I was surprised by this distribution of intuitions among a group of Yr12 (aged 16-17) students yesterday! Turns out most 16-17 year-olds are motivational externalists! #philosophy

I drafted one section of one chapter for the book I'm writing on religious conflict, and a few paragraphs may not seem like a huge deal, but I am counting this as a big win for today.

The end goal of Christian nationalist policies likely aren't greater religiosity, but power. New research shows laws that support Christianity or restrict non-Christian groups actually incline committed religious citizens to *disengage* from religious & civic participation. doi.org/10.1111/jssr...

Thank you to Yejin Park Roberts for presenting her work on religious & political polarization in lab yesterday! Interesting findings showing that, contrary to pastors' predictions, religious frames don't always reduce polarization. More here: www.yejinparkroberts.com.

What if you find out your own brother is a thief? We asked how people respond when a close other commits a moral transgression. -> It gets people to feel both as the victim + as the perpetrator & changes what punishment they seek. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... #socialpsyc #PsychSciSky

Important news for us writers from across the NYC subway tracks:

New paper, conceived of and led by Chyei Vinluan on how people tend to think of Asian Ams as overrepresented in STEM, but that this ISN'T true when considering ethnic subgroups now available at @commspsychol.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s44...

January's office hours are 1/29 10-12 Eastern. Theme=your professional goals for 2026 (how best to achieve them etc). More info in thread below, sign-ups here: calendly.com/lah2201/open... #AcademicSky #PhdSky #PsychSciSky #SocialPsyc #DevPsyc #CogPsyc

This paper about inferences that kids draw on the basis of parental incarceration is now published! Pretty version here: psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-.... Link to full text & summary in thread below. 🧪 #PsychSciSky #SocialPsyc #DevPsyc @socphilpsych.bsky.social

Now out in JEP: General, "How working memory and reinforcement learning interact when avoiding punishment and pursuing reward concurrently" psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-... Preprint with final version: osf.io/preprints/ps... 1/n

How appealing an explanation is, is only in part down to how well it actually *explains*, research by klopfenstein.bsky.social & @hugoreasoning.bsky.social suggests. Usefulness and surprisingness matter too, the latter especially explaining why poor explanations become popular: buff.ly/NaSAlaJ

Numerous studies show Christian nationalism's effect on social & political views often varies by race. In a series of papers (& a book), I'm finding CLASS is a big moderating factor. Here I find the link between CN & support for organized labor diverges by class. Free link: doi.org/10.1093/socr...

Have you noticed how we often describe people from disadvantaged backgrounds as “strivers” or “go-getters” (💪🏼) rather than naturally gifted (🧠)? This may sound benign, but our new KiDLAB research shows that it reveals a harmful, early-emerging stereotype. (1/5)

🧵 New preprint with my advisor, Alex Shaw! We asked: What does “popularity” actually mean? Is it a distinct status category with specific features? We turned to elementary-schoolers, who have just begun to experience their own "popularity hierarchies," for some answers. osf.io/preprints/ps...

Wrapping up the year with this new paper and framework led by the phenomenal, and always innovative, @mdphamm.bsky.social !

The whole point of being an academic is that you need to be willing to spend three days creating a 700-word footnote that you will later delete. And you need to LIKE IT.

In "The Leniency of Low Expectations: Parental Incarceration, Race, and Teachers’ Evaluations," @erinjmccauley.bsky.social's survey experiment shows that teachers grade less rigorously if they think a student has an incarcerated parent. -New in Am J Sociol. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10....

New paper in PSPB on the benefits of giving positive feedback to students, especially from underrepresented groups. Although not the norm in STEM, giving positive feedback boosts self-efficacy and belonging, which increases STEM performance, attitudes, interest journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

A thread on our recent paper (w/Raihan Alam @raihanalam) in PNAS on why punishment often fails and what it means for crime, cooperation, democracy, and the rule of law. I’m super excited for it, it’s the lab’s most extensive experimental work to date. Check it out! 1/ www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

New paper with Junyi Chu, Tomer Ullman et al showing that kids think more difficulty is more fun! Fun isn't easy: Children selectively manipulate task difficulty when “playing for fun” versus “playing to win”. psycnet.apa.org/record/2027-...

New paper out with Heidi Vuletich and Ayla Winegar: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/.... We discuss public policy implications of the Bias of Crowds model: How do environments activate and perpetuate biases and what can we do against it?

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/...

New preprint: Empathy, Thick and Thin papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... It is perhaps foolhardy to attempt to say something new about a topic as widely studied as empathy. I tried anyway! 1/

🧵1/4 New paper alert! psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-... Can you celebrate diversity while undermining it? Our new paper in American Psychologist discusses how people/organizations can appear committed to diversity while their conceptualizations of diversity actively undercut it.

"Joy is not meant to be a crumb" www.best-poems.net/mary-oliver/...

Another link - which hopefully works! - to the earlier paper I was trying to link in the post below, on how infants understand relationships: direct.mit.edu/daed/article...

Thank you to Christina Steele for sharing her work with @ashleyjthomas.bsky.social in lab meeting today! Christina shared neat findings on implicit attitudes toward interracial couples, building on her prior work on development of understanding about relationships. Interesting & important project!

#AcademicSky #PsychSciSky We've hit peak Psychology Humour

Excited to announce DID lab's first paper! psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-... We find that children as young as 6 show political ingroup preference! First paper of very talented @annie-schw.bsky.social! In JEP: General's special issue on political development (1/3)

1/ Does growing up poor always lead to political apathy? Very happy to share my first paper published (open access) in @electoralstudies.bsky.social, where I show that parents' influence mitigates the poverty gap in participation, while economic mobility does not. 🔗 shorturl.at/p5Bac

"What am I thinking?" --> I am a psychologist, not a psychic. "Why do I feel sad all the time?" --> I am not that kind of psychologist.

Excited to share that former SAMC Lab grad student @dymoral.bsky.social has accepted a postdoc at @cornellbctr.bsky.social. He'll be studying purpose, identity, and well-being among adolescents and adults. Sad not to have Daniel in the lab anymore & also very excited for his new adventure! 🎉🎉🎉

Really appreciate how many of y'all are catching up on reviews over break.

A lesson from this Thanksgiving break: naps > caffeine

For comparison, today: Wake up at 5, hopefully finish editing a paper on the train, reference call, meetings x 2, seminar, more meetings x 2, office hours, dinner with job candidate, zone out on the train home. Glad I got some rest in this weekend!

Tell readers everything they need to know to understand your studies & nothing more. Eg in a study comparing X & Y year olds, explain why you expect your DV to change between that age, don't review everything that is currently known about kids of those ages.

Today: a hike, then buying all the food in the grocery store and doing some food prep while watching Top Chef. This is the life.

I am reading the complete works of Hans Christian Andersen and fairy tales are not for children, my goodness. #booksky

Thank you to @willgervais.com for visiting with my psych of religion seminar yesterday! Such a treat to discuss his nifty work on different pathways to atheism: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.....

📣📣 A recent paper by Michelle A. Hurst et al. in JCD: "Children’s Interpretation of “Before” And “After” For Consecutive and Non-Consecutive Numbers and Events" www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Several recent studies have found that politicians aren't very good at estimating public support for policies. But we have little idea about whether politicians are good at knowing which issues are more important to voters. Our new publication has a first go at answering this question rdcu.be/eQGm4

Dec office hours: 12/8 10-12 Eastern. Theme=developing a research program; we can talk about this theme or any other work-related topics you want to discuss. Sign up here: calendly.com/lah2201/open... #AcademicSky #PhdSky #PsychSciSky #SocialPsyc #DevPsyc #CogPsyc

New publication!📢 @jvanslageren.bsky.social and I study political socialization during adolescence in urban and rural areas, using data from @adkspanel.bsky.social Discussing politics with parents and peers is positively related to multiculturalist attitudes in cities, but not in rural places (1/3)

How do we succeed at self-control? In a new paper in @pnas.org with James Wilson, David Kalkstein, and Melissa Ferguson, we use mouse-tracking of ~47,000 decisions of long-term over short-term to show that 'willpower' is too narrow a conception of self-control www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

And the pretty copy-edited version of paper is out here: psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-...

New paper alert: Beyond the Adult Mind: A Developmental Framework for Predictive Processing in Infancy! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #PsychSciSky #DevPsyc #CogPsyc #neuroskyence

1. Last office hours a few people had questions about personal statements for grad school apps. I suggested a template that has worked well in my experience & have also laid it out in the thread below in case it's useful for you all. #AcademicSky #PhdSky #PsychSciSky #SocialPsyc #DevPsyc #CogPsyc

I was talking to a friend about the review process and I told them sometimes you just run into the wrong reviewer. It ain’t always you. 🤷🏾‍♂️

📰Newly Published: Cohn-Schwartz's study examines how experiencing a stillbirth affects mothers’ relationships with their adult children later in life, using data from women aged 50+ in the SHARE survey. doi.org/10.1177/0265... #AcademicSky #SocialPsychology #FamilySci #ResearchPublishing

Thank you to @larabuchak.net for sharing her work on faith in our lab meeting today! Super interesting thoughts on what faith is, what its relationship to evidence is/should be, & whether it's ever rational to rely on faith. More info here: www.larabuchak.net.