Prof Aleksandra Cichocka

Conceptualizing and Measuring Support for Collective Violence Although collective violence remains a pervasive issue affecting many societies today, the specific psychological mechanisms underlying individual differences in support for collective violence are r...

Out now and open access! A new scale to gauge support for intergroup violence, including in (post-)conflict settings. With @ramziabouismail.bsky.social, @alekscichocka.bsky.social, @hakancakmak.bsky.social, @samicoksan.bsky.social, and Nikhil Sengupta onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... 🧵

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!

1 thing you can do today to be happier Can anyone become happier? Psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky studies this question in her lab, doing experiments on "happiness interventions" to see what kinds of actions elicit this sought-after emotion...

In these difficult times, here’s some quick advice from my dear friend Sonja, the happiness expert, on one thing you can do today to feel happier 🧡 www.ted.com/talks/sonja_...

Ænima - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86n...

Best part of the job! Congratulations Dr @chiarazazzarino.bsky.social 🎓

When I spoke there on collective narcissism, a question I got was: but what if you really are exceptional, like Oxford?

ISPP Small Grants are back for 2026! 💡 $50k total available; request up to $5k for research or network/workshop projects. Open to current ISPP members. Proposals due Dec 1, 2025. Selection uses a lottery among proposals that meet all criteria. Apply: ispp.org/funding/smal...

Thank you so much for having me @hansalves.bsky.social et al.! Always great fun to hang out with German social psychologists!

Moral outrage spreads petitions online—but doesn’t always inspire people to sign them Posts expressing moral outrage were more likely to go viral but did not lead to more petition signatures, while posts using agentic, group identity, or prosocial language attracted more signatures despite receiving less online engagement.

Moral outrage spreads petitions online—but doesn’t always inspire people to sign them

The 2025 EASP Summer School at the University of Kent is kicking off in just a few days and we are SO excited to welcome 80 brilliant early-career researchers from across Europe for 10 days of collaboration, community, and cutting-edge social psychology 🙏

Find out more: blogs.kent.ac.uk/easp2025/

Spending your weekend with @polpsyispp.bsky.social in Prague? Join us for these talks:

SAT, July 5
11:05am – 12:20pm
S93: @alekscichocka.bsky.social The energy island: Texan collective narcissism predicts support for an independent power grid

Healthy vs Harmful National Identities Issue 171: This July 4th, we explore different forms of national identity and how they shape democracy, solidarity, and collective responsibility in profoundly different ways.

Just like individual narcissists, who have an exaggerated sense of self-importance and grandiosity, national narcissists believe that their nation is exceptional and entitled to special treatment.

We explain the dark side of social identity in our latest newsletter: substack.com/home/post/p-...

Don’t miss our lab’s Friday talks at @polpsyispp.bsky.social in Prague:

10:15 AM - 11:30 AM
S53
Tamino Konur: Does Gender Identity Compensate for Ethnic Discrimination?
Alessia Bacigalupo: Women, Borders and the Nation: How Sexism Predicts Nationalism and Immigration Policy Support

Heading to @polpsyispp.bsky.social in Prague? Check out these awesome talks from our lab tomorrow (Thu, Jul 3):

11:40 AM - 12:55
S21: Daniel Toribio-Flórez: Examining the political consequences of conspiracy theories around general elections: Evidence from the UK, France and US

If Not Democracy, Then What? On the Relationships Between National Identification Versus National Narcissism and Support for Different Visions of the Political World Dominika Adamczyk , Michalina Szczęsna , Zuzanna Molenda , Dagmara Szczepańska , Marta Rogoza , Radosław Rogoza , Dominika Maison , and Marta Marchlewska Abstract: The current paper examines the relationships between different types of national identity and democracy, anarchism, and pacifism. In two studies (UK, N = 402; Poland, N = 799), national narcissism was negatively related to pacifism and, in Study 2, to democracy, while positively linked to anarchism. National identification, however, was related to lower support for anarchism but higher support for democracy and pacifism (only in Study 2). Additionally, national narcissism was negatively linked to voting intentions, whereas national identification was positively associated with them, mediated by support for democracy. Our research showed that national identity is linked to support for different political visions of the world, which have distinct effects on the functioning of society.

New:

Adamczyk & colleagues compared national identification to national narcissism & found that the former is related to support for democracy & voting intentions, while the latter was associated with anarchism & lower voting intentions.

doi.org/10.1027/1864...

Proud to celebrate with @chiarazazzarino.bsky.social her fantastic PhD defense yesterday 🥂Chiara’s research funded by @leverhulme.ac.uk examined how leaders use national identity rhetoric to gain political support. Congratulations Dr Zazzarino 🎓

A popularizing version of joint work with Liz Mancuso, @jayvanbavel.bsky.social , and others. psyche.co/guides/how-t...

Yes, awareness matters, and in fact we found that via virality, moral outrage was linked to more signatures (but when virality was controlled for, the direct effect of moral outrage became negative)

Summery of our recent SPPS paper, funded by @leverhulme.ac.uk

"At the same time though, the findings suggest that online moral outrage may sometimes fail to translate into other types of collective responses, such as petition signing, which can influence stakeholders and policymakers."

Examining the relationship between moral outrage on social media and activism A new study published in Social Psychological and Personality Science examines how expressions of moral outrage on social media are linked to online activism, specifically petition-signing behavior.

"Platforms are calibrated to capture attention by amplifying moralized and emotional content. This can have benefits, such as raising awareness of injustices by propagating expressions of outrage," explains @stefanleach.bsky.social phys.org/news/2025-05...

Moral Outrage Predicts the Virality of Petitions for Change on Social Media, But Not the Number of Signatures They Receive - Stefan Leach, Magdalena Formanowicz, Jan Nikadon, Aleksandra Cichocka, 2025 Social media is a powerful tool for activists to share their perspectives, but concerns persist that the viral spread of online moral outrage may undermine coll...

A new study finds that expressions of moral outrage increase the virality of online petitions but not signatures. Statements about helping others, on the other hand, do predict a greater number of signatures but aren’t linked to virality. @spspnews.bsky.social journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

In contrast, expressions of agency, group identity, and prosociality were associated with more signatures but no more virality.

We found that expressions of outrage were uniquely associated with the number of times posts were liked and reposted (virality). Outrage was indirectly related to the number of signatures petitions received (via virality) but it was associated with fewer signatures when controlling for virality.

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

Social media is a great tool for activists but can the viral spread of moral outrage sometimes undermine collective causes?

We examined this in a new SPPS paper led by @stefanleach.bsky.social analyzing 1,286,442 posts on X with URLs to petitions on change.org journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Out now, open access at Psychology of Violence! How do authoritarianism and social dominance orientation affect attitudes toward collective violence in Lebanon? (with @ramziabouismail.bsky.social, @alekscichocka.bsky.social, and @sengupta.bsky.social) psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202... 🧵

The effects were mediated by perceived belief similarity. Their studies indicate that national narcissists might be inclined to support a nationalist outgroup leader and their violent actions, even if the latter may ultimately pose a threat to the ingroup.

Seems timely to highlight recent work by @genaveebrown.bsky.social and @gaellemarinthe.bsky.social In two studies they found that national narcissism in France and the US was associated with more favourable views of Putin and seeing the war as less immoral

rips-irsp.com/articles/10....

Our meta-analysis "Reasons to believe: A systematic review and meta-analytic synthesis of the motives associated with conspiracy beliefs" is now published at Psychological Bulletin!
Please refer to this thread, ResearchGate, and PsyArXiv for details!
psycnet.apa.org/record/2025-...

Free speech, fact checking, and the right to accurate information True to his campaign promises, on 20 January 2025, US President Donald Trump signed a broad range of Executive Orders, the scope of which ranged from renaming the Gulf of Mexico to “Gulf of America” t...

My latest column just appeared in Science, entitled "Free speech, fact-checking, and the right to accurate information”. (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...) I use one of President Trump’s first executive orders to unpack the terrain between misinformation and claims to free speech 1/n