I study emotions, collectives, technology and their interaction. Harvard Business School | Harvard Psych (affiliated) | D3https://bsky.app/profile/amit-goldenberg.bsky.socialhttps://bsky.app/profile/amit-goldenberg.bsky.social/post/3mttcrpmpuk24LLMs don't have emotions. New correspondence in Nature Human Behavior link - rdcu.be/fBIbp24 Aug 2026 12:32 +0000at://did:plc:gd2evmvmme7xqvchsoezd62b/app.bsky.feed.post/3mttcrpmpuk24https://bsky.app/profile/amit-goldenberg.bsky.social/post/3mlt2m2hc3s2sOne of the biggest insights from my research over the past few years: Groups (not just the individuals within them, but groups as distributed entities) do a remarkable range of things to manage emotion. See new paper in American Psychologist with Yajun Cao https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Famp000172914 May 2026 14:44 +0000at://did:plc:gd2evmvmme7xqvchsoezd62b/app.bsky.feed.post/3mlt2m2hc3s2shttps://bsky.app/profile/amit-goldenberg.bsky.social/post/3mjmq2e4x2k2xNew paper out in @nathumbehav.nature.com led by Kyle Lafollette & Doroteja Rubez. Challenging the mechanism for the implicit association test (IAT) rdcu.be/fdKtb https://rdcu.be/fdKtb16 Apr 2026 15:29 +0000at://did:plc:gd2evmvmme7xqvchsoezd62b/app.bsky.feed.post/3mjmq2e4x2k2xhttps://bsky.app/profile/amit-goldenberg.bsky.social/post/3lvqaau7tbc2xWe scrolls about 100 meters a day of social media content, much of it highly emotional. In a new paper led by Jonas Schöne (JPSP) we show that people tend to remember stronger emotional expressions, which leads them to estimate feeds as more emotional. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-46873-00106 Aug 2025 12:33 +0000at://did:plc:gd2evmvmme7xqvchsoezd62b/app.bsky.feed.post/3lvqaau7tbc2xhttps://bsky.app/profile/amit-goldenberg.bsky.social/post/3lvd4fz4ops22🔖 NEW PAPER ALERT 🔖 Out in PNAS – we used equation discovery algorithms to improve models of human reinforcement learning. Led by the wonderful Kyle Lafollette with an amazing team Yanni Yuval @roeyschurr.bsky.social and @d-melnikoff.bsky.social https://www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.1073/pnas.241344112201 Aug 2025 07:20 +0000at://did:plc:gd2evmvmme7xqvchsoezd62b/app.bsky.feed.post/3lvd4fz4ops22https://bsky.app/profile/amit-goldenberg.bsky.social/post/3lsvwo4we422yNew paper in Nature Human Behavior (led by Matan Rubin), where we manipulated the perceived identity of a real-time empathic response to be or AI. We observed a drop in perceived empathy when label was AI, and this effect was mainly driven by emotion. rdcu.be/et9ad https://rdcu.be/et9ad01 Jul 2025 14:42 +0000at://did:plc:gd2evmvmme7xqvchsoezd62b/app.bsky.feed.post/3lsvwo4we422yhttps://bsky.app/profile/amit-goldenberg.bsky.social/post/3llr46v7els23Can you predict whether people are happy or sad by the way they walk? If we could, that would be pretty fun. Anyway, this paper claims you can predict both valence (positive negative) and arousal (calm and excited) from footsteps. But, can you? See thread🧵 arxiv.org/pdf/2503.04190 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2503.0419001 Apr 2025 14:41 +0000at://did:plc:gd2evmvmme7xqvchsoezd62b/app.bsky.feed.post/3llr46v7els23https://bsky.app/profile/amit-goldenberg.bsky.social/post/3ll3m6o2vxk2uDoes daily use of ChatGPT reduce loneliness? I was very excited to see that OpenAI just published its first paper on GPT use and well-being with an experimental design. The outcome is quite disappointing . 🧵 https://www.media.mit.edu/publications/how-ai-and-human-behaviors-shape-psychosocial-effects-of-chatbot-use-a-longitudinal-controlled-study/24 Mar 2025 01:29 +0000at://did:plc:gd2evmvmme7xqvchsoezd62b/app.bsky.feed.post/3ll3m6o2vxk2uhttps://bsky.app/profile/amit-goldenberg.bsky.social/post/3lhjelpowwk2xCan emotion regulation interventions spread from treated to non-treated people in a group? We examine this question in a paper published in @naturecomms.bsky.social, led by Michael Pinus and Yajun Cao. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-56538-x06 Feb 2025 15:10 +0000at://did:plc:gd2evmvmme7xqvchsoezd62b/app.bsky.feed.post/3lhjelpowwk2xhttps://bsky.app/profile/amit-goldenberg.bsky.social/post/3lg6jmphhws2oThe best examples of emotional contagion is infants starting to cry when they hear another person crying (knowing nothing about the context). But could it simply be an aversion to noise? And is contagion stronger for neg emotions than for pos emotions? https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/desc.1360820 Jan 2025 14:15 +0000at://did:plc:gd2evmvmme7xqvchsoezd62b/app.bsky.feed.post/3lg6jmphhws2ohttps://bsky.app/profile/amit-goldenberg.bsky.social/post/3lffetab4qs2xVery cool paper on using ML to predict habit formation. [contains quote post or other embedded content]10 Jan 2025 14:13 +0000at://did:plc:gd2evmvmme7xqvchsoezd62b/app.bsky.feed.post/3lffetab4qs2xhttps://bsky.app/profile/amit-goldenberg.bsky.social/post/3lfbs3m73pc2uMy lab and I are looking to take an applied class on Graph Machine Learning, similar to this Stanford class: web.stanford.edu/class/cs224w/. Any suggestions?09 Jan 2025 04:00 +0000at://did:plc:gd2evmvmme7xqvchsoezd62b/app.bsky.feed.post/3lfbs3m73pc2uhttps://bsky.app/profile/amit-goldenberg.bsky.social/post/3leymyndhis2uPeople's misrepresentation of collective political beliefs as more extreme than they actually are is an issue associated with various polarization-related outcomes (including acrophily). It seems that disclosing this bias doesn't fully solve the problem. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001002772400336605 Jan 2025 12:34 +0000at://did:plc:gd2evmvmme7xqvchsoezd62b/app.bsky.feed.post/3leymyndhis2uhttps://bsky.app/profile/amit-goldenberg.bsky.social/post/3ldmj34fiw22gCome join our multi-country study on social preferences for political extremes!! [contains quote post or other embedded content]18 Dec 2024 23:27 +0000at://did:plc:gd2evmvmme7xqvchsoezd62b/app.bsky.feed.post/3ldmj34fiw22ghttps://bsky.app/profile/amit-goldenberg.bsky.social/post/3ld525eucx22pWhen asked to describe street food in the US and why it's so bad compared to other countries, I like to point out that I live in a place where Goldfish crackers are considered a legitimate salad topping.12 Dec 2024 19:50 +0000at://did:plc:gd2evmvmme7xqvchsoezd62b/app.bsky.feed.post/3ld525eucx22phttps://bsky.app/profile/amit-goldenberg.bsky.social/post/3lckypsh4jc2sWhen we present our work on attraction to extremity, people often ask whether this is a new phenomenon. We found this great paper from 1968 showing that people assign more sincerity, competence, trustworthiness, and likability to extremes on their own side. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/002210316890043705 Dec 2024 15:37 +0000at://did:plc:gd2evmvmme7xqvchsoezd62b/app.bsky.feed.post/3lckypsh4jc2shttps://bsky.app/profile/amit-goldenberg.bsky.social/post/3kqnpsgaioj2vFirst paper from our lab on LLMs and emotional support (led by @joannazli): Skill but not effort drive GPT overperformance over humans in cognitive reframing of negative scenarios. Short thread of the results 1/7   https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/fzvd8 #Psychology #AcademicSky #SocialPsyc21 Apr 2024 16:01 +0000at://did:plc:gd2evmvmme7xqvchsoezd62b/app.bsky.feed.post/3kqnpsgaioj2vhttps://bsky.app/profile/amit-goldenberg.bsky.social/post/3klhui7a72t2h🚨new paper🚨Stereotypically, women are seen as more emotional than men. How is this translated into judgments of emotionality? In a paper by Megan Gorges we show that stereotypes turn into judgements when people aggregate multiple emotional expressions. #psychsciski #socialpsyc https://osf.io/preprints/osf/64dru15 Feb 2024 17:03 +0000at://did:plc:gd2evmvmme7xqvchsoezd62b/app.bsky.feed.post/3klhui7a72t2hhttps://bsky.app/profile/amit-goldenberg.bsky.social/post/3kjvejpob7b25New paper with Lameese Eldesouky and Kate Ellis on loneliness. Using EMA, we show that when people feel more lonely, they are less likely to share their emotions, compared to when they feel less lonely (within individual), revealing a vicious cycle. #PsychSciSky https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1iUtFheKdyImA26 Jan 2024 15:05 +0000at://did:plc:gd2evmvmme7xqvchsoezd62b/app.bsky.feed.post/3kjvejpob7b25https://bsky.app/profile/amit-goldenberg.bsky.social/post/3kjst5l6uak2eSuper excited to present the first empirical paper in a new line of work that focuses on the spread of psychological interventions. This one is about the spread of emotion regulation interventions to reduce negative emotions in intergroup conflicts. > osf.io/km6r425 Jan 2024 14:48 +0000at://did:plc:gd2evmvmme7xqvchsoezd62b/app.bsky.feed.post/3kjst5l6uak2e