iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Edgar Dubourg @edgardubourg.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Our paper 'Carving Stories at Their Natural Joints' is out in Psychological Review (@apajournals.bsky.social). It means a lot to me, especially because I got to collaborate with many researchers from different disciplines whose work I truly admire.

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Daniel Nettle @danielnettle.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Pleased to announce the publication of the second edition of 'From Questions to Knowledge: Data Analysis for Psychology and Behavioural Science Using R' mybook.to/questionstok...

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Ghazal @gha-zal.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

and this is the pattern with basically every sanction on Iran. It's always regular people who can't get medicine, can't fly, can't study, can't open a bank account. Same story, different sanction.

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Rob Sica @robsica.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Latest appearance of the Paris School in BBS: ✨"We adopt an ecological approach... From this perspective, the production and reception of cuteness are not arbitrary or purely aesthetic phenomena, but part of individual adaptive strategies"

cambridge.org

A Theory of Cuteness as Developmental Investment | Behavioral and Brain Sciences | Cambridge Core

A Theory of Cuteness as Developmental Investment

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Julien Lie-Panis @jliep.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Why do societies rely on rigid moral rules? Don't lie. Keep your promises. Don't steal. We all recognize there are good reasons to make exceptions. So why are moral rules so often categorical? Our new paper proposes an answer. 🧵

Screenshot of article title page, "Why human societies adopt rigid moral rules"

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Human Behavior & Evolution Society @humbehevosoc.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Why is romantic kissing so common yet not Universal. Samani & Thomas argue that it is easy for people to learn because of universal intuitions about close bodily contact and social intimacy, and that it arises when people need to distinguish romantic relationships and other intimacy relationships!

hbes.com

Abstract core knowledge may shape the basins of cultural attraction: romantic kissing as a case study - HBES

– by Hossein Samani & Ashley J. Thomas It may be easy for many readers to assume that romantic kissing (lip-to-lip contact between romantic partners) is universal. While romantic kissing is common aro...

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Ashley Thomas @ashleyjthomas.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Hi everyone! My paper on cognitive representations of relationships and their developmental origins is finally out! I had a blast responding to the commentary and was honored to be able to engage with people who laid the foundation for my research program. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

cambridge.org

Cognitive representations of social relationships and their developmental origins | Behavioral and Brain Sciences | Cambridge Core

Cognitive representations of social relationships and their developmental origins - Volume 49

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Sam Gershman @gershbrain.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

Surely you're not the first person to point this out, which means... your complaint that Elika's complaint that everything is old is itself old is also itself old?

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Hossein Samani @hsamani.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

You know what? Just a big F*CK YOU to every scumbag who had a hand in rising of this festering organized RACISM. And another one to all those who spent their whole lives flexing their western values, Iranians in western academia included, and are now swallowing their tongues. Point. قرمساقا

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Hossein Samani @hsamani.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

#Iran is in blackout: no internet, no connection. We’re completely cut off, with no way to reach or hear from our loved ones. In this silence, the mullahs are preparing to unleash yet another massacre against people who are protesting for their freedom.

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Hossein Samani @hsamani.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

it would be fascinating to explore, especially to see whether it correlates (perhaps negatively) with the cultural importance of romantic love in a community and the need to demarcate it.

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Hossein Samani @hsamani.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

Thank you so much for your interest! We did touch on this, and lip-to-lip kissing among early Christians. However, I haven’t seen any large dataset on parent–child lip-kissing. Please let me know if you come across one 😌 (but I come across historical and ethnographical reports of it)

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Hossein Samani @hsamani.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

This paper is like a souvenir of one of the most frantic and meaningful periods of my life — started during a war and travel bans and now published amid social protests in my home country. Many thanks to @ashleyjthomas.bsky.social for her amazing warmth and support throughout this journey!

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Hossein Samani @hsamani.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

7/ ✏️🔍 Our account predicts: - Non‑kissing cultures should still see romantic kissing as intimate, while not necessarily “romantic.” - Children may initially see lip‑kissing as a general intimacy cue, then learn it’s specifically romantic.

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Hossein Samani @hsamani.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

6/😚 As it involves: - Close bodily contact - Synchrony - Sharing saliva - Somewhat costly (bc of pathogens) 👀 We argue this is why it keeps being rediscovered.

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Hossein Samani @hsamani.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

5/ Cultural evolution doesn’t search randomly. It tends to “settle” on practices that fit our cognitive dispositions. Given our early emerging abstract ideas about intimacy, lip‑to‑lip kissing is an especially intuitive solution...

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Hossein Samani @hsamani.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

4/💞 Now add culture and history. Romantic love is near‑universal, BUT how important it is varies hugely. In societies where romantic love becomes central and high‑stakes, people need clear, intuitive ways to signal and differentiate romantic bonds from other close relationships.

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Hossein Samani @hsamani.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

3/ 💌 Across cultures, adults do this too: feeding each other, sharing cups, ritual food/drink exchange—all reliably mark intimate “communal sharing” bonds. This suggests humans have a widely shared intuition: **Shared bodily substances = Closer relationship.**

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Hossein Samani @hsamani.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

2/ Infants 👼 appear to have core knowledge about social relationships. Even babies treat *saliva sharing* and very close bodily contact as special cues of close relationships.

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Hossein Samani @hsamani.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

1/ Romantic kissing 👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨 is common across cultures—but NOT universal. Of note, societies with little contact seem to “reinvent” it. We argue this is b/c kissing sits in a cultural basin of attraction carved by our early‑emerging understanding of intimacy. 🧵 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

sciencedirect.com

Abstract core knowledge may shape the basins of cultural attraction: romantic kissing as a case study

Romantic kissing is prevalent across human societies, yet far from universal—a puzzling pattern given it also appears to have been invented independen…

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David Pietraszewski @dpietra.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

My very personal story about how I discovered evolutionary psychology. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e...

podcasts.apple.com

Basement Cults

Podcast Episode · Evolutionary Psychology (the podcast) · 05/27/2025 · 2h 10m

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Ashley Thomas @ashleyjthomas.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Many people from my lab are presenting exciting work at SRCD!

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Ashley Thomas @ashleyjthomas.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

Yay for replication! I'm thrilled that scholars I admire so much put the time and effort into replicating our work!

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Will Gervais @willgervais.com · 28/03/2025

🚨New Paper Klaxon 🚨 Belief in Belief: Even Atheists in Secular Countries Show Intuitive Preferences Favoring Religious Belief. Now out at PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Here's a quick 🧵 on what we did and found!👇 1/ 11 🧪 #atheism #religion #culture #evolution

pnas.org

Belief in belief: Even atheists in secular countries show intuitive preferences favoring religious belief | PNAS

We find evidence of belief in belief—intuitive preferences for religious belief over atheism, even among atheist participants—across eight comparat...

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Ashley Thomas @ashleyjthomas.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

The world is on fire, but three post-baccs from my lab got offers to PhD programs! All women of color who are going to do amazing things! And whose research interests and amazing ideas are informed by their lived experiences as a Black woman, a Taiwanese woman, and a Mexican woman.

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Janne Yrjö-Koskinen @janne.eurosky.social · 14/02/2025

Conveniently published for Valentine's Day, here's a cute study about the evolution of teddy bears we did with @hsamani.bsky.social, @edgardubourg.bsky.social, @oliviermorin.bsky.social & many others 🐻 brill.com/view/journal...

brill.com

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Ashley Thomas @ashleyjthomas.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

New Daedalus issue on the science of caregiving. In our paper, we ask, how might infants experience caregiving? Writing this paper with Christina Steele, @alisongopnik.bsky.social and @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social was incredibly fun. Our paper and the other awesome pieces here: www.amacad.org/daedalus

amacad.org

Daedalus Home

Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

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Hossein Samani @hsamani.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

I do not know the organizers of this event personally, but I'm thrilled to see that there are still people in Iran determined to break through the regime's barriers and passionately connect with cutting-edge science of the mind. Kudos to all of them :)

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