Welcome Back to School!
September 2021: Our new paper in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Victoria's new book, and 'The Power of Us' launching this month!
As the 2021 school year approaches, many of us have spent the last month of summer taking well deserved breaks from work and research. Naturally, things have been a bit quieter this month, but we still have some news we’d like to share! (We’ll keep it short and sweet.)
New paper
We have a new paper out in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, which reviews the relationship between social media and political polarization. Shoutout to lab members Steve Rathje, Elizabeth Harris, Claire Robertson, and Anni Sternisko for their work on this!
Victoria’s new book!
One of our lab’s postdocs, Victoria Spring, just published a new book: A Lesson in Vengeance. Victoria is already a celebrated author in the world of YA fiction (their new book was featured on Goodreads’ 2021 anticipated books list), but for the last few years, they’ve been publishing books under a pseudonym.
Check out the thread below to read about Victoria’s journey as an undercover author in academia and why we should be celebrating the unique talents of people in science. You can learn more about Victoria and their new book on their website. (Note: The book itself is truly fantastic—brilliantly written and a page turner!)
In the media
Jay was recently featured on the You Are Not So Smart podcast, where he discussed the nature of the self, how identity shapes beliefs (and how it can even make a stinky shirt smell better!), and how to avoid social conflict:
If you want to get a sneak peak at some of the content from the book, the company Lucid has created some great visualizations of sections of the book (and will eventually create a complete virtual version of the book). The backstory is that Jay was having lunch in Brooklyn with our famous lab alumna, Dr. Ana Gantman, and she introduced him to her partner Jeff who helps run Lucid. It’s a cool company that visualizes bestselling books—you can download the app and scan books as you ride the subway.
APA 2021
On the main stage at APA 2021, Jay and his panel members discussed the rise of the “infodemic” and how we can fight misinformation with psychological science. If you’d like to access the conference’s posters and presentations, you can register here.
The Power of Us launches this month
Jay and Dominic Packer’s new book, The Power of Us, will be released this month, on September 7th. We’re excited to share this book with the world and can’t wait for you to read it. Stay tuned for more updates about a book launch celebration in NYC!
To read more about the book, you can check out its website, our newsletter, Medium blog, or column for Psychology Today. You can read our latest post for this column on identity, cooperation, and the Olympics here:
Lab meetings
While we’ve taken a hiatus from lab meetings for most of August, we will be resuming our weekly meetings back up on Friday, September 10th @ 10 - 11:30 am EST. If you’d like to attend, please reach out to our lab manager at nyu.vanbavel.lab@gmail.com.
Due to COVID, all lab members must be vaccinated and wear masks to attend lab meetings. For now, we will follow university guidelines and host hybrid meetings. But we may turn them fully virtual if delta spreads within the NYU community.
Any lab social gatherings will be held outside. This month, we had a fun picnic with members from Tessa West & Jon Freeman’s labs at Central Park and will plan to do some similar events this fall before the weather turns cold.
And as always, if you have any photos, news, or research you’d like to have included in this newsletter, please reach out to Katie (nyu.vanbavel.lab@gmail.com). We are also going to encourage former lab members to share exciting career updates or job opportunities in our lab newsletter.
One big piece of news is that we are hiring a new faculty member in Social Psychology at NYU. Please share this with anyone who might be qualified and interested:
In case you missed our lab newsletter from last month:
That’s all, folks—thanks for reading and we’ll see you next month!