Sean’s interests center on moral and political psychology. He now primarily teaches about and studies ideology and personality, as well as moral expression over social media, and motivations for online activism. He is particularly interested in the application of personality theory to the study of ideology and moral messaging as expressed in an online context.

He is an advocate of the open science movement and methodological reform in the psychological sciences and has been involved in multiple replication efforts. In this vein, he has been involved in bibliometrics projects and the development of new tools to aid in research discovery and evaluation.