Figure 1.

Three dimensions of moral cognition. Most moral cognition research investigates one of three dimensions: moral decision‐making, moral judgment, or moral inference. Important phenomena lie at the intersection of two or more dimensions. For example, moral hypocrisy can be conceptualized as a disconnect between moral decision‐making and moral judgment, where hypocrites judge others harshly for the same decisions they make themselves; in moral influence, inferences about the moral character of others shape one's own moral decisions; and work on person‐centered morality demonstrates that inferences about moral character spill over into moral judgments of individual actions.