I made some delicious #halloween treats as a tribute to Phineas Gage--the most important lesion patient in the history of neuroscience. Gage famously survived an accident in which an iron rod shot through his frontal lobe. After the accident he eventually healed. But psychologically, he was ““no longer Gage”. The accident reportedly impaired his socio-emotional capacity. This led to lots of research with people who have similar brain damage and the impact on their decision-making capabilities. If you want to make these treats check out the details here: powerofusnewsletter.com/p/wh…

Society and organizations invest heavily in selecting the best leaders, and existing research shows a positivity bias by focusing on the bright side of leadership. Should we focus on finding the best leaders or avoiding the worst? Our new paper provides robust evidence for an “avoid-the-worst” principle in human leadership preferences. We found that the top 100 business schools emphasize good leadership far more than the prevention of bad leadership. But actual employee experiences from 9.9 million Glassdoor reviews show that people mentioned their leader 70% more often in the negative than positive section, and negative leader mentions predicted company ratings 1.5 times more strongly. A bad-leader mention was also associated with 30% higher odds of leaving a company within the first year among former employees, whereas a good-leader mention is associated with only 5% lower odds of leaving. We also have causal evidence across 40 countries (N = 51,433) revealing that people were more willing to sacrifice time and money to avoid a bad leader than obtain a good leader (across both morality and competence). Our research suggests that people care more about avoiding the worst leaders than getting the best. But our leading schools are focused on the opposite issue. The central question of institutional design may not be who should rule, but how to prevent bad leaders from doing too much damage. This research was led by @H_Sjastad and @jareefbnmartuza Read the full paper here: osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/8g…

I'm exciting to announce that @RemiTPsyc is now a Professor! You should follow him to learn more about his exciting work on human prosociality. He really opened my mind about the power of contemplative practices to improve humanity. He also walks the walk--he spends a lot of time behind the scenes doing things to improve the culture of science, from creating open science tools to supporting others. We need far more people willing to do those things.

Partisans have wildly inaccurate perceptions of outgroup members. But a 10 minute conversation with a “outgroup” chatbot can correct these false beliefs and reduce partisan hostility. We highlight this and 6 of our other favorite new studies on intergroup relations in our latest newsletter: powerofusnewsletter.com/p/se…

I discuss 'The Psychology of Belonging: How Groups Shape Who We Are" with @jim1800flowers Groups can bring us together to accomplish things none of us could achieve alone. They can also fuel prejudice, division, and conflict. The groups we belong to shape whom we trust and how our brains respond to the people around us. youtube.com/watch?v=SqBy47MA…

These days, it’s easy to succumb to hopelessness. But I explain why doomerism can lead to paralysis in a new article I wrote for the @guardian The problem with doomerism isn’t necessarily that the risks are exaggerated, but that it may create a self-fulfilling prophecy – by engendering helplessness, rather than galvanixing people. This aspect of human psychology has been well known for many years by experts on persuasion. When people hear messages designed to appeal to our fears, they can be moved to take action. But this only tends to work as a one-off, and only then when the messages convey a sense of efficacy – a belief that it’s still possible to make a difference. By contrast, if people are inundated with scary and overwhelming stories about the climate or AI, they tune out. A big problem for us now is that the modern information ecosystem tends to reinforce negativity. For decades, a core principle in the news business has been “if it bleeds, it leads”. This principle now dominates what you see online. My colleagues and I looked at traffic to news stories on Upworthy.com. This was a website that became famous for conducting A/B tests of headlines to see which one drove clicks, and then using the most popular headline. We analysed 22,743 of these mini-experiments and found that each additional negative word in a headline increased clicks by 2.3%. We also found that doom and gloom messagins are the most effective at getting people to spread it on the internet or social media. But like other fear appeals, it fails to inspire real action. If we want to motivate people in the face of dire threats, we must give them a reason to hope. Without that, we are destined to doomscroll while the world burns. Read my full article here: theguardian.com/environment/…

It's the 5 year anniversary of our book "The Power of Us" and it's on sale today for $2.99! We published @PowerOfUsBook because we were convinced of one basic idea: Social identity is one of the most powerful forces in human life. It shapes who we trust, who we help, who we fear, who we follow, what we believe, how we work, and whether we can cooperate across our differences. It is now available as Amazon's "Deal of the Day". amazon.com/Power-Harnessing-… The best thing about writing this book has been meeting all the people who’ve read it and found it useful. There are too many to mention, but one of my favorite examples was Emma Lee, a high school junior(!) on the USA Taekwondo team who founded "From Your Teammate" (FYT) to support student-athletes’ mental health, identity, and team-based wellbeing. She read our book and reached out to get help applying it. She told us she has “experienced the power of identity firsthand: how feeling connected, valued, or supported by a team completely transforms performance and mental resilience”. She created FYT to help young athletes build healthier identities, avoid burnout, and develop supportive team cultures. I met Emma last December to discuss how she could apply the research from Power of Us on group belonging, shared goals, and social norms to her mission. A few months later, she followed up to tell me that she made the 2026 TEAM USA national team and became the under-17 USA Open Champion(!!!): “For the team USA trials, I applied your work with teamwork and me and my teammates went to an escape room to build chemistry and trust within each other. I truly think that played a big role in that. Thank you!!” A truly inspiring story, Emma! It’s amazing to see what a high school junior like Emma was able to accomplish. Truly amazing and inspiring. This is one of the most gratifying parts of my job. We have heard similar stories from teachers, leaders, fundraisers, students, and scientists. Please let us know if you have a similar story! You can read and share the story here: powerofusnewsletter.com/p/to… Thanks for my co-author @DominicPacker and the @littlebrown and @HachetteBooks

Why does everyone seem so mean lately? This week I joined @Oprah to talk about the rise of incivility—at work, online, on planes, in hospitals, in restaurants, and in everyday life. I shared lessons from social psychology and our book "The Power Of Us" The main lesson: humans haven’t suddenly become worse. But the social environment has changed. Stress, inequality, social media, and leaders who model contempt all make incivility more likely. This has eroded our norms of civility. The good news: we can change the norms. Bystanders can speak out against hostility. Leaders can set a healthier tone. Coworkers can back each other up. And small acts of intentional kindness can push back against a mean world. I wrote the key lessons from the episode in our newsletter: powerofusnewsletter.com/p/re… You can watch the podcast here: youtube.com/watch?v=rkQ6Qxi0… You can get the book here: powerofus.online/ Thanks to everyone who was on the show, along Oprah and with my co-author Dominic Packer for facilitating this conversation happen