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POST-DOC
PHILIP PARNAMETS - NYU Social Psychology Postdoctoral Fellow
Philip completed his PhD in cognitive science at Lund University and has spent two years as a postdoc with the Emotion Lab at Karolinska Institutet. His research is grounded in a broad interest in the cognitive and computational mechanisms underlying preference change, decision making and learning, especially in the moral domain. In the Social Identity and Morality lab his work focuses on dynamic models of social learning about moral agents and of moral choices generally. Philip spends his spare time creating, listening or dancing to electronic music.
Public Health
Beyond commonly regarded factors of health—such as economic resources, education, access to care, and environmental factors—growing evidence suggests that our social environment can significantly impact both individual and collective well-being and health (see Van Bavel et al., 2024).
In a global study of over 50,000 people in 68 countries (Van Bavel et al., 2022) during the COVID-19 pandemic, we found that national identification was related to numerous effective public health behaviors (i.e., handwashing, support for public policy, avoiding crowds) in almost every country we studied. In contrast, narcissistic and self-serving national identity was linked to greater belief in and spread of COVID-19 conspiracy theories, and also to lower adherence to public health guidelines (Sternisko et al., 2021). Studying movement patterns, we also found that partisan identity and news diet influenced people’s perception of the seriousness of COVID-19 and their social distancing—ultimately contributing to higher COVID-19 infections and mortality in certain counties (Gollwitzer et al., 2021). Similarly, we found that news diets and echo chambers on social media influenced COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy (Rathje et al., 2022).
Building off of this real-world evidence, our new paper offers a framework for how social identities (like partisan or national identity) shape public health by influencing people's health choices like vaccination, masking, testing, handwashing, and staying home when sick. Social identities can shift people's attitudes towards health behaviors, what kinds of behaviors they think their group expects, and how in-control of their behaviors they feel they are (Pillai et al. 2025).
In another line of work, we explore storytelling’s potential to foster social cohesion, resilience, and psychological well-being. We examine how narratives—through books, podcasts, and other media—shape moral attitudes, empathy, polarization, and mental health.