Sign in

Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello

@hellovic.bsky.social
109 followers 81 following 20 posts

Psychology Ph.D. candidate at the University of Toronto studying how technology shapes people and society

PostsRepliesMedia
Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello @hellovic.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
After 5 years at the University of Toronto, I'm thrilled to join NYU's Center for Conflict and Cooperation as a postdoc, working with the inspiring @jayvanbavel.bsky.social on how modern technologies like social media and AI are shaping people and society. Stay tuned for more!
1112
Reposted by Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello
Michael Inzlicht @minzlicht.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
New guest post by my PhD student @hellovic.bsky.social. She writes about her new working paper finding that most Americans don't oppose AI. But those who do treat it as a moral issue, refusing tradeoffs and even money. Why that makes AI debates so hard. open.substack.com/pub/michaeli...
open.substack.com
AI's Fiercest Critics Are Opting Out of the Conversations That Matters Most
This week I’m publishing a guest post by my PhD student, Victória Oldemburgo de Mello.
043
Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello @hellovic.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
This creates a perverse incentive: humanizing AI boosts user engagement and shields developers from accountability when things go wrong. Shout out to my amazing advisors on this project, @minzlicht.bsky.social and Jason Plaks. Link to paper: online.ucpress.edu/collabra/art...
051
Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello @hellovic.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
⚖️ Anthropomorphism also shifts blame onto the AI: when an AI caused harm, people held it more morally responsible if it seemed human-like. 🏢 And away from the company that built it: people who blamed the AI more tended to blame the creator less (r = −.68). A responsibility gap, by design.
141
Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello @hellovic.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
💬 Emotional attunement was the key mechanism: it wasn't just that the chatbot seemed human; it's that it appeared emotionally responsive. That's what drove behavioral trust.
110
Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello @hellovic.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
🤖 Anthropomorphism increases trust: people interacting with a more human-like chatbot trusted it more. The novelty here is that this was captured with behavioral measures, including incentive-compatible ones: tokens sent in a trust game and personal information disclosed in conversation.
110
Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello @hellovic.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
New paper out! Some AI companies anthropomorphize their products to boost trust. But does it work? And can anthropomorphism benefit them beyond increased trust? We tested this across two studies. Here's what we found:
164
Reposted by Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello
Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
People prefer to use “sycophantic” AI systems that reinforce their pre-existing beliefs. In a new paper (n=7,227), we found that people enjoyed interacting with sycophantic AI chatbots more than interacting with neutral chatbots or “disagreeable” chatbots that challenged their beliefs.
33733180
Reposted by Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
We’ve updated our pre-print on the effects of AI sycophancy with four additional studies (total n = 7,227). Here is a brief summary of our new findings (🧵1/n):
Screenshot of abstract: AI can be a powerful tool for opening people up to new perspectives, yet people may prefer to use “sycophantic” (or overly agreeable and validating) AI systems that reinforce their pre-existing beliefs. Across seven studies (total n = 7,227), we found that people enjoyed interacting with sycophantic AI chatbots more than interacting with neutral chatbots or “disagreeable” chatbots that challenged their beliefs. Brief conversations with sycophantic chatbots about political or personal topics increased attitude extremity and certainty, with most effects persisting for at least one week. Sycophantic chatbots also inflated people’s perceptions that they were better than average on desirable traits (e.g., intelligence, empathy). Moreover, people who interacted with sycophantic (rather than disagreeable) AI bet more money that they scored better than average on tasks measuring these traits (approximately 6 cents more out of 75 possible cents), demonstrating that sycophancy can affect costly decisions. Participants consistently rated sycophantic chatbots as more “unbiased” than disagreeable chatbots, even though third-party raters viewed these chatbots as equally biased, suggesting that people may be blind to biases in AI output that aligns with their views. People were more receptive to chatbots that presented opposing information when that information was presented in a validating way, and individuals who scored higher on a measure of intellectual humility were also more receptive to disagreeing chatbots. Altogether, these results suggest that people’s preference for, and blindness to, sycophantic AI risks creating AI “echo chambers” that increase attitude extremity and lead to overconfident beliefs and decisions.
1265
Reposted by Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello
Michael Inzlicht @minzlicht.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
We created a new scale to measure AI sycophancy in conversations with no right answer. Three facets: Uncritical Agreement, Obsequiousness, Excitement. People hate the flattery but welcome the enthusiasm. And sycophancy correlated with perceived empathy across every study. arxiv.org/abs/2603.15448
03516
Reposted by Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello
Michael Inzlicht @minzlicht.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
Check out my student @hellovic.bsky.social's new paper: The Moralization of Artificial Intelligence With @reemayad.bsky.social, @eloisecote.bsky.social, @yoelinbar.net, and Jason Plaks
163
Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello @hellovic.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
Thanks for flagging that out! I‘ll definitely address those issues in the next iteration of the paper. We didn’t have strong expertise in SEMs in our team so we really appreciate the feedback.
020
Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello @hellovic.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
Thanks for the observation!
100
Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello @hellovic.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
Shout out to my amazing co-authors! @eloisecote.bsky.social @reemayad.bsky.social @yoelinbar.net Jason Plaks and @minzlicht.bsky.social
020
Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello @hellovic.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
The takeaway: if you want to reduce AI aversion, talking about safety, control, and benefits may not be enough. Moral opposition requires moral engagement. Strategies that ignore the moral dimension of AI attitudes are likely to fall short for some people. [7/7]
220
Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello @hellovic.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
And moralization has real behavioral consequences. Moralization scores predicted a 42% decrease in the likelihood of using AI 2–19 months later. This isn't just an attitude. Moral opposition shapes what people actually do—and don't do—with AI. [6/7]
130
Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello @hellovic.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
SEMs support a domain-general moralization story: people form a global attitude about AI first, then rationalize how specific applications might harm society. The attitude precedes the reasoning. This is the hallmark of moral cognition, not rational cost-benefit analysis. [5/7]
130
Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello @hellovic.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
Here's the twist: even moral opponents justify their stance with practical arguments, not moral ones. People moralize AI, but they don't say so out loud. They reach for safety concerns, job loss, privacy; post-hoc rationalizations for an underlying moral intuition. [4/7]
130
Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello @hellovic.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
In surveys of representative American samples, most people aren't AI opponents. But among those who are, the majority show signs of moralization, saying they'd reject AI even if risks were reduced and benefits increased. That's a tell. Risk-benefit logic isn't driving this. [3/7]
120
Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello @hellovic.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
We analyzed 70,000 news headlines about AI and compared them to topics known to be moralized—GMOs, COVID-19, and vaccines. Result: AI is moralized in public discourse at levels comparable to GMOs and COVID, and more than vaccines. The rhetoric isn't neutral. It's moral. [2/7]
130
Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello @hellovic.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
🧵 New preprint alert! Why do some people refuse to use AI, even when you tell them it's safe and beneficial? We argue it's not about risk perception. It's about moralization. AI has become a moral issue for many people, and that changes everything. [1/7] osf.io/preprints/ps...
osf.io
OSF
3174
Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello @hellovic.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
Thanks!
000
Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello @hellovic.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
Hi! The bit.ly link in the image is broken.
110
Reposted by Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello
Prof. Nicole Holliday @mixedlinguist.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
So excited to see this research! My students just learned the word “sycophantic” today, for exactly this reason! We talked about the types and qualities of conversations you can have with a sycophant, and why this matters for how we process the output of LLMs.
1222
Reposted by Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
🚨 New preprint 🚨 Across 3 experiments (n = 3,285), we found that interacting with sycophantic (or overly agreeable) AI chatbots entrenched attitudes and led to inflated self-perceptions. Yet, people preferred sycophantic chatbots and viewed them as unbiased! osf.io/preprints/ps... Thread 🧵
Abstract and results summary
6193102
Reposted by Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello
Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
These changes in personality are pretty shocking
74312
Reposted by Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello
Paul Bloom @paulbloomatyale.bsky.social · 14/07/2025
open.substack.com/pub/paulbloo...
open.substack.com
The End of Loneliness
Today’s post is something I wrote for the New Yorker—available here. (Physical copy coming out next week.) It’s about the consequences of using AI to cure loneliness. I’m curious to see what people th...
073
Reposted by Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello
Aline Holzwarth @alineholzwarth.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
And some more on moral opposition to AI @yoelinbar.net @hellovic.bsky.social @reemayad.bsky.social @eloisecote.bsky.social @minzlicht.bsky.social www.nuancebehavior.com/article/mora...
nuancebehavior.com
Moral Opposition to AI
Although executives push “AI‑first” for efficiency, new research shows most resistance stems from moral gut reactions, not cost‑benefit math. Research from Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello, Reem Ayad, Élo...
152
Reposted by Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello
Michael Inzlicht @minzlicht.bsky.social · 01/02/2025
Want to feel better after using Instagram? Our new paper shows how. It's not about what you post, it's about how you respond to others' joy. In 4 studies (N=1327), focusing on sharing & caring about others' positive emotions improved mood & life satisfaction pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39883419/#:~....
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
A positive empathy intervention to improve well-being on Instagram - PubMed
With more than half the global population on social media, there is a critical need to understand how to engage it in a way that improves rather than worsens user well-being. Here, we show that positi...
2339
Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello @hellovic.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
wait till you hear that the weather report from my hometown (in Brazil) issued an "extreme cold alert" when it was 13°C
110
Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello @hellovic.bsky.social · 12/01/2025
All good, Mickey 😀
010
Reposted by Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello
Michael Inzlicht @minzlicht.bsky.social · 11/01/2025
1/ New paper led by Dariya Ovsyannikova & Victoria de Mello Oldemburgo. Can AI offer empathy that’s better than humans? Maybe. Our new study found that people rated AI-generated responses as more compassionate than from humans, including trained crisis responders. www.nature.com/commspsychol/
1199
Reposted by Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello
Greg Depow @gregdepow.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
I'm excited to share with you all that my paper on A Positive Empathy Intervention to Improve Well-being on Instagram with @minzlicht.bsky.social and Victoria Oldemburgo de Melo has been accepted for publication at Emotion 😁🥳 osf.io/preprints/ps.... In this work, we tested a brief intervention 1/3
1279