Calvin Lai
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calvinklai.bsky.social
Calvin Lai
@calvinklai.bsky.social
2.4K followers 440 following 74 posts

Social psychologist & professor at Rutgers University.
Studying how to reduce prejudice and discrimination.
Opinions are my own. he/him
calvinklai.com

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Psychology 28%
Political science 26%
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calvinklai.bsky.social
Calvin Lai @calvinklai.bsky.social · 14d
What a year! I'm honored to receive both of FABBS' major career awards at the same time: the Craig-Henderson Award for DEI mentorship, service, & research & the Early Impact Award for research & outreach (nominated via SESP).

I'm grateful to the scientific communities that made our work possible.😊
lorapark.bsky.social Lora Park @lorapark.bsky.social · 14d
FABBS(Federation of Assoc in Behavior&Brain Sciences) is pleased to honor Calvin Lai, recipient of the Kellina Craig-Henderson Early to Mid-Career Award AND Early Career Impact Award! Dr. Lai’s pioneering work examines implicit bias& applications to policing&hiring. Congrats @calvinklai.bsky.social

Reposted by Calvin K. Lai

jakemgrumbach.bsky.social
Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 6d
Got some figures from the @lachlanmcnamee.bsky.social Salma Mousa & @kylepeyton.bsky.social DEI analysis from 4.67 million employment records at US public universities (1993-2024)

Compact article gets it backwards. Unis diversified *leadership* not faculty.

Reposted by Chris Hanretty, Calvin K. Lai

johnholbein1.bsky.social
John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 7d
Newly released evidence from Portugal shows that taking exams on a computer reduces kids' scores A LOT.

Old fashioned paper and pencil exams FTW!

Reposted by Calvin K. Lai, Colin Tucker Smith

maxprimbs.bsky.social
Max Primbs @maxprimbs.bsky.social · 11d
New paper out with Heidi Vuletich and Ayla Winegar: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/.... We discuss public policy implications of the Bias of Crowds model: How do environments activate and perpetuate biases and what can we do against it?
Systemic Problems Require Systemic Solutions: How Regional Variation in Implicit Bias Can Inform Public Policy - Heidi A. Vuletich, Maximilian A. Primbs, Ayla Winegar, 2025
Traditional psychological approaches to reduce discrimination typically focus on addressing the biases of people. This paper recommends policies aimed at changi...
journals.sagepub.com

Reposted by Calvin K. Lai, Eric Hehman

lorapark.bsky.social
Lora Park @lorapark.bsky.social · 14d
FABBS(Federation of Assoc in Behavior&Brain Sciences) is pleased to honor Calvin Lai, recipient of the Kellina Craig-Henderson Early to Mid-Career Award AND Early Career Impact Award! Dr. Lai’s pioneering work examines implicit bias& applications to policing&hiring. Congrats @calvinklai.bsky.social

Reposted by Rebecca Solnit, David A. Broniatowski, William J. Brady , and 4 more

mjcrockett.bsky.social
M.J. Crockett @mjcrockett.bsky.social · 14d
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/
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

Reposted by Calvin K. Lai, Erika Franklin Fowler, Nathan P. Kalmoe

neillewisjr.bsky.social
Neil Lewis, Jr. @neillewisjr.bsky.social · 16d
1/4. The U.S. continues to be a place where people’s life experiences and outcomes differ dramatically by social positioning. How does that affect the way people make meaning of what is happening around them? Those questions guided this new paper. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Academic article: How People Make Meaning in a Fragmented Democracy: Implications for Incorporating Public Opinion into Public Policy

Reposted by Chris Hanretty, Calvin K. Lai

dingdingpeng.the100.ci
Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 17d
I maintain that this is an excellent benchmark for d-type effect sizes:

Sleep satisfaction & duration declined with childbirth & reached a nadir during the first 3 months postpartum, with women more strongly affected (satisfaction d = -0.79, duration minus 62 min, d = -0.90)>
Long-term effects of pregnancy and childbirth on sleep satisfaction and duration of first-time and experienced mothers and fathers
AbstractStudy Objectives. To examine the changes in mothers’ and fathers’ sleep satisfaction and sleep duration across prepregnancy, pregnancy, and the pos
academic.oup.com

Reposted by Mark J. Brandt, Calvin K. Lai

teriak.bsky.social
Teri Kirby @teriak.bsky.social · 18d
🧵1/4 New paper alert! psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-...

Can you celebrate diversity while undermining it? Our new paper in American Psychologist discusses how people/organizations can appear committed to diversity while their conceptualizations of diversity actively undercut it.

Reposted by Brian A. Nosek, Brendan Nyhan, Linda J. Skitka , and 8 more

jordanaxt.bsky.social
Jordan Axt @jordanaxt.bsky.social · 24d
New paper in press at JPSP! An adversarial collaboration focusing on a large-scale test of how strongly implicit racial attitudes predict discriminatory behavior. Pre-print here: osf.io/preprints/ps...

Reposted by Calvin K. Lai

minzlicht.bsky.social
Michael Inzlicht @minzlicht.bsky.social · 28d
Excited to share work led by Conrado Eiroa-Solans, a PhD student at UC Berkeley who I first met when he was applying to grad school. His new paper is out in Computers in Human Behavior Reports. /1
From Extrinsic to Intrinsic Motivation: Testing an AI-powered Motivational Interviewing System to Foster Prosocial Motivation
Scalable interventions promoting sustained behavioral change are crucial for addressing societal issues, yet traditional approaches often require inte…
www.sciencedirect.com

Reposted by Calvin K. Lai, Michael W. Kraus, Eric Hehman

jackiemchen.bsky.social
Jackie Chen @jackiemchen.bsky.social · Nov 21
The International Social Cognition Network (ISCON) is pleased to announce Dr. April Bailey as the 2025 winner of the Early Career Award! Dr. Bailey is a Lecturer of Psychology at the University of Edinburgh. She earned her B.A. from Colgate University and her PhD in 2019 from Yale University.

Reposted by Linda J. Skitka, Efrén O. Pérez, Calvin K. Lai , and 2 more

tagerai.bsky.social
tagerai.bsky.social @tagerai.bsky.social · Nov 19
A thread on our recent paper (w/Raihan Alam @raihanalam) in PNAS on why punishment often fails and what it means for crime, cooperation, democracy, and the rule of law. I’m super excited for it, it’s the lab’s most extensive experimental work to date. Check it out! 1/
www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....
PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
www.pnas.org

Reposted by Dorothy Bishop, Brian A. Nosek, Gordon Hodson , and 11 more

reimtime.bsky.social
Nils Reimer @reimtime.bsky.social · Nov 19
This—on my former university, department, and advisor—is harrowing but required reading for all social psychologists. www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
Oxford University Has Failed Women Over Harassment Concerns, Staff Say
The university has repeatedly been slow to act against male academics accused of sexual misconduct and inappropriate behavior, a Bloomberg investigation found.
www.bloomberg.com

Reposted by Calvin K. Lai

gordpennycook.bsky.social
Gordon Pennycook @gordpennycook.bsky.social · Nov 18
Just so that we're on the same page: This paper tells us what is *possible* not what is *true*

This is definitely a concern, but (FWIW) I am highly skeptical that typical survey respondents have the technical skills (let alone the inclination) to do all of this.
joshmccrain.bsky.social Josh McCrain @joshmccrain.bsky.social · Nov 18
new paper by Sean Westwood:

With current technology, it is impossible to tell whether survey respondents are real or bots. Among other things, makes it easy for bad actors to manipulate outcomes. No good news here for the future of online-based survey research

Reposted by Marc Lynch, Simon Hix, Ben H. Ansell , and 46 more

joshmccrain.bsky.social
Josh McCrain @joshmccrain.bsky.social · Nov 18
new paper by Sean Westwood:

With current technology, it is impossible to tell whether survey respondents are real or bots. Among other things, makes it easy for bad actors to manipulate outcomes. No good news here for the future of online-based survey research

Reposted by Gordon Hodson, Linda J. Skitka, Mark J. Brandt , and 6 more

jinxungoh.bsky.social
Jin X. Goh | 吴晋勋 @jinxungoh.bsky.social · Nov 17
Starting the week strong with a newly accepted paper in Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, co-authored with postdoc @lizsnoland.bsky.social and Sohad Murrar! We merged two largely independent research lines to call for data disaggregation of Asian Americans and MENA Americans
psyarxivbot.bsky.social PsyArXivBot @psyarxivbot.bsky.social · Nov 17
Unpacking Broad Racial Labels: The Disaggregation of Data on Race and Ethnicity: https://osf.io/eyv7b

Reposted by Calvin K. Lai

pierceekstrom.bsky.social
Pierce Ekstrom @pierceekstrom.bsky.social · Nov 13
New write-up of our political scandal experiments for SPSP's (@spspnews.bsky.social) blog. We find that partisan voters allow politicians to get away with hostile, defensive "explanations" for scandal, esp when the politician is high-status and when party goals are at stake

spsp.org/news/charact...
Do Voters Punish Politicians Who Apologize? | SPSP
Politicians may deny scandals not just for themselves but because voters let them.
spsp.org

Reposted by Calvin K. Lai

cmewing.bsky.social
Connor Ewing @cmewing.bsky.social · Nov 11
Important—and sobering—findings about the state of the discipline and the academy.

Reposted by Cas Mudde, Richard S.J. Tol, Samuel L. Perry , and 16 more

cohodes.bsky.social
Sarah Cohodes @cohodes.bsky.social · Nov 10
📣 New NBER Working Paper out today 📣

"The Consequences of Faculty Sexual Misconduct"
Sarah Cohodes & Katherine Leu
Screenshot of working paper: The Consequences of Faculty Sexual Misconduct

Reposted by Stephan Lewandowsky, Mark Rubin, Calvin K. Lai , and 1 more

jayvanbavel.bsky.social
Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel.bsky.social · Nov 5
For each additional moral–emotional word in a social media post, the number of shares increases 13%

Our new meta-analysis finds robust evidence of moral contagion (N=4,821,006)

The moral contagion effect is even stronger in larger, pre-registered studies (17%).
academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

Reposted by Anna O. Law, Lisa W. Fazio, Linda J. Skitka , and 3 more

jinxungoh.bsky.social
Jin X. Goh | 吴晋勋 @jinxungoh.bsky.social · Nov 4
On election day, I wanna announce that I am recruiting social psych PhD students for my lab at UIC. My lab focuses on racial identities (esp Asian, Latino, MENA Americans) and intra-minority conflict/ coalition. So please tell your students to pick me! All details on my website: www.pbandjlab.com
iconic scene from Grey's Anatomy. Meredith Grey in scrub telling Derek "so pick me, choose me, love me"

calvinklai.bsky.social
Calvin Lai @calvinklai.bsky.social · Oct 31
Our first lab meeting reading this as a preprint is a flashbulb memory. It was such an elegantly argued paper for a phenomenon that was so clearly untrue. Either our methods needed improvement, or we must entertain that psi was true. I wished we had psychic powers! (It would make our jobs so easy)

Reposted by Calvin K. Lai

briannosek.bsky.social
Brian Nosek @briannosek.bsky.social · Oct 31
What “error” has had the most positive consequences for your field this century?

I’ll start:

The editorial decision to accept Bem’s precognition paper at JPSP.
calvinklai.bsky.social Calvin Lai @calvinklai.bsky.social · Oct 31
We read the (in)famous Bem Feeling the Future JPSP paper for a "spooky" Halloween lab meeting and it was fabulous!! I couldn't get over the wild methodological issue where they type of psychic power he founded depended on what random number generator Bem used 😂

Reposted by Brian A. Nosek

calvinklai.bsky.social
Calvin Lai @calvinklai.bsky.social · Oct 31
We read the (in)famous Bem Feeling the Future JPSP paper for a "spooky" Halloween lab meeting and it was fabulous!! I couldn't get over the wild methodological issue where they type of psychic power he founded depended on what random number generator Bem used 😂

Reposted by Calvin K. Lai

kevinmking.bsky.social
Kevin M. King @kevinmking.bsky.social · Oct 31
Good threads. We used SESOIs pretty extensively in our recent registered reports (e.g. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...). We found plenty of "significant" effects, but ones that were smaller than our SESOI.

1/4

Reposted by Scott L. Greer, Hugo Mercier, Calvin K. Lai

brendannyhan.bsky.social
Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · Oct 31
"only about 5% of the variance in personality can be
predicted from digital footprints, and personality‐tailored messages show negligible effects on behavior... When design and evaluation flaws are controlled, the combined end‐to‐end effectiveness of psychological targeting approaches zero."
The (In)Effectiveness of Psychological Targeting: A Meta‐Analytic Review
The use of psychological targeting—employing machine learning to predict consumer personality from digital footprints and subsequently tailoring persuasive messages—has emerged as a controversial yet...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Reposted by Calvin K. Lai

jayvanbavel.bsky.social
Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel.bsky.social · Oct 28
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it”

Willful ignorance is also motivated by social identity concerns--it is driven by ingroup favoritism + outgroup derogation and fuels conspiracy belies.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Reposted by Calvin K. Lai

erinwestgate.bsky.social
Erin Westgate @erinwestgate.bsky.social · Oct 26
Why do young kids try to climb into tiny toy cars? Remembering Judy DeLoache’s work on how babies learn to understand symbols and symbolic representation 💙

youtu.be/PK_BQjVHZ00?...
Symbolic Representation - Scale Models
YouTube video by Brooke Miller
youtu.be

Reposted by Calvin K. Lai, Robert C. Richards, Scott A. Imberman , and 1 more

brendannyhan.bsky.social
Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · Oct 24
Yikes yikes yikes
elizabethweill.bsky.social Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg 🇵🇸 @elizabethweill.bsky.social · Oct 24
Breaking: The Department of Justice announced it will "monitor polling sites in six jurisdictions [in New Jersey and California] ahead of the upcoming November 4, 2025, general election to ensure transparency, ballot security, and compliance with federal law." www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justi...
Justice Department to Monitor Polling Sites in California, New Jersey
WASHINGTON – Today, the Department of Justice announced that it will monitor polling sites in six jurisdictions ahead of the upcoming November 4, 2025, general election to ensure transparency, ballot ...
www.justice.gov