Eliana Hadjiandreou

People inevitably face adversity in life. In a new short piece in @TrendsCognSci, I argue that identities associated with adversity powerfully drive positive social change above & beyond other social identities. W/ @DCameron84, free access for 50 days 👇 sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

Why do we derogate effective altruists, activists, & other radically prosocial individuals? In new work, we discuss how doing good that deviates from social norms gets stigmatized. New preprint w/ @DCameron84, Tatiana Lau & Desmond Ong: osf.io/preprints/psya…

Truly fantastic piece by my post-doc advisor, Desmond Ong, on AI alignment & empathy: open.substack.com/pub/desmondong…

It is easy to glance at the news and be captivated by whatever fresh travesty is happening in the world today. But the reality is that most of people’s moral lives play out in quieter, seemingly more mundane moments, such as those involving friends and family, at the grocery store, or at the office. Over the past four years, I have been involved in a large-scale project seeking to better understand these “everyday moral dilemmas.” I’m thrilled to say that the results of this project were published yesterday in the journal PNAS: Nexus. academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/arti… To explore this topic, my collaborators and I used an unconventional data source: the "Am I the Asshole?" forum on Reddit, a thread in which people post about everyday moral conundrums and elicit feedback from their peers. We extracted 369,000 posts and 11 million “comments,” or reactions to these posts, from the site, then used state-of-the-art language processing tools to analyze the data. To assess generalizability of this data we then conducted a followup study involving a US-representative sample. Many of our findings surprised me. Here are some highlights: -𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝟮𝟵 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗱𝗶𝗹𝗲𝗺𝗺𝗮𝘀. These range from “broken promises” to “privacy violations.” -𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗹𝘆 𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘀: “𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗼 𝗜 𝗼𝘄𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻?” 𝘙𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘰𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴—that is, questions about what we owe (and don’t owe) to friends and family—are the most commonly experienced type of moral dilemma. -𝗛𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘁𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴. The most negatively evaluated behaviors concerned acts of 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘺. -𝗣𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗵𝘆𝗽𝗼𝗰𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲𝘀. Being 𝘫𝘶𝘥𝘨𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘭 is among the things most likely to get you labeled “the asshole” -𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝗳𝗹𝗲𝘅𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲. People, for example, think it’s worse to lie to a 𝘤𝘰𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘳 than your 𝘣𝘰𝘴𝘴, and it’s worse to break a promise to your 𝘥𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘦𝘳 than your 𝘴𝘰𝘯. In followup analysis, we have found that there is virtually no difference in the kinds of moral dilemmas experienced across the political divide. This suggests that when you zoom out from the hot-button issues that divide us, we all grapple with similar questions: questions such as how to navigate interpersonal disagreement, build community, and contribute to society (and, of course, whether we should be honest with our partner about their new haircut). The bottom line is our moral lives are far richer, more varied, and more similar to each other than you might think. Big thanks to my co-authors Sudeep Bhatia, Geoff Goodwin, Andrew Reece, PhD, and Kurt Gray.

A huge day for mapping in life science! —the mammalian brain, most extensive yet nature.com/articles/s4158… @AllenInstitute —a comprehensive map of the human cell going sub-cellular nature.com/articles/s4158… —complete ape genomes nature.com/articles/s4158…

Two heroic stray dogs rescued an injured dog from the middle of the road by dragging him to safety. The family dog in Changzhou, China squeezed out from the crack in their front door and was hit by a car, becoming stranded in the middle of the road. Many cars passed by as the pup laid in harms way, but it was two stray dogs who finally stepped in to help. After several attempts, the two strays were finally able to pull the injured dog out of the street. Thankfully, the injured dog was soon reunited with their owner, who confirmed the pup survived and only suffered minor injuries. He said he was sad after watching the CCTV footage, but confirmed the dogs who saved his dog have been rescued. 15/10 for both

This story made my week, in a very cute way. There's probably so much we don't know about sea creatures. My money is on octopuses being light years ahead of us. 🐙 nytimes.com/2025/03/20/sci…

This was emotional to read. Bonobos are amazing creatures. Rest in Peace, Kanzi.

It’s so clear that Descartes was wrong, and that if the stuff that humans express that makes us believe that we have souls, so clearly exists in many other mammals

Not SNL's Weekend Update using the trolley dilemma to showcase nerdy love. I approve! #trolleydilemma #SNL #weekendupdate youtube.com/watch?v=mprkxT…

@alyssaleann Those are gorgeous!

Two years ago I started pottery classes, hoping to make friends and develop a new skill Tonight I hosted those friends for a dinner where we all brought food in made-by-us serving dishes 🥹

Cynicism is not a mark of intelligence. It's a defense mechanism to avoid being exploited. 192k adults, 30 countries: People with poor reasoning skills are more likely to see human nature as selfish and untrustworthy. A sign of wisdom is refusing to expect the worst in others.

@jeffrsebo Hi! Is there a Live-Stream or a recoding later on available? Thanks!

Excited to be speaking about the moral circle at EA Global Bay Area! My talk is today (Saturday Feb 22) at 11:30am PT, followed by office hours. If you happen to be around, please join us!

The purpose of negative emotions is not to cause misery. It’s to prevent mistakes. Outrage is a signal to speak. Disappointment is a cue to persist. Anxiety is a prompt to prepare. Guilt is a reminder to repair. Pain reveals principles. Where we hurt is a clue to what we value.

New paper online! Despite a competitive world, we find children and adults view social resources like love and trust as renewable and non-zero-sum. Recognizing renewability reduces zero-sum belief, offering hope for a world where we can thrive together.😀journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19…

I’m hiring a lab manager to start July 2025! Submit CV and cover letter as soon as possible as review will begin immediately. Link to the job ad is here: tinyurl.com/22ye3wsv Please share with any undergrads or mentees who might be interested!

@emily_kubin @Shelley_McKeown @OxInteract @UniofOxford Congrats, @emily_kubin! I hope you have fun at Oxford ☺️

Very excited to be starting a visiting researcher position with @Shelley_McKeown and @OxInteract at @UniofOxford! Working on understanding conflict and how to heal divisions. Feeling grateful and ready for this new adventure 🤗

We're hiring! The @StanfordSNL invites applications for a full-time RA to start this summer. You can find info and a link to the application below. Please share widely! acrobat.adobe.com/link/review?ur…

Academics are paid nothing for peer review. Yet journals made a total of over $8.3 billion on article processing charges alone between 2019-2023. Make it make sense.

Excited to share that I’ve joined the Intergenerational Decisions and Effective Action (IDEA) Lab in ASU’s College of Global Futures as a postdoctoral researcher! @SSyropoulos and I will be advancing research on prosocial behavior & sustainable decision-making across generations! 🌵🌎🌍🌏🚀 #ASU #ForksUp #AcademicTwitter