Mohamed A. Hussein

🚨Excited to announce the full-day Moral Psychology pre-conference at #SPSP2026!

We sold out last year, and with this year’s incredible speaker lineup, we expect the same.

Submit your poster or data blitz abstract by Oct. 23! spsp.wufoo.com/forms/2026-p... There’s a best poster award!

Will be sure to share the results as they become available!

In the Battle for Congress, Working-Class Democrats Try a Hardscrabble Pitch

Very astute piece by @anniekarni.bsky.social on how Democrats are embracing working-class candidates.

My research lab has multiple ongoing projects on this very idea, so stay tuned for some empirical data coming soon!

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/07/u...
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/07/u...

The paper is now out, and you can read it here: authors.elsevier.com/a/1lhYz51f8w...

This is joint work with Zak Tormala and Christian Wheeler at Stanford.

We see the DV of choice of extreme candidates as an understudied one in psychology. I hope we see more research on it.

We also think that studying how people assess whether a candidate is extreme or moderate would be an exciting future direction.

This effect was robust to …
different descriptions of extreme candidates
👉different issues
👉controlling for other attitude dimensions (e.g., certainty, importance, moralization, knowledge).
👉Different methods (e.g., conjoint, vignettes, human-LLM interactions)

Is this just about group identity? Unlikely.

In another study, we used LLMs. They either prompted Ps to reflect on their views, or to connect those views to their identity.

When views were tied to identity, attitudes grew more extreme and so did support for extreme candidates.

The effect held even on issues people knew nothing about.

Saying John has a view on abortion doesn’t tell you if he’s pro-life or -choice.

So we made up an issue (“Prop DW”). Party had/no stance. That alone made it feel identity-relevant, pushing ppl to more extreme candidates.

In a Conjoint study, we had people choose between different candidates (different ages, backgrounds, views on social issues).

We measured people’s identity relevance.

As identity relevance increased, people became more likely to choose the candidate who is extreme.

Across six studies, we find that as people’s opinions on political issues become more part of their identity, they are drawn to extreme (vs. moderate) candidates.

What is identity relevance?

It’s the degree to which your view on an issue feels like a reflection of who you are.

For some, views on climate change are core to identity.

For others, they may have strong views, but those views don’t define them.

Past work has focused on structural factors (e.g., primary elections, changes in supply of candidates).

In a new paper, we shift the conversation to *psychological* factors.

We test if the *identity relevance* of people’s attitudes cause them to choose extreme candidates.

🚨New Paper🚨

Elected officials are increasingly extreme.

E.g., a recent analysis of 84,000 state-level candidates found that extreme candidates are now winning at the highest rates in 30 years.

Why are people increasingly drawn to extreme candidates?

Large Language Models Do Not Simulate Human Psychology

arxiv.org/pdf/2508.06950

The Mothership Vortex: An Investigation Into the Firm at the Heart of the Democratic Spam Machine How a single consulting firm extracted $282 million from a network of spam PACs while delivering just $11 million to actual campaigns.

The annoying spam texts destroying the Democratic brand:

$678M raised through those spam tactics

$282M to one consulting firm: Mothership Strategies.

$11M to actual campaigns (1.6%)

The party isn’t just treating donors like marks—it’s being fleeced itself yet continues to back Mothership.

🚨Free data alert!! 🚨 Please share.

Large new dataset of Amazon product reviews, including full text and photos and product characteristics, with individual *reviews labeled as fake reviews*.

I believe this is the first publicly available data of this kind.

github.com/bretthollenb...

A big obstacle of studying fake reviews is that the ground truth is missing. Which review is fake and which is organic?

Brett and coauthors provide a dataset that contains the ground truth for individual reviews using a novel method developed over several papers. A really valuable resource!

I am looking to recruit a postdoc to join my lab next fall, & work on 2 projects focused on online mobilization with social media datasets. If anyone knows of someone with computational skills (network analysis, NLP, etc.) who is looking for a postdoc- have them reach out to me.

🚨Preprint alert🚨

How does affective polarization change democracy? Lots of pubs study how AP affects trust, democratic norms, inter-partisan attitudes, and participation.

We (w/ @polpsychjoe.bsky.social, @lilymasonphd.bsky.social) examine a vital assumption this research seems to rely on:
1/6🧵

What a great read. Thanks for sharing!

The Dangers of AI Personalization If AI can master what we call “deep tailoring,” it can begin to slip unnoticed into our online worlds.

In TIME today, Jake Teeny and I share our take on AI-driven persuasion that uses your personal data to craft messages built just for you.

time.com/7296719/ai-p...

🚨 working paper (w. @morganlcj.bsky.social @markuswagner.bsky.social): Protesters are not judged equally - even if tactics of groups are similar.

We ran an experiment in 🇩🇪 testing how people react to farmers vs. climate activists blocking roads.

What we find is disturbing:

osf.io/preprints/os...

At the CredibilityLab (currently hosting Aspredicted and Researchbox) we have a new platform in the works, AsCollected, that will help with this. We welcome input from experienced parties.

Signup for alpha or beta testing or announcement of release at AsCollected.Org

A Tinder Test of Democratic Norms💋

New paper in @thejop.bsky.social with @bertous.bsky.social

We rely on a visual conjoint experiment, cross-sectional data, & panel data to show that affective polarization drives the normalisation of the far right among the centre-right 🇬🇧🇪🇸
doi.org/10.1086/736698

🛎️New WP with @morganlcj.bsky.social @timallinger.bsky.social and @danbischof.bsky.social

Against the surge of conjoints and other hypothetical experiments in relation to democratic backsliding, we study the consequences of using hypotheticals versus real-world scenarios.

osf.io/preprints/os...

Ep 107! @mhusseinlab.bsky.social shares his research on the cues that signal open-mindedness and whether people like it when others listen to opposing political views.

Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1...
Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/0B6L...
Web: opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/rece...

A new and fresh paper calls for a fresh start on a new platform. Hi y'all! 👋

Check out my paper with @spillersas.bsky.social and @krajbichlab.bsky.social - we look at the multi-faceted role of attention in opportunity cost neglect, using eye-tracking + computational modeling. Read more at the link!

🚨🚨 I’m looking for a postdoctoral fellow to join my lab at Harvard's Psychology Department starting Fall 2025 🚨📣

Please share widely and spread the word to interested candidates! 🧵

🗓 Application review begins April 30

Apply here: rb.gy/k7q9kf (1/2)

In a quasi-experimental survey with 59,508 participants across 63 countries, we tested 11 behavioral interventions designed to promote climate change mitigation. Our goal was to understand which interventions were most effective at encouraging climate-friendly behaviors—on a country-by-country basis

Excited to see this in print! It speaks to a number of social science literatures—protest effectiveness, repression, propaganda, stereotypes & morality, gender & politics, and disparate treatment between & within identity categories.