David DeSteno

I direct the Social Emotions Lab at Northeastern University. I completed my PhD at Yale in 1996, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Ohio State, before joining the psychology department faculty at Northeastern in 1999. Currently, I am the editor for the American Psychological Association's journal Emotion, a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, and a lead investigator on several psychological research projects funded by the National Science Foundation.

Along with my coauthor Piercarlo Valdesolo, my new book (released May 3, 2011) is Out of Character: Surprising Truths About the Liar, Cheat, Sinner (and Saint) Lurking in All of Us. It's a "scientifically rigorous" and "achingly relevant" (so says Yale's Paul Bloom) look at the new science of vice and virtue. It's also a lot of fun (according to our Amazon reviews). In the book, we not only show how the character of politicians and celebrities is more variable than you'd think, but we take you into our lab to give you an insider's look at how we put the morals of "normal" people to the test, showing that any of us can go from saint to sinner and back again in a moment's time.