How do resource fears (realistic threat) vs. value clashes (symbolic threat) drive war & peace? We built a virtual society of 25 autonomous agents using the Park et al. (2023) framework to find out, using a "minimal groups" paradigm (Group A vs. B). But first, we looked under the hood. 🧠

Come work with us at USC! We're hiring an NSF-funded Postdoc for the Everyday Respect Project. 🤖 You'll work directly with me, Ben Graham, and Shri Narayanan, using cutting-edge AI to analyze police body-worn camera footage to improve police-community relations.

New paper with @nathanieldaw.bsky.social in Nature Communications: an RL model that builds a successor map compositionally. The new model plans as well as the best models, and it links components of the map used for planning to neural codes in the medial entorhinal cortex. rdcu.be/eAofi

Our new study in Psych Science @psychscience.bsky.social reveals many interesting-- and concerning -- things about the language on kids' shows, including a grammatical bias in favor of men and boys as agents or "doers" 👇

🔥Excited to share our new paper in PsychScience! Shout out to best-ever collaborators Aida Davani, @ruyuan-zuo.bsky.social, @shreyahavaldar.bsky.social, Eleanor Chestnut, @mdehghani.bsky.social & @andreicimpian.bsky.social 🧵1/8… doi.org/10.1177/0956...

My new op-ed in the @nytimes. I argue that Iranians are caught in a state of “moral paralysis,” a psychological trap set by the Islamic Republic itself. It pits two of our most sacred values against each other: liberation vs. self-determination. (1/2) www.nytimes.com/2025/06/28/o...

Check up on your Iranian colleagues and students; this is a full-on war!

Watch this montage of clips from Israel's Channel 14, filled with racist and genocidal bile, shocking stuff, ask yourself why you don't see these clips on US or UK mainstream news, and then read Prem's deep dive for Zeteo into Channel 14: zeteo.com/p/inside-the...

We’re looking for a researcher to work on methods and building tools for AI evaluation. We are seeking candidates with expertise at the intersection of agentic systems and personalization, demonstrated by a strong publication record in relevant venues.

This is what Leibowitz was warning about when he referred to Judeo Nazis www.hrw.org/news/2025/05...

“There is no God but God, Muhammad is his messenger,” the paramedic is heard saying. He asks God for forgiveness and says he knows he is going to die. “Forgive me, mother. This is the path I chose — to help people,” he said. “Allahu akbar,” God is great, he says. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/w...

BREAKING: Yuval Abraham, co-director of Oscar-winning documentary "No Other Land," says Israeli settlers beat his co-director Hamdan Ballal, injuring his head and stomach — and then Israeli soldiers invaded the ambulance he was in and seized him. Ballal's whereabouts are now unknown.

So Cal Stand Up for Science: Fri Mar 7 noon @the Wilshire Federal Building

At @spspnews.bsky.social, many asked for guidelines on using LLMs in the social sciences. Our new paper in AMPPS addresses exactly that! We provide a primer for evaluating LLMs in social science research, focusing on methodological rigor, replicability, and validity: osf.io/preprints/ps...

Our new paper in PNAS Nexus. County morals > politics for carbon footprints? 🤯 We find that county-level values predict actual green behavior (emissions!), not just attitudes. Stronger than political leaning.

Very cool work on the intersection of interpretability and multi-lingual LLMs, led by @elnaz-rahmati.bsky.social

Our new paper explores how to align LLMs with System 1 (intuitive) and System 2 (analytical) thinking styles. This work challenges the idea that step-by-step reasoning (CoT) is always best and highlights the need for adapting reasoning strategies based on the task arxiv.org/abs/2502.12470

Our new paper explores how to align LLMs with System 1 (intuitive) and System 2 (analytical) thinking styles. This work challenges the idea that step-by-step reasoning (CoT) is always best and highlights the need for adapting reasoning strategies based on the task arxiv.org/abs/2502.12470

New research led by @zhpinkman.bsky.social investigating the impact of LLMs on the reduction of linguistic diversity and its societal implications. "We're getting the language into its final shape - the shape it's going to have when nobody speaks anything else." George Orwell, 1984

Some of us have been meeting up at SPSP for the last few years. This year marks our fifth gathering. Email one of us if you want to join! Location TBD. @mdehghani.bsky.social @drsanaz.bsky.social @simine.com @dorsaamir.bsky.social

Trajan's (@starlord37.bsky.social) story & countless others like it in the face of these cuts and wild shifts in government fellowships intended for our brightest & most promising students will have long-term, deeply damaging effects on the U.S.'s competitiveness in science, math, CS and more.

Does the culture you grow up in shape the way you see the world? In a new Psych Review paper, @chazfirestone.bsky.social & I tackle this centuries-old question using the Müller-Lyer illusion as a case study. Come think through one of history's mysteries with us🧵(1/13):

Hi, Vox reporter here: If you've had a study section, NIH travel, or other NIH-related meeting cancelled (or not), raise your hand! Reply or DM me, and repost for visibility if you're able. #academicsky @drugmonkey.bsky.social

I’m thankful for the ceasefire deal and hopeful it will be implemented. The hostages should be returned, the killing and suffering ended. The nature of the deal shows the truth to what many of us said all along. The war on Gaza was a horrific crime and a strategic disaster for Israel.

(1/4) Our new JEP:G paper dives into how moral values and misinformation spread on social media: media.mola-lab.org/file/1737039...

A dear friend of mine needs our help. Elena lost her car and all of her training equipment in the devastating LA fires. Her family is in Ukraine, and she has almost no social support. Please consider donating to her GoFundMe campaign to help her get back on her feet. gofund.me/5a877476

Thrilled to announce keynote speakers for #moralmedia25 - Drs. Helena Bilandzic (U Augsburg), @mdehghani.bsky.social (U Southern California), @aeden.bsky.social (Michigan State U), & @fhopp.bsky.social (Leibniz Institute for Psychology). Submissions are due Feb 2!

🚨New Preprint🚨 *Moral Stereotyping in Large Language Models* We show that LLMs are inaccurate in estimating the moral values of diverse cultures: LLMs stereotype cultures in predictable ways. Led by my star Ph.D. student, Aliah Zewail osf.io/preprints/ps...

I just found out (from the post below) that the DARPA project I've been working on for the past couple of years was unexpectedly axed. The goal of the project: investigate foreign influence campaigns. Feeling like this is a sign of things to come...

A secondary but neat finding in our new work: We find neural evidence for rewards biasing social perception. We’ve previously found that rewards lead people to see others in a more positive light. We’ve argued this reflects a kind of affect-as-information… www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Excited to share that our work on using AI to analyze police body camera footage was featured in Scientific American! We're using multi-perspective, multi-modal, models to better understand police interactions and identify areas for improvement. www.scientificamerican.com/article/ai-a...

USC NLP folks are on Bluesky! Follow my amazing colleagues here go.bsky.app/KUwSZ6W

Sharing my first Computational Social Science starter pack! Will grow with time, feel free to nominate and self nominate! go.bsky.app/CYmRvcK

I'll be recruiting PhD students for Fall 2025. Take a look at the lab website and the FAQ for prospective students: piraylab.com/join Feel free to reach out if you have questions.

📢 Job Alert! 📢 The @USCPsychology seeks a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Brain & Cognitive Sciences with a focus on computational language research. Join us at the forefront of AI-driven language & cognition research. usccareers.usc.edu/job/los-ange...

My op-ed is out today in the NY Times! I wrote about the surprising evidence that school-based mental health programs make teens feel worse, the proliferation of social media mental health content, & the value of comprehensive solutions to promote youth mental health. www.nytimes.com/2023/11/18/o...

This is a great opportunity! Nils is an amazing scholar and a very kind human being.

In this new paper, we critically examine the promises and pitfalls of incorporating LLMs into psychological studies, advocating for a diversified, methodologically robust approach to avoid a homogenized and biased scientific practice.

I'll be recruiting PhD students for Fall 2024. Take a look at the lab website and the FAQ for prospective students: piraylab.com/join Feel free to reach out if you have questions.

Reforming APS Psych Science and perhaps leading the reform in publications across the board @simine.com www.science.org/content/arti...

Super excited about this work! Capturing the dynamic nature of hate is one of the key steps to trying to mitigate it

Super excited about this work! Capturing the dynamic nature of hate is one of the key steps to trying to mitigate it

Narges Mohammadi, the Iranian women's rights activist who has been sentenced to 31 years in prison, in addition to 130 lashes, deservingly won the Noble Peace prize.

Considering a Ph.D. in psychological and brain sciences? RSVP for our Virtual Sneak Peek Event (at UCSB Psychological and Brain Sciences) on October 10, 4–6 PM PST! tinyurl.com/pbssneakpeek...