Jonas R. Kunst

"Eighty percent of Americans said voters have a responsibility to keep up with the news, but just 8% said they had a responsibility to pay for it." www.semafor.com/newsletter/0...

📝 New preprint on the threat of cyborg propaganda to democracy.

We discuss how the key divide in online influence is no longer bots vs humans. We are entering an era of 'cyborg propaganda':

Verified human identities disseminate centrally generated, AI-crafted narratives 🧵

osf.io/preprints/ps...

Job Opportunity at the University of Kent: Lecturer in Psychology The School of Psychology is seeking to appoint a Lecturer in Psychology and a Lecturer in Psychology focusing on Cognition and Neuroscience  to join a collegial, supportive, and intellectually vibrant...

Kent Psychology is hiring 🎓We have two posts: 1) open area and 2) cog neuro. More details can be found here: jobs.kent.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx... Feel free to reach out with questions!

Jon Roozenbeek, @daniel-thilo.bsky.social, @jayvanbavel.bsky.social, @profsanderlinden.bsky.social , @rorywh.bsky.social, and Live Leonhardsen Wilhelmsen.

The preprint is available here:
doi.org/10.31234/osf...

Thankful for another fruitful collaboration with @kbierwiaczonek.bsky.social, Meeyoung Cha, @omidvebrahimi.bsky.social, Marc Fawcett-Atkinson, Asbjørn Følstad, @antongollwitzer.bsky.social, @nckobis.bsky.social, @garymarcus.bsky.social,

📉 The Result: A coordinated campaign that looks like spontaneous, organic public sentiment, effectively bypassing current bot detection filters.

This raises a massive regulatory paradox: How do you regulate coordinated inauthentic behavior when the "bot" is a real citizen exercising free speech?

The Operational Workflow of Cyborg Propaganda. Cyborg propaganda utilizes an AI multiplier to scale distinctiveness. A central coordination hub issues a single strategic directive (e.g., “Oppose the new tax bill”). This coordination hub may retrieve data from an AI system monitoring emerging narratives and shifts on social media. The hub may vary in terms of automation versus human involvement. To overcome recruitment bottlenecks, the system utilizes network harvesting, where users are incentivized to supply data on friends and neighbors, linking private social graphs with public voter registries. An AI-driven multiplier engine then processes the operative directive alongside individual user profiles, analyzing their posting history, syntax, and background characteristics of each participant. The system generates thousands of unique, context-aware message variations, effectively performing ‘style transfer’ to match each user’s voice. Simultaneously, the system may employ gamification or monetary rewards to incentivize user engagement. Verified human users then ratify and broadcast these posts or comments. The resulting information cascade creates a manufactured consensus that exhibits the linguistic diversity of a genuine grassroots movement, thereby bypassing duplicate-content filters and signaling authenticity to social peers. Crucially, the system operates as a closed feedback loop: The AI Monitor continuously tracks the performance of these posts or comments on social media, feeding engagement data back into the organizer directive to adjust strategy in real-time. Simultaneously, successful narratives are harvested to reinforce and fine-tune the AI Multiplier to produce increasingly persuasive content in subsequent cycles.

The Core Mechanism:

🤖 The Tech: A central "organizer" sends a directive. An AI multiplier generates thousands of unique, style-matched captions.

👨 The Human: Real, verified users review and click "post".

In our new perspective paper (preprint), my colleagues and I explore how partisan apps and Generative AI are creating a new architecture of influence. This isn’t about fake accounts; it is about verified humans using AI-generated scripts.

The Matrix of Coordinated Influence. Traditional frameworks for analyzing online influence focus on the distinction between human and automated actors (Identity Axis) or between spontaneous and coordinated behavior (Articulation Axis). Bot Nets (top-left) rely on synthetic identities and automated scripts. Troll Farms (bottom-left) use human operators to manage fake personas. Grassroots Action (bottom-right) involves verified citizens sharing self-authored views. Cyborg Propaganda (top-right) represents a new paradigm: verified human users disseminating centrally generated, algorithmically generated narratives, effectively ‘hybridizing’ the authenticity of the grassroots with the scale of the botnet.

The distinction between grassroots activism and automated influence is collapsing.

We typically worry about "bot farms" or "troll factories." But a distinct, more complex threat is emerging. We call it "Cyborg Propaganda."

Thrilled to announce the Oxford Psychological Networks Summer School (OxPNS)!

This is the first-ever psychological network analysis workshop in the UK, to be held in magical Oxford from June 22-26, 2026.

To apply and for more information, please visit: oxfordpns.com

A brief thread 🧵

Race, memory, and colorblindness: Critical history and deconstructing United States democracy How colorblind history fuels authoritarianism—and how critical racial memory can build a stronger, more equitable democracy.

Publication Alert: Deconstructing the "Secure" Narrative of U.S. Democracy

Many believe that recent authoritarian rhetoric in the United States is a sudden departure from a historically secure democracy. But has it ever been as stable as we think?

advances.in/psychology/1...

We have a new paper in Science today on how malicious AI swarms can threaten democracy.

AI systems can already coordinate autonomously, infiltrate communities, and fabricate social consensus.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Led by @kunstjonas.bsky.social & @daniel-thilo.bsky.social!

The politics of well-being during democratic backsliding: How partisan affiliation and support for government actions relate to happiness and life satisfaction Do politics shape happiness? Evidence from 5-week tracking links policy support to well-being amid democratic backsliding in the U.S.

advances.in/psychology/1...

Resilience or Complacency? While Republicans reported a steady increase in well-being during the start of Trump’s second term, Democrats showed a "rebound" pattern. Does returning to a higher state of well-being provide the strength to persist or reflect complacency?

Study link in comments.

Really insightful work! Congrats to the authors. This is an excellent contribution.

The politics of well-being during democratic backsliding: How partisan affiliation and support for government actions relate to happiness and life satisfaction Do politics shape happiness? Evidence from 5-week tracking links policy support to well-being amid democratic backsliding in the U.S.

📰 New Research: The Politics of Well-Being during Democratic Backsliding

@djwu.bsky.social ky.social, @kyleflaw.com, @stysyropoulos.bsky.social y.social, and @sylviapperry.bsky.social show striking partisan differences in well-being during Trump’s second term.

advances.in/psychology/1...

Voices behind walking the talk: Quantified qualitative insights on D&I policy support reasoning Champions and Bystanders: data-driven profiles explain D&I uptake. Learn the motives behind support, the role of managers, and how to turn intent into action.

advances.in/psychology/1...

Many D&I strategies fail because they assume a "one size fits all" mindset. New data-driven research identifies 5 different response types to D&I policies: Champions, Reluctants, Ambivalents, Bystanders, and Opponents.

Link to paper in comments.

Voices behind walking the talk: Quantified qualitative insights on D&I policy support reasoning Champions and Bystanders: data-driven profiles explain D&I uptake. Learn the motives behind support, the role of managers, and how to turn intent into action.

Are you a Champion, a Bystander, or a Reluctant? Why D&I support isn’t just "For" or "Against."

We are excited to publish "Voices behind walking the talk: Quantified qualitative insights on D&I policy support reasoning" in the latest issue of advances.in/psychology.
advances.in/psychology/1...

From the U.S. and Thailand to Hong Kong and Australia, new research confirms a consistent "backfire effect." When counter-protesters use violence to silence a progressive movement, they don't crush it—they amplify it.

Full article (open access): advances.in/psychology/1...

Congrats on a great contribution to the field!

Insightful new study!

Stigma-based solidarity betrayal: Implications for resistance to the rise of ethno-nationalism in the U.S. Betrayal in intergroup alliances: New evidence from 2024 U.S. election shows when solidarity breaks—and why it matters for trust and coalition building.

New in advances.in/psychology: Did the 2024 election break political solidarity? 🗳️💔 A new study explores "stigma-based solidarity betrayal."

Black women felt betrayed by Latino men (solidarity violation), White women felt betrayed by White men (relational violation). advances.in/psychology/1...

Irrespective of their actual economic standing, 15% of White Americans feel they are losing ground to other Whites and competing with Black and Latinx Americans at the bottom of the hierarchy. This subjective sentiment strongly predicts voting for Trump and opposing DEI measures.

Making shared discrimination salient seems to have no meaningful effect on voting behavior among PoC, according to this important new study.

We often describe participation as the heartbeat of democracy. But new research suggests that for the most committed activists, it can also be a source of disillusionment.

Very important paper! @unidue.bsky.social

Why longitudinal is not developmental: Clarifying misconceptions in acculturation research – A response to Berry (2025) Uncover why standard stage models fall short for acculturation and how concepts like acculturation tempo reconfigure research on cultural adaptation.

"One of the gravest misconceptions in the field is the assumption that measuring individuals over multiple time points is equivalent to adopting a developmental perspective."

Read this poignant response to Berry (2025) by Philipp Jugert and Peter Titzmann.
advances.in/psychology/1...

Unpacking the Integration Puzzle: Overlooked Insights from Meta-Analytical Research. A Response to Berry (2025) Bierwiaczonek responds to Berry's (2025) criticism. Evidence indicates mainstream orientation, not integration, drives adaptation.

📢 The acculturation debate continues: A Direct Response to John Berry's critique was just published in advances.in/psychology!

@kbierwiaczonek.bsky.social addresses recent criticisms and reveals crucial, overlooked findings from meta-analytical evidence.
advances.in/psychology/1...

🧠🌍 New in advances.in/psychology!
How does anxiety about the future shape young people’s politics? A UK–Greece study finds that future anxiety links to stronger democratic support — but among young men, it’s also tied to more right-conservative views.

Full article: advances.in/psychology/1...