Research

A decade of research spanning moral psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and prosocial behaviour — investigating how humans navigate ethical dilemmas, what drives empathy and helping, how personality shapes moral judgement, and building the statistical tools to study these questions rigorously.

Some of this work has found its way into wider public discourse — with coverage in outlets such as Time, HuffPost, and Vice, among others.

Research Lines

Moral Judgment About Harm: Emotion, Reasoning, and Their Interplay

When facing dilemmas that pit preventing harm against maximising welfare, two competing systems vie for control: emotion-driven harm aversion, and reasoning-based cost-benefit analysis. A decade of research mapped how each operates, when they conflict, and what makes one prevail.

Virtual reality trolley dilemma: a train approaches people on the tracks while the participant decides whether to divert it Patil et al. (2014). Affective basis of judgment-behavior discrepancy in virtual experiences of moral dilemmas. Social Neuroscience, 9(1), 94–107.
Experimental design showing how moral vignettes branch into four conditions: intentional, accidental, attempted, and neutral harm Patil et al. (2017). The behavioral and neural basis of empathic blame. Scientific Reports, 7:5200.
  • Reasoning ability predicts utilitarian choices across eight independent studies — independently of how intensely someone dislikes causing harm
  • Psychopathy's link to utilitarian judgement traces to reduced aversion to performing harmful acts specifically, not reduced concern for victims
  • Emotional immersion in virtual reality closes the gap between what people say they would do and what they actually do, showing that behaviour and stated principles can dissociate
  • Better reasoners more readily forgive accidental harms, redirecting attention from emotional reactions toward the perpetrator's innocent intent
Dual-process theory Moral dilemmas fMRI Virtual reality Behavioural experiments
Relevant Publications (4)

Visit the Publications page for PDFs, supplementary materials, and data.

Empathy, Prosociality, and the Neural Basis of Moral Emotion

Empathic concern for victims shapes not only how harshly we condemn wrongdoers but also whether we step up to help — and both effects have distinct neural signatures.

fMRI brain activation maps showing the empathy-for-pain network across four axial slices Patil et al. (2017). The behavioral and neural basis of empathic blame. Scientific Reports, 7:5200.
Virtual reality fire rescue scenario: smoke-filled corridors and a trapped avatar in a burning building Patil et al. (2018). Neuroanatomical basis of concern-based altruism in virtual environment. Neuropsychologia, 116, 34–43.
  • The brain's pain-empathy network encodes outcome severity and drives blame, but is recruited differently for acceptability judgments — a neural dissociation between two outwardly similar moral responses
  • Grey matter volume in the theory-of-mind network predicts willingness to forgive accidents, by supporting representation of innocent intent
  • Individuals who incur costly personal sacrifices to rescue others in a virtual emergency have larger right anterior insula — a region central to empathic motivation
  • Across 24 studies and 21,000+ participants, compensating victims generated stronger reputational gains than punishing perpetrators, because compensation reliably signals genuine prosocial character
fMRI Neuroimaging Prosociality Altruism Third-party punishment Empathy
Relevant Publications (4)

Visit the Publications page for PDFs, supplementary materials, and data.

Individual Differences: Personality, Psychopathology, and Moral Judgment

People differ markedly in their moral judgments, and this variability reflects stable differences in how they process emotional and cognitive information — not inconsistency or ignorance.

Voxel-based morphometry results highlighting grey matter volume differences in the left anterior superior temporal sulcus Patil et al. (2017). Neuroanatomical correlates of forgiving unintentional harms. Scientific Reports, 7:45967.
fMRI activation maps of the Theory of Mind network including temporoparietal junction and medial prefrontal cortex Patil et al. (2017). Neuroanatomical correlates of forgiving unintentional harms. Scientific Reports, 7:45967.
  • Alexithymia (difficulty identifying one's own emotions) reduces empathic concern and increases moral acceptance of harmful acts, particularly unintentional ones
  • In adults with autism, autistic and alexithymic traits exert opposing effects — autistic features increase harm aversion while co-occurring alexithymia reduces empathic concern, creating deceptively normal group averages
  • Multiple sclerosis patients condemn third-party violations more harshly than controls, explained by elevated cognitive alexithymia rather than disease-specific neurological changes
  • Anxiety disorder patients maintain intact moral cognition despite pathologically heightened arousal, showing that emotional intensity alone does not distort moral judgement
Alexithymia Psychopathy Autism Multiple sclerosis Anxiety Individual differences
Relevant Publications (6)

Visit the Publications page for PDFs, supplementary materials, and data.

Open-Source Statistical Software

Throughout my academic career I built tools to address methodological gaps in my own research — and those tools grew into widely adopted infrastructure across the sciences.

Violin plot from ggstatsplot comparing body mass across three penguin species with embedded statistical annotations Patil, I. (2021). Visualizations with statistical details: The 'ggstatsplot' approach. Journal of Open Source Software, 6(61), 3167.
Hex sticker logos for R packages: ggstatsplot, easystats, performance, see, parameters, and datawizard
  • ggstatsplot combines inferential statistics with publication-ready visualisations, reducing the steps between analysis and reporting
  • The easystats ecosystem provides a unified R workflow for model fitting, diagnostics, parameter extraction, comparison, and reporting
  • Contributions to lintr and styler help enforce code quality and style standards across the R community
  • These packages are collectively downloaded tens of millions of times and used across disciplines from ecology to clinical trials
R programming Data visualisation Software engineering easystats ggstatsplot
Relevant Publications (10)

Visit the Publications page for PDFs, supplementary materials, and data.

Research Positions

Max Planck Institute for Human Development
2019 - 2021

Postdoctoral Fellow

Max Planck Institute for Human Development

Berlin, Germany

Advisor: Iyad Rahwan

Harvard University
2017 - 2019

Postdoctoral Fellow

Harvard University

Department of Psychology

Cambridge, MA, USA

Advisor: Mina Cikara and Fiery Cushman

Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA)
2016

Visiting Researcher

Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA)

Trieste, Italy

Advisor: Giorgia Silani