The future of this newsletter
The Center for Conflict and Cooperation newsletter is merging with The Power of Us to explain the science of belonging, conflict, and cooperation in the digital age
It’s been four years since we published our very first newsletter here on Substack. We’ve posted about everything related to social identity and morality, from outrage on social media to the psychology of conspiracy theorists. Although nearly 100,000 people have read our posts, we want to share our research with an even broader audience. Starting from our next issue, we’ll be merging with Jay’s other newsletter The Power of Us.
At the new newsletter, we will explain the science of belonging, conflict, and cooperation in the digital age. This will include summaries of our recent research, media coverage and outreach, educational materials, interviews with authors and other scholars on these topics, and applications of this research to real world issues–with a focus on the lessons of this work for fostering healthier individuals, organizations, communities, and societies. We also believe this will become one of the largest newsletters on social psychology.
By combining these two newsletters, we’ll be able to deliver deeper coverage and more frequent content right to your inbox. All of our Center newsletters will remain free to access–including the monthly summary of our latest research. If you want extra content, there will also be a paid subscription option where you can get access to bonus content created by The Power of Us, including longer, more in-depth articles and regular meetings with Jay (and his co-author Dominic Packer).
To make this transition easy, you don’t need to do anything. Your current subscription will automatically be transferred to the free version of The Power of Us, newsletter so you won’t miss a beat.
Thank you to each and every subscriber who has followed our work. We hope to see you over at The Power of Us | In collaboration with the Center for Conflict and Cooperation!
News and Announcements
In other news:
Jay was mentioned in a Times of India article and an Economic Times article about the number one career skill you can gain—accepting constructive criticism. You can read the full articles here and here.
Last month, our Center hosted a pair of conferences in Florence. The first focused on strengthening democracy and the second was on science of conflict and cooperation (and included several alumni of our lab). Check out the photo below:
Our postdoc Steve Rathje also posted a TikTok about our Center’s recent conference in Florence! You can watch it here and follow Steve here.
Former visiting scholar Mathias Twardawski received the 2025 ISJR Early Career Contributions award, which is given to an “accomplished young researcher…to foster, encourage, and support excellence in justice-related scholarship.” Congratulations to Mathias!
Our paper “The impact of generative artificial intelligence on socioeconomic inequalities and policy making”, led by our collaborator Valerio Caprero, is the 4th most read paper on PNAS Nexus for this year! If you want to read the article, you can do so here.
Jay was a panelist for NYU Langone’s “Health and… Social Media” conference, where he talked about the effects of social media on mental health and population health. Check out the photos below, and watch the full talk here!
If you have any photos, news, or research you’d like to have included in this newsletter, please reach out to our Lab Manager Sarah (nyu.vanbavel.lab@gmail.com) who puts together our monthly newsletter. We encourage former lab members and collaborators to share exciting career updates or job opportunities—we’d love to hear what you’re up to and help sustain a flourishing lab community. Please also drop comments below about anything you like about the newsletter or would like us to add.
And in case you missed it, here’s our last newsletter:
That’s a wrap, folks! We hope to see you at the Power of Us.