Tara

Heading to the Moral Media conference this weekend in Gainesville. I’m presenting a poster and speaking on a panel. Poster is an ongoing horror movie study looking at dark trait activation, morality, and embodied fear. The panel talk is on Machiavellianism in action movie characters.

Oh absolutely! It’s a distinct affective state. Spooky and eeriness uses fear imagery without actual threat, which creates a different phenomenology than fear or terror.

Social psych friends, please help me out with a class discussion by responding to the following (and sharing):

What do you see as the biggest challenge for social and personality psychology in the immediate future? What should we as a field be doing better than we are now?

There isn’t a formal term in psych defining spookiness. But I would define it as fear cues in a safe context. Things that can signal danger themes, but the environment tells you you’re safe. So you get low-level arousal without real threat, which actually supports social play and bonding.

A small candlelit toast tonight to our Emotion paper finally going live.
So grateful for an incredible team and for the years of work behind this project. Honored to be part of this research. #psychology #socialpsych

🚨New Publication in Emotion
Haunted Attraction: The Effects of Recreational Fear on Interpersonal Bonding

Do scary experiences bring people closer?
People feel closer when they experience more fear: post-experience storytelling & reflection may be why

🔗 doi.org/10.1037/emo0...

#psychology #fear

Officially presenting my first symposium at SSSP next month!
So excited to join Dr. Marina Klimenko, Dr. Greg Webster, and Amy Pezzoldt for our session “Antiheroes, Romance Movies, and Parasocial Bonds : Personality and Culture in Media Engagement.”

(PDF) People update their injunctive norm beliefs and moral judgements after receiving descriptive norm information PDF | Recent work suggests there is an association between descriptive norms—what we think other people commonly do—and injunctive norms—what we think... | Find, read and cite all the research you nee...

People update their moral beliefs after learning what’s common.
So what happens when ‘common’ is defined by algorithms?
Are we building moral consensus or moral confusion? www.researchgate.net/publication/...

This paper is now assigned to an issue. The dark side of clarity. Southern Journal of Philosophy. 63(3): 429-443. doi.org/10.1111/sjp....

This week, I had the incredible opportunity to represent USF on Fox 13’s Charley’s World at Busch Gardens’ Howl-O-Scream!
We talked about the psychology of fear and why people love being scared. www-fox13news-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.fox1...

New research suggests we shift our moral compass more when we see behaviors as common rather than rare.
Makes you wonder: how much of morality is conviction, and how much is consensus?

Call for papers: Philosophy through Art, Games, and Fiction think.taylorandfranc... Guest editor: Lisa Bortolotti. Deadline: 31 July 2026. Submit your work! #philsky #philpsy

Tomorrow morning I’ll be on Fox 13 Tampa Bay with Charley’s World, live from Busch Gardens’ Howl-O-Scream. I’ll be sharing insights from psychology on why people love being scared. Tune in ~8:25 AM ET.

#Psychology #RecreationalFear #HowlOScream #USF

Developmental changes in the perceived moral standing of robots Emerging evidence suggests that children may think of robots—and artificial intelligence, more generally—as having moral standing. In this paper, we t…

Developmental changes in the perceived moral standing of robots

📣New work from Madeline G. Reinecke, Matti Wilks & Paul Bloom

Fascinating thread. One thought on outrage: it can be exploited, like many processes, but that doesn't mean outrage itself is bad. I've argued it can be constructive if used wisely, am exploring this with my student Faruk. Issue here seems to be digital literacy
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Psychedelics Have a Placebo Problem How do you study mind-altering drugs when everyone knows they’re tripping?

I spoke with The Atlantic about psychedelics, RCTs and unblinding, a timely discussion before tomorrow's FDA PDAC meeting.

www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

#Academicsky
#ClinPsych
#ClinicalPsychologist
#clinicalpsychsky
#mentalhealth
#PsychSciSky
#psychology
#psychiatry
#neuroskyence
#PhilSci

This made me smile - we all know the type 😁
#edgarallenpoe #theraven #literature #smile #passiveagressive #psychology

When you proof read an important introductory email multiple times but then forget the salutation 🤦‍♀️ Now do I resend the email with the Dear X, or do I just run the risk of being perceived as rude. #adhd

When your psych lab is studying recreational fear you gotta keep it going year round.

Not looking to spark a fight.... but in perusing psych papers on conspiracy theories or beliefs, there is often no clear conceptualization or definition given.

Seems a bit problematic from a construct point of view.

Or maybe this is proof of a vast psych'l conspiracy to take over the world....

The start of 2024 means exciting times for the Consortium on Moral Decision-Making! Here's a piece by EMP Lab member Eliana Hadjiandreou about our aims & work. Reach out to get involved!
@spspnews.bsky.social @affectscience.bsky.social @psychscience.bsky.social
rockethics.psu.edu/news/new-con...

I am presenting at SPSP 2024 Annual Convention. Please check out my poster if you're attending the event! #SPSP2024

The Realistic Promise of Multiparty Democracy in the United States A collection of essays show the importance of political parties, the benefits of having more than two, and a path to multiparty democracy.

Honored to be part of this New America report on prospects for US multiparty democracy, with my former graduate student Jennifer Wendling. www.newamerica.org/political-re...

Put in your own prompts into chat gpt. It consistently uses fairly repetitive verbiage and phrases that could help you pick out some of the more blatant copy and pastes from ai.

Thank you :)
On the other note, I wouldn’t even know how to respond if someone asked me to write my own letter of recommendation. I didn’t even know that was something that happened.

Chiming in as an undergrad soon to be applying… Asking someone to write a letter that doesn’t know a student well is somewhat pointless. A transcript would reflect that they got an A. However, knowing that I need 3 letters has made me try to forge more relationships with more professors.

Only Bluesky is deserving of my awesome social psychology memes. (I am studying for my psych final & have gone insane)

My first Publication—
Rise of the Anti-Hero: Comparison of Moral Ambiguity in Films.
There seems to be a growing trend of increased representations of the antihero trope. doi.org/10.32473/ufj...