Robb Willer @RobbWiller Twitter profile | Pikagi

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Robb Willer

@RobbWiller

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Professor of Sociology, Psychology, & Org Behavior @Stanford . Director of Polarization and Social Change Lab, Co-Direct @StanfordPACS . Obsessive basketball fan

Palo Alto, CA

https://t.co/woPj2djbaE

Joined August 2014

Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

20 days

🚨New WP: Can LLMs predict results of social science experiments?🚨 Prior work uses LLMs to simulate survey responses, but can they predict results of social science experiments? Across 70 studies, we find striking alignment (r = .85) between simulated and observed effects 🧵👇

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

🚨New WP: How can we reduce partisan animosity & anti-democratic attitudes in US?🚨 We share results of the Strengthening Democracy Challenge: N=32k megastudy testing 25 depolarization interventions Shows effective treatments for many neg outcomes! 🧵👇

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

3 years

🚨Come work with us!🚨 The Polarization and Social Change Lab @Stanford has an open Research Coordinator position. We invite applicants from psychology, poli sci, sociology, econ, data science, et al. Position begins in Spring or Summer of 2022. Please forward to any and all!

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

🚨🚨Come work with us!🚨🚨 I'm excited to announce that Stanford's Polarization and Social Change Lab is recruiting two new, post-doctoral positions: a Postdoctoral Scholar and a Research Scholar! See full thread below for info on both. Please share!

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

🚨Results are in for the Strengthening Democracy Challenge. Winners will be announced this week!🚨 ITT we announce the 25 submissions we selected to test. We think these submissions are awesome & hope you do too. But first, how we got here…👇🧵

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

4 months

🚨🚨Do Americans accurately perceive union benefits? 🚨🚨 Our new paper (led by @JonneKamphorst ) out this week @PNASNews finds: Americans significantly and systematically underestimate material benefits associated with union benefits. 🧵👇

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

🚨🚨New paper “Incivility is Rising Among American Politicians on Twitter” out now in SPPS! 🚨🚨 Is political discourse on Twitter growing more toxic? Is the platform responsible? If so, what can be done about it? 🧵👇

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

4 years

🚨Come work with us!🚨 The Polarization and Social Change Lab at Stanford has an open post-doctoral position. We invite applications from psychology, poli sci, sociology, econ, data science, et al. Review begins 1/21/2021. Please forward to any and all!

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

8 years

My talk on how to be persuasive and create political coalitions in America, posted today on TED website @TEDTalks

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How to have better political conversations

Robb Willer studies the forces that unite and divide us. As a social psychologist, he researches how moral values -- typically a source of division -- can also be used to bring people together....

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

3 years

🚨New WP🚨 “Elite Party Cues Increase Vaccination Intentions among Republicans” How to convince Republicans-biggest holdout group-to get vaccinated? We find pro-vax messaging from Trump+Rep elites works, whereas Biden+Dems message reduces enthusiasm

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

4 years

🚨Come work with us!🚨 The Polarization and Social Change Lab, in partnership with Stanford Impact Labs, invites applications to a NEW post-doc program for scholars looking to make an impact. We invite applicants from sociology, psychology, poli sci, econ, data science, etc 1/X

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

3 years

🚨Call for Submissions🚨 “The Strengthening Democracy Challenge,” a large-scale project testing interventions to reduce (a) anti-democratic attitudes, (b) support for partisan violence, and/or (c) partisan animosity, is open for submissions NOW 1/

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

5 years

How can progressive candidates build support beyond their base? By explaining how their policies fit well with widely held values like family, security, and the American Dream. My new piece with @jgvoelkel in the @nytimes

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Opinion | Why Progressive Candidates Should Invoke Conservative Values (Published 2019)

Research suggests they would gain moderate and conservative support — without losing ground among their base.

www.nytimes.com

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

3 years

🚨Out now in @PNASNews 🚨 Are women politicians disadvantaged by perceptions of their electability? How can these perceptions be overcome? We report results of 6 studies (N=7,895) conducted during the 2020 Dem primaries. 🧵

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

5 years

Whoa, this is crazy. Thanks to the great @B_resnick for covering my research w/ Matt Feinberg and @jgvoelkel that @BarackObama (!?) tweeted about today. Honored our research appears alongside work by @dbroockman @j_kalla @JonHaidt @chris_bail and others

@BarackObama

Barack Obama

5 years

Before arguing with friends or family around the Thanksgiving table, take a look at the science behind arguing better. And it'll never hurt to try this: "Listen to people, get them to think about their own experience, and highlight your common humanity."

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

6 years

Stanford’s new Polarization and Social Change Lab has an open postdoctoral position. We invite applications from political science, psychology, sociology, & beyond. Review starts Dec. 15. Please forward to any and all who might be interested!

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

#GPT3 and #ChatGPT can produce appeals that persuade humans on political issues (even highly polarized ones), with effect sizes similar to appeals written by humans. New research from our lab, with @baixx062 , @jgvoelkel , and @JEichstaedt . 🧵👇

@baixx062

Max Hui Bai Ph.D.

2 years

New WP: 🚨Artificial Intelligence Can Persuade Humans on Political Issues🚨Large language models (like #ChatGPT and #GPT3 ) are changing the world. Here we show that GPT3 can write messages that change people’s attitudes on important policy issues 🧵1/11

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

3 years

🚨New WP🚨 “Correcting Inaccurate Metaperceptions Reduces Americans’ Support for Partisan Violence” We find correcting inaccurate perceptions of outpartisans’ support for partisan violence significantly and durably reduced support for partisan violence

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

4 years

Academic Twitter, what are ways that we could apply social & behav science to help address the Coronavirus pandemic? E.g., ideas for effective public health messages, strategies for nudging leaders to quarantine, social distancing, things social media platforms can do, etc.

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

7 months

I had the great pleasure of chatting with @ShankarVedantam on @HiddenBrain , discussing political persuasion, empathy, moral reframing, and my unforgivable behavior towards roommates throughout my early 20’s. Of poss interest 👇

@HiddenBrain

Hidden Brain

7 months

“If the goal is persuading somebody, you may need to…focus on getting into that person's head in order to construct an argument that would be persuasive to them” - @RobbWiller This week, we continue our US 2.0 series with a look at how to have more productive disagreements.

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

3 years

Republicans are the largest vaccine hesitant group in the US and their hesitancy is not declining. What can we do about it? In this new piece in the @LAtimes , I & @jayvanbavel discuss strategies and some of the relevant behavioral science in this space

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

9 months

It was a pleasure working on this project - out today in @Nature - with @kairuggeri , @jayvanbavel , and many other terrific scholars. And a big h/t to Kai for his impressive leadership.

@jayvanbavel

Jay Van Bavel, PhD

9 months

Our new paper in @Nature evaluates the accuracy of social and behavioral policy recommendations during COVID19 (from ) We reviewed 747 papers (mean N = 16,848) and found evidence for 89% of our central claims: The strongest

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

1 year

Honored that @pascl_stanford was featured on PBS @NewsHour today! Heartfelt thanks to @JudyWoodruff for visiting to talk with our passionate team. Watch the segment here (starts @ 38:50):

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PBS News Hour | Season 2023 | May 31, 2023 - PBS NewsHour full episode | PBS

May 31, 2023 - PBS NewsHour full episode

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

Many 2022 candidates do not acknowledge results of 2020 election. This is a huge problem. How can we persuade people not to support undemocratic candidates in the 2022 midterms? @jgvoelkel & I offer insights from the Strengthening Democracy Challenge.

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Analysis | Here’s what persuades Americans to support democracy over party

We tested 25 different approaches with both Republicans and Democrats. Here are three that made a difference.

www.washingtonpost.com

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

Happy to see in-depth coverage of our team’s (& others') research on anti-democratic attitudes and affective polarization in Tom @Edsall 's column today in @nytpolitics (w/ quotes from @LilyMasonPhD , @j_kalla , @m_levendusky , @seanjwestwood , & others).

Opinion | Meet the People Working on Getting Us to Hate One Another Less (Published 2023)

As the threat to democratic norms and procedures mounts, there has been an explosion of research aimed at lowering the political temperature.

www.nytimes.com

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Robb Willer

3 years

🚨🚨Do you have social science research to share on COVID-19 vaccination?🚨🚨 If yes, pls add your research to the COVID-19 Behavioral Research Repository! Details below... 1/3

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

Very excited to see this in-depth coverage of the Strengthening Democracy Challenge in @TheAtlantic ! When you have a chance, please check out this piece written by the outstanding @GrahamDavidA

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How to Save Democracy

A new study gives clues for how to fix America’s political culture.

www.theatlantic.com

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

6 years

Our new paper on the effects of racial status threats on white Americans' opposition to welfare programs is out this week in @SF_Journal . I'm very proud of Rachel Wetts - sociology PhD candidate @UCBerkeley - for her excellent work on this paper!

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Welfare opposition linked to threats of racial standing

Researchers find that when white Americans perceive threats to their status as the dominant demographic group, their resentment of minorities increases. This resentment leads to opposing welfare...

news.stanford.edu

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

3 years

Come work with us! The Polarization and Social Change Lab @Stanford has up to 2 open Research Coordinator positions. If you’re interested, please apply now! We will begin reviewing applications this week.

@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

3 years

🚨Come work with us!🚨 The Polarization and Social Change Lab @Stanford has an open Research Coordinator position. We invite applicants from psychology, poli sci, sociology, econ, data science, et al. Position begins in Spring or Summer of 2022. Please forward to any and all!

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Robb Willer

3 months

🚨🚨Call for Submissions🚨🚨 For the “Structural Democratic Reforms Project” we are gathering ideas from a diverse range of academics, practitioners, and concerned citizens. Submit your ideas for reforms to improve our political system NOW! 1/

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Robb Willer

9 months

🚨🚨We are thrilled to announce the winners of the inaugural @pascl_stanford Bridging Divides & Strengthening Democracy Field Test Grants!🚨🚨

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Polarization and Social Change Lab Announces Field Test Grant Winners - Stanford PACS

The Polarization and Social Change Lab (PaSCL) at Stanford PACS is pleased to announce the winners of its inaugural Bridging Divides & Strengthening Democracy Field Test Grants. Building on the...

pacscenter.stanford.edu

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

When @kairuggeri proposed to @jayvanbavel and I to conduct a rigorous evaluation of claims made in the 2020 @NatureHumBehav article we co-organized, I was excited but also a bit wary. How could we be involved in a fair evaluation of our own claims?

@kairuggeri

Kai Ruggeri

2 years

Did behavioral science offer anything during the pandemic? 76 authors (23 countries) assessed evidence from 3,000+ behavioral science papers during COVID, testing 19 claims by Van Bavel et al 2020. Preprint: Interactive database:

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Robb Willer

20 days

To evaluate predictive accuracy of LLMs for social science experiments, we used #GPT4 to predict 476 effects from 70 well-powered experiments, including: ➡️50 survey experiments conducted through NSF-funded TESS program ➡️20 additional replication studies (Coppock et al. 2018)

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

3 years

🚨New WP🚨“Religious Identity Cues Increase Vaccination Intentions and Trust in Medical Experts among American Christians” How to promote vaccination among American Christians? Highlighting Christian identity of experts increases trust & vacc intentions

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

6 years

@jimtankersley Also unfortunate is a culture of contemputousness that fosters intellectual incuriosity and a posture of "how can I cut this down" rather than "what can I learn here" that I think can be unscientific.

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

1 year

This is an excellent, excellent thread. Fraud (& the use of QRPs to an extent that borders on fraud) directly and indirectly harms scientists who do it the right way. Things have improved a lot, but we need more progress, reforming institutions to align incentives w/ good science

@spbhanot

Syon Bhanot

1 year

Ugh: A 🧵. This pisses me off. I have spent a TON of time getting null results published - including one very much related to the fraudulent paper in question - here is my field exp null on honesty pledges: …

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

8 months

FYI, we are recruiting for at least one new Research Coordinator position in our lab (details 👇). We encourage a culture of rigor, discovery, fun, and solidarity. We aspire to do work that has meaningful social impact. If this sounds appealing to you, please apply!

@pascl_stanford

Polarization and Social Change Lab

@pascl_stanford

8 months

🚨Come work with us! 🚨The Polarization and Social Change Lab @Stanford has an open Research Coordinator position. We invite applicants from psychology, poli sci, sociology, econ, data science, et al. Position begins in Spring or Summer of 2024. Please forward to any and all!

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Robb Willer

20 days

But what if LLMs are simply retrieving & reproducing known experimental results from training data? We find evidence against this: analyzing only studies *unpublished* at time of GPT4’s training data cut-off, we find high predictive accuracy (r = .90, adj. r = .94).

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

🚨🚨Come work with us!🚨🚨 Announcing a 3rd new postdoc opening in our lab, this one focused on large language models mentored by @JEichstaedt & me. Please share widely!

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

3 years

It was an honor to participate in this briefing of the White House COVID-19 Response Team with @NeilLewisJr @jayvanbavel @katy_milkman @mhallsworth @davenuss79 @DG_Rand @abuttenheim @ElanaSafran @tedr2020

@SPSPnews

Society for Personality and Social Psychology

3 years

How can behavioral science boost #COVID19 vaccine uptake? SPSP members @NeilLewisJr , @RobbWiller , @jayvanbavel , and @katy_milkman tackled this challenge during a @WhiteHouse briefing in March:

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Robb Willer

3 years

@bubbaprog And now the politicization of non-COVID vaccination begins. We can expect the association between partisanship and all forms of vaccination to rise. Just so terribly sad. It didn't have to be this way.

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

1 year

Check out this new paper, which leverages a unique sample of state legislators to measure outparty perceptions among US political elites. (Kudos to @suji_kang_ and Jamie Druckman for leading this project!) 🧵👇

@suji_kang_

Suji Kang

1 year

(1/n) Now out @PNASNews , we show that correcting legislators' misperceptions of out-partisan voters reduces legislators’ own support for undemocratic practices (SUP) and animosity toward out-partisans. Check below what we found! ⬇️

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

1 year

🚨🚨Big changes are happening in our lab ( @pascl_stanford ) as we celebrate exciting transitions for several lab members!!🚨🚨 Here are some of the wonderful people who will be headed to new schools (and a sneak peek into the bright minds joining us this Fall)! 🧵👇 #LabUpdates

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

5 years

Now hiring a full-time research coordinator in the Stanford Polarization & Social Change Lab. Applications welcome from social psych, poli sci, sociology, et al. Projects on persuasion, civility, social movmnts, discrimination, inequality, & more. Join us!

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

Can confidently report that when an aging hipster dad steps on a child's Lego in the night, the pain is 40% physical & 60% the knowledge that one has become a cultural cliche.

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Robb Willer

3 years

Religious identity cues can increase vaccine intentions and trust in medical experts among American Christians. This research - headed up by @jchu1225 and Sophia Pink - out now in @PNASNews .

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Religious identity cues increase vaccination intentions and trust in medical experts among American...

Containing the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States requires mobilizing a large majority of the mass public to vaccinate, but many Americans are ...

@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

3 years

🚨New WP🚨“Religious Identity Cues Increase Vaccination Intentions and Trust in Medical Experts among American Christians” How to promote vaccination among American Christians? Highlighting Christian identity of experts increases trust & vacc intentions

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

4 years

The deadline to apply for a post-doc in our lab is in one week. If you are interested in political dimensions of poverty, social movements, gender, race, and/or environmental protection, please consider applying!

@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

4 years

🚨Come work with us!🚨 The Polarization and Social Change Lab at Stanford has an open post-doctoral position. We invite applications from psychology, poli sci, sociology, econ, data science, et al. Review begins 1/21/2021. Please forward to any and all!

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Robb Willer

2 years

Our results reveal that the efforts of those interested in reducing partisan animosity have yielded an impressive base of knowledge. 23 interventions reduced partisan animosity, often sizably (up to 10pts on a 100-pt scale), across survey and behavioral indicators, and durably.

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

In line with claims that American democracy is in crisis, we found concerning baseline levels of potentially problematic attitudes, e.g.: ➤Partisan animosity ➤Support for undemocratic practices ➤Support for undemocratic candidates ➤Biased evaluation of politicized facts

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

3 years

A big congratulations to @AliaCrum being promoted to Associate Professor! This is so richly deserved. You couldn't ask for a better colleague. It's wonderful to see good things happen to great people. Go Ali!

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

20 days

To explore further, you can use LLM-simulated participants to generate predicted experimental effects using this demo! 👇

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

For example, we found evidence that six interventions reduce support for undemocratic practices. Reducing misperceptions about outpartisans’ anti-democratic attitudes and highlighting the disastrous consequences of democratic collapse were the most promising approaches.

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Robb Willer

2 years

@Revkin @OElgvin @Fisher_DanaR @MichaelEMann @damiengayle @guardian @shannonosaka @IPCC_CH @ClimateEFund While I've not studied this action specifically, I think these art desecration tactics are exactly the sort of protest behaviors that lead observers to view the activists as extreme and unreasonable, alienating observers and potentially reducing support for their cause.

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Robb Willer

2 years

We find: ➤Partisan animosity is largely driven by other factors than support for undemocratic practices or partisan violence. ➤Partisan animosity is driven by similar factors as biased evaluation of politicized facts and general social distrust.

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Robb Willer

6 months

New joint-lab project analyzing levels of representativeness and participant attentiveness across a range of survey platforms. (Hats off to Nick Stagnaro for leading this!) We hope there is lots of valuable information here for those using online participants!

@DG_Rand

David G. Rand

6 months

🚨WP🚨 We test 9 online samples and find clear tradeoffs between attentiveness and representativeness - which sample is best depends on research q and priorities. For social/political qs I rec Bovitz/Lucid, for complex designs I rec Cloud/Prolific.

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Robb Willer

9 years

Here's an important finding: more surprising findings were less likely to replicate in the #ReproducibilityProject http://t.co/58KK4X2mbU

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

I had a great and wide-ranging conversation about effective paths to social change, persuasion, polarization, democracy and lots of other stuff on The Great Battlefield podcast.

@TGB_podcast

The Great Battlefield Podcast

2 years

Political Persuasion and Ways to Combat Polarization with @RobbWiller of Stanford University Listen now via The Great Battlefield #podcast

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Robb Willer

2 years

Political violence is back in the spotlight following the appalling attack on Paul Pelosi. In a @monkeycageblog piece in the @washingtonpost , @jsmernyk , Sophia Pink, & I describe recent research on ways to increase Americans’ opp to partisan violence:

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Analysis | How can the U.S. help prevent more political violence?

Our research found two strategies that may help restore general social disapproval of attacks such as the one against Speaker Pelosi’s husband.

www.washingtonpost.com

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

8 years

Our research on racial threat and whites' support for the Tea Party in @washingtonpost @MaxEhrenfreund

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How psychologists used these doctored Obama photos to get white people to support conservative...

The results show one reason why Obama's presidency has been so divisive.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Robb Willer

4 years

@profcikara Send an email to yourself explaining your trouble writing, explaining in detail what you would write if you were not having this trouble. (Alternatively, draft some poor relative to be the email recipient/unwitting muse.)

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

Below are short descriptions of the 25 interventions we selected (with short names we made). We hope you're as interested in them as we were! More detail on our website, including test links to try them out yourself. (& results coming soon!)

www.strengtheningdemocracychallenge.org

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

We also found five interventions that significantly reduced support for partisan violence. Engaging videos showing partisans’ reactions to misperception corrections and a joint pro-democratic statement by Utah’s candidates for governor in 2020 were most effective.

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Robb Willer

5 years

My research with @jgvoelkel in today's @nytimes . Our work is presented along with others' (e.g., @IanHaneyLopez @anatosaurus ) in a discussion of how progressives can effectively overcome their opponents' racial divisiveness. A characteristically careful overview from @Edsall .

@Edsall

Thomas Edsall

5 years

Does Anyone Have a Clue About How to Fight Back Against Trump’s Racism? - The New York Times

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

We test 25 interventions to reduce such attitudes, submitted by social scientists & practitioners. Most targeted partisan animosity, but many also aimed to reduce support for undemocratic practices or partisan violence. Walk-through of interventions here👇

@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

🚨Results are in for the Strengthening Democracy Challenge. Winners will be announced this week!🚨 ITT we announce the 25 submissions we selected to test. We think these submissions are awesome & hope you do too. But first, how we got here…👇🧵

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Robb Willer

2 years

Overall, our results provide a toolkit of promising interventions for practitioners & shed new theoretical light on challenges facing American democracy. Problematic attitudes are related in complex ways, and effectively treating them requires understanding those relationships!

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Robb Willer

2 years

@maya_sen They are so up in their heads about the behavioral science aspects of the pandemic.

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Robb Willer

2 years

I had such a great time talking with @AndyLuttrell5 on his @OpinionSciPod . It was fun to talk about such a range of topics: persuasion, democracy, psychology, group perceptions, social cog... (And kudos to Andy who always runs this show like a total pro!)

@OpinionSciPod

Opinion Science (a podcast)

2 years

We're back! @RobbWiller shares his work on political persuasion + a giant new study testing strategies for reducing partisan animosity and enhancing commitments to democracy. Apple: Spotify: Web:

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

I joined more than 200 scholars of democracy in calling for Congress to make elections more competitive by adopting proportional representation for the U.S. House.

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

20 days

We also find that predictive accuracy improved across generations of LLMs, with GPT4 surpassing predictions elicited from an online sample (N = 2,659) of Americans. Paper 👉

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

Had the good fortune to discuss the Strengthening Democracy Challenge on @cspan 's Washington Journal....& somehow did not appreciate it's primarily a call-in show until I was on (!). It was a great experience, thanks to host @cspanMcArdle 's stewardship.

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

3 years

Good to see some evidence of reality intruding on partisanship

@b_schaffner

Brian Schaffner

3 years

partisanship is a strong predictor of being anti-vaccine, but much less so when the risks are greater

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

Postdoctoral Scholar with interest in persuasion, inequality, polarization, messaging, social movement mobilization, climate change attitudes, public opinion regarding major social issues, &/or online political behavior. Application Deadline: Jan 9.

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

This project was a true team effort. Major thanks to the leaders of the project: @jgvoelkel , Nick Stagnaro, and @jchu1225 . And huge kudos to Sophia Pink, Joe Mernyk, Chrystal Redekopp, Jamie Druckman, & @DG_Rand for their brilliance and hard work.

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

20 days

Overall our results show high accuracy of LLM-derived predictions for experiments with human participants, generally greater accuracy than samples of lay and expert humans. Paper👉

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

20 days

We prompted the model with (a) demographic profiles drawn from a representative dataset of Americans, and (b) experimental stimuli. The effects estimated by pooling these responses were strongly correlated with the actual experimental effects (r = .85; adj. r = 0.91)!

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

8 years

A Young, Clean Cut Jim Morrison Appears in a 1962 Florida State University Promo Film via @openculture

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A Young, Clean Cut Jim Morrison Appears in a 1962 Florida State University Promo Film

Here’s a weird one: weirdo Doors frontman Jim Morrison, native of Florida, the weirdest state in the Union (well, it is!), stars in a promo film for Florida State University.

www.openculture.com

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

7 years

@jayvanbavel Criticizing others is a way to signal the sincerity of your own conformity

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

Returning to Congressional toxicity, here are 2 examples: A civil tweet doesn’t get a lot of “action,” but is liked on avg A more toxic tweet is seen by way more people making it seem more liked, when actually it’s liked less by the avg person seeing it (on- and off-platform)

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

We also find promising interventions that yield significant improvements for each of the other potentially problematic outcomes we examine - although effects on these outcomes were generally less common, smaller, and less durable than for partisan animosity.

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

⚡️Common Identity @alijaveed_ @kim_doell @steverathje2 @jayvanbavel Participants read about how American democracy is crucial to country’s success and at risk from extreme partisanship & then learn most Americans support democracy, dislike violence, & like members of both parties

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

4 years

⭐️Our lab’s preprint “Short Messages Encouraging Compliance with COVID-19 Public Health Guidelines Have Minimal Effects” now online⭐️ How can we persuade people to comply with COVID guidelines? Results of 5 experiments (not yet peer-reviewed!) 1/12

Using Short Messages to Encourage COVID-19 Prevention Behaviors

Controlling the spread of COVID-19 requires persuading the mass public to change their behavior in significant ways. Many efforts to encourage behavior change, such as public service announcements,...

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

7 months

Going to #SPSP2024 ? Please join @jgvoelkel and me for this workshop on designing megastudies! Details below: 👇

@jgvoelkel

Jan Voelkel

7 months

🚨Join us for a workshop on how to run megastudies at #SPSP2024 🚨 @RobbWiller and I will share our experiences and recommendations for conducting crowdsourced megastudies. Please sign up 👇:

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

I had a lot of fun talking with @EricNeumannPsy about our lab's research in this episode of the @StanfordPsyPod podcast. Our conversation went to some interesting places I didn't expect in the 2nd half. Hats off to Eric who is a phenomenal interviewer!

@StanfordPsyPod

Stanford Psychology Podcast

@StanfordPsyPod

2 years

NEW EPISODE!! 🥳 @EricNeumannPsy chats with @RobbWiller of @pascl_stanford / @StanfordPACS about why political groups see each other as more extreme than they really are. How can this become self-fulfilling? How can we correct such misperceptions?

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

One-stop shopping for resources related to the Strengthening Democracy Challenge (press release, paper, details of interventions, etc.) on our website:

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

Great admiration and respect to the developers of these brilliant interventions! @AliaBraley ; @GabeLenz ; @_dval_ ; @hosinux ; @alex_pentland @ActiVoteUS ; Victor Allis; @erezyoeli ; Sara Gifford @malkako ; Palma Strand; Gina Baleria; Maya Fiorella; Aaron Kay; @JohnJost1

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

1 year

As we bid adieu to these terrific outgoing scholars, we're thrilled to welcome a new folks this Fall: @AliaBraley , @blakey_will , @Izzy_Gainsburg , @JonasP_Schoene , as well as new undergrad RAs: Sebastian Kane, Ben Kinder, Lavanya Sundar & Tiffany Saade.

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

3 years

Great illustration of self-perception theory. Forthcoming in AER:

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

1 month

Very excited that you'll be joining us (formally) at @Stanford , @JonneKamphorst ! So looking forward to continuing our research together. 😀✊

@JonneKamphorst

Jonne Kamphorst

@JonneKamphorst

1 month

Some professional news: After five amazing years, I'm leaving the world's prettiest university @EUI_EU . I'm incredibly excited to share that next academic year, I will be starting a Postdoc at @Stanford @pascl_stanford and @StanfordHAI . 🌲☀️🏄

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

20 days

Finally, we find LLMs can accurately predict effects on socially harmful outcomes, such as the impact of antivax FB posts on vax intentions ( @_JenAllen et al., 2024). This capacity may have positive uses, such as for content moderation, though also highlights risks of misuse.

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

4 years

Crushing coronavirus means ‘breaking the habits of a lifetime.’ Behavioral scientists have some tips, w/ @sgadarian @jayvanbavel @GordPennycook

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

19 days

This is a must-read for any/all folks working on messaging, persuasion, etc. for the campaign right now. Helps to answer some of the highest level strategic questions. Results are intuitive from a Bayesian perspective, but that's def not the one that predominates in this space.

@MattGrossmann

Matt Grossmann

19 days

Pro-Harris advertising is much more effective than anti-Trump advertising. The best ads are normal Democratic issue ads:

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

3 years

FYI: See below new research with @katie_clayton14 testing an intervention that significantly increased Republicans' trust in elections.

@katie_clayton14

Katie Clayton

@katie_clayton14

3 years

🚨New working paper!🚨 Key finding: Elite Republican endorsements of the 2020 election results increase election confidence among Republican voters. 🧵 (1/10)

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

When we designed the challenge, we realized how little we actually know about how connected the many important political attitudes are. Using effect sizes from the many interventions on the many outcomes we collected, we can shed unique light on this question.

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

7 years

Our new paper on the effects of morality on perceptions of competence out now in JPSP. Very proud of Jennifer Stellar of @UofT for her outstanding work on this paper (esp the 2 preregistered experiments).

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

Daniela Goya-Tocchetto; @JuliaMinson ; Hanne Collins; @CharlieDorison ; Molly Moore; @HHBlunden ; Kara Luo; @luiza_a_santos ; @zakijam @m_levendusky ; @nathanballan @JaredCelniker @MertcanGungor_ @jmkelly91 @shiri_spitz @alijaveed_ ; @kim_doell ; @steverathje2 ; @jayvanbavel

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

8 years

The Enforcement of Moral Boundaries Promotes Cooperation and Prosocial Behavior, our new paper in Scientific Reports

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

1 year

@AshuAshok , an awesome scholar of identity, politics, & computational social science is joining the faculty of @NYUPsych . Her sharp mind and creativity will leave a lasting mark on all of us here!

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

2 years

Spotlight: Support for undemocratic candidates Combination of how much voters endorse undemocratic practices, and how much they despise rival partisans - most effective interventions for reducing SUC are the top 2 for interventions for reducing SUP and top 4 interventions for PA

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@RobbWiller

Robb Willer

3 years

As the #Deltavariant drives surging caseloads across the US, a growing number of Republican politicians are now publicly supporting vaccination. Will it matter? Our research suggests that it could. New op-ed with @DG_Rand in @washingtonpost

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Perspective | More Republican politicians are endorsing vaccination. It just might work.

We studied whether hearing from party leaders — or Democrats — affects Republicans’ vaccine intentions.

www.washingtonpost.com

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