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David Rand

@dgrand.bsky.social
32K followers 1.7K following 344 posts

Prof at Cornell studying how human-AI dialogues can correct inaccurate beliefs, why people share falsehoods, and ways to reduce political polarization and promote cooperation. Computational social science + cognitive psychology. www.DaveRand.org

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David Rand @dgrand.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Honored to give a keynote at Stanford's Trust & Safety Research Conference 2026 (Fri 8:45-9:30am). If you're going to be at the conference and want to connect, send me a message! drive.google.com/file/d/12Q_M...
drive.google.com
TSRC Agenda
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David Rand @dgrand.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Honored to give a keynote at Stanford's Trust & Safety Research Conference 2026 (Fri 8:45-9:30am). If you're going to be at the conference and want to connect, send me a message! drive.google.com/file/d/12Q_M...
drive.google.com
TSRC Agenda
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Esther Boissin @boissinesther.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Happy to share a new preprint with @tomcostello.bsky.social, @dgrand.bsky.social and @gordpennycook.bsky.social 🧵 "What beliefs are most debunkable?" osf.io/preprints/ps... We investigate the characteristics of the beliefs that are (or are not) influenced by counterevidence in 3,341 AI dialogues.
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Mohsen Mosleh @mmosleh.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
New paper: In Nov 2025, X began showing where accounts actually operate from. We studied 8,200 politically engaged accounts claiming to be in the US half were revealed to be elsewhere What happened when the mismatch went public? @yuweichuai.bsky.social @thomasrenault.bsky.social @dgrand.bsky.social
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David Rand @dgrand.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
🚨New WP: Protecting users from AI persuasion🚨 🔸A 1-paragraph AI literacy treatment (explaining AIs can be told to pursue non-accuracy goals/to persuade) cuts AI dialogue political persuasion by ~half! 🔸No sig effect on general genAI trust arxiv.org/abs/2609.16432 w/ @rorchinik.bsky.social
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David Rand @dgrand.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
🚨New WP: Protecting users from AI persuasion🚨 🔸A 1-paragraph AI literacy treatment (explaining AIs can be told to pursue non-accuracy goals/to persuade) cuts AI dialogue political persuasion by ~half! 🔸No sig effect on general genAI trust arxiv.org/abs/2609.16432 w/ @rorchinik.bsky.social
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Ziv Epstein @ziv-e.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Do our social media algorithms correctly reflect our values? Our new article published today in @pnas.org shows that the answer is often not, and that the content that gets promoted into their ranked feeds is often actively counter to our values.
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Nicholas A. Christakis @nachristakis.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
One of the most inventive and open-minded scientists I know. And also a rocker. :-)
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David Rand @dgrand.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
It's been a real joy to return as a faculty member to my hometown and alma mater Cornell. This profile charts a bit of that journey - along with my thoughts on what punk rock and professing have in common, plus fun oldtime photos alumni.cornell.edu/cornellians/...
alumni.cornell.edu
How Is Academia Like Punk Rock? Ask Cornell Prof David Rand ’04 - Cornellians | Cornell University
Back at his alma mater, he’s making headlines for groundbreaking research melding AI, psychology, economics, poli sci, and more
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David Rand @dgrand.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
It's been a real joy to return as a faculty member to my hometown and alma mater Cornell. This profile charts a bit of that journey - along with my thoughts on what punk rock and professing have in common, plus fun oldtime photos alumni.cornell.edu/cornellians/...
alumni.cornell.edu
How Is Academia Like Punk Rock? Ask Cornell Prof David Rand ’04 - Cornellians | Cornell University
Back at his alma mater, he’s making headlines for groundbreaking research melding AI, psychology, economics, poli sci, and more
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David Rand @dgrand.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
🚨JOIN the Civic Discourse Mediator Competition🚨 In 1st week of August, create & test a prompt-based AI mediator that helps people have more thoughtful, productive conversations about important public issues. Win $400! Get started here: forms.gle/HkbhEk4hELQE...
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Adam Berinsky @adamberinsky.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Boy this was a long road, but glad it's finally out! @dgrand.bsky.social @robbwiller.bsky.social @arechar.bsky.social (along with Michael N. Stagnaro, James N. Druckman, not tagable)
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Nature Human Behaviour @nathumbehav.nature.com · 22/06/2026
Representativeness and response validity across nine opt-in online samples
dlvr.it
Representativeness and response validity across nine opt-in online samples
Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 22 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02438-zStagnaro et al. compare nine opt-in participant samples on measures of response validity, representativeness and professionalism. They find substantial variation across samples and offer guidance for choosing samples based on the research question.
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Timothy Caulfield @caulfieldtim.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
Congrats to an amazing team for award for THIS paper☝️ See news.cornell.edu/stories/2026... Thx for your much terrific & needed work, @arechar.bsky.social @dgrand.bsky.social @gordpennycook.bsky.social @adamberinsky.bsky.social @ziv-e.bsky.social @kvg.bsky.social @robert-m-ross.bsky.social et al 🙏
news.cornell.edu
Rand, Pennycook awarded for broad study of misinformation | Cornell Chronicle
The Behavioral Science & Policy Association (BSPA) has chosen a study led by Cornell researchers as its publication of the year.
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Stanford Tech Impact and Policy Center @techimpactpolicy.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
We are thrilled to announce @dgrand.bsky.social as one of our keynote speakers for #TSRConf 2026! David is a professor at Cornell University, where his research draws on computational social science and cognitive science to understand how people form beliefs and decide what to share online.
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Jonathan Stray @jonathanstray.com · 09/06/2026
Humanity's ability to know, reason, judge, and act well is the foundation of science, democracy, crisis response, & management of AI itself. AI poses serious risks to that foundation. New paper on epistemic risks by 30 experts calls for attention and proposes solutions. Link in thread.
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Behavior Change for Good Initiative @bcfginitiative.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
When does punishing free riders help groups cooperate, and when does it backfire? A Science Magazine paper by Team Scientists @dgrand.bsky.social, Duncan Watts, Abdullah Almaatouq & co-author suggests the answer depends heavily on context. bit.ly/4uqUZm0
doi.org
Integrative experiments identify how punishment affects welfare in public goods games
Despite decades of research, the conditions under which punishment promotes cooperation remain unclear. Through an integrative experiment varying 14 design parameters of public goods games across 360 experimental conditions (147,618 decisions from 7100 ...
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Opinion Today @opiniontoday.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
The Wall Street Journal had a conversation with @dgrand.bsky.social, a professor at Cornell University and co-author of the three papers, about how debunkbots can talk people out of believing conspiracy theories and what humans can learn from the endeavor. (WSJ-unlocked) www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-d...
wsj.com
How AI Talks People Out of Conspiracy Theories—and What We Can Learn From That
Research shows that the key is to clearly explain relevant facts. That isn’t always easy to do.
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Gordon Pennycook @gordpennycook.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
There has been a LOT of research on misinformation over the last decade. In a new paper (for Annual Review of Psychology), @dgrand.bsky.social and I attempt to distill the key points of consensus, highlight major disagreements, and point to future directions. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
papers.ssrn.com
<p>Consensus, Disagreements, and Open Questions in the Psychology of Misinformation</p>
Research on misinformation has expanded rapidly over the past decade. This review examines areas of consensus and contention within the literature on misinforma
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Sol Messing @solmg.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
New in Nature: LLMs give "the party line" in the languages of authoritarian regimes. This works when they control the media, which feeds pretraining data. We show more state control over the media means less critical LLMs. 6 studies spanning 38 languages & 13 models. Details ↓
Scatter plot of 38 countries plus China showing the proportion of LLM responses favorable to the regime in the local language vs. World Press Freedom Index score. Lower press freedom predicts more regime-favorable responses; all production models pooled.
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Leah McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
Three BIG shifting dynamics: • Algorithms are dominating. • AI content generation is breaking the link between platforms and human content creation. • Public posting is decreasing dramatically, with conversations moving to non-public facing channels. Read more:
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Matthew Facciani @matthewfacciani.bsky.social · 05/04/2026
New study finds that correcting false health claims directly is as effective or more effective than trying to discredit the source, even if they lack expertise. iaap-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
iaap-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Corrections outperform expertise‐based interventions for countering misinformation from alternative medicine sources
Given that health-based misinformation can cause serious harm, designing effective interventions is paramount. Recently, misinformation interventions that target a source's relevant expertise have sh....
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Adam Berinsky @adamberinsky.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
New working paper: Rethinking Misinformation Interventions. The field has spent years searching for the one intervention that will solve misinformation. This search is the wrong approach — and our disappointment says more about our expectations than our tools. (1/5) osf.io/preprints/so...
osf.io
OSF
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Reed Orchinik @rorchinik.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
Very excited to share that I'll be joining Social and Decision Sciences @cmu.edu as an assistant professor in the Fall! So grateful to everyone who has supported me, particularly my amazing advisors @dgrand.bsky.social & Rahul Bhui, family, & friends!
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Ashley Blum @akblum.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
New paper with Gabriela Czarnek, @dgrand.bsky.social and @adamberinsky.bsky.social out in Political Behavior! Link: link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com
After the Takeover: Rebuilding Trust in Public Media Through Institutional Reform - Political Behavior
We examine the dynamics of citizens’ trust in public media during government-led efforts to implement major media reforms in a highly polarized context using two cross-sectional experiments. After Pol...
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David Rand @dgrand.bsky.social · 14/03/2026
DebunkBot is live on BlueSky! Tag @debunkbot.bsky.social in reply to any post to get the facts
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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 14/03/2026
Extremely useful!
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David Rand @dgrand.bsky.social · 14/03/2026
DebunkBot is live on BlueSky! Tag @debunkbot.bsky.social in reply to any post to get the facts
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Ed Maibach @maibached.bsky.social · 08/03/2026
Congratulations to @tomcostello.bsky.social @gordpennycook.bsky.social & @dgrand.bsky.social for winning the @aaas.org Newcomb Prize for this outstanding and important communication research on using AI to challenge conspiracy beliefs. @mason4c.bsky.social @docsforclimate.bsky.social
science.org
Durably reducing conspiracy beliefs through dialogues with AI
Conspiracy theory beliefs are notoriously persistent. Influential hypotheses propose that they fulfill important psychological needs, thus resisting counterevidence. Yet previous failures in correctin...
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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 08/03/2026
The sky is not falling; high-quality platforms (Prolific, Verasight, CR Connect) have low rates of apparent bots. osf.io/preprints/ps... But also not zero; vigilance is very much needed!
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Agustin Prinetti @aprinetti.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
🚨 My first solo preprint is out! I study Grok's fact-checking on X and show: 📌 Professional fact-checkers are a major source of Grok. 📌 Grok becomes more accurate as more articles from fact-checkers become available. 🔗 ssrn.com/abstract=626...
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Mary Elizabeth Sutherland @meharpist.bsky.social · 01/03/2026
Check out this recent @nature.com paper reporting a field experiment on X. It shows X's algorithm boosts conservative content and downranks traditional media—shifting users’ views on key issues. Switching to chronological doesn’t reverse the effect. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
The political effects of X’s feed algorithm - Nature
Among users initially on a chronological feed, 7 weeks of exposure to X’s algorithmic feed in 2023 shifted political attitudes and account-following behaviour in a more conservative direction compared...
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Pam Davis-Kean, PhD @umpamdk.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
This is consistent with earlier psychometric work that suggests 5-7 is the best response scale options, but good to see that the finding holds up in contemporary research. Also, good to see that labeling scales whether anchored or not has little impact on findings. academic.oup.com/ijpor/articl...
academic.oup.com
Do You Agree? Do You Strongly Agree? The Effect of the Number of Response Categories on Response Processes and Verification of Substantive Hypotheses
Abstract. This study investigates how the number and labeling of response categories in survey scales affect respondent behavior, psychometric properties,
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Gordon Pennycook @gordpennycook.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
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!
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David Rand @dgrand.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
Come join our academic family!
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Tom Costello @tomcostello.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
Honored (and genuinely, wildly grateful and -- even more than I am grateful -- surprised) to share that our paper "Durably reducing conspiracy beliefs through dialogues with AI" received the @aaas.org Newcomb-Cleveland Prize (for the "most outstanding" paper in @science.org last year).
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Alan Rozenshtein @alanrozenshtein.com · 10/02/2026
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s1I...
youtube.com
Scaling Laws: The Persuasion Machine: David Rand on How LLMs Can Reshape Political Beliefs
YouTube video by Lawfare
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Alan Rozenshtein @alanrozenshtein.com · 10/02/2026
New @scalinglaws.bsky.social episode: @noupside.bsky.social and I talk to @dgrand.bsky.social about his research showing AI chatbots can shift people's political beliefs. www.lawfaremedia.org/article/scal...
lawfaremedia.org
Scaling Laws: The Persuasion Machine: David Rand on How LLMs Can Reshape Political Beliefs
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FAR.AI @far.ai · 11/02/2026
APE update: we retested recent frontier models on whether they still comply with requests to persuade on extreme harm (terrorism, sexual abuse). GPT-5.1 & Claude Opus 4.5 → near zero compliance. But Gemini 3 Pro complies 85% with no jailbreak needed. 🧵
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Kevin Collins @kwcollins.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
Interesting new paper in Political Psychology from @benmtappin.bsky.social and Ryan McKay investigating party cues onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
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David Rand @dgrand.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
🚨New WP "@Grok is this true?" We analyze 1.6M factcheck requests on X (grok & Perplexity) 📌Usage is polarized, Grok users more likely to be Reps 📌BUT Rep posts rated as false more often—even by Grok 📌Bot agreement with factchecks is OK but not great; APIs match fact-checkers osf.io/preprints/ps...
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koenfucius @koenfucius.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
Does a motivation to persuade someone of a view we do not hold cause us to deceptively self-persuade to shift our view? No, research by Zhang & @dgrand.bsky.social suggests—simple preferential exposure to information has the same effect: buff.ly/vB18poi
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Kyle Lo @ ICML2026 🇰🇷 @kylelo.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
our open model proving out specialized rag LMs over scientific literature has been published in nature ✌🏻 congrats to our lead @akariasai.bsky.social & team of students and Ai2 researchers/engineers www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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David Rand @dgrand.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
Grok fact-checks our paper on Grok fact-checking - and it approves!
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David Rand @dgrand.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
🚨New WP "@Grok is this true?" We analyze 1.6M factcheck requests on X (grok & Perplexity) 📌Usage is polarized, Grok users more likely to be Reps 📌BUT Rep posts rated as false more often—even by Grok 📌Bot agreement with factchecks is OK but not great; APIs match fact-checkers osf.io/preprints/ps...
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Gordon Pennycook @gordpennycook.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
Please contact Nina if you're interested in working with us! Much of this work is also with @dgrand.bsky.social & @tomcostello.bsky.social, and others! Very fun collaborative environment. And Nina is wonderful to work with!! (She is also the coolest among us, FWIW)
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Alexios Mantzarlis @mantzarlis.com · 28/01/2026
New on @indicator.media: "@grok is this true" was the single most frequent reply tagging X's AI chatbot in the six months following its launch.
indicator.media
@Grok is this true: How X’s chatbot performs as a fact-checking tool
New research explores whether the chatbot might replace the crowdsourced fact-checking program – and what that might mean for getting to the truth on X
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Tom Costello @tomcostello.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
If you tell an AI to convince someone of a true vs. false claim, does truth win? In our *new* working paper, we find... ‘LLMs can effectively convince people to believe conspiracies’ But telling the AI not to lie might help. Details in thread
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John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
These authors wanted to know whether people with physical disabilities face discrimination in hiring: even when they are equally qualified. So they ran an experiment.
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The Quarterly Journal of Economics @qjeharvard.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
Recently accepted by #QJE, “Marginal Returns to Public Universities,” by Jack Mountjoy: doi.org/10.1093/qje/...
doi.org
Marginal Returns to Public Universities
Abstract. This paper studies the returns to enrolling in American public universities by comparing the long-term outcomes of barely admitted versus barely
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