Calvin Lai
@calvinklai.bsky.social
Social psychologist & professor at Rutgers University.
Studying how to reduce prejudice and discrimination.
Opinions are my own. he/him
calvinklai.com
Studying how to reduce prejudice and discrimination.
Opinions are my own. he/him
calvinklai.com
Pinned
Calvin Lai
@calvinklai.bsky.social
· Sep 9
Assistant Professor in Social Psychology, Tenure-Track
The Department of Psychology at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, NJ, plans to hire a tenure-track Assistant Professor in SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, with a start date of September 1, 2026. We seek a candidate...
jobs.rutgers.edu
🚨We're hiring!🚨 The Dept of Psychology at Rutgers is hiring an Assistant Professor in Social Psychology. Review of applications begin on Oct 18. Details here: jobs.rutgers.edu/postings/259...
I'm chairing the search committee and am happy to field questions about the position. 🧵
I'm chairing the search committee and am happy to field questions about the position. 🧵
Reposted by Calvin Lai
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.
November 21, 2025 at 5:15 PM
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 Calvin Lai
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....
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
November 19, 2025 at 11:40 PM
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....
www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....
Reposted by Calvin Lai
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
November 19, 2025 at 5:10 PM
This—on my former university, department, and advisor—is harrowing but required reading for all social psychologists. www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
Reposted by Calvin Lai
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.
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.
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
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
November 18, 2025 at 9:24 PM
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.
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.
Reposted by Calvin Lai
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
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
November 18, 2025 at 7:16 PM
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
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 Calvin Lai
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
Unpacking Broad Racial Labels: The Disaggregation of Data on Race and Ethnicity: https://osf.io/eyv7b
November 17, 2025 at 3:17 PM
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
Reposted by Calvin Lai
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...
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
November 13, 2025 at 4:50 PM
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...
spsp.org/news/charact...
Reposted by Calvin Lai
Agree that these are important and sobering findings for Political Scientists who aspire to a job at 1 of 122 PhD granting political science departments.
This does *not*, however, mean that you won't get a good job if you don't go to a "top 20" program.
(1/3)
This does *not*, however, mean that you won't get a good job if you don't go to a "top 20" program.
(1/3)
Important—and sobering—findings about the state of the discipline and the academy.
November 11, 2025 at 4:53 PM
Agree that these are important and sobering findings for Political Scientists who aspire to a job at 1 of 122 PhD granting political science departments.
This does *not*, however, mean that you won't get a good job if you don't go to a "top 20" program.
(1/3)
This does *not*, however, mean that you won't get a good job if you don't go to a "top 20" program.
(1/3)
Reposted by Calvin Lai
📣 New NBER Working Paper out today 📣
"The Consequences of Faculty Sexual Misconduct"
Sarah Cohodes & Katherine Leu
"The Consequences of Faculty Sexual Misconduct"
Sarah Cohodes & Katherine Leu
November 10, 2025 at 1:49 PM
📣 New NBER Working Paper out today 📣
"The Consequences of Faculty Sexual Misconduct"
Sarah Cohodes & Katherine Leu
"The Consequences of Faculty Sexual Misconduct"
Sarah Cohodes & Katherine Leu
Reposted by Calvin Lai
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...
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...
November 5, 2025 at 4:58 PM
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...
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 Calvin Lai
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
November 4, 2025 at 3:17 PM
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
Reposted by Calvin Lai
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.
I’ll start:
The editorial decision to accept Bem’s precognition paper at JPSP.
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 😂
October 31, 2025 at 5:28 PM
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.
I’ll start:
The editorial decision to accept Bem’s precognition paper at JPSP.
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 😂
October 31, 2025 at 3:53 PM
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 Lai
"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."
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
October 31, 2025 at 2:55 PM
"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."
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."
Reposted by Calvin Lai
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
1/4
October 31, 2025 at 3:30 PM
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
1/4
Reposted by Calvin Lai
“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...
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...
October 28, 2025 at 6:33 PM
“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...
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 Lai
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?...
youtu.be/PK_BQjVHZ00?...
Symbolic Representation - Scale Models
YouTube video by Brooke Miller
youtu.be
October 26, 2025 at 2:53 PM
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?...
youtu.be/PK_BQjVHZ00?...
Reposted by Calvin Lai
Yikes yikes yikes
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
October 24, 2025 at 5:38 PM
Yikes yikes yikes
Reposted by Calvin Lai
A massive study on the effects of social class tested 35 hypotheses in 4 countries (N = 33,536)
Only 50% of findings replicated
Hypotheses based on differences between social class contexts in terms of constraints, uncertainty & status were supported:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Only 50% of findings replicated
Hypotheses based on differences between social class contexts in terms of constraints, uncertainty & status were supported:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
October 24, 2025 at 3:21 PM
A massive study on the effects of social class tested 35 hypotheses in 4 countries (N = 33,536)
Only 50% of findings replicated
Hypotheses based on differences between social class contexts in terms of constraints, uncertainty & status were supported:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Only 50% of findings replicated
Hypotheses based on differences between social class contexts in terms of constraints, uncertainty & status were supported:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Calvin Lai
Heartbroken to share that Judy DeLoache passed away yesterday. She was a brilliant scientist and a fantastic role model.
I met her 10+ years ago as a grad student @uvapsychology.bsky.social. She believed in me at my lowest and inspired me to persevere through the challenges of grad school + life.
I met her 10+ years ago as a grad student @uvapsychology.bsky.social. She believed in me at my lowest and inspired me to persevere through the challenges of grad school + life.
October 24, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Heartbroken to share that Judy DeLoache passed away yesterday. She was a brilliant scientist and a fantastic role model.
I met her 10+ years ago as a grad student @uvapsychology.bsky.social. She believed in me at my lowest and inspired me to persevere through the challenges of grad school + life.
I met her 10+ years ago as a grad student @uvapsychology.bsky.social. She believed in me at my lowest and inspired me to persevere through the challenges of grad school + life.
Reposted by Calvin Lai
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
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...
Reposted by Calvin Lai
it's funny to see things like this every day, reflexively ask yourself "where is the limit," remember that "there are no limits" but then have your inner institutionalist say "but imagine if one day we do reach a limit lol"
Breaking News: President Trump wants $230 million from the Justice Department for investigating him, people familiar with the matter say. Any settlement might ultimately be approved by senior department officials who defended him or those in his orbit. nyti.ms/4hmIi5X
October 21, 2025 at 7:43 PM
it's funny to see things like this every day, reflexively ask yourself "where is the limit," remember that "there are no limits" but then have your inner institutionalist say "but imagine if one day we do reach a limit lol"
Reposted by Calvin Lai
New editorial from me and @keithschnak.bsky.social.
“Why Washington University must not sign Trump's 'compact'”
“Why Washington University must not sign Trump's 'compact'”
Opinion: Why Washington University must not sign Trump's 'compact'
Washington University in St. Louis has built its reputation on a simple ideal: excellence wins. For decades, our researchers have competed for and won federal grants based on the quality
www.stltoday.com
October 21, 2025 at 6:52 PM
New editorial from me and @keithschnak.bsky.social.
“Why Washington University must not sign Trump's 'compact'”
“Why Washington University must not sign Trump's 'compact'”
Reposted by Calvin Lai
Looks like an important new working paper. The wave of anti-DEI laws since 2021 has had real effects on hiring at public colleges.
ungated: osf.io/preprints/so...
ungated: osf.io/preprints/so...
October 21, 2025 at 1:44 PM
Looks like an important new working paper. The wave of anti-DEI laws since 2021 has had real effects on hiring at public colleges.
ungated: osf.io/preprints/so...
ungated: osf.io/preprints/so...
Reposted by Calvin Lai
This preprint reports on a project with @j-rock.bsky.social.
We merged a light touch intervention (typical of survey experiments) w/ an intensive intervention (more typical of practitioner efforts) for reducing toxic polarization to see if we could cheaply boost 🚀 the more intensive intervention
We merged a light touch intervention (typical of survey experiments) w/ an intensive intervention (more typical of practitioner efforts) for reducing toxic polarization to see if we could cheaply boost 🚀 the more intensive intervention
October 17, 2025 at 4:35 PM
This preprint reports on a project with @j-rock.bsky.social.
We merged a light touch intervention (typical of survey experiments) w/ an intensive intervention (more typical of practitioner efforts) for reducing toxic polarization to see if we could cheaply boost 🚀 the more intensive intervention
We merged a light touch intervention (typical of survey experiments) w/ an intensive intervention (more typical of practitioner efforts) for reducing toxic polarization to see if we could cheaply boost 🚀 the more intensive intervention