Robb Willer

Win Hearts, Then Minds + Your Questions Answered on Identity and "Covering" - Hidden Brain Media This week, we bring you a favorite episode with sociologist Robb Willer. We discuss the common mistakes we make in trying to persuade others of our point of view — and how to break out of our echo cha...

We live in a world that feels more divided than ever. This week, we revisit an episode with sociologist Robb Willer and discuss how to bridge even the greatest divides. hiddenbrain.org/podcast/us-2...

Opinion | This Is What Makes Protests Successful

Read our @nytimes.com op-ed to see some of the history and research behind this strategy →

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/17/o...

Saturday's No Kings protests were massive, inclusive, and nonviolent. It was an honor to team up with
@owasow.bsky.social to analyze how nonviolent resistance can wins hearts, minds, and elections.

Check out our new WP on the capacity for LLMs to perform deep canvassing! Fantastic leadership by @tomcostello.bsky.social. Doesn't hurt to have @gordpennycook.bsky.social and @dgrand.bsky.social on the team, either.

Take a 👀 at this policy brief from @stanfordhai.bsky.social on how AI agents can test ideas in social science. Honored to be part of this amazing team: @joon-s-pk.bsky.social @cqzou.bsky.social @aaronshaw.bsky.social @mako.cc Carrie Cai, Meredith Ringel Morris, Percy Liang, @mbernst.bsky.social

Just one episode of a larger series including several fascinating folks like @samrosenfeld.bsky.social,
@mattyglesias.bsky.social, Didi Kuo, @eitanhersh.bsky.social, and others.

Can’t wait to dive into all of these interviews!

The Depolarizers: The Way Out Robb Willer of Stanford's Polarization and Social Change Lab shares tangible ways we can break out of America's polarization gridlock.

I really enjoyed the opportunity to analyze the various challenges ppl face in trying to change the status quo for the better, and what can be done to overcome them.

Check out the full convo here!

www.welcomestack.org/p/the-depola...

I had a great time this week talking about:
⚡️effective strategies for social change
⚡️political persuasion
⚡️managing coalitional divides
⚡️utopian versus pragmatic political worldviews
with the great Lauren Harper Pope of the Welcome PAC!

To each of you—thank you so much for your contributions over the years, and best of luck on your next intellectual adventure. Please come back to visit us often, and know that your biggest fans will always be all of us here at
@pascl-stanford.bsky.social!

Every one of these early career scholars were leaders in our lab in their own ways, supported their colleagues, and now leaves behind a unique and valued legacy.

Mohamed Hussein is starting as an AP of Marketing at
Columbia Business School. His analytical reasoning and theoretical contributions to marketing and social psych - especially around political division - are already impressive. Mohamed is a sort of real-life Paul Bunyan, legendary in his own time.

@isaiasghezae.bsky.social is starting the PhD program at
Harvard Psych. His experimental and computational skills have been crucial to our work the last two years, and his intellectual background was just as valuable. I’ll miss his insights, hard work, and ever-present sense of humor.

Kylie Fuller is starting the PhD program at NYU Sociology. Kylie was our crazy smart research coordinator the last two years, with *incredible* skills in political sociology, social psychology, and climate change. We'll miss her excellent taste in indep film and '80's alternative music.

Luiza Santos is starting as a Behavioral Scientist on the Human-Centered AI Team at Toyota Research. Her research on affective dimensions of political psychology was a needed perspective. We'll miss her smart feedback, analytic mind, and sense of humor (and hope she hangs with us sometimes!)

Jan Voelkel is starting as an AP at Cornell Sociology after a postdoc at Wharton. He will be missed for his innovative experimental skills, analytical rigor, methods expertise, and kind teaching style. Jan’s commitment to open and replicable research changed our lab forever. #Leadership!

Austin Van Loon is starting as an AP of Work and Organizational Studies at MIT Sloan. His computational social science skills and background in sociological theory are irreplaceable. We already miss his generosity, sense of humor, leadership on computational methods, and constant karaoke readiness.

Siwar Aslih is starting as an AP of Psychology at UCSC. We’ll miss her theoretical depth, creativity, and broad knowledge of intergroup conflict and resistance. Siwar brought her unique intellectual #bossmode style to Stanford, & it was a thing to behold. UCSC is getting one hell of a scholar.

With the new school year, my lab (@pascl-stanford.bsky.social) is adjusting to some big departures, as many folks move on to exciting new homes.

Here’s a look at this stellar crop of alums & where they’re headed now. It’s been a privilege to work with such talented scholars & good friends!

🚨 ONLY 5 DAYS LEFT! 🚨 Submit your ideas for structural democratic reforms by 9/15. It should take less than 5 minutes to share an idea via our online form. Submit as many ideas as you wish and submit anonymously, if you prefer!

🚨Submissions for the Structural Democratic Reforms Project are still open! Please submit your ideas for reforms to strengthen and safeguard our democracy by 9/15!🚨

(Note: it's easy to submit an idea....could take just a few minutes. Pls spread the word!)

More info...🧵👇

@mdehghani.bsky.social @maxhuibai.bsky.social @mohammadatari.bsky.social @lmesseri.bsky.social @sabdurah.bsky.social

H/t also to some of the many scholars whose work we drew on:

@kurtjgray.bsky.social @chrisbail.bsky.social @lpargyle.bsky.social @johnjhorton.bsky.social @mbernst.bsky.social @schoeneggerphil.bsky.social @mjcrockett.bsky.social

*Major* kudos to Luke Hewitt and @ashwinia.bsky.social
(who co-led the research), and to @isaiasghezae.bsky.social.

And thanks to @pascl-stanford.bsky.social and @stanfordpacs.bsky.social for generously supporting this project.

To explore further, you can use LLM-simulated participants to generate predicted experimental effects using this demo!
👇
treatmenteffect.app

This capacity has several applications for science and practice – e.g., running low-cost pilots to identify promising interventions, or simulating experiments that may be harmful to participants – but also limitations and risks, including concerns about bias, overuse, & misuse.

Overall our results show high accuracy of LLM-derived predictions for experiments with human participants, generally greater accuracy than samples of lay and expert humans.

Paper👉: docsend.com/view/qeeccug...

Finally, we find LLMs can accurately predict effects on socially harmful outcomes, such as the impact of antivax FB posts on vax intentions (Jennifer Allen et al., 2024). This capacity may have positive uses, such as for content moderation, though also highlights risks of misuse.

We also evaluated predictive accuracy for “megastudies,” studies comparing the impact of a large number of interventions. Across nine survey and field megastudies, LLM-derived predictions were modestly accurate

(Notably, accuracy matched or surpassed expert forecasters)

Despite known training data inequalities, LLM-derived predictive accuracy was comparable across subgroups.

However, there was little heterogeneity in experimental
effects we studied, so more research is needed to assess if/how LLM predictions of experimental results are biased.