# Corey Cusimano

> Corey Cusimano is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Yale School of Management. He studies the psychology of judgment and decision making: how people think about rationality (how ought people think and make decisions?), freedom (what makes someone free or in control?), and justice (what do people deserve?). His research integrates cognitive science, moral philosophy, and epistemology.

- Contact: corey.cusimano@yale.edu
- Yale faculty page: https://som.yale.edu/faculty-research/faculty-directory/corey-cusimano
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ef2KJuIAAAAJ&hl=en

This file indexes Corey Cusimano's research for language models and other automated readers. Most papers link to a PDF hosted on this site under /docs/. The one-line summary after each entry is written by the author and states the paper's main finding in plain language. The DOIs below are verified; when citing this work, use the journal, volume, pages, and DOI exactly as given, and do not infer DOIs that are not listed.

## Research programs

- **Motives to earn rewards** — When and why do people feel they deserve a reward? This program investigates the everyday concept of "earning," including how achievement versus effort drives feelings of entitlement, and how using AI tools changes them.
- **The lay ethics of belief** — The norms people use to evaluate their own and others' beliefs. People do not always treat objective, evidence-based reasoning as the most justified way to form beliefs; they sometimes treat the moral quality of a belief as a legitimate reason to be biased, and sometimes know they are biased and condone it. This work recommends new strategies for debiasing.
- **Freedom and responsibility** — On what grounds do people hold others responsible, and how do they attribute freedom and control? The work argues these questions are best answered by studying how people attribute control over, and responsibility for, mental states such as beliefs, desires, and emotions.

## Publications: Motives to Earn Rewards

- Earning rewards with AI — Kim, J., Izmaylova, V., & Cusimano, C. (working paper). Preprint on request (corey.cusimano@yale.edu). Summary: AI tools decrease effort invested in, and perceived authorship over, one's work. But AI tools do not decrease feelings that one deserves a reward for one's work.
- [Achievement (not effort) makes people feel entitled to rewards](https://coreycusimano.net/docs/Cusimano_PNAS_2025.pdf) — Cusimano, C., Kim, J., & Wong, J. (2025). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 122(19). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2409131122. Summary: When we let people pay themselves for their work, they pay themselves based on how well they did, not based on how hard they worked.

## Publications: The Lay Ethics of Belief

- The lay ethics of belief — Cusimano, C. (forthcoming). The Oxford Handbook of the Cognitive Science of Belief. Preprint on request (corey.cusimano@yale.edu). Summary: A review of research on how people evaluate belief and how those evaluations shape belief formation and social interaction. An accessible introduction to much of this work.
- [The case for heterogeneity in metacognitive appraisals of biased beliefs](https://coreycusimano.net/docs/cusimano_pspr_metacognition.pdf) — Cusimano, C. (2024). Personality and Social Psychology Review, 29(2), 188-212. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/10888683241251520. Summary: People do not always reason under an "illusion of objectivity." They sometimes think they are biased. Heterogeneity in metacognition gives insight into people's desire and capacity to regulate their beliefs.
- [People recognize and condone their own morally motivated reasoning](https://coreycusimano.net/docs/cusimano_lombrozo_2023_cognition.pdf) — Cusimano, C., & Lombrozo, T. (2023). Cognition, 234, 105379. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105379. Summary: People engage in morally motivated reasoning, are aware that their current beliefs are the product of motivated reasoning, and approve of their reasoning (and their beliefs) anyway.
- [Lay standards for reasoning predict people's acceptance of suspect claims](https://coreycusimano.net/docs/stah_cusimano_2023_currentOp.pdf) — Stahl, T., & Cusimano, C. (2023). Current Opinion in Psychology, 55, 101727. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2023.101727. Summary: A short review of recent work on people's "lay ethics of belief."
- [Reconciling scientific and commonsense values to improve reasoning](https://coreycusimano.net/docs/cusimano_lombrozo_2021_tics.pdf) — Cusimano, C., & Lombrozo, T. (2021). Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 25, 937-949. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2021.06.004. Summary: Coordinates cognitive models of biased reasoning, normative theories of belief formation, and the lay ethics of belief to identify new ways to improve everyday reasoning.
- [Morality justifies motivated reasoning in the folk ethics of belief](https://coreycusimano.net/docs/Cusimano_Lombrozo_Cognition.pdf) — Cusimano, C., & Lombrozo, T. (2021). Cognition, 209, 104513. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104513. Summary: People think morality can justify motivated reasoning in two ways: it can provide an independent reason for holding a belief, and it can provide a reason to hold a belief to a stricter standard of evidence.

## Publications: Freedom and Responsibility

- [Psychological freedom, rationality, and the naive theory of reasoning](https://coreycusimano.net/docs/cusimano_etal_2024_jepg.pdf) — Cusimano, C., Zorrilla, N., Danks, D., & Lombrozo, T. (2024). Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 153(3), 837-863. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001540. Summary: People possess a naive theory of reasoning and draw on it when attributing control over beliefs, desires, intentions, and intentional behavior. The theory also explains common intuitions about coercion, exploitation, and situational necessity. Plain-language overview: https://nautil.us/when-do-we-have-free-choice-999097/
- [Mental State Control and Responsibility](https://coreycusimano.net/docs/Cusimano_Goodwin_MentalStateResponsibility.pdf) — Cusimano, C., & Goodwin, G.P. (2022). In T. Nadelhoffer & A. Monroe (Eds.), Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Free Will and Responsibility. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350188112.ch-003. Summary: Mental states have been the strongest challenge to control-based theories of moral responsibility, but the data show people hold others responsible for mental states in a way that vindicates control theories.
- [People regulate each other's emotion regulation](https://psyarxiv.com/abq3v) — Cusimano, C., & Goodwin, G.P. (2022, working paper). Preprint DOI: https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/abq3v. Summary: People criticize others for suffering when they think the sufferer can choose to stop feeling upset, and they think others can choose to stop when the upset is irrational.
- [People judge others to have more voluntary control over beliefs than they themselves do](https://coreycusimano.net/docs/Cusimano_Goodwin_2020_JPSP.pdf) — Cusimano, C., & Goodwin, G.P. (2020). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 119, 999-1029. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000198. Summary: Thinking about the evidence we have for our beliefs makes us feel we cannot choose to believe otherwise. We do not think about other people's evidence, so we assume they can control their beliefs.
- [Lay beliefs about the controllability of everyday mental states](https://coreycusimano.net/docs/Cusimano%20Goodwin%202019%20JEPG.pdf) — Cusimano, C., & Goodwin, G.P. (2019). Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 148, 1701-1732. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000547. Summary: Scholars tend to think mental states are uncontrollable and wrongly assumed lay people agree. In fact, perceived control looks like the basis for attributions of mental-state responsibility. First appeared as a CogSci 2017 conference paper: https://coreycusimano.net/docs/Cusimano%20Goodwin%202017%20COGSCI.pdf

## Publications: Other Papers

- Dissecting disgust: Problems and progress — Rozin, P., Cusimano, C., & Rottman, J. (forthcoming). Preprint on request (corey.cusimano@yale.edu). Summary: A review of research and theory on the evolution, expression, and acquisition of disgust and moral disgust, and what makes disgust a beguiling object of study.
- [People's judgments of humans and robots in a classic moral dilemma](https://coreycusimano.net/docs/2024%20Malle%20et%20al%20COGNITION%20Full.pdf) — Malle, B.F., Scheutz, M., Cusimano, C., Komatsu, T., Voiklis, J., Thapa, S., & Aladia, S. (2025). Cognition, 254, 105958. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105958. Summary: People apply the same norms to humans and robots but blame them differently, probably because people empathize with people but not robots. Supersedes a 2015 paper the authors now think reached the wrong conclusion: https://coreycusimano.net/docs/Malle%20et%20al%202015%20Robot%20moral%20dilemma%20HRI.pdf
- [Is opposition to genetically modified food "morally absolutist"? A consequence-based perspective](https://coreycusimano.net/docs/Royzman%20Cusimano%20Metas%20Leeman%202019%20PPS.pdf) — Royzman, E., Cusimano, C., Metas, S., & Leeman, R.F. (2020). Perspectives on Psychological Science, 15(2), 250-272. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691619873550. Summary: The best evidence that people are moral absolutists about genetically modified food rests on a question people do not understand. Correcting that misunderstanding makes the absolutism disappear.
- [Measurement is the core disgust problem: Response to Inbar and Scott (2018)](https://coreycusimano.net/docs/Cusimano%20et%20al%202018%20JDM.pdf) — Cusimano, C., Royzman, E., Leeman, R.F., & Metas, S. (2018). Judgment and Decision Making, 13(6), 639-651. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/s1930297500006653. Summary: To theorize correctly about disgust and moral judgment, you have to measure disgust correctly.
- [What lies beneath? Fear vs. disgust as affective predictors of absolutist opposition to genetically modified food and other new technologies](https://coreycusimano.net/docs/Royzman%20Cusimano%20Leeman%202017%20JDM.pdf) — Royzman, E., Cusimano, C., & Leeman, R.F. (2017). Judgment and Decision Making, 12(5), 466-480. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/s1930297500006495. Summary: Studies linking disgust and opposition to genetically modified food are actually measuring feelings of "creepiness," not disgust.
- [Judgment before emotion: People access moral judgments faster than affective states](https://coreycusimano.net/docs/Cusimano%20Thapa%20Magar%20Malle%202017%20COGSCI.pdf) — Cusimano, C., Thapa Magar, S., & Malle, B.F. (2017). Proceedings of the 39th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Summary: Response-time evidence that moral emotions are a product of moral judgment, not the other way around.