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Reposted by Fiery Cushman

Society for Philosophy and Psychology @socphilpsych.bsky.social · 21h

‼️ Recent work by Setayesh Radkani, Joshua Tenenbaum & Rebecca Saxe:

What people learn from punishment: A cognitive model

What people learn from punishment: A cognitive model | PNAS

Authorities, from parents of toddlers to leaders of formal institutions, use punishment to communicate disapproval and enforce social norms. Ideall...

www.pnas.org

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Mark Ho @markkho.bsky.social · 2d

I'm recruiting grad students!! 🎓

The CoDec Lab @ NYU (codec-lab.github.io) is looking for PhD students (Fall 2026) interested in computational approaches to social cognition & problem solving 🧠

Applications through Psych (tinyurl.com/nyucp) are due Dec 1. Reach out with Qs & please repost! 🙏

codec lab

codec-lab.github.io

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Society for Philosophy and Psychology @socphilpsych.bsky.social · 7d

📣Recent work by Emily G. Liquin, Marjorie Rhodes & Todd M. Gureckis:

Seeking new information with old questions: Children and adults reuse and recombine concepts from prior questions

Seeking New Information With Old Questions: Children and Adults Reuse and Recombine Concepts From Prior Questions

Abstract. Question asking is a key tool for learning about the world, especially in childhood. However, formulating good questions is challenging. In any given situation, many questions are possible b...

doi.org

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William J. Brady @williambrady.bsky.social · 9d

The computational psych preconference is back @spspnews.bsky.social for a full day! This year's lineup:

👉theory-driven modeling: Hyowon Gweon
👉data-driven discovery: @clemensstachl.bsky.social
👉application: me
👉 panel: @steveread.bsky.social Sandra Matz, @markthornton.bsky.social Wil Cunningham

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Experimental Philosophy @xphilosopher.bsky.social · 11d

Mikayla Kelley has an important new paper on why human beings even have a concept of intentional action

The key question: What does this concept do in our lives?

Her answer: Since we can't possibly evaluate all actions, it helps us choose which ones to evaluate

philpapers.org/rec/KELTNF-3

Mikayla Kelley, The Normative Function of Intentional Action - PhilPapers

This essay identifies a normative function of the concept of intentional action. Specifically, I argue that the concept of intentional action functions to focus our evaluative concern on some doings r...

philpapers.org

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Mark Shuquan Chen @markschen.bsky.social · 29d

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-...

Mark Chen | Department of Psychology

psychology.fas.harvard.edu

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Fiery Cushman @fierycushman.bsky.social · 16d

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?

Kirstan Brodie @kirstanbrodie.bsky.social · 16d

Can reasoned arguments shift moral behavior? In a new preprint, @eschwitz.bsky.social, Jason Nemirow, @fierycushman.bsky.social and I explore this question in the context of charitable donation. (1/10)

Title: Philosophical Arguments Can Boost Charitable Giving
Authors: Kirstan Brodie, Eric Schwitzgebel, Jason Nemirow, and Fiery Cushman

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Linas Nasvytis @linasnasvytis.bsky.social · 22d

🚨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🧵

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Fiery Cushman @fierycushman.bsky.social · 23d

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!

xavier roberts-gaal @xrg.bsky.social · 23d

We often hear from reviewers: "what about demand effects?" So we developed a method to eliminate them. Something weird happened during testing: We couldn’t detect demand effects in the first place! (1/8)

Summary of design and results from our three studies. (A: Design) Each study used a similar experimental design, measuring both positive and negative demand in an online experiment, with three commonly-used task types (dictator game, vignette, intervention). Our experiments had ns ≈ 250 per cell. (B: Results) Observed demand effects were statistically indistinguishable from zero. The plot shows means and 95% confidence intervals for standardized mean differences derived from frequentist analyses of each experiment and an inverse variance-weighted fixed-effect estimator pooling all experiments (solid bars). Prior measurements of experimenter demand from a previous dictator game experiment (de Quidt et al., 2018; standardized mean difference from regression coefficient) and a meta-analysis primarily including small-sample, in-person studies (Coles et al., 2025; Hedge’s g statistic) are also shown for comparison (striped bars). The main text includes Bayesian analyses that quantify our uncertainty.

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Haneul Jang @haneuljang.bsky.social · 24d

💙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...

Transmission networks of long-term and short-term knowledge in a foraging society

Abstract. Cultural transmission across generations is key to cumulative cultural evolution. While several mechanisms—such as vertical, horizontal, and obli

academic.oup.com

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Society for Philosophy and Psychology @socphilpsych.bsky.social · 29d

🌟From Nicolò Cesana-Arlotti, Sofia Jáuregui, Peter Mazalik, Shaun Nichols & Justin Halberda:

Logical concepts of (im)possibility guide young children's decision-making

Logical Concepts of (Im)possibility Guide Young Children's Decision‐Making

The human capacity for rational decisions hinges on modal judgment: the discernment of what could, has to, or cannot happen. This ability was proposed to be a late outcome of human cognitive develop.....

doi.org

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Sam McDougle @actlab.bsky.social · Sep 3

📣 🚨 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

Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio

apply.interfolio.com

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Gregg D Caruso @greggdcaruso.bsky.social · Aug 22

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

Studying philosophy does make people better thinkers, according to new research on more than 600,000 college grads

Philosophers are fond of saying that their field boosts critical thinking. Two of them decided to put that claim to the test.

theconversation.com

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tagerai.bsky.social @tagerai.bsky.social · Aug 19

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/...

Profitable third-party punishment destabilizes cooperation | PNAS

Third-party punishment is theorized by some scholars to be essential to the evolution of large-scale cooperation, but empirically, it often fails t...

www.pnas.org

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Erik Nook 🏳️‍🌈 @eriknook.bsky.social · Aug 15

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...

puwebp.princeton.edu

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Mathieu Charbonneau @matcharbonneau.bsky.social · Jun 2

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...

Open‐Ended Technological Evolution: The Co‐Evolution of Invention and Cognitive Technologies

Open-ended technological evolution is the result of the co-evolution of invention and cognitive technologies that enhances our cognitive capabilities and generates a feedback loop of ever-expanding t....

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Society for Philosophy and Psychology @socphilpsych.bsky.social · Aug 14

When development constricts our moral circle

‼️From Julia Marshall, Matti Wilks, Lucius Caviola & Karri Neldner

When development constricts our moral circle - Nature Human Behaviour

Although many believe our moral circles expand with age, this Perspective discusses an early-emerging tendency to care for others.

www.nature.com

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Setayesh Radkani @setayeshradkani.bsky.social · Aug 8

🚨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

🧵

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...

tinyurl.com

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Christian Mott @cjmott.bsky.social · Aug 5

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/

christianmott.com

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Amitai Shenhav @ashenhav.bsky.social · Jul 25

📣 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

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Björn Lindström @bjornlindstrom.bsky.social · Jul 23

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.

Nature Human Behaviour @nathumbehav.nature.com · Jul 23

Through experiments and simulations, this study shows how individuals learn to learn from others, dynamically shaping the processes involved in cultural evolution. @davidschultner.bsky.social @bjornlindstrom.bsky.social
@lucasmolleman.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Feature-based reward learning shapes human social learning strategies - Nature Human Behaviour

This research advances a mechanistic reward learning account of social learning strategies. Through experiments and simulations, it shows how individuals learn to learn from others, dynamically shapin...

www.nature.com

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tadegquillien.bsky.social @tadegquillien.bsky.social · Jul 22

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...

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Max Kleiman-Weiner @maxkw.bsky.social · Jul 22

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/...

Evolving general cooperation with a Bayesian theory of mind | PNAS

Theories of the evolution of cooperation through reciprocity explain how unrelated self-interested individuals can accomplish more together than th...

www.pnas.org

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Michael Prinzing @mprinzing.bsky.social · Jul 12

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!
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Studying Philosophy Does Make People Better Thinkers | Journal of the American Philosophical Association | Cambridge Core

Studying Philosophy Does Make People Better Thinkers

doi.org

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Fiery Cushman @fierycushman.bsky.social · Jul 11

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/...

Contractualist Moral Cognition: From the Normative to the Descriptive at Three Levels of Analysis

Visual summary of the paper. Taking inspiration from the contractualist tradition in moral philosophy is helpful to better understand morality at three interrelated levels of analysis: Its evolutiona...

wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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