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Reposted by Joshua Conrad Jackson

Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 1d

Has anything great happened in your life because of social media?

Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 1d

You can submit applications here: spsp.wufoo.com/forms/2026-p...

Please share with any students/colleagues who are not on bluesky but have relevant work!

2026 Preconference Submission Portal

Use this submission form for all preconference submissions. Select your preconference first as this may change submission fields. The submission guide can be found here . You may submit to multi...

spsp.wufoo.com

Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 1d

🚨Historical Psych Pre-Conference🚨

We have a great lineup of speakers for the #SPSP2026 edition!

Submit your poster or data blitz abstract by Oct. 23 (link below!). Open to folks from any career stage

Any research on psychological change or historical context of social psych is welcome!

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Reposted by Joshua Conrad Jackson

Diego Reinero, Ph.D. @diegoreinero.bsky.social · 1d

We're accepting poster & data blitz abstract submissions from all career stages. If your work is broadly related to morality, you should apply! We welcome a wide range of topics and approaches.

Submit here: spsp.wufoo.com/forms/2026-p...

Deadline to submit an abstract: Oct. 23.

2026 Preconference Submission Portal

Use this submission form for all preconference submissions. Select your preconference first as this may change submission fields. The submission guide can be found here . You may submit to multi...

spsp.wufoo.com

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Reposted by Joshua Conrad Jackson

Nour Kteily @nourkteily.bsky.social · 2d

@elijfinkel.bsky.social
& I are recruiting a postdoc in the #LitowitzCenter for Enlightened Disagreement at Northwestern University. We seek research excellence regarding navigating conflict.

Application deadline: Nov. 17.

Salary: ~$80k.

facultyrecruiting.northwestern.edu/apply/MjQzNw==

Northwestern Faculty Search -

facultyrecruiting.northwestern.edu

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Reposted by Joshua Conrad Jackson

Alejandro Pérez Velilla @apvelilla.bsky.social · 12d

I am happy to announce that our project on risk and social learning is now in press at Psychological Review. Several new additions and revisions thanks to detailed feedback from colleagues and anonymous reviewers. osf.io/preprints/so...
@psmaldino.bsky.social @babeheim.bsky.social

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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 12d

Check out the whole paper for many more findings, robustness checks, and to see the work of a rising 💫 @hongkai1.bsky.social

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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 12d

Coolest evidence for differentiation as a cause might be an experiment (n=4000) simulating a comment thread

Incentivizing comment uniqueness (but not conformity) leads negative discourse to rise over time

Coauthored w @williambrady.bsky.social, @ycleong.bsky.social, Yutong Jiang, and Alex Koch

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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 12d

🚨New preprint🚨

osf.io/preprints/ps...

In a sample of ~2 billion comments, social media discourse becomes more negative over time

Archival and experimental findings suggest this is a byproduct of people trying to differentiate themselves

Led by @hongkai1.bsky.social in his 1st year (!) of his PhD

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Reposted by Joshua Conrad Jackson

Nava Caluori @ncaluori.bsky.social · 21d

The @spspnews.bsky.social Religion & Spirituality Preconference is accepting applications for talks, data blitzes, & posters until 10/23! We're excited to hear from Kathleen Corriveau, @alexandraworm.bsky.social, @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social & @joshcjackson.bsky.social. More info: tinyurl.com/33x9za7r

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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 22d

One of my favorite conferences, @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social, just released key dates and other info!

I highly recommend checking it out for great research from across the social, behavioral, and natural sciences

Cultural Evolution Society @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social · 26d

The count down starts for #CESRabat! Follow @ces2026.bsky.social and join us May 11-13 next year for an exciting meeting in Rabat, Morocco.

Massive thanks to the #CESRabat organising committee:
Sarah Alami (co-chair)
Mathieu Charbonneau (co-chair)
Zachary Garfield
Edmond Seabright

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Reposted by Joshua Conrad Jackson

Helena Miton @helenamiton.bsky.social · 29d

🚨 New paper alert! (slightly belated)

We (with @joshcjackson.bsky.social) suggest that complex technologies, as they need several (often many) people to use them, require innovations that distribute cognition to help regulate cognitive load and coordinate.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Complex technology requires cultural innovations for distributing cognition

Over the last decade, new research has shown how human collectives can develop technologies that no single individual could discover on their own. How…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Reposted by Joshua Conrad Jackson

Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · Sep 2

Below is my new post about our Three Stages of Religious Decline paper (www.nature.com/articles/s41...).

We argue that a similar process of decline affects countries on every populated continent, including countries in which Christianity, Islam, Buddhism or Hinduism is the largest religion.

A🧵

How religion declines around the world

A country’s religious affiliation tends to decline in three transitional stages that unfold across generations, a new paper using Center data proposes.

www.pewresearch.org

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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · Sep 5

@helenamiton.bsky.social and I have a new paper out:

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Past theories focus on how we evolve complex technologies (jet engines), but neglect cultural innovations that help us operate these technologies (pilot checklist)

Paper has tons of examples and new theory!

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Reposted by Joshua Conrad Jackson

William J. Brady @williambrady.bsky.social · Jul 22

Social media often feels saturated with politics and morality - but is that feeling accurate? Our new paper finds that moralization has increased markedly on social media from 2013-2021, more than traditional media. See 🧵 below!

Curtis Puryear @curtispuryear.bsky.social · Jul 22

New preprint! We developed new measurement tools to examine moralization in ~2B Twitter/X & Reddit posts and ~5M traditional media texts.

Key finding: moralization increased markedly on social media from 2013-2021; more than traditional media; associated with multiple user dynamics
🧵👇

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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · Jul 22

One of the largest-scale analyses of historical text data that I have contributed to

The finding: language on social media has become more moralized over the 21st century; we don't see the same trends on news media

Kudos to the first author @curtispuryear.bsky.social on the enormous effort

Curtis Puryear @curtispuryear.bsky.social · Jul 22

New preprint! We developed new measurement tools to examine moralization in ~2B Twitter/X & Reddit posts and ~5M traditional media texts.

Key finding: moralization increased markedly on social media from 2013-2021; more than traditional media; associated with multiple user dynamics
🧵👇

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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · Jul 22

Alex Koch contributed endless theoretical insights over two years

Tessa Charlesworth gave some of the most useful and thorough comments I have ever read

And @andyluttrell.bsky.social pushed this paper to the point it is now

Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · Jul 22

I also want to recognize the authors once more:

@yuanzeliu.bsky.social completed this massive project as a pre-doc, which speaks to his promise as a scholar

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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · Jul 22

Our general discussion covers this framework in great depth, and uses it to make tentative inferences about all of our findings

This is a working paper, so any feedback would be helpful!

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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · Jul 22

- When social dilemmas change, trait language changes -

Example: The rising division of labor over the last 200 years has meant that people are selected on specific competences

This might be one reason why agency language has become more semantically heterogeneous

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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · Jul 22

- We use trait words as diagnostic tools for prediction -

Example: We may have many negative communal words because cooperation is common, so it is more diagnostic to communicate about deviations from cooperation

But since skill is rare in most domains, we have many positive words about agency

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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · Jul 22

- Trait words reflect the nature of social dilemmas -

Example: We view three of the FACT dimensions as mapping onto classic social dilemmas identified in game theory

-Communion ➡️ cooperation
-Traditionalism ➡️ coordination
-Agency ➡️ whether people can cooperate and coordinate

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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · Jul 22

Our approach makes several simple assumptions that encompass our different findings

1. Trait words reflect the nature of social dilemmas

2. We use trait words as diagnostic tools for prediction in these dilemmas

3. When social dilemmas change, we also change our trait language

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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · Jul 22

The general discussion of our paper reviews these findings using a new “functional constructionist” approach to trait words, building on past work in emotion

Functional ➡️ trait words are useful
Constructionist ➡️ There is no single trait space

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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · Jul 22

We find that communion words are converging in semantic space—extending work on the collapse of morality into a single dimension (cdr.lib.unc.edu/downloads/g7...)

But words about agency/competence are diverging in semantic space. They are becoming less related to each other over time

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