David Young

• A cognitive, computational approach to political psychology.

• New approaches to the study of political polarisation.

• Integrating formal modelling, particularly Bayesian Networks, with experiments and analysis of large-N survey data.

• Teaching and mentorship.

• R programming and data visualisation.

• Open science.

Published Articles:

Young, D. J., Madsen, J. K., & de-Wit, L. H. (2025). Belief Polarization Can Be Caused by Disagreements Over Source Independence: Computational Modelling, Experimental Evidence, and Applicability to Real-World Politics. Cognition, 259, 106126. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106126 

Young, D. J., & de-Wit, L. H. (2024). Affective polarization within parties. Political Psychology, 00, 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12973 Open access pre-print:  PsyArXiv Preprints | Affective Polarization Within Parties (osf.io) 

Young, D. J, Madsen, J. K., & Yousefi, S. (2023). The Epistemic Weight of Silence. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 45. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/57h4j672  

R&Rs:

Young, D. J., & de-Wit, L. H. (2024). The Bias-and-Expertise Model: A Bayesian Network Model of Political Source Characteristics. Pre-print: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/bf36a 

Young, D. J., Ackland, J. A., Kapounek, A., Madsen, J. K., & de-Wit, L. H. (2024). A Cluster Based Measure of Issue Polarisation: US Trends 1988-2020 and Predictors Across 105 Nations 1999-2022. Pre-print: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/zgd7r 

Buchanan, T., Young, D. J., Ackland, J. A., Renwick, A., & de-Wit, L. H. Can an authoritarianism-compatible argument improve British attitudes to immigration?

Young, D. J. Counter-Intuitive Findings on Affect and Ideology Likely Reflect Collider Bias: Commentary on Turner-Zwinkels et al., 2023.

Young, D. J., Speekenbrink, M., Buyukyildirim, M. I., Chung, A. C. H., Gwynne, M., Hillstrom, F., Hui, B. K. H., Shing, E., & Harris, A. J. L. Anchoring the Anchor: Judgments of Both Items Assimilate in Item-Based Anchoring.

In Prep:

Young, D. J., & de-Wit, L. H. (2024). Perceptions of Political Bias and the Polarization Cycle. Pre-print: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/6es5x 

Faith and demographics: unveiling seemingly paradoxical trends in the UK for the King's College Policy Institute: Faith and demographics: unveiling seemingly paradoxical trends in the UK (uk-values.org)  

An overlooked type of polarization: Factional feuds within parties for Character & Context, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology's blog: An Overlooked Type of Polarization: Factional Feuds Within Parties | SPSP 

Labour's factions: more toxic than Brexit? for UK in a Changing Europe's blog: Labour’s factions: more toxic than Brexit? - UK in a changing Europe (ukandeu.ac.uk)