The Empathy & Moral Psychology Lab will be at APS in Barcelona! Unfortunately, I can't be there in person. Check out @amormino.bsky.social's symposium & talk, @jokretz.bsky.social's first talk, two talks by @jdweng.bsky.social (including one on my behalf), @farvk.bsky.social's poster. A great team!

🚨 New preprint with @dcameron.bsky.social and @minzlicht.bsky.social! The empathic voice penalty: Vocal delivery reduces perceived empathy in humans and AI osf.io/preprints/ps... We know AI often outperforms humans at text-based empathy—but what happens when emotional support is expressed vocally?

When given the choice, participants sought human empathy, despite rating AI responses as more empathetic and making them feel more heard. @jdweng.bsky.social @dcameron.bsky.social @minzlicht.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s44...

New publication with @dcameron.bsky.social and @minzlicht.bsky.social in @commspsychol.nature.com! www.nature.com/articles/s44... AI empathy is good, but would people actually choose to turn to AI for emotional support over a human empathizer?

New preprint with @dcameron.bsky.social and @mgreinecke.bsky.social! Rethinking empathy in the age of AI osf.io/preprints/ps... How should we define empathy as a construct in an age where AI can provide quality emotional support, but doesn’t actually feel? 1/5

Wintry walk with the EMP Lab @amormino.bsky.social @jokretz.bsky.social @farvk.bsky.social @jdweng.bsky.social @psuliberalarts.bsky.social @prcpennstate.bsky.social @ssripennstate.bsky.social @rockethics.bsky.social

New chapter with @dcameron.bsky.social, Martina Orlandi, and @minzlicht.bsky.social: osf.io/preprints/ps... In this chapter, we argue that instead of debating whether human or AI empathy is superior overall, it is more useful to focus on the distinct trade-offs that each source of empathy offers.

A snapshot of our last summer meeting of the EMP Lab. A Happy Valley welcome to new members, graduate student @jokretz.bsky.social & post-doc @amormino.bsky.social, & farewell to alum @rachelbuterbaugh.bsky.social, who's off to grad school. With @jdweng.bsky.social @farvk.bsky.social, a great team!

So grateful for the chance to attend the EASP Summer School organized by @jimaceverett.bsky.social. Huge thanks to @jimaceverett.bsky.social and @mgreinecke.bsky.social for your mentorship in the Moral Psych of AI workstream, and to all of the other amazing students I had the chance to learn from!

Thanks to everybody who chimed in! I arrived at the conclusion that (1) there's a lot of interesting stuff about interactions and (2) the figure I was looking for does not exist. So, I made it myself! Here's a simple illustration of how to control for confounding in interactions:>

I'll be sharing some data from our recent preprint on AI empathy choice (osf.io/preprints/os...) in a talk at the Society for Affective Science Annual Conference this Saturday. Stop by or reach out if you're interested in talking about AI, empathy, or causal inference! @affectscience.bsky.social

New preprint with @dcameron.bsky.social and @minzlicht.bsky.social! We find that people choose to receive empathy from human over AI empathizers, despite finding AI responses superior in terms of empathy and making them feel more heard. Link: osf.io/preprints/os...

On another note, the EMP Lab will be at @affectscience.bsky.social in Portland, Oregon, for anyone who'd like to chat about empathy, motivated emotion regulation, & moral outrage. My grad student @jdweng.bsky.social will be giving his first external talk on human vs. AI empathy. The coffee awaits!