About

Jesse Graham holds the George S. Eccles Chair of Business Ethics and is a Professor of Management at the University of Utah's David Eccles School of Business. His research focuses on the moral, political, and religious convictions that cause conflict within and between individuals and organizations, and how these convictions provide meaning to people's lives.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Psychology
• Social psychology
• Law
• Epistemology
• Criminology
• Environmental ethics
• Philosophy

Selected publications

• She sees the trees, he sees the forest: Descriptive gender stereotypes of concreteness and abstractness.

  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · 2025-06-05 · 4 citations

  reviewSenior author

  = 841), a mechanism that could perpetuate gender roles and organizational inequity. The Supplemental Materials include three additional studies that help validate the present results. Finally, we conducted an internal meta-analysis (including supplemental and file drawer studies) to summarize the main effects. We discuss the theoretical implications of this research and provide recommendations for future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

  PublisherDOI

• Morality

  Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2025-05-01 · 1 citations

  book-chapterSenior author

  Moral systems are characterized by interconnected values, virtues, norms, practices, identities, institutions, tools, technologies, and evolved psychological mechanisms that collectively act to curb or manage self-interest, thereby facilitating the existence of cooperative societies. A thorough social-psychological investigation of morality has yielded extensive findings delineating the antecedents, accompaniments, and consequences of moral judgments and behaviors. Evolved moral intuitions are at our disposal, but cultural context predicts their expression. In this chapter, we review a culturally sensitive approach to moral values, situational influences on moral judgments, and the dark side of morality. We propose three future directions: (a) exploring the moral psychology of humans interacting with artificial intelligence; (b) going beyond the confines of Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic (WEIRD) populations to unravel the moral diversity that our species has to offer; and (c) moving toward a meta-theoretical convergence to develop more robust and generative theoretical frameworks for the empirical study of morality.

  PublisherDOI

• Moral Diversity in the Workplace

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2025-07-01

  article

  The goal of this symposium is to explore moral diversity - diversity in opinions of right and wrong - and its influence across a wide spectrum of employee-level organizational behaviors. Taking a uniquely broad approach to conceptualizing moral diversity, the papers in this symposium consider moral diversity in terms of punishment preferences, values, judgments, and ideology. The papers explore both antecedents to, and consequences of moral diversity.

  PublisherDOI

• Organization-level Inclusion Signals: Positive Effects for Both LGBT and non-LGBT Employees

  2025-08-15

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  This work examines organizational-level inclusion signals and their subsequent effects on employees. Answering the call for more research on concealable stigmatized identities, we consider the effect of such organization-level inclusion signals for sexual and gender minorities (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender employees) while also considering the effect on non-target employees. In a time-lagged observational study (N = 1,165 ), archival data (N = 229), and a randomized experiment (N = 380), we show that organizational-level inclusion efforts lead to more positive perception of the organization’s psychological climate for sexual and gender minorities, closing the psychological safety gap between non-LGBT and LGBT employees.. Notably, these intentional inclusion efforts also benefit non-LGBT employees, which contradicts recent theoretical assertions that intentional inclusion can harm majority groups, or that organizational inclusion is a zero-sum game.These signals shaped positive behavioral intentions for all employees, leading to non-LGBT employees engaging in more individual ally work, and LGBT employees feeling more free to share their identities. Unexpectedly, inclusion signals even made non-LGBT employees less likely to conceal intimidating parts of their identity (e.g. religion, parental status) as well. In sum, we show that such signaling improves psychological safety for all employees, reducing or eliminating the deficit between target and non-target employees while also encouraging value-aligned positive behaviors.

  PublisherDOI

• Battling the Minotaur: How Women Navigate Gender at Work

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2025-07-01

  article

  Gender parity remains a critical challenge in organizations, with women often navigating a labyrinth of conflicting norms and expectations that hinder their professional advancement. This symposium explores the complexities of gender at work through five innovative papers that examine the influence of gender norms, expectations of backlash, and strategies women employ to achieve their goals. These presentations address diverse topics, including systemic biases in leadership evaluations, a novel scale for measuring gender backlash expectations, a theoretical framework for women’s responses to backlash risks, the transformation of masculine organizational cultures, and the role of negotiation skills in career advancement. Together, these studies challenge traditional narratives of disengagement, emphasizing women’s agency in navigating and reshaping their environments. By integrating theoretical advancements with practical tools and interventions, this symposium offers actionable insights for fostering gender equity and supporting women’s success in organizations. Extraordinary Executive Women: Leader Gender, Atypicality, and Elicited Abstraction Author: Samantha Dodson; University of Calgary Author: Rachael Goodwin; Not Associated Author: Cheryl Wakslak; University of Southern California Author: Jesse Graham; The University of Utah Author: Kristina Diekmann; The University of Utah Assessing the Risks of Breaking Gender Rules: Validation of the Expected Gender Backlash Scale Author: Kileigh Branae Smith; University of Nevada, Reno Author: Kristin Bain; Rochester Institute of Technology Author: Kathryn A. Coll; Author: Alexis Hanna; Navigating the Labyrinth: Women’s Responses to Potential Gender Backlash Author: Amelia Stillwell; The University of Utah Author: Elizabeth R. Tenney; The University of Utah Author: Coco Liu; Author: Kristin Bain; Rochester Institute of Technology Author: Jacqueline Chen; The University of Utah Author: Laura Kray; University of California Berkeley One Small Step for Woman: How Women’s Identity Management Transforms Masculine Defaults Author: Mallory Decker; University of Colorado-Boulder Small Negotiations: Self-Directing the Path of Counterstereotypical Careers Author: Hannah Riley Bowles; Harvard University Author: Deborah Wu; Stonehill College Author: Bobbi Thomason; Pepperdine University Author: Alessandra González; Duke University Author: Ons Ben Abdelkarim; Harvard University Author: Anchal Setia; University of Massachusetts Amherst Author: Rati Thanawala; - Author: Nilanjana Dasgupta; University of Massachusetts Amherst

  PublisherDOI

• Many Labs 2: Investigating Variation in Replicability Across Sample and Setting

  OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) · 2025-03-12

  otherOpen access

  We conducted preregistered replications of 28 classic and contemporary published findings with protocols that were peer reviewed in advance to examine variation in effect magnitudes across sample and setting. Each protocol was administered to approximately half of 125 samples and 15,305 total participants from 36 countries and territories. Using conventional statistical significance (p < .05), fifteen (54%) of the replications provided evidence in the same direction and statistically significant as the original finding. With a strict significance criterion (p < .0001), fourteen (50%) provide such evidence reflecting the extremely high powered design. Seven (25%) of the replications had effect sizes larger than the original finding and 21 (75%) had effect sizes smaller than the original finding. The median comparable Cohen’s d effect sizes for original findings was 0.60 and for replications was 0.15. Sixteen replications (57%) had small effect sizes (< .20) and 9 (32%) were in the opposite direction from the original finding. Across settings, 11 (39%) showed significant heterogeneity using the Q statistic and most of those were among the findings eliciting the largest overall effect sizes; only one effect that was near zero in the aggregate showed significant heterogeneity. Only one effect showed a Tau > 0.20 indicating moderate heterogeneity. Nine others had a Tau near or slightly above 0.10 indicating slight heterogeneity. In moderation tests, very little heterogeneity was attributable to task order, administration in lab versus online, and exploratory WEIRD versus less WEIRD culture comparisons. Cumulatively, variability in observed effect sizes was more attributable to the effect being studied than the sample or setting in which it was studied.

  Publisher

• Shaping Change: Exploring the What and How of Workplace Intervention Research

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2025-07-01

  articleSenior author

  Intervention research has long been valued for its potential to bridge theory and practice, offering targeted strategies to address critical workplace challenges. Yet, defining what interventions should target and how they achieve their outcomes remains an evolving area of study. This symposium explores these dimensions by examining specific workplace contexts and mechanisms through which interventions drive change. The featured studies address key career stages and workplace challenges, offering diverse perspectives and methodologies. The first two presentations focus on early career interventions: MacGowan examines strategies to transform job seekers’ anxiety into motivation, enhancing self-efficacy and success rates. Kim et al. introduce a perspective-taking intervention for leaders, fostering better newcomer socialization and reducing undermining behaviors. The latter presentations tackle emotionally taxing interactions: HE investigates generative AI as a resource-efficient tool for supporting emotional labor, highlighting its role in enabling deep acting and resilience. Jensen and Graham explore interventions to mitigate workplace polarization, showing how recognizing contemptuous speech within one’s own political group reduces animosity and fosters constructive dialogue. Together, these studies provide insights into the mechanisms underlying intervention efficacy and practical strategies for enhancing employee experiences across varied contexts. By addressing both the

  PublisherDOI

• Refining and expanding applications of Moral Foundations Theory in consumer psychology

  Journal of Consumer Psychology · 2024-09-12 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract We set forth an agenda for Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) research in consumer psychology, focusing in particular on four pathways: (1) factoring in multiple identities, including moral identities, to account for contextual elevation or suppression of moral foundations in predicting which decisions consumers moralize and when ; (2) broadening the methodological usage of MFT to include more targeted causal research as well as expanding the utility of correlational research; (3) increasing discriminant validity between MFT and other constructs by studying moral foundations as individually manipulable and focusing on their incremental predictive validity over and above demographics and related constructs; and (4) recognizing that researcher biases regarding morality can leak into the publication process, necessitating clear distinctions between prescriptive versus descriptive research. These pathways facilitate more precise and stronger predictive validity for applying MFT in consumer psychology, yielding greater theoretical and practical utility across researcher perspectives.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Moral Stereotyping in Large Language Models

  2024-12-13 · 6 citations

  preprintOpen access

  Can Large Language Models (LLMs) accurately estimate various societies’ moral values? Here, we query the perceptions of the GPT family of LLMs for the “average” person from 48 countries and compare them to a large-scale (n = 93,198) survey of six moral values (Care, Equality, Proportionality, Loyalty, Authority, and Purity) from those countries. Our findings indicate that LLMs poorly capture the moral diversity around the globe, systematically overestimating some moral values (especially Care) and underestimating others (especially Purity). Notably, examining various versions of GPT shows that these LLMs may overestimate the overall moral concerns of some Western countries (e.g., United States, Canada, and Australia) while underestimating those of non-Western countries (e.g., Nigeria, Morocco, and Indonesia). Our work reveals that LLMs are inaccurate generators of cross-cultural estimations in the moral domain; in other words, they stereotype the moral values of cultural populations in predictable ways. Our results highlight the ethical and epistemic risks of relying on LLMs to estimate the endorsement of moral values around the globe.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• When consumer decisions are moral decisions: Moral Foundations Theory and its implications for consumer psychology

  Journal of Consumer Psychology · 2024-06-25 · 29 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Abstract Although researchers have considered the role of morality in consumer psychology over the years, such investigations often fail to (a) recognize the different values that consumers might hold, and (b) provide proper context for why different moral considerations emerge. Moral Foundations Theory (MFT; Graham et al., Advances in experimental social psychology , 2013, Academic Press; Haidt & Joseph, Daedalus , 2004, 133, 55) provides just such a conceptual framework for understanding the diversity of moral thought that exists across cultures and demographic groups. MFT describes morality not as a monolithic entity, but as a pluralistic set of intuitive values that were shaped by evolutionary pressures and edited by distinct cultures. We review the central claims of MFT and describe how the theory can offer new insights when applied to consumer psychology, providing examples from existing research on persuasion, emotion, and prosocial behavior.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Jonathan Haidt

  New York University

  43 shared

• Ravi Iyer

  40 shared

• Spassena Koleva

  39 shared

• Peter Meindl

  American Military Academy

  29 shared

• Peter H. Ditto

  University of California, Irvine

  29 shared

• Brian A. Nosek

  Center for Open Science

  26 shared

• Morteza Dehghani

  22 shared

• Mohammad Atari

  18 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Social Psychology

  University of California, Los Angeles

  2007

• M.A., Social Psychology

  University of California, Los Angeles

  2003

• B.A., Psychology

  University of California, Los Angeles

  2001