Joshua Conrad Jackson

For folks interested in learning about our lab's research, check out this flier with all our presentations at this coming #SPSP2026 conference @spspnews.bsky.social. With research by several rising stars covering tech, culture, politics and more

Credit to our talented lab manager Hanying Yao!

Thrilled to share our latest paper, out now in Science Advances! We explored the development of cooperative behaviors — fairness, trustworthiness, forgiveness, & honesty —  across five societies, culturally contextualizing them & seeing how they correlate. (1/5) www.science.org/doi/full/10....

We're excited to announce the first Mind & Machine Alignment Summit at Ohio State!

Join leaders from social science and the AI industry to advance AI that promotes well-being and aligns with human values. Learn about emerging work and connect with leading researchers and builders.

Before the end of this year, I’m glad to share a short perspective/policy piece, recently out with @joshcjackson.bsky.social , Zhao Wang, and @williambrady.bsky.social: “Large AI Models Have a Prioritization Problem: Policy Implications and Solutions.”

Postdoctoral Researcher Positions!

Chart showing change in the use of online platforms. Over the past few years, four of them have grown in overall use among U.S. adults – TikTok, Instagram, WhatsApp and Reddit. TikTok: 37% of U.S. adults report using the platform, which is slightly up from last year and up from 21% in 2021. Instagram: Half of U.S. adults now report using it, which is on par with last year but up from 40% in 2021. WhatsApp and Reddit: About a third say they use WhatsApp, up from 23% in 2021. And 26% today report using Reddit, compared with 18% four years ago. While YouTube and Facebook continue to sit at the top, the shares of Americans who report using them have remained relatively stable in recent years.

UPDATE: Americans who use
YouTube 84%
Facebook 71%
Instagram 50%
TikTok 37%
WhatsApp 32%
Reddit 26%
Snapchat 25%
X (Twitter) 21%
Threads 8%
Bluesky 4%
Truth Social 3%

Full Pew Research Center report: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2025/11/20/americans-social-media-use-2025/

Americans are growing more socially isolated and politically divided.

Our new paper in Applied Network Science suggests these two forms of disconnection may be linked. People with denser, more connected social networks often feel less partisan animosity.

🧵

Only 2 days left to get your abstracts in!

Thank you to @joshcjackson.bsky.social and Dan Medvedev for a fascinating recent lab presentation on how attitudes toward the rich vary globally! Innovative methods and fascinating findings, all around. @robbwiller.bsky.social

What happens when we model the detective archetype at scale? 🕵️‍♂️📚
Our new paper, accepted for #CHR2025 combines literary history and computational modeling to trace how the figure of the detective evolves across 150 years of French fiction.

arxiv.org/pdf/2511.00627

And last but not least, Obshonka and colleagues find that Roman rule explains puzzling variation in modern well-being differences across Germany

Ancient Roman investment in infrastructure may explain why Southwestern Germans are so happy and healthy today

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Emotions in Japanese song lyrics over 50 years: Trajectory over time and the impact of economic hardship and disasters The present work investigated changes in collective level emotions and their socio-ecological predictors through analyses of song lyrics from 1970 to …

Masui and Miyamoto next map out trends in collective emotions in Japanese songs, finding a rise in anxiety from 1970 to 2019 but a decline in sadness

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Building faith: the relationships between materials, form, and worship in pre-industrial religious architecture Religious structures have traditionally been seen as reflections of beliefs and practices, yet their design may also shape religious behavior and thou…

Kaur, Watts and Halberstadt posit a provocative hypothesis that the availability of local materials (e.g., clay versus rock) may have shaped the historical development of god concepts, with preliminary evidence from the database of religious history

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Samani and Baumard map out trends in Romantic love in Persian literature from 10th century to 20th century CE. They find an increasing emphasis on romantic love over time, particularly during the Safavid era. This may reveal a link w economic development

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Fan and Baumard reveal new evidence of rising individualism over history, which suggests that wealth rather than Protestantism contributed to individualism

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Historical migration patterns and the evolution of culture Cultures change, but new cultural systems and practices also emerge over history. The socio-ecological factors that exert pressure on human values and…

Niedenthal and Wohltjen review the varied emotional and personality adaptations to historical heterogeneity, synthesizing evidence from multiple fields

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

McClain and Kenny dig into the history of collectivism in Japan, conducting a pre-registered analysis of self-reported collectivism and tightness in the Japanese social survey and linking responses to historical subsistence patterns across Japan

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

@joannaschug.bsky.social leads a paper on gendered racial stereotypes. They show that the civil rights movement coincided with a rise in language about black men, but not black women

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

@mohammadatari.bsky.social and I begin with an editorial reflecting on the origins, current trends, and future of historical psych

The future requires strong causal identification and theorizing about how institutions can cement or change historical trends

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Our "Historical Psychology" special issue is now out in CRESP!

www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu...

Co-edited with @mohammadatari.bsky.social and featuring historical perspectives on love, racial identity, emotion expression, well-being, collectivism, religion, and more!

Brief 🧵

iconic scene from Grey's Anatomy. Meredith Grey in scrub telling Derek "so pick me, choose me, love me"

On election day, I wanna announce that I am recruiting social psych PhD students for my lab at UIC. My lab focuses on racial identities (esp Asian, Latino, MENA Americans) and intra-minority conflict/ coalition. So please tell your students to pick me! All details on my website: www.pbandjlab.com

This thicc 71-chapter book (academic.oup.com/edited-volum...) arrived just in time to use as the textbook for my new "Cultural Evolution" class I've just started teaching!
Featuring this chapter from @cailinmeister.bsky.social @psmaldino.bsky.social & Jingyi Wu as well as much more including...

Adam Smith wrongly predicts that celebrity wages will drop once people begin to like celebrities

(Wealth of Nations was published in 1776)

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

Only two days left to apply!

Has anything great happened in your life because of social media?

You can submit applications here: spsp.wufoo.com/forms/2026-p...

Please share with any students/colleagues who are not on bluesky but have relevant work!

🚨Historical Psych Pre-Conference🚨

We have a great lineup of speakers for the #SPSP2026 edition!

Submit your poster or data blitz abstract by Oct. 23 (link below!). Open to folks from any career stage

Any research on psychological change or historical context of social psych is welcome!

We're accepting poster & data blitz abstract submissions from all career stages. If your work is broadly related to morality, you should apply! We welcome a wide range of topics and approaches.

Submit here: spsp.wufoo.com/forms/2026-p...

Deadline to submit an abstract: Oct. 23.

@elijfinkel.bsky.social
& I are recruiting a postdoc in the #LitowitzCenter for Enlightened Disagreement at Northwestern University. We seek research excellence regarding navigating conflict.

Application deadline: Nov. 17.

Salary: ~$80k.

facultyrecruiting.northwestern.edu/apply/MjQzNw==