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Reposted by Leor Hackel

Jean Luo @jeanieluo.bsky.social · 6d

Very excited to share that my first paper, with Peter Mende-Siedlecki and @leorhackel.bsky.social, is out now in @commspsychol.nature.com! ☺️

Can getting more rewards make you feel more skilled, even if your performance doesn't change?

www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Rewards bias self-evaluations of ability - Communications Psychology

People often receive rewards for good performance, but what happens when rewards do not reflect ability? Two behavioral studies suggest that rewards can impact how we evaluate our own ability, above and beyond the impact of actual performance.

www.nature.com

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Leor Hackel @leorhackel.bsky.social · 15d

New work led by the brilliant @yizhang96.bsky.social:

In lab experiments and naturalistic groups, people generalize perceptions of acceptance and rejection across social network ties.

Yi Zhang @yizhang96.bsky.social · 16d

New paper out in Journal of Experimental Social Psychology! 🎉

How do we figure out who will accept or reject us in a new group?

We show that people generalize relational value across friendship ties—forming a network gradient of approach & avoidance.

authors.elsevier.com/a/1lq3x51f8w...

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Reposted by Leor Hackel

Yi Zhang @yizhang96.bsky.social · 16d

New paper out in Journal of Experimental Social Psychology! 🎉

How do we figure out who will accept or reject us in a new group?

We show that people generalize relational value across friendship ties—forming a network gradient of approach & avoidance.

authors.elsevier.com/a/1lq3x51f8w...

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Reposted by Leor Hackel

Linas Nasvytis @linasnasvytis.bsky.social · 23d

🚨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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Reposted by Leor Hackel

Brandon C Davidson @bcdavidson.bsky.social · 24d

🚨 New Preprint 🚨

Prolonged Isolation is associated with an increased behavioural sensitivity to ‘Likes’ on social media.

🧵

Social media rewards are inherently social—but does posting change during social isolation, when in-person social rewards are limited?

It turns out, yes!

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Reposted by Leor Hackel

Mara Mather @maramather.bsky.social · 24d

We are hiring a full time project assistant! Please forward to any bright, curious team players you know who might be interested in applying:

usc.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/ExternalUSCC...

Project Assistant (Fixed-Term)

The University of Southern California (USC), founded in 1880, is located in the heart of downtown Los Angeles and is the largest private employer in the City of Los Angeles. USC is consistently ranked...

usc.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com

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Reposted by Leor Hackel

Ido Ben-Artzi @idoba.bsky.social · Sep 2

Excited to share our new preprint! 🚨
Does human learning have an automatic aspect? Is it possible that we learn things that are counterproductive and only lead to reduced gains?

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Leor Hackel @leorhackel.bsky.social · Jul 30

Thanks Benedek!

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Reposted by Leor Hackel

Uri Hertz @urihertz.bsky.social · Jul 30

Hi friends - new paper! about the cognitive mechanisms underlying social categorization and polarization. "Increased complexity of social category markers leads to diverse rule-based categorizations and reduced intergroup bias" more below... royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Increased complexity of social category markers leads to diverse rule-based categorizations and reduced intergroup bias | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Social categories are key to human social life, often leading to intergroup bias and stereotypes. While traditional studies use binary social markers, real-world markers are more complex. This study e...

royalsocietypublishing.org

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Leor Hackel @leorhackel.bsky.social · Jul 30

Our latest paper, led by @yizhang96.bsky.social, finds Pavlovian learning shapes empathy:

People can link another person's abstract mental states—like feeling good or bad—with reward. This shapes empathy in new situations where those feelings are perceived.

Yi Zhang @yizhang96.bsky.social · Jul 30

🥳Excited to share that our new paper is live at Psychological Science @psychscience.bsky.social! We show that Pavlovian learning can grow empathy for another person. 🧵👇

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Reposted by Leor Hackel

Yi Zhang @yizhang96.bsky.social · Jul 30

🥳Excited to share that our new paper is live at Psychological Science @psychscience.bsky.social! We show that Pavlovian learning can grow empathy for another person. 🧵👇

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Leor Hackel @leorhackel.bsky.social · Jul 29

We are recruiting a joint lab manager at USC! (80% of time with @elisabaek.bsky.social, 20% of time in my lab).

Our labs study social connection and social learning/decision-making using social neuro, social cognition, and computational modeling approaches.

Please share!

Elisa Baek @elisabaek.bsky.social · Jul 28

🚨We are recruiting a lab manager who will spend 80% of their effort in my lab and 20% of their effort in @leorhackel.bsky.social's lab. Please share widely!

Apply at usccareers.usc.edu/job/los-ange... with:
completed questionnaire (socolab.org/lab-manager-application), CV & Cover Letter!

Home | Social Connection Lab

The Social Connection Lab ("SoCoLab") at USC investigates what helps people feel socially connected to one another.

socolab.org

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Reposted by Leor Hackel

Isabella Kahhale @isabellakahhale.bsky.social · Jul 7

🚨New paper now out in Emotion!! As a post-bacc, Dr. Jamil Zaki & @leorhackel.bsky.social supported me in developing my own research project. 7+ years later, I received notice of publication acceptance the day before my dissertation defense🥲 Check out abstract and DM for PDF access!

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Reposted by Leor Hackel

Yuan Chang Leong @ycleong.bsky.social · Jul 2

Excited to share our new review on how neuroimaging and computational models can help uncover how people see what they want to see, now out at @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social! It was a blast writing this with Haena Kim and @iancballard.bsky.social

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

A neurocomputational account of motivated seeing

Do goals, beliefs, and desires affect visual experience? This question has long been controversial in cognitive science. There exists extensive litera…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Reposted by Leor Hackel

Benedek Kurdi @benedek.bsky.social · Jun 21

Paper in @pnas.org in which @d-melnikoff.bsky.social and I provide evidence for model-based effects on automatic evaluation. This was a super fun “adversarial” collaboration with 0 adversariality. It may have been nice to be right, but getting it right is nearly as nice: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

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Reposted by Leor Hackel

Trends in Cognitive Sciences @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social · Jun 18

The value of ecologically irrelevant animal cognition research

Opinion by Scarlett Howard
tinyurl.com/37aedmfx

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Reposted by Leor Hackel

Begüm Babür @begumbabur.bsky.social · Jun 9

I wrote about our new research on how the brain learns from social rejection — and why that matters for connection

👉 theconversation.com/your-brain-l...

Your brain learns from rejection − here’s how it becomes your compass for connection

Rejection can feel physically painful. It also provides a lesson for your brain on whom to connect with and how.

theconversation.com

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Reposted by Leor Hackel

David Amodio @davidamodio.bsky.social · May 12

I’m thrilled to share my new paper on impression formation & updating in @natrevpsychol.nature.com!

In it, I argue that impression formation is fundamentally a learning process. And as such, theories of impression formation should be based on mechanisms of learning and memory.

Some key take-aways:

A learning and memory account of impression formation and updating - Nature Reviews Psychology

Impression formation occurs when a perceiver infers another person’s traits, goals and preferences and forms an attitude towards that person. In this Perspective, Amodio describes the unique and inter...

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Leor Hackel

Nature Reviews Psychology @natrevpsychol.nature.com · Apr 29

A learning and memory account of impression formation and updating

Perspective by David M. Amodio (@davidamodio.bsky.social)

Web: go.nature.com/3YTubx3
PDF: rdcu.be/ejREM

#psychology #psychscisky

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Leor Hackel @leorhackel.bsky.social · Apr 10

Congrats, Steve!!

Reposted by Leor Hackel

Helen Schmidt @helen-schmidt.bsky.social · Mar 7

Thrilled to share that my first, first-author paper is out now!

Using an episode of 'Survivor', we find that distinct features of conversation – semantic similarity, emotional tone, and confidence – strongly inform observers about underlying social relationships.

link.springer.com/article/10.3...

Conversational linguistic features inform social-relational inference - Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

Whether it is the first day of school or a new job, individuals often find themselves in situations where they must learn the structure of existing social relationships. However, the mechanisms throug...

link.springer.com

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Reposted by Leor Hackel

William J. Brady @williambrady.bsky.social · Feb 14

👀New preprint! In 3 prereg experiments we study how engagement-based algorithms amplify ingroup, moral and emotional (IME) content in ways that disrupt social norm learning (and test one solution!) w/ @joshcjackson.bsky.social and my amazing lab managers
@merielcd.bsky.social
& Silvan Baier 🧵👇

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Leor Hackel @leorhackel.bsky.social · Jan 21

If you’re a grad student or postdoc & would be interested in giving a virtual talk in our lab this semester, please email me!

We work on social learning and choice, and work broadly relevant to reward/motivation, social cognition/connection, and/or prosociality would be of interest to our group.

Social Learning & Choice Lab | Hackel Lab

The SLAC Lab investigates how we learn and make decisions in social interactions across behavior, the mind, and the brain. @ USC Department of Psychology

hackellab.org

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Reposted by Leor Hackel

Michael Gilead @michaelgilead.bsky.social · Dec 9

🚨Thrilled to share our new study, led By Dr. Inon Raz, in Cerebral Cortex🚨: "The Future, Before, and After".
The ability to imagine things we haven’t done before is one of the hallmarks of human cognition. How do we do it?

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Reposted by Leor Hackel

William J. Brady @williambrady.bsky.social · Nov 28

New paper out in @ScienceMagazine! In 8 studies (multiple platforms, methods, time periods) we find: misinformation evokes more outrage than trustworthy news, when it does it's shared more + ppl are less likely to read before sharing. w/ @killianmcl1 @Klonick @mollycrockett 🧵👇

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