Joel Le Forestier
Assistant professor of social psychology and PI of the Identity and Intergroup Relations Lab at Pitt. He/him. 🏳️🌈
🌐: joelleforestier.com
- Reposted by Joel Le ForestierInterested in doing a postdoc on misinfo/belief change with me and @gordpennycook.bsky.social? We are looking for candidates to apply for a Connected Minds Postdoctoral Fellowship, based at York University. Contact me for more details! #PsychJobs
- I'm in the midst of the busiest semester of my life but I have two free hours to analyze data right now. I could cry. Nobody email me.
- Reposted by Joel Le ForestierI am looking to recruit a postdoc to join my lab next fall, & work on projects focused on online mobilization with social media datasets - see more details here: bit.ly/4r49x9b . If anyone knows of someone with relevant skills who is looking for a postdoc- please pass this on!
- Reposted by Joel Le ForestierExample of the broader impact of media representation: "Kortuem said Heated Rivalry had 'sparked' something in him and inspired him to come out publicly. 'I realised it is finally time to share a journey I have kept close to the vest for a long time,' he said." www.thepinknews.com/2026/01/15/h...
- With @paolopalma.bsky.social!!! Excited to get down to work.
- Congrats @joelleforestier.bsky.social on receiving a 2025 Springfield Research Fund Grant!🌈 Dr. Le Forestier's work examines how people experience & navigate intergroup contexts, and how we can improve intergroup relations, experiences, & wellbeing. We're proud to help move this work forward! 👏
- Excited to get down to work with co-PI (and fabulous department-mate at Pitt Psychology) @drgabyalvarez.bsky.social! 🎉
- Huge congratulations to @joelleforestier.bsky.social, our 2025 Division 49 Group Psychology Grantee!👏 His research explores how people experience and navigate intergroup contexts, with a focus on stigma, self-presentation, and health & wellbeing impacts of prejudice. 💙
- Reposted by Joel Le Forestier4. Positive Interactions on Social Media Might Help Reduce Prejudice Finding ways to make people's online experience more diverse interactive could help social media bring people together instead of pushing them apart. Read more: spsp.org/news/charact...
- Reposted by Joel Le ForestierFABBS(Federation of Assoc in Behavior&Brain Sciences) is pleased to honor Calvin Lai, recipient of the Kellina Craig-Henderson Early to Mid-Career Award AND Early Career Impact Award! Dr. Lai’s pioneering work examines implicit bias& applications to policing&hiring. Congrats @calvinklai.bsky.social
- New post with grad student @ugurozkusen.bsky.social out in @spspnews.bsky.social's Character & Context on a new JEP:G paper using intergroup contact on social media to reduce prejudice. Read the Character & Context post: tinyurl.com/28hyccs7 Read the full paper in JEP:G: tinyurl.com/mpkhsjay 1/n
- We wanted to know if we could deliver intergroup contact through social media (a location where people are increasingly having their social interactions) to reduce prejudice in a potentially scalable way. The answer? Maybe. Blog: tinyurl.com/28hyccs7 Paper: tinyurl.com/mpkhsjay 2/7
- In a series of self-report and behavioral online and field studies, we find promising evidence that intergroup interactions on social media are associated with less prejudice and more positive intergroup behaviors. Blog: tinyurl.com/28hyccs7 Paper: tinyurl.com/mpkhsjay 3/7
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View full threadWe need more work figuring out how to meet people in their real-life intergroup contexts. That way, we can try to figure out how to make those contexts less fraught and more constructive for building a cohesive and just world. Blog: tinyurl.com/28hyccs7 Paper: tinyurl.com/mpkhsjay 7/7
- Reposted by Joel Le Forestier"The high-income admissions advantage at Ivy-Plus colleges is driven by three factors: (1) preferences for children of alumni, (2) weight placed on non-academic credentials, and (3) athletic recruitment...The three factors...are uncorrelated or negatively correlated with post-college outcomes..."
Recently accepted by #QJE, “Diversifying Society’s Leaders? The Determinants and Causal Effects of Admission to Highly Selective Private Colleges,” by Chetty (@Oppinsights), Deming, and Friedman: doi.org/10.1093/qje/...
- Reposted by Joel Le ForestierThis—on my former university, department, and advisor—is harrowing but required reading for all social psychologists. www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
- Reposted by Joel Le ForestierOn election day, I wanna announce that I am recruiting social psych PhD students for my lab at UIC. My lab focuses on racial identities (esp Asian, Latino, MENA Americans) and intra-minority conflict/ coalition. So please tell your students to pick me! All details on my website: www.pbandjlab.com
- My fab department is hiring in Clinical at the asst/assoc level! The search is focused on adult psychopathology, brain imaging, or genetics. We have a collaborative, friendly, and supportive department with great conditions for research. Come join us! Ad: lnkd.in/gkJtjCyS
- Reposted by Joel Le ForestierTLDR; The PSF has made the decision to put our community and our shared diversity, equity, and inclusion values ahead of seeking $1.5M in new revenue. Please read and share. pyfound.blogspot.com/2025/10/NSF-... 🧵
- New minimal groups effect just dropped! Bon apétit!
- Reposted by Joel Le ForestierI am hoping to recruit a Ph.D. student to join the SPARC (Social Psychology of Activism, Resistance, & Change) Lab at @UVAPsyc in Fall 2026! You can find more info about my research on my website (ericshuman.com), and the program here (psychology.as.virginia.edu/social-psych...).
- Reposted by Joel Le ForestierCool new study by @joelleforestier.bsky.social @page-gould.bsky.social & Alison Chasteen Can social media contact reduce prejudice? #PrejudiceResearch psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...
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- SPSP is excited to announce the recipients of the 2025 SAGE Emerging Scholar Award! Congratulations to @chrbuettner.bsky.social, Ivan Hernandez, Erin Hughes, @niclaskuper.bsky.social, Katherine Lawson, @joelleforestier.bsky.social, and Zachary Witkower! Learn more: ow.ly/Vff550WY7hH
- Announcing SPSP's 2026 Self & Identity precon (bit.ly/4mn2WDT), which will have a timely focus on activist and ally identities. We have a phenomenal set of speakers (Linda Tropp! Kim Rios! Lucy De Souza! Teri Kirby! Dan McAdams!) and are accepting data blitz and poster submissions until Oct 23!
- This year, the preconference will be in-person and will adopt a half-day format in the morning of Thursday, February 26. I hope you'll consider attending!
- P.S. Graduate students who submit posters will be considered for a poster award! So send your students!
- Reposted by Joel Le ForestierI am recruiting (Canadian🇨🇦) graduate students at York University for Fall 2026 in Social and Personality Psychology! If you are interested in misinformation, political polarization, and/or computational social science, I'd love to hear from you. Feel free to reach out with any questions.
- Reposted by Joel Le ForestierWhat motivates romantic partners to continue being supportive in their partner's goal pursuit? New #PSPB research suggests that as long as gratitude is expressed, partners remain motivated to help even when their partner does not succeed. Read more: ow.ly/Ljvu50WNCrq
- Reposted by Joel Le Forestier2/6. In a set of experiments just published in Social Science & Medicine, we found that Asian, Black, and Hispanic Americans were consistently more willing to engage in individual and collective efforts to address health disparities than their White counterparts. news.cornell.edu/stories/2025...
- 📣📣We're going for round two!!!📣📣 I'll be reviewing graduate applicants again this year. Come join my growing lab! Info about the lab: joelleforestier.com Info about the social program: www.psychology.pitt.edu/graduate/soc...
- 📣📣BIG NEWS:📣📣 I'll be accepting (a) graduate student(s) this cycle to come work with me at Pitt starting Fall 2025!!! If you want to work on understanding and improving people's intergroup experiences, please apply! Info about the lab: joelleforestier.com
- Reposted by Joel Le Forestier(please share widely!) With the start of August quickly approaching, I wanted to announce that the usual slack for fellow people on the Psych Academic Job Market for the coming cycle has been activated. If you are interested, feel free to fill out this form to join! forms.gle/2DBgs8S1fktS...
- Reposted by Joel Le ForestierNew paper out from the Self & Motivation Lab on Safety and Threat in the Environment Perceptions (STEP). The STEP scale assesses people's overall, gut-level impressions of any given space and uniquely predicts engagement, interest, & desire to recruit others journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
- Reposted by Joel Le Forestier🧌This "bestiary" can be a vital resource for researchers, educators, and reviewers to recognize, understand, and mitigate QRPs, ultimately raising the standard of psychological research. Read the full article here: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
- She is far too un-self-promoting to do this herself, so I'm shouting out *THE* Elizabeth Page-Gould (@page-gould.bsky.social) for winning the SESP Career Trajectory Award! Liz is the reason they had to invent the high-warmth/high competence quadrant. She is such a gem and so damn deserving of this.
- Reposted by Joel Le ForestierAre there contexts where expressing intellectual humility (IH) can backfire? On established or morally convicted topics, the positive impacts of perceived high (vs. low) IH on competence and warmth are attenuated or reversed. Full Paper: doi.org/10.1177/1948...
- With Pride Month right around the corner, in a few weeks, I'm giving a (virtual!) talk about being "in the closet" and what it means for our health at the Carnegie Science Center. It's free and open to the public! Date and time: June 2, 7-9PM Registration: carnegiesciencecenter.org/events/cafe-...
- Reposted by Joel Le ForestierSince 1954, "The Handbook of Social Psychology" has been the field’s most authoritative reference work, and today is the launch of the 6th edition with 50 new chapters by 100 leading scholars. Best news? The HSP is now an open-access public resource—free to read, download, and share. the-hsp.com
- Reposted by Joel Le ForestierCome join us! I have startup funds to hire a postdoc for Fall 2025 at Rutgers to study intergroup relations. The job ad is at jobs.rutgers.edu/postings/249... & evaluations begin in 1 wk (5/16) w rolling evaluation. See 🧵below for a write-up on what I'm looking for in a postdoc. Please share widely!
- Reposted by Joel Le Forestier[This post could not be retrieved]
- The work I love most blends learning about theory with answering something practical. Here, we got to hit both nails on the head! Come for the "Does implicit bias change generalize across implicit measures?" Stay for the "Can we reduce anti-fat bias?" Or vice versa. Just read the paper; it's great!
- 🚨New Paper w/ @joelleforestier.bsky.social at JEP: General!🚨 We conducted 2 mega-experiments totaling over 28,000 participants and 50 conditions. We wanted to find the most effective interventions to reduce implicit weight prejudice across 5 implicit measures. 🧵 osf.io/preprints/ps...
- Reposted by Joel Le ForestierJust a reminder that I am still looking for a new position. My work fits well within multiple contexts ranging from Public Health to Psychology to Political Science. Don't let anti-science fear mongers win -- #HireWall #PsycSciSky #PublicHealth 🌈
- I'm going to be teaching an intergroup relations graduate seminar next year(!!!), and I'm starting to daydream about what should go into it. Does anyone have an example syllabus they'd be willing to share as inspiration? Or papers they feel really *must* be covered? #psychscisky #socialpsych
- Reposted by Joel Le ForestierThank you all so much for having me!! It was a joy to share more about my research in psychology and law. If you want to learn more about legal judgment & decision making, intriguing Supreme Court cases and what “objectively reasonable” actually means to people, listen to this episode!
- New ep! What comes to mind when you hear the term “objectively reasonable”? @spruill.bsky.social shares her research on how legal standards in criminal justice aren't as neutral as they may seem and how lived experience influence jurors' priors links in 🧵 @monash-m3cs.bsky.social
- Reposted by Joel Le ForestierSurely the new #NIH Director, who repeatedly claimed he was being silenced, would act to ensure actual scientists are not censored because of their #publichealth research by his government agency. #science @joho.bsky.social
- Reposted by Joel Le ForestierThere are very few people who are meeting the moment, and @catherinesjwall.bsky.social's work expertly weaves political psychology and misinformation research to understand how our current landscape is shaping transgender health policies.
- Reposted by Joel Le ForestierSocial psychology lost a giant, and I lost a dear friend and collaborator. Still processing the loss of Sam Sommers, and probably will be for some time. Cherish the time you have with your people, folks. now.tufts.edu/2025/03/20/r...
- Reposted by Joel Le ForestierIn a new paper w/ @calvinklai.bsky.social, I find that OpenAI’s latest reasoning model (o3-mini) exhibits implicit bias-like patterns. What’s exciting about reasoning models is the ability to unpack bias in how models *process* information, rather than just seeing bias in *outputs*. (1/10):
- Reposted by Joel Le Forestier"The Trump administration has terminated $800 million in grants to Johns Hopkins University, spurring the nation’s top spender on research and development to plan layoffs and cancel health projects, from breast-feeding support efforts in Baltimore to mosquito-net programs in Mozambique."
- Reposted by Joel Le ForestierWe need to organize--let’s help each other. NIH is cancelling grants, but it's not clear exactly what they're cancelling and why. Without this information, we can't respond. I've started a Google Sheet to track grant cancellations. Please add any canceled grants you know of and spread the word!
- NEW: The NIH has begun terminating grants for active projects studying gender identity, DEI, environmental justice, climate change, among other topics. At least 16 termination letters have already been sent — and hundreds more are coming, people inside NIH tell me. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
- Reposted by Joel Le ForestierI just checked pubmed....there are over 1200 papers about vaccines and autism. There is no link. This is a waste of tax payer money.
- Reposted by Joel Le ForestierWhen I worked in UK academia I recall hearing of a Japanese man who was baffled at how Britain had decided to run its universities like firms. “Why? Your universities are excellent and your firms are terrible.”
