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William J. Brady

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by William J. Brady

williambrady.bsky.social
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, Lisa W. Fazio, Will Jennings , and 3 more

steverathje.bsky.social
🚨 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 🧵
Abstract and results summary
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by William J. Brady

williambrady.bsky.social
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

jayvanbavel.bsky.social
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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by William J. Brady

williambrady.bsky.social
missed you @baixuechunzi.bsky.social !
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by William J. Brady

williambrady.bsky.social
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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by William J. Brady

williambrady.bsky.social
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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by William J. Brady

williambrady.bsky.social
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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by William J. Brady

williambrady.bsky.social
My proposed solution is to not write more 150 pg papers 🤣
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Reposted by William J. Brady, Robert C. Richards, Étienne Ollion , and 1 more

chrisbail.bsky.social
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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by William J. Brady

williambrady.bsky.social
And here we are
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by William J. Brady

williambrady.bsky.social
Really cool work led by @hongkai1.bsky.social ✨ observational and experimental studies finding that differentiation helps explain the evolution of negative discourse online!
joshcjackson.bsky.social
Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 15d
🚨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 William J. Brady

joshcjackson.bsky.social
🚨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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by William J. Brady

williambrady.bsky.social
@aoc.bsky.social come hang out at Northwestern and we'll take you surfing on the great lakes!
aoc.bsky.social
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @aoc.bsky.social · 16d
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. 🏄🏽‍♀️
Me surfing a wave in the Rockaways. Sitting on a surfboard in the ocean with an instructor.
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Reposted by William J. Brady, Colin F. Camerer, Iain Davidson , and 3 more

aoc.bsky.social
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. 🏄🏽‍♀️
Me surfing a wave in the Rockaways. Sitting on a surfboard in the ocean with an instructor.
1K 1.2K 27K

by Carl T. Bergstrom — Reposted by William J. Brady, Rosemary A. Joyce, Martin Paul Eve , and 2 more

carlbergstrom.com
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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by William J. Brady

williambrady.bsky.social
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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by David Chester — Reposted by William J. Brady

davidchester.bsky.social
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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by William J. Brady

williambrady.bsky.social
@unroll.skywriter.blue
1

Reposted by William J. Brady, Gordon Hodson, Nour Kteily

elijfinkel.bsky.social
📢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.

1/2

careers.northwestern.edu/psc/hrnu_er/...
An error has occurred.
careers.northwestern.edu
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Reposted by William J. Brady

robsica.bsky.social
"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
5 9

by Nour Kteily — Reposted by William J. Brady, Michael W. Kraus

nourkteily.bsky.social
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)!
drrc-kellogg.bsky.social
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
5 6

Reposted by William J. Brady, Patrick S. Forscher, Patrick Präg

bpaassen.bsky.social
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
3 45 130

by William J. Brady

williambrady.bsky.social
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

by William J. Brady — Reposted by Gordon Pennycook, Gordon Hodson, Linda J. Skitka , and 4 more

williambrady.bsky.social
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.
drrc-kellogg.bsky.social
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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by William J. Brady — Reposted by Mark J. Brandt, Nour Kteily

drrc-kellogg.bsky.social
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
1 2

Reposted by William J. Brady, David G. Rand

amit-goldenberg.bsky.social
🔖 NEW PAPER ALERT 🔖 Out in PNAS – we used equation discovery algorithms to improve models of human reinforcement learning.

Led by the wonderful Kyle Lafollette with an amazing team Yanni Yuval @roeyschurr.bsky.social and @d-melnikoff.bsky.social

www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10....
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...
www.pnas.org
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by William J. Brady — Reposted by Sylvia Perry

williambrady.bsky.social
Had a great time teaching a CSS workshop at SISPP - thanks to all the students and organizers! Future of social psych is looking bright 😎
sylviapperry.bsky.social
Sylvia Perry @sylviapperry.bsky.social · Jul 28
Thanks, Michael! Thanks to my co-chair Shige Oishe for help with planning; the SISPP committee @proftracy.bsky.social , @mocraig.bsky.social, Niall Bolger,& Arianne Eason; and of course Rachel Puffer at @spspnews.bsky.social for her leadership! It took a village & years to plan this fantastic event.
mwkraus.bsky.social
Michael W. Kraus @mwkraus.bsky.social · Jul 28
Had such a great time at #SISPP2025! Thank you to @sylviapperry.bsky.social for being our local problem solver and to @spspnews.bsky.social for putting together such a one-of-a-kind experience for students.

I've posted our syllabus and a teaching note online: www.michaelwkraus.com/teaching
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Reposted by William J. Brady, Mark J. Brandt, Michael W. Kraus , and 1 more

sylviapperry.bsky.social
Thanks, Michael! Thanks to my co-chair Shige Oishe for help with planning; the SISPP committee @proftracy.bsky.social , @mocraig.bsky.social, Niall Bolger,& Arianne Eason; and of course Rachel Puffer at @spspnews.bsky.social for her leadership! It took a village & years to plan this fantastic event.
mwkraus.bsky.social
Michael W. Kraus @mwkraus.bsky.social · Jul 28
Had such a great time at #SISPP2025! Thank you to @sylviapperry.bsky.social for being our local problem solver and to @spspnews.bsky.social for putting together such a one-of-a-kind experience for students.

I've posted our syllabus and a teaching note online: www.michaelwkraus.com/teaching
haniehnaeimi.bsky.social
Hanieh Naeimi @haniehnaeimi.bsky.social · Jul 25
Grateful for my time at the Summer Institute for Social and Personality Psychology. The inequality course expanded my perspectives and helped me meet lifelong friends 💙Huge thank you to our incredible instructors @mwkraus.bsky.social & @jruckpsych.bsky.social for making it so impactful #SISPP2025
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Reposted by William J. Brady

xehu.bsky.social
If you're at @aomconnect.bsky.social #AOM2025, come check out our panel on NLP in organizations, featuring @dholtz.bsky.social, Sameer Srivastava, @williambrady.bsky.social, @mikeyeomans.bsky.social & me! We'll explore topics including hiring, cooperation, agency, and moral outrage -- don't miss it!
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References

Fields & subjects

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