Projects | SAGE : Self, Altruism, Groups, & Empathy

Book Interventions and Reading Selection

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Can popular nonfiction books function as durable psychological interventions? This project examines whether sustained reading can reduce polarization, aggression, and social division while strengthening compassion, cooperation, and inclusive social identities.

Artificial intelligence simulations and expert consultation are being used to identify theoretically promising and ethically appropriate books. The strongest candidates will then be evaluated in human pilot studies and a longitudinal randomized controlled trial.

Current pipeline

Refining study materials and book-selection criteria
Comparing predictions across multiple large language models
Preparing pilot studies and preregistration
Developing measures of polarization, identity, intergroup ties, and qualitative change

This project is supported by a Mind & Life Europe Varela Award and developed in collaboration with researchers at the NYU Center for Conflict and Cooperation.

Loving-Kindness and Reliable Prosocial Response

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This project asks whether practices that cultivate loving-kindness can transform good intentions into reliable prosocial responses. A preregistered six-week randomized controlled trial compared loving-kindness meditation, guided engagement with loving-kindness books, and a control condition.

The reading-based intervention produced stronger and longer-lasting changes in aggression and prosociality than meditation alone. Current work is consolidating the thesis research into a manuscript and examining what the findings reveal about sustained engagement, automatic tendencies, and robust psychological change.

Current pipeline

Finalizing the article and analytic decisions
Distinguishing immediate from persistent intervention effects
Developing extensions involving identity, habits, and effortless prosociality

Evidence for Nonfiction as Intervention

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Despite the enormous reach of popular nonfiction, its psychological effects remain poorly understood. This evidence-synthesis project revisits research on nonfiction reading and psychological outcomes, bridging prior literature with the lab’s experimental work on books as interventions.

The immediate goal is to determine which forms of reading, outcomes, and study designs yield credible evidence of change—and where the literature remains too weak or heterogeneous for firm conclusions.

Current pipeline

Cleaning and recoding the existing evidence base
Conducting the first meta-analytic reanalysis
Identifying moderators of durable versus short-lived change
Preparing the structure of a manuscript

Mindfulness and Resilience Across Socioeconomic Contexts

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Do brief, self-administered mindfulness practices support resilience equally across socioeconomic contexts? This multisite project examines whether accessible mindfulness interventions reduce stress and promote well-being across populations whose resources and daily constraints differ.

The project contributes to a larger collaborative effort to test brief standalone mindfulness exercises at scale. Its emphasis on socioeconomic context helps move beyond asking whether an intervention works on average toward asking for whom, under which conditions, and with what degree of robustness.

Current pipeline

Coordinating the multisite research framework
Evaluating contextual variation in intervention effects
Connecting attention, stress regulation, and resilience

Missing Majority in Behavioral Science

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Behavioral science often presents narrow samples as if they represented humanity. The Missing Majority project documents geographic inequalities in authorship, research participation, and the knowledge base of psychology and related fields.

An interactive dashboard makes large-scale patterns visible and supports work on questionable generalizability practices and MASKING—making assumptions based on skewed knowledge. The broader goal is a science whose claims are both more inclusive and more robust.

Current pipeline

Continuing development of the interactive dashboard
Updating and validating large bibliometric datasets
Connecting the tool with scholarly and public dissemination

Team Science, Reproducibility, and AI

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

How can large research teams produce more reliable knowledge—and where can artificial intelligence genuinely help? This project family brings together collaborative work on replication, multiverse analyses, AI-assisted research teams, and the robustness of findings across analytical decisions.

The work ranges from reproducing published results to testing whether AI-supported teams can assess evidence more effectively. It treats robustness not as a final checklist but as a property that should be designed into the research process.

Current pipeline

Completing collaborative manuscripts on reproducibility and robustness
Evaluating AI-assisted research workflows
Developing practical guidance for transparent team science
Connecting large-scale replication results with methodological training

The report R Package

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The report package is part of the easystats ecosystem for accessible and reproducible statistical analysis in R. It translates model outputs into structured summaries that researchers can inspect, communicate, and integrate into reproducible workflows.

This project combines ongoing software maintenance with manuscript development. It supports the lab’s commitment to methodological tools that make good statistical practice easier to apply in everyday research.

Current pipeline

Maintaining the package and responding to open issues
Revisiting the existing manuscript draft
Clarifying the package’s role within the easystats ecosystem

The easystats Ecosystem

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

easystats is a collaborative ecosystem of R packages designed to make statistical modelling, interpretation, reporting, and visualization more accessible and consistent. The project reduces fragmentation by connecting specialized tools through a coherent interface and shared principles.

Current work focuses on maintaining the meta-package, communicating the architecture of the ecosystem, and completing a manuscript that explains its conceptual contribution to open and reproducible science.

Current pipeline

Developing an ecosystem-level conceptual figure
Completing and reviewing the manuscript
Coordinating package integration and communication

Asthma and Placebo Effects

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This project examines placebo effects in asthma at the intersection of health, belief, expectation, and embodied experience.

What already exists

A completed dataset
An honours thesis
Additional study data that can extend the original work

Opportunity

The next stage is to integrate the available data, revisit the analyses, and rewrite the work as a manuscript. This may suit a student interested in health psychology, placebo effects, or secondary-data research.

Growth Orientation and Self-Help

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This project family connects self-help, passion, and self-determination theory. It distinguishes pursuing self-improvement from a growth orientation from doing so to correct a perceived personal deficit.

What already exists

Collected data
Preregistered studies of passion for self-help and the Needs Orientation Scale
An established conceptual framework

Opportunity

Analysis and interpretation remain to be completed. The work could become one manuscript, several linked manuscripts, or a broader program on healthy and unhealthy forms of self-improvement.

Robust Mahalanobis Distance

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This methods project studies Minimum Covariance Determinant as a robust version of Mahalanobis distance, with the goal of improving the detection and treatment of multivariate outliers.

What already exists

Completed simulations
An early manuscript
A technically advanced foundation

Opportunity

The principal remaining work is writing, interpretation, and positioning. It may suit a quantitatively oriented student interested in robust statistics, simulation studies, or open-source methods.

Rubber-Hand Illusion and EEG

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This project examines EEG data collected during the rubber-hand illusion. It connects perceptual embodiment with body ownership and the construction of the self.

What already exists

Collected EEG data
An honours thesis
An established experimental foundation

Opportunity

The dataset requires a full reanalysis before the manuscript can be rewritten. This may suit a student with interests or experience in psychophysiology, EEG, embodiment, or quantitative analysis.

Video Attention Training and Self-Esteem

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This project asks whether video-based attention training can improve social outcomes among people with low self-esteem.

What already exists

A completed study
A conference poster
A recoverable dataset and research question

Opportunity

The analyses need to be redone before a manuscript can be developed. This may suit a student interested in attention, self-esteem, social behaviour, or reproducible reanalysis.