Calvin K. Lai | Lightnews

Calvin Lai

@calvinklai.bsky.social

2.4K followers 440 following 75 posts

Social psychologist & professor at Rutgers University.
Studying how to reduce prejudice and discrimination.
Opinions are my own. he/him
calvinklai.com

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Psychology 28%

Political science 26%

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Calvin Lai @calvinklai.bsky.social · Dec 11

What a year! I'm honored to receive both of FABBS' major career awards at the same time: the Craig-Henderson Award for DEI mentorship, service, & research & the Early Impact Award for research & outreach (nominated via SESP).

I'm grateful to the scientific communities that made our work possible.😊

Lora Park @lorapark.bsky.social · Dec 11

FABBS(Federation of Assoc in Behavior&Brain Sciences) is pleased to honor Calvin Lai, recipient of the Kellina Craig-Henderson Early to Mid-Career Award AND Early Career Impact Award! Dr. Lai’s pioneering work examines implicit bias& applications to policing&hiring. Congrats @calvinklai.bsky.social

Reposted by Calvin K. Lai

Thomas Talhelm @thomastalhelm.bsky.social · 2d

In our recent study, we found that young people in Mainland China are bicultural. But their parents' generation does not. bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Reposted by Calvin K. Lai

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 2d

There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect

Reposted by Elizabeth Stokoe, Calvin K. Lai, David Chester , and 2 more Elizabeth Stokoe, Calvin K. Lai, David Chester, Paolo Crosetto, Eric Hehman

Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 3d

We should no longer trust data collected on MTurk
link.springer.com/article/10.3...

My guess is that other online data is going to drop in quality due to LLMs. This is going to be an existential crisis for the behavioral sciences.

Reposted by Brian A. Nosek, Jordan Axt, Calvin K. Lai , and 1 more Brian A. Nosek, Jordan Axt, Calvin K. Lai, Kate A. Ratliff

Jin X. Goh | 吴晋勋 @jinxungoh.bsky.social · 3d

Have you used Project Implicit for class demo or research? I know I have. Project Implicit fundamentally changed social psych research and public discourse. Its impact is too big to write in one post. But all this work is in jeopardy, so pls join me in donating to sustain Project Implicit!!

Reposted by Brian A. Nosek, Jacob Montgomery, Kate A. Ratliff

Calvin Lai @calvinklai.bsky.social · 3d

Project Implicit is facing an existential threat. After almost 30 years, 60 million visitors, and hundreds of published papers, funding for our work has disappeared.

We’ve never held a fundraising drive before, but we need your support to keep our site running. Please consider donating! 🙏

Project Implicit @projectimplicit.bsky.social · 5d

Project Implicit is a research nonprofit behind tools millions use to understand bias. Like many public science orgs, sustaining this work has become increasingly difficult. We are at risk of closing without additional support.

Help protect this impt work by donating here: 4agc.com/donate/impli...

Reposted by Calvin K. Lai, Kate A. Ratliff

Brian Nosek @briannosek.bsky.social · 4d

Please consider a donation sustain this critical service for research and education about implicit social cognition. The website has generated very useful data and discussion to understand the strengths, weaknesses, and processes of implicit measurement.

Project Implicit @projectimplicit.bsky.social · 5d

Reposted by Brian A. Nosek, Calvin K. Lai, Kate A. Ratliff , and 1 more Brian A. Nosek, Calvin K. Lai, Kate A. Ratliff, Eric Hehman

Project Implicit @projectimplicit.bsky.social · 5d

Reposted by Lisa W. Fazio, Brendan Nyhan, Laura K. Taylor , and 3 more Lisa W. Fazio, Brendan Nyhan, Laura K. Taylor, Jon Green, Calvin K. Lai, Guillaume Allègre

Andrei Cimpian @andreicimpian.bsky.social · 5d

🧵New preprint: Adults often agree with their ingroup even when evidence says otherwise. Why?

To find out, we studied kids, who show the same tendency but *before* political identities take hold. With developmental data, we can see the basic psychological ingredients.

doi.org/10.31234/osf...

1/11

OSF

doi.org

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 14d

New, from me: The NYT reporter who specializes in profiles of beleaguered right-wingers on campus went to New College...and found out that things were going ok!

So let me explain some pretty massive errors of omission: 🧵
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-nyt-re...

The NYT Recruiting Brochure for New College

A failing Ron DeSantis higher ed experiment gets a boost

donmoynihan.substack.com

Reposted by Calvin K. Lai

Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 23d

Got some figures from the @lachlanmcnamee.bsky.social Salma Mousa & @kylepeyton.bsky.social DEI analysis from 4.67 million employment records at US public universities (1993-2024)

Compact article gets it backwards. Unis diversified *leadership* not faculty.

Reposted by Chris Hanretty, Calvin K. Lai

John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 23d

Newly released evidence from Portugal shows that taking exams on a computer reduces kids' scores A LOT.

Old fashioned paper and pencil exams FTW!

Reposted by Calvin K. Lai, Colin Tucker Smith

Max Primbs @maxprimbs.bsky.social · 27d

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?

Systemic Problems Require Systemic Solutions: How Regional Variation in Implicit Bias Can Inform Public Policy - Heidi A. Vuletich, Maximilian A. Primbs, Ayla Winegar, 2025

Traditional psychological approaches to reduce discrimination typically focus on addressing the biases of people. This paper recommends policies aimed at changi...

journals.sagepub.com

Reposted by Calvin K. Lai, Eric Hehman

Lora Park @lorapark.bsky.social · Dec 11

Reposted by Rebecca Solnit, David A. Broniatowski, William J. Brady , and 4 more Rebecca Solnit, David A. Broniatowski, William J. Brady, Calvin K. Lai, Christopher R. Matthews, Colin Tucker Smith, Sylvia Perry

M.J. Crockett @mjcrockett.bsky.social · Dec 11

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/

Abstract

When we empathize with someone going through something, we often draw on our past experiences with the someone and the something. These kinds of experiences ground "thick empathy", a form of empathy that has been largely overlooked in the psychology and neuroscience literature. Consider how a mother, empathizing with her daughter about to give birth, can draw on her own experience of childbirth, and her relationship with her daughter, to deeply grasp what her daughter is going through in a way that others who lack those experiences cannot. I argue that thick empathy deserves more empirical attention because it is associated with well-being and helps us build networks of effective mutual social support. My analysis highlights novel risks and dilemmas posed by "empathy machines" that promise to enhance or even replace human empathy and are becoming increasingly popular as a potential solution to widespread loneliness. Even when empathy machines provide value to individuals, their widespread adoption risks imposing collective emotional and epistemic costs that ultimately make it harder for us to empathize well.

Keywords: empathy, understanding, experience, thick description, ethnography, phenomenal knowledge, interpersonal knowledge, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, chatbots

Reposted by Calvin K. Lai, Erika Franklin Fowler, Nathan P. Kalmoe

Neil Lewis, Jr. @neillewisjr.bsky.social · Dec 9

1/4. The U.S. continues to be a place where people’s life experiences and outcomes differ dramatically by social positioning. How does that affect the way people make meaning of what is happening around them? Those questions guided this new paper. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Academic article: How People Make Meaning in a Fragmented Democracy: Implications for Incorporating Public Opinion into Public Policy

Reposted by Chris Hanretty, Calvin K. Lai

Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · Dec 9

I maintain that this is an excellent benchmark for d-type effect sizes:

Sleep satisfaction & duration declined with childbirth & reached a nadir during the first 3 months postpartum, with women more strongly affected (satisfaction d = -0.79, duration minus 62 min, d = -0.90)>

Long-term effects of pregnancy and childbirth on sleep satisfaction and duration of first-time and experienced mothers and fathers

AbstractStudy Objectives. To examine the changes in mothers’ and fathers’ sleep satisfaction and sleep duration across prepregnancy, pregnancy, and the pos

academic.oup.com

Reposted by Mark J. Brandt, Calvin K. Lai

Teri Kirby @teriak.bsky.social · Dec 8

🧵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.

Reposted by Brian A. Nosek, Brendan Nyhan, Linda J. Skitka , and 8 more Brian A. Nosek, Brendan Nyhan, Linda J. Skitka, Serge Guimond, Calvin K. Lai, Kate A. Ratliff, Eric Hehman, Richard Pettigrew, Marcus Credé, Colin Tucker Smith, David Darmofal

Jordan Axt @jordanaxt.bsky.social · Dec 2

New paper in press at JPSP! An adversarial collaboration focusing on a large-scale test of how strongly implicit racial attitudes predict discriminatory behavior. Pre-print here: osf.io/preprints/ps...

Reposted by Calvin K. Lai

Michael Inzlicht @minzlicht.bsky.social · Nov 28

Excited to share work led by Conrado Eiroa-Solans, a PhD student at UC Berkeley who I first met when he was applying to grad school. His new paper is out in Computers in Human Behavior Reports. /1

From Extrinsic to Intrinsic Motivation: Testing an AI-powered Motivational Interviewing System to Foster Prosocial Motivation

Scalable interventions promoting sustained behavioral change are crucial for addressing societal issues, yet traditional approaches often require inte…

www.sciencedirect.com

Reposted by Calvin K. Lai, Michael W. Kraus, Eric Hehman

Jackie Chen @jackiemchen.bsky.social · Nov 21

The International Social Cognition Network (ISCON) is pleased to announce Dr. April Bailey as the 2025 winner of the Early Career Award! Dr. Bailey is a Lecturer of Psychology at the University of Edinburgh. She earned her B.A. from Colgate University and her PhD in 2019 from Yale University.

Reposted by Calvin K. Lai

catcthomas.bsky.social @catcthomas.bsky.social · Nov 20

How can psychology help fight poverty? Our
@pnas.org article shows how “culturally wise” interventions can support women’s agency and boost poverty reduction (Patrick Premand, Thomas Bossuroy, Abdoulaye Sambo, Hazel Markus, Greg Walton @stanforduniversity.bsky.social): t.co/maI5vf3meP

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2505694122

t.co

Reposted by Linda J. Skitka, Efrén O. Pérez, Calvin K. Lai , and 2 more Linda J. Skitka, Efrén O. Pérez, Calvin K. Lai, Scott Clifford, Michael W. Kraus

tagerai.bsky.social @tagerai.bsky.social · Nov 19

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....

PNAS

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...

www.pnas.org

Reposted by Dorothy Bishop, Brian A. Nosek, Gordon Hodson , and 11 more Dorothy Bishop, Brian A. Nosek, Gordon Hodson, Mark J. Brandt, Mark Rubin, Elizabeth Stokoe, Calvin K. Lai, Michael W. Kraus, Andrew Livingstone, Amy Orben, Frank Asbrock, Mohammad Atari, Toon Kuppens, Kristof Dhont

Nils Reimer @reimtime.bsky.social · Nov 19

This—on my former university, department, and advisor—is harrowing but required reading for all social psychologists. www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Oxford University Has Failed Women Over Harassment Concerns, Staff Say

The university has repeatedly been slow to act against male academics accused of sexual misconduct and inappropriate behavior, a Bloomberg investigation found.

www.bloomberg.com

Reposted by Calvin K. Lai

Gordon Pennycook @gordpennycook.bsky.social · Nov 18

Just so that we're on the same page: This paper tells us what is *possible* not what is *true*

This is definitely a concern, but (FWIW) I am highly skeptical that typical survey respondents have the technical skills (let alone the inclination) to do all of this.

Josh McCrain @joshmccrain.bsky.social · Nov 18

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

Reposted by Marc Lynch, Simon Hix, Ben H. Ansell , and 46 more Marc Lynch, Simon Hix, Ben H. Ansell, David Lazer, Sander van der Linden, Will Jennings, Gordon Pennycook, Brendan Nyhan, Carl T. Bergstrom, John De Vos, Olivier Klein, Scott L. Greer, Steven Van de Walle, Michael A. Clemens, Victor Asal, Steven S. Smith, Maarten Vink, Jeffrey Ian Ross, Jon Green, Rebecca Sear, Calvin K. Lai, Juan Cole, Benjamin Braun, Mary Corcoran, Dorothea Kübler, Karen Benjamin Guzzo, Jane Suiter, Paolo Crosetto, Rebecca Tushnet, David R. Miller, Silvia Secchi, Julia Lynch, Margot C. Finn, Andreas De Block, Matthijs Rooduijn, Sebastian Karcher, Jutta Haider, Michael Jones‐Correa, Fabrizio Bernardi, Guy J. Curtis, Johannes Breuer, Georg Weizsäcker, Tom Louwerse, Juan Ramón, Tim Stephens, Todd M. Gureckis, Pepper D. Culpepper, Dana Howard, Evan Roberts

Josh McCrain @joshmccrain.bsky.social · Nov 18

Reposted by Gordon Hodson, Linda J. Skitka, Mark J. Brandt , and 6 more Gordon Hodson, Linda J. Skitka, Mark J. Brandt, Efrén O. Pérez, Calvin K. Lai, Michael W. Kraus, Andrew Livingstone, Nazita Lajevardi, Colin Tucker Smith

Jin X. Goh | 吴晋勋 @jinxungoh.bsky.social · Nov 17

Starting the week strong with a newly accepted paper in Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, co-authored with postdoc @lizsnoland.bsky.social and Sohad Murrar! We merged two largely independent research lines to call for data disaggregation of Asian Americans and MENA Americans

PsyArXivBot @psyarxivbot.bsky.social · Nov 17

Unpacking Broad Racial Labels: The Disaggregation of Data on Race and Ethnicity: https://osf.io/eyv7b

Reposted by Calvin K. Lai

Pierce Ekstrom @pierceekstrom.bsky.social · Nov 13

New write-up of our political scandal experiments for SPSP's (@spspnews.bsky.social) blog. We find that partisan voters allow politicians to get away with hostile, defensive "explanations" for scandal, esp when the politician is high-status and when party goals are at stake

spsp.org/news/charact...

Do Voters Punish Politicians Who Apologize? | SPSP

Politicians may deny scandals not just for themselves but because voters let them.

spsp.org