About

Adam Waytz is the Morris and Alice Kaplan Chair in Ethics and Decision Management and a professor of Management and Organizations at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. His research employs methods from social psychology and cognitive neuroscience to study how people think about other minds, focusing on processes related to ethics, intergroup processes, and the psychological consequences of technology. His work has been published in leading journals such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and Psychological Review. Recognized for his contributions, Professor Waytz has received awards including the 2008 and 2013 Theoretical Innovation Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the SAGE Foundation Young Scholar Award, and the International Social Cognition Network's Early Career Award. He has also served as a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation. His academic background includes a BA in Psychology from Columbia University, a PhD in social psychology from the University of Chicago, and a post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard University supported by a National Service Research Award. His research interests encompass ethics and morality, mind perception, dehumanization, social connection, meaning-making, social influence, and human-technology interaction.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Psychology
• Law
• Social psychology
• Data science
• Epistemology
• Engineering
• Philosophy
• Geography
• Cognitive science
• Neuroscience
• Ecology
• Cognitive psychology
• Linguistics

Selected publications

• Theory of Mind and Self-Attributions of Mentality are Dissociable in LLMs

  arXiv (Cornell University) · 2026-03-30

  preprintOpen access

  Safety fine-tuning in Large Language Models (LLMs) seeks to suppress potentially harmful forms of mind-attribution such as models asserting their own consciousness or claiming to experience emotions. We investigate whether suppressing mind-attribution tendencies degrades intimately related socio-cognitive abilities such as Theory of Mind (ToM). Through safety ablation and mechanistic analyses of representational similarity, we demonstrate that LLM attributions of mind to themselves and to technological artefacts are behaviorally and mechanistically dissociable from ToM capabilities. Nevertheless, safety fine-tuned models under-attribute mind to non-human animals relative to human baselines and are less likely to exhibit spiritual belief, suppressing widely shared perspectives regarding the distribution and nature of non-human minds.

  PublisherDOI

• Theory of Mind and Self-Attributions of Mentality are Dissociable in LLMs

  arXiv (Cornell University) · 2026-03-30

  articleOpen access

  Safety fine-tuning in Large Language Models (LLMs) seeks to suppress potentially harmful forms of mind-attribution such as models asserting their own consciousness or claiming to experience emotions. We investigate whether suppressing mind-attribution tendencies degrades intimately related socio-cognitive abilities such as Theory of Mind (ToM). Through safety ablation and mechanistic analyses of representational similarity, we demonstrate that LLM attributions of mind to themselves and to technological artefacts are behaviorally and mechanistically dissociable from ToM capabilities. Nevertheless, safety fine-tuned models under-attribute mind to non-human animals relative to human baselines and are less likely to exhibit spiritual belief, suppressing widely shared perspectives regarding the distribution and nature of non-human minds.

  PublisherOA PDF

• Holding Robots Responsible: The Elements of Machine Morality

  UNC Libraries · 2025-07-29

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Poets Over Quants: Automation and AI Threats Increase the Value People Place on Creativity

  Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin · 2025-05-19 · 7 citations

  article

  We examine how perceived automation and AI threats (the belief that advanced technology threatens humans’ career prospects) shape workers’ strategies for career preparation. In nine studies ( N = 2,320; three preregistered), we find that perceived automation threat drives people to prioritize creative skills over technical and social skills. A pilot study revealed that people view creativity as less prone to automation and more likely to complement automation. Subsequent experiments confirmed that automation threat leads people to highlight creativity in job applications (Studies 1a–1c), leads STEM students and professional graphic designers to cultivate creative abilities (Studies 2a–2b), and increases jobseekers’ interest in companies that champion creativity (Study 3). People value creative skills in response to the automation threat even when reminded of generative AI’s ability for creativity (Studies 4a–4b). These results suggest that advanced technology steers individuals to prioritize creativity as a skill necessary to compete in the labor market.

  PublisherDOI

• The Psychology of Robots and Artificial Intelligence

  2025-05-01 · 7 citations

  book-chapterSenior author

  Not many of us will try to marry a robot, but everyone interacts with machines. How does the human mind react to the rise of machines? This chapter will explore the psychology of the machines and technology transforming our modern world—especially robots and artificial intelligence.

  PublisherDOI

• Same Data, Diverging Perspectives: The Power of Visualizations to Elicit Competing Interpretations

  arXiv (Cornell University) · 2024-01-17 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access

  People routinely rely on data to make decisions, but the process can be riddled with biases. We show that patterns in data might be noticed first or more strongly, depending on how the data is visually represented or what the viewer finds salient. We also demonstrate that viewer interpretation of data is similar to that of 'ambiguous figures' such that two people looking at the same data can come to different decisions. In our studies, participants read visualizations depicting competitions between two entities, where one has a historical lead (A) but the other has been gaining momentum (B) and predicted a winner, across two chart types and three annotation approaches. They either saw the historical lead as salient and predicted that A would win, or saw the increasing momentum as salient and predicted B to win. These results suggest that decisions can be influenced by both how data are presented and what patterns people find visually salient.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Same Data, Diverging Perspectives: The Power of Visualizations to Elicit Competing Interpretations

  IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics · 2024-04-15 · 17 citations

  articleOpen access

  People routinely rely on data to make decisions, but the process can be riddled with biases. We show that patterns in data might be noticed first or more strongly, depending on how the data is visually represented or what the viewer finds salient. We also demonstrate that viewer interpretation of data is similar to that of 'ambiguous figures' such that two people looking at the same data can come to different decisions. In our studies, participants read visualizations depicting competitions between two entities, where one has a historical lead (A) but the other has been gaining momentum (B) and predicted a winner, across two chart types and three annotation approaches. They either saw the historical lead as salient and predicted that A would win, or saw the increasing momentum as salient and predicted B to win. These results suggest that decisions can be influenced by both how data are presented and what patterns people find visually salient.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Learning about successfully implemented sustainability policies abroad increases support for sustainable domestic policies

  Scientific Reports · 2024-05-25 · 2 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Anthropogenic climate change poses an existential threat to life on Earth, hastening the need to generate support for sustainability policies. Four preregistered studies (total N = 2524) tested whether informing United States citizens about the successful implementation of sustainability policies abroad increased support for similar domestic policies. Studies 1 and 2 found that learning about the successful implementation of sustainability policies (reducing automobile use, using wind energy) abroad increased (1) support for similar domestic policies, (2) intentions to modify behavior to facilitate the adoption of sustainability policies, and (3) behavioral support for sustainability policies. Study 3 found that learning about sustainability policies in both WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) (France) and non-WEIRD (Colombia) countries increased support for similar domestic policies. Study 4 found that learning about sustainability policies abroad increased support for domestic policy proposals that would impact participants' city of residence. Overall, these findings suggest that educating citizens about the implementation of sustainability policies abroad can bolster support for domestic policies that combat climate change.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Advantaged groups misperceive how allyship will be received

  Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes · 2024-02-03 · 17 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Thoughts on the Surprising Effect of Priming on 22-Item Sino-Nasal Outcome Test (SNOT-22) Results

  American Journal of Rhinology and Allergy · 2024-03-20 · 1 citations

  letterOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant F32DA030020

  NIH · $43k · 2011

Frequent coauthors

• Liane Young

  40 shared

• Nicholas Epley

  University of Chicago

  23 shared

• Nour Kteily

  14 shared

• Emile Bruneau

  13 shared

• Kurt Gray

  12 shared

• Juliana Schroeder

  University of California, Berkeley

  12 shared

• Sarah Cotterill

  11 shared

• James Dungan

  University of Chicago

  10 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Social Psychology

  University of California, Berkeley

  2012

• M.A., Social Psychology

  University of California, Berkeley

  2009

• B.A., Psychology

  University of California, Los Angeles

  2007

Awards & honors

• Theoretical Innovation Award from the Society for Personalit…
• SAGE Foundation Young Scholar Award
• International Social Cognition Network's Early Career Award
• Chair's Core Course Teaching Award, Kellogg School of Manage…
• Sidney J Levy Teaching Award, Kellogg School of Management