David Chester

@davidchester.bsky.social

1.5K followers 400 following 580 posts

Associate Prof at VCU. Experimental psychologist. Aggression scientist. Dad.

https://davidchester.weebly.com/

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Environmental science 23%

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David Chester @davidchester.bsky.social · Oct 31

Check out this new preprint from our lab, led by @brownwt.bsky.social and the Bluesky-less Sydney Kavanaugh. We found that psychopathy, especially its antagonistic and disinhibited facets, is more linked to low self-reported levels of **positive** than negative empathy.

osf.io/preprints/ps...

OSF

osf.io

Reposted by David Chester

David P. Schmitt, Ph.D. @psychoschmitt.bsky.social · 7d

"Oxytocin varies across the life course in a sex-specific way
in a human subsistence population" www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

David Chester @davidchester.bsky.social · 7d

I'm preregistering the emergence of a new form of identity crisis - - - people trying to convince others that they aren't AI.

David Chester @davidchester.bsky.social · 10d

The Honesty-Humility dimension of HEXACO "is not clearly distinguishable from the Politeness aspect of Agreeableness." osf.io/preprints/ps...

OSF

osf.io

Reposted by Dorothy Bishop, David Chester, Andrew K Przybylski , and 5 more Dorothy Bishop, David Chester, Andrew K Przybylski, Magnus Johansson, Patrick S. Forscher, Ariadne Vromen, Johannes Breuer, Jesper Wulff

Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 14d

Keeping this at hand in case I need to point to it and tap

David Chester @davidchester.bsky.social · 15d

Oh dear. Men who valued having a large penis were also more aggressive (r > .26) and reported more support for Donald Trump (r = .39). psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...

APA PsycNet

psycnet.apa.org

David Chester @davidchester.bsky.social · 15d

The chief obligation people have towards themselves is to protect themselves from harm. psycnet.apa.org/record/2027-...

APA PsycNet

psycnet.apa.org

David Chester @davidchester.bsky.social · 15d

Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, in fact, of our modesty. -Louis Kronenberger

David Chester @davidchester.bsky.social · 17d

Feel-good finding about humans --- 'lower need' kids want their parents to leave *more* assets to their 'higher need' siblings than the parents actually give or that their siblings actually want for themselves. psycnet.apa.org/record/2027-...

APA PsycNet

psycnet.apa.org

Reposted by Caroline Krafft, David Chester, Charles T. Mathewes

Erin Westgate @erinwestgate.bsky.social · 23d

Academic accommodations in college more than doubled between 2011 and 2024 (4% -> 10%) and is driven by students getting accommodations for mental health conditions - job market paper by @alvinchristian.bsky.social

David Chester @davidchester.bsky.social · Nov 26

Fruit pies should only be served cold.

David Chester @davidchester.bsky.social · Nov 26

Honestly, it's not that terrible if apple is dethroned and exiled to Saint Helena (taking sweet potato with it).

David Chester @davidchester.bsky.social · Nov 25

Huge congrats Drew!! They're very lucky to have you

David Chester @davidchester.bsky.social · Nov 25

Social isolation during COVID was linked to a greater likelihood of perpetrating intimate partner violence. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

journals.sagepub.com

David Chester @davidchester.bsky.social · Nov 25

The fear of being single, the desire to be in a relationship, and satisfaction with your relationship status represent distinct constructs with unique motivational underpinnings. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Pursuing Relationships or Avoiding Singlehood? Differentiating Singles' Fear of Being Single, Desire for a Relationship, and Satisfaction With Relationship Status

Attitudes toward singlehood have been operationally and methodologically framed in different ways, with some focused on desire for relational pursuit, some on satisfaction or contentment with singleh...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

David Chester @davidchester.bsky.social · Nov 24

We approve of prosocial liars, who give people false but positive feedback, even when they only lie prosocially to those they deem as vulnerable to negative feedback. bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

<em>British Journal of Social Psychology</em> | Wiley Online Library

In two studies (N = 886), we examined how individuals judge and select feedback providers for those who either handle criticism well or poorly after performing a low-quality task. Prosocial liars who...

bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

David Chester @davidchester.bsky.social · Nov 24

Antagonistic traits are amenable to valid assessment via informant reports. psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-...

APA PsycNet

psycnet.apa.org

David Chester @davidchester.bsky.social · Nov 24

People don't prioritize improving their moral character because they believe they are already paragons of morality and that improvement in other traits (e.g., sociability, energy level, self-control, anxiety) would be more effective at improving their lives. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

journals.sagepub.com

David Chester @davidchester.bsky.social · Nov 24

A chimpanzee community reaped reproductive benefits after the males killed members of neighboring groups and took their land. Supports a clear evolutionary mechanism underlying warfare. 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 David Chester

PsyArXivBot @psyarxivbot.bsky.social · Nov 17

The 'Dark Triad' may be popular, but more importantly, it is irresponsible, moralizing, trivializing, and ultimately, replaceable: A rejoinder to Borraz-Leon, Rantala, and Jonason (2025): https://osf.io/u86th

David Chester @davidchester.bsky.social · Nov 5

They're assigned readings in my Personality course!

David Chester @davidchester.bsky.social · Nov 5

Refusing to forgive, versus inaction, can make people feel empowered, principled, and courageous. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Refusing to forgive can have psychological benefits

Offering forgiveness can confer benefits to victims in terms of enhanced sense of self. In the present research, we argue that refusing to forgive may…

www.sciencedirect.com

David Chester @davidchester.bsky.social · Nov 4

Analysis of mouse-tracking data reveals support for both dynamic competition and impulse inhibition accounts of self-control, thought inhibition is relatively rare. www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

David Chester @davidchester.bsky.social · Nov 1

Telling problem drinkers that there's no safe level of alcohol consumption helps them recognize their problem, but it also freaks them out and they dislike the message.

PsyArXivBot @psyarxivbot.bsky.social · Oct 31

Effects of 'No Safe Level' and 'Cutting Down' Alcohol Messages on Problem Recognition, Defensive Processing, and Self-Efficacy in Heavy Drinkers: A Randomized Experimental Study: https://osf.io/jze7p

Reposted by David Chester

PsyArXivBot @psyarxivbot.bsky.social · Oct 31

Effects of 'No Safe Level' and 'Cutting Down' Alcohol Messages on Problem Recognition, Defensive Processing, and Self-Efficacy in Heavy Drinkers: A Randomized Experimental Study: https://osf.io/jze7p

Reposted by David Chester

PsyArXivBot @psyarxivbot.bsky.social · Oct 31

Mouse cursor tracking contributes to the psychological validation of the drift diffusion model: https://osf.io/74rjv

David Chester @davidchester.bsky.social · Oct 31

A truly Strong Test™ of attachment theory, longitudinally testing whether infants' early caregiver relationships explain variance in their adult attachments. Fortuitously for our field, they do (though effect sizes are much smaller than I would've imagined). psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-...

APA PsycNet

psycnet.apa.org

Reposted by David Chester

Micah G. Allen @micahgallen.com · Oct 24

So that is why you don't prompt people once a day for an entire year... #OpenESM - data from openesmdata.org/datasets/001...

David Chester @davidchester.bsky.social · Oct 23

A neural signature for self-focused thinking. www.jneurosci.org/content/45/4...

Reposted by David Chester, Andrew K Przybylski, Patrick S. Forscher , and 5 more David Chester, Andrew K Przybylski, Patrick S. Forscher, Matt N Williams, Jill A. Jacobson, Matti Vuorre, Gemma C. Sharp, Jan R. Boehnke

Björn Siepe @bsiepe.bsky.social · Oct 22

We built the openESM database:
▶️60 openly available experience sampling datasets (16K+ participants, 740K+ obs.) in one place
▶️Harmonized (meta-)data, fully open-source software
▶️Filter & search all data, simply download via R/Python

Find out more:
🌐 openesmdata.org
📝 doi.org/10.31234/osf...

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