STEFAN LEACH
STEFAN LEACH
Lecturer in Psychology
Lecturer in Psychology
University of Southampton
University of Southampton
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🎓 Education
🎓 Education
PhD Social Psychology
University of Kent
MSc Research Methods
University of Kent
BSc Psychology
University of York
📚 Interests
📚 Interests
Political identity & engagement
Big data & natural language processing
Compassion & moral circles
🛠️ Current Works
🛠️ Current Works
An LLM-based approach to labeling texts for positive (national identification, patriotism) and defensive (national narcissism, nationalism) national identities. Tests four popular LLMs across 13 million words in 26 languages—drawn from social media, surveys, and political speeches—and finds that LLMs label reliably and in a theoretically-consistent manner, matching expert judgments, outperforming dictionary-based methods and crowdworkers, and cutting costs by 1,000×.
In 750K posts from US and UK politicians to X, defensive national identities (portraying the nation as exceptional and entitled) garnered 42% more likes and 34% more reposts—but only for right-wing politicians. For Democrats, use of defensive identities before elections was associated with a 42% smaller vote share. Positive national identities (highlighting pride and attachment) resonated across the spectrum: 27% more likes and a 16% greater vote share regardless of party.
📰 Publications
📰 Publications
Why science is revered and rejected ↗
Robbie Sutton & Stefan Leach
Current Opinion in Psychology - 2025
Why the right resists veg(etari)anism: Ideological commitment to consuming animal products ↗
Maria Ioannidou, Georgia Harlow, Mia Patel, Stefan Leach, Gordon Hodson, & Kristof Dhont
Food Quality and Preference - 2025
Stefan Leach, Magda Formanowicz, Jan Nikadon, & Aleksandra Cichocka
Social Psychological and Personality Science - 2025
Tyler Jacobs, Meiying Wang, Stefan Leach, ... & Gilad Feldman
International Review of Social Psychology - 2024
The misandry myth: An inaccurate stereotype about feminists’ attitudes toward men ↗
Aife Hopkins-Doyle, Aino Petterson, Stefan Leach, ... & Robbie Sutton
Psychology of Women Quarterly - 2024
Word embeddings reveal growing moral concern for people, animals and the environment ↗
Stefan Leach, Andrew Kitchin, & Robbie Sutton
British Journal of Social Psychology - 2023
Non-speciesist language communicates moral commitments to animals and evokes do-gooder derogation ↗
Stefan Leach & Kristof Dhont
Psychology of Human-Animal Intergroup Relations (PHAIR) - 2023
Are we smart enough to remember how smart animals are? ↗
Stefan Leach, Robbie Sutton, Kristof Dhont, Karen Douglas, & Zara Bergstrom
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General - 2023
Changing minds about minds: Evidence that people are too sceptical about animal sentience ↗
Stefan Leach, Robbie Sutton, Kristof Dhont, Karen Douglas, & Zara Bergstrom
Cognition - 2023
Speciesism in everyday language ↗
Stefan Leach, Andrew Kitchin, Robbie Sutton, & Kristof Dhont
British Journal of Social Psychology - 2023
Stefan Leach, Jared Piazza, Steve Loughnan, Robbie Sutton, Ioanna Kapantai, Kristof Dhont, & Karen Douglas
Appetite - 2022
The ‘me’ in meat: Does affirming the self make eating animals seem more morally wrong? ↗
Stefan Leach, Robbie Sutton, Karen Douglas, & Kristof Dhont
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology - 2021
When is it wrong to eat animals? The relevance of different animal traits and behaviours ↗
Stefan Leach, Robbie Sutton, Kristof Dhont, & Karen Douglas
European Journal of Social Psychology - 2021
Taking charge of one’s feelings: Power and affect regulation ↗
Stefan Leach & Mario Weick
Personality and Individual Differences - 2020
Stefan Leach & Mario Weick
British Journal of Psychology - 2020
From grumpy to cheerful (and back): How power impacts mood in and across different contexts ↗
Stefan Leach & Mario Weick
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology - 2018
Can people judge the veracity of their intuitions? ↗
Stefan Leach & Mario Weick
Social Psychological and Personality Science - 2018
Does influence beget autonomy? Clarifying the relationship between social and personal power ↗
Stefan Leach, Mario Weick, & Joris Lammers
Journal of Theoretical Social Psychology - 2017
Stefan Leach, PhDAll rights reserved
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