How do ideas about right and wrong vary across cultures? What do researchers mean when they talk about empathy? And what questions should guide the next generation of scholars studying these subjects?
Those questions will shape "Expanding Empathy 2026," a series of four discussions in November and December bringing together researchers from psychology, philosophy and other disciplines to examine morality, human behavior and the future of empathy research.
Now in its eighth year, the series is hosted through Penn State's Consortium on Moral Decision-Making and combines in-person programs with virtual conversations among established and early-career researchers.
"I think these topics are increasingly important as people publicly debate whether empathy is a sign of strength or weakness," said C. Daryl Cameron, Rock Ethics Institute senior research associate and director of the consortium.
Cameron, a Sherwin Early Career Professor and associate professor of psychology, established Expanding Empathy in 2019. He is organizing this year's series with Paige Amormino, a postdoctoral fellow at Penn State's Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center, with assistance from Penn State psychology colleagues Wiktoria Pedryc and Izzy Griffith. The events also help mark the beginning of the consortium's fourth year.
The series opens Wednesday, Nov. 4, with Mohammad Atari, assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His presentation, "Morality Across Time and Space," will take place from 12:15 to 1:15 p.m. in 127 Moore Building, with a Zoom option available. It will be the first traditional Expanding Empathy speaker-series lecture held in person since 2020.
Atari will examine how moral beliefs and judgments are shaped by culture, historical circumstances and social institutions. He will also join Penn State anthropologist Anne Pisor and psychologist Sean Laurent for a public dialogue from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 5, at The Press Cider & Craft Beverage Taphouse, 113 Hiester St. in State College. Cameron and Amormino will host.
"These influences change across cultures and generations, so what feels obviously right to us can feel deeply wrong to people raised in another place or time," Atari said. "Studying those differences keeps us from mistaking our own moral backyard for human moral universals."
Pisor emphasized the importance of understanding morality from the perspectives of people in different cultural contexts.
"Notions of 'goodness' and 'badness' appear in cultures everywhere, but what counts as good and bad varies," she said.
Laurent noted that "many theories of morality were developed by Western researchers and tested using Western samples," making cross-cultural comparisons important for determining how broadly those theories apply.
"Most of what we know about moral psychology comes from a fairly narrow slice of humanity," Amormino said. Comparing moral beliefs across cultures, she added, helps researchers distinguish widely shared ideas from those shaped by particular histories and communities.
Penn State psychology graduate student Wiktoria Pedryc, who has lived in several countries, also emphasized the importance of questioning familiar moral assumptions to improve "communication and conflict transformation across the world."
On Tuesday, Nov. 10, the series turns to the question of what empathy means. A virtual panel from noon to 1 p.m. will bring together contributors to "What We Talk About When We Talk About Empathy: Toward a Common Lexicon of Empathy-Related Constructs," published in September in Perspectives on Psychological Science.
Cameron is among the paper's 15 authors, who collaborated on an effort to develop a shared vocabulary for discussing empathy across disciplines. The panel will explore the challenges of defining empathy and communicating across different approaches to its study.
Panelists include Mark Davis of Eckerd College, Stephanie Preston of the University of Michigan, Heidi Maibom of Aarhus University, Birgit Koopmann-Holm of Santa Clara University, Suzanne Keen of Scripps College and Cameron. Amormino, Brett Murphy of Texas A&M University-San Antonio and Greg Depow of Lakehead University will serve as early-career discussants.
"The Common Lexicon we propose has the potential to make our research more transparent, less confusing and more impactful," Davis said.
Murphy said discussions about empathy should also consider positive experiences, including "how people understand and respond to one another's good news, joy, excitement, pride and other positive experiences."
Depow agreed that clarity matters, emphasizing that "it is critical to be clear about the definition and scope of empathy" when interpreting research and considering its broader implications.
The series concludes with a virtual panel of early-career researchers from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday, Dec. 7. The discussion will highlight the perspectives of graduate students, postdoctoral scholars and early-career faculty on where interdisciplinary empathy research might go next.
The final conversation will complement the November panel of established scholars while giving emerging researchers an opportunity to identify questions and directions they believe deserve greater attention.
For Cameron, the conversations extend beyond academia to everyday questions about "whether and how far we should extend our empathy."
Advance Zoom registration is available for the Nov. 4 presentation, Nov. 10 panel and Dec. 7 panel.
The Expanding Empathy series is hosted through the Consortium on Moral Decision-Making, which receives support from Penn State's Social Science Research Institute, College of the Liberal Arts, Rock Ethics Institute, McCourtney Institute for Democracy, and Departments of Psychology and Philosophy.
