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Robb Willer

@robbwiller.bsky.social
7.4K followers 1.9K following 182 posts

Professor of Sociology, Psychology, & Org Behavior, Stanford University Direct, the @pascl-stanford.bsky.social, the AI for Public Benefit Lab, & co-direct @Stanfordpacs Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society

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Reposted by Robb Willer
Stanford Sociology @stanfordsoc.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Congrats to Profs. Jackie Hwang and Robb Willer (@robbwiller.bsky.social)! sociology.stanford.edu/news/robb-wi...
sociology.stanford.edu
Robb Willer, Jackelyn Hwang ranked top computational social science contributors | Department of Sociology
Professor Robb Willer and Associate Professor Jackelyn Hwang were recognized as leading individual contributors in the Computational Social Science Rankings, a metrics-based assessment of publication ...
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davidbroska.bsky.social @davidbroska.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Americans favor predistributive policies over redistributive policies. Our new paper is now out in PNAS 🚨 Paper: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... We have also written a summary of the article for Kudos, a brief report on our brief report: link.growkudos.com/1eb04zt75ds
Americans favor predistributive over redistributive policies
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Ed Maibach @maibached.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Candidates & journalists who avoid talking about climate change should reflect on the findings of this study: Climate messages are helpful in building public support for climate action. @robbwiller.bsky.social @nmalhotra.bsky.social @mattomildenberger.bsky.social @coveringclimatenow.org
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Behavior Change for Good Initiative @bcfginitiative.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Can AI predict how people will respond in social science experiments? A new @nature.com paper by Team Scientist @robbwiller.bsky.social and collaborators had LLMs act as survey respondents. bit.ly/4bWppFw
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Ashwini Ashokkumar @ashwinia.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
New paper in @nature.com with @lukebeehewitt.bsky.social, @isaiasghezae.bsky.social, & @robbwiller.bsky.social: Can LLMs predict results of social science experiments? Across 70 experiments, we find a strong correspondence (r=.85) between predicted and observed effects. doi.org/10.1038/s415... 🧵
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Robb Willer @robbwiller.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
It was such a pleasure working with Ashwini, Luke, and Isaias on this project over the past few years. They are a lot of fun, take the work seriously, have great values, and are seriously awesome people. 🧵👇
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Jeremy Freese @jeremyfreese.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Interesting read for sociologists given how sociologists vary in whether anthropology is to be seen as a role model or cautionary tale.
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Titania @titaniasrealm.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
The world needs more bookish gargoyles and grotesques
A collage consisting of six photos of gargoyles and grotesques reading books, including one owl and one frog.
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M Meerkat @kackbro.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
AOC Makes A Great Point 👉.......
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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
As always: if there's any class of people who do not have due process rights, then *nobody* has due process rights, because the government can just claim someone is in that class and there's no process to establish otherwise.
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ceej @ceej.online · 16/07/2026
gonna start talking like this to my boss
screenshot where claude is saying "Good catch -- I fabricated that figure."
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Mark Harris @markharris.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
I watched the Questlove documentary Earth, Wind and Fire: To Be Celestial vs. That's the Weight of the World (HBO Max) and it was just about everything I could ask from a music doc. Enthralling, revelatory, and makes the case (as if the case needed to be made) for EWF's greatness AND weirdness.
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Justin Wolfers @justinwolfers.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
US inflation is the highest in the G7.
Line chart titled "The United States currently has the highest inflation in the G7" showing year-ended consumer price inflation rates across G7 countries. The United States leads at 3.5%, followed by Canada at 3.2% and Italy at 3.1%, while Japan has the lowest rate at 1.5%. The 2.0 percentage point gap between the highest and lowest rates reveals divergent price pressures among major advanced economies, with the US experiencing notably stronger inflation than its peers.
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Rafael M Batista @rafmbatista.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
www.yahoo.com/news/politic...
yahoo.com
Google DeepMind CEO Calls For U.S.-Led AI Oversight
Nobel Laureate and Google DeepMind co-founder/CEO Demis Hassabis described his vision for a U.S.-led AI initiative that requires a new approach to economic and technical standards.
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shauna @goldengateblond.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
it’s hard to explain how much shit like this has radicalized people. like i’m a white middle-aged broad who’s always been liberal but i’ve gone full-on “abolish ICE/reform scotus/the next dem candidate must commit to mass prosecutions” and you will not sway me from that position.
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Kristian Frederiksen @kristianvsf.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
New public pre-print with @aarslew.bsky.social and Martin Bisgaard 🧵 We introduce a perspective on democratic erosion that focuses on quiet anticipation among political elites: what do they think happens to those who cross a strongman that challenges democracy? www.researchgate.net/publication/...
researchgate.net
(PDF) The Imagined Strongman: How Elites Anticipate the Cost of Opposing Trump
PDF | What happens to politicians who speak up against a strongman that challenges democracy? Political scientists typically answer this question using... | Find, read and cite all the research you ne...
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IGN @ign.com · 06/07/2026
“The most preposterous rainbow was coming out of the castle I was supposed to be going home to... It looked like something out of My Little Pony.” - Tom Holland on the rainbow that delayed shooting on Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey.
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Adam Berinsky @adamberinsky.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Boy this was a long road, but glad it's finally out! @dgrand.bsky.social @robbwiller.bsky.social @arechar.bsky.social (along with Michael N. Stagnaro, James N. Druckman, not tagable)
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Malte Elson @malte.the100.ci · 05/06/2026
The forensic report is available here: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us... Incredible stuff
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Brian Nosek @briannosek.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
Amazing.
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David Broockman @dbroockman.bsky.social · 16/03/2026
New short paper w @jkalla.bsky.social ! Candidates gain from moderation, but less than many theories expect. Many conclude voters must not care about issues. This is wrong. Small *average* effects mask large effects on specific issues & are consistent with widespread issue-based voting 🧵
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Brian Nosek @briannosek.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
This is a welcome and important step to normalize and popularize the use of Registered Reports. Thanks @magdalenaskipper.bsky.social for your leadership, and for the work of the neuroscience and behavioral research editors to test and validate the model at Nature.
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Robb Willer @robbwiller.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
Glad to see this WP from our lab out today, a labor of love over last year. Kudos to @davidbroska.bsky.social and @jonnekamphorst.bsky.social for their hard work on it! Please share any comments, suggestions, or criticisms of the research. All are welcome!
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Ricky Davila @therickydavila.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Bruce Springsteen has no fucks to give. 👏
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
theonion.com
RFK Jr. Rushed To Gym After Heart Attack
WASHINGTON—In a dire health emergency that forced staffers to quickly mobilize to save the Cabinet member’s life, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was reportedly rushed to the gym Friday after s...
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Stanford Sociology @stanfordsoc.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
New in Nature Climate Change, Prof. @robbwiller.bsky.social and @pascl-stanford.bsky.social examine the most persuasive climate change messaging strategies. bsky.app/profile/robb...
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Johnnie Johnstone @johnniejohnstone.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
Nina. Newport Jazz Festival, July 4, 1968. David Redfern.
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Myra Cheng @myra.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
Dear ChatGPT, Am I the Asshole? While Reddit users might say yes, your favorite LLM probably won’t. We present Social Sycophancy: a new way to understand and measure sycophancy as how LLMs overly preserve users' self-image.
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Oxford Internet Institute @oii.ox.ac.uk · 29/04/2026
New study from @oii.ox.ac.uk researchers finds friendlier chatbots make more mistakes. Lead author @lujain.bsky.social, second author Franziska Sofia Hafner, senior author @rocher.lc. Read more: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Friendly AI chatbots more prone to inaccuracies, study finds
Researchers found adjusting AI systems to be more warm and friendly to users would result in an
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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
New ASR paper finds no effect of state right-to-work laws on employment or number of business establishments (1946-2019). Argues that state spillovers, such as tax breaks in non-right-to-work states, explain the non-effect of right-to-work. gated: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
The past decade has had a silver lining: Chuck evolving from Jordanesque business class self-interest to a moral leader on behalf of LGBT people and immigrants
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Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
Considerable progress has been made in the field of leadership. However, this is undermined by a commitment to ideas which have been repeatedly debunked that refuse to die--called "Zombie Leadership" This paper outlines 8 core claims of zombie leadership: leadershiphq.com.au/wp-content/u...
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More Perfect Union @moreperfectunion.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
BREAKING: Congressman Johnny Olszewski (D-MD) is introducing a constitutional amendment to establish term limits for Supreme Court Justices. The ROBE Act would establish 18-year term limits for justices.
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Mike Feher @saxmike71.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
Same energy:
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Mike Frank @mcxfrank.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
For a year and a half, @carorowland.bsky.social, @lehersingh.bsky.social, Marisa Casillas, Shanley Allen, and I have been meeting to discuss whether innateness is still a useful concept to think about in studying language acquisition. Here's our take: osf.io/preprints/ps...
Title pageThe origins of language have been a persistent object of philosophical and scientific inquiry, in part
because they offer a window into the origins of thought. Classic innatist theories of language have argued
that languages share universal elements that arise because language acquisition is guided by rich,
biologically specified structures in the form of a universal grammar. However, different versions of this
hypothesis that posit substantial amounts of innate content are not consistent with recent evidence. We
review new evidence from language diversity, human interaction, and large language models (LLMs), all
of which challenge classical innatist views. Yet we believe there is still value in asking what elements of
language development are innate. In this Perspective, we integrate evidence from these three areas
towards a broader conception of innateness, one that seeks to explain both consistency and variation in
language acquisition. On this view, innateness remains a key orienting principle for understanding the
origins of language.
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Norbert Schwarz @nschwarz.bsky.social · 25/04/2026
#climate #environment #publicopinion
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Lee Drutman @leedrutman.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
After 2031, eulogy may displace strategy. leedrutman.substack.com/p/the-democr...
leedrutman.substack.com
The Democratic Party is about to make the most predictable mistake in American politics
Democrats will win in 2026 and 2028. The problem is winning in a system with a two-year half-life.
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Eric Topol @erictopol.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
New math “If you have a $600 drug, and you reduce it to $10, that’s a 600 percent reduction." —RFK Jr
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Liz Neeley @lizneeley.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
New climate comms paper has my full attention! They revised 10 of the most-cited messaging strategies & then conducted what a massive preregistered study. Quick summary: the right frames are persuasive, but effects are small. There are no magic words. So glad to have this research to build from.
Table 2: The ten messages compared in this study (each treatment is followed by a short description)
1. Binding Treatment - Participants read a text arguing that mitigating climate change is consistent with values such as patriotism, family, and religiousity
2. Scientific Consensus I - Participants read a text emphasizing the scientific consensus that human-caused climate change is happening and inoculating readers against narratives undermining this consensus, such as the “Petition Project”
3. Scientific Consensus II - Participants read a text emphasizing the scientific consensus that human-caused climate change is happening and inoculating readers against narratives undermining this consensus, such as the “fake debate” strategy.
4. Dire but Solvable Framing - Participants read a text arguing that the consequences of unaddressed climate change are dire but that there are solutions to address climate change.
5. Compatible Solution Framing - Participants read a text arguing that climate change can be mitigated in ways that are consistent with free market principles.
6. Gains Framing - Participants read a text highlighting what can be gained from mitigating climate change.
7. High Social Distance Framing - Participants read a text highlighting how a socially distant group for many Americans (Chinese farmers) is harmed by climate change.
8. Purity Framing - Participants read a text arguing that mitigating climate change is consistent with values such as protecting the purity of American land.
9. System Preservation Framing - Participants read a text arguing that mitigating climate change is consistent with values such as preserving the traditional American way of life.
10. Warmth Framing - Participants read a text arguing that mitigating climate change is consistent with values such as caring for fellow citizens.
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Robb Willer @robbwiller.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Climate change impacts are here, but public support for action remains polarized. Which climate messages move people? In a ~13,500-person megastudy, we tested 10 of the most-cited messages. Six increased pro-environmental attitudes in the U.S.—but only by 1–4 percentage points. 🧵
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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Nothing to worry about, just the Heritage Foundation publishing an article on how the Republican Congress can refuse to seat Democrats www.heritage.org/election-int...
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Kim Weeden @weedenkim.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Today an international student said that she saw my "any person/any study/from any country" banner as she walked around campus on her 1st day in Ithaca. She said she felt relieved & welcomed, in an era when US has deserved reputation for being anything but welcoming. The banner stays. 2/2
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Robb Willer @robbwiller.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
Can AI voter guides help voters decide while remaining accurate, nonpartisan, and trustworthy? Very grateful to @stanfordimpactlabs.bsky.social for a new grant supporting our next work on this (building on work led by Joe Mernyk & Jonne Kamphorst): bsky.app/profile/robb...
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Stanford Sociology @stanfordsoc.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
Congratulations to Prof. @robbwiller.bsky.social (@pascl-stanford.bsky.social) who was just named a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation! @guggfellows.bsky.social sociology.stanford.edu/news/robb-wi...
sociology.stanford.edu
Robb Willer awarded Guggenheim Fellowship | Department of Sociology
Robb Willer has been named a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He is one of five Stanford scholars awarded the fellowship.
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Opinion Today @opiniontoday.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
Americans are more polarized in their trust in scientists than in virtually any other societal institution. — James N. Druckman. (@umisrcps.bsky.social) More, via Opinion Today: opiniontoday.substack.com/p/260420-top...
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Brian Nosek @briannosek.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
Commentaries on SCORE papers from @asanchez-tojar.bsky.social, Jelte Wicherts, and @robbwiller.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
Huge meta-research project puts claims in social-science papers to the test
Three experts discuss lessons learnt from a large-scale dissection of the reproducibility, analytical robustness and replicability of published results.
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Robb Willer @robbwiller.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
Very grateful to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship. I’ve been so lucky to have such incredible students, collaborators, and mentors. Above all, I feel very lucky that I get to work on topics I care so deeply about with collaborators who are also my friends.✊❤️ #guggfellows2026
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Elizabeth Warren @warren.senate.gov · 15/04/2026
If you paid even a penny in federal income tax last year, you paid more than: Tesla Southwest Disney Live Nation HP United PayPal CVS Health Palantir Citigroup PG&E 3M That's right. They paid $0 in federal income tax. It's time for big corporations to pay their fair share.
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Roxane Gay @roxanegay.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
One of the worst things the current era has done is to make progressive people act like two wrongs make a right when a Democrat politician is caught in a scandal. “But Trump gets away with it” is not the flex you think it is.
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Mike Frank @mcxfrank.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
Come join us! We have two research coordinator positions open with the Stanford IRISS predoctoral program, a program designed to mentor students for graduate study: LEVANTE: careersearch.stanford.edu/jobs/iriss-p... BabyView: careersearch.stanford.edu/jobs/iriss-p... (deadline 5/1)
careersearch.stanford.edu
IRiSS Predoctoral Researcher in School of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford, California, United States
The Stanford Institute for Research in the Social Sciences (IRiSS) is seeking Predoctoral Researchers to participate in our 2026-2027 cohort. The...
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