Psychology Department

new paper published in Nature Human Behaviour by Matan Rubin, Prof. Anat Perry, and colleagues, explores whether empathic responses are perceived differently when attributed to a human versus artificial intelligence.

Across nine studies with over 6,000 participants, the researchers found that identically generated empathic messages were rated as more empathic, supportive, and authentic when thought to come from a human.

Crucially, even when participants believed a human response had been aided by AI, the perceived empathy dropped - highlighting that simply knowing AI was involved reduces the emotional value of the response.

The findings suggest that what makes human empathy uniquely valuable is not just understanding others, but the feeling that someone feels with us and cares.

These insights are especially timely as language-based AI systems are increasingly deployed in mental health, education, and healthcare contexts.

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Who won ISPP’s 2025 David O. Sears Best Book Award for his book "Hope Amidst Conflict: Philosophical and Psychological Explorations," Published by Oxford University Press.

Leshem is a senior researcher at the PICR lab and the founder of the new International Hub for Hope Research.

David O. Sears Best Book on Mass Politics Award

The David O. Sears Book Award is given for the best book published in the field of the political psychology of mass politics, including political behavior, political values, political identities, and political movements, during the previous calendar year. Befitting the far-reaching contributions to scholarship of David Sears, the award winning work should be one that demonstrates the highest quality of thought and makes a major substantive contribution to the field of political psychology.

The award winner will be determined by an international and interdisciplinary committee. As judged by the award committee, the book should increase substantially our understanding of an issue (or issues) that is central to the concerns of mass politics and the world in which we live

The Department of Psychology is excited to welcome Dr. Amir Tal, a new faculty member joining the department in collaboration with the Department of Cognitive Science and the Brain. Amir will join us in the upcoming academic year (2025–2026) and will lead the Computational Psychology cluster.

Amir studies implicit, incidental, and nonconscious processes that underlie higher-order cognition. His research focuses on how knowledge is automatically acquired, structured, and reorganized through moment-to-moment interactions with the world. He has recently begun studying humor as well, viewing it as a distinctive form of knowledge formation.

A new study published in Emotion by PhD candidate Tamar Amishav and Dr. Nilly Mor explores how negative information in the periphery, outside the main focus of attention, shapes emotional responses, particularly in individuals with depressive symptoms.

The findings reveal that when neutral target stimuli are presented alongside peripheral negative images, individuals with higher depression symptoms respond more negatively, suggesting that neutral situations may feel negative not because of the situation itself, but because of the context. These results highlight the role of subtle contextual cues in shaping emotional experiences. These results are especially relevant in these times where we are inundated by negative peripheral information (stickers of soldiers, pictures of hostages and destruction), which is not always relevant to the situation we are experiencing.

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