Publication of Special Issue on Causes and Consequences of Regional Cultural Differences
Co-edited by Dr Götz, together with Drs Tobias Ebert (University of St. Gallen, Switzerland), Jason Rentfrow (University of Cambridge, UK) and Veronica Benet-Martínez (Pompeu Fabra Universidad, Spain), the Special Issue on Causes and Consequences of Regional Cultural Differences was recently published. This special issue offers new insights into regional psychological differences, their relevance, and the […]
PANGEA Lab 2024 Triple Feature at Canadian Psychological Association Annual Convention in Ottawa
Dr Götz, our graduate student Yang Yilin Guo, and our lab manager Frankie Yaying Zhong traveled to Ottawa, ON, to share our research at the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) Annual Convention. Dr Götz spoke at the CPA President’s New Researcher Award Presentation and delivered a Data Blitz on the dark side of courage at the […]
Congratulations to Dr Götz for Receiving the Canadian Psychological Association President’s New Researcher Award
Dr Götz has been awarded the President’s New Researcher Award at the 2024 Canadian Psychological Association Annual Convention in Ottawa. This award recognizes the exceptional quality of the contribution of new researchers to psychological knowledge in Canada. Selection of award recipients is based on the examination of the applicant’s record of early career achievement. A […]
Congratulations to Sakshi for Successfully Defending Her MA Thesis
Congratulations to our graduate student Sakshi Sahakari for successfully defending her MA thesis on June 18th! Sakshi’s thesis explored regional differences in cultural tightness (i.e., the strictness of social norms and the stringency with which they are enforced), as well as their ecological and socio-historical antecedents and societal implications across 31 states and union territories […]
New SSHRC Insight Grant funding awarded to PANGEA Lab
We are delighted to announce that the PANGEA Lab has been awarded a new SSHRC Insight Grant totaling CA$201,398. This prestigious grant will support our ongoing research initiatives and enable us to further our studies in the field. The SSHRC Insight Grant program is highly competitive and is designed to support and foster excellence in […]
Congratulations to All of Our Graduating Undergraduate Research Assistants
On May 24th, we had the pleasure of celebrating the achievements of our incredible undergraduate Research Assistants (RAs), Chassy Leong Ka See, Leo McHegg, and Valentina Balcazar as they graduated. Dr Götz joined the graduation ceremony on stage at UBC’s Chan Centre to honour this special occasion filled with pride and joy. We extend our […]
PANGEA Lab End-of-Term Trip to Bowen Island
To celebrate the end of the academic year, the PANGEA lab took a day trip to Bowen Island. It was a fun day of hiking, gelato at the pier, and exploring Bowen Island. It was a great way to wrap up the school year!
“Hot Paper” Spotlight – Effect Sizes and What to Make of Them
We all care about effect sizes. Yet, traditional ways of evaluating them (P < 0.05 and generic benchmarks) are failing us. In this paper, Dr. Friedrich Götz, Dr. Samuel D. Gosling, and Dr. Jason Rentfrow proposed two paths forward: setting better, contextualized benchmarks or — more radically — letting go of benchmarks altogether. Both paths […]
PANGEA Lab 2024 Triple Feature at Society for Personality and Social Psychology Annual Convention in San Diego
Dr Götz, our graduate students Sakshi Sahakari and Yang Yilin Guo traveled to San Diego, CA, to share our research at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) Annual Convention. Dr. Götz and Sakshi Sahakari organized a symposium where Sakshi presented her work on cultural tightness-looseness across India. Yilin presented a poster about regional […]
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 […]