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Alex Mackiel @amackiel.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Stay tuned for a more comprehensive defense of this argument soon!

Alex Mackiel @amackiel.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

I'm excited my commentary to @ashleyjthomas.bsky.social theory paper on infant representations of relationships is out! I, with Amanda Woodward, propose a novel relationship account of the infant resource distribution literature aligned with Thomas's core argument: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

cambridge.org

Representations of equality or partiality? Unequal distributions as cues to social relationships | Behavioral and Brain Sciences | Cambridge Core

Representations of equality or partiality? Unequal distributions as cues to social relationships - Volume 49

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Alex Mackiel @amackiel.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

Overall while we generally expect friends to be more positive to one another, here we find a context in which even children think friends will be more negative towards friends in particular, namely, when obligations of loyalty are unmet!

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Alex Mackiel @amackiel.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

When a person stayed out of a conflict (i.e., neutral) between friend and an acquaintance, older children expect their friend to be more upset at them than an acquaintance (Study 1). But not when friends made mistakes (Study 2). Older kids also infer friendship from upset at neutrality (Study 3)

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Alex Mackiel @amackiel.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

New paper out with Yinyuan Zheng, Anam Barakzai, & Alex Shaw in Developmental Psychology on children's developing beliefs about loyalty in friendships. In 3 studies (N = 429) in 4- to 11-year-olds we find evidence for when kids think friends will be more upset at each other: doi.org/10.1037/dev0...

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Rodney Tompkins @rtompkins.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

New review paper on the development of friendship psychology/ cognition (w/ @zoeliberman.bsky.social): By age 6, children appear to recognize friendship as a ranking-based relationship with outstanding social expectations and obligations. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

sciencedirect.com

Young children's friendship expectations align with evolutionary frameworks

Across the lifespan, friends are critical social partners. Prominent evolutionary theories—such as the Banker's Paradox (Tooby & Cosmides, 1996)—propo…

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Alex Mackiel @amackiel.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

New article led by Mitchell Landers and with Peter DeScioli, me, & Alex Shaw is now out in a special issue on friendship (@jaimiekrems.bsky.social)! Read it here: authors.elsevier.com/a/1m-Dc3tz49... 🧵

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Alex Mackiel @amackiel.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

Read the article here: authors.elsevier.com/a/1m-Dc3tz49...

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Alex Mackiel @amackiel.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

Altogether these findings support the claim of the side-taking theory of morality that siding against allies for the right (moral) reasons uniquely reduces perceptions of disloyalty, allowing people to set aside their allegiances when condemning their immoral actions. 9/9

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Alex Mackiel @amackiel.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

We varied whether side-taker believes his friend is right or wrong and whether a crowd of bystanders believes the friend is right or wrong. People judged the side-taker as less disloyal only when the side-taker believes his friend is wrong regardless of the crowd's beliefs. 8/9

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Alex Mackiel @amackiel.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

And people thought the side-taker's own moral code excused disloyalty not the crowd's: An argument occurs between a person's friend and acquaintance about the ethics of eating meat and the side-taker sides with the acquaintance over his friend... 7/9

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Alex Mackiel @amackiel.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

This effect was specific to moral principles (i.e., siding against a friend because of their immorality): People did not think the side-taker was less disloyal for siding against a friend when they did so for other reasons like self-interested or even altruistic motives. 6/9

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Alex Mackiel @amackiel.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

We found that people judge side-takers as less disloyal when opposing a friend in the wrong (e.g., the side-taker's friend stole a co-worker's idea) than opposing a friend in the right (e.g., a co-worker stole the side-taker's friend's idea). 5/9

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Alex Mackiel @amackiel.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

If true, people should view the putative disloyalty of siding against a friend as less disloyal when it's based on moral principles. We find that to be the case across several different scenarios in which a person sides against their friend. 4/9

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Alex Mackiel @amackiel.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

The theory claims that moral judgment functions to coordinate side-taking when conflicts occur by focusing on actions rather than identities, allowing people to transcend their allegiances to wrongdoing allies while maintaining them as partners. 3/9

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Alex Mackiel @amackiel.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

This theory explains many unique and puzzling aspects of morality that are difficult to account for in other theories such as how moral judgments are often impartial, nonconsequentialist, encourage violence, and concern a wide variety of phenomena across cultures. 2/9

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Alex Mackiel @amackiel.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

Across 7 experiments we find support for a key prediction of the side-taking theory of moral judgment (DeScioli & Kurzban, 2009, 2013). 1/9

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Alex Mackiel @amackiel.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

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Katie Vasquez @ktvasq.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

#CDS2026 is quickly approaching! The UChicago Social Kids Lab (PIs: Katie Kinzler and Alex Shaw) has lots of work to share with you, so please come check it out! @cogdevsoc.bsky.social @amackiel.bsky.social @erindkim.bsky.social

An infographic detailing CDS presentation information for UChicago Social Kids Lab Members: Katie Vasquez, Radhika Santhanagopalan, Aneesa Conine-Nakano, Isabella Ramkissoon, Tania Dhaliwal, Erin Kim, Alex Mackiel, & Rachel King. For presentation information, please see: https://cogdevsoc.org/program/.

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Katie Vasquez @ktvasq.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

🧵 New preprint with my advisor, Alex Shaw! We asked: What does “popularity” actually mean? Is it a distinct status category with specific features? We turned to elementary-schoolers, who have just begun to experience their own "popularity hierarchies," for some answers. osf.io/preprints/ps...

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Lindsey Powell @lindseypowell.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

Our paper finding that infants infer helpers’ relationships, and not their dispositions, is now out in PNAS! Sharing in case anyone needs something to read on the way home from #CDS2026 ;) doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

doi.org

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...

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Alex Mackiel @amackiel.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

I’m excited to present my research on how kids (Thursday) and adults (Saturday) reason about help requests as diagnostic cues of friendship strength at #SPSP2026 with the DIBS Lab (PI: Alex Shaw)

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Adena Schachner @adenaschachner.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

⭐ Out now in Developmental Science ⭐ "Sounds of Hidden Agents: The development of causal reasoning about musical sounds" (by Minju Kim and me) causal reasoning, music/auditory cognition, event reconstruction, kids' integration of information... onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1...

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Jonathan F. Kominsky @jfkominsky.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

Pleased to announce my new open access paper out in Developmental Psychology: The Development of the “First Thing That Comes to Mind” with @xphilosopher.bsky.social and @ebonawitz.bsky.social psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2026-25569-001.html #CogSci #PsychSciSki #DevSci (1/10)

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Larisa Heiphetz Solomon @drlarisa.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

1. New paper first-authored by former post-doc Young-eun Lee (currently at MIT with @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social) now in press at JECP! More info in thread below, full text here: columbiasamclab.weebly.com/uploads/5/9/.... 🧪 #PsychSciSky #SocialPsyc #DevPsyc #CogPsyc @socphilpsych.bsky.social

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Alex Mackiel @amackiel.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

“Conservatism once warned against the dangers of unilateral executive power. But today’s Republican White House happily wields that very power to crush its cultural rivals.” www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

theatlantic.com

Trump’s Attacks Threaten Much More Than Harvard

If the government succeeds in bullying the richest university into submission, what institutions will be safe?

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Paul Bloom @paulbloomatyale.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

"Shamanism" by @manvir.bsky.social is now out. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/730339.... It's a deep, original, and fun book—highly recommended. My blurb:

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Fiery Cushman @fierycushman.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

Sometimes people say its fair for those with advantage to get more (best office to the CEO...); other times, the opposite seems more fair (... charity to the needy). In this new work, Arthur and Xavier try to explain why. See the preprint link and explainer thread below: osf.io/preprints/ps...

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Ashley Thomas @ashleyjthomas.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Preprint of data from my first project as a postdoc with With @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social and Liz Spelke. Data and writing from 2019, figures are new :) osf.io/preprints/ps... First, we replicate @lindseypowell.bsky.social 's finding that infants reach for imitators using a very different setup.

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Ashley Thomas @ashleyjthomas.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Thank you to Alex Mackiel and Amanda Woodward, who also wondered about the social availability hyp. in their forthcoming commentary on my paper a bout relationships (my paper here, www.cambridge.org/core/service...) not yet their commentary).

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Alex Mackiel @amackiel.bsky.social · 25/05/2025

It was a great time giving the moral development lecture to the Developmental Psychology class I'm a teaching assistant for this academic term.

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