Matthew Billet (he/him) is a graduate student in Social/Personality Psychology, co-supervised by Ara Norenzayan and Mark Schaller. His research focuses on how moral and religious cognition influence decision-making, particularly in the domain of environmental protection. He also studies the evolutionary basis of social cognition and its implications for how we form judgments about others. He employs multiple methodologies in his work (experimentation, cross-cultural methods, behavioural economics, and text analysis) and is a proponent of open science.

Bridging the political divide on environmental issues; cultural evolution of moral and religious cognition; evolutionary basis of social cognition.

Selected Publications:

Billet, M. I., Baimel, A., Sahakari, S. S., Schaller, M., & Norenzayan, A. (2023). Ecospirituality: The psychology of moral concern for nature. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 87, 102001. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2023.102001

Billet, M. I., McCall, H. C., & Schaller, M. (2022). What motives do people most want to know about when meeting another person? An investigation into prioritization of information about seven fundamental motives. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 49(4), 495–509. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672211069468

Billet, M. I., & Fekken, G. C. (2020). The influence of instrumentality in trusting Dark Triad members. Personality and Individual Differences, 154, 109690. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.109690

Joseph-Armand Bombardier Graduate Scholarship (SSHRC – CGS D & CGS M)

Michael J. Quinn Graduate Exchange Fellowship

Toloka Student Grant for Cross-Cultural Research

Business for Social Good Grant, The Dhillon Centre for Business Ethics at UBC Sauder