Evan A. Valdes

Extreme views are heavily over-represented on social media

Social platforms’ tendency to reward hostile content creates incentives that systematically reward simplistic messages and extreme positions and this fuels populism www.ft.com/content/9251... via @jburnmurdoch.ft.com

Intersting study wirth 24 000 participants in 42 (!) countries that confirms one's intuitions: People are more likely to think the system they live in is fair if

they have a higher status and depending satisfaction in life (lower satisfaction--> system = bad)

and

if "their" party is in charge

Understanding how individual beliefs and societal values influence support for measures to prevent COVID-19 transmission and risk is vital to developing and implementing effective prevention policies. Surges in COVID-19 infections continue to be prevalent worldwide, and strategies to address the increase in vaccine hesitancy and related conspiracy theories are enacted globally. Using the lenses of the social identity approach and system justification theory, we examined how individual-level conceptualizations of identity, system legitimacy, conspiracy beliefs and trust in science, government and healthcare influence an uptick in COVID-19 vaccine adherence. Data from an international survey of adults from China, the Philippines and the United States (N = 358; Study 1) and a six-country two-wave stratified online sample (N = 6138; Study 2) allowed the present research to investigate how cultural values and governmental policies intersect with COVID-19 risk perception and vaccine hesitancy. The most robust findings were: (1) identifying with a superordinate global identity was associated with greater vaccine adherence; (2) having a stronger subordinate national identity was associated with greater vaccine hesitancy; and (3) the association between having a strong national identity and the endorsement of COVID-19 conspiracy theories was mediated by system justification. The results presented are used to discuss strategies for increasing vaccine uptake globally for future pandemics.

(1) Identifying with a global identity was associated with greater vaccine adherence

(2) Having a stronger national identity was associated with greater vaccine hesitancy

Open Access: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

#SocialPsyc #AcademicSky🧪

Comprehensive research (N=24k, 42 nations) by @evanavaldes.bsky.social et al suggests we’re not so much inclined to support (and justify) the social systems to which we belong, as to support those systems that serve our individual or group interests:
buff.ly/R1IHhQs
HT @jayvanbavel.bsky.social

“We used data comprised of 24,009 participants nested within 42 countries. Multilevel models largely supported the competing claims of social dominance and social identity theories over SJT.”

When & why do individuals defend the political systems they live in? Valdes et al. study the tenets of System Justification Theory in a paper from our August issue. Read open-access for their findings on what motivates people to see their system as just, fair, & legitimate. doi.org/10.1111/pops...

Born from AASP Summer School 2021, we explore how identity and system justification shape COVID-19 attitudes across 7 countries.

Cross‐cultural investigation of the relationship between social identity, trusting the system, COVID‐19 vaccine adherence and conspiratorial beliefs Understanding how individual beliefs and societal values influence support for measures to prevent COVID-19 transmission and risk is vital to developing and implementing effective prevention policies...

📢New Publication Alert!
Thrilled to share that a paper I co-authored with Junix Jerald Delos Santos and the late Prof. James H. Liu has just been published in the Asian Journal of Social Psychology!

You can check out the full text here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Cross‐cultural investigation of the relationship between social identity, trusting the system, COVID‐19 vaccine adherence and conspiratorial beliefs Understanding how individual beliefs and societal values influence support for measures to prevent COVID-19 transmission and risk is vital to developing and implementing effective prevention policies...

“Promoting a sense of global community could be a powerful strategy in public health communication.”

New work by @evanavaldes.bsky.social investigates how social identity, system justification, and conspiracy beliefs influence COVID-19 vaccine adherence.

This paper is particularly special for me—it began as a project at the Asian Association of Social Psychology #AASP summer school in 2021, and it’s incredibly rewarding to see it come to life. We examined how identity and trust-related beliefs shape vaccine attitudes across 7 countries, using…

ICE ‘Grabbing People Out of Their Cars’ on Martha’s Vineyard Immigration agents reportedly rounded up around 40 people in the course of several traffic stops on Tuesday.

ICE agents rounded up around 40 people today across Martha’s Vineyard—grabbing some out of their cars. The sweeps were carried out as part of a series of traffic stops with the help of FBI and DEA agents. “You should be ashamed of yourselves,” one person shouted at several agents gathered outside.

“In this paper, we argue that status threat arises because white Americans tend to perceive racial minorities as competing outgroups, not as fellow Americans… We find little indication that a shared American identity could reduce racial (and, in exploratory analyses, partisan) conflict in America.”

What DEI threatens isn’t merit. It’s monopoly. Political science professor Hakeem Jefferson argues for DEI's importance to de-monopolizing universities.

A colleague at Stanford’s business school used The Stanford Daily to argue—poorly—against DEI. The piece was riddled with historical errors and left one searching for fact, so I broke my public writing hiatus to respond.

I hope you’ll read and share the piece.

stanforddaily.com/2025/04/22/w...

Political ideology and trust in scientists in the USA - Nature Human Behaviour In this Registered Report, Gligorić et al. find that liberals in the USA tend to have higher trust in most scientists compared with conservatives. However, they find no evidence that a series of inter...

A new study tested five interventions—including value-based messaging and showcasing conservative scientists—but none increased conservatives’ trust in science, suggesting these attitudes are stable and resistant to brief messaging.
www.nature.com/articles/s41... #ScienceSky #SciComm

International Fellowships 2025 The International Fellowships Programme enables researchers to work for two years at a UK institution with the aim of building a globally connected, mobile research and innovation workforce.

If you're an early career researcher - perhaps based in a fledgling authoritarian state - and want an out, @britishacademy.bsky.social offer 2-year fellowships to come to a UK university (including relocation costs and research funds).

www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/inte...

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

Screenshot of first two paragraphs of the editorial "Building community and advancing transparency in Political Psychology's next chapter" (Authors are Liz Suhay and Mark Brandt). The first two paragraphs read, It is impossible to understand politics and governance without understanding human psychology. Few reading this will likely argue with that statement, and the tumultuous and often surprising political events of our contemporary era make this clearer. It is also true that we cannot understand many aspects of human psychology without understanding people's political motivations and affiliations as well as the contexts and institutions that inform and constrain them. Political Psychology is dedicated to fostering cross-disciplinary research with the goal of shedding light on both the study of politics and of psychology. Although interdisciplinary research is increasingly common, Political Psychology has long been unique in its commitment to serving research communities in two disciplines in equal measure. The two of us reflect this commitment, not only intellectually but also with respect to our home disciplines. One of us (Brandt) is a professor of psychology. The other (Suhay) is a professor of political science. Likewise, our team of Associate Editors and the Editorial Board are balanced between these two fields. During our term, we will foster greater engagement between political scientists and psychologists.

Today is the first day @lizsuhay.bsky.social & @mjbsp.bsky.social are co-EiC 🥳

Read the vision statement!
💲 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
🆓 osf.io/nybxm

Submit your papers! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal...

The Fraudulent Science of Success Business schools are in the grips of a scandal that threatens to undermine their most influential research—and the credibility of an entire field.

In 2023, Harvard Business School suspended a star professor over charges of research misconduct.

As it happens, one of her papers also had funny data from a *different* B-school superstar -- a "mad, fraudulent unicorn,” per @jamesheathers.bsky.social... (1/3)

www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

And here's the first starter pack with 150 social psychologists included.

go.bsky.app/J4gmGmV

#SocialPsyc #Psychology #AcademicSky 🧪

Here's a political psychology starter pack. For scholars of public opinion and persuasion in the realm of politics. bsky.app/starter-pack...