Professor Nadira Faber

Prof Nadira Faber is an experimental social psychologist. She is a Research Associate at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and a Full Professor at the University of Bremen (Germany), where she leads the Social and Economic Psychology Unit. Nadira conducts empirical research with implications for practical ethics. When and how do people cooperate and help others (e.g., altruism)? How does morality guide people’s behaviour (e.g., utilitarianism)? Besides looking into fundamental psychological processes around cooperation and morality, Nadira and her team investigate applied topics like the general public’s views on cognitive enhancement and on the moral worth of non-human animals (speciesism).

Key publications:

Helping:

Faber, N. S., & Häusser, J. A. (2022). Why stress and hunger both increase and decrease prosocial behaviour. Current Opinion in Psychology, 44, 49-57. doi: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.08.023

Gross, J.,Faber, N. S.,Kappes, A., Nussberger, A.-M., Cowen, P., Browning, M., Kahane, G., Savulescu, J., Crockett, M., & De Dreu, C. K. W. (2021). When Helping is Risky: The Behavioral and Neurobiological Tradeoff of Social and Risk Preferences. Psychological Science, 32, 1842-1855. doi: 10.1177/09567976211015942

Häusser, J. A., Stahlecker, C., Mojzisch, A., Leder, J., Van Lange, P. A. M., & Faber, N. S. (2019). Acute hunger does not always undermine prosociality. Nature Communications, 10, 4733. doi:10.1038/s41467-019-12579-7

Speciesism:

McGuire, L., Palmer, S. B., & Faber, N. S. (2022).  The development of speciesism: Age-related differences in the moral view of animals. Social Psychological and Personality Science. doi: 10.1177/19485506221086182

Caviola, L., Kahane, G., Everett, J. A. C., Teperman, E., Savulescu, J., & Faber, N. S. (2021). Utilitarianism for animals, Kantianism for people? Harming animals and humans for the greater good. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 150, 1008-1039. doi:10.1037/xge0000988 

Caviola, L., Everett, J. A. C., & Faber, N. S. (2019). The moral standing of animals: Towards a psychology of speciesism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 116, 1011-1029. doi: 10.1037/pspp0000182

Cognitive enhancement:

Faber, N. S., Häusser, J. A., & Kerr, N. L. (2017). Sleep deprivation impairs and caffeine enhances my performance, but not always our performance: How acting in a group can change the effects of impairments and enhancements. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 21, 3-28. doi: 10.1177/1088868315609487

Schelle, K. J., Faulmüller, N., Caviola, L., & Hewstone, M. (2014). Attitudes towards pharmacological cognitive enhancement – a review. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 8, 53. doi: 10.3389/fnsys.2014.00053

Faulmüller, N., Maslen, H., & Santoni de Sio, F. (2013). The indirect psychological costs of cognitive enhancement. The American Journal of Bioethics, 13, 45-47. doi: 10.1080/15265161.2013.794880

For more information and a full publication list, see http://nadirafaber.com/

Email: nadira.faber@philosophy.ox.ac.uk  |  Twitter: @nsfaber