Tess Robertson

What is it about some stories and situations that make them more effective at evoking fear? One way to answer this is to reverse engineer the emotion of fear 😱 ➡️ A short blogpost on the HBES website about our recent article with Coltan Scrivner. hbes.com/engineering-fe…

@jessesingal Sold a Story, if you haven't already listened to it

What is a podcast you would recommend for a desolate 6-hour drive?

@HKBradshaw *Sorry, I meant to say, if you run into a situation where the manuscript is totally unacceptable, *but you're still not sure what to do*, talk to the editor, because most of the time it'll be clear that a short review is all you need.

@HKBradshaw Most of the time, just one thing that is an absolute no is plenty to get them to agree that the paper isn't publishable and they won't need you to keep building more of an argument.

I am hiring a postdoc to work on a project on moral disgust. This person ideally has expertise in moral psychology, emotions, and/or evolutionary psychology. More details here workingat.vu.nl/vacancies/post….

1/ 🌟Paper *just* accepted @ PSPB!🌟 Does moral licensing really exist?? 👀(doing a good thing, then a less good thing) ➡️ Many failed replications. Why? ➡️ Using #metaanalysis, we put the effect to the test—to uncover when & why it happens 🧵👇 @NorthumbriaPsych #SocialPsych

Congratulations to Leda Cosmides on being named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science! news.ucsb.edu/2025/021817/em…

I'm delighted to spread the word about this new book on emotions: **The Oxford Handbook of Evolution and the Emotions** Out now in stores, libraries, and available online! 70 chapters, 1400 pages, and over 100 contributing authors from all over the world (and from many different disciplines). Table of contents: academic.oup.com/edited-volume/… More info here: global.oup.com/academic/produ… And here: laithalshawaf.com/book.html A huge, heartfelt thank you to all the amazing (100+) authors & scientists involved! Would greatly appreciate RTs for wider spread 🙏

I’ll be recruiting a PhD student to work with me at Oklahoma State U. If you're interested in value computation, emotion, institutions, morality, email me. More info: sznycerlab.org/sznycer-lab/re…

My lab at Edinburgh Uni is recruiting PhD students starting Fall 2025. If you are interested in building and testing theories of causal cognition, theory of mind, etc, I'd love to chat. See more about what we do here: quillienlab.github.io

Why do we vent? Now online @EvolHumBehav: Venting about one mutual friend (the target) to another (the listener) can make the people we vent to prefer--and also preferentially support--us over the people we vent about A🧵on friends + Freud being wrong 👇sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

@JaimieKrems Congratulations!

Keep forgetting to announce this on Twitter, but: I GOT TENURE! (I know how to celebrate in Philly👇, but I'm all ears for how-tos in LA)

@JaimieKrems @UCLA Congratulations!

Excited to say: I've won the #NSFCAREER Award to work on FRIENDSHIP! My lab will investigate the computational design of friendship---how people, e.g., find, make, keep friends. We'll also emphasize science communication! Stay tuned for calls join us in Psychology @UCLA!

The backstory on a gossip study in the Central African Republic, by @nicolehhess “They laughed in disbelief at my description of the 'Jungle Cruise' ride at Disneyland...they asked 'why would you want to scare a child with this?'” hbes.com/a-personal-dis…

“Because it feels fun” is not an alternative to an evolutionary explanation! Sex can feel fun. Making friends can feel fun. Winning status can feel fun. Better question: Why do some activities feel fun (or generate behavior consistent w those feelings)? ⁦@TheAtlantic⁩

Happy publication day! You can now order (or download free, open access) @AndyDelton @dr_reubotnik and I's book Climate Games here: press.umich.edu/Books/C/Climat… @UofMPress

Out today! My book on the politics of disaster and climate change! press.umich.edu/Books/C/Climat… for sale by @UofMPress or download it for free as open access! See thread below for more details and a discount code. With @TalbotMAndrews @dr_reubotnik

In a paper titled "The Myth of Man the Hunter" Anderson et al. (2023) claimed to discover that women hunt in 79% of hunter-gatherer societies. Did hunter-gatherer researchers get it wrong all these years? We attempted to reproduce their study. These are the fatal flaws we found👇