iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Yashar Ali 🐘 @yasharali.bsky.social · 18/01/2026

A new video via Vahid Online shows Islamic Republic security forces shooting at protestors in Tehran during a protest on January 8.

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

The Islamic regime has killed 12k people in 5 days. Iranians are hurting; we’ve been hurting for 150 years. If you have an Iranian colleague, check on them. No unsolicited advice—just kindness and space. They may kill our brothers and sisters, but never the dream of freedom.

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · 11/01/2026

My earliest memory: pedaling my bike at age 5 to warn my parents about the Basijis. At 6, I heard my mother’s screams as she was arrested for nail polish. I tell my kids the story of Zahhak—the tyrant who fed on youth until he was overthrown. The Zahhak of our time is falling 🕊️ #IranRevolution2026

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

How do resource fears (realistic threat) vs. value clashes (symbolic threat) drive war & peace? We built a virtual society of 25 autonomous agents using the Park et al. (2023) framework to find out, using a "minimal groups" paradigm (Group A vs. B). But first, we looked under the hood. 🧠

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · 08/09/2025

Come work with us at USC! We're hiring an NSF-funded Postdoc for the Everyday Respect Project. 🤖 You'll work directly with me, Ben Graham, and Shri Narayanan, using cutting-edge AI to analyze police body-worn camera footage to improve police-community relations.

usccareers.usc.edu

Postdoctoral Scholar - Research Associate at USC

Learn more about applying for Postdoctoral Scholar - Research Associate at USC

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Payam Piray @payampiray.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

New paper with @nathanieldaw.bsky.social in Nature Communications: an RL model that builds a successor map compositionally. The new model plans as well as the best models, and it links components of the map used for planning to neural codes in the medial entorhinal cortex. rdcu.be/eAofi

rdcu.be

Reconciling flexibility and efficiency: medial entorhinal cortex represents a compositional cognitive map

Nature Communications - How the brain creates compositional cognitive maps that support both flexible and efficient planning remains poorly understood. Here, authors propose a...

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Andrei Cimpian @andreicimpian.bsky.social · 26/07/2025

Our new study in Psych Science @psychscience.bsky.social reveals many interesting-- and concerning -- things about the language on kids' shows, including a grammatical bias in favor of men and boys as agents or "doers" 👇

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · 28/06/2025

My new op-ed in the @nytimes. I argue that Iranians are caught in a state of “moral paralysis,” a psychological trap set by the Islamic Republic itself. It pits two of our most sacred values against each other: liberation vs. self-determination. (1/2) www.nytimes.com/2025/06/28/o...

nytimes.com

Opinion | The Moral Paralysis Facing Iranians Right Now

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

Check up on your Iranian colleagues and students; this is a full-on war!

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Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

Watch this montage of clips from Israel's Channel 14, filled with racist and genocidal bile, shocking stuff, ask yourself why you don't see these clips on US or UK mainstream news, and then read Prem's deep dive for Zeteo into Channel 14: zeteo.com/p/inside-the...

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · 17/05/2025

We’re looking for a researcher to work on methods and building tools for AI evaluation. We are seeking candidates with expertise at the intersection of agentic systems and personalization, demonstrated by a strong publication record in relevant venues.

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Phil Klay @philklay.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

“There is no God but God, Muhammad is his messenger,” the paramedic is heard saying. He asks God for forgiveness and says he knows he is going to die. “Forgive me, mother. This is the path I chose — to help people,” he said. “Allahu akbar,” God is great, he says. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/w...

nytimes.com

Video Shows Aid Workers Killed in Gaza Under Gunfire Barrage, With Ambulance Lights On

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Prem Thakker ツ @premthakker.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

BREAKING: Yuval Abraham, co-director of Oscar-winning documentary "No Other Land," says Israeli settlers beat his co-director Hamdan Ballal, injuring his head and stomach — and then Israeli soldiers invaded the ambulance he was in and seized him. Ballal's whereabouts are now unknown.

Tweet from Yuval Abraham:
"A group of settlers just lynched Hamdan Ballal, co director of our film no other land. They beat him and he has injuries in his head and stomach, bleeding. Soldiers invaded the ambulance he called, and took him. No sign of him since."

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LingProf @lingprof.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

So Cal Stand Up for Science: Fri Mar 7 noon @the Wilshire Federal Building

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

At @spspnews.bsky.social, many asked for guidelines on using LLMs in the social sciences. Our new paper in AMPPS addresses exactly that! We provide a primer for evaluating LLMs in social science research, focusing on methodological rigor, replicability, and validity: osf.io/preprints/ps...

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

Our new paper in PNAS Nexus. County morals > politics for carbon footprints? 🤯 We find that county-level values predict actual green behavior (emissions!), not just attitudes. Stronger than political leaning.

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

Very cool work on the intersection of interpretability and multi-lingual LLMs, led by @elnaz-rahmati.bsky.social

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

Our new paper explores how to align LLMs with System 1 (intuitive) and System 2 (analytical) thinking styles. This work challenges the idea that step-by-step reasoning (CoT) is always best and highlights the need for adapting reasoning strategies based on the task arxiv.org/abs/2502.12470

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

New research led by @zhpinkman.bsky.social investigating the impact of LLMs on the reduction of linguistic diversity and its societal implications. "We're getting the language into its final shape - the shape it's going to have when nobody speaks anything else." George Orwell, 1984

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Mohammad Atari @mohammadatari.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

Some of us have been meeting up at SPSP for the last few years. This year marks our fifth gathering. Email one of us if you want to join! Location TBD. @mdehghani.bsky.social @drsanaz.bsky.social @simine.com @dorsaamir.bsky.social

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Jeff Dean @jeffdean.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

Trajan's (@starlord37.bsky.social) story & countless others like it in the face of these cuts and wild shifts in government fellowships intended for our brightest & most promising students will have long-term, deeply damaging effects on the U.S.'s competitiveness in science, math, CS and more.

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Dorsa Amir @dorsaamir.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

Does the culture you grow up in shape the way you see the world? In a new Psych Review paper, @chazfirestone.bsky.social & I tackle this centuries-old question using the Müller-Lyer illusion as a case study. Come think through one of history's mysteries with us🧵(1/13):

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Celia Ford @celiaford.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

Hi, Vox reporter here: If you've had a study section, NIH travel, or other NIH-related meeting cancelled (or not), raise your hand! Reply or DM me, and repost for visibility if you're able. #academicsky @drugmonkey.bsky.social

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Jeremy Ginges @jeremyginges.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

I’m thankful for the ceasefire deal and hopeful it will be implemented. The hostages should be returned, the killing and suffering ended. The nature of the deal shows the truth to what many of us said all along. The war on Gaza was a horrific crime and a strategic disaster for Israel.

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

(1/4) Our new JEP:G paper dives into how moral values and misinformation spread on social media: media.mola-lab.org/file/1737039...

media.mola-lab.org

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

A dear friend of mine needs our help. Elena lost her car and all of her training equipment in the devastating LA fires. Her family is in Ukraine, and she has almost no social support. Please consider donating to her GoFundMe campaign to help her get back on her feet. gofund.me/5a877476

gofund.me

Donate to Help Elena Recover After The Palisades Fire Loss, organized by Elena Van Dyke

My name is Elena, and I’m a personal trainer in Los Angeles. I work re… Elena Van Dyke needs your support for Help Elena Recover After The Palisades Fire Loss

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Lindsay Hahn @lindsayhahn.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Thrilled to announce keynote speakers for #moralmedia25 - Drs. Helena Bilandzic (U Augsburg), @mdehghani.bsky.social (U Southern California), @aeden.bsky.social (Michigan State U), & @fhopp.bsky.social (Leibniz Institute for Psychology). Submissions are due Feb 2!

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Mohammad Atari @mohammadatari.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

🚨New Preprint🚨 *Moral Stereotyping in Large Language Models* We show that LLMs are inaccurate in estimating the moral values of diverse cultures: LLMs stereotype cultures in predictable ways. Led by my star Ph.D. student, Aliah Zewail osf.io/preprints/ps...

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

I just found out (from the post below) that the DARPA project I've been working on for the past couple of years was unexpectedly axed. The goal of the project: investigate foreign influence campaigns. Feeling like this is a sign of things to come...

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Leor Hackel @leorhackel.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

A secondary but neat finding in our new work: We find neural evidence for rewards biasing social perception. We’ve previously found that rewards lead people to see others in a more positive light. We’ve argued this reflects a kind of affect-as-information… www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

pnas.org

PNAS

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · 24/11/2024

Excited to share that our work on using AI to analyze police body camera footage was featured in Scientific American! We're using multi-perspective, multi-modal, models to better understand police interactions and identify areas for improvement. www.scientificamerican.com/article/ai-a...

scientificamerican.com

AI Analysis of Body Camera Videos Offers a Data-Driven Approach to Police Reform

Examining body camera videos at scale reveals racial differences in how police treat drivers during traffic stops—and what corrective programs really work

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Matthew Finlayson @mattf.nl · 12/11/2024

USC NLP folks are on Bluesky! Follow my amazing colleagues here go.bsky.app/KUwSZ6W

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Emilio Ferrara @emilioferrara.bsky.social · 13/11/2024

Sharing my first Computational Social Science starter pack! Will grow with time, feel free to nominate and self nominate! go.bsky.app/CYmRvcK

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Payam Piray @payampiray.bsky.social · 11/10/2024

I'll be recruiting PhD students for Fall 2025. Take a look at the lab website and the FAQ for prospective students: piraylab.com/join Feel free to reach out if you have questions.

piraylab.com

Piray Lab | Join us

The lab will be looking for PhD students, postdocs, and research assistants who want to do research at the intersection of computational and cognitive neuroscience. We are looking for students from a ...

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · 13/09/2024

📢 Job Alert! 📢 The @USCPsychology seeks a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Brain & Cognitive Sciences with a focus on computational language research. Join us at the forefront of AI-driven language & cognition research. usccareers.usc.edu/job/los-ange...

usccareers.usc.edu

Assistant Professor in Brain and Cognitive Science at USC

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Darby Saxbe @darbysaxbe.bsky.social · 18/11/2023

My op-ed is out today in the NY Times! I wrote about the surprising evidence that school-based mental health programs make teens feel worse, the proliferation of social media mental health content, & the value of comprehensive solutions to promote youth mental health. www.nytimes.com/2023/11/18/o...

nytimes.com

Opinion | This Is Not the Way to Help Depressed Teenagers

Large-scale, “light touch” interventions have backfired.

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · 17/11/2023

This is a great opportunity! Nils is an amazing scholar and a very kind human being.

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · 16/11/2023

In this new paper, we critically examine the promises and pitfalls of incorporating LLMs into psychological studies, advocating for a diversified, methodologically robust approach to avoid a homogenized and biased scientific practice.

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Payam Piray @payampiray.bsky.social · 03/11/2023

I'll be recruiting PhD students for Fall 2024. Take a look at the lab website and the FAQ for prospective students: piraylab.com/join Feel free to reach out if you have questions.

piraylab.com

Piray Lab | Join us

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · 06/10/2023

Super excited about this work! Capturing the dynamic nature of hate is one of the key steps to trying to mitigate it

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · 06/10/2023

Super excited about this work! Capturing the dynamic nature of hate is one of the key steps to trying to mitigate it

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · 06/10/2023

Narges Mohammadi, the Iranian women's rights activist who has been sentenced to 31 years in prison, in addition to 130 lashes, deservingly won the Noble Peace prize.

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Nils Reimer @reimtime.bsky.social · 02/10/2023

Considering a Ph.D. in psychological and brain sciences? RSVP for our Virtual Sneak Peek Event (at UCSB Psychological and Brain Sciences) on October 10, 4–6 PM PST! tinyurl.com/pbssneakpeek...

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