Negativity, moralization, arousal, and ingroup vs outgroup language drive engagement online. But the norms of the community shape the impact. An analysis of 1,078,044 items from 587 communities on Reddit, Stack Exchange, X & YouTube finds variation across communities. osf.io/preprints/so...

This is good advice for prospective PhD students. I'm getting a ton of emails that are heavily written by AI. If you can show that you've actually read some of the research yourself and have a few original thoughts about it you'll definitely stand out.

Women with high cognitive ability face "detrimental interpersonal ramifications" at work Men do not. The theory is that smarter women violate perceived social role expectations leading them to face backlash that men do not receive psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?d...

Phones in school impair learning A randomized controlled trial (N=16,683 students) across 10 schools found that phone bans improve students’ academic achievement, with pronounced benefits for low-performing students. Students also became more supportive of such bans www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Deliberating before taking a stance on a political issue can improve how others view your character, but only if they disagree with you When people share the same views, deliberation tends to have little effect on how their character is judged by their allies. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Partisans have wildly inaccurate perceptions of outgroup members. But a 10 minute conversation with a “outgroup” chatbot can correct these false beliefs and reduce partisan hostility. We summarize 7 new intergroup studies in our latest newsletter www.powerofusnewsletter.com/p/september-...

Most people oppose ant-democratic practices, but a fair number of people are neutral about them. New research (N > 48,000) finds that neutrality is a threat to democracy--this large segment of the public tolerates anti-democratic elites www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Helping others is a universal behavior that is subtly shaped by local norms A study of 4-9 yr old kids (N = 336) helping in 6 diverse populations finds that children reliably helped their peers in all cultures (with some types of helping higher in urban settings). www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

I just learned that Threads has approximately 141.5 million to 150 million daily active users, X has around 125 million daily mobile users (with total daily active users estimated higher), and Bluesky has roughly 1.5 million to 3.5 million daily active users What happened to Bluesky?

This is a disaster Funding from the National Science Foundation's directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) has dropped by 90%. This is doing massive damage to crucially important scientific fields and is going to ruin many young scientific careers in these fields.

Dan Garisto@dangaristo.bsky.social · 6d ago

But no part was hit as hard as SBE, which went from an average of 800 new grants to just 91, a precipitous, 90% decline. SBE spent just 95 million on new grants, far less than its average of 247 million.

Liberals & conservatives behave differently--conservatives are out with others while liberals stay home and doomscroll Conservatives were at parties, noisy places, frats & religious activities. Liberals were at home, resting, doing chores, & browsing social media. psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...

The government *still* isn’t tracking how often immigration agents detain U.S. citizens. We are. 500+ Americans have been handcuffed, held at gunpoint or held against their will in Trump’s second term. Our tally is almost certainly an undercount. THREAD (content warning: violence) ⬇️

A few field experiments test how feed algorithms can improve social outcomes like partisan animosity - but this is the first I've seen showing that healthier feeds can also improve individual wellbeing. Young women in 3 conditions showed improved body image: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The most common outcome of a report to Title IX is that nothing happens. That’s by design. According to school policies (and now, Trump’s 2020 federal regulation), a report is just a way for schools to receive information about violence. It does not require any action from the school.

Most social media research has failed policy-makers Research on social media use and adolescent mental health has shown mixed results, and has often yielded no evidence of a strong relationship. But such studies have largely ignored the social cost of not belonging. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Social cohesion is key to the well-being of society but is increasingly weakened by fragmentation & polarization A study in India (n=8,648) finds that identification with all humanity helps people broaden inclusion, reduce discrimination, and bolster civic attitudes www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Writing a gratitude list is a well-studied tool for boosting well-being, but can the topics that you focus on influence the effectiveness of the exercise? New #PSPB research finds that writing about family or nature is linked to greater positivity. 📚: https://ow.ly/YOhJ50ZUtxz

I'll be giving a talk at @PopTech in DC this week on "Rage bait: are a few ruining the Internet for the rest of us?" If you'll be there, let's connect. Here's an article on my talk: www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j... To register for PopTech: civil.poptech.org?sourceid=108...

Are a few people ruining the internet for the rest of us?

Why does the online world seem so toxic compared with normal life? Our research shows that a small number of divisive accounts could be responsible – and offers a way out

theguardian.com

Life has changed dramatically in the last 30 years. We all use the internet far more, and are far less likely to read books, host friends, attend parties, play cards, attend classes, join clubs, go to picnics, and stay late to work. www.derekthompson.org/p/the-death-...

"Americans are more likely to have placed a bet than to have read a book in the past year" Online sports betting increases the likelihood of bankruptcy and cientists view gambling addiction as a public health issue, linked to anxiety, depression & suicidal ideation www.npr.org/2026/10/02/n...

After bankruptcy, he was banned from sports betting sites. Then he discovered Kalshi

The dark side of the prediction market boom is becoming more clear: Experts say the sites have become go-to outlets for gambling addicts to relapse as the companies avoid state consumer protections.

npr.org

People dehumanize AI users People denied humanness to AI advice seekers vs human advice seekers. This is because people perceived less similarity between themselves and AI advice seekers. In turn, they were less likely to provide support to AI users. psycnet.apa.org/record/2025-...

Devistating. And against Congress's directive. SBE was included in the 26 budget and the NSF section states that "no directorate shall receive more than a 5 percent reduction relative to the fiscal year 2024 enacted level."

Erin J. Wamsley 🧠📈😴@wamsleylab.bsky.social · last wk.

The fiscal year is over. The dying Social, Behavioral, and Economic division of NSF ended up awarding 90 total grants this year, as opposed to ~700-800 in recent past years. Source: grantwitness.org/nsf/analyses...

Will A.I. Make Your Brain Lazy? When people become accustomed to skipping the productive struggle of analytical tasks by using AI, they give up on hard questions that they could otherwise figure out. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Happiness is plummeting, especially among young people. When I see demoralizing data like this over and over again (e.g., test scores dropping, loneliness on the rise, etc), I just think we need to change course. Defending the status quo seems like such a bad option.

Higher education is facing a serious crisis. Enrollment is starting to crater. The public has lost faith in the value of our institution. Business as usual is not an option.

The Cornell case reveals a serious problem with social norms & institutions: 1) When people refuse to intervene when harassment or an assault is happening, that is a failure of norms 2) When universities fail to take action, this is a problem with our institutions www.bbc.com/news/article...

Cornell case spotlights 'confusing' web of systems for reporting campus assaults

Victims often have to navigate both university and local law enforcement processes to find justice.

bbc.com

Support for meritocracy (accept performance-based inequality, reject luck-based inequality) is common in countries that are richer, equal, individualistic, with weaker kinship ties and democratic institutions Other countries prefer egalitarian or libertarian fairness www.nature.com/articles/s41...

AI bots are flooding researchers with requests for money and time AI agents are spamming researchers with emails wanting to collaborate or offering services for money I'm getting these emails and they make it less likely that I will respond to real people www.nature.com/articles/d41...

AI bots are flooding researchers with requests for money and time

Many scientists use artificial intelligence in their work, but agents are increasingly soliciting researchers for collaborations.

nature.com

For all the hand-wringing about the effects of technology on kids, the impacts may be just as corrosive on their grandparents Most reading has been done by older Americans. In 2003, older Americans read 58 minutes/day. By last year, that had fallen to 32 minutes/day  www.nytimes.com/2026/07/16/o...

Opinion | Is This What a Post-Literate Era Looks Like?

It’s not the children who stopped reading. It’s their grandparents.

nytimes.com

Words change behavior more than we think People cooperate more when a game is called the “Community Game” than when it is called the “Wall Street Game” Language changes the emotions & social norms we associate with it—and therefore what we choose to do. www.powerofusnewsletter.com/p/shaping-be...