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Lee de-Wit

@leede-wit.bsky.social
219 followers 243 following 0 posts

Associate Professor in Political Psychologist at the University of Cambridge and Fellow at Trinity Hall. Deputy Head of the Department of Psychology, and Head of Undergraduate Education.

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Reposted by Lee de-Wit
Royal Society Publishing @royalsocietypublishing.org · 13/02/2026
Academics have encountered issues in trying to establish whether polarisation is rising and why, primarily because it is hard to define polarisation and find ways to measure it. This #RSOS papers presents a new way of measuring polarisation using a machine learning algorithm: doi.org/10.1098/rsos...
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Tim Bale @timbale.bsky.social · 06/01/2026
"Due to these misperceptions, even willing politicians who want to do more felt their hands were tied.”
theguardian.com
‘A silent majority’: MPs underestimate support for green policies, study reveals
Exclusive: From solar subsidies to meat taxes, minority rightwing voices appear to drown out the consensus
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Reposted by Lee de-Wit
The Guardian @theguardian.com · 05/01/2026
‘A silent majority’: MPs underestimate support for green policies, study reveals
theguardian.com
‘A silent majority’: MPs underestimate support for green policies, study reveals
Exclusive: From solar subsidies to meat taxes, minority rightwing voices appear to drown out the consensus “There may have been a silent majority in favour of windfarms and higher petrol taxes, but if there was, these people were mighty quiet. Essentially, all I ever heard from was people objecting to them.” That was the view of a former UK MP who took part in new research that reveals how significantly British and Belgian politicians underestimate the public’s support for climate action. From solar power and energy efficiency to meat taxes and frequent flyer levies, the politicians consistently failed to appreciate people’s appetite for policies that tackle global heating. The misapprehension has real world consequences: those politicians were less willing to vote for or speak up for those policies, according to the study. Continue reading...
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David Young @davidyoung-psych.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
I was delighted to jointly win the Anne Treisman award 2025! For my paper on Bayesian polarisation, in Cognition: doi.org/10.1016/j.co... Thanks so much to @sjblakemore.bsky.social and the rest of the committee, and my co-authors @leede-wit.bsky.social and @jenskoedmadsen.bsky.social
doi.org
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Public Management Review @pmreview.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
Open access: Malte Dewies, @leede-wit.bsky.social and Lucia Reisch use a pre-registered survey study to examine how assumptions about cooperation, behavioural malleability, and self-control influence policy preferences among public officials in the Netherlands www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
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Reposted by Lee de-Wit
Jens Koed Madsen @jenskoedmadsen.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
In a new paper in Cognition w. @davidyoung-psych.bsky.social and @leede-wit.bsky.social, we explore perceived dependencies as a possible cause for issue polarisation. We show that this is possible experimentally where high dependency depresses updating. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Belief polarization can be caused by disagreements over source independence: Computational modelling, experimental evidence, and applicability to real-world politics
A large literature debates whether belief polarization, in both experiments and real-world political opinion data, is the result of biased forms of re…
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David Young @davidyoung-psych.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
First time on Blue Sky! Super happy this article is now out in an issue of Political Psychology! And honoured by the promo tweet with custom-made graphic! @leede-wit.bsky.social
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Reposted by Lee de-Wit
Tom Costello @tomcostello.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
Last year, we published a paper showing that AI models can "debunk" conspiracy theories via personalized conversations. That paper raised a major question: WHY are the human<>AI convos so effective? In a new working paper, we have some answers. TLDR: facts osf.io/preprints/ps...
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Dorsa Amir @dorsaamir.bsky.social · 02/01/2025
Excited to share that our BBS target article — "Children as agents of cultural adaptation" — is online & open for commentary! In it, @sheinalew.bsky.social & I argue that children's peer cultures might play an important & understudied role in cultural adaptation. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
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Reposted by Lee de-Wit
mark brandt @mjbsp.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
Over the 2020 US and NZ elections, antidemocratic attitudes preceded conspiracy beliefs, rather than conspiracy beliefs fostering antidemocratic attitudes by @lindaskitka.bsky.social & many others in @ispp-pops.bsky.social #socpsych #polisky #polpsych onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Screenshot of paper title which reads "Conspiracy beliefs and democratic backsliding: Longitudinal effects of election conspiracy beliefs on criticism of democracy and support for authoritarianism during political contests". Paper abstract that reads, "There are widespread concerns that conspiracy theories undermine democracies. But do conspiracy beliefs increase criticism of democracy and/or support for authoritarianism? Or are antidemocratic people more likely to endorse conspiracy beliefs? To answer these important questions, we collected longitudinal data during two concurrent democratic elections—the 2020 US Presidential Election (N = 609) and the 2020 General Election in New Zealand (N = 603). Random intercept cross-lagged panel models tested whether conspiracy beliefs affect criticism of democracy in general, as well as support for authoritarianism, and both direct and representative democracy, specifically. There was little evidence that conspiracy beliefs temporally preceded changes in attitudes toward democracy or support for any specific form of government. Instead, people who supported authoritarianism more subsequently endorsed stronger conspiracy beliefs. The results suggested that, in the context of electoral contests (e.g., elections), antidemocratic people are more likely to endorse conspiracy beliefs rather than conspiracy beliefs fostering antidemocratic views."
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Roderik Rekker @roderikrekker.bsky.social · 18/01/2025
(1/8) I’m very excited to share this new publication in Public Understanding of Science. Citizens’ trust in science increasingly depends on their political leaning. In a theoretical article published in 2021, I proposed a four-level model for this ‘science polarization.' doi.org/10.1177/0963...
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Noam Gidron @noamgidron.bsky.social · 07/01/2025
We often define the ideological space in terms of the economic and cultural dimensions; how does this resonate with ordinary citizens? This is the question Thomas and I explore in a new Element, analyzing answers to open-ended survey questions 🧵 cup.org/4gEYCOj
cup.org
The European Ideological Space in Voters' Own Words
Cambridge Core - Organisation Studies - The European Ideological Space in Voters' Own Words
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Christoph Völter @christophvoelter.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
No evidence for inequity aversion in non-human animals: a #meta-analysis of accept/reject paradigms royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... New paper led by Oded Ritov and w/ @nicholaraihani.bsky.social and Jan Engelmann.
royalsocietypublishing.org
No evidence for inequity aversion in non-human animals: a meta-analysis of accept/reject paradigms | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Disadvantageous inequity aversion (IA), a negative response to receiving less than others, is a key building block of the human sense of fairness. While some theorize that IA is shared by species acro...
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Reposted by Lee de-Wit
Polarization Research Lab @prl.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
Now published in PNAS! We had a survey in the field at the time of the first assassination attempt on Trump. We found that Rs became significantly less supportive of partisan violence and had increased in-party affect. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
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Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
What attributes of a government lead citizens to view it as trustworthy? Our article - led by @danjdevine.bsky.social - is out in EJPR today... Competence, benevolence and integrity all matter - but perceived benevolence matters most. ejpr.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
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mark brandt @mjbsp.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
In January @lizsuhay.bsky.social & I will be co-EiC at Political Psychology. We will be the first EiC team that represents both of the key disciplines of this interdisciplinary journal.
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