Benedek Kurdi
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benedek.bsky.social
Benedek Kurdi
@benedek.bsky.social
Experimental psychologist studying social learning and memory, assistant professor @psychillinois.bsky.social, SAB chair @projectimplicit.bsky.social, AE at JEP:G, immigrant, 🏳️‍🌈, he/him
Pinned
Paper in @pnas.org in which @d-melnikoff.bsky.social and I provide evidence for model-based effects on automatic evaluation. This was a super fun “adversarial” collaboration with 0 adversariality. It may have been nice to be right, but getting it right is nearly as nice: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Reposted by Benedek Kurdi
There is now a Gen Z slang dplyr and I might use it just so I can have ‘yeet()’ in my code. github.com/hadley/genzp...
GitHub - hadley/genzplyr: dplyr but make it bussin fr fr no cap
dplyr but make it bussin fr fr no cap. Contribute to hadley/genzplyr development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
November 7, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Reposted by Benedek Kurdi
I’m recruiting students this upcoming cycle at UIUC! I’m excited about Qs on societal impact of AI, especially human-AI collaboration, multi-agent interactions, incentives in data sharing, and AI policy/regulation (all from both a theoretical and applied lens). Apply through CS & select my name!
November 6, 2025 at 6:52 PM
Reposted by Benedek Kurdi
People are lazy--except when they're watching other people work hard.

My student Emily Zohar just published her first first-authored paper, and it reveals something surprising about effort and social norms. /1

osf.io/preprints/ps...
OSF
osf.io
November 5, 2025 at 12:54 AM
Reposted by Benedek Kurdi
Ouch
November 6, 2025 at 2:31 AM
Reposted by Benedek Kurdi
Just 1 week to apply! 4 year @erc.europa.eu funded PhD position working in an interdisciplinary team to study #culturalEvolution as a process of reuse, recombination, and creative re-engineering of past solutions. Details 👉 hmc-lab.com/ERCPhDCultur... 🙏Please share!
November 5, 2025 at 10:24 AM
Reposted by Benedek Kurdi
New publication: “Reshaping the happy face advantage with reinforcement learning”

Happy to share this paper by tjitsvanlent.bsky.social with Rob Holland, Harm Veling, & erikbij.bsky.social. We investigate whether instrumental learning can change biases in emotion recognition

tinyurl.com/2s397h34
Reshaping the happy face advantage with reinforcement learning
Recognising emotional expressions is important for successful social interactions. Prior research has demonstrated that emotion recognition is influenced by evaluative associations people have with...
tinyurl.com
November 3, 2025 at 9:36 AM
Reposted by Benedek Kurdi
I'm recruiting PhD students for my lab at Northwestern! I'm reviewing applications for the Department of Psychology for the Cognitive Affective Neuroscience and Clinical areas, due 12/1. 🧠

Come join the CATS Lab: nucatslab.com

Learn about our latest research: iamh.northwestern.edu/research/res...
CATS Lab
Child & Adolescent Translational Science Lab at Northwestern University
nucatslab.com
October 29, 2025 at 6:39 PM
Reposted by Benedek Kurdi
October 27, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Reposted by Benedek Kurdi
Public health is under attack by a deluge of misinformation. We offer a consensus report from the American Psychological Association summarizing what we know & what interventions are effective in countering it. We provide 8 concrete recommendations. Open-access - awspntest.apa.org/fulltext/202...
October 23, 2025 at 12:11 PM
An interview with @news.illinois.edu about the possibilities of change in implicit bias and the opportunities and pitfalls of implicit bias education:
news.illinois.edu/is-unintenti...
October 22, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Reposted by Benedek Kurdi
Fully-funded 4-year #PhD in Cultural Evolution! Join my @erc.europa.eu project exploring how compression & compositionality drive cultural innovation: hmc-lab.com/ERCPhDCultur...
Apply by Nov 12!
Maybe of interest to folks from #COSMOS2025 or @eslr.bsky.social? Please feel free to share! 🙏
ERC funded PhD position on Cultural Evolution
ERC funded PhD position on Cultural Evolution posted on October 16, 2025 We are currently seeking a highly motivated individual for a ful...
hmc-lab.com
October 20, 2025 at 9:32 AM
Reposted by Benedek Kurdi
My paper “Testing Theories of Threat, Individual Difference, and Ideology” is a winner of the Student Publication Award this year. I’m proud of this one, because it shows that if we ask interesting questions and use rigorous methods, we can contribute to ~science~ even when we’re wrong or 1/2 right!
SPSP is thrilled to announce the winners of our 2025 Student Awards! Congratulations to the recipients of our Heritage Dissertation Research Prize, Jenessa Shapiro Graduate Research Award, and Student Publication Prize.

Learn more: ow.ly/ok5c50Xe7gW
October 20, 2025 at 4:26 PM
Reposted by Benedek Kurdi
A new paper w/ the inimitable Sebastian Holt (now at N.Western w/ Dedre Gentner). Kids are slow to learn rules that govern number words. We ask: is this because young kids CAN'T learn such rules, or b/c of the kinds of (base-10) systems they're exposed to? royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10....
Can preschoolers learn the syntax of number? Using rules to combine familiar and novel number words
royalsocietypublishing.org
October 20, 2025 at 4:11 PM
Reposted by Benedek Kurdi
#AcademicSky #PrejudiceResearch #PsychSciSky

Our new paper out in American Psychologist.

Led by Meleady, with @debshulman.bsky.social, Kotzur, & Crisp.

Contact "ruptures" (going to university; studying abroad) ==> changes in outgroup attitudes longitudinally

psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?d...
October 17, 2025 at 1:46 PM
Preprint led by Salvador Vargas (on the job market!), with Chadly Stern, on stereotypes linking race & social class. We find a mean-level White–rich/Black–poor stereotype; the stereotype is strongest among third-group participants; and likely explained by social sampling: osf.io/preprints/ps...
October 16, 2025 at 1:28 PM
Implicit bias education has gotten a bad rap recently (and for some very good reasons), but in this paper (newly out in PIBSS) I argue that it could have value if done differently: doi.org/10.1177/2372... (Still also available as a preprint: osf.io/preprints/ps...)
October 14, 2025 at 6:38 PM
Reposted by Benedek Kurdi
Editorial leadership teams for APA journals are seeking nominations for editorial fellowship positions for early-career psychologists (ECPs). Nomination deadline: November 1, 2025. Qualifications, responsibilities, and how-to-apply here: https://bit.ly/46jRIKK #Psychology #PsychSciSky
October 10, 2025 at 8:18 PM
Reposted by Benedek Kurdi
Happy to share that our BBS target article has been accepted: “Core Perception”: Re-imagining Precocious Reasoning as Sophisticated Perceiving
With Alon Hafri, @veroniqueizard.bsky.social, @chazfirestone.bsky.social & Brent Strickland
Read it here: doi.org/10.1017/S014...
A short thread [1/5]👇
October 9, 2025 at 3:51 PM
Reposted by Benedek Kurdi
Our paper in annual review of dev psych is out! It's a big-picture look at the development of social cognition from a computational perspective: compdevlab.yale.edu/docs/2025/an...
compdevlab.yale.edu
October 9, 2025 at 3:21 PM
Reposted by Benedek Kurdi
Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai takes the Nobel Prize in literature for "visionary" work that "in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art" https://cnn.it/46JoWVe
October 9, 2025 at 11:23 AM
Reposted by Benedek Kurdi
🚨Historical Psych Pre-Conference🚨

We have a great lineup of speakers for the #SPSP2026 edition!

Submit your poster or data blitz abstract by Oct. 23 (link below!). Open to folks from any career stage

Any research on psychological change or historical context of social psych is welcome!
October 8, 2025 at 1:20 AM
Reposted by Benedek Kurdi
We're recruiting PhD students to join us at Nebraska! Spreading word:

Whether you (or your student's) current home is in Psych or PoliSci, if you're interested in political psych, you could be a great fit.

I run a joint lab (www.pierceekstrom.com/ekstromlab) with Ingrid Haas (paclab.unl.edu). 1/3
October 7, 2025 at 9:06 PM
Reposted by Benedek Kurdi
New paper in Open Mind, with @emmayu23.bsky.social, Megan Richardson, and @ashleyjthomas.bsky.social! We find that by 6 years of age, children think that close friends know the content of each other’s minds.

direct.mit.edu/opmi/article...

@openmindjournal.bsky.social
Developing Intuitions That Close Friends Know the Content of Each Other’s Minds
Abstract. To maintain and develop close relationships, people need to accurately represent the minds of their social partners. Although studies have characterized many aspects of children’s intuitive ...
direct.mit.edu
October 7, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Reposted by Benedek Kurdi
@elijfinkel.bsky.social
& I are recruiting a postdoc in the #LitowitzCenter for Enlightened Disagreement at Northwestern University. We seek research excellence regarding navigating conflict.

Application deadline: Nov. 17.

Salary: ~$80k.

facultyrecruiting.northwestern.edu/apply/MjQzNw==
Northwestern Faculty Search -
facultyrecruiting.northwestern.edu
October 7, 2025 at 12:09 AM
Reposted by Benedek Kurdi
Spread the word: I'm looking to recruit a PhD student for Fall 2026 to @ucsb.bsky.social! Reach out if you are applying this cycle and hoping to study infant and child social cognition, specifically expectations about friendship and/or groups. Bonus: live in paradise! And.. 1/3
October 2, 2025 at 9:37 PM