Join the Tech Impact and Policy Center on May 19th from 12PM–1PM Pacific for a seminar with Jay Van Bavel.

Stanford affiliates are invited to join us at 11:40 AM for lunch, prior to the seminar.  The Spring Seminar Series continues through May; see our Spring Seminar Series page for speakers and topics. Sign up for our newsletter for announcements. 

About the Seminar:

Although much of human morality evolved in an environment of small group living, the primary source of moral content for over 5 billion people now comes from social media. I argue that this technological transformation has created an entirely new moral ecosystem--driven by the attention economy--that is often mismatched with our evolved adaptations for social living. One means by which individuals and groups can capture attention and drive engagement on these platforms is by sharing moral-emotional and divisive content. Therefore, social media often acts as an accelerant for existing moral dynamics, amplifying outrage, status seeking, and polarization. I discuss the implications for our epistemic environment and democratic institutions.

About the Speaker:

Jay Van Bavel is a Professor of Psychology & Neural Science at New York University, an affiliate at the Stern School of Business in Management and Organizations, Professor at the Norwegian School of Economics, and Director of the Center for Conflict & Cooperation. He is also an Associate Editor of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Nexus. Jay completed his PhD at the University of Toronto and a Postdoctoral Fellowship at The Ohio State University. He studies how shared identities and beliefs can unite people—or drive them apart—and what this reveals about the human mind and society. Specifically, his research examines intergroup conflict and polarization, cooperation and collective intelligence, moral judgment and decision-making, belief formation and misinformation, and the impact of social media and artificial intelligence. His work uses a range of methods spanning social and political psychology, computational social science, cognitive neuroscience, and cross-cultural analysis. 

Jay has published over 150 academic papers (including in Science, Nature, PNAS) and is a Clarivate highly cited researcher (in the top 1% of researchers worldwide). He co-authored The Power of Us: Harnessing Our Shared Identities to Improve Performance, Increase Cooperation, and Promote Social Harmony (winner of the APA William James Book Award). His work has also been cited in the US Supreme Court and Senate and he has consulted with the White House, United Nations, European Union, and World Health Organization. 

Jay is an active science communicator with over 100,000 social media followers. He writes the Power of Us newsletter and has written for The New York Times, BBC, The Atlantic, Scientific American, The Wall Street Journal, Guardian, LA Times, TIME, and The Washington Post. He has given talks at dozens of psychology departments and business schools, as well as academic conferences, professional events, and non-academic organizations (including the World Bank, World Science Festival, Aspen Ideas Festival, The Atlantic Festival, and TEDx). 

Jay teaches courses on Social Psychology, Social Neuroscience, Attitudes and Evaluation, Intergroup Relations, Group Identity, Moral Psychology, Professional Development, and Introduction to Psychology. He received the NYU Golden Dozen Teaching Award for teaching excellence. He also co-founded a mentoring column for Science Magazine and has created several educational videos (e.g., TED-Ed).