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Joshua Conrad Jackson

@joshcjackson.bsky.social
1.1K followers 375 following 79 posts

Cultural evolution of the mind | Assistant Professor @ University of Chicago, Booth School of Business & Faculty Affiliate of UChicago Data Science Institute | He/his | joshuaconradjackson.com

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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
We’ve already kicked off research on the grant, with promising studies led by Geshi Yeung and @yuanzeliu.bsky.social. This winter, we’ll also be hiring a postdoc to work with us at Harvard on these ideas -- keep a lookout for the posting if you are looking for a position next year!
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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
We are especially interested in whether intellectual humility can help people engage across differences in ways that promote rather than inhibit innovation. Ultimately, we hope to identify ways of improving the innovative potential of online networks
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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Our proposal is grounded in cultural evolutionary models of innovation, which emphasize the power of large, partially connected networks to generate and recombine ideas. We hope to adapt these models to algorithm-mediated online social networks
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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
I’m excited to announce that our proposal (with @williambrady.bsky.social and @douglasguilbeault.bsky.social ) “Fostering Innovation Through Humility in the Online Marketplace of Ideas” was funded by the John Templeton Foundation We'll be hiring for this grant soon. Details about the project below!
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Danica Dillion @danicajdillion.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Major thanks to my co-first author Shiyun Cao and to the rest of our fantastic team @joshcjackson.bsky.social, @josephwatts.bsky.social, and Aaron Lightner. . The full paper is available here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Moralistic supernatural explanations were widespread and attributed to many different supernatural agents in historical societies
Many people explain disease and calamity as supernatural punishment for immoral behavior, and health and prosperity as supernatural reward for moral b…
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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Check out this thread for a new perspective paper where we introduce the idea of “upstream selection” to explain how adaptive social learning strategies can become maladaptive in algorithm-mediated digital ecosystems
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William J. Brady @williambrady.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
✨New paper out @nature.com ✨ For 8 weeks around the 2024 US election, we randomly assigned 2,000 people to use social media algos we built ourselves. Do engagement-based algorithms amplify intergroup, moral & emotional (IME) content—and does that distort how we see political norms? 🧵🔗 👇
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Igor Grossmann, PhD @igi.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
1/ We're hiring a postdoc in the Wisdom & Culture Lab @uwaterloopsych.bsky.social to lead a new SSHRC-funded project on cultural narratives & decision-making. Fall '26 / Winter '27 start. 🧵
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Nakwon Rim @nwrim.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
New paper in @commspsychol.nature.com, with @ycleong.bsky.social, Marc Berman, and @joshcjackson.bsky.social! Two-sentence summary: Political pundits often talk as if partisans are divided in how they feel about political issues, as in “Democrats love abortion” or “Republicans hate immigrants.” 1/2
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Communications Psychology @commspsychol.nature.com · 09/04/2026
This study finds partisan language to be less affectively divided over political issues than identity labels, suggesting meaningful affective alignment on contentious issues despite partisan animosity. @nwrim.bsky.social @joshcjackson.bsky.social @ycleong.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s44...
nature.com
Natural language reveals that political partisans are more affectively aligned over political issues than partisan identities - Communications Psychology
Large-scale computational analysis across Reddit comments and news articles finds partisan language to be less affectively divided over political issues than identity labels, suggesting meaningful affective alignment on contentious issues despite partisan animosity.
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Roger Myerson @rbmyerson.bsky.social · 28/03/2026
#NoKings in Chicago.
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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
Our paper on close relationships as microcultures (led by @mrossignacmilon.bsky.social) is a nice example of how cultural evolutionary ideas are beginning to broaden psychological theorizing I highly recommend to cultural evolutionists who are interested in psychology, or vice versa!
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Oleg Urminsky @olegurminsky.bsky.social · 07/03/2026
When you collect data online, are the results from humans or AI? In a project led by Booth PhD student Grace Zhang, we estimate the prevalence of AI agents on commonly used survey platforms: osf.io/preprints/ps... 🧵
osf.io
OSF
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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
For folks interested in learning about our lab's research, check out this flier with all our presentations at this coming #SPSP2026 conference @spspnews.bsky.social. With research by several rising stars covering tech, culture, politics and more Credit to our talented lab manager Hanying Yao!
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Dorsa Amir @dorsaamir.bsky.social · 07/02/2026
Thrilled to share our latest paper, out now in Science Advances! We explored the development of cooperative behaviors — fairness, trustworthiness, forgiveness, & honesty —  across five societies, culturally contextualizing them & seeing how they correlate. (1/5) www.science.org/doi/full/10....
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Danica Dillion @danicajdillion.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
We're excited to announce the first Mind & Machine Alignment Summit at Ohio State! Join leaders from social science and the AI industry to advance AI that promotes well-being and aligns with human values. Learn about emerging work and connect with leading researchers and builders.
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Yuanze Liu @yuanzeliu.bsky.social · 31/12/2025
Before the end of this year, I’m glad to share a short perspective/policy piece, recently out with @joshcjackson.bsky.social , Zhao Wang, and @williambrady.bsky.social: “Large AI Models Have a Prioritization Problem: Policy Implications and Solutions.”
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Dolores Albarracin @dalbarra.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
Postdoctoral Researcher Positions!
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Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 23/11/2025
UPDATE: Americans who use YouTube 84% Facebook 71% Instagram 50% TikTok 37% WhatsApp 32% Reddit 26% Snapchat 25% X (Twitter) 21% Threads 8% Bluesky 4% Truth Social 3% Full Pew Research Center report: www.pewresearch.org/internet/2025/1…
Chart showing change in the use of online platforms. Over the past few years, four of them have grown in overall use among U.S. adults – TikTok, Instagram, WhatsApp and Reddit.  TikTok: 37% of U.S. adults report using the platform, which is slightly up from last year and up from 21% in 2021.  Instagram: Half of U.S. adults now report using it, which is on par with last year but up from 40% in 2021.  WhatsApp and Reddit: About a third say they use WhatsApp, up from 23% in 2021. And 26% today report using Reddit, compared with 18% four years ago.     While YouTube and Facebook continue to sit at the top, the shares of Americans who report using them have remained relatively stable in recent years.
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Danica Dillion @danicajdillion.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
Americans are growing more socially isolated and politically divided. Our new paper in Applied Network Science suggests these two forms of disconnection may be linked. People with denser, more connected social networks often feel less partisan animosity. 🧵
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Cultural Evolution Society @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
Only 2 days left to get your abstracts in!
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Politics and Social Change Lab @pascl-stanford.bsky.social · 11/11/2025
Thank you to @joshcjackson.bsky.social and Dan Medvedev for a fascinating recent lab presentation on how attitudes toward the rich vary globally! Innovative methods and fascinating findings, all around. @robbwiller.bsky.social
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Jean Barré @jbarre.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
What happens when we model the detective archetype at scale? 🕵️‍♂️📚 Our new paper, accepted for #CHR2025 combines literary history and computational modeling to trace how the figure of the detective evolves across 150 years of French fiction. arxiv.org/pdf/2511.00627
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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
And last but not least, Obshonka and colleagues find that Roman rule explains puzzling variation in modern well-being differences across Germany Ancient Roman investment in infrastructure may explain why Southwestern Germans are so happy and healthy today www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
Masui and Miyamoto next map out trends in collective emotions in Japanese songs, finding a rise in anxiety from 1970 to 2019 but a decline in sadness www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Emotions in Japanese song lyrics over 50 years: Trajectory over time and the impact of economic hardship and disasters
The present work investigated changes in collective level emotions and their socio-ecological predictors through analyses of song lyrics from 1970 to …
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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
Kaur, Watts and Halberstadt posit a provocative hypothesis that the availability of local materials (e.g., clay versus rock) may have shaped the historical development of god concepts, with preliminary evidence from the database of religious history www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Building faith: the relationships between materials, form, and worship in pre-industrial religious architecture
Religious structures have traditionally been seen as reflections of beliefs and practices, yet their design may also shape religious behavior and thou…
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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
Samani and Baumard map out trends in Romantic love in Persian literature from 10th century to 20th century CE. They find an increasing emphasis on romantic love over time, particularly during the Safavid era. This may reveal a link w economic development www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
Fan and Baumard reveal new evidence of rising individualism over history, which suggests that wealth rather than Protestantism contributed to individualism www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
Niedenthal and Wohltjen review the varied emotional and personality adaptations to historical heterogeneity, synthesizing evidence from multiple fields www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Historical migration patterns and the evolution of culture
Cultures change, but new cultural systems and practices also emerge over history. The socio-ecological factors that exert pressure on human values and…
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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
McClain and Kenny dig into the history of collectivism in Japan, conducting a pre-registered analysis of self-reported collectivism and tightness in the Japanese social survey and linking responses to historical subsistence patterns across Japan www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
@joannaschug.bsky.social leads a paper on gendered racial stereotypes. They show that the civil rights movement coincided with a rise in language about black men, but not black women www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
@mohammadatari.bsky.social and I begin with an editorial reflecting on the origins, current trends, and future of historical psych The future requires strong causal identification and theorizing about how institutions can cement or change historical trends www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
Our "Historical Psychology" special issue is now out in CRESP! www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu... Co-edited with @mohammadatari.bsky.social and featuring historical perspectives on love, racial identity, emotion expression, well-being, collectivism, religion, and more! Brief 🧵
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Jin X. Goh | 吴晋勋 @jinxungoh.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
On election day, I wanna announce that I am recruiting social psych PhD students for my lab at UIC. My lab focuses on racial identities (esp Asian, Latino, MENA Americans) and intra-minority conflict/ coalition. So please tell your students to pick me! All details on my website: www.pbandjlab.com
iconic scene from Grey's Anatomy. Meredith Grey in scrub telling Derek "so pick me, choose me, love me"
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Pat Savage @patrickesavage.bsky.social · 29/10/2025
This thicc 71-chapter book (academic.oup.com/edited-volum...) arrived just in time to use as the textbook for my new "Cultural Evolution" class I've just started teaching! Featuring this chapter from @cailinmeister.bsky.social @psmaldino.bsky.social & Jingyi Wu as well as much more including...
Syllabus for my new "Cultural Evolution" class:

 Topic
Reading 1 (Textbook)
Reading 2 (primary source)
Course overview
(none)
(none)
How to read + history
Foreword: A brief history of the study of cultural evolution
Editor’s Preface
How and why to read (and write and publish) academic research
Arts
39) Cultural evolution and music
Sequence alignment of folk song melodies reveals cross-cultural regularities of musical evolution
Communication
55) Language phylogenies: Modeling the evolution of language
Language trees with sampled ancestors support a hybrid model for the origin of Indo-European languages
Animal culture
22) What constitutes non-human culture and how is it studied? 
Cultures in chimpanzees
Technology
36) Digital culture
Large language models show human-like content biases in transmission chain experiments
Religion
44) The cultural evolution of religion and cooperation
Testing the Big Gods hypothesis with global historical data: A review and ‘retake’
Sociality
49) Cultural evolution and the economic wealth of nations
Dual Evolutionary Foundations of Political Ideology Predict Divergent Responses to COVID-19
Coevolution
60) Cultural evolution and diet 
Dairying, diseases and the evolution of lactase persistence in Europe
Applications (policy)
69) Cultural evolution and public policy
 Female genital cutting is not a social coordination norm
Applications (science)
71) Cultural evolution of science
The natural selection of bad science
Final discussion
1) Perspectives on cultural evolution from pioneers in the field
Genes, culture, and scientific racism
The thicc 71-chapter Oxford Handbook of Cultural Evolution
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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
Adam Smith wrongly predicts that celebrity wages will drop once people begin to like celebrities (Wealth of Nations was published in 1776)
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Björn Lindström @bjornlindstrom.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
How do humans keep inventing tools and technologies that no single person could create alone? Our new preprint, led by @anilyaman.bsky.social & @ts-brain.bsky.social shows that semantic knowledge guides innovation and drives cultural evolution. 🧠📘 arxiv.org/abs/2510.12837
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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 21/10/2025
Only two days left to apply!
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Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 08/10/2025
Has anything great happened in your life because of social media?
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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 08/10/2025
You can submit applications here: spsp.wufoo.com/forms/2026-p... Please share with any students/colleagues who are not on bluesky but have relevant work!
spsp.wufoo.com
2026 Preconference Submission Portal
Use this submission form for all preconference submissions. Select your preconference first as this may change submission fields. The submission guide can be found here . You may submit to multi...
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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 08/10/2025
🚨Historical Psych Pre-Conference🚨 We have a great lineup of speakers for the #SPSP2026 edition! Submit your poster or data blitz abstract by Oct. 23 (link below!). Open to folks from any career stage Any research on psychological change or historical context of social psych is welcome!
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Diego Reinero, Ph.D. @diegoreinero.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
We're accepting poster & data blitz abstract submissions from all career stages. If your work is broadly related to morality, you should apply! We welcome a wide range of topics and approaches. Submit here: spsp.wufoo.com/forms/2026-p... Deadline to submit an abstract: Oct. 23.
spsp.wufoo.com
2026 Preconference Submission Portal
Use this submission form for all preconference submissions. Select your preconference first as this may change submission fields. The submission guide can be found here . You may submit to multi...
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Nour Kteily @nourkteily.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
@elijfinkel.bsky.social & I are recruiting a postdoc in the #LitowitzCenter for Enlightened Disagreement at Northwestern University. We seek research excellence regarding navigating conflict. Application deadline: Nov. 17. Salary: ~$80k. facultyrecruiting.northwestern.edu/apply/MjQzNw==
facultyrecruiting.northwestern.edu
Northwestern Faculty Search -
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Alejandro Pérez Velilla @apvelilla.bsky.social · 27/09/2025
I am happy to announce that our project on risk and social learning is now in press at Psychological Review. Several new additions and revisions thanks to detailed feedback from colleagues and anonymous reviewers. osf.io/preprints/so... @psmaldino.bsky.social @babeheim.bsky.social
osf.io
OSF
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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
Check out the whole paper for many more findings, robustness checks, and to see the work of a rising 💫 @hongkai1.bsky.social
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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
Coolest evidence for differentiation as a cause might be an experiment (n=4000) simulating a comment thread Incentivizing comment uniqueness (but not conformity) leads negative discourse to rise over time Coauthored w @williambrady.bsky.social, @ycleong.bsky.social, Yutong Jiang, and Alex Koch
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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
🚨New preprint🚨 osf.io/preprints/ps... In a sample of ~2 billion comments, social media discourse becomes more negative over time Archival and experimental findings suggest this is a byproduct of people trying to differentiate themselves Led by @hongkai1.bsky.social in his 1st year (!) of his PhD
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Nava Caluori @ncaluori.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
The @spspnews.bsky.social Religion & Spirituality Preconference is accepting applications for talks, data blitzes, & posters until 10/23! We're excited to hear from Kathleen Corriveau, @alexandraworm.bsky.social, @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social & @joshcjackson.bsky.social. More info: tinyurl.com/33x9za7r
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Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
One of my favorite conferences, @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social, just released key dates and other info! I highly recommend checking it out for great research from across the social, behavioral, and natural sciences
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Helena Miton @helenamiton.bsky.social · 09/09/2025
🚨 New paper alert! (slightly belated) We (with @joshcjackson.bsky.social) suggest that complex technologies, as they need several (often many) people to use them, require innovations that distribute cognition to help regulate cognitive load and coordinate. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Complex technology requires cultural innovations for distributing cognition
Over the last decade, new research has shown how human collectives can develop technologies that no single individual could discover on their own. How…
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