CORY JANE CLARK

Research Interests

Social Cognition, Judgment & Decision Making, Bias, Conflict, Metascience

I am a behavioral scientist interested in how social motivations influence human judgment and empirical beliefs. Human cognition evolved to help us avoid ostracism and gain social status (among other things). We thus reason in ways that help us persuade others of our moral righteousness and of our value and commitment to our social groups. Although humans care about truth and accuracy, human cognition is also biased toward achieving these social goals.​

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Lately, I am especially interested in motivated cognition in evaluations of science and among scientists. I have found that scientists who believe that unpopular conclusions are empirically true are particularly likely to self-censor their beliefs and particularly scared of peer ostracism and punishment. This suggests that professional discourse (and perceived scientific consensus) surrounding controversial conclusions is systematically biased toward the rejection of socially undesirable empirical conclusions.

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I am also interested in the moralization and politicization of epistemic institutions and communities. My recent work finds that moral and sociopolitical concerns are associated with the suppression of scientific research. These tendencies likely contribute to reduced trust in science. In two recent papers, I find that perceived politicization and organizational political action undermine trust in institutions--and across almost the entire ideological spectrum.

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On the more applied side, I am interested in finding ways of de-biasing science and scientists and expediting the truth discovery process. Over the past five years, I (along with Professor Philip Tetlock) have been participating in and advocating for adversarial collaborations, a methodological procedure in which disagreeing scholars mutually design research procedures to test their competing hypotheses. This process can facilitate more rigorous science because both proponents and opponents must agree to fair and unbiased tests. And it can turn enemies into friends. Learn more about our initiative here.

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You can read most of my publications here.