New essay: I argue that political differences often reside not primarily in different factual beliefs, values, or high-level ideologies, but in the competing systems of interpretation and misinterpretation through which we select, ignore, frame, narrate, and explain political reality.

Last week I gave a talk at the Foundations of Utility and Risk Conference (FUR 2026) at the Universitat d'Alacant. I presented the results from our recently published paper on how uncertainty amplifies the effect of scarcity in delay of gratification. lnkd.in/erb6XneF Great weather and food BTW😅.

I had the opportunity to visit beautiful places in 🇯🇵 , learn about Japanese culture, and present my PhD project at @icsd2026.bsky.social. It was a great chance to receive feedback and reconnect with colleagues from around the world. Thanks to the organizers for such an incredible conference!

🚨 New paper published in Theory and Decision! 📄 “Uncertainty amplifies the impact of scarcity on delay of gratification: evidence from a serious game experiment” link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Why do so many people support authoritarian leaders? This paper shows that one explanation is anomie: the perception that society is breaking down. psycnet.apa.org/record/2025-...

It was really nice to attend the @ehbea.bsky.social and share the first results from my PhD project. It’s always good to connect with and learn from such talented and friendly people. #ehbea2026

“More research is needed” but for how long? Chris Ferguson suggests that in the social sciences, some fields are exhausted and should not require further research, given that no matter how many studies are produced, the results remain inconclusive. grimoiremanor.substack.com/p/we-dont-al...

I wrote this opinion column in @lasillavacia.bsky.social, offering a reflection on political polarization in Colombia from a moral psychology perspective www.lasillavacia.com/red-de-exper...

Sometimes I feel like academic work is a poor fit for the moment. While the university is under threat, engagement with the public is not incentivized. Along with some friends, we started Society Workshop as a way to bring more social science to the public. www.societyworkshop.org

Do emotions play an essential role in moral judgments? Nice paper by W. McAuliffe on the discussion Rationalism vs. Sentimentalism: Does reason or "gut feeling" drive morality? #Moralpsychology www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34730453/ Why Evolutionary Psychology (EP) should abandon the term "modularity." This thread summarizes a key paper by Pietraszewski & Wertz on the "Modularity Mistake". For 40 years, researchers have been arguing past each other due to a confusion of "levels of analysis".

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... This insightful paper provides a sound evolutionary explanation of the threat management in humans. Threat detection is pivotal for reproductive fitness. Here, the authors emphasize two independent, yet related systems: self-protection and disease avoidance.

🚨Two postdoc positions @tse-fr.eu @iast.fr 🚨 We are recruiting two postdocs as part of the ANR-funded project ENFORCE. Join me, @giuliandr.bsky.social, & @zhgarfield.com, to study punitive systems across societies. Full time, 2 years, no teaching. Deadline: Jan 23 www.tse-fr.eu/groups/depar...

This week's Cooperation Colloquium: Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com Experimental evidence that reputation-based partner choice facilitates information sharing in humans Date: December 5 Time: 15:00 UTC+1 (Vienna) / 9 am ET (NYC) Sign up: list.ku.dk/postorius/li...

Do we judge a bad action the same way regardless of where or when it occurred? An interesting 2016 study conducted across 7 diverse societies pointed out moral parochialism... rsj.scienceconnect.io/api/oauth/au...

Our new research finds that people are willing to cheat if it benefits their group — even when they gain nothing themselves. "the risk of dishonesty in organizations is not limited to selfish acts...employees might bend rules to benefit their team or in-group members." www.nhh.no/en/nhh-bulle...

Could a deadly virus help explain the significant global trend toward conservative and right-wing leadership? The parasite stress model may offer insight into this dynamic…

Juan Pablo Arroyave's research focuses on how we make decisions regarding a transgression when we face a threat. His presentation is titled "Threat and mind-blind judgements".

How it started / how it's going.....

Our paper in Nature (@mkwittmann.bsky.social et al.): the brain does not only process the *identity* of a person but primarily our *relationship* to them. Even on a neural level, who someone is *in relation to others* is key. www.nature.com/articles/s41... #PsychSciSky #socialpsyc #neuroskyence

Tuesday Evo Ath seminar "Understanding in-group bias, reducing publication bias: Investigating human parochialism through Registered Reports". Adam Kenny, London Interdisciplinary School @UCLanthropology DFL 3.30-5pm then🍷 www.ucl.ac.uk/anthropology...

Call for papers! Pablo Abitbol, Santiago Amaya and I will be co-editing a Special Issue on "Memory, Emotion and Forgiveness" in the Review of Philosophy and Psychology. If you are a philosopher and/or psychologist working at the intersection of memory, emotion and forgiveness [1/2]

About the case of Trump calling immigrants as a “threat”: This a common strategy among some leaders as a tool to foster unity by creating a shared sense of danger. This often involves portraying outgroups as existential threats to the ingroup's welfare… journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Roy Baumeister called ego depletion "one of the most replicable findings in social psychology." As someone who spent 20 years studying it—and ultimately had to admit it wasn't real—I have to respectfully disagree. Here's my perspective of what went so wrong.

One of the main problems about cultural relativism. People often put at the same level opinions and scientific evidence/rational conclusions. This is why a lot of university students strongly supports empty beliefs as astrology and homeopathy.

The V-Shaped Perception Gap: The stronger people’s political commitments, the less accurate their understanding of what the other side thinks. The politically disengaged have the most accurate picture of their fellow citizens’ views. www.stevestewartwilliams.com/p/manterrupt...

"The human mind is in the service of evolutionary success, not truth. To think otherwise is to resurrect the pre-Darwinian error that humans are different from all other animals.” -John Gray, 2002 Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (p. 26).

🎉Postdoc Alert! I am recruiting a postdoc to start Summer 2025 in the Mind & Morality Lab at Brown. If you're interested, please send a CV, cover letter, and names of at least two references to [email protected] by 2/28. If you have questions, don't hesitate to reach out!

Stated mate preferences vs. revealed mate preferences www.stevestewartwilliams.com/p/implicit-b...

“Instead of questioning someone’s gullibility, it’s often more useful to ask what goal they’re pursuing by expressing such beliefs”.

Our latest research in the NYT! "[Inzlicht's] other worry was that the corporations in control of chatbots had an “unprecedented power to influence people en masse.” www.nytimes.com/2025/01/15/t...

Our new paper, on the evolution of institutions, is out in PNAS! How can institutions promote cooperation when they themselves rely on cooperation? Check out JB's awesome thread! Very proud of this paper with @jliep.bsky.social, N. Baumard, @jbaptistandre.bsky.social! www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Such an interesting passage (Pizarro and Bloom, 2003) on how people intuitively understand their own moral judgment are affected by affective states. Something to be considered in further moral judgment experiments about punishment decisions.

7 January 1792: #OTD Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women was published. This text was hugely influential and is regarded as one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy.