The more active users are on social media, the more polarized they are!
The opinions of the these extreme users are filling your newsfeed, but they are not representative of most citizens or even most social media users--which are far less polarized! arxiv.org/pdf/2603.021...
Congrats!
I am excited to share that I presented my research twice at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology conference in Chicago!
I am grateful for this opportunity to connect with amazing scholars within the field of Social Psychology and begin sharing my research with a wider audience!
Abstract: This piece critiques the dominant assumption in social and political psychology, as well as in political science and other disciplines, that polarization is inherently undesirable and should therefore be reduced under all circumstances. We argue that this premise reflects a neutrality bias (or depoliticizing bias) that obscures the asymmetrical nature of contemporary political conflict. We distinguish democratic polarization—agonistic contestation among actors who accept multicultural pluralism, democratic institutions and election outcomes, civil and human rights, and epistemic accountability—from anti-democratic polarization, in which conflict is strategically mobilized to delegitimize opponents, erode institutional constraints, and normalize dehumanization, scapegoating, misinformation, anti-scientific, and conspiratorial narratives as a route to political power. In a global context marked by the growing...
“Not all polarization is equivalent nor undesirable”
New preprint by Felipe Vilanova and @flavioazevedo.bsky.social:
osf.io/preprints/ps...
“Urging those targeted by discrimination or authoritarian mobilization to empathize with their aggressors mirrors a familiar moral inversion: it relocates responsibility for harmony onto the vulnerable rather than the powerful.”
In an interesting #SPSP2026 talk, @asmiley.bsky.social presented work suggesting that the proportion of out-partisans at one’s church had a curvilinear association with affective polarization—politically balanced churches showed the lowest rates of affective polarization.
Happy conference season!
Looking back at my poster from the 2024 Eastern Psychological Association meeting in Philly.
Wishing everyone presenting at EPA and SPSP this weekend the best of luck!
Thank you for sharing this!
New article in Nature describes a field experiment on X which shows that assigning users to an algorithmic feed pushes conservative content and demotes mainstream news.
Sounds obvious but important in light of prior claims algorithms don't cause attitudinal changes.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
New paper in Current Directions in Psych Science: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
After countless arguments about what tasks ppl should/should not offload to AI, we instead argue that genAI can be used *augment* research protocols in novel ways. I.e. use AI to make better psych experiments!
Across social media platforms, political posting is linked to affective polarization--extreme users post the most.
As polarized partisans increasingly dominate the conversation, casual users disengage and the online public sphere grows smaller, sharper, and more extreme. arxiv.org/html/2510.25...
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?
Today in Hagerstown, I stood with Senator Chris Van Hollen and hundreds of neighbors to say clearly: we do not want an ICE facility in our community.
Even in the AI era, learning to quickly "read" an academic article is an essential skill.
When I started grad school, I thought I had to read every word, in order, for every article I "read".
I don’t do that anymore.
Here’s how I "read" most academic articles:
How can we actually break echo chambers at scale?
Ever notice how some political conversations feel over before they start?
Often, they ended somewhere else — in feeds, podcasts, and videos you never saw.
This isn’t just disagreement; it’s living in separate information worlds. 🧵
Someone today sent me some fake news that was also aligned with my views.
I rejected it, completely.
You can do this too.
Don't judge the validity of a statement solely by whether it aligns with your beliefs.
Graduate school interview season is approaching.
After ~12 years of interviewing PhD and MD/PhD applicants, I’ve noticed some common interview mistakes that hold otherwise strong candidates back...
#GraduateSchool #PhDLife #MDPhD #GradSchoolTips #AcademicBluesky
👇
Great piece on prioritizing quality over quantity in scientific publication.
For those of us with labs, this necessarily involves shrinking our group size. After I got tenure I started to downsize my lab and have not regretted it one iota. More time for each student & more time to think & write.
Sunday in Sterling, Va. Details and tickets at www.ticketleap.events/tickets/prof... .
The horrific tragedy at Brown University is the 389th mass shooting this year and the 230th gun incident on school grounds so far this year.
This is not normal and we don't have to live this way.
bradyunited.org
@bradyunited.org
The most precious commodity you have is your attention. You don’t have to waste it on poor-faith debates or arguments with strangers if you don’t think they’ll be productive. You can prioritize the things that matter to you and make your life richer.
new paper by Sean Westwood:
With current technology, it is impossible to tell whether survey respondents are real or bots. Among other things, makes it easy for bad actors to manipulate outcomes. No good news here for the future of online-based survey research
Screenshot of title page of an article published in the journal "Mass Communication and Society" titled "Understanding the Effects of Visual Misinformation: A Systematic Review of 10 Years (2014–2024)."
Interesting review documenting the rise in scholarship on visual misinformation, how it is more persuasive than text misinformation, and how #GenAI is both increasing visual misinformation content and being used to combat it. (!)
#PsychSciSky #AcademicSky #EduSky
doi.org/10.1080/1520...
We need to talk about how social media algorithms push moms down a slippery slope of distrust.
From "Are my kids getting enough support in school?" To "Maybe I should homeschool." To "Maybe modern medicine is bad."
I've seen this first-hand in research I'm doing on parenting apps. 1/🧵
Cool new study by @joelleforestier.bsky.social @page-gould.bsky.social & Alison Chasteen
Can social media contact reduce prejudice?
#PrejudiceResearch
psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...
Critical ignoring offers some great strategies to help navigate our noisy information landscape.
People across the political spectrum suddenly agree that social media can lead to political violence and online calls for civil war have skyrocketed
I explain how social media rewards negativity, division and hostility--and what we can all do about it: www.powerofusnewsletter.com/p/social-med...
I heard that students need to have a 1st author paper to get into a PhD program
This is not true in psychology--most students we admit at NYU & most of the students from my own lab who got into PhD programs do not have publications, let alone 1st author publications
www.science.org/content/arti...
Are you accepting PhD applications in Clinical Psychology for Fall 2026 (U.S.)?
If so, please consider adding your name to the document linked in the comments. Our hope is to help reduce the load on applicants.
Please share widely and on X! #clinicalpsychology @abctnow.bsky.social
I have finally gotten round to writing my AI Use Statement for a grad. course I'm teaching in Gen AI...
I would be grateful of your thoughts!
