianmchugh.bsky.social
Bluer skies today, and I got to dip my feet in the Pacific
#SPSP2024
February 10, 2024 at 11:39 PM
cillianmchugh.bsky.social
Some rain and lots of grey skies but a good (and educational) day around San Diego today. Turning out to be a lovely evening now. And there was even a bit of a rainbow near the convention centre earlier! All set for #SPSP2024 now!
February 8, 2024 at 1:30 AM
cillianmchugh.bsky.social
A bit of traffic this morning, but I'm at the gate ready to head to San Diego for #SPSP2024
Poster is printed and not lost yet!
February 6, 2024 at 1:06 PM
cillianmchugh.bsky.social
Final International Moral Psychology (IMP) Seminar Series talks of 2023:

Monday Dec 4th at 12pm EST

Flashtalk from @laurasoter.bsky.social
Main talk from Monica Bucciarelli

Registration: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

With @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social and @jimaceverett.bsky.social

So Excited!!
Monica Bucciarelli: To believe is to like Laura Soter: U.S. Citizens’ Judgments about Moral Transgressions against Fellow Citizens, Refugees, and Immigrants Beliefs about right and wrong often underlie social conflicts. Because such deontic propositions cannot be acquired or tested in the same way as factual beliefs, the theory of mental models postulates that emotional reactions are crucial for them. We report studies showing a strong correlation between the strength of deontic beliefs and the strength of the emotions they elicit: people tend to consider right what they like, and wrong what they dislike. Results hold over a range of deontic beliefs concerning moral principles, social conventions, laws, recommendations and matters of prudence. We also observed that the recall of a pleasant memory about a deontic proposition increases the degree to which people rate its believability more than does their recall of an unpleasant memory about it. Conversely, the formulation of a reason to believe a deontic principle increases the intensity to which people rate their liking of it more than does the formulation of a reason to disbelieve it. Much prior work has shown that people are often more sensitive to wrongdoing against ingroup members compared to outgroup members. We investigate whether this pattern holds up in a particular context: U.S. citizens’ judgments of moral transgressions against fellow citizens vs. refugees and undocumented immigrants. Across four studies, we show that, contra the ingroup favoritism hypothesis, participants judge transgressions of various kinds against refugees and immigrants to be more wrong than those targeting fellow citizens. We offer mediational and experimental evidence for perceived vulnerability as a partial mechanism for these judgments. The result suggests that the “insider bias” narrative may be too simple: the characteristics of the outgroup in question matter.
November 28, 2023 at 11:55 AM
cillianmchugh.bsky.social
Happy Halloween!!
Rewatching this absolute classic!
#Buffy #EthanRayne #HappyHalloween #Halloween
Buffy and Willow peering through a window with a cat sticker on it
October 31, 2023 at 11:49 PM
cillianmchugh.bsky.social
The Next International Moral Psychology (IMP) Seminar Series talks:
Monday, November 6th at 12pm EST

Flashtalk from Chantal D'Amore
Main talk from Paul Conway

Registration: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

With @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social & @jimaceverett.bsky.social

Can't Wait!!!
Paul Conway: What is Social About Sacrificial Dilemmas? How Social Evaluations and Concerns about the Self Shape and Flow from Dilemma Decisions Chantal D'Amore: How Perceived Polarization Predicts Attitude Moralization (and vice versa): A Four-Wave Longitudinal Study During the 2020 US Election
October 31, 2023 at 4:34 PM