"We got mad about the endless either/or debate between the “individual action” versus “systemic change” and decided to try to fix it." Read our fantastic interview on the new book "Somebody Should Do Something: How Anyone can Help Create Social Change": www.powerofusnewsletter.com/p/how-anyone...

The psychology of everyday authoritarianism: Authoritarians will pay money to impose arbitrary rules on others

This was a fantastic policy—we need more like this in other cities. Many people defended the status quo, but then liked the policy a lot once it was implemented. There was far too many policies like this—held up because people can’t imagine an alternative.

Idea for platforms that want to reduce toxic division & boost engagement: uprank posts that use "connective language." New research finds that people will spend 25% more time reading posts that use phrases like “this is just my opinion” or “I may be wrong." mediaengagement.org/research/con...

Clear evidence that at universities conservatives don't face higher obstacles than liberals to establish student groups + invite outside speakers. "These results fail to offer support for the view that conservative students encounter more difficulty in efforts to access campus resources."

There are always people trying to argue that misinformation doesn’t matter. But every time I read the news there is some horrific story or policy grounded in false beliefs that have been circulating online.

NEW EPISODE OUT🗣️!! In this episode, Su @sudkrc.bsky.social chats with Dr. Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social on why certain content spreads rapidly online and offline! LISTEN NOW🎧: open.spotify.com/episode/7CoK...

📈New research suggests that low-effort studies conducted on online platforms may suffer less from volunteer bias than other research recruitment strategies. Read more in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin: https://ow.ly/qLth50XLGcW

Partisans differ in economic perceptions based on who is president, even if you pay them to get correct answers: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

I regularly criticize social media. This wasn't always the case. I used to advise all my students to go on social media. But the more research I've done, the more I've been convinced that most social media platforms--on average--have major downsides for individuals and society.

Politics feels angrier and more tribal than it used to, but how much should we blame social media? I spoke to @rafaelbehr.bsky.social about how our group instincts collide with godlike technology to distort what we see & erode trust in our institutions. open.spotify.com/episode/5Gb2...

Can Chatbots Emulate Human Connection? Chatbots can be responsive in ways humans see as supportive, yet cannot provide the benefits of a real human. My concern is that as more people go to chatbots for social contact, they will not be available to real humans. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

An AI Voter bot improves knowledge about politics But, the AI bot has weak effects on downstream outcomes like vote preferences and party evaluations among respondents whose primary issue position aligns closely with one of the parties. Partisan action is hard to change. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

A recent study purports to have found that multilingualism protects against accelerated ageing. I've taken a closer look at it, and it doesn't look good. New blog post: "Does multilingualism really protect against accelerated ageing? Some critical comments" janhove.github.io/posts/2025-1...

While studies find that moral outrage & negativity goes viral on social media, this is also true of the offline world. Gossip is also mostly negative & about people we dislike I explain why some ideas go viral--but most don't with @steverathje.bsky.social www.powerofusnewsletter.com/p/why-some-i...

We have just updated our Social Media Research Toolkit, a curated collection of over 50 research tools compiled by researchers at the Social Media Lab. The kit only features tools that have been used in peer-reviewed academic research. socialmedialab.ca/apps/social-...

A new paper reveals that: -larger out-group animosity compared to in-group favoritism (more hate than love) is sufficient for affective polarization. -larger in-group favoritism compared to out-group animosity (more love than hate) is necessary for consensus. academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

Now is a good time to remind people of our paper. We showed that presence of negative ties (out-group hostility) alone is enough to create polarization - even in a fully connected network. There is no need for social balance theory. academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

A global study of minimal groups finds discrimination in favor of the in-group in all 20 countries, yielding a large overall effect (OR = 4.58). The degree of intergroup discrimination was related to higher societal uncertainty www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

A new PNAS paper finds that polarization increased immediately after the invention of smartphones and the advent of social media, which both appeared around the same year, 2008. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

This was *entirely* preventable.

"The global wealth gap has become so staggering, and its impact on economies and democratic institutions so corrosive, that policymakers should treat it as an emergency."

These are the 25 most frequently reported risky choices in life: More of the big ones are occupational or financial--like accepting or quitting a job. The biggest social risk is getting married. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

How do people develop moral convictions? New research finds that collective action moralizes attitudes because it politicizes their identity and enrages them about an immoral outgroup. Moralization, in turn, helps to better understand sustained movement participation. psycnet.apa.org/record/2025-...

New paper out in @science.org! We unveil the online manipulation market with the Cambridge Online Trust & Safety Index (COTSI). We show in real time the cost of purchasing fake accounts across every social platform around the world - so they can be held accountable www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

I once had an editor badgering me to return a review on Christmas Day and another on New Years Eve. That year I made a vow never to review or submit any papers between between Dec 24 and Jan 1 I also encourage my coauthors and lab members to take a break from submitting during that time.

The Science of Knowing What You Don’t Know Our new research reveals a better way to detect who actually listens, learns, and updates their beliefs Measure your own intellectual humility (along with those of your friends & colleagues) using our new scale: www.powerofusnewsletter.com/p/think-your...

NEW: Trump’s DOJ Pressured Lawyers to “Find” Evidence That UCLA Had Illegally Tolerated Antisemitism An investigation by ProPublica and @chronicle.com reveals how the U.S. government ignored due process to gin up its attack on the University of California.

Want to know more about intellectual humility and trust? I have good news for you! We wrote a brief (but thorough) review on IH and trust in Current Opinion in Psychology! 10/10 experience publishing with some of my fave colleagues @michalehmann.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Article collection on the reported sexual misconduct, power abuse and retaliation towards female students and junior staff by former Oxford psychology professor Miles Hewstone substack.com/home/post/p-...

This is why I often avoid getting into these debates--they are dominated by a small number of people are get fired up by hostility and it pushes everyone else out of the discussion.

Online political discussions are characterized by a minority of users dominate the discussion, while most remain silent. Those who perceived a discussion as toxic/polarized tend to remain silent: But toxicity engages power users (namely men interested in politics) www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The Science of Knowing What You Don’t Know Our new research reveals a better way to detect who actually listens, learns, and updates their beliefs Measure your own intellectual humility (along with those of your friends & colleagues) using our new scale: www.powerofusnewsletter.com/p/think-your...

New from me - how AI-generated political videos have become just another part of social media, used to entertain, outrage and monitize attention theconversation.com/ai-generated...

A Reddit field experiment finds that toxic or polarized discussions discourage most users from commenting, while motivating active users; nonmonetary rewards and clear rules may help balance participation. doi.org/hbd8wc

I spoke with @dyudkin.bsky.social about How Social Media Makes Everyone Seem Crazier Than They Are and Drowns out the Majority You can watch our conversation here (and read the story about how we first started working together in his newsletter link): thebeaconproject.substack.com/p/welcome-to...

“In 2020 and 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic took the lives of 76% more Republicans than Democrats.”

NEW: An AI conference was bombarded with complaints about peer reviews sounding AI-generated. A startup jumped in with an outside analysis, estimating that as many 1 in 5 could have been ChatGPT-written. Chaos ensued. Now the reviews are being reviewed. www.chronicle.com/article/the-... #ICLR2026

Artificial intelligence (AI) models are 50% more sycophantic than humans www.nature.com/articles/d41... Our research suggests this will increase extremism and&overconfidence, making people even more entrenched in their beliefs (and folks don't realize that AI is biased) osf.io/preprints/ps...

In a new paper, we review how and why politics can shape health outcomes, especially in a highly polarized environment. We argue that people’s political identities ultimately shape the health decisions they make. We wrote a brief summary of our paper here: www.powerofusnewsletter.com/p/how-identi...

Beautiful study to illustrate the emotional life of social media: Reducing exposure to out-group cues reduces how much you hate the out-group.

Some social media algorithms are feeding us antidemocratic attitudes and intergroup hostility. But a new field experiment finds that an algorithmic feed can reduce out-group animosity & affective polarization by down-ranking this hostile political content. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Teams often fail for very stupid reasons! Tessa West explains why little things like jargon and acronyms can be disaster when different teams try to #collaborate www.ted.com/talks/tessa_...

Paper out today in @nathumbehav.nature.com: 1) those groups (women, African Americans, lower SES, rural) that are underrepresented in science have been less trusting of science. 2) If you improve representation in science, you improve trust among those groups. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Wow, this meta analysis was entirely fictional. This thread reveals that it appears to be AI generated bullshit loaded with fake citations. We are entering a very worrisome situation where AI can generate papers that look real at a glance—this one fooled me too.

New evidence from over 6,000 college students finds that digital devices are bad for academic performance and even effect peers in negative ways! Mobile app use reduces grades, increases stress & lowers class attendance, job applications, and wages coming out of school. www.nber.org/system/files...

“What I tell students is that, if what you’re trying to optimize publishing papers, you know, it’s actually honestly not that hard to do. Just do really crappy low-quality work and bomb conferences with it. But if you want to do really thoughtful, careful work, you’re at a disadvantage”

Massive study from rural Peru finds: “computer access significantly improved students’ computer skills but not their cognitive skills”

We should just use standardized test scores + grades to admit students into college. Everything else is way too easy to game, allowing the extremely rich to dominate access to prestigious colleges. www.nytimes.com/interactive/... I've been saying this for a long time, but the data makes it clear.

Again, politics the MOST significant variable.👇 Trust in Scientists for Cancer Information Across Political Ideologies in US jamanetwork.com/journals/jam... "...significantly lower among individuals with more conservative political views" Trust: 93.7% liberal & 70.5% conservatives