Dr Katherine O’Lone

Katherine O’Lone holds a BA (1st Class Hons) in Linguistics from University College, London, an MA (Distinction) in Cognition and Culture from Queen’s University, Belfast and an MSc and PhD in Applied Social Psychology, both from Royal Holloway, University London. Her PhD research, supervised by Professor Ryan McKay, focused on the cognitive science of religion and morality, in particular moral transference. This refers to episodes where past (im)moral behaviour is displaced into the present, where past in-group behaviour is displaced onto us, and where moral imperatives are displaced onto other (e.g., supernatural) agents. Her main research interests are: moral cognition and extremism; religion and pro-sociality; and religiosity and morality. Katherine’s most recent work has been published in The Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion and investigates whether primes of divine forgiveness increase support for state-sanctioned mechanisms of punishment. As part of her work at the Woolf Institute, Cambridge, she works on a project that seeks to develop a reliable set of indicators to measure the effectiveness of interfaith dialogue initiatives.