New preprint! w/Tessa Charlesworth & @williambrady.bsky.social:
The Psychology of Algorithmic Bias
We introduce a psychology-centered framework to specify mechanisms through which human behavior interacts dynamically with AI systems to produce algorithmic bias.
osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/rxu37_v1
New preprint! ✨ Do you and your partner have made-up words ("eggy" to mean awkward)? Do you and your bestie have an anecdote you love to tell together (that time one of you tripped over an acorn)? Do you and your closest colleague have a cherished ritual (weekly lunch at "the usual spot")? 🧵
Nice - this worked well!
Photo of Billy talking to a crowd of confused speakers & attendees
Photo of negotiations continuing between speakers
They double-booked a room for the "Healthy, Wise, Wealthy, Decision Making" and "Moral Machines" sessions at SPSP, but @williambrady.bsky.social exercised some masterful (& healthy & wise & moral & wealthy?) negotiation skills and we're now getting two sessions of talks in one 😊
🫡
Also! Causal evidence from A/B testing dataset: victim framing causes more click throughs
@killianmcloughlin.bsky.social social media news especially likely to use villian / victim framing; low quality news especially; more likely to evoke outrage and draw engagement when doing so #spsp
New work from @drsanaz.bsky.social : using smart phone sensing data, one of the biggest predictors of people higher on authoritarian measure was Facebook and social media use #spsp
Many think LLM-simulated participants can transform behavioral science. But there's been a lack of accessible discussion of what it means to validate LLMs for behavioral scientists. Under what conditions can we trust LLMs to learn about human parameters? Our paper maps the validation landscape.
1/
Including many fantastic participants I was able to tag + more: @markthornton.bsky.social n.bsky.social @clemensstachl.bsky.social @hyogweon.bsky.social @abbycassario.bsky.social @bufangao.bsky.social o.bsky.social @drsanaz.bsky.social @mattgroh.bsky.social @mohammadatari.bsky.social
Thanks or lead organizer Tessa Charlesworth, and co-organizers @baixuechunzi.bsky.social brent hughes @chujunlin.bsky.social
One thing we want to do this year is highlight all the cool computational psych happening throughout the conference symposia. If you have a talk broadly related to comp psych, enter it at this link: tinyurl.com/bdyuxmx3. We will put a QR code during precon so attendees can view this list!
We're excited about the upcoming Computational Psychology preconference at @spspnews.bsky.social this Thursday. See our action-packed full day agenda below! Featuring 3 keynote talk themes with related early-career speakers, data blitz session, panel discussion. Don't miss it! #SPSP
Last year at SPSP we had some great discussions about research with LLMs. This time #spsp2026 we're back with a whole workshop!
Friday 2/27 at 8am, + informal drinks at 6pm to continue the conversation
More info, plus a chance to submit discussion topics, here:
spsp2026.carrd.co
Interested in why moral conflict is so common on social media?
Join us at #SPSP 2026 for our symposium. We’ll present new findings on how platforms shape digital discourse and explore pathways toward healthier online environments
🗓 Saturday, the 28th | 9:30–10:40 AM
📍 Room E270, Level 2
WSP has been the birthplace of many great things (and perhaps also some questionable things 😅)
@chazfirestone.bsky.social it's a true honor 😅
Appreciate you Molly!!
Very honored by this one! Thanks to all my mentors, students and colleagues who made it possible! And congrats to all the recipients for their amazing work.
For folks interested in learning about our lab's research, check out this flier with all our presentations at this coming #SPSP2026 conference @spspnews.bsky.social. With research by several rising stars covering tech, culture, politics and more
Credit to our talented lab manager Hanying Yao!
Congrats to @mjcrockett.bsky.social on the Troland Research Award from @nasonline.org ! Having witnessed the "unusual achievement" first hand, very happy to see the recognition 🌹💐
www.nasonline.org/award/trolan...
Before the end of this year, I’m glad to share a short perspective/policy piece, recently out with @joshcjackson.bsky.social , Zhao Wang, and @williambrady.bsky.social: “Large AI Models Have a Prioritization Problem: Policy Implications and Solutions.”
Abstract When we empathize with someone going through something, we often draw on our past experiences with the someone and the something. These kinds of experiences ground "thick empathy", a form of empathy that has been largely overlooked in the psychology and neuroscience literature. Consider how a mother, empathizing with her daughter about to give birth, can draw on her own experience of childbirth, and her relationship with her daughter, to deeply grasp what her daughter is going through in a way that others who lack those experiences cannot. I argue that thick empathy deserves more empirical attention because it is associated with well-being and helps us build networks of effective mutual social support. My analysis highlights novel risks and dilemmas posed by "empathy machines" that promise to enhance or even replace human empathy and are becoming increasingly popular as a potential solution to widespread loneliness. Even when empathy machines provide value to individuals, their widespread adoption risks imposing collective emotional and epistemic costs that ultimately make it harder for us to empathize well. Keywords: empathy, understanding, experience, thick description, ethnography, phenomenal knowledge, interpersonal knowledge, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, chatbots
New preprint: Empathy, Thick and Thin
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
It is perhaps foolhardy to attempt to say something new about a topic as widely studied as empathy. I tried anyway! 1/
New from me - how AI-generated political videos have become just another part of social media, used to entertain, outrage and monitize attention
theconversation.com/ai-generated...
Out now in Scientific Reports! Despite high correlations, ChatGPT models failed to replicate human moral judgments. We propose tests beyond correlation to compare LLM data and human data.
With @mattgrizz.bsky.social @andyluttrell.bsky.social @chasmonge.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
So there you have it, twin study estimates were greatly inflated, and molecular data sets the record straight. I walk through possible counter-arguments, but ultimately the uncomfortable truth is that genes contribute to traits much less than we always thought.
Great work by @natematias.bsky.social & Megan Price: public involvement in AI is an important part of rigorous science. AI systems are sociotechnical, meaning that the lived experience of the public is essential for validation, etc.
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
New preprint out 📄
“Why Reform Stalls: Justifications of Force Are Linked to Lower Outrage and Reform Support.”
Why do some cases of police violence spark reform while others fade? We look at how people explain them—through justification or outrage.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
🚨Out in PNAS🚨
Examining news on 7 platforms:
1)Right-leaning platforms=lower quality news
2)Echo-platforms: Right-leaning news gets more engagement on right-leaning platforms, vice-versa for left-leaning
3)Low-quality news gets more engagement EVERYWHERE - even BlueSky!
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Excited to share a new preprint, accepted as a spotlight at #NeurIPS2025!
Humans are imperfect decision-makers, and autonomous systems should understand how we deviate from idealized rationality
Our paper aims to address this! 👀🧠✨
arxiv.org/abs/2510.25951
a 🧵⤵️