Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello
@hellovic.bsky.social
Psychology Ph.D. candidate at the University of Toronto studying how technology shapes people and society
After 5 years at the University of Toronto, I'm thrilled to join NYU's Center for Conflict and Cooperation as a postdoc, working with the inspiring @jayvanbavel.bsky.social on how modern technologies like social media and AI are shaping people and society. Stay tuned for more!
New guest post by my PhD student @hellovic.bsky.social. She writes about her new working paper finding that most Americans don't oppose AI. But those who do treat it as a moral issue, refusing tradeoffs and even money. Why that makes AI debates so hard. open.substack.com/pub/michaeli...
AI's Fiercest Critics Are Opting Out of the Conversations That Matters Most
This week I’m publishing a guest post by my PhD student, Victória Oldemburgo de Mello.
open.substack.com
New paper out! Some AI companies anthropomorphize their products to boost trust. But does it work? And can anthropomorphism benefit them beyond increased trust? We tested this across two studies. Here's what we found:
People prefer to use “sycophantic” AI systems that reinforce their pre-existing beliefs. In a new paper (n=7,227), we found that people enjoyed interacting with sycophantic AI chatbots more than interacting with neutral chatbots or “disagreeable” chatbots that challenged their beliefs.
We’ve updated our pre-print on the effects of AI sycophancy with four additional studies (total n = 7,227). Here is a brief summary of our new findings (🧵1/n):
We created a new scale to measure AI sycophancy in conversations with no right answer. Three facets: Uncritical Agreement, Obsequiousness, Excitement. People hate the flattery but welcome the enthusiasm. And sycophancy correlated with perceived empathy across every study. arxiv.org/abs/2603.15448
Check out my student @hellovic.bsky.social's new paper: The Moralization of Artificial Intelligence With @reemayad.bsky.social, @eloisecote.bsky.social, @yoelinbar.net, and Jason Plaks
Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello@hellovic.bsky.social · 5mo ago🧵 New preprint alert! Why do some people refuse to use AI, even when you tell them it's safe and beneficial? We argue it's not about risk perception. It's about moralization. AI has become a moral issue for many people, and that changes everything. [1/7] osf.io/preprints/ps...
🧵 New preprint alert! Why do some people refuse to use AI, even when you tell them it's safe and beneficial? We argue it's not about risk perception. It's about moralization. AI has become a moral issue for many people, and that changes everything. [1/7] osf.io/preprints/ps...
OSF
osf.io
So excited to see this research! My students just learned the word “sycophantic” today, for exactly this reason! We talked about the types and qualities of conversations you can have with a sycophant, and why this matters for how we process the output of LLMs.
Steve Rathje@steverathje.bsky.social · 10mo ago🚨 New preprint 🚨 Across 3 experiments (n = 3,285), we found that interacting with sycophantic (or overly agreeable) AI chatbots entrenched attitudes and led to inflated self-perceptions. Yet, people preferred sycophantic chatbots and viewed them as unbiased! osf.io/preprints/ps... Thread 🧵
🚨 New preprint 🚨 Across 3 experiments (n = 3,285), we found that interacting with sycophantic (or overly agreeable) AI chatbots entrenched attitudes and led to inflated self-perceptions. Yet, people preferred sycophantic chatbots and viewed them as unbiased! osf.io/preprints/ps... Thread 🧵
These changes in personality are pretty shocking
And some more on moral opposition to AI @yoelinbar.net @hellovic.bsky.social @reemayad.bsky.social @eloisecote.bsky.social @minzlicht.bsky.social www.nuancebehavior.com/article/mora...
Moral Opposition to AI
Although executives push “AI‑first” for efficiency, new research shows most resistance stems from moral gut reactions, not cost‑benefit math. Research from Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello, Reem Ayad, Élo...
nuancebehavior.com
Want to feel better after using Instagram? Our new paper shows how. It's not about what you post, it's about how you respond to others' joy. In 4 studies (N=1327), focusing on sharing & caring about others' positive emotions improved mood & life satisfaction pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39883419/#:~....
A positive empathy intervention to improve well-being on Instagram - PubMed
With more than half the global population on social media, there is a critical need to understand how to engage it in a way that improves rather than worsens user well-being. Here, we show that positi...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
1/ New paper led by Dariya Ovsyannikova & Victoria de Mello Oldemburgo. Can AI offer empathy that’s better than humans? Maybe. Our new study found that people rated AI-generated responses as more compassionate than from humans, including trained crisis responders. www.nature.com/commspsychol/
I'm excited to share with you all that my paper on A Positive Empathy Intervention to Improve Well-being on Instagram with @minzlicht.bsky.social and Victoria Oldemburgo de Melo has been accepted for publication at Emotion 😁🥳 osf.io/preprints/ps.... In this work, we tested a brief intervention 1/3
