Curtis Puryear, PhD

Social Cognition in the Social Media Era

Our social lives increasingly taking place in environments that differ considerably from those our minds evolved in. Social media lack much of the social information that helps us empathize with others, but social media also introduces novel social information that brings attention to injustices in ways that face-to-face conversations and other media cannot. Some of my recent work reveals how social media fuels moral panics by combining information about threats across the world with novel forms of social information—signals of virality. These markers of social trends can focus our attention on threats, make them feel more dangerous, and produce outpourings of outrage accompanied by feelings of fear and distress.

Dillion, D., Puryear, C., Li, L., Chiquito, A., & Gray, K. (accepted with minor revision at PNAS Nexus). The Language of National Politics (versus Local Politics) is Morality and Power.

Puryear, C., & Vandello, J. A., and Gray, K. (2024). Moral panics on social media are fueled by signals of virality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. [Manuscript Available at: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/t9dre]

Puryear, C., & Vandello, J. A. (2019). Inflammatory comments elicit less outrage when made in anonymous online contexts. Social Psychological and Personality Science. 10, 895-902.

Building Understanding in a Divided World

People are more divided than ever, and the modern world often rewards hot takes and divisive language over dialogue that fosters understanding. My work identifies actionable strategies that people can employ in their daily lives to have better conversation about morality and politics. This work reveals how people can leverage personal experiences, wise reasoning, and reminders of shared morality to build understanding. My current work in this area investigates how we can redesign social media to incentivize more productive conversation.

Puryear, C., Kubin, E., Schein, C., Bigman, Y., & Gray, K. (in press). People Believe Political Opponents Accept Blatant Moral Wrongs, Fueling Partisan Divides. PNAS Nexus [Manuscript available at: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/fk8g6]

Puryear, C., & Gray, K. (2024). Using “balanced pragmatism” in political discussions increases cross-partisan respect. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. [Manuscript Available at: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/yhpdt]

Kubin, E., Puryear, C., Schein, C., & Gray, K. (2021). Personal experiences bridge moral and political divides better than facts. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(6)

Understanding Moral Change

Moral right and moral wrong often appear stable and universal, with similar principles recurring across time and place. But which values and issues are most central to morality can also vary greatly within cultures over time. Currently, a large literature has helped reveal the aspects of human morality that are relatively universal, but moral change is less well understood. My ongoing work in this area is developing methods for studying moral change historically and within the social media era.

Puryear, C. Brady, W. J., & Kteily, N. (2024, February). Understanding Trends in Moralization and Demoralization Using Natural Language. Poster presented at the Morality Preconference at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Annual Conference. San Diego, CA. [LINK]