End-of-Term Hangout: PANGEA Members Channel Their Inner Artists
Back in December, the PANGEA lab got together to celebrate the end of the 2023 Fall term! Armed with ceramics, glaze and paintbrushes, the members got to unleash their inner artists and create their own unique pottery piece. Now, maybe I’m biased, but I think they came out amazing: Thank you […]
“Hot Paper” Spotlight: Spiritual connection with nature supersedes politics and religion
Have you ever found yourself overcome with a feeling of awe at the sight of nature’s beauty? Or, perhaps, a feeling of oneness – a feeling that you are a part of nature, as it is a part of you? You wouldn’t be alone; this sensation of spiritual connectedness with nature has been reported across […]
Meet PANGEA’s new graduate student: Yilin
Meet Yilin, the newest addition to the PANGEA lab’s wonderful grad students. Yilin’s research interest lies in cultural psychology, and she will be spending her time at UBC pursuing that interest under the co-supervision of Dr. Friedrich Götz (PANGEA lab) and Dr. Steve Heine (Cultural and Self lab). Read on to learn more about Yilin […]
“Hot Paper” Spotlight: Senators and Greed Communication
What talking-points predict the reach and approval of US senators? Well, according to a recent study*, it might be greed. In a paper led by Dr. Eric Mercadante (a UBC Psychology Grad Student at the time of the study, but now a post-doc at NYU Stern School of Business), researchers looked at every tweet of every sitting […]
“Hot Paper” Spotlight: AI-generated questionnaires
AIs sure can do a lot – summarize a text, remove a picture’s background, create a travel itinerary, so on and so forth, but can they generate psychological tests? Yes – at least according to a recent paper co-lead authored by Dr. Friedrich Götz and Dr. Rakoen Martens. In this paper*, researchers first developed the […]
“Hot Paper” Spotlight: The Misinformation Susceptibility Test (MIST)
This paper introduces the first-ever psychometrically rigorous Misinformation Susceptibility Test, with Dr. Rakoen Maertens (then University of Cambridge, now University of Oxford) and PANGEA’s Dr. Friedrich Götz as it’s co-lead authors (full citation with link below). As the first of its kind, the publication made waves in both the academic community and beyond. Moreover, the […]
PANGEA Lab Receives CFI Grant
The funding will be used towards establishing the our lab, where we will continue to investigate how and why individuals from different neighbourhoods, cities, provinces, and countries differ in psychological characteristics and what that means for individuals (micro-level) and the areas they live in (macro-level). Powered by the big […]
Dr. Götz Featured as a Guest on the Personality Psychology Podcast
Dr. Götz was recently featured as a guest on the Personality Psychology Podcast where they talk about studying personality from a geographical psychology approach—what the research field is, how things are measured (and how tricky it is to measure), past interesting findings and future directions. The podcast is available here: https://personalitypsychologypodcast.com/episodes/ The Personality […]
End of Term Hangout – Escaping a Hurricane + Fries
The members of the lab celebrated the end of Fall 2022 term by going to an escape room. The theme of the room was Hurricane and the PANGEA team completed the challenge and safely escaped the hurricane unscathed. Afterwards, we headed over to the Alibi Room for some snacks and great chats. Thanks for those […]
“Hot Paper” Spotlight – Small Effects: The Indispensable Foundation for a Cumulative Psychological Science
Götz, F. M., Gosling, S. D., & Rentfrow, P. J. (2022). Small Effects: The Indispensable Foundation for a Cumulative Psychological Science. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 17(1), 205–215. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691620984483 The Small Effects paper has been listed as “hot paper” on Web of Science: “This hot paper was published in the past two years and received enough citations in March/April […]
Paper Publication Spotlight #4: Regional personality differences predict variation in early COVID-19 infections and mobility patterns indicative of social distancing
Peters, H., Götz, F. M., Ebert, T., Müller, S. R., Rentfrow, P. J., Gosling, S. D., Obschonka, M., Ames, D., Potter, J., & Matz, S. C. (2022). Regional personality differences predict variation in early COVID-19 infections and mobility patterns indicative of social distancing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000439 (first authorship is shared […]
Paper Publication Spotlight #3 – The psychological imprint of inequality: Economic inequality shapes achievement and power values in human life
Du, H., Götz, F. M., King, R. B., & Rentfrow, P. J. (2022). The psychological imprint of inequality: Economic inequality shapes achievement and power values in human life. Journal of Personality. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12758 Economic inequality is on the rise, affecting more than two-thirds of the global population (UN News, 2020). Concerns about increasing levels of economic inequality have […]
Publication Spotlight #2 – Effective maps, easily done: Visualizing geo-psychological differences using distance weights
Ebert, T., Mewes, L., Götz, F. M., & Brenner, T. (2022). Effective maps, easily done: Visualizing geo-psychological differences using distance weights. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 5(3), 251524592211018. https://doi.org/10.1177/25152459221101816 Psychologists of many subfields are becoming increasingly interested in the geographical distribution of psychological phenomena. An integral part of this new stream of geo-psychological […]
Publication Spotlight #1 – Spatial analysis for psychologists: How to use individual-level data for research at the geographically aggregated level
Ebert, T., Götz, F. M., Mewes, L., & Rentfrow, P. J. (2022). Spatial analysis for psychologists: How to use individual-level data for research at the geographically aggregated level. Psychological Methods. https://doi.org/10.1037/met0000493 (shared first authorship between Ebert, Götz, and Mewes) Psychological characteristics are unequally distributed across space. In recent years, psychologist have become increasingly interested […]
Summer 2022 Conferences
In July, Dr. Götz gave a talk at the ECP, the biannual congress of the European Association of Personality Psychology in Madrid. Dr. Götz also co-hosted the inaugural Regional Cultural Differences Conference in Barcelona, along with Drs Jason Rentfrow (University of Cambridge), Veronica Benet-Martínez (Universitat Pompeu Fabra), & Tobias Ebert (University of Mannheim)). A big thanks to those all […]
PANGEA Lab Awarded SSHRC Insight Development Grant
PANGEA lab was awarded the SSHRC Insight Development Grant. In the next two years, the lab will study the dark sides of courage. This research will examine the role of courage – defined as overriding one’s fear to act towards an important and worthy goal – which has been nearuniversally praised, celebrated, and desired since antiquity. However, […]
PANGEA Lab Trip to Bowen Island
To celebrate the end of Winter 2022 term, the PANGEA lab took a day trip to Bowen Island. It was a fun day of hiking, picnicking at the park and exploring Bowen Island. The day ended with a nice hearty meal at Burgoo. It was a great way to wrap up the school year and […]
PANGEA Lab research gets cited in U.S. Senate Hearing
PANGEA Lab research led by Dr Götz has recently been cited at a U.S. Senate Hearing. The paper, spearheaded by Dr Götz in collaboration with Dr Samuel Gosling (University of Texas at Austin, USA & University of Melbourne, Australia) and Dr Jason Rentfrow (University of Cambridge, UK) discusses the prevalence, significance and impact of small […]
Collaborative research from PANGEA Lab informs European Policy
A research paper published by Dr Götz in collaboration with researchers at the Universities of Bochum and Mannheim (Germany) and the German Institute for Economic Research is prominently featured in ongoing policy discussions across Europe. The paper, which was led by Dr Susanne Bücker (University of Bochum) and published in Social Psychological and Personality Science […]
PANGEA Lab Ushers in the Holidays with a Celebratory Lab Dinner
After a long and in many ways unusual term, the PANGEA Lab went out to Pizzeria Ludica in Downtown Vancouver for a night of delicious pizza, friendly chats, good vibes, and fun board games (“One Night Ultimate Alien” was a clear fan favourite!). We had a great time rounding off the first semester in the […]
Congratulations to Dr Götz for receiving the Dissertation Prize of the German Psychological Society
Dr Götz has been awarded the Dissertation Prize of the German Psychological Society (Personality Psychology and Psychological Diagnostics Section) for his doctoral thesis “Mountains, cities, random forests: New and old frontiers in geographical psychology“. Dr Götz completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge in 2021 before joining UBC. His dissertation research focused on the […]
Q&A with PANGEA Lab Director Dr. Friedrich Götz
Following an around-the-world academic journey, Dr. Friedrich Götz joins UBC Psychology as assistant professor in the social personality area. Dr. Friedrich Götz’ research focuses on the geographical differences in psychological characteristics, tracing the historical sociocultural causes of present-day regional differences in personality and values. He is excited to collaborate with researchers across the globe to […]