Nadia Brashier

Congrats Billy!! 🥳

New preprint with @jayvanbavel.bsky.social: Novel social identities shape belief in true and false information

In 3 exps (N = 1,459) we randomly assigned people to one of two novel groups. People trusted (and then believed claims more from) their in-group

osf.io/preprints/ps...

Thread 🧵

New paper in Current Directions in Psych Science: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

After countless arguments about what tasks ppl should/should not offload to AI, we instead argue that genAI can be used *augment* research protocols in novel ways. I.e. use AI to make better psych experiments!

I grew up with Alex Pretti The kind-hearted ICU nurse shot by ICE agents was my childhood best friend.

I wrote about my childhood friend Alexi Pretti. Please read it and share it and remember him as a human being. @theverge.com

This is an important paper on social class barriers among faculty in academia.

First-generation college grads earn less and are placed at lower prestige institutions despite being just as productive as other faculty.

Faculty from upper class backgrounds are overplaced for their research records.

Protip: If you are requesting rec letters, please follow up and make sure they get submitted.

I just found requests in my Junk mail, some of which are outdated.

Those of us who submit hundreds of letters each year often do not keep track of specific requests. Some may go missed w/o follow up.

Fresh off the press from all-star post-doc Blake Elliott: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

We show that the HPC supports coincidence detection across VTA and lPFC in service of novelty-evoked invigoration. Stay-tuned for how these circuits are altered in psychosis risk.

Experimental evidence that students are more likely to contest grades when they are delivered by an evaluator with a female-sounding name.

"These findings suggest that women in evaluative positions face disproportionate resistance when delivering negative assessments."

When I'm feeling particularly hopeless about the future of professoring as a profession, I try to remind myself: That's what they want. They want us to not want to be professors anymore.

What a world to go to bed thinking about one mass shooting and wake up to news of another, a targeted hate crime, at a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney. And also in the video where an actual hero, Ahmed al Ahmed chooses not to kill one of the terrorists.

My first registered replication report, study on the illusory truth effect, and study published in PB&R with @lkfazio.bsky.social ‼️Preprint here: osf.io/preprints/ps...

Previous research found that the illusory truth effect was smaller for conspiracy statements than for trivia statements...

If you live in San Diego County and worry about the quality of your news diet, I’m giving a community talk at Borrego Springs Library today. It’s open to the public, nonpartisan, and starts at 5 PM. Come learn why people fall for fake news and how you can protect yourself 🗞️

Absolute debasement of academic standards
*student submits opinion in psych class
*gets bad grade
*instructor says she can make whatever arguments she wants but must draw on empirical sources
*student & Turning Point says her religious freedom & first amendment rights violated
*professor suspended

🚨 New working paper 🚨

Can LLMs with reasoning + web search reliably fact-check political claims?

We evaluated 15 models from OpenAI, Google, Meta, and DeepSeek on 6,000+ PolitiFact claims (2007–2024).

Short answer: Not reliably—unless you give them curated evidence.

arxiv.org/abs/2511.18749

The UW Center for an Informed Public is looking for postdocs (for 2026-2028) from across diverse disciplines whose research sheds light on the challenges of our modern information environment, promotes civic health, and/or helps people/communities navigate online spaces: apply.interfolio.com/177901

🚨New WP🚨
Dialogues with our AI DebunkBot:
✔️Reduced belief in antisemitic conspiracy theories among believers
✔️Effect durable at 1+ month
✔️Improved attitudes towards Jews among initially negative participants

🟰Debunking works for deeply rooted, identity-linked conspiracies
osf.io/preprints/ps...

tomorrow 10:40 - 11 AM:

I find that monetary incentives don't reduce illusory truth, even when people can rely on prior knowledge to secure a reward (117)

and 12 - 1:30 PM:

@phuchuynhle.bsky.social shows that chronic, but not acute, ostracism predicts belief in misinformation (052)

If you’re at #psynom25, stop by my lab’s posters and talks!

today 12 - 1:30 PM:

Jae counters the assumption that demand for political fact-checks is low (167)

@katie-allen.bsky.social finds that while repetition inflates many judgments, it doesn’t always create an illusion of creativity (168)

Things that will get you kicked out of academia forever:
- taking maternity leave at the wrong time
- spending too much time with your kids
- reporting harassment
- not moving every 2-3 years
- taking a partner's job/preferences into account
- mouthing off before tenure

🚨Out in PNAS🚨
Examining news on 7 platforms:
1)Right-leaning platforms=lower quality news
2)Echo-platforms: Right-leaning news gets more engagement on right-leaning platforms, vice-versa for left-leaning
3)Low-quality news gets more engagement EVERYWHERE - even BlueSky!
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Photo of me next to a bronze statue of Wolfie the Seawolf, Stony Brook's mascot

I'll be starting as an Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science at Stony Brook in Fall '26!

My lab will take a social cognitive approach to studying how we form/update our beliefs and why we disagree about what is true vs false

I'll also be reviewing grad apps! See below for more info

This is deeply sad, journalistically. Teen Vogue has done much brave political coverage in an age when few outlets are willing.

I will be recruiting 🌟PhD students🌟 for my newish lab! If you're interested in learning & memory mechanisms applied to individual, interactive & collective behavior using computational modeling, real-world experiments and fMRI, email me! RTs much appreciated 🙏 rouhanilab.com

I have such a great group of grad students, ya’ll. They are all just knocking it out of the park - every time I review their writing, code, graphs, I feel so proud 🥹

German far right setting agenda as opponents amplify its ideas, study finds Normalisation of far-right stances likely to affect success of such parties at ballot boxes across Europe, say researchers

German study shows how far right sets agenda thanks to mainstream parties reshaping their communications to respond to what are initially fringe issues, boosting the spread of these ideas and signalling to voters that these ideas and stances were legitimate

shorturl.at/OFfig

Politically Extreme Individuals Exhibit Similar Neural
Processing Despite Ideological Differences

www.apa.org/pubs/journal...

Trump sent a 'compact' to our universities. They should reject this devil's bargain. Any institution that yields to these broad and intrusive demands would forever be subservient to the whims of the government.

New from me and @brendannyhan.bsky.social

Why Trump's "Compact for Academic Excellence" is a devil's bargain and should be rejected in all forms

www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

If you aren't failing you aren't trying. Grad students and new faculty: the most prolific scholars are also the most prolific at getting rejected. Rejections suck but they are a big part of the publication process.

I'm recruiting grad students!! 🎓

The CoDec Lab @ NYU (codec-lab.github.io) is looking for PhD students (Fall 2026) interested in computational approaches to social cognition & problem solving 🧠

Applications through Psych (tinyurl.com/nyucp) are due Dec 1. Reach out with Qs & please repost! 🙏

I'm recruiting PhD students to join my new lab in Fall 2026! The Shared Minds Lab at @usc.edu will combine deep learning and ecological human neuroscience to better understand how we communicate our thoughts from one brain to another.