New paper in @nature.com with @lukebeehewitt.bsky.social, @isaiasghezae.bsky.social, & @robbwiller.bsky.social: Can LLMs predict results of social science experiments? Across 70 experiments, we find a strong correspondence (r=.85) between predicted and observed effects. doi.org/10.1038/s415... 🧵

Glad to see this WP from our lab out today, a labor of love over last year. Kudos to @davidbroska.bsky.social and @jonnekamphorst.bsky.social for their hard work on it! Please share any comments, suggestions, or criticisms of the research. All are welcome!

davidbroska.bsky.social@davidbroska.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Americans say they want less inequality. Why don’t they support policies to reduce it? New paper: across 31 nationally representative survey waves (N=384,248) and a preregistered experiment (N=1,009), Americans favor PREdistributive over REdistributive policies 🧵 osf.io/preprints/so...

Thanks to Jonas Schoene for sharing his work on how people judge the immorality of organizations! @robbwiller.bsky.social

Americans say they want less inequality. Why don’t they support policies to reduce it? New paper: across 31 nationally representative survey waves (N=384,248) and a preregistered experiment (N=1,009), Americans favor PREdistributive over REdistributive policies 🧵 osf.io/preprints/so...

Thanks to @davidbroska.bsky.social for sharing his new methods for simulating social science experiments! Stay tuned for more in the coming months👀 @robbwiller.bsky.social

Climate change impacts are here, but public support for action remains polarized. Which climate messages move people? In a ~13,500-person megastudy, we tested 10 of the most-cited messages. Six increased pro-environmental attitudes in the U.S.—but only by 1–4 percentage points. 🧵

Can AI voter guides help voters decide while remaining accurate, nonpartisan, and trustworthy? Very grateful to @stanfordimpactlabs.bsky.social for a new grant supporting our next work on this (building on work led by Joe Mernyk & Jonne Kamphorst): bsky.app/profile/robb...

Robb Willer@robbwiller.bsky.social · 6mo ago

🚨New WP: Can an AI voter guide (grounded in information from a nonpartisan, fact-checked source) help voters’ decision making? 🚨 We built and evaluated an LLM-based chatbot that provided voting info in CA & TX (N=2,474) right before the 2024 election. 🧵👇

Congrats to our own @robbwiller.bsky.social on being awarded the 2026 #GuggenheimFellowship for his outstanding and innovative work in #Sociology! Read more about the @guggfellows.bsky.social: www.gf.org/stories/anno...

Announcing the 2026 Guggenheim Fellows — Guggenheim Fellowships: Supporting Artists, Scholars, & Scientists

Since 1925, the Guggenheim Foundation has given Fellowships to exceptional artists, writers, scholars, and scientists, empowering them to pursue meaningful work under the freest possible conditions.

gf.org

Very grateful to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship. I’ve been so lucky to have such incredible students, collaborators, and mentors. Above all, I feel very lucky that I get to work on topics I care so deeply about with collaborators who are also my friends.✊❤️ #guggfellows2026

Thanks @austin-van-loon.bsky.social for sharing your creative work on how Americans' perceptions of the US influence their immigration policy attitudes!

@nature.com has published three groundbreaking papers on reproducibility, analytical robustness, and replicability across the social sciences. Sincere thanks are due to the many folks who contributed to these projects. It’s painstaking work, and a great service to social science.

Are you Chicago-bound for SPSP 2026? Quick plug to the Politics & Social Change Lab affiliates presenting talks & posters on coalitions, issue advocacy, media framing, inequality, social media & well-being, and other topics. Very proud of them and their work! 😀 Details below 👇

🎉 Congratulations 🎉 to our lab director @robbwiller.bsky.social who has been honored by @spspnews.bsky.social for his work applying social/behavioral science to public policy through collaborations w/ @whitehouse-47.bsky.social COVID response team, US DOJ, & @natlgovsassoc.bsky.social, among others!

Thanks @pnasnexus.org for sharing our new work on AI authorship labeling and persuasion...check out their post to learn more! Paper link: ow.ly/KXeE50YhHag Isabel O. Gallegos, Chen Shani, @shi-weiyan.bsky.social, Federico Bianchi, Izzy Gainsburg, @jurafsky.bsky.social, @robbwiller.bsky.social

PNAS Nexus@pnasnexus.org · 6mo ago

Labeling AI-generated arguments on topics such as geoengineering or paying college athletes does not make the arguments less persuasive, according to a survey of 1,601 Americans. A good point is apparently a good point, regardless of origin. In PNAS Nexus: https://ow.ly/KXeE50YhHag

Check out this super exciting work showing that AI-supported voter guides can be designed to be trustworthy and have a host of pro-democratic outcomes! @jsmernyk.bsky.social @jonnekamphorst.bsky.social @adambonica.bsky.social @robbwiller.bsky.social

Robb Willer@robbwiller.bsky.social · 6mo ago

🚨New WP: Can an AI voter guide (grounded in information from a nonpartisan, fact-checked source) help voters’ decision making? 🚨 We built and evaluated an LLM-based chatbot that provided voting info in CA & TX (N=2,474) right before the 2024 election. 🧵👇

Thanks @gsb.stanford.edu for covering our work in their piece "How to Talk About Climate Change Across Political Divides" stanford.io/4jQi2Ct Amazing work from Jan Voelkel @nmalhotra.bsky.social @robbwiller.bsky.social & many others! Original article in Nature Climate Change: rdcu.be/e1cbZ

How to Talk About Climate Change Across Political Divides

A “tournament” of common climate messaging strategies finds which are more likely to sway opinions.

stanford.io

Honored that our field experiment w Nat'l Governors Assoc won a 2025 Expy Award from Analyst Institute! Congrats to @chagaiweiss.bsky.social @robbwiller.bsky.social and Don Green! WP: osf.io/preprints/os... Join Analyst Group to build more effective strategies for greater impact bit.ly/ExpyJoin

Huge thanks to @cydneydupree.bsky.social for an insightful presentation of her work investigating how White Americans’ use of values-based language shapes cross-racial affiliation! @robbwiller.bsky.social

Big thanks to Sarah Constantino for sharing her exciting research on social tipping points and climate change solutions with the lab this past Tuesday! @robbwiller.bsky.social

Thank you to @myra.bsky.social for her recent insightful presentation on how sycophantic AI can reduce people’s willingness to take responsibility and repair interpersonal conflicts! @robbwiller.bsky.social

Thank you to Kasey Rhee for an exciting recent presentation on her work analyzing how party registration has shifted across demographic groups using an unprecedented dataset of six billion voter records! @robbwiller.bsky.social

Proud to have our very own Ben Kinder present his undergraduate thesis research in our lab, focusing on pragmatic biases and strategic discrimination in American voting preferences. Excited to see where this work goes!

Thank you to @joshcjackson.bsky.social and Dan Medvedev for a fascinating recent lab presentation on how attitudes toward the rich vary globally! Innovative methods and fascinating findings, all around. @robbwiller.bsky.social

Big thanks to @kobihackenburg.bsky.social for sharing his comprehensive research program on the capacity of AI-Human conversation to facilitate attitude change. Really exciting stuff!

Awesome work by Jiayi Geng leading this preprint investigating then question, "Do LM assistants change their beliefs as context accumulates?"

Thanks to Paul Lendway for presenting his work on sermon rhetoric and what it tells us about Evangelical alignment with the Republican Party. Looking forward to reading the book that comes out of this research! @robbwiller.bsky.social

🚨New WP!🚨 Structured AI Dialogues Can Increase Happiness and Meaning in Life In a preregistered RCT, four psychology-grounded #AI chatbots improved well-being across several outcomes. Co-authors: Jonas Schoene, Johannes Eichstaedt, Aadesh Salecha, Sonja Lyubomirsky 🧵👇

Very cool to see @robbwiller.bsky.social quoted in the @wsj.com talking about our work (led by @chagaiweiss.bsky.social) testing the effects testing the #DisagreeBetter ads: www.wsj.com/politics/min...

Meet the Lawmakers Trying to Bring Civility Back to Politics

In a growing movement, state legislators in Minnesota, Arkansas, Kansas and beyond are taking on America’s political rage. Opponents are “not the devil.”

wsj.com

Last night's @60minutes.bsky.social with Governor Spencer Cox offers a great chance to learn about the #DisagreeBetter campaign, an effort to encourage respectful and constructive political disagreement: www.cbsnews.com/video/928202...

9/28/2025: A Lonely Voice; The Mystery of the Eagle S; Dana White

First, a message from Utah Gov. Cox after the Charlie Kirk murder. Then, a report on undersea cable cutting in the Baltic Sea. And, UFC head Dana White: The 60 Minutes Interview.

cbsnews.com