Michael Prinzing

We think these results, now published in American Psychologist, highlight a need for more theorizing and tests of popular claims about how to cultivate this much-needed trait. psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/am…

Michael Vazquez and I tested this "collaborative dialogue hypothesis." But the results of quasi-experiments and a randomized experiment (and using self-reports, behavioral indicators, and text-analytic measures) consistently contradicted the hypothesis.

Intuitively, it seems like bringing people together to discuss complex ethical and political issues should help them to be more intellectually humble about those issues—at least if the conversations are rigorous yet respectful. But, empirically, doesn't seem to work that way.

Dr Michael Prinzing @M_Prinzing presented our latest seminar in the McGill - UofT Wellbeing Research Seminar series (2026 March 4): "The Ordinary Concept of a Good Life". youtube.com/watch?v=ZUzkLe… For our full series, see wellbeing.research.mcgill.ca/seminar

Our next CHERN McGill-UofT seminar will be by Prof Michael Prinzing @M_Prinzing, on "The Ordinary Concept of a Good Life". Past seminars, and link to registration: wellbeing.research.mcgill.ca/seminar Due to my poor calendaring, CWKN is hosting a webinar at the same time!

Check out this article on The Conversation! It offers a general audience summary some of my recent work with @DrSchnitker and @kk_melton on virtue and it's relationship with well-being. theconversation.com/is-being-virtu…

Check out the full paper, coauthored with Michael Vazquez, now in JPSP: psycnet.apa.org/record/2027-13… Or on OSF: osf.io/preprints/psya…

But there are big differences in these within-person changes across majors (e.g., English & arts move most to the left, while business and engineering actually shift right), as well as demographics (e.g., women move leftward more than men), and other individual characteristics

Does going to college make people more liberal? Probably yes, but it’s complicated… For decades, US adults with degrees have held more left-leaning views on social issues, but not economic ones. And, until the 2010s, grads did not *identify* as more liberal than non-grads.

I love that this is a thing!

@xphilosopher I love it when you get spicy! I don't know about history, comp lit, etc. But haven't you heard that studying philosophy makes people better thinkers? 😜 doi.org/10.1017/apa.20…

All of this is catastrophically missing the point! Clearly, it is good to give students a deeper understanding of art. What our critics keep saying is: humanities courses are not doing that

As a humanities prof, I feel ashamed whenever I read contemporary “defenses of the humanities” These “defenses” show a failure of basic critical thinking. There is never any engagement with the arguments that have been given on the opposite side [Thread]

Full paper is open access at Journal of Personality: doi.org/10.1111/jopy.7…

Indeed, we found situations with opportunities for these virtues are unpleasant. But virtues seem to buffer these situational influences. Compassion, patience, and self-control showed positive within- and between-person links with (especially eudaimonic aspects of) well-being.

Is virtue good for you? Or is it just good for others or society at large? Theories as old as Plato make opposing claims. My coauthors and I tested their predictions in two intensive, longitudinal studies (43,164 obs. from 1,218 Ps), focusing on 3 seemingly unpleasant virtues.

Philosophy doesn’t just attract good thinkers. It helps make them. A new study of more than half a million college grads by @M_Prinzing and @daft_bookworm shows that philosophy majors stand out for reasoning skills, curiosity, and open mindedness. 👇 theconversation.com/studying-philo…

@TaniaLombrozo @APA_Journal Thanks Tania! We love that study! Kerem and I met at an SPP around the time it came out and it was a highlight of the predecessor of this paper. doi.org/10.1017/apa.20…

@M_Prinzing @APA_Journal These are neat results! You might be interested in this 2023 paper from my lab: "Philosophy instruction changes views on moral controversies by decreasing reliance on intuition" doi.org/10.1016/j.cogn…

A popular and very old argument for the value of philosophy claims that studying philosophy cultivates important intellectual abilities and dispositions. But empirical evidence for that claim has been hard to come by. Until now! 1/4

Of course it's not as strong as a randomized experiment, but we think this is really striking evidence that philosophy does make people better thinkers! The open-access paper is now available in the @APA_Journal! doi.org/10.1017/apa.20… 4/4

We found that philosophy students outperformed all others on verbal and logical reasoning as well as habits of mind controlling for baseline differences, when students were freshman. 3/4