Vladimir Bojarskich

Now, I am off on a little pilgrimage - comments are appreciated and will be answered in two weeks ✌️
📄 Full preprint here:
👉 doi.org/10.31234/osf...

#OnlineHate #MoralJudgment #PoliticalPsychology #Ideology #Preprint

7/

Efforts to reduce online hate may need to go beyond content moderation.
They could benefit from drawing from interventions against :
▶️ Polarization
▶️ Norm misperceptions
▶️ Intergroup threat & conflict
6/

Why?
Differences in perceived dyadic harm.
Liberals and conservatives saw different groups as more vulnerable—or more responsible for the hate.
5/

🧠 Key finding: Contextual symmetry
Both liberals & conservatives condemned online hate more when their ideologically favored groups were targeted 📊
4/

We tested two competing hypotheses in two preregistered experiments:
🇩🇪 N = 903 Germans
🇺🇸 N = 490 Americans
We varied the targets of hate and measured moral condemnation.
3/

Online hate—directed at politicians, minorities, etc.—is all too common.
But do people judge it differently depending on who is targeted?
Are conservatives uniquely tolerant of online hate—or are both sides ideologically biased?
2/

💥 New preprint out:
"Ideological (A-)Symmetries in Moral Judgments of Online Hate"
with Meltem Yucel, Lindsay Hahn, Tobias Rothmund & myself.

How do liberals & conservatives morally evaluate online hate?

👉 doi.org/10.31234/osf...
1/

📄 Preprint (open access + data):
doi.org/10.31234/osf...

#Ukraine #PoliticalPsychology #PAC @apajournals.bsky.social

end/🧵

We argue:
🇷🇺 Russian disinfo campaigns likely provide narrative ground for the fear path (e.g., energy insecurity, war escalation).
&
Moral-based solidarity may stem from a consensus-driven, rally-'round-the-flag narrative in 🇩🇪 & other supporting countries.

6/

Predictors of each path:
➡️ Fear-based: Higher conspiracy mentality, East Germany residence
➡️ Moral-based: Higher national ID, left-leaning ideology, low populist party support

5/

Structural equation modeling (SEM) reveals:
Moral conviction ↑ solidarity
Existential fears ↓ solidarity

Different motivational pathways linked w/ different individual differences & psych. factors.

4/

What predicts solidarity with Ukraine?
We examined, among others:

Moral conviction-based motivation

Existential fears-based motivation

Conspiracy mentality

Relative deprivation

🧠 + key individual differences

3/

🇩🇪 In Sep 2022—amid strong support for Ukraine and record-high energy prices—we surveyed a nationally representative German sample (N = 1,210).
How do people navigate political solidarity under pressure?

2/

📢 New publication in Peace and Conflict:
"Solidarity with Ukraine 🇺🇦? How fear- and moral-based motivations explain the psychological tug-of-war in the German public."
By @carlagrosche.bsky.social, Carolin Ziemer, myself (👈co-1st authors) & @tobiasrothmund.bsky.social
👉 doi.org/10.1037/pac0...
1/🧵

We have created a free syllabus + teaching materials on the psychology of shared identities

It includes links to papers, lecture slides, chapter summaries, exams, interactive activities, educational videos & podcasts.

Please share with educators:
www.powerofusnewsletter.com/p/the-power-...

Our new paper analyzes 19 predictors of climate change beliefs & action across 55 countries (N=4635)

4 predictors had consistent effects across all outcomes:
1) environmentalist identity,
2) trust in climate science,
3) internal environmental motivation,
4) the Human Development Index

1/ 🌟Paper *just* accepted @ PSPB!🌟

Does moral licensing (doing a good thing, then a less good thing) really exist??

➡️ Many failed replications. Why?
➡️ Using #metaanalysis, we put the effect to the test

🧵👇

Preprint: osf.io/preprints/ps...

#SocialPsychology #Bayesian #Theory

Postdoc Position in Political Psychology: Polarisation, Misperceptions, and the Politicisation of Science (two) | Radboud University Do you want to work as a Postdoc Position in Political Psychology: Polarisation, Misperceptions, and the Politicisation of Science (two) at the Nijmegen School of Management? Check our vacancy!

Job alert! We are looking for two postdoctoral researchers at the intersection of political psychology, science communication, and survey methodology:
-One for my Vidi project on factual belief polarization.
-One for my starting grant on the politicization of science.

www.ru.nl/en/working-a...

Cover of the book “The Psychology of Attack Politics Perceptions, Evaluations and Effects” by Alessandro Nai, Lukas P. Otto, Chiara Vargiu, out in July 2025 (Routledge). The cover features a detail from a medieval painting showing people happily stabbing at each other (from the Codex Manesse, 1304-1340)

📚📚📚

New book out this July with @lukotto.bsky.social & @cvargiu.bsky.social

We present a novel approach to study #NegativeCampaigning & #Incivility 🥊 ⚔️ - focusing on public perceptions and evaluations 😱😆🤢😡

Bonus: low price (~£35) & the cover is 🤘

Pre-orders from July 5: tinyurl.com/7raa9fpf

I wanted to highlight key findings from our study and the replication, and how they extend to 2024.

Now it provides a systematic review of more than 600 scientific studies on the relationship between digitalization and democracy.

So what does science have to say? We actually know quite a bit: 1/5

Last year, we published a paper showing that AI models can "debunk" conspiracy theories via personalized conversations. That paper raised a major question: WHY are the human<>AI convos so effective? In a new working paper, we have some answers.

TLDR: facts

osf.io/preprints/ps...

How do attitudes become moralized? We find that moral conviction spreads between connected attitudes over time. + Those with highly connected belief systems (ideologues) have highly moralized belief systems!

Come see us at the moral psych pre-con poster session @spspnews.bsky.social to learn more😃

Congratulations to @drmorganalw.bsky.social who made this project a reality (some real heavy lifting!), and thanks to @markrubin.bsky.social for a terrific summary overview!

New open-access paper in Annual Review of Psychology with @mjbsp.bsky.social: “Ideology: Psychological Similarities and Differences Across the Ideological Spectrum Reexamined”

www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

Still a space left? :)

Does participating in collective action moralize one's attitudes over time, and if so, how?

Happy to share that our paper is now out in JPSP! With Martijn van Zomeren, Roberto González, Ernestine Gordijn, Pia Carozzi, Michal Reifen Tagar, Belén Álvarez, Cristián Frigolett, and Eran Halperin. (1/9)

New paper out in @ScienceMagazine! In 8 studies (multiple platforms, methods, time periods) we find: misinformation evokes more outrage than trustworthy news, when it does it's shared more + ppl are less likely to read before sharing. w/ @killianmcl1 @Klonick @mollycrockett 🧵👇

Previous research shows that people sometimes view moral questions as objectively true, while other times treating them as true only relative to different perspectives. In our new paper, we present evidence that social rewards may explain this apparent inconsistency...

Would love to be added :)

Types of psych paper: 1) my honours student needed a publication; 2) I have this enormous dataset that I don't know what to do with but isn't it cool? 3) people on MTurk can sometimes learn things; 4) children are like weird adults; 5) my model does the same thing as previous models but is Bayesian; 6) people make silly decisions; 7) I found random noise in my data and made up a big theory to address it; 8) my research doesn't need math but if I have equations people will think I'm smart; 9) my model doesn't explain things but has nice fits, see? 10) things get weird as soon as you have people in groups; 11) all of cogsci is like undergrads at my university; 12) humans, what the heck?!?

This is going around again! Clearly it's time to resurrect this which I made for twitter back when it was less evil.

Types of Psych Papers

[Note: it is slightly more cynical (for humour value) than I actually am]