Léo Fitouchi

Postdoctoral Fellow (Marie Curie)

MIT and Harvard University

I'm a Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow at Harvard (Psychology Department, advised by Fiery Cushman) and MIT (Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department, advised by Rebecca Saxe).

I study the cognitive architecture of moral judgment: What are the mental algorithms that produce our intuitions of right and wrong? How do these cognitive algorithms shape universal features of human culture, such as moral norms, religious traditions, and punitive institutions?

I tackle these questions by integrating insights from cognitive science, evolutionary theory, and cross-cultural anthropology; I test the resulting theories with psychological experiments, computational modeling, and cross-cultural databases.

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Moral disciplining: the cognitive and evolutionary foundations of puritanical morality Fitouchi, L., André, J.-B. & Baumard, N. Target article, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 46, e293, 2023. (responses to commentaries here) PDF
Prosocial religions as folk-technologies of mutual policing Fitouchi L., Singh, M., André, J.-B., Baumard, N. Psychological Review, 132(6), 1410-1437, 2025. PDF
Retributive sentiments track both deterrent and compensatory concerns in a small-scale society Fitouchi, L. & Singh, M. Psychological Science, 37(6), 392-410, 2026. PDF
Why human societies adopt rigid moral rules: the efficiency-robustness trade-off Lie-Panis, J., Fitouchi, L., Baumard, N., André, J.-B PNAS, 123(28), 2026. PDF
The social leverage effect: Institutions transform weak reputation effects into strong incentives for cooperation Lie-Panis, J., Fitouchi, L., Baumard, N., André, J.-B PNAS, 121(51), 2024. PDF
Harmless bodily pleasures are moralized because they are perceived as reducing self-control and cooperativeness Fitouchi L. & Nettle, N. Cognition, 262, 106154, 2025. PDF
Punitive justice serves to restore reciprocal cooperation in three small-scale societies Fitouchi, L., & Singh, M. Evolution and Human Behavior, 44(5), 502-514, 2023. PDF