The 5th HotFresh recommended paper is:

Kirgios, E. L., Silver, I., & Chang, E. H. (2025) Does communicating measurable diversity goals attract or repel historically marginalized job applicants? Evidence from the lab and field, J Experimental Psychology: General

psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...

Do women feel some emotions more strongly than men do? Out today in Affective Science, I argue that claims like this make a notoriously subtle mistake. What is it? And what does it have to do with an astigmatic painter and thyroid medicine? A short thread...

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Sam is one of the most thoughtful scholars of dishonesty around. His latest on the topic - disentangling cheating from lying - is required reading!👇

this is a letter to the editor from a high school track runner who came in second to a trans girl in a race. her state house rep in maine started talking about it. so she wrote this: www.pressherald.com/2025/05/14/r...

What makes people feel entitled to rewards?

Check out Corey’s paper for a provocative new take…

We think a broader version of the hypothesis - that people avoid scaling down outrage from relevant reference points - is a big part of it. We are currently working on follow-ups that explore a preference for escalation from *others’* judgments and finding evidence for that prediction!

The paper contains a number of cool extensions that explore conditions under which people become more or less sensitive to harm and severity when making moral comparisons. Check it out (open access) here:

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Direction of comparison matters because scaling down condemnation (saying B is less bad than A) leaves ambiguity as to whether one is “downplaying.” Does scaling down mean I am not taking this seriously enough? This moral character threat is not present when scaling up (saying A is worse than B).

While people readily say that bad act A is worse and deserves more punishment than bad act B, they are reluctant to say that B is less bad and deserves less punishment than A. When asked which of two acts is less bad, many opt to say both are equally bad (even when one is quite transparently worse!)

Really proud of this new work out @psychscience.bsky.social. Led by the amazing but bluesky-less Amanda Geiser and with @deborahsmall.bsky.social.

We show that when comparing moral wrongs, people are (much) more willing to “scale up” than to “scale down” condemnation and punishment…

1. For the past thirty years I've had the best job in the world.


I've had the opportunity to follow my curiosity; explore the workings of nature and society; mentor students and junior colleagues in the same process; and teach generations of students about it all.

A new paper by Team Scientists @erikakirgios.bsky.social, Edward Chang, & co-author @ikesilver.bsky.social found that sharing measurable DEI goals increases applications from women & underrepresented job seekers, highlighting the of impact clear diversity commitments from companies: bit.ly/4187XZD

not paying indirect costs for research is like only paying the players in the Super Bowl.

can't have a Super Bowl without coaches, referees, security, janitors, announcers, stadium staff, and a stadium - and you can't have research without supporting people and facilities

I, for one, think Apple’s new AI-powered summary tool is great.

✨New preprint✨How does repeated exposure to transgressions online shape moral judgment? Results show two competing processes:
💠We get desensitized = ⬇️ wrong
💠Transgression seems more infamous =⬆️wrong
Relative strength of each may predict outrage to viral transgressions w/ @danieleffron.bsky.social

Ah this is so cool!

I am worried that scientists will self-censor and not share their work because they view it as trivial relative to what is going on

But let's not participate in the destruction of science.

Please share your work unapologetically and share others' work

Science matters; your science matters!

If everyone puts a drop in the bucket…

Why are streaks so painful to break? Research covered in today’s @nytimes.com by @jackiesilverman.bsky.social and Alix Barasch shows that loss aversion drives us to maintain our streaks, and that’s a motive we can harness to build habits. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/31/w...

🚨NEW PAPER ALERT🚨
A field experiment w/ 13M federal student loan borrowers at risk of delinquency shows we can meaningfully reduce delinquencies with well-designed reminders. Work led by Rob Kuan (of Wharton). Read paper in @pnas.org: www.pnas.org/doi/epub/10....
What reminder ingredients matter?🧵

New open-access paper in Annual Review of Psychology with @mjbsp.bsky.social: “Ideology: Psychological Similarities and Differences Across the Ideological Spectrum Reexamined”

www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

In happy news, our paper, "Thinking about God increases intergroup prosociality even when conflict is salient", is now out in GPIR! Particularly excited that this paper includes two amazing Fijian collaborators who played integral roles in leading fieldwork! journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Thank you!!!