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simoncolumbus.bsky.social
Simon Columbus
@simoncolumbus.bsky.social
960 followers 420 following 480 posts
Lecturer, University of St Andrews | I work on cooperation, norms, institutions, & personality | http://simoncolumbus.com
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Simon Columbus @simoncolumbus.bsky.social · Mar 6
Some personal news: In April, I will be joining the University of St Andrews as a lecturer @standrewspsyneuro.bsky.social (~assistant professor for non-UK folks).

I work on cooperation, institutional legitimacy, and personality. If you're in the area and share some interests, I'd love to chat.
Reposted by Simon Columbus
cmolho.bsky.social
🚨 Call for abstracts 🚨

Join our EASP pre-conference on 'Prosocial and Antisocial Behavior: Cross-Cultural Perspectives and Methods' on June 30, 2026.

We invite flash talk submissions from researchers at all career stages.

📝 Deadline: January 5 2026

🔗 More info: docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Call for submissions_Molho&Jin_modified.docx
Call for submissions EASP Pre-Conference on ‘Prosocial and Antisocial Behavior: Cross-Cultural Perspectives and Methods’ Deadline: January 5, 2026 Dear colleagues, We are happy to announce the pre-con...
docs.google.com
December 12, 2025 at 3:45 PM
Reposted by Simon Columbus
icsd2026.bsky.social
We have extended the abstract submission deadline to January 5th, 2026!!! Enjoy your holiday season😘

sites.google.com/view/icsd202...
ICSD 2026 - Abstract Submission
The abstract submission system is now LIVE at: https://amarys-jtb.jp/ICSD2026/ Abstract submission will close on December 22, 2025 January 5, 2026, 23:59 JST (14:59 UTC).
sites.google.com
December 12, 2025 at 6:36 AM
Reposted by Simon Columbus
jamesbland.bsky.social
Hello #EconSky, and in particular experimental economists. Do you have a paper where you estimate preferences and then use these estimates on the right-hand-side of a regression (or logit, tobit, etc)? I'm looking for a good example dataset for a chapter idea I have for my book.
December 8, 2025 at 5:41 PM
Reposted by Simon Columbus
qinyuxiao.bsky.social
The final colloquium of this semester will take place in two hours!
simoncolumbus.bsky.social Simon Columbus @simoncolumbus.bsky.social · 27d
This week's Cooperation Colloquium:

Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com

Experimental evidence that reputation-based partner choice facilitates information sharing in humans

Date: December 5
Time: 15:00 UTC+1 (Vienna) / 9 am ET (NYC)

Sign up: list.ku.dk/postorius/li...
Abstract: A necessary prerequisite for the accumulation of beneficial knowledge, or ‘cumulative cultural evolution’, is the sharing of information via social learning. Yet little work in the field of cultural evolution has examined the mechanisms that support information sharing in the face of exploitative information free-riding and information hoarding. We ran a series of online interactive experiments (N = 716) combined with computational reinforcement and social learning models to test whether the mechanism of reputation-based partner choice can effectively support information sharing. Participants in groups chose whether to (i) engage in costly innovation and (ii) whether to share the resultant knowledge. Sharers received increased reputations for sharing and participants could use reputations to select recipients of knowledge. Study 1 found, in participants from the UK and China, high levels of information sharing but only weak partner choice. Study 2 replicated this finding with various methodological improvements. Study 3 showed that participants used partner choice to exclude non-sharing artificial bots from receiving information. Study 4 found that when partner choice was impossible, preferences for information sharing declined to levels comparable to non-sharing. Overall, our findings provide tentative positive experimental evidence that partner choice can facilitate information sharing and enable cumulative cultural evolution.
December 5, 2025 at 12:08 PM
Reposted by Simon Columbus
ruben.the100.ci
Want to make nice graphs with me, starting next year? I'm hiring for a position at the University of Witten/Herdecke.
uni-wh.softgarden.io/job/61280592...
‘A fragmented field: Construct and measure proliferation in psychology.’ (2025) From ‘Language models accurately infer correlations between psychological items and scales from text alone.’ (2025) From ‘Not within spitting distance: salivary immunoassays of estradiol have subpar validity for predicting cycle phase.’ (2023) Work in progress with cycle tracking data from the app Clue
December 3, 2025 at 12:48 PM
simoncolumbus.bsky.social
Ein Stapel-Stapel, sozusagen.
December 4, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Reposted by Simon Columbus
jordanaxt.bsky.social
Implicit racial attitudes accounted for ~2.5% of variance in behavior beyond explicit racial attitudes, an effect size that was *just* over our agreed upon threshold for what would constitute a practically significant effect. Explicit racial attitudes still explained much more variance (~45%).
December 2, 2025 at 2:14 PM
Reposted by Simon Columbus
icsd2026.bsky.social
Updates for #ICSD2026
1. Instructions for ID registration and abstract submission of the system have been uploaded.

2. A Travel Stipend for Presenters from Developing Countries is additionally provided.

See the conference site for details.
sites.google.com/view/icsd202...
ICSD 2026
The abstract submission and registration system is now LIVE! Please visit the Abstract Submission page for details.
sites.google.com
December 2, 2025 at 7:53 AM
simoncolumbus.bsky.social
This week's Cooperation Colloquium:

Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com

Experimental evidence that reputation-based partner choice facilitates information sharing in humans

Date: December 5
Time: 15:00 UTC+1 (Vienna) / 9 am ET (NYC)

Sign up: list.ku.dk/postorius/li...
Abstract: A necessary prerequisite for the accumulation of beneficial knowledge, or ‘cumulative cultural evolution’, is the sharing of information via social learning. Yet little work in the field of cultural evolution has examined the mechanisms that support information sharing in the face of exploitative information free-riding and information hoarding. We ran a series of online interactive experiments (N = 716) combined with computational reinforcement and social learning models to test whether the mechanism of reputation-based partner choice can effectively support information sharing. Participants in groups chose whether to (i) engage in costly innovation and (ii) whether to share the resultant knowledge. Sharers received increased reputations for sharing and participants could use reputations to select recipients of knowledge. Study 1 found, in participants from the UK and China, high levels of information sharing but only weak partner choice. Study 2 replicated this finding with various methodological improvements. Study 3 showed that participants used partner choice to exclude non-sharing artificial bots from receiving information. Study 4 found that when partner choice was impossible, preferences for information sharing declined to levels comparable to non-sharing. Overall, our findings provide tentative positive experimental evidence that partner choice can facilitate information sharing and enable cumulative cultural evolution.
December 1, 2025 at 2:22 PM
simoncolumbus.bsky.social
Great opportunity to work with an amazing team of researchers!
cmolho.bsky.social Catherine Molho @cmolho.bsky.social · 27d
🚨Two postdoc positions @tse-fr.eu @iast.fr 🚨

We are recruiting two postdocs as part of the ANR-funded project ENFORCE.

Join me, @giuliandr.bsky.social, & @zhgarfield.com, to study punitive systems across societies.

Full time, 2 years, no teaching.

Deadline: Jan 23

www.tse-fr.eu/groups/depar...
Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences
www.tse-fr.eu
December 1, 2025 at 1:19 PM
Reposted by Simon Columbus
robertboehm.bsky.social
🚨NEW PAPER🚨 led by @qinyuxiao.bsky.social, with @simoncolumbus.bsky.social and me: "Self-serving intergroup aggression escalates and prevails over parochial cooperation." It's now published in Evolution and Human Behavior by @humbehevosoc.bsky.social. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
December 1, 2025 at 6:40 AM
Reposted by Simon Columbus
bjoernhommel.bsky.social
🚨 SynthNet is out 🚨
Researchers propose new constructs and measures faster than anyone can track. We (@anniria.bsky.social @ruben.the100.ci) built a search engine to check what already exists and help identify redundancies; indexing 74,000 scales from ~31,500 instruments in APA PsycTests. 🧵1/3
November 26, 2025 at 11:42 AM
Reposted by Simon Columbus
fusaroli.bsky.social
CogSci in Aarhus is hiring, open rank (assi, asso or full prof).
We want somebody working on and teaching computational modelling of cognitive processes and/or social processes. Students are amazing, work/life balance very satisfactory, and colleagues are nice!

international.au.dk/about/profil...
Assistant Professor, Associate Professor or Full Professor of Cognitive Science - Vacancy at Aarhus University
Vacancy at School of Communication and Culture - Linguistics, Cognitive Science and Semiotics, Dept. of, Aarhus University
international.au.dk
November 26, 2025 at 11:38 AM
Reposted by Simon Columbus
renemottus.bsky.social
For those coming to the ECP22 in Edinburgh, 2026:

You can now book more affordable Summer Stay rooms (75 rooms currently available at a cheaper price)

For details:
www.ecp22edinburgh.org/accommodation
November 22, 2025 at 10:15 AM
Reposted by Simon Columbus
simoncolumbus.bsky.social
Cooperation Colloquium this Friday:

Kristopher M. Smith @kris-smith.bsky.social

Long-distance friends and collective action in fisheries management

Date: Friday, November 21
Time: 16:00 UTC+1 / 10 am NYC (one hour later than usual!)

Sign up: list.ku.dk/postorius/li...
Abstract: The management of shared natural resources often hinges on local cooperation, yet the social networks linking communities across space can both complicate and enable collective action. This talk examines how long-distance friendships—relationships that bridge community boundaries—shape trust, cooperation, and participation in fisheries management in coastal Tanzania. Drawing on theoretical models and multi-site ethnographic and survey data from the Tanga Sociality and Fisheries Project, I show that long-distance friendships provide key forms of material support similar to local friendships, suggesting they are a resilient social strategy for managing ecological and economic risk while fostering interdependence across villages. In turn, people with more long-distance friends express greater trust in non-local partners and are more likely to engage in collective monitoring and reporting of destructive fishing practices. Finally, I introduce a new measure, “long-distance orientation,” capturing individual variation in the motivation and capacity to form and sustain these ties, highlighting psychological and structural factors that facilitate cooperation at a distance. Together, these findings suggest that long-distance relationships can serve as a foundation for scaling up collective action and designing management systems that bridge community boundaries.
November 17, 2025 at 10:47 AM
Reposted by Simon Columbus
sfiscience.bsky.social
For undergraduates curious about complex systems research, applications are now open for the 2026 Undergraduate Complexity Research (UCR) program — a fully funded, 10-week summer research experience at the Santa Fe Institute.

Apply by Jan. 14, 2026: santafe.edu/ucr
November 17, 2025 at 6:30 PM
simoncolumbus.bsky.social
Cooperation Colloquium this Friday:

Kristopher M. Smith @kris-smith.bsky.social

Long-distance friends and collective action in fisheries management

Date: Friday, November 21
Time: 16:00 UTC+1 / 10 am NYC (one hour later than usual!)

Sign up: list.ku.dk/postorius/li...
Abstract: The management of shared natural resources often hinges on local cooperation, yet the social networks linking communities across space can both complicate and enable collective action. This talk examines how long-distance friendships—relationships that bridge community boundaries—shape trust, cooperation, and participation in fisheries management in coastal Tanzania. Drawing on theoretical models and multi-site ethnographic and survey data from the Tanga Sociality and Fisheries Project, I show that long-distance friendships provide key forms of material support similar to local friendships, suggesting they are a resilient social strategy for managing ecological and economic risk while fostering interdependence across villages. In turn, people with more long-distance friends express greater trust in non-local partners and are more likely to engage in collective monitoring and reporting of destructive fishing practices. Finally, I introduce a new measure, “long-distance orientation,” capturing individual variation in the motivation and capacity to form and sustain these ties, highlighting psychological and structural factors that facilitate cooperation at a distance. Together, these findings suggest that long-distance relationships can serve as a foundation for scaling up collective action and designing management systems that bridge community boundaries.
November 17, 2025 at 10:47 AM
simoncolumbus.bsky.social
Join us in an hour for this week's Cooperation Colloquium with the excellent Terence Dores Cruz
simoncolumbus.bsky.social Simon Columbus @simoncolumbus.bsky.social · Nov 3
Cooperation Colloquium this week:

Terence Dores Cruz (University of Amsterdam)

The costs and benefits of gossip in reputation-based cooperation

Date: Friday, November 7
Time: 15:00 UTC+1 (Vienna) / 9am NYC

Sign up: list.ku.dk/postorius/li...
Abstract: Gossip is an ever-present feature of our social interactions. We gossip to update one another about the others in our social environment. Our persistent gossip shapes perceptions and behaviors that are key to forming, keeping, and severing social relationships. These uses of gossip have given rise to the perspective that gossip has cooperative functions. This entails that people gossip to provide information about how to (not) behave and who can(not) be trusted to cooperate. This informs people about others’ reputations, which can serve to make better decisions about whom to cooperate with and whom to avoid. First, I will present research that supports this perspective based on experience sampling, scenario studies, and behavioral experiments. I find that people use reputational information provided by gossip to shape how they think about the targets of gossip. These gossip-based impressions guide receivers’ cooperative behavior toward targets: they cooperate with people they learn are likely to be cooperative and avoid people who they learn are likely to violate norms. Second, I focus on the puzzle of gossip as key for a cooperative social life while also being commonly perceived very negatively. Gossip is needed but could lead to costs for gossipers that motivate refraining from gossip. Based on ongoing research using behavioral experiments, I will present the first steps towards understanding the puzzle of the costs and benefits of gossip. Receivers of gossip support gossip systems by punishing harm to the reputation-system from not contributing gossip or spreading false information and by rewarding accurate gossip.
November 7, 2025 at 1:11 PM
simoncolumbus.bsky.social
I've never liked that we typically teach introductory social psychology as a series of 'classic' studies (see also: Robbers' Cave, Stanford Prison) that are just bad research.

If we want evocative stories, we either need to do serious researchin the field, or look to disciplines that do.
November 6, 2025 at 6:52 AM
Reposted by Simon Columbus
eapp-news.bsky.social
🔔 Registration for the European Conference on Personality in Edinburgh, Scotland is now open!

Join us for #ECP22 and connect with researchers from around the world!

More information: www.ecp22edinburgh.org

Register here: www.epay.ed.ac.uk/conferences-...

#PersonalityPsychology #eapp
November 4, 2025 at 6:45 AM
Reposted by Simon Columbus
cgravert.bsky.social
I am looking for a post-doc working on behavioral/environmental/urban/energy economics to join my group at the University of Copenhagen. Position is 2 years (possibly 3), good salary, free health insurance, one of the most livable cities in the world. Apply here: jobportal.ku.dk/videnskabeli...
Postdoctoral Position in Behavioral and Environmental Economics
jobportal.ku.dk
November 3, 2025 at 8:23 PM
simoncolumbus.bsky.social
Cooperation Colloquium this week:

Terence Dores Cruz (University of Amsterdam)

The costs and benefits of gossip in reputation-based cooperation

Date: Friday, November 7
Time: 15:00 UTC+1 (Vienna) / 9am NYC

Sign up: list.ku.dk/postorius/li...
Abstract: Gossip is an ever-present feature of our social interactions. We gossip to update one another about the others in our social environment. Our persistent gossip shapes perceptions and behaviors that are key to forming, keeping, and severing social relationships. These uses of gossip have given rise to the perspective that gossip has cooperative functions. This entails that people gossip to provide information about how to (not) behave and who can(not) be trusted to cooperate. This informs people about others’ reputations, which can serve to make better decisions about whom to cooperate with and whom to avoid. First, I will present research that supports this perspective based on experience sampling, scenario studies, and behavioral experiments. I find that people use reputational information provided by gossip to shape how they think about the targets of gossip. These gossip-based impressions guide receivers’ cooperative behavior toward targets: they cooperate with people they learn are likely to be cooperative and avoid people who they learn are likely to violate norms. Second, I focus on the puzzle of gossip as key for a cooperative social life while also being commonly perceived very negatively. Gossip is needed but could lead to costs for gossipers that motivate refraining from gossip. Based on ongoing research using behavioral experiments, I will present the first steps towards understanding the puzzle of the costs and benefits of gossip. Receivers of gossip support gossip systems by punishing harm to the reputation-system from not contributing gossip or spreading false information and by rewarding accurate gossip.
November 3, 2025 at 12:39 PM
Reposted by Simon Columbus
aromano.bsky.social
We are excited for our upcoming CBEN preconference in Leiden on April 14th on “Socio-Ecological Variation in Conflict and Cooperation”.

Keynotes: Daniel Balliet, Elisabetta Palagi.

Submit your abstract by Nov 30.
More info can be found here:

www.cognitionbehaviorevolution.nl?p=1120
October 31, 2025 at 8:23 AM
Reposted by Simon Columbus
nikoletaglyn.bsky.social
🌏 #ICSD2026 is on!
Great meeting, amazing location, and an even cooler logo! 😄
Join us in Shimonoseki, Japan! 🇯🇵
icsd2026.bsky.social ICSD2026 @icsd2026.bsky.social · Oct 27
🎉 We're excited to announce that the #ICSD2026 (Jun 1-5, 2026)website is now live! sites.google.com/view/icsd2026
📅 Key dates
Nov 2025: Abstract submission opens
Dec 22, 2025: Submission deadline
Late Feb 2026: Acceptance notifications
Apr 3, 2026: Registration closes
Jun 1, 2026: Conference begins
ICSD 2026
Welcome TO ICSD 2026 We are delighted to announce that the International Conference on Social Dilemmas will be held in Shimonoseki, Japan, on June 1-5, 2026, at the Shimonoseki Grand Hotel. The confer...
sites.google.com
October 27, 2025 at 8:19 AM
simoncolumbus.bsky.social
Today's Cooperation Colloquium!
simoncolumbus.bsky.social Simon Columbus @simoncolumbus.bsky.social · Oct 21
This week's Cooperation Colloquium:

Christian Ruff @ccruff.bsky.social

Neurocomputational mechanisms of mentalizing in social interaction

When: October 24, 15:00 UTC+2 (Vienna) / 9am NYC

Sign up: list.ku.dk/postorius/li...
Abstract: Successful cooperation depends on mentalization—the ability to infer and adapt to others’ beliefs, intentions, and strategies. Yet, most existing studies and models treat mentalizing as a static trait rather than an adaptive, dynamic process unfolding within interactive contexts. In this talk, I will present a modelling framework and experimental paradigm that capture adaptive mentalization: the capacity to continuously update one’s internal model of another person’s behavioral sophistication and to adjust one’s own strategy accordingly. Using a social strategic game combined with computational modeling and fMRI, we develop and validate a Bayesian model indexing how effectively individuals can adapt their mental models in response to changing partner behavior, and we identify a multivariate neural signature that can predict this adaptiveness of mentalization. This neural pattern generalizes across individuals and closely tracks the flexibility of mental-state inference during interaction. Applying this paradigm to individuals with varying levels of autistic traits, we find that reduced adaptive mentalization —both behaviorally and neurally—correlates with higher trait expression. These results reveal how subtle alterations in the adaptiveness of mentalization can influence the dynamics of social interactions. By grounding social interaction in formal models of belief-updating and strategy adjustment, our work advances a more mechanistic understanding of how humans coordinate minds in social contexts—and how individual differences in these computations shape social behavior.
October 24, 2025 at 11:03 AM