Mohammad Atari
@mohammadatari.bsky.social
1.6K followers 250 following 48 posts

Assistant Professor of Psychology at UMass Amherst. Director of the Culture and Morality Lab.

Psychology 47%
Sociology 13%
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

mohammadatari.bsky.social
A truly fascinating review paper, covering a lot of cool research and creating new directions for future work. I just put it on the syllabus for my grad-level culture seminar. Highly recommend!
pniedent.bsky.social
Our latest work on ancestral diversity and cultural evolution is out. Co-authored with Sophie Wohltjen. For a special issue of CRESP on Historical Psychology edited by Josh Jackson and @mohammadatari.bsky.social @spspnews.bsky.social @affectscience.bsky.social
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Reposted by Mohammad Atari

pniedent.bsky.social
Our latest work on ancestral diversity and cultural evolution is out. Co-authored with Sophie Wohltjen. For a special issue of CRESP on Historical Psychology edited by Josh Jackson and @mohammadatari.bsky.social @spspnews.bsky.social @affectscience.bsky.social
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

mohammadatari.bsky.social
🔔The third Historical Psychology preconference at SPSP! We particularly encourage early-career researchers to present their work.

Topics include cultural change, cultural evolution, history+AI, temporal text analysis, historical+geographical psych, ethnohistorical record, history as context, etc.
joshcjackson.bsky.social
🚨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!
rebeccasear.bsky.social
“The idea that humans evolved to be protective & sensitive to harm directed towards women appears increasingly popular in evolutionary psych [but] ethnographic evidence conflict with this perspective, [which seems] rooted in contemporary WEIRD values rather than an evolved psychological mechanism”
Did humans evolve to 'protect' women?
Ethnography complicates a convenient narrative
open.substack.com

Reposted by Mohammad Atari

Reposted by Mohammad Atari

joshcjackson.bsky.social
🚨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!

Reposted by Mohammad Atari

edouardmachery.bsky.social
Join us tomorrow, Tuesday October 7th at 12PM EDT for a talk with former fellow Michael Tomasello!

"Agency and the Organization of Human Experience."

More info and abstract here: ow.ly/usIc50X4wS7

Zoom Link: pitt.zoom.us/j/96906545761

Reposted by Mohammad Atari

abdoe.bsky.social
Hi all! Having recently moved to @uh.edu, I’ll be reviewing graduate applications to join the newly minted Worldviews in Motion lab for Fall 2026! Please share with anyone who might be interested 😊

For lab info, check out our (though it’s mostly me atm) website: www.abdoelnakouri.com
WIM Lab
www.abdoelnakouri.com
ericmshuman.bsky.social
I am hoping to recruit a Ph.D. student to join the SPARC (Social Psychology of Activism, Resistance, & Change) Lab at @UVAPsyc in Fall 2026! You can find more info about my research on my website (ericshuman.com), and the program here (psychology.as.virginia.edu/social-psych...).
Home
ericshuman.com
myra.bsky.social
AI always calling your ideas “fantastic” can feel inauthentic, but what are sycophancy’s deeper harms? We find that in the common use case of seeking AI advice on interpersonal situations—specifically conflicts—sycophancy makes people feel more right & less willing to apologize.
Screenshot of paper title: Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence

Reposted by Mohammad Atari

mohammadatari.bsky.social
New chapter preprint: Is Empathic AI possible?

osf.io/preprints/ps...

Reposted by Mohammad Atari

pnasnexus.org
Although men and boys are more directly and indirectly aggressive than women and girls in most contexts, a study of 24 countries finds one specific context in which this pattern is reversed: the sibling relationship. In PNAS Nexus: academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...
A girl pretends to pull her brother’s ear. Stock photo.

Reposted by Mohammad Atari

mohammadatari.bsky.social
Glad this is finally out! Check out @igi.bsky.social ‘s thread!

Thanks to @edouardmachery.bsky.social and team.
igi.bsky.social
1/10 Finally out in Proceedings B @royalsociety.org ! This took a while—big scope, many hands. We started with a worry: maybe Solomon’s paradox (doi.org/10.1177/0956797614535400) is “too obvious.” If stepping back helps wise choices, surely everyone does it… right?

Reposted by Mohammad Atari

igi.bsky.social
1/10 Finally out in Proceedings B @royalsociety.org ! This took a while—big scope, many hands. We started with a worry: maybe Solomon’s paradox (doi.org/10.1177/0956797614535400) is “too obvious.” If stepping back helps wise choices, surely everyone does it… right?
manikyaalister.bsky.social
We know that a consensus of opinions is persuasive, but how reliable is this effect across people and types of consensus, and are there any kinds of claims where people care less about what other people think? This is what we tested in our new(ish) paper in @psychscience.bsky.social
Screenshot of the article "How Convincing Is a Crowd? Quantifying the Persuasiveness of a Consensus for Different Individuals and Types of Claims"
jenikubota.bsky.social
🎉New paper out @Psychological Review on the neuroscience of intergroup contact🎉

Led by the fantastic @margaretrwelte.bsky.social ‬and Jas Cloutier!

@apajournals.bsky.social @spspnews.bsky.social @sansmeeting.bsky.social #PsychSciSky #SocialPsyc #AcademicSky

psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-...
jayvanbavel.bsky.social
Only a small % of people engage in toxic activity online, but they’re responsible for a disproportionate share of hostile or misleading content on nearly every platform

Because super-users are so active, they dominate our collective impression of the internet www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...
Are a few people ruining the internet for the rest of us?
Why does the online world seem so toxic compared with normal life? Our research shows that a small number of divisive accounts could be responsible – and offers a way out
www.theguardian.com
pnasnexus.org
Most people don’t find excessive wealth immoral when considered separately from economic inequality; however, people in countries with high GDP and high levels of inequality find being too rich more morally wrong than being of average wealth. In PNAS Nexus: academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...
The perceived immorality of too much wealth in 20 nations. Scores are standardized, and whiskers represent the 95% confidence interval.

mohammadatari.bsky.social
Congratulations, Emma! 🎉

mohammadatari.bsky.social
Thanks.
humbehevosoc.bsky.social
HBES is happy to recognize the following Rising Stars (<8 years post-PhD) for their research contributions:
Mohammad Atari: mohammadatari.com
Catherine Molho: catherinemolho.github.io
Daniel Redhead: www.rug.nl/staff/d.j.re...
Julia Stern: www.uni-bremen.de/en/pppd/team...
humbehevosoc.bsky.social
HBES is happy to recognize the following Rising Stars (<8 years post-PhD) for their research contributions:
Mohammad Atari: mohammadatari.com
Catherine Molho: catherinemolho.github.io
Daniel Redhead: www.rug.nl/staff/d.j.re...
Julia Stern: www.uni-bremen.de/en/pppd/team...
stephanoplis.bsky.social
I’m looking for a postdoctoral scholar to join me in the Self & Society Laboratory at UC Riverside! Sharing would be much appreciated! aprecruit.ucr.edu/JPF02104
Postdoctoral Scholar in Social/Personality Psychology
University of California, Riverside is hiring. Apply now!
aprecruit.ucr.edu

mohammadatari.bsky.social
New preprint! 🔔

We apply computational text analysis to over 2000 years of historical corpora in Classical Chinese. Beyond descriptives, we test the hypothesis that kin-based institutions shape important aspects of socio-cooperative psychology.
gordpennycook.bsky.social
Psychological inoculation is a very popular intervention against online misinfo, but it hasn't been tested using real-world outcomes in realistic scenarios.

In a new paper just published in PNAS Nexus, this is what we did: academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

Short version: It didn't really work.

Reposted by Mohammad Atari

mohammadatari.bsky.social
Our new paper is now out in Nature Human Behaviour:

The chronospatial revolution in psychology.

With Joe Henrich & Jonathan Schulz.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...