Jarren Nylund

Example conversation between participant and AI about climate change.

We conclude that, when supported by appropriate safeguards, LLMs have substantial potential to complement existing science-communication efforts.

The article is open access: doi.org/10.1016/j.co...

Spread showing a table and figure from the article.

...science skepticism around issues such as climate change and vaccination.

Across studies, there is little evidence that large language models spontaneously produce conspiracy theories—but there is evidence that interacting with them can reduce science skepticism and misinformation beliefs.

Mistrust of the scientific consensus around issues such as climate change and vaccination is mainstream, compromising our ability to respond to existential global threats. In the wrong hands, Generative AI can spread misinformation with unprecedented scale and psychological sophistication. However, large language models (LLMs) have also shown considerable promise for reducing misinformation and conspiracy theories, potentially revolutionizing science communication. This review summarizes the rapidly evolving frontier of empirical research on how conversational AI such as ChatGPT can be used to defuse mistrust of science around hot-button scientific issues. These studies find negligible evidence that LLM responds to human queries by reproducing conspiracy theories or misinformation about scientific topics. Rather, conversations with LLMs typically reduce participants’ levels of science skepticism and misinformation endorsement. We conclude that LLMs (in their current form) have potential to complement existing science communication strategies, provided their use is accompanied by safeguards that preserve informational integrity and public trust.

Pleased to share a new paper led by Matthew Hornsey and co-authored with Aimee Smith, Samuel Pearson, Christian Bretter, and myself, now published in Current Opinion in Psychology.

In this review, we synthesise emerging evidence on how conversational AI tools like ChatGPT can be used to reduce...

Effort and time costs influence motivational asymmetries in self-benefitting vs pro-environmental decisions - Communications Psychology People are less willing to incur time and effort costs for the environment than for themselves, with computational modeling revealing nonlinear discounting of time and effort linked to support for cos...

I’m thrilled to share that our paper “Effort and time costs influence motivational asymmetries in self-benefitting vs. pro-environmental decisions” is now published in Communications Psychology! 🌿

OA link: www.nature.com/articles/s44...

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Happening next Monday!
Remember to register to go beyond the conceptual binaries of protests as normative vs non-normative, conventional vs radical and to dig in why and how individuals shift protest tactics with Mete Sefa presenting, Yasemin & Carmen acting as reviewers.
tinyurl.com/disruptive-p...

Our new book [Psych of System Change & Resistance to Change] is out! Woot! @winnifredlouis.bsky.social @susilowibisono.bsky.social Kiara Minto & Gi Chonu doi.org/10.1017/9781...

Save the date! Next September we work on integrating social psychology and prefigurative politics, in a beautiful location :)

@fmsmallfield.bsky.social @metesefauysal.bsky.social @daclarkecruz.bsky.social @eddieclarke.bsky.social @helenlandmann.bsky.social

CfP for the workshop ""From Harm to Hope: Slow Violence, Collective Memory and Everyday Resistance" (submission deadline: 5 November)

The workshop will take place on March 25–26, 2026 at the Institute of Culture and Memory Studies, ZRC SAZU, in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
ikss.zrc-sazu.si/sites/defaul...

Psychological Research on Resistance and Repression: A Research Method Bazaar Interactive Workshop (90 mins) Led by Aya Adra, Fouad Bou Zeineddine, canan coşkan, Ali Teymoori, and Johanna Ray Vollhardt) Monday, Oct 13, 2025 Many questions in social psychological research on resistance and repression have not been systematically addressed– in part because of the methodological limitations and rigidities in the field, in addition to practical and ethical considerations. For example, how does one examine covert resistance under conditions of surveillance and risk, how does one access forms of everyday resistance that may not be articulated as such, how does one conduct research on resistance that is under repression without creating further risk or harm to the participant and/or to the research team, how does one access information about resistance under extremely violent and most repressive conditions, such as genocide? This session is an interactive methods workshop, a bazaar of ideas and research experience, where participants will share and swap knowledge about underutilized methods that have been or could be used to examine different forms of resistance (above all those forms of resistance that are understudied) in various contexts of violence and repression. The organizers will bring examples of a relevant, underutilized research method and share it with participants in a brief (5 min) blitz presentation. We also invite participants (optional, not required for participation) to bring along their methods, ideas, suggestions, questions and dilemmas, and experiences to share (5 mins max), with or without a slide or two. We will also discuss more general, overarching questions related to methodological limitations in research on resistance and repression and ways to address these. 7.00 am NYC, 8.00 Santiago (Chile), 12 (noon) London, 13.00 Barcelona, 14.00 Ramallah & Istanbul, 16.30 New Delhi, 19.00 Manila, 21.00 Brisbane. Registration link in the original post.

The 1st session of this year's Psychology of Resistance Virtual Meetings is next Monday, October 13:
We start with an interactive workshop to diversify our methodological toolbox to better investigate forms of resistance and repression in different contexts.
To register: tinyurl.com/resistancere...

Join the Methods in Social Change and Inertia series on Oct 20 at 2pm UK time for a workshop on the Social Change Algorithm by Roxane de la Sablonniere, Diana Cardenas, and Jean-Marc Lina! Register: events.teams.microsoft.com/event/25bb20...

#psychology #socialsciences #socialpsych #socialchange

I enjoyed the opportunity to discuss this work with such an engaged group of scholars working on collective action research.

For those who are interested in the full paper, it’s available as an open access article in the Journal of Environmental Psychology: doi.org/10.1016/j.je...

Our findings show that while extreme climate protests can reduce support for the activist group carrying them out, they can also increase public concern about climate change and spur intentions to act—a tension that many activists and organisers face.

The climate activist's dilemma: Extreme climate protests reduce movement support but raise climate concern and intentions. Jarren L. Nylund, Michael Thai, Matthew J. Hornsey. Net Zero Observatory, Business School, The University of Queensland. School of Psychology, The University of Queensland.

Last week I had the pleasure of presenting at the 2025 Collective Action Network (CAN) Meeting on my recent research into the climate activist’s dilemma.

We should have another article coming out in the not too distant future summarising the various research we and others have done using this paradigm on these kinds of topics if you'd like me to share it with you when it is published.

Thanks for sharing these links, Ketan. I imagine that each subsequent version is generally getting better, but will never be perfect (pictured is how it was explained to us). But yeah, definitely share your concern about the corporate aspect of the technology.

The promise and limitations of using GenAI to reduce climate scepticism Nature Climate Change - ChatGPT provides a way of teaching people about climate change. This research reveals that conversations between climate sceptics and ChatGPT reduced climate scepticism, but...

For anyone interested, here is a link to bypass the paywall and download a PDF version of the article: rdcu.be/eHcNY

Quite possibly! However, it should be noted that the effects on reducing scepticism among sceptics were susceptible to decay at follow-up. So, it might be that repetition of the intervention, or other factors are needed, to make the decline more durable.

In the paper, we’re explicit about several limitations of the approach. However, we've now conducted several studies that are similar to those in this paper (on different science-related topics), with none of them finding inaccurate information being generated by ChatGPT on these topics.

That's a fair concern, one that we address in the article itself. We used a validated process in which responses were fact-checked by another LLM (Claude), and a substantial subset of responses manually fact-checked by independent climate experts. Results found negligible evidence of misinformation.

Next Gen Speaker Series - Boryana Todorova - Planetary Health Alliance Boryana Todorova is a Visiting Researcher at the Net Zero Observatory, University of Queensland, and a member of the Neuro Climate Working Group. Her research examines the two-way relationship between...

🧠🌍 Join me next week for the Planetary Health Alliance – Next Gen Speaker Series to learn why climate action is brain health action!

When? 24th of September, 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm EDT
Where? Online - register here: planetaryhealthalliance.org/events/next-...

A mock-up of what the second spread of “The promise and limitations of using GenAI to reduce climate scepticism” (Hornsey et al., 2025) article would look like printed.

This paper is the product of a team effort from members of the Net Zero Observatory. I’m grateful to have worked alongside such talented colleagues: business.uq.edu.au/research/net...

A mock-up of what the first spread of “The promise and limitations of using GenAI to reduce climate scepticism” (Hornsey et al., 2025) article would look like printed.

Across two studies, we found that short conversations with ChatGPT led climate sceptics to report lower confidence in their sceptical views and small increases in pro-environmental intentions.

You can read the article here:
doi.org/10.1038/s415...

A mock-up of what the first page of “The promise and limitations of using GenAI to reduce climate scepticism” (Hornsey et al., 2025) article would look like printed.

Thrilled to share my first publication in a Nature journal!

Our new article in Nature Climate Change (@natclimate.nature.com) explores whether conversations with generative AI tools like ChatGPT may help shift climate scepticism.

Thanks to my supervisors, progress review panel, fellow members of the Net Zero Observatory, and other friends and family for their support throughout this journey.

And in what feels like a rite of passage, I now also seem to have my very own UQ web profile: business.uq.edu.au/profile/1925...

A photo of a UQ meeting room with a television mounted on the wall. The screen displays the title slide of Jarren Nylund’s PhD confirmation presentation: “Factors That Influence Public Perceptions of Climate Change Protests”

Pleased to announce that I successfully passed my PhD confirmation milestone at The University of Queensland (UQ) last week.

Excited to be continuing my research into factors that influence public perceptions of climate protests.

The backlash paradox of radical climate protests Extreme actions turn people off the activists behind them—but may leave the broader climate movement stronger than before.

A thoughtful piece by Sarah DeWeerdt in Anthropocene Magazine about my recently published research on the “climate activist’s dilemma.”

www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2025/08/the-...

Group and personal rejection are similarly linked to extreme intergroup attitudes Perceived marginalization of social groups has been identified as one of the main drivers of violent extremism across countries. However, most psychol…

📢 🥳 New paper alert!

We developed a new task (RateME) for studying the effects of personal and group rejection and showed that both types of rejection can be linked to radicalization via increased hostility.

🔗 Link to the paper: shorturl.at/uJiDa

Activists Target Wells Fargo for Dropping its Climate Commitments - Inside Climate News Seven protesters were arrested after coordinated actions in New York and San Francisco, as climate organizers escalate tactics against the bank. The campaign echoes findings from new research on publi...

Big thanks to Ryan and to the Wells Fargo protest organisers who engaged with the research directly. It’s powerful to see theory meet real-world action, and I hope this research adds nuance to conversations about protest strategy.

Activists Target Wells Fargo for Dropping its Climate Commitments - Inside Climate News Seven protesters were arrested after coordinated actions in New York and San Francisco, as climate organizers escalate tactics against the bank. The campaign echoes findings from new research on publi...

In the article, reporter Ryan Krugman highlights findings from my recently published article on the “climate activist’s dilemma”: extreme protest tactics may reduce support for activist groups, but simultaneously raise climate concern and personal willingness to act.

Activists Target Wells Fargo for Dropping its Climate Commitments - Inside Climate News Seven protesters were arrested after coordinated actions in New York and San Francisco, as climate organizers escalate tactics against the bank. The campaign echoes findings from new research on publi...

Inside Climate News just published a powerful piece on the recent direct actions against Wells Fargo, and how recent research helps unpack public reactions to those kinds of protests.