My website is official 🙌 Excited to share that I am interested in reviewing applications for Harvard’s Clinical Science PhD program this fall as I look for the first student to join my lab! I appreciate it if you can share with your network :) psychology.fas.harvard.edu/people/mark-...

This was such a fun project! Dozens of philosophers wrote philosophical arguments trying to get people to donate more to charity, and we ask: Do any of these work? Which ones work best? Why?

🚨New paper out w/ @gershbrain.bsky.social & @fierycushman.bsky.social from my time @Harvard! Humans are capable of sophisticated theory of mind, but when do we use it? We formalize & document a new cognitive shortcut: belief neglect — inferring others' preferences, as if their beliefs are correct🧵

This project took a very unexpected path that was super helpful in updating the way my lab thinks about experimental design -- so we're sharing it with the world!

💙New paper!💙 How is knowledge transmitted across generations in a foraging society? With @danielredhead.bsky.social we found: In BaYaka foragers, long-term skills pass in smaller, sparser networks, while short-term food info circulates broadly & reciprocally academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

🌟From Nicolò Cesana-Arlotti, Sofia Jáuregui, Peter Mazalik, Shaun Nichols & Justin Halberda: Logical concepts of (im)possibility guide young children's decision-making

📣 🚨 Yale Psychology has 3 searches this year! Links below: Quantitative link: apply.interfolio.com/171903 Social link: apply.interfolio.com/171989 Clinical link: apply.interfolio.com/171970

Studying philosophy does make people better thinkers, according to new research on more than 600,000 college grads theconversation.com/studying-phi...

I’ll have more to say about this paper in a bit, but very excited about it. Helps to explain why punishment doesn’t work to improve cooperation, why people still punish anyway, and what it implies about the evolution of cooperation and criminal justice policy www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

We're hiring!!! Princeton Psych has an Assistant Prof search in cog neuro (joint with @princetonneuro.bsky.social). Apply apply apply! puwebp.princeton.edu/AcadHire/app...

New paper out in Topics in Cognitive Science! "Open-Ended Technological Evolution: The Co-Evolution of Invention and Cognitive Technologies" 🧵 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

When development constricts our moral circle ‼️From Julia Marshall, Matti Wilks, Lucius Caviola & Karri Neldner

🚨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 🧵

After many years of anticipation (mainly by me), @drlarisa.bsky.social and I have a paper on the way people understand two mental state terms used in the criminal law -- "knowingly" and "recklessly" -- forthcoming in JEP:Applied. 1/

📣 Heads-up that our amazing dept (Berkeley Psych) is anticipating hiring *two* TT Asst Profs this Fall, under the themes of (1) Social & Personality Psychology, and (2) Biological Basis of Behavior. Official job ads coming soon... Send qs for (1) to Iris Mauss/Serena Chen, (2) to Linda Wilbrecht

Thrilled that our paper on the mechanisms underlying social learning strategies is out! First big paper from my @erc.europa.eu & @kawresearch.bsky.social funded group. More to come! I'm currently looking to recruit two post docs, get in touch if you find this line of research interesting.

Counterfactual models predict that normality should influence causal judgments in a different way depending on causal structure. A fascinating paper by Ozdemir and Walker finds some hints of this pattern in 5- to 7-year old children. static1.squarespace.com/static/5615d...

Our new paper is out in PNAS: "Evolving general cooperation with a Bayesian theory of mind"! Humans are the ultimate cooperators. We coordinate on a scale and scope no other species (nor AI) can match. What makes this possible? 🧵 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

A popular and very old argument for the value of philosophy claims that studying philosophy cultivates important intellectual abilities and dispositions. But empirical evidence for that claim has been hard to come by. Until now! 1/4

Arthur has written a wonderful, clear, super helpful introduction to contractualism as a foundation for moral psychology. Perfect for getting up to speed, teaching, a desk reference, or a sunny day at the beach. wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

🚨We're hiring! The Mind & Morality Lab is seeking a Lab Manager to start this September. Excited about research on social cognitive development? Apply here: forms.gle/4rKXD2x1vmkD.... Learn more about us: sites.brown.edu/mindmorality.... ⏳ We’re reviewing applications on a rolling basis—apply early!

Paper in @pnas.org in which @d-melnikoff.bsky.social and I provide evidence for model-based effects on automatic evaluation. This was a super fun “adversarial” collaboration with 0 adversariality. It may have been nice to be right, but getting it right is nearly as nice: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Pleased to announce my new open access paper out in Developmental Psychology: The Development of the “First Thing That Comes to Mind” with @xphilosopher.bsky.social and @ebonawitz.bsky.social psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2026-25569-001.html #CogSci #PsychSciSki #DevSci (1/10)

Quite pleased with this paper. Usually in #culturalevolution experiments, people choose who to copy. We flipped it so that people chose with whom to share their information. Sharers got reputation increases for sharing, which we expected would allow partner choice, i.e. people share with sharers.

New preprint! 🔔 We apply computational text analysis to over 2000 years of historical corpora in Classical Chinese. Beyond descriptives, we test the hypothesis that kin-based institutions shape important aspects of socio-cooperative psychology.

1. New paper first-authored by former post-doc Young-eun Lee (currently at MIT with @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social) now in press at JECP! More info in thread below, full text here: columbiasamclab.weebly.com/uploads/5/9/.... 🧪 #PsychSciSky #SocialPsyc #DevPsyc #CogPsyc @socphilpsych.bsky.social

never thought i'd be that guy but coding with AI integration in Cursor is genuinely so fun... it's like having access to an additional declarative interface to imperative programming language, just being able to specify what you want the CSS to look like and let the details handle themselves.

🔆 I'm hiring! 🔆 There are two open positions: 1. Summer research position (best for master's or graduate student); focus on computational social cognition. 2. Postdoc (currently interviewing!); focus on computational social cognition and AI safety. sites.google.com/corp/site/sy...

Super interesting, fresh way of thinking about dorsal/ventral streams, object tracking & aphantasia. View that aphantasia involves 'unrendered' amodal geometric imagery fits v nicely w/ what I've argued in recent work too, e.g., onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/..., philarchive.org/rec/PHISSI-5.

🥳🥳 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

A widespread view in psychology is that most cognitive processes are unconscious. In a new paper, I argue that many of these processes may evade consciousness for the same reason the "invisible gorilla" did: People fail to pay attention to them. 🧵 direct.mit.edu/opmi/article...

JOB! 3yr funded post-doc in Theory of Mind inspired by the knowledge first epistemology of Williamson, and the work of @jsphillips.bsky.social. Looking at knowledge and ignorance processing in adults with me and Richard O'Connor at the Uni of Hull. Please re-post. www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DNE794/p...

🎊 New preprint 🎊 w/ Tania Lombrozo Why do people engage in collective actions, even when they believe their actions won't make a difference? Based on evidence from the 2024 election and a hypothetical election, we find that *moral* responsibility, not causal, drives voting osf.io/preprints/ps...

Lab-kept bumble bees roll small wooden balls around for no apparent purpose other than fun, a 2022 study reveals. Learn more on #WorldBeeDay: scim.ag/4dAwCuD

🤖🧠 Paper out in Nature Communications! 🧠🤖 Bayesian models can learn rapidly. Neural networks can handle messy, naturalistic data. How can we combine these strengths? Our answer: Use meta-learning to distill Bayesian priors into a neural network! www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/n

Sometimes people say its fair for those with advantage to get more (best office to the CEO...); other times, the opposite seems more fair (... charity to the needy). In this new work, Arthur and Xavier try to explain why. See the preprint link and explainer thread below: osf.io/preprints/ps...

🔥Exciting news in experimental philosophy🔥 Very happy to announce that there will be soon a new journal named “Experimental Philosophy”. It will be open access, free of charge for authors and follow all Open Science principles. Editors and Editorial Board below. More information coming soon...

How do people teach? 🍎🧑‍🏫 We know theory of mind is important for teaching (eg simulating a learner's mind) but that can take effort 🤔 New work led by @harootonian.bsky.social expands this picture by examining how people also teach with *less effortful heuristics*

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

📢 CES launches Advancing Cultural Evolution (ACE) Course Design Awards! 🎉 $4000 award + global impact for your cultural evolution course materials. Course must be college/grad level with 10+ hrs content. Application link: vuw.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_... #CulturalEvolution #Education #Grants

🤔 Interested in models of social interaction and computational psychiatry? 🤗 If so, @shawnrhoadsphd.bsky.social and I are seeking a highly motivated and talented postdoc to work on these topics! Please share widely! apply.interfolio.com/165809

What makes people feel entitled to rewards—the effort they put into their work or the outcomes they achieve? Out now in PNAS; with Jin Kim and Jared Wong: Achievement. Effort seems to matter very little (if at all). www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

🚨🚨 I’m looking for a postdoctoral fellow to join my lab at Harvard's Psychology Department starting Fall 2025 🚨📣 Please share widely and spread the word to interested candidates! 🧵 🗓 Application review begins April 30 Apply here: rb.gy/k7q9kf (1/2)

Come to the SPP Preconference on Possibilities: Near and Far! Speakers: Sara Aronowitz Seth Goldwasser Melissa Kibbe Tamar Kushnir Brian Leahy Shaun Nichols Laurie Paul Jonathan Phillips Alison Springle

And: I'm hiring a post-doc! I'm looking for someone with a strong computational background who can start in the summer (or sooner). Details here: apply.interfolio.com/165122 Feel free to reach out with questions (email is best: [email protected]) and please share widely!

Come be my colleague at UCL. We are looking for someone working on computational approaches to cognition. In other words, for any type of cognitive modelling or mathematical psychology! #MathPsych

Our new paper with Max Taylor-Davies introduces a resource-rational model of Theory of Mind. The model can explain many of the successes and failures of mindreading in human adults and children, and non-human primates. 🧵

In a new preprint (doi.org/10.31234/osf...) a huge range of data+methods shows that people can evaluate what others know without first evaluating what they think/believe. Representations of knowledge seem to be an independent and conceptually primitive way of representing others' minds. 🧵 below!

Truly beautiful paper from @kevintobia.bsky.social et al. on how people ordinarily understand the concept of the reasonable person Key claim: There is a core folk notion of the reasonable that is widely shared across cultures papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....