Thought must be studied, observed, and understood.
Thought is the instrument through which human beings approach knowledge, relationship, culture, conflict, and the future itself. Yet our understanding of thought’s actual operation remains limited: how it forms images, defends conclusions, binds itself to emotion, divides people into opposing camps, and then tries to solve the very problems it has helped create. Thought Studies collects work that can make this process more visible, because understanding thought is not a narrow academic question; it is essential to the well-being and survival of our species.
Recent posts
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Significant PaperOn Self-Deception in the Individual, in Groups, and in Society as a Whole Paper: UnknownPosted:Summary: This audio and video recording by David Bohm examines the pervasive phenomenon of self-deception across individual, group, and societal contexts, drawing connections to identity processes and advanced metacognition. Its analysis is relevant to understanding how self-deception shapes thought, conflict, and collective awareness.
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Ideology: Psychological Similarities and Differences Across the Ideological Spectrum Reexamined Paper: October 31, 2024Posted:Summary: This review examines psychological profiles across the ideological spectrum, finding that left- and right-wing individuals are more similar than often recognized, though they differ in personality, values, and the groups they prioritize, with implications for understanding political thought and behavior.
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Modeling the emergence of affective polarization in the social media society Paper: October 11, 2021Posted:Summary: This paper proposes a formal model linking social media technology to affective polarization through social identity mechanisms, finding that lower interaction costs can trigger a transition to entrenched, homogeneous group identities that are difficult to reverse.
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A Threat to Cohesion: Intragroup Affective Polarization in the Context of Intractable Intergroup Conflict Paper: 2025Posted:Summary: This study examines how perceived differences in external threat between ideological groups within societies involved in intractable conflicts can increase affective polarization, revealing a mechanism through which internal fragmentation is exacerbated. The findings highlight the interplay between intergroup conflict and intragroup dynamics, offering insights into how such processes may perpetuate conflict.
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Intergroup threat and affective polarization in a multi-party system Paper: 2021Posted:Summary: Drawing on social identity and intergroup threat theories, this study analyzes survey data from Sweden to show that perceived intergroup threat among voters is associated with increased affective polarization, measured through social distance, negative trait attribution, and party like-dislike ratings. The findings extend understanding of political polarization beyond the US two-party context to multi-party systems.
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“Be Nice or Leave Me Alone”: An Intergroup Perspective on Affective Polarization in Online Political Discussions Paper: 2022Posted:Summary: This study examines affective polarization in online political discussions on Reddit, finding that interactions between ideological opponents are significantly more negative and often cut short, while positive cross-group sentiment can reduce hostility. It offers insights into the dynamics of intergroup bias in digital political communication.
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Intergroup Hostility in the Public Sphere: Systematizing the Rising Concern for Affective Polarization Beyond Partisan Lines Paper: 2025Posted:Summary: This study systematically reviews research on affective polarization, revealing that the concept is increasingly applied beyond political parties to encompass divides based on opinion, ideology, race, territory, and religion. It argues for a dynamic understanding of identity salience in the public sphere and examines how intergroup hostility connects to broader democratic concerns.
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Identity concerns drive belief: The impact of partisan identity on the belief and dissemination of true and false news Paper: 2023Posted:Summary: This research examines how partisan identity influences belief in and willingness to share political news, finding that both Democrats and Republicans are more likely to believe news that portrays their own group positively or the opposing group negatively, shedding light on the cognitive biases underlying political misinformation.
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Intellectual humility as a tool to combat false beliefs: An individual‐based approach to belief revision Paper: February 29, 2024Posted:Summary: This research examines whether intellectual humility—recognizing one's intellectual limits—encourages revision of false beliefs after exposure to counter-information. Two studies found that higher intellectual humility predicted greater exploration of opposing information, which in turn was associated with belief updating, although direct effects were modest, offering moderate support for intellectual humility as a tool for combatting misinformation.
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Threats, Emotions, and Affective Polarization Paper: May 24, 2023Posted:Summary: This study examines how perceived intergroup threats, when met with anger, increase affective polarization by distancing individuals from opposing party supporters, highlighting the role of specific emotional reactions in political division.
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We love, they hate: Emotions in affective polarization and how partisans may use them Paper: January 19, 2024Posted:Summary: This study argues that affectively polarized partisans strategically report emotions to distinguish their ingroup from outgroups, ascribing desirable emotions to their own side and undesirable ones to opponents, thereby reinforcing polarization. It highlights how emotional language shapes political cognition and group identity.
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What drives people to prefer health-related misinformation? The viewpoint of motivated reasoning Paper: 2022Posted:Summary: This paper argues that the motivated reasoning approach explains why people prefer health-related misinformation, driven by directional goals that foster confirmation and disconfirmation biases to protect existing beliefs and identities, highlighting the psychological mechanisms behind resistance to accurate health information.
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Tracking politically motivated reasoning in the brain: the role of mentalizing, value-encoding, and error detection networks Paper: 2024Posted:Summary: This study uses fMRI to examine the neural mechanisms underlying politically motivated reasoning, identifying distinct brain networks for desirability bias (value-encoding, error detection, mentalizing) and identity bias (mentalizing). It demonstrates that both biases are driven by similar neural processes across opposing ideological groups, contributing to understanding belief polarization and biased information processing.