Steve Rathje

jamanetwork.comThe Reinforcement Effect of Social Media Likes in DepressionThis study investigates individual differences in the effect of social media likes on posting behavior and their association with and specificity to depressive psychopathology.

1 Oct 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 🧵

Steve Rathje reposted

Dan Mirea

@danmirea.bsky.social

Thrilled to announce that I will be joining the University of Miami as an Assistant Professor of Psychology next year! I am recruiting a PhD student to start in Fall 2027 — please reach out if you are interested in joining the lab! For more info check out my website: dan-mirea.com

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Dan Mirea

@danmirea.bsky.social

13 July

🚨 Now out in @jamapsychiatry.com 🚨 Are people with depression less responsive to rewards on social media, just like in the lab? Actually…quite the opposite! 🧵 📄 Read the paper here: jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

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Rafael M Batista

@rafmbatista.bsky.social

arxiv.orgA Rational Analysis of the Effects of Sycophantic AIPeople increasingly use large language models (LLMs) to explore ideas, gather information, and make sense of the world. In these interactions, they encounter agents that are overly agreeable. We argue...

Replying to @steverathje.bsky.social

Hi Steve, Tom Griffiths and I have some work formalizing how this might happen, offering a mechanism for how that overconfidence develops arxiv.org/abs/2602.14270

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Meryl Ye

@merylye.bsky.social

22 May

🚨 New preprint 🚨 We developed a sycophancy taxonomy based on prior literature and surveyed 106 experts. 94% agreed it's a serious problem. But they substantially disagreed about which behaviors actually count as sycophancy.

Steve Rathje reposted

18 May

People prefer to use “sycophantic” AI systems that reinforce their pre-existing beliefs. In a new paper (n=7,227), we found that people enjoyed interacting with sycophantic AI chatbots more than interacting with neutral chatbots or “disagreeable” chatbots that challenged their beliefs.

Steve Rathje reposted

Amrita Lamba

@amritalamba.bsky.social

15 May

Recent preprint with Oriel FeldmanHall and Matt Nassar, showing clear neural evidence that adolescent (13-15 yrs) social media and smartphones use are associated with blunted reward signaling in the ventral striatum, the brain's reward processing hub, and worse mental health. osf.io/preprints/ps...

Steve Rathje reposted

René Walter

@rawx.bsky.social

15 May

This shapes up to be a deep dive into the psychological effects of sycophant AI, making you overconfident and blind to your own biases. Would be interesting to see a comparison to social media effects on the same. After all, tribes are sycophant networks too.

Steve Rathje@steverathje.bsky.social

We’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):

We’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):

This work both reveals the psychological consequences of sycophantic AI and presents a roadmap for creating AI that broadens users’ perspectives instead of reinforcing their biases.

Check out the updated pre-print (with @jayvanbavel.bsky.social, Meryl Ye, Laura Globig, @rmpillai.bsky.social, and @hellovic.bsky.social) here: osf.io/vmyek_v3

osf.ioOSF

We’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):

Nevertheless, 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.

A 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.

We’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):

This suggests that people may have a “bias blind spot” surrounding AI sycophancy: they can recognize when AI is biased in favor of others, but not themselves.

While 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

We’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):

The 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.

People 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:

We’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):

AI 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.

2 May

An 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...

2 May

Sycophancy 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...

Steve Rathje reposted

Joe Pierre, MD

@psychunseen.bsky.social

29 Apr

"people consistently preferred and chose to interact w/ sycophantic AI models over disagreeable chatbots that challenged their beliefs... conversations w/sycophantic chatbots [also] increased attitude extremity & certainty." @jayvanbavel.bsky.social @steverathje.bsky.social osf.io/preprints/ps...

Steve Rathje reposted

@sfeuerriegel.bsky.social

20 Apr

A small fraction of online actors exerts outsized influence over what the public sees, believes, and discusses. In a new paper, we trace how social media influencers turn fringe claims into viral narratives by exploiting a feedback loop between influencers, algorithms & crowds osf.io/preprints/ps...

Steve Rathje reposted

Stefan Feuerriegel

23 Mar

🚀Introducing 𝐆𝐔𝐈𝐃𝐄-𝐋𝐋𝐌: A reporting checklist for using LLMs in behavioral & social science ✅GUIDE-LLM is a reporting checklist designed by 80+ experts to improve transparency, reproducibility & ethical accountability of LLM-based research 📄 llm-checklist.com

llm-checklist.comGUIDE-LLMReporting Checklist for Studies with Large Language Models in the Behavioral and Social Sciences

Steve Rathje reposted

David Ho

@davidho.bsky.social

12 Mar

The 2026 National Science Foundation budget is $8.75 Billion.

nytimes.comFirst 6 Days of Iran War Cost U.S. $11.3 Billion, Pentagon Says

🚨 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...

People can now receive instant, detailed, on-demand rationalizations of their bespoke realities from generative AI. In other words, AI may serve as a powerful rationalization machine, generating elaborate justifications for what people already (or wish to) believe.

The very factors that make AI an effective tool for truth-seeking (such as its ability to provide instant, targeted facts and evidence) may also make it an effective tool for providing custom rationalizations.

AI might provide more opportunities than past technologies for people to have their beliefs confirmed. While people may have only had a handful of television channels or online communities to choose from, they can now have hyper-specific and idiosyncratic beliefs validated.

Steve Rathje reposted

17 Mar

Will AI become a confirmation bias machine? AI can be a powerful tool for truth-seeking. Yet, people might prefer to use AI to confirm their pre-existing beliefs, and features of AI systems (eg sycophancy) may make AI effective at justifying what people want to believe. osf.io/preprints/ps...

5 Feb

Really enjoyed speaking with @andyluttrell.bsky.social about the psychology of technology after appearing on his podcast a few years ago to discuss science communication.

Andy Luttrell@andyluttrell.bsky.social

This month on Opinion Science, I talk with @steverathje.bsky.social about his research on the "psychology of technology." We cover the predictors of what goes viral online and the allure and influence of agreeable AI chatbots.

@andyluttrell.bsky.social

5 Feb

As Andy thoughtfully explains, certain technologies may be new, but our psychology isn't, and decades of psychology research can be used to explain questions like what goes viral online and why people enjoy sycophantic chatbots.

Steve Rathje reposted

Andy Luttrell

3 Feb

Steve Rathje reposted

Matthew Facciani

@matthewfacciani.bsky.social

20 Jan

In my latest podcast episode, I discuss the psychology of virality with @steverathje.bsky.social, explore how agreeable AI chatbots may influence our beliefs, and examine how scientists can communicate effectively in a noisy, polarized media environment. matthewfacciani.substack.com/p/the-psycho...

matthewfacciani.substack.comThe Psychology of Virality in the Age of AISteve Rathje joins me to discuss why conflict goes viral, how social media shapes polarization, and what AI chatbots mean for belief and bias.

open.spotify.com166 - Steve Rathje: The Psychology of Virality

20 Dec 2025

Enjoyed talking with @sudkrc.bsky.social on one of my favorite podcasts, the Stanford Psychology Podcast! We discuss how I got into psychology (it all began at Stanford), my recent work on the psychology of virality and sycophantic AI, and much more.

Stanford Psychology Podcast@stanfordpsypod.bsky.social

NEW EPISODE OUT🗣️!! In this episode, Su @sudkrc.bsky.social chats with Dr. Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social on why certain content spreads rapidly online and offline! LISTEN NOW🎧: open.spotify.com/episode/7CoK...

Steve Rathje reposted

Stanford Psychology Podcast

@stanfordpsypod.bsky.social

19 Dec 2025

open.spotify.com166 - Steve Rathje: The Psychology of Virality

powerofusnewsletter.comWhy Some Ideas Go Viral—and Most Don’tWhat decades of research reveal about why certain content spreads—and how social forces shape what we all see.

17 Dec 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...

Jay Van Bavel, PhD@jayvanbavel.bsky.social

While studies find that moral outrage & negativity goes viral on social media, this is also true of the offline world. Gossip is also mostly negative & about people we dislike I explain why some ideas go viral--but most don't with @steverathje.bsky.social www.powerofusnewsletter.com/p/why-some-i...

Steve Rathje reposted

powerofusnewsletter.comWhy Some Ideas Go Viral—and Most Don’tWhat decades of research reveal about why certain content spreads—and how social forces shape what we all see.

16 Dec 2025

Steve Rathje reposted

Matt DeVerna

@matthewdeverna.com

29 Nov 2025

🚨 New working paper 🚨 Can LLMs with reasoning + web search reliably fact-check political claims? We evaluated 15 models from OpenAI, Google, Meta, and DeepSeek on 6,000+ PolitiFact claims (2007–2024). Short answer: Not reliably—unless you give them curated evidence. arxiv.org/abs/2511.18749

Steve Rathje reposted

Hanna Sistek

@sistek.bsky.social

4 Dec 2025

New research by @steverathje.bsky.social et al Epistemic Fragility in Large Language Models: Prompt Framing Systematically Modulates Misinformation Correction WGemini 2.5 Pro had 74% lower odds of strong correction than Claude Sonnet 4.5, highlighting epistemic fragility arxiv.org/pdf/2511.22746

arxiv.orgarxiv.org

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Igor Grossmann, PhD

@igi.bsky.social

17 Nov 2025

Are you curious about the results of our #wisdomturingtest? Want to find out who was the AI? If so, tune-in to the second part of the ON WISDOM podcast on the "Wisdom Turing Test," with the amazing @steverathje.bsky.social : onwisdompodcast.fireside.fm/67 #TuringTest #ChineseRoom #AIsycophancy

lnkd.inLinkedInThis link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

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William J. Brady

@williambrady.bsky.social

11 Nov 2025

✨New preprint! Why do people express outrage online? In 4 studies we develop a taxonomy of online outrage motives, test what motives people report, what they infer for in- vs. out-partisans, and how motive inferences shape downstream intergroup consequences. Led by @felix-chenwei.bsky.social 🧵👇

22 Oct 2025

Really 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...

Steve Rathje reposted

blog.andrewyang.comThe Science of SmartphonesHello, I hope that you’re doing great.

21 Oct 2025

The Science Behind Why Social Media Makes Us Miserable I was on the @andrew-yang.bsky.social podcast to discuss the impact of social media. We discussed what goes viral online, how it impacts our lives, and what we can do about it (with @steverathje.bsky.social): www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrDV...

Steve Rathje reposted

Andrew Yang

@andrew-yang.bsky.social

21 Oct 2025

What do 92% of scientists agree on regarding social media and smartphone use? blog.andrewyang.com/p/the-scienc...

20 Oct 2025

Really enjoyed talking with @andrew-yang.bsky.social and @jayvanbavel.bsky.social about the science of social media. Thanks for having us on your podcast, @andrew-yang.bsky.social

Andrew Yang@andrew-yang.bsky.social

Why does online content seem so angry and emotional? Professors @jayvanbavel.bsky.social and @steverathje.bsky.social join andrewyang.com/podcast to talk the science of social media including why polarization gets revved up by a tiny percentage of accounts.

Steve Rathje reposted

Andrew Yang

@andrew-yang.bsky.social

20 Oct 2025

Steve Rathje reposted