What book has been life changing for you? For many people, a non-fiction book has changed their life. At least, according to countless book reviews. This is why we are now studying the power of non-fiction books to try and make a world a bit less hostile www.powerofusnewsletter.com/p/can-ai-hel...

Can reading non-fiction books reduce partisan hostility? We tested 25 books using simulations and the winners are: “Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness” + “Facing the Fracture: How to Navigate the Challenges of Living in a Divided Nation”. www.powerofusnewsletter.com/p/can-ai-hel...

Can AI Help Us Find the Books That Bridge Political Divides?

We used language models to screen 26 nonfiction books. They agreed on the broad winners, disagreed on the details, and helped us choose two finalists for a human trial.

powerofusnewsletter.com

I spent this week contemplating depolarization & cultivating connection at the Mind & Life Institute I spoke about our research on how technology often does more to divide than connect us. I was inspired by the passionate people trying to foster compassion and create better spaces for disagreement.

New paper published in Nature with @i4replication.bsky.social , where we could reproduce 85% of claims published in some economics and political science journals, with 72% of the claims passing various robustness checks. doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Reproducibility and robustness of economics and political science research - Nature

Robustness checks and reproduction of analyses with existing and updated data based on 110 articles in economics and political science journals with data and code-sharing requirements found high level...

doi.org

Institute for Replication@i4replication.bsky.social · 4mo ago

🧵1/ Our first meta-science paper (with 350+ coauthors) is published today in Nature. It presents one of the largest-ever reproducibility projects in economics & political science. Here’s what we found 👇

🚨 New AI Games round is live 🚨 Our first AI Games paper is now out at a top general interest journal (see preprint here: www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10... So… we’re launching the next stage 👇

Come join us for the screening of "THE AI DOC: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist" on Tuesday night!

Jay Van Bavel, PhD@jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 5mo ago

We will be hosting a pre-release screening of the "THE AI DOC: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist" The event is NYU Tuesday, March 24 @ 6:30pm followed by a panel discussion The details are in the post below along with a link to attend the event: www.powerofusnewsletter.com/publish/post...

Was great to present on developing the moral self and some of my early LLM simulation results for @lianeleeyoung.bsky.social's Morality Lab at Boston College! Felt very welcome by the team especially @trystanloustau.bsky.social and @mtrenfield.bsky.social and received great feedback. Thanks guys! 😎

Excited to see this now published. We unpack how polarization shapes health not just through attitudes, but through group processes and identity-driven decision-making. Here's a publisher-provided free read-only access link to the paper for those interested: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author...

Jay Van Bavel, PhD@jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 6mo ago

A growing body of evidence identifies political polarization as a risk factor adversely shaping public health outcomes. Our new paper explains how this relationship can be understood through theories of group processes and behavioral decision-making. compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Today! I will be giving an in-person talk at the Mind Lab at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, hosted by Dr. Pooja Swami Sahni, PhD!

We had the honor of hosting Dr. Marie Bragg at our @centerconflictcooperation.com at NYU, led by @jayvanbavel.bsky.social, for a talk on “strategic science”—being intentional about the questions we pursue, how we study them, and how we communicate our findings for social impact.

{rempsyc} #rstats package v0.2.0 now on CRAN! Last release announcement for this was in July 2024. Since v0.1.8: Improvements to speed, workflow, nice_scatter, nice_lm, nice_lm_slopes, nice_table, and many bug fixes. Let me know if you use my package—it keeps me going! rempsyc.remi-theriault.com

Convenience Functions for Psychology

Make your workflow faster and easier. Easily customizable plots (via ggplot2), nice APA tables (following the style of the *American Psychological Association*) exportable to Word (via flextable), eas...

rempsyc.remi-theriault.com

The race to churn out papers is a systemic problem. Early career scholars are desperate to get more papers to compete in the academic job market. This can make it hard for faculty mentors hard to reduce their output unless they shrink their lab (which removes opportunities from next generation).

Can recommend! Reach out if you are interested in how beliefs are formed, the spread of false or misleading information, and social influence processes more generally.

Raunak Pillai@rmpillai.bsky.social · 9mo ago

I'll be starting as an Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science at Stony Brook in Fall '26! My lab will take a social cognitive approach to studying how we form/update our beliefs and why we disagree about what is true vs false I'll also be reviewing grad apps! See below for more info

{report} #rstats package version 0.6.2 is now on CRAN! MANY bug fixes in this version! Including corrected duplicated text outputs and dramatic speed increases for brmsfit models (which used to refit the model entirely every time). easystats.github.io/report/ With the @easystats.github.io team

Can reading a book make you a better person? 🤔 Read more in the Power of Us newsletter, featuring insights from social psychologist Rémi Thériault and NYU Professor of Psychology & Neural Science, Jay Van Bavel!

Jay Van Bavel, PhD@jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Can reading a book make you a better person? Reading books is declining. But people who read weekly book excerpts & podcasts instead of meditating had the greatest reductions in aggression and growth in compassionate love, positive attitudes & altruism www.powerofusnewsletter.com/p/can-readin...

As avid booklovers, we're excited to see the progress of 2024 EVA awardee Rémi Thériault! His research explores how nonfiction books — especially in pop psychology — might influence prosociality and polarisation. 👏

Jay Van Bavel, PhD@jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Has a book ever changed your life? While the benefits of reading fiction are well-studied, the impact of nonfiction is largely unexplored @remi-theriault.com will see if nonfiction can foster inclusive social identities, reduce polarization & promote cooperation www.mindandlife.org/media/readin...

What do 92% of scientists agree on regarding social media and smartphone use? blog.andrewyang.com/p/the-scienc...

The Science of Smartphones

Hello, I hope that you’re doing great.

blog.andrewyang.com

Really enjoyed talking with @andrew-yang.bsky.social and @jayvanbavel.bsky.social about the science of social media. Thanks for having us on your podcast, @andrew-yang.bsky.social

Andrew Yang@andrew-yang.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Why does online content seem so angry and emotional? Professors @jayvanbavel.bsky.social and @steverathje.bsky.social join andrewyang.com/podcast to talk the science of social media including why polarization gets revved up by a tiny percentage of accounts.

Why does online content seem so angry and emotional? Professors @jayvanbavel.bsky.social and @steverathje.bsky.social join andrewyang.com/podcast to talk the science of social media including why polarization gets revved up by a tiny percentage of accounts.

In a new podcast, I discuss the dangers of rising political polarization, how social media incentives contribute to polarization, and why we should consider polarization a social determinant of health with @ryanlinnbrown.bsky.social You can listen here: www.powerofusnewsletter.com/p/political-...

Political Polarization and Health: Navigating the social media divide

Issue 182: Why political polarization affects both individual and societal health

powerofusnewsletter.com

New PSA paper led by Tom Heyman! We present a tutorial on crowdsourced MULTIVERSE ANALYSES—a transparent way to test how robust findings are across many analytic paths. Experts suggest, then validate possible paths. This helps quantify uncertainty and clarify when/where scientific conclusions hold.

Hu Chuan-Peng@hcp4715.bsky.social · 11mo ago

as a big fun of multiverse, I am really happy to see a nice tutorial was just out: psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-... Congrats to @epronizius.bsky.social, @slewis5920.bsky.social @aggieerin.bsky.social & @psysciacc.bsky.social (sorry i did not follow all of the authors here) #Metascience #OpenScience

Review by @rmpillai.bsky.social et al suggests social identity-based group identification and motives influence health behaviours in multiple, mutually reinforcing ways, which explains public health polarization: buff.ly/4tsTuum via coauthor @jayvanbavel.bsky.social

We revisit the classic Theory of Planned Behavior and highlight how social identity plays a critical role in shaping attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control vis-à-vis a host of health behaviors. Polarization, in particular, can have dramatic consequences on public health.

Jay Van Bavel, PhD@jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Our new paper explains the #polarization of public health Identifying with a social group can shape people’s beliefs and values, leading them to act in ways that have consequences for their health From vaccine hesitancy to smoking cessation, identity plays a critical role: osf.io/preprints/ps...

Comparing fiction and non-fiction as broad categories might be misleading. Non-fiction isn't a single genre: some books are probably much more powerful than others and might excel at different things. Could some be especially effective at uniting humankind and reducing conflict?

Jay Van Bavel, PhD@jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Can reading a book make you a better person? Reading books is declining. But people who read weekly book excerpts & podcasts instead of meditating had the greatest reductions in aggression and growth in compassionate love, positive attitudes & altruism www.powerofusnewsletter.com/p/can-readin...

New preprint: From vaccinations to masking, politics predicts health behaviors. In this review we discuss these differences in light of classic psychological theories of group identity and behavioral decision-making. We welcome any feedback on this working paper! osf.io/preprints/ps...

Indeed! What are some of the books that had the greatest impact on you? Feel free to share as comments or private messages! We are interested in hearing your book suggestions

Jay Van Bavel, PhD@jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Has a book ever changed your life? While the benefits of reading fiction are well-studied, the impact of nonfiction is largely unexplored @remi-theriault.com will see if nonfiction can foster inclusive social identities, reduce polarization & promote cooperation www.mindandlife.org/media/readin...

#statstab #390 modelbased: An R package to make the most out of your statistical models through marginal means, marginal effects, and model predictions Thoughts: Great package for getting predicted probabilities for your models. #rstats #r #easystats doi.org/10.21105/jos...

modelbased: An R package to make the most out of your statistical models through marginal means, marginal effects, and model predictions

Makowski et al., (2025). modelbased: An R package to make the most out of your statistical models through marginal means, marginal effects, and model predictions. Journal of Open Source Software, 10(1...

doi.org

Excited to share that our manifesto for a more globally diverse, equitable, and inclusive open science, led by @sakshighai.bsky.social was selected for a Commendation Award from the Society for @improvingpsych.org ! You can read the open-access paper here: doi.org/10.1038/s442...

A manifesto for a globally diverse, equitable, and inclusive open science - Communications Psychology

Psychology must embrace more responsible practices in design, reporting, generalisation, and evaluation of research to counteract the spectre of Questionable Generalisability Practices and the issue o...

doi.org

Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science (SIPS)@improvingpsych.org · last yr.

✨ A Manifesto for a Globally Diverse, Equitable, and Inclusive Open Science is a perspective piece that offers researchers practical guidance for promoting responsible generalisation and equitable co-authorship by embedding DEI throughout every stage of the research process. buff.ly/DxPAjre

We are very pleased to announce the 2025 Commendations for the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science! Join us in celebrating the exceptional projects that have revolutionized the field of psychological science. buff.ly/rzTeLYL

We are very pleased to announce the 2025 Awards Winners for the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science! Join us in celebrating the exceptional projects that have revolutionized the field of psychological science. buff.ly/rzTeLYL

July 2025

By Joanna Rutkowska, SIPS Awards Committee Chair

buff.ly