Sally Xie

Collaborative groups often outperform single individuals in complex problem solving. A new paper examined how to create the right incentives to promote this kind of collective intelligence.
www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10....

Health-focused frames mobilize Americans to action to address LGBTQ inequality | PNAS “More than 1 in 8 LGBTQ people live in states where doctors can refuse to treat them.” This headline describes a flurry of laws passed in 2025 allo...

New paper, led by Pia Dietze (newly on bsky! @piadietze.bsky.social) and Riana Brown (@rrrianabrown.bsky.social): www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

fun paper with an important message about common method variance:

ABSTRACT We report two studies investigating the relationship between political orientation, national identification and system support among members of discriminated groups within a nation. We used four cross-national datasets comprising several Western countries and more than 13,000 respondents who identified as members of discriminated groups in their respective nations. Study 2 was pre-registered and replicated the methods and analyses of Study 1. Results from both studies indicated that right-leaning individuals from discriminated groups were slightly more likely to be satisfied with the existing system but were equally likely to trust the system compared to their left-leaning counterparts. Furthermore, rightists showed higher levels of national identification. Across both studies, national identification was positively associated with both system satisfaction and trust and showed a significant indirect effect in the relationship between political orientation and system support. These findings suggest that increased system support among discriminated individuals may be partially associated with heightened national identification, which tends to co-occur with right-wing political orientation.

"Right-wing political orientation is positively associated with national identification even among individuals who are disadvantaged by the system."

New work by Luca Caricati: doi.org/10.1002/casp...

The individual-level precision of implicit measures - Behavior Research Methods Implicit measures are used extensively in psychological science. One fundamental goal of these measures is to provide information diagnostic of an individual’s attitudes or beliefs. After 25 years of ...

Just published in Behavior Research Methods:

The individual-level precision of implicit measures

w/ @ianhussey.mmmdata.io

🧵👇

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

Our paper on the ☀️ "summer slide" 🛝 is out now @pnas.org!
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Summer slide is a replicable phenomenon across diverse datasets that's more than "forgetting" school material in vacation months, but effects of socioeconomic inequality are ➡️ 7x bigger! ⬅️
#PsychSciSky #DevPsy
🧵👇

Screenshot of title page of an article published in Psychological Bulletin titled "Content Knowledge and Comprehension: A Meta-Analytic Review of Correlational and Causal Associations."

"These findings indicate that building and activating students’ knowledge across subject areas like science, history, and literature is crucial for improving reading skills and that..." (1/2) #PsychSciSky #AcademicSky #EduSky
doi.org/10.1037/bul0...

I like how this model introduces motivation, habits, and sociocultural and cultural factors into how we think about the development and deployment of executive functions. The framework calls into question how EF researchers have addressed these issues in the past. #PsychSciSky #AcademicSky #EduSky

Two hands reaching out toward each other against a golden sunset backdrop on a rocky hill.

📊 New #PSPB research: Embracing impartial beneficence - the principle that we should strive to improve others' well-being regardless of their relationship to us - does not preclude people from caring deeply about those close to them.

📑Read more: https://ow.ly/C9j350XIGzb

Silhouettes of six children holding hands and jumping joyfully against a sunset sky in a grassy field.

How do some children learn to eat some animals while continuing to care for others? New research suggests that this is caused by resolving the conflict between moral values and human cultural practices.

Read more in #SPPS: https://ow.ly/81NL50XHCS7

Empathy for and From Embodied Robots: An Interdisciplinary Review - C. Daryl Cameron, Alan R. Wagner, Martina Orlandi, Eliana Hadjiandreou, India G. Oates, Stephen Anderson, 2025 Several years ago, the world was stunned when the cute robot HitchBOT was destroyed. Does empathy for robots—sharing experiences and feeling compassion—make sen...

Excited to announce a new open-access EMP Lab paper on empathic AI: an interdisciplinary collaboration between psychology, philosophy, & engineering on motivated empathy expression and reception with social robots.
@ssripennstate.bsky.social
@psuliberalarts.bsky.social
@rockethics.bsky.social
1/n

How do humans keep inventing tools and technologies that no single person could create alone?

Our new preprint, led by
@anilyaman.bsky.social & @ts-brain.bsky.social
shows that semantic knowledge guides innovation and drives cultural evolution. 🧠📘 arxiv.org/abs/2510.12837

Thrilled to share this new preprint, co-authored with @peterlush.bsky.social and Chloé Fournier Bernard!

We offer a broad and structured discussion of leading methods developed in the past >60 years to tackle demand artifacts in psychological research and beyond.

doi.org/10.31234/osf...

Looking for some new reading!? 📖

A meta-analytic review and conceptual model of the antecedents and outcomes of goal adjustment in response to striving difficulties - Nature Human Behaviour This work systematically reviewed 235 studies (1,421 effect sizes) on goal disengagement, reengagement and flexibility. Results show unique antecedents and outcomes for each, but overall evidence quality was low to moderate. A conceptual model to consolidate the field is presented.

How do people disengage, reengage, and flexibly adapt goals? A new meta-analysis reviewed 235 studies (1,421 effects) on goal adjustment. A model that unifies the fragmented field is put forward. @nikosntoumanis.bsky.social‬

Crowded city crosswalk filled with diverse pedestrians moving in various directions during daytime.

Congrats to Abigail Cassario, one of the winners of SPSP's 2025 Student Publication Prize! Her research with Mark Brandt found minimal evidence that threats like unemployment, immigration, or COVID-19 shift people rightward.

Learn more: ow.ly/TunV50XhgP5

We have a new tutorial out in Social Cog methods issue, a resampling tool we made in R that basically tells you when some average is "stable" and can be used to guide data collection or test hypotheses related to variance. Quick explanation here
1/n

guilfordjournals.com/doi/10.1521/...

Parents of 0- to 12-year-olds, come do science with us!

We run short, game-like studies with kids. We offer in-person and online options, flexible scheduling (weekdays & weekends), and sessions that are fun for children and easy for caregivers.

I asked a similar qst a while ago! People recommended a few different options: bsky.app/profile/xall...
Personally decided to stick with jsPsych because I already had the infrastructure developed for it (and it's free forever). Bit of a learning curve for new trainees, but they get more out of it

Since the inception of scientific psychology in the 19th century, the lead in conceptualizing scientific phenomena has been taken by scholars in Western contexts (North America, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand), who comprise only 11% of the world’s population. Today, the science and practice of psychology continue to be dominated by Western theoretical perspectives. Recognizing the necessity for inclusive excellence in the field and the barriers that Majority World scholars face in joining the global knowledge economy, Personality and Social Psychology Review (PSPR) has taken several steps toward global inclusion. To further realize this goal, this Special Issue brings together nine contributions that reflect personality and social psychological theory rooted in diverse Majority World contexts, specifically stemming from African, Latin American, Middle Eastern, East and South Asian, and Indigenous American scholars. The contributions reflect several cross-cutting themes: the deeply historical contexts in which personality and social psychological phenomena play out in different geographies today; the important particularities of widely studied concepts in specific local contexts; and the dynamic interplay between individual people and the specificity of their social contexts. By curating indigenous concepts and theories, we aim to further catalyze dialogue across cultural distances in the field and to demonstrate how a decolonized editorial process can help promote inclusive science to improve the dominant perspectives in personality and social psychology.

"Re-imagining science and knowledge as pluriversal can expand the prevailing limited theoretical perspectives in social and personality psychology."

Introduction to PSPR Special Issue

@jadler.bsky.social

Looking to run more? A new paper by Emily Balcetis, Jordan Daley, Bradley Tao, &
Bryce Lexow highlights how to best finish that race! The takeaway? Runners get to the finish line by focusing on subgoals rather than the larger goal of completing the race

www.eurekalert.org/news-release...

New PSPR Special Issue Highlights Personality and Social Psychological Theory from the Majority World

📣Just announced: Personality and Social Psychology Review has published a Special Issue focused on elevating theoretical perspectives from non-Western societies in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

Learn more: ow.ly/6Z1O50X4Uug

Job alert: I'm hiring a postdoc for my lab at CU Boulder starting Fall 2026!

We study person perception, stereotyping & prejudice, and intervention science using behavioral & neuroimaging methods.

Link: jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta...

Review starts Nov 1 and continues until filled.

University of Colorado Boulder Psychology & Neuroscience is searching for TWO tenure track assistant professors!!

jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta...

#socialpsychology #cogpsyc #PsychSciSky #PsychJob
#psycjobs #psychology

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#AcademicSky #PsychSciSky

Led by @chopwood.bsky.social, team (including @joaograca.bsky.social) showed that, across many countries:

✳️ greater #speciesism is associated with more right-leaning political ideology

(effect strongest in U.S.)

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

Blurred figures of people crossing a city street at night under glowing streetlights and illuminated signs.

📊New research challenges assumptions about group favoritism. A study of 12K+ people across 45 non-Western countries finds economic inequality can lead people to favor advantaged outgroups over their own.

Read more in #SPPS: ow.ly/Bkpx50WVb2G

Confidence in absence as confidence in counterfactual visibility: a CogSci proceedings paper with star MSc student Maya Schipper, is now out on PsyArXiv:

osf.io/preprints/ps...

🧵👇

Who needs art history or Arfican American studies or cognitive science when you can learn how to amplify productivity with GenAI?

Headed to #CogSci2025 next week!

Interested in computational cognitive science applied to climate change and real-world policy? Come find me!

My lab at UCLA is recruiting 1–2 fully funded PhD students.

We work on:
• decision-making
• climate perception
• human–AI collaboration for policy design

Screenshot of title page of an article published in Educational Psychologist titled "How (much) do people revise their goals after success and failure? The Triple-A model of goal revision."

Meta-analytic support that success leads people to revise their goals upward and failure leads to downward revision. Very cool new model of the various moderators and mediators in these relationships, and what hypotheses follow. #PsychSciSky #AcademicSky #EduSky
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....