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William J. Brady @williambrady.bsky.social · 1d

Very difficult indeed. We study these types of issues empirically:

osf.io/preprints/os...

OSF

osf.io

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Reposted by William J. Brady

Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 7d

🚨 New preprint 🚨

Across 3 experiments (n = 3,285), we found that interacting with sycophantic (or overly agreeable) AI chatbots entrenched attitudes and led to inflated self-perceptions.

Yet, people preferred sycophantic chatbots and viewed them as unbiased!

osf.io/preprints/ps...

Thread 🧵

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William J. Brady @williambrady.bsky.social · 8d

Cool work! Did y'all look at how people update when they discover AI makes an error?

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Reposted by William J. Brady

Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 8d

Our new paper finds that AI can overcome partisan #bias

We find that AI sources are preferred over ingroup and outgroup sources--even when people know both are equally accurate (N = 1,600+): osf.io/preprints/ps...

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

missed you @baixuechunzi.bsky.social !

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

Thanks to our rotating organizers: lead organizer Tessa Charlesworth & co-organizers: @chujunlin.bsky.social Brent Hughes Xuechunzi Bai

Post any questions here!

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

We are now accepting submissions for posters and data blitz! If your research is computational (broadly construed) you should apply! We try to program for a wide range of topics and computational approaches.

Submission guide here: spsp.sharepoint.com/:w:/g/EdvejV...

Deadline: October 23rd 🎃

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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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Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel.bsky.social · Jul 13

Only a small % of people engage in toxic activity online, but they’re responsible for a disproportionate share of hostile or misleading content on nearly every platform

Because super-users are so active, they dominate our collective impression of the internet www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

Are a few people ruining the internet for the rest of us?

Why does the online world seem so toxic compared with normal life? Our research shows that a small number of divisive accounts could be responsible – and offers a way out

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by William J. Brady

Chris Bail @chrisbail.bsky.social · 10d

New dataset that describes social media activity of a very large group of US elected officials: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The digitally accountable public representation database: online communication by U.S. officials - Scientific Data

Scientific Data - The digitally accountable public representation database: online communication by U.S. officials

www.nature.com

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William J. Brady @williambrady.bsky.social · 10d

My proposed solution is to not write more 150 pg papers 🤣

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William J. Brady @williambrady.bsky.social · 10d

And here we are

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William J. Brady @williambrady.bsky.social · 11d

Really cool work led by @hongkai1.bsky.social ✨ observational and experimental studies finding that differentiation helps explain the evolution of negative discourse online!

Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 11d

🚨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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William J. Brady @williambrady.bsky.social · 12d

@aoc.bsky.social come hang out at Northwestern and we'll take you surfing on the great lakes!

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @aoc.bsky.social · 12d

I have been taking surfing lessons. Still in the beginner kook trenches, but celebrating my last time on a foam board 😎

Graduating to a hard top next session.

It’s fun to learn new things! Even if you look like a goober at the beginning. 🏄🏽‍♀️

Sitting on a surfboard in the ocean with an instructor.

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Reposted by William J. Brady

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @aoc.bsky.social · 12d

I have been taking surfing lessons. Still in the beginner kook trenches, but celebrating my last time on a foam board 😎

Graduating to a hard top next session.

It’s fun to learn new things! Even if you look like a goober at the beginning. 🏄🏽‍♀️

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Reposted by William J. Brady

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 16d

Yet again, machine learning — even gussied up via the transformer architecture — encodes and reinforces societal biases.

This study reveals that LLM-based peer review relies heavily on author institution in its decisions.

arxiv.org/abs/2509.15122

Prestige over merit: An adapted audit of LLM bias in peer review

Large language models (LLMs) are playing an increasingly integral, though largely informal, role in scholarly peer review. Yet it remains unclear whether LLMs reproduce the biases observed in human de...

arxiv.org

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

I suspect we are already at the point where students view writing a dissertation without LLMs the same as us millennials viewed writing a dissertation on a typewriter, i.e., unfathomable. No value judgment, just interesting how quickly that escalated.

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David Chester @davidchester.bsky.social · Sep 8

Attempts at reducing online aggression (ie, cruel Reddit comments) by increasing empathy (eg, "There is a human being on the other side who might be hurt by your words") tended to backfire. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Whom to pity, whom to scold? Effects of empathetic and normative AI-assisted interventions on aggressive Reddit users with different activity profiles

During a six-month experiment conducted on Reddit, we studied the impact of counter-speech interventions against personal attacks sent by 440 users re…

www.sciencedirect.com

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William J. Brady @williambrady.bsky.social · Aug 29

@unroll.skywriter.blue

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Reposted by William J. Brady

Rob Sica @robsica.bsky.social · Aug 25

"psychological biases to overestimate the influence of self-interest on others’ behaviors and to attribute malicious intentions to those who harm us may create inherent challenges for punishment to effectively promote cooperation"

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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Reposted by William J. Brady

Nour Kteily @nourkteily.bsky.social · Aug 14

Apply to the awesome DRRC postdoc position at Kellogg. Open to any scholar who studies conflict and cooperation, very broadly construed. We’ve had some amazing people come through over the years. Note the earlier application deadline this year (Nov 1)!

Dispute Resolution Research Center @drrc-kellogg.bsky.social · Aug 11

Apply now for Kellogg’s DRRC Postdoc Fellowship, which supports outstanding research in conflict and cooperation, offering dedicated time for scholarship, access to exceptional resources, and a vibrant academic community. Deadline: Nov 1.
t.co/UDZwJCqDw5

https://tinyurl.com/drrcpostdoc2025

t.co

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Reposted by William J. Brady

Eli Finkel @elijfinkel.bsky.social · Aug 25

📢JOB POSTING: Senior Director for the Center for Enlightened Disagreement (CED).📢

@nourkteily.bsky.social and I seek a strategic leader to help us build the Center (see ensuing post for information about CED).

Target salary range: $125,000-$155,000.

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careers.northwestern.edu/psc/hrnu_er/...

An error has occurred.

careers.northwestern.edu

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Thekla Morgenroth @theklamorgenroth.bsky.social · Aug 13

Check out our new pre-print in which we argue something that might be obvious but doesn't seem to be obvious to everyone: Large Language Models (such as ChatGPT) do not simulate human psychology.

Benjamin Paaßen @bpaassen.bsky.social · Aug 12

Large Language models (LLMs) do not simulate human psychology. That's the title of our new paper, available as preprint today (1/12):

arxiv.org/abs/2508.06950

Large Language Models Do Not Simulate Human Psychology

Large Language Models (LLMs),such as ChatGPT, are increasingly used in research, ranging from simple writing assistance to complex data annotation tasks. Recently, some research has suggested that LLM...

arxiv.org

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William J. Brady @williambrady.bsky.social · Aug 12

We have a really fun cross-disciplinary group of of faculty associated with DRRC you can work: www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/academics-re...

Dispute resolution research faculty, staff & postdoctoral fellows

Get to know Dispute Resolution Research Center faculty, postdoctoral fellows and affiliates at the Kellogg School of Management.

www.kellogg.northwestern.edu

William J. Brady @williambrady.bsky.social · Aug 12

Are you interested in topics related to conflict and intergroup relations *broadly construed*? Come join us as a postdoc in the Dispute Research Research Center! This position is up to 3 years, comes with your own research funding, and a phenomenal network of past DRRC postdocs.

Dispute Resolution Research Center @drrc-kellogg.bsky.social · Aug 11

Apply now for Kellogg’s DRRC Postdoc Fellowship, which supports outstanding research in conflict and cooperation, offering dedicated time for scholarship, access to exceptional resources, and a vibrant academic community. Deadline: Nov 1.
t.co/UDZwJCqDw5

https://tinyurl.com/drrcpostdoc2025

t.co

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