Julien Lie-Panis

How-- and why-- institutions work (when they do): "Guarding the Guardians" @jliep.bsky.social @aeon.co (with @marco-giancotti.bsky.social)
(Plus- Bringing Up Baby)

Getting along: roughlydaily.com/2026/02/16/i...

Looking forward to work with @fierycushman.bsky.social and @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social on the moral psychology of authority!

We are thrilled to announce that @lfitouchi.bsky.social has been awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship to work at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University ! 👏

Huge congratulations for this incredible achievement!

Institutions are how we scale up cooperation among millions | Aeon Essays Good institutions are social technologies that scale trust from personal relations to entire nations. How do they work?

Institutions are the social technologies that power our world, allowing us to rely on complete strangers every day of our lives. But how do we ensure that this trust isn’t misplaced? In this Essay, the game theorist Julien Lie-Panis explores what makes institutions function @jliep.bsky.social

This work is based on a paper co-authored with @lfitouchi.bsky.social, Nicolas Baumard & @jbaptistandre.bsky.social.

Nerdy thread 🤓 with more details: bsky.app/profile/jlie...

And the paper itself: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

New @aeon.co essay just out! On how institutions let us scale trust and cooperation - and when things start to unravel.

Big thanks to editor Sam Dresser.

For the more technical version, see thread & paper below👇

Apres "The Decision" de LBJ, voici "The Update" de BdC.

Demain, 12h heure française, lancement solennel de la v2 de Gallicagram
⌛

💡 Our new #preprint is available online!

How do people adapt their decisions when priorities change?
In our new study, we examine how the way people represent value shapes their ability to adjust in multi-goal environments.

🔗 OSF link: doi.org/10.31234/osf...

It's a thread 🧵

🔺 New preprint 🔺
Why does poverty increase time discounting?
With W. Frankenhuis and @danielnettle.bsky.social, we argue that current models do not account for discounting in *persistent* poverty, and show that a desperation threshold can!

A quick 🧵

How I stood on the shoulders of giants A few years ago I experienced a rare privilege. I saw and and understood a truth about the nature of reality that no-one else had ever seen before.

On my recent paper about linguistic intuition and the nature of language

thomscottphillips.substack.com/p/how-i-stoo...

YouTube video by EDMO BELUX EDMO BELUX 2.0 Lunch Lecture – Reframing the Misinformation Problem

"if anything people are actually maybe too stubborn... there is more room to improve trust in reliable sources than to reduce trust in unreliable sources... instead of teaching lay people to be more critical than they already are"

1/
📢 Come study cognitive science in Paris!
The Master’s program in Cognitive Science at @ENS_ULM, @psl_univ, and @EHESS_fr is now accepting applications for the next academic year.

🗓 Deadline: February 24, 2026
💻 Apply here: master-cognitive-science.ens.psl.eu/en/applicati...

This call is currently open for a Humanistica-satellite event, that might interest people in computational humanities (and not only). It is supported by CultureLab and welcomes long papers as well as lightning talks and posters.

📢 CfP now open for the Computational Cultural Science Workshop (Paris, 18-19 May 2026) until 16 February.

Topics of interest:
*️⃣AI and cultural datasets
*️⃣Theory-driven humanities research
*️⃣Document-based modelling of historical and social processes
*️⃣Cultural analytics

👉 c2s.sciencesconf.org

I am also hiring a PhD student (4-years, home student only to join the project, starting in September 2026🌏

Please share it widely!
www.royalholloway.ac.uk/studying-her...

Scoop: The leaked protocol of the CDC-funded Hepatitis B vaccine trial in Guinea-Bissau. “This is another Tuskegee.” The protocol reveals that the trial will withhold the Hepatitis B birth dose from thousands—without placebos, without universal maternal screening, and with endpoints critics call indefensible.

Thank you, @jeremyfaust.bsky.social, for this public service; we have all wanted to see the protocol of this deeply unethical trial being funded by RFK Jr in Guinea-Bissau, I’m grateful you obtained it and have published it

insidemedicine.substack.com/p/scoop-the-...

Gallicagram dans Histoire & Mesure !

Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences

🚨Two weeks left to apply for our postdoc positions @tse-fr.eu @iast.fr 🚨

Join me, @giuliandr.bsky.social , & @zhgarfield.com, to study punitive systems across societies.

Full-time positions, 2 years, no teaching

Deadline: Jan 23

Please share and spread the word!

www.tse-fr.eu/groups/depar...

I am hiring a 4y postdoc for my Leverhulme-funded project on the role of beliefs about what in/outgroup members believe/do about climate change in shaping pro-climate behaviours🌏

Start date: May 2026 at latest
Deadline: Feb 8

Please share it widely!

jobs.royalholloway.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx...

The building of the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt

I got wonderful news: I was granted a position of Max Planck independent group leader at the MPI for Empirical Aesthetics ⬇️ (@ae.mpg.de) in Frankfurt, which I'll join in early 2026. It's a huge honor: being trusted with academic freedom offered by MPG. My group will study the evolution of arts. 1/3

Why Do Humans Have Linguistic Intuition? | Cadernos de Linguística

Why do humans have linguistic intuition? And why should you care?

A short thread about my new paper in @cadlin.bsky.social

This work has the most original insight I've ever had, a genuinely new idea about the nature of language

cadernos.abralin.org/index.php/ca...

1/20

Big congratulations to Dr Nikhil Sharma on receiving the Kiel Life Science Postdoc Award 2025! His outstanding work in theoretical biology and evolutionary graph theory makes us proud. Well deserved! 👏 #KLS #MPIEvolBio
www.evolbio.mpg.de/3847270/kiel...

(Photo: Christian Urban, Kiel University)

Waiting time during admission procedures increases social inequalities in higher education | PNAS Many domains in life require people to wait to access better outcomes, such as waiting in line to access prized tickets for a show, waiting to obta...

Happy to share our latest study published in PNAS.

Using data from 274,316 French students, we find that lower-SES students are less likely to wait for better university offers, even when waiting would lead to more prestigious or better-fit programs.
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

🎉 New preprint: Bayesian Competence Inference guides Knowledge Attribution and Information search

If someone knows that Venus is the only planet in the Solar System that rotates clockwise, will they also know what Earth’s only natural satellite is? What about which planets have no moons at all?

(PDF) Why are lies small? PDF | Deception is common, yet lies are typically small and not easily spotted. The dominant explanations for why this is the case are psychological in... | Find, read and cite all the research you ne...

"individuals are usually conservative in the size of their lies to prevent punishment from interactions partners, and to maintain a reputation as honest interaction partners"

In case you don't know already, the journal Open Mind has a Bluesky account that automatically posts new papers:
@openmindjournal.bsky.social

The journal is diamond open access (free to read, free to publish) thanks to the support of MIT Press, Harvard Library, & MIT Library.

osf.io/preprints/ps...
Preprint: Jan Pfänder and Hugo Mercier "The rational impression account of trust in science"