Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 14/05/2026A final study presented a potential solution to people’s resistance to disagreeing chatbots. Specifically, we found that people were more receptive to chatbots presenting opposing perspectives when those perspectives were paired with emotional validation. 110 0
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 14/05/2026Nevertheless, people enjoyed sycophantic chatbots more than disagreeable ones, chose to interact with them more, viewed them as warmer and more competent, and felt a stronger "sense of connection" with them. 120 0
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 14/05/2026While sycophantic chatbots did not increase people’s actual knowledge about the topics they discussed, they increased people’s *perceived* knowledge. In other words, sycophancy led to overconfident perceptions of knowledge that did not align with reality 230 0
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 14/05/2026People interacting with sycophantic chatbots viewed them as unbiased, but viewed “disagreeable” chatbots that challenged their beliefs as highly biased. However, third-party annotators recognized that responses from sycophantic and disagreeable chatbots were equally biased: 120 0
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 14/05/2026The effects of AI sycophancy were both durable and generalizable across topics. Brief interactions with sycophantic chatbots about a variety of personal and political topics increased attitude certainty, with effects persisting for at least one week. 110 0
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 14/05/2026AI sycophancy impacted costly decisions. Specifically, participants who interacted with a sycophantic chatbot bet more money that they scored better than the average participant on tasks measuring desirable traits, such as intelligence and empathy. 221 0
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 14/05/2026We’ve updated our pre-print on the effects of AI sycophancy with four additional studies (total n = 7,227). Here is a brief summary of our new findings (🧵1/n): 1265 0
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 02/05/2026Sycophancy was less common in more recent models, but even small amounts of sycophancy may have psychological consequences, given the sheer number of people using generative AI products. See our work on the consequences of sycophancy here: osf.io/preprints/ps... 010 0
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 02/05/2026An analysis of 1 million Claude conversations found that Claude was sycophantic around 9% of the time. However, this rate varied by topic: sycophancy was higher in conversations about spirituality (38%) and relationships (25%). See Anthropic’s full analysis here: anthropic.com/research/cla... 140 0
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 21/03/2026🚨 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗔𝗜 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗳𝘂𝗲𝗹 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗯𝗶𝗮𝘀 🚨 AI can be an excellent tool for truth-seeking. But people may not *want* to use AI to search for the truth. Instead, they may prefer to use it to confirm their pre-existing beliefs. New working paper (with @jayvanbavel.bsky.social): osf.io/preprints/ps... 55716 0
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 17/12/2025"Using 'virality' as the main way to decide the information people see every day will (like actual viruses) make us sick." @jayvanbavel.bsky.social and I wrote a column on our recent paper on the psychology of virality. Check it out here: www.powerofusnewsletter.com/p/why-some-i... 041 0
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 22/10/2025Really enjoyed speaking with tech ethicist Tristan Harris, who you might know from the Netflix documentary "The Social Dilemma" or his work with the Center for Humane Technology. 🎥 Watch here on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFm3... 🎧 Listen on Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/0Oi6... 160 0
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 07/10/2025Our recent review article "The Psychology of Virality" with @jayvanbavel.bsky.social is on the front cover of this month's issue of @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social. 1134 0
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 01/10/2025The sycophantic chatbot also amplified people’s belief that they were "better than average" on a number of desirable traits (e.g., intelligence, empathy), and the disagreeable chatbot had the opposite effect. In other words, AI sycophancy might lead to inflated self-perceptions. 120 0
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 01/10/2025One might think sycophantic AI would be considered less competent, since training chatbots to be warm makes them less accurate (arxiv.org/abs/2507.21919). However, sycophantic AI was rated by participants as both warmer *and* more competent. 130 0
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 01/10/2025People viewed the sycophantic chatbot as unbiased and the disagreeable chatbot as highly biased. In reality, *both* chatbots were biased: the sycophantic chatbot was simply biased in the user’s favor. 141 0
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 01/10/2025However, people enjoyed the sycophantic chatbot much more than the disagreeable chatbot and were more likely to choose to use it again! 131 0
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 01/10/2025Compared to a control condition: -The sycophantic chatbot led to more extreme & certain beliefs -The disagreeable chatbot led to less extreme & certain beliefs -The off-the-shelf model had no impact on belief extremity 131 0
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 01/10/2025🚨 New preprint 🚨 Across 3 experiments (n = 3,285), we found that interacting with sycophantic (or overly agreeable) AI chatbots entrenched attitudes and led to inflated self-perceptions. Yet, people preferred sycophantic chatbots and viewed them as unbiased! osf.io/preprints/ps... Thread 🧵 6193102 0
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 17/07/2025Check out the full paper with @jayvanbavel.bsky.social here: authors.elsevier.com/c/1lRke4sIRv... 010 0
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 17/07/2025Future work on virality should leverage recent advances in AI (pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...) to explore what goes “viral” across languages, cultures, and time periods. 100 0
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 17/07/2025This may explain, in part, why widely shared content is often not widely liked, a phenomenon we call the “paradox of virality” (journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...) 100 0
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 17/07/2025We review several studies in the virality literature. Most of them find that negativity and high-arousal emotions go viral. Yet, not all studies support this conclusion, and sometimes positivity goes viral. Why is that? 100 0
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 17/07/2025Similar to how some viruses are more “contagious” than others, some forms of information appear to be more contagious than others across contexts. The information-as-virus metaphor can be extended even further: 100 0
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 17/07/2025🚨New paper in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social 🚨 Why do some ideas spread widely, while others fail to catch on? We review the “psychology of virality,” or the psychological & structural factors that shape information spread online and offline: authors.elsevier.com/c/1lRke4sIRv... 34813 0
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 10/04/2025I'm thrilled to announce that I'll be joining Carnegie Mellon as an Assistant Professor of Human-Computer Interaction (with a courtesy joint appointment in Social and Decision Sciences) in 2026! 141306 0
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 03/12/2024Very excited to be included in the @forbes.com 30 under 30 list this year! www.forbes.com/30-under-30/... 0300 0
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 27/09/2023Only paying attention to people's behavior (or revealed preferences) may lead social media to amplify various forms of harmful content -- such as misinformation, division, or moral outrage -- since these types of content are excellent at capturing people's attention. 100 0
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 27/09/2023🚨 Now out in Perspectives on Psychological Science 🚨 People engage with divisive and negative content online. But, does this mean that people *like* divisive content? No! We find that people across the political spectrum do not want divisive content to spread. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... 14218 0