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Matthew I. Billet

@matthewibillet.bsky.social
2.4K followers 773 following 33 posts

Culture | Religion | Social Cognition | Environmental Decision Making Postdoc UC Irvine | PhD S/P Psychology University of British Columbia

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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Graduate student registration fees are waived with the support of The John Templeton Foundation. Submit here: spsp.wufoo.com/forms/2027-p... Questions may be directed to Nava Caluori (ncaluori@umass.edu) Organizers: Nava Caluori, Michael Pasek, Jordan Moon, & Matthew Billet 3/3
spsp.wufoo.com
2027 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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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Our lineup of speakers includes our keynote speaker Conrad Hackett (Pew), and talks from Patty Van Cappellen (Duke), Kristin Laurin (UBC), and Léo Fitouchi (MIT & Harvard). There will be a panel on translational research, a mentorship lunch, and a happy hour reception. 2/3
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
FINAL CALL! The 2027 SPSP Religion & Spirituality Preconference will be a full-day in-person session on February 11 (8am - 5pm). We are accepting submissions for talks, blitzes, and posters till Oct 8. Plenty slots are available for submitted presentations, so we encourage you to apply. 1/3
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Nava Caluori @ncaluori.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
The Religion & Spirituality Preconference at @spspnews.bsky.social 2027 is now accepting applications! We're excited for a full day of programming, including talks from @conradhackett.bsky.social, Patty Van Cappellen, Kristin Laurin, & @lfitouchi.bsky.social. More here! 📣 spsp.org/events/annua...
Poster describing the Religion & Spirituality preconference for SPSP 2027, listing speakers and planned programming.
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Mike Frank @mcxfrank.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
What is a psychological theory? Here's our take on this tricky and controversial question in this week's Experimentology chapter summary. Many things called "theories" in psychology aren't actually theories — they're frameworks. 🧵 experimentology.io
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Erin Westgate @erinwestgate.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
🚨 New paper! Think of a place you feel deeply attached to. When you're in that place, do you feel like your life is more meaningful? New work from @ashleykrause.bsky.social suggests you probably do! Just accepted at Journal of Environmental Psychology, we find places can give our life meaning 🧵
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
This report, unfortunately, is timed perfectly with the release of my new JPSP article on apocalyptic thinking. Apocalyptic rhetoric is not new, and we are beginning to understand the psychology underlying it. Pre-print available free on my website: www.matthewibillet.com dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspi...
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
Apocalyptic beliefs are rooted in our cultural and religious worldviews. Addressing collective threats will require coordination across culturally diverse populations. Understanding how worldviews shape how we interpret and respond to threats builds our capacity for collective action. 5/5
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
We also asked about risk attitudes towards the 5 most pressing global existential risks informed by the WEF Risk Report. Each narrative component predicted unique variance in risk attitudes, and end of world beliefs predicted unique variance over established predictors of risk perception. 4/5
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
In a survey of N=1,409 Catholics, Mainline Protestants, Evangelical Protestants, Jews, Muslims, and nonreligious Americans, we find incredible variation in end of world beliefs that is largely accounted for by religiosity and religious affiliation. @pewresearch.org @templetonfdn.bsky.social 3/5
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
We create a framework for analyzing the psychologically-consequential narrative components of end times beliefs. Previous work assessed the "if" and "when" of the apocalypse; we suggest the "how" and the "what will come after" are also important. We develop and validate a corresponding measure. 2/5
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
New article in JPSP on Apocalyptic Thinking! Takeaways in the title: End of world beliefs are common, diverse, and predict how people perceive and respond to global risks. Cindel J.M. White, @azimshariff.bsky.social & Ara Norenzayan. @ucirvine.bsky.social @psych.ubc.ca @spspnews.bsky.social 1/5
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Madalina Vlasceanu, PhD @madalina.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
What motivates people to engage in climate advocacy? In a new PNAS Nexus megastudy [doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgaf400] led by @dgoldwert.bsky.social we tested 17 theoretical interventions on a large US sample (N=31,324) to increase public, political, and financial climate advocacy. 1/5
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Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
Revision posted! An evolutionary model of identity signaling with nested/overlapping/intersectional identities, complex multidimensional signaling capabilities, and a primer on ancient Mesopotamia. What more could you ask for? osf.io/preprints/so...
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
Work done in collaboration with Friedrich Götz (@ubcpsych.bsky.social), Andrés Gvirtz (@kingscollegelondon.bsky.social), @stephaniekramer.bsky.social (@pewresearch.org) , and Ara Norenzayan (UBC)
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
New pre-print analyzing 25,000 Christian sermon transcripts across the USA. Churches account for most systematic variance in sermon content, geographic region accounts for none. We identify niches in sermon content that may guide religious competition in USA. osf.io/preprints/ps...
osf.io
OSF
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
We outline some work done by our team and by others on the topic. We cover things like, why ecospirituality might be so prevalent around the world; how it might shape sustainable behavior through activating moral cognitions; and how being particularly connected with nature might benefit well-being.
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
Interested in the psychology of people's spiritual connections with nature, and how it shapes well-being and sustainable behavior? Check out my open-access Current Directions article with Adam Baimel (@abaimel.bsky.social), Mark Schaller, and Ara Norenzayan: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
journals.sagepub.com
Ecospirituality - Matthew I. Billet, Adam Baimel, Mark Schaller, Ara Norenzayan, 2025
Many people in many cultures have a spiritual connection with nature. Research is beginning to reveal the implications of this “ecospiritual” orientation for tw...
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Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
Below is my new post about our Three Stages of Religious Decline paper (www.nature.com/articles/s41...). We argue that a similar process of decline affects countries on every populated continent, including countries in which Christianity, Islam, Buddhism or Hinduism is the largest religion. A🧵
pewresearch.org
How religion declines around the world
A country’s religious affiliation tends to decline in three transitional stages that unfold across generations, a new paper using Center data proposes.
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
An incredible resource on Social Psychology today spanning 50 beefy chapters written by some of the greatest scholars today. The best part is, the new Handbook of Social Psychology is completely free and available online to download. Here's the link. openpublishing.princeton.edu/projects/the...
openpublishing.princeton.edu
The Handbook of Social Psychology (6th Edition) in PDF | The Handbook of Social Psychology | Open Publishing
<b>You can download individual chapters and/or the complete book in PDF below.</b><br><br> <i>The Handbook</i> is designed to be read online as a continuous-scroll e-book. PDFs may contain inelegant p...
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Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 08/04/2025
Kombucha girl maybe meme.
On the left, frowny face: working on an important manuscript
On the right, intrigued: spending two hours to create a figure that came to my mind quite randomly
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Tim Waring @twaring.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
Fully-funded PhD position on the cultural evolution of environmental management! Link evolution, ecology and behavioral science in the ACE Lab timwaring.info Details: forms.gle/gZWK9BpwYfoG... @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social @alexmesoudi.com @hyperadapthyrax.bsky.social @michael.muthukrishna.com
timwaring.info
ACE Lab: Applied Cultural Evolution Laboratory
culture, evolution, cooperation, and sustainability
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Nick Huntington-Klein @nickchk.com · 25/02/2025
After a long wait, the working paper for the Many-Economists Project: The Sources of Researcher Variation in Economics. We had 146 teams perform the same research three times, each time with less freedom. What source of freedom leads to different choices and results? papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
papers.ssrn.com
The Sources of Researcher Variation in Economics
We use a rigorous three-stage many-analysts design to assess how different researcher decisions—specifically data cleaning, research design, and the interpretat
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Andy Tix @andytix.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
How can we sustain both our planet and ourselves? Drawing on a new review of research by @matthewibillet.bsky.social, @abaimel.bsky.social, and colleagues - as well as faith and climate scientist leaders like @katharinehayhoe.com, my article for @psychologytoday.com explores what we can do.
psychologytoday.com
The New Science of Ecospirituality
How can we sustain both our planet and ourselves? The new science of ecospirituality has some ideas and some suggestions to try.
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Léo Fitouchi @lfitouchi.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
Where do moralizing religions come from? Useless cognitive by-products?Cultural group selection for complex societies? Our Psych Review paper argues: neither. Let’s rethink their cognitive & evolutionary origins🧵 w/ @manvir.bsky.social @nbaumard @jbaptistandre.bsky.social doi.org/10.1037/rev0...
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Benoît de Courson @bdecourson.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
Does poverty lead to risk taking or risk avoidance? Turns out, to both. Our new paper (with D. Nettle & W. Frankenhuis) in @royalsocietypublishing.org explains why, and conducts preregistered tests of our ‘desperation threshold’ model. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... A 🧵
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Matt Goldberg @mattgoldberg100.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
Critical comms about climate change is increasingly happening on social media. But it is challenging to study climate comms on popular social media platforms, so researchers often rely on survey research. How much do survey responses tell us how things will play out on social media? Thread 🧵
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
Does anyone have recommendations for more recent textbooks on environmental psych / conservation psych? I love this one by Gardner and Stern, but it's quite outdated now. #APA34 #environmentalpsych #conservationpsych #sustainability
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
Check out our new article on ecospirituality! Takeaways: Ecospirituality is associated with environmental concern and well-being, and changes in ecospirituality are associated with changes in these variables too! (plus a large pre-registered outdoor experiment that kinda failed!)
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 27/01/2025
Super interesting - another great article from Gordon Hodson
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 17/12/2024
how this ideational response to external threats (compared to others, like seeing the threat as part of an apocalyptic prophecy) mediates the kinds of responses a cultural group will have to those threats. 2/2
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 17/12/2024
Very interesting results in this new meta-analysis of why people turn to conspiratorial thinking. Conspiratorial thinking is a response to external threats, not really a trait of specific kinds of people. I want to know... 1/2
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
...We haven't treated childhood experiences as a separate psychological construct - maybe it could help build empathy and good faith across the political divide, especially given that liberals and conservatives both care about leaving a better world for future generations. 13/13
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
One interesting finding of this analysis is that childhood experiences in nature come out as an empirically distinct factor from other positive experiences in nature (instrumental benefits factor)... 12/n
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
...I suspect other processes are directly polarizing environmental attitudes. Other research suggests partisan news media is likely a major factor here. Pure speculation - I think partisan news media less so affects environmental motives than specific attitudes about climate change and policy. 11/n
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
These results seem to suggest that liberals and conservatives differ to a small degree in their environmental motives and that these differences account for some of the broader political differences observed in the literature, but... 10/n
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
To some extent they did. When including our environmental motives in a regression predicting preservation and utilization attitudes, it reduced the relationship between political affiliation and attitudes by about half (β=−0.96 to −0.64 for preservation and β = 0.65 to 0.32 for utilization). 9/n
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
We wanted to know if differences in these environmental motives might explain some of the broader political differences in environmental attitudes found in the literature. Primarily in preservation and utilization attitudes (see Milfont & Duckitt, 2010). 8/n
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
...Responsibility to nature, instrumental benefits from nature, childhood experiences in nature, and religious stewardship over nature. Liberals and conservatives ranked these motives in a similar manner, but differed in their mean endorsement of some of them. 7/n
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
In Study 2 we made a battery of self-report items that capture the wide variety of themes liberals and conservatives wrote about in Study 1. Then we subjected these items to factor analysis. We recovered 4 latent factors... 6/n
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
Multiple topics represented some themes—some of these topics differed between groups, but not consistently. Anyways, this approach was messy empirically and conceptually (there were multiple themes tapping into "positive experiences in nature" - should we really treat them as separate motives?) 5/n
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
We even found overlap in the most frequently discussed motives: Preserving nature because our survival depends on it, for the welfare of future generations, and because nature's beauty is valuable. (Figure 1). 4/n
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
Predictably, liberals wrote more about climate change and conservatives wrote more about having a religious ethic to be stewards of nature. But when we looked at the broad spectrum of reasons people discussed, we found a lot of overlap. 3/n
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
We first asked over 1500 Americans to write about why nature is worth preserving. We used structural topic modelling to extract the latent themes in their responses and compare the relative prevalence of each theme among liberals and conservatives. (Study 1) 2/n
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
New open access article assessing the common ground between liberals and conservatives on why nature is worth preserving. Turns out they share a lot in common! I did this work with Adam Baimel (@abaimel.bsky.social ), Taciano Milfont, and Ara Norenzayan. 1/n journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
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Matthew I. Billet @matthewibillet.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
@njsgibson.bsky.social could you add me as well. Thanks!
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Daniel 🕹️ @strengejacke.de · 29/11/2024
{ggeffects} version 2.0.0 is out now! Read more about this #rstats package at strengejacke.github.io/ggeffects What does {ggeffects} do? The 📦 helps you to understand (complex) models and results by calculating and plotting *estimated marginal means* or more generally, *adjusted predictions*. 🧵
strengejacke.github.io
Create Tidy Data Frames of Marginal Effects for ggplot from Model Outputs
Compute marginal effects and adjusted predictions from statistical models and returns the result as tidy data frames. These data frames are ready to use with the ggplot2-package. Effects and predictio...
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