Michael Barlev

I'm a cognitive scientist interested in the psychology of beliefs. I ask questions such as:

What are beliefs?
Why do some beliefs become culturally widespread?
What roles do beliefs play in our private and social lives?
How can we change problematic beliefs?

I'm an Associate Research Professor in the Psychology Department at Arizona State University. I completed my Ph.D. in Psychological & Brain Sciences at the Center for Evolutionary Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

I take an interdisciplinary approach to my research, combining foundational insights and tools from social psychology, computational cognitive science, adaptationist evolutionary biology, cultural evolution, and the humanities.

mlbarlev (at) gmail.com | Google Scholar | X

Published and in press manuscripts:

Moon, J. W., Barlev, M., & Neuberg, S. L. (2026). Justifying Antisemitism: Political Liberalism and Perceptions of Prejudices. American Psychologist, 81(4), 449-462. [LINK] [PDF]

Moon, J. W. & Barlev, M. (2026). Google search data for psychological scientists: A tutorial and best practices. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 9(1), 1-29. [LINK] [PDF] [OSF]

Barlev, M., Arai, S., Tooby, J., & Cosmides, L. (2025). Willingness to protect from violence, independent of strength, guides partner choice. Evolution and Human Behavior, 46(6), 106745. [LINK] [PDF] [OSF] [The Times] [PsyPost]

Laustsen, L., Sheng, X., ... Barlev, M., … Van Vugt, M. (2025). Cross-cultural evidence that intergroup conflict heightens preferences for dominant leaders: A 25-country study. Evolution and Human Behavior, 46(3), 106674. [Link] [PDF]

Barlev, M. & Neuberg, S. L. (2025). Rational reasons for irrational beliefs. American Psychologist, 80(1), 79–90. [Link] [PDF] [ASU News]

* Won the Don Symons Adaptationism Award from the Human Behavior and Evolution Society (2026).

Wiezel, A., Barlev, M., & Kenrick, D. T. (2024). Beyond stereotypes versus preferences: Sex, dominance, and the functions of leadership. Evolution and Human Behavior, 45(3), 323-325. [Link] [PDF]

* Response to commentaries.

Wiezel, A., Barlev, M., Martos, C., & Kenrick, D. T. (2024). Stereotypes versus preferences: Revisiting the alpha male stereotype of leadership. Evolution and Human Behavior, 45(3), 292-308. [Link] [PDF] [OSF] [ASU News] [HBES News] [PsyPost]

* Target article with commentaries. [Commentaries]

Taves, A., Ihm, E., Gordon Wolf, M., Barlev, M., Kinsella, M., & Vyas, M. (2023). The Inventory of Nonordinary Experiences (INOE): Evidence of validity in the United States and India. PLOS ONE, 18(7): e0287780. [Link] [PDF] [OSF]

Wormley, A. S., Kwon, J. Y., Barlev, M., & Varnum, M. E. W. (2023). How much cultural variation around the globe is explained by ecology? Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 290(2000), 20230485. [Link] [PDF] [OSF] [The Conversation]

Taves, A. & Barlev, M. (2023). A feature-based approach to the comparative study of nonordinary experiences. American Psychologist, 78(1), 50-61. [Link] [PDF] [SPSP Character & Context Blog]

Wormley, A. S., Kwon, J. Y., Barlev, M., & Varnum, M. E. W. (2022). The EcoCultural dataset: A new resource for investigating cultural variation. Scientific Data, 9, 615. [Link] [PDF] [OSF]

Manson, J. H, Chua, K. J., Rodriquez, N. N., Barlev, M., Durkee, P. K., & Lukaszewski, A. W. (2022). Sex differences in fearful personality traits are mediated by physical strength. Social Psychological and Personality Science. [Link] [PDF]

Quillien, T. & Barlev, M. (2022). Causal judgment in the wild: evidence from the 2020 US presidential election. Cognitive Science, 46, e13101. [Link] [PDF] [OSF]

* Nominated for the William James Prize at the Society for Philosophy and Psychology (2021).

Barlev, M., Ko, A., Krems, J. A., & Neuberg, S. L. (2022). Weight location moderates weight-based self-devaluation and perceived social devaluation in women. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 13(8), 1199–1209. [Link] [PDF] [OSF] [HBES 2021 Talk] [ASU News]

Barlev, M., & Shtulman, A. (2021). Minds, bodies, spirits, and gods: Does widespread belief in disembodied beings imply that we are inherent dualists? Psychological Review, 128(6), 1007-1021. [Link] [PDF]

Mermelstein, S., Barlev, M., & German, T. C. (2021). She told me about a singing cactus: Counterintuitive concepts are more accurately attributed to their speakers than ordinary concepts. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 150(5), 972-982. [Link] [PDF] [OSF]

Ko, A., Pick, C. M., Kwon, J. Y., Barlev, M., Krems, J. A., Varnum, M. E. W., … Kenrick, D. T. (2020). Family Matters: Rethinking the Psychology of Human Social Motivation. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 15(1), 173–201. [Link] [PDF] [Corrigendum]

* Won the Outstanding Research Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (2020).

Barlev, M., Mermelstein, S., Cohen, A. S., & German, C. T. (2019). The Embodied God: Core intuitions about person physicality coexist and interfere with acquired Christian beliefs about God, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus. Cognitive Science, 43(9), e12784. [Link] [PDF] [OSF]

Barlev, M., Mermelstein, S., & German, C. T. (2018). Representational co-existence in the God concept: Core knowledge intuitions of God as a person are not revised by Christian theology despite lifelong experience. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 25, 2330-2338. [Link] [PDF]

* Won the New Investigator Award from the Human Behavior and Evolution Society (2018).

Barlev, M., Mermelstein, S., & German, C. T. (2017). Core intuitions about persons coexist and interfere with acquired Christian beliefs about God. Cognitive Science, 41(S3), 425-454. [Link] [PDF]

Book reviews and commentaries:

Shao, S. & Barlev, M. (2025). Historical myths are believed because audiences are socially motivated. [Commentary on “Our roots run deep”: Historical myths as culturally evolved technologies for coalitional recruitment.] Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 47, e191. [Link] [PDF]

Barlev, M. & Neuberg, S. L. (2023). Strange Bedfellows and Their Irrational Pillow Talk. [Commentary on Strange Bedfellows: The Alliance Theory of Political Belief Systems.] Psychological Inquiry, 34(3), 161-163. [Link] [PDF] [Target Article] [Reply to commentaries]

Taves, A., & Barlev, M. (2015). [Review of the book Past Minds: Studies in Cognitive Historiography, by L. H. Martin & J. Sørensen (Eds.).] Numen, 62(4), 474–480. [Link] [PDF]

Preprints:

Moon, J. W., Barlev, M., Chen, D., & Neuberg, S. L. (under review). A cross-cultural analysis of religious fasting and well-being using 15 years of internet search data. [PsyArXiv]

Kwon, J., Barlev, M., Guevara Beltran, D., Kenrick, D., & Varnum, M. E. W. (under review). What Are Social Norms For? [PsyArXiv] [OSF]

Barlev, M., Taves, A., & Kinsella, M. (under review). Mapping nonordinary experiences across cultures in the U.S. and India. [PsyArXiv]

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