Research Explained
Short, plain-language video summaries of research from the lab: what each paper asked, what it did, what it found, and why it matters. New explainers are added to the YouTube channel and the Research Explained playlist.
Jingyi Li, Daphne X. Hou, and Louis Tay recorded 368 working adults answering AI-scored video interview questions and found that age shaped both what people said and how they said it. They then built an LLM persona for every participant and used the personas as a low-cost test bed to rewrite the questions: some age gaps shrank sharply, others held, a reminder that simulation comes before, not instead of, human validation.
Many colleges dropped standardized tests over concerns about bias. Sang Eun Woo, James LeBreton, Melissa Keith, and Louis Tay distinguish measurement bias from score gaps rooted in unequal opportunity, and show that the grades, essays, letters, and interviews left without the test are more open to bias and predict success less well.
“Just be yourself” is common interview advice, but can anyone else tell? Gloria Liou and Louis Tay recorded 454 employed adults in video job interviews and used AI to analyze their words, voices, and faces. Authenticity showed up in words, not faces or voices, and the cues behind feeling authentic and being seen as authentic barely overlapped.
Why do some people reach out for help while others hold back? Across three studies, Victoria Scotney and Louis Tay identified five beliefs about seeking and receiving help (Helpful, Enjoyable, Lessens, indePendence, Safe). Trusting helpers and seeing help as enjoyable stood out in predicting help received and well-being.
Psychology has the Big Five for people, but what about situations? Parrigon, Woo, Tay, and Wang started from thousands of everyday adjectives and converged on seven dimensions of situations: Complexity, Adversity, Positive valence, Typicality, Importance, humOr, and Negative valence.
Shorts
Would AI hear a 25- and a 55-year-old the same way?
Testing interview questions on AI personas
Different, not decline
Is the SAT biased? Bias vs. a score gap
If colleges drop the SAT, what’s left?
Can a test level the playing field?
Can anyone tell if you’re being yourself?
Feeling authentic ≠ looking authentic
Want to seem authentic in a job interview?
Why don’t people ask for help? 5 beliefs
Knowing help is useful isn’t enough
Is asking for help a sign of weakness?
The Big Five for situations?
The 7 dimensions of situations
146.7 billion words to test a map of situations
These explainers were produced with AI assistance from the published papers and checked against them for accuracy. The narrator is a synthetic voice, not one of the authors.