@abbycassario
Social/personality psych PhD student at MSU interested in attitudes and belief systems. NC native with an affinity for dogs, Carolina Hurricanes hockey, craft beer, coffee, and swimming. https://abigailcassario.github.io
Wild how I’ll be spending most of my time the next four months writing a dissertation on downward socioeconomic mobility, but actually when I finish said dissertation I’ll be upwardly mobile 🤔
Interesting research presented by Zarnab Zahoor at #SPSP2026 found that across 9 democracies (7 Christian-majority, 1 Hindu-majority, and 1 Jewish-majority), all samples showed a positive association between religious nationalism and conservatism (this effect was especially pronounced in the U.S.).
Abstract: This piece critiques the dominant assumption in social and political psychology, as well as in political science and other disciplines, that polarization is inherently undesirable and should therefore be reduced under all circumstances. We argue that this premise reflects a neutrality bias (or depoliticizing bias) that obscures the asymmetrical nature of contemporary political conflict. We distinguish democratic polarization—agonistic contestation among actors who accept multicultural pluralism, democratic institutions and election outcomes, civil and human rights, and epistemic accountability—from anti-democratic polarization, in which conflict is strategically mobilized to delegitimize opponents, erode institutional constraints, and normalize dehumanization, scapegoating, misinformation, anti-scientific, and conspiratorial narratives as a route to political power. In a global context marked by the growing...
“Not all polarization is equivalent nor undesirable”
New preprint by Felipe Vilanova and @flavioazevedo.bsky.social:
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Thanks to everyone who came to our symposium on moralized politics during the *last session* of @spspnews.bsky.social 2026. We are so grateful for your feedback and questions! And I’m especially grateful to @diegoreinero.bsky.social, Paul Teas and @jakewomick.bsky.social for sharing their cool work!
As someone who does not sleep when I travel and has a talk in the last session on the last day of SPSP, deciding to come into town early and visit my best friend for a few days *before* the conference was a bold choice... 😅😴
Checkmark logo for the American National Election Studies
ANES Announcement: Call for Proposals for the ANES 2026 Pilot Study. You can read more information:https://electionstudies.org/anes-announcement-call-for-proposals-for-the-anes-2026-pilot-study/
Deadline is 5pm Eastern, Friday, April 17, 2026.
Happy conference season!
Looking back at my poster from the 2024 Eastern Psychological Association meeting in Philly.
Wishing everyone presenting at EPA and SPSP this weekend the best of luck!
New w/@scottclifford.bsky.social.
Lots of work uses agree-disagree scales, and a lit review shows these are 1) frequently just measured in one direction (agree = higher trait) and 2) correlated with each other.
This has potentially big issues for conclusions.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
EMP Lab members presenting at SPSP
For everyone going to #spsp2026 @spspnews.bsky.social in Chicago, come say hi to us! All of us in the EMP Lab will be there including @amormino.bsky.social @farvk.bsky.social @jdweng.bsky.social @jokretz.bsky.social.
#socialpsych #psychscisky
@psuliberalarts.bsky.social @prcpennstate.bsky.social
We're excited about the upcoming Computational Psychology preconference at @spspnews.bsky.social this Thursday. See our action-packed full day agenda below! Featuring 3 keynote talk themes with related early-career speakers, data blitz session, panel discussion. Don't miss it! #SPSP
Excited to share that I’ll also be presenting a working paper with @mjbsp.bsky.social and @shreevallabha.bsky.social on political attitude centrality and stability as a featured data blitz at the #SPSP2026 computational psychology preconference.
Come check it out! ☺️
Paper: osf.io/preprints/ps...
Excited to present my work with @sullivanjude.bsky.social and @tvescio.bsky.social at #SPSP2026! We find that women perceive sexualizing comments from gay men more positively than identical comments from straight men.
Also can be found during the Gender Preconference poster session!
The northeast blizzard ain't stopping us!
You won't want to miss the Moral Psychology Pre-conference at @spspnews.bsky.social in Chicago this week! It should be an incredible day of sharing research and networking. Hope to see you there.
Excited to be giving a talk at #SPSP2026 in Chicago on this terrific symposium.
Our symposium explores how moralized political thinking emerges, how it polarizes and divides, and how it can be reduced. Come check it out!
I'm incredibly grateful to Jake, Diego, and Paul for sharing their work and agreeing to be a part of this discussion! We would love to see you there.
Finally, Paul Teas shows evidence from a large, representative preregistered experiment testing whether popular depolarization interventions reduce three distinct dimensions of toxic partisanship. This work is a critical step toward sharpening evidence-based solutions to political polarization.
In our third talk, @diegoreinero.bsky.social presents evidence that liberals and conservatives prioritize the same core moral value. Even more encouragingly, climate messages framed around this shared value resonate similarly well across party lines.
But these patterns of moralization and intolerance might not be inevitable!
Next, Jake Womick examines how perceptions of vulnerability shape political intolerance. Using observational and experimental data, he shows that liberals perceive high-status groups as perpetuating harm, and that these perceptions of harm lead to intolerance towards these groups.
In the first talk, I ask: How do moralized attitudes emerge within belief systems? And does belief system structure shape this process?
I show that moralization spreads between connected attitudes, and that the average U.S. belief system has become more interconnected over time.
In #polarized times, #morality fuels not just strong attitudes, but deep social divides.
At #SPSP2026, our symposium “Moral Minds in Polarized Times” explores how moralized political thinking emerges, how it polarizes, and how it can be reduced. Join us Sat. 2/28 at 3:30pm. 🧵
Attending @spspnews.bsky.social ews.bsky.social in our home city of Chicago this coming week? Be sure to check out the cool work being done by members of our lab, including postdoc @ncaluori.bsky.social, grad students @marykatz.bsky.social & Zarnab Zahoor, and undergrad Yahel Tirosh!
Tfw you’re a former D1 athlete turner academic so you have to stop yourself from referring to the prospective PhD students as “recruits” 🤷🏻♀️
@mattgrossmann.bsky.social, @joshmccrain.bsky.social, and I are putting together a panel at PolMeth in July on using CongressData, CSPP, and SenateData. We are aiming to have up to 5 people (preference to junior faculty using the data or interested in doing so). Please reach out to me if interested!
About 10 years ago, I set out to better understand the drivers of radicalization and deradicalization into white supremacy. Work from our endeavors is starting to come out, and I am no longer concerned about sharing it.
I want to share the findings from one of these studies, published last March. 🧵
Yes, obviously 😉
Plus, something tells me dad would've been more excited to hear about my research 🤷♀️
(Yes, I realize I'm very lucky he's intersted in what I do all day!)
One of my dissertation committee members has the same first name as my dad, and I almost emailed my dad instead of my committee member to set up a defense date 😬
It’s incredibly hard to cheer for team USA at the Olympics this year, but my brother cleans Jacob Slavin’s pool and he and his wife have been exceptionally kind to my brother so I’m using this as an excuse to cheer for the men’s hockey team, if nothing else 🤷🏻♀️
very cool opportunity!