@diegoreinero.bsky.social presented some thought-provoking work at #SPSP2026 showing that American partisans seem to be most attitudinally polarized on climate issues, in particular.

Thanks to everyone who came to our symposium on moralized politics during the *last session* of @spspnews.bsky.social 2026. We are so grateful for your feedback and questions! And I’m especially grateful to @diegoreinero.bsky.social, Paul Teas and @jakewomick.bsky.social for sharing their cool work!

A packed room turned out for the Moral Psychology pre-conference at @spspnews.bsky.social. As co-organizers @jowylie.bsky.social and I were thrilled!

The northeast blizzard ain't stopping us! You won't want to miss the Moral Psychology Pre-conference at @spspnews.bsky.social in Chicago this week! It should be an incredible day of sharing research and networking. Hope to see you there.

Excited to be giving a talk at #SPSP2026 in Chicago on this terrific symposium. Our symposium explores how moralized political thinking emerges, how it polarizes and divides, and how it can be reduced. Come check it out!

In #polarized times, #morality fuels not just strong attitudes, but deep social divides. At #SPSP2026, our symposium “Moral Minds in Polarized Times” explores how moralized political thinking emerges, how it polarizes, and how it can be reduced. Join us Sat. 2/28 at 3:30pm. 🧵

Early-bird registration for our Moral Psychology pre-conference at SPSP ends Jan 22! Register here: spsp.org/events/annua... Don't miss this incredible lineup of speakers (plus some terrific data blitz talks and posters) and networking with this fantastic community! See you in Chicago next month!

It was a delight to share insights from our research on youth voting with @asc.upenn.edu on behalf of my fabulous collaborators @curse10.bsky.social @asinclair.bsky.social @diegoreinero.bsky.social @falklab.bsky.social!

💥New preprint!💥 For democracy to be truly representative we need to include many more voices. But young voters (18-25yo) face unique barriers and are often overlooked. We describe these barriers, and propose a psychologically-informed approach to support and increase voter turnout among youth.

Young voters played a key role in elections across the country last week. It’s fantastic to see record turnout in so many communities AND we still have so much room to grow! For ideas on how to motivate and support youth to vote check out our new commentary: osf.io/kyzh9_v1 Key points in 🧵

UPenn's MindCORE Postdoctoral Fellowship is accepting applications (due Dec 1)! mindcore.sas.upenn.edu/post-doctora... Funding is available for 3 years. Fellows receive ~$70k in salary, $20k in a research/travel budget, assistance in relocation (e.g., $5k), and benefits.

AI chatbots are sycophantic— a propensity to people-please. It’s like a genius with imposter syndrome, who always defers to the user and assumes the user is correct. With a dash of hallucination. A real misunderstood genius! www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Interesting! Although it actually looks like the proportion of political tweets that a user posts—not their *potential exposure* to toxic tweets by accounts they follow—is the strongest consistent predictor of a user's likelihood of posting BOTH impolite or intolerant tweets.

Last day to submit an abstract for a poster or data blitz talk at the Moral Psychology pre-conference at #SPSP2026! Submit here by Oct 23 at 11:59pm PT: t.co/k3aOQsySSh. It's a can't miss lineup! Registration is now open too; sign up before we sell out (we did last year)! spsp.org/events/annua...

Only 9 days left to submit!! Come join us in Chicago in Feb!

🚨Excited to announce the full-day Moral Psychology pre-conference at #SPSP2026! We sold out last year, and with this year’s incredible speaker lineup, we expect the same. Submit your poster or data blitz abstract by Oct. 23! spsp.wufoo.com/forms/2026-p... There’s a best poster award!

🥳🥳 New paper in @nathumbehav.nature.com: “When development constricts our moral circle." Contrary to popular belief, younger kids may start out with broader moral circles than older ones. Check it out here 👉 rdcu.be/eoaSe w/ @mattiwilks.bsky.social @karrineldner.bsky.social & Lucius Caviola

🚨Out in PNAS🚨 with @joshtenenbaum.bsky.social & @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social Punishment, even when intended to teach norms and change minds for the good, may backfire. Our computational cognitive model explains why! Paper: tinyurl.com/yc7fs4x7 News: tinyurl.com/3h3446wu 🧵

Why do we derogate effective altruists, activists, & other radically prosocial individuals? In new work, we discuss how doing good that deviates from social norms gets stigmatized. New preprint w/ @dcameron.bsky.social @tlau.bsky.social @desmond-ong.bsky.social: osf.io/preprints/ps...

I'm excited to share the news that our climate change project won the @spspnews.bsky.social Robert Cialdini Prize for a "paper that uses field methods and demonstrates the relevance of social psychology to outside groups and communities"! You can read it here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🚨Excited to announce the full-day Moral Psychology pre-conference at #SPSP2026! We sold out last year, and with this year’s incredible speaker lineup, we expect the same. Submit your poster or data blitz abstract by Oct. 23! spsp.wufoo.com/forms/2026-p... There’s a best poster award!

🌟 Excited to share that I'm recruiting PhD students in Psychology for my new lab at Rice University this cycle (Signal boost appreciated!) To learn more, check out the Learning & Behavior Change Lab website: www.sinclairlab-rice.com Applications are due Dec 1st: psychology.rice.edu/graduate/pro...

In this @pnas.org Letter, we respond to a comment on our paper about behavioral interventions to motivate action on climate change. In new analyses exploring individual differences, we find that our leading interventions were effective across the political spectrum. 🧵⤵️ www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10....

Original paper here. @falklab.bsky.social @michaelemann.bsky.social @dcosme.bsky.social @diegoreinero.bsky.social @curse10.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

The psych job market may not be dead... but it is gravely injured 😬 So far it's looking like the Trump administration's attacks on higher ed/research are going to have more than 2x the impact on the job market as the covid-19 pandemic. #psychjobs #neurojobs #academicjobs

In this letter in @pnas.org, we respond to a comment on our recent paper. Although multiple factors shape whether we act on our intentions, intentions are valuable precursors of behavior that can guide the iterative development of behavior change interventions. www.pnas.org/doi/epub/10....

Cool new paper in PNAS from @vanessachg.bsky.social et al. When it comes to moral dilemmas, LLM's: 1) are more altruistic than humans 2) exhibit a stronger omission bias than humans 3) are biased toward answering "no" These biases may come from fine-tuning. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

New paper suggests economists’ political preferences may influence their writing/work. E.g., Papers on the left imply a higher optimal top tax rate (77%) vs. ones on the right (60%), though note our actual federal top tax rate is just 37%. What should we takeaway? academic.oup.com/ej/article/1...

That being said, scientists are people too. Read Helen Longino's "Science as Social Knowledge" for a nice discussion of the inherent subjectivity of science. jstor.org/stable/j.ctv.... So we shouldn't be that surprised by this latest econ paper's finding.

🚨New WP🚨 Can AI do "deep canvassing"—the time-intensive, empathic persuasive dialogues that durably reduce prejudice when done by humans? Spoiler: Yes! We find durable reduction in prejudice toward undocumented immigrants LLMs make deep canvassing possible at massive scale osf.io/preprints/os...

Since 1954, "The Handbook of Social Psychology" has been the field’s most authoritative reference work, and today is the launch of the 6th edition with 50 new chapters by 100 leading scholars. Best news? The HSP is now an open-access public resource—free to read, download, and share. the-hsp.com

🚨Excited to see our new paper out in @pnas.org led by @asinclair.bsky.social!🚨 We tested 17 psychological interventions head-to-head in a “tournament” to see what motivated people to take action and share info about climate change. Winners depicted here for brevity; read our paper for details!

What motivates people to take action and share info about climate change? We tested 17 psychological interventions in a tournament—Discover the winners in our new paper! Out now in @pnas.org w/ @falklab.bsky.social, @michaelemann.bsky.social, & team. Thread ⤵️ 1/9 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Wanted to share a handy little resource with you all (especially those in dev psych) — my lab & I made a "journal submission cheat sheet" that summarizes article types, word limits, & other requirements for the journals we typically submit to. Link below 👇🏼 docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

👉 👈 Meta announced that they're changing their models to reduce "left-leaning [political] bias"--that means leaning them to the political "right". Lots to unpack about what that might mean. So I ran a quick "shot in the dark" study...and found a *political right* bias in Meta models. Some notes.🧵

This statement from the NSF is insane. Science is, in essence, designed to separate the true from the false. Understanding how falsehoods spread is key to the scientific endeavor. It is not a violation of free speech to be proven wrong.

Can confirm that my NSF grant "How False Beliefs Form & How to Correct Them" was cancelled today because it is "not in alignment with current NSF priorities" Shocking that understanding how people are misled by false information is now a forbidden topic. Our work will continue but at a smaller scale

Moral Psych community: @jowylie.bsky.social & I will be organizing the pre-con at SPSP again! This past year was sold-out and we expect next year to be even bigger! Who do you YOU want to hear from next year? Recommend a speaker with this quick form: tinyurl.com/moralpsychrecs

Using GPS data from 220,000+ Lyft drivers in Florida to look at actual speeding behavior (not just police reports), Aggarwal et al find: White & Minority drivers drive similarly, BUT minority drivers were 33% more likely to be cited for speeding + paid 34% more money in fines.

Trying something new: A 🧵 on a topic I find many students struggle with: "why do their 📊 look more professional than my 📊?" It's *lots* of tiny decisions that aren't the defaults in many libraries, so let's break down 1 simple graph by @jburnmurdoch.bsky.social 🔗 www.ft.com/content/73a1...

Nearly 90% of US Christian religious leaders believe that humans are contributing to climate change. Yet most never talk about it with their congregation (and US Christians underestimate the prevalence of this belief among their leaders). But misperception corrections help!

New paper finds that what people pay attention to on social media (click “read more”) is 7x more politically diverse than what they publicly engage with (“share” or “like”). Measuring likes and shares alone misses the attention and search process!

We're just a few days away from this year's Morality Preconference!! Don't miss it! #SPSP2025

New research finds that people form swirling ‘vortex’ patterns in densely-packed crowds, with individuals moving in circles. Collective oscillations in massive human crowds! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Cool cross-cultural sample of infants from the US and Uganda shows that emotional contagion is a response to peer distress (e.g., another baby crying) - not just due to the aversive nature of a sound in general onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Interesting paper finds that Republican elected officials are not fact-checked more often than Democratic officials. Politician prominence predicts fact-checking, but partisanship does not. t.co/K0F6oJ3V1m

We are excited to announce this year's Shared Reality Virtual Conference happening Wednesday March 12 & Thursday March 13, 2025, between 9:50 AM - 1:10 PM ET! You can register below to receive the Zoom link! Submit a data blitz anytime until Feb 7. northwestern.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

Not every analysis of multiple (<whatever>) requires multiplicity adjustments (correcting p-values for multiple testing): www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

“Facts are not censorship. Fact-checkers never censored anything. And Meta always held the cards. It's time to quit invoking inflammatory and false language in describing the role of journalists and fact-checking.” https://www.wired.com/story/metas-fact-checking-partners-blindsided/

We're hiring! Please share with your networks and especially those who would make a great fit for our center! More info here: web.sas.upenn.edu/pcssm/opport... @michaelemann.bsky.social