PUBLICATIONS | julian-de-freitas

Pre-Prints

De Freitas, Oğuz-Uǧuralp, Z., Uǧuralp, A. K., & Puntoni, S. Why most resist AI companions. SSRN.
De Freitas, Oğuz-Uǧuralp, Z., Uǧuralp, A. K. Emotional manipulation by AI companions. arXiv.
Bentley, K., Van Ark, E., De Freitas, J., Hahn, T., Jacobson, N. C., Vasan, N., Whiteside, U., Belli, L., Gierenger, J., Zhao, N., Brown, M., Chekround, A. M., Hawrilenko, M. Benchmarking the safety of general-purpose large language models for suicide risk detection and response. SSRN.
Cachia, J. Y. A., Zhao, X., Pu, W., Liao, C., Keijsers, J., Fortgang, R. G. AI-powered early intervention for depression and anxiety: A randomized clinical trial. PsyArXiv.

2026

De Freitas, J. Uǧuralp, A. K., Uǧuralp, Z. O., & Puntoni, S. (conditionally accepted). The effect of AI companion voice on loneliness. Nature Human Behavior.
De Freitas, J., Israeli, A., Nave G., Timoshenko, A., & Toubia, O. (invited). Innovating with generative AI: A psychological bottleneck framework. International Journal of Research in Marketing. SSRN
De Freitas, J. (2026). Your chatbot will define your brand: As conversational interfaces begin to dominate the customer experience, relationship design becomes a strategic priority. Harvard Business Review (magazine).
De Freitas, J. (2026) AI companions as hyper attachment and caregiving targets. Current Opinion in Psychology. arXiv
De Freitas, J., Israeli, A., Nave G., Timoshenko, A., & Toubia, O. (2026). The innovation problems AI can't solve. Harvard Business Review (digital).
De Freitas, J., Castelo, N., Uǧuralp, A. K., & Oğuz-Uǧuralp, Z. (2026). Mourning the loss of AI companions. Nature Human Behavior.
De Freitas, J., Huang, Y., & Pinker, S. (2026). Recursive mentalizing and public salience in the perception of common knowledge. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Cohen, G., & De Freitas, J. (2026). Mitigating suicide risk for minors involving AI chatbots. JAMA.
Cachia, J., Zhao, X., Hunter, J., Wu, D., Lin, E., and De Freitas, J. (2026). AI for proactive mental health: A multi-institutional, longitudinal, randomized controlled trial. New England Journal of Medicine AI.
Paul, L. A., Mills, T., Ullman, T. E., De Freitas, J., Colas, F., & Tenenbaum, J. (2026). Reverse-engineering the centered self. Psychological Review.

2025

De Freitas, J., Nave, G., & Puntoni, S. (2025). When used correctly, LLMs can unlock more creative ideas. Harvard Business Review.
De Freitas, J. (2025). AI companions for dementia. Nature Mental Health.
De Freitas, J., Oğuz-Uǧuralp, Z., Uǧuralp, A. K., & Puntoni, S. (2025). AI companions reduce loneliness. Journal of Consumer Research. [supp materials]
De Freitas, J., & Cohen, G. (2025). Unregulated emotional risks of AI wellness apps. Nature Machine Intelligence.
De Freitas, J., Nave., G., & Puntoni, S. (2025). Ideation with Generative AI--In Consumer Research and Beyond. Journal of Consumer Research.
De Freitas, J. (2025). Don't let an AI failure harm your brand. Harvard Business Review (magazine).
De Freitas, J., Zhou, X., & Di Lillo, L. (2025). Public perception and autonomous vehicle liability. Journal of Consumer Psychology.
De Freitas, J. (2025). Why people resist embracing AI. Harvard Business Review (magazine).
De Freitas, J., & Cohen, G. (2025). Disclosure, humanizing, and contextual vulnerability of generative AI chatbots. New England Journal of Medicine AI.
Samure, R., De Freitas, J., & Puntoni, S. (2025). Humor as a window into generative AI bias. Scientific Reports.

2024

Hermann, E., De Freitas, J., & Puntoni, S. (2024). Reducing prejudice with counter-stereotypical AI. Consumer Psychology Review.
De Freitas, J. (2024). Can AI companions help cure the loneliness epidemic? The Wall Street Journal (print).
De Freitas, J. (2024). Do ‘Black Individuals’ really display no linguistic markers of depression? Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
De Freitas, J., & Cohen, G. (2024). The health risks of generative AI-based wellness apps. Nature Medicine.
Agarwal, S., De Freitas, J., & Ragnhildstveit, A., Morewedge, C. (2024). Acceptance of automated vehicles is lower for self than others. Journal of the Association for Consumer Research.
Valenzuela, A., Puntoni, S., Hoffman, D., Castelo, N., De Freitas, J., Dietvorst, B., Hildebrand, C., Huh, Y. E., Meyer, R., Sweeney, M., Talaifar, S., Tomaino, G., Wertenbroch, K. (2024) How artificial intelligence constrains the human experience. Journal of the Association for Consumer Research.
De Freitas, J.*, & Hafri, A.* (2024). Moral thin-slicing: Forming moral impressions from a brief glance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. [supp. materials].
De Freitas, J., & Ofek, E. (2024). How AI can power brand management. Harvard Business Review (magazine).
Agarwal, S., De Freitas, J., & Morewedge, C. (2024) How automakers can address resistance to self-driving cars. Harvard Business Review (digital).
Nam, J., Balakrishnan, M., De Freitas, J., Brooks, A. W. (2024). Research: speed matters when companies respond to social issues. Harvard Business Review (digital).
De Freitas, Uǧuralp, A. K., Oguz, Z., & Puntoni, S. (2024). Chatbots and mental health: Insights into the safety of generative AI. Journal of Consumer Psychology. [supp. materials]
De Freitas, J., & Rips, L. (2025). Is personal identity intransitive? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.

2023

De Freitas, J., Agarwal, S., Schmitt, B., & Haslam, N. (2023). Psychological factors underlying attitudes toward AI tools. Nature Human Behavior.
De Freitas, J., Uǧuralp, A. K., Uǧuralp, Z., Paul, L., Tenenbaum, J., & Ullman, T. E. (2023). Self orienting in human and machine learning. Nature Human Behavior. [supp. materials]
Nam, J., Balakrishnan, M., De Freitas, J., & Brooks, A. W. (2023). Speedy activists: Firm reaction time to sociopolitical events influences consumer behavior. Journal of Consumer Psychology. [supp. materials]
De Freitas, J. (2023). Will consumers buy 'selfish' self-driving cars? The Wall Street Journal.
De Freitas, J. (2023). Will we blame self driving cars? The Wall Street Journal.
De Freitas, J. (2023). Should you start a generative AI company? Harvard Business Review (digital).
De Freitas, J. (2023). What is the optimal pattern of a customer journey? Harvard Business Review (digital).

2022

Prinzing, M., De Freitas, J., & Fredrickson, B. L. (2021). The ordinary concept of a meaningful life: The role of subjective and objective factors in attributions of meaning. Journal of Positive Psychology.

2021

De Freitas, J., Censi, A., Smith, B. W., Di Lillo, L., Anthony, S. E., & Frazzoli, E. (2021). From driverless dilemmas to more practical common-sense tests for automated vehicles. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [supp. materials]
De Freitas, J., & Cikara, M. (2021). Deliberately prejudiced self-driving vehicles elicit the most outrage. Cognition. [supp. materials]
Tarhan, L., De Freitas, J., & Konkle, T. Behavioral and neural representations en route to intuitive action understanding. Neuropsychologia. [supp. materials].
Gan, C., Schwartz, J., Alter, S., Schrimpf, M., Traer, J., De Freitas, J., Bhandwaldar, A., Sano, M., Kim, K. H., Wang, E., Mrowca, D., Lingelbach, M., Curtis, A., Feigelis, K., Haber, N., Gutfreund, D., Cox, D., DiCarlo, J., McDermott, J., Tenenbaum, J., Yamins, D. L. K. ThreeDWorld: A Platform for interactive, multi-modal physical simulation. Neural Information Processing Systems. [http://www.threedworld.org/]

2020

Kim, K. H., Sano, M., De Freitas, J., Yamins, D. L. K., Haber, N (2020). Towards modeling the variability of human attention. International Conference on Learning Representations Workshop (ICLR).
De Freitas, J., Anthony, S. A., Censi, A., & Alvarez, G. A. (2020). Doubting driverless dilemmas. Perspectives on Psychological Science.
Kim, K.H. Sano, M., De Freitas, J., Haber, N., & Yamins, D. L. K. (2020). Active world model learning with progress curiosity. International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML). [ICLR workshop submission; CogSci Proceedings Submission].

2019

De Freitas, J., Thomas, K. A., DeScioli, P., & Pinker, S. (2019). Common knowledge, coordination, and strategic mentalizing in human social life. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
De Freitas, J., DeScioli, P., Thomas, K. A., & Pinker, S. (2019). Maimonides' Ladder: States of mutual knowledge and the perception of charitability. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 148(1), 158–173. [supp. materials]

2018

De Freitas, J., & Cikara, M, Grossmann, I., & Schlegel, R. (2018). Moral goodness is the essence of personal identity. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 22(9), 739–740. [This is a reply to a letter by Starmans & Bloom. The main link also includes their reply to our reply].
De Freitas, J., & Alvarez, G. A. (2018). Your visual system provides all the information you need to make moral judgments about generic visual events. Cognition, 178, 133–146.
De Freitas, J., & Cikara, M (2018). Deep down my enemy is good: Thinking about the true self reduces intergroup bias. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 74, 307–316 . [supp. materials]
De Freitas, J.*, & Johnson, S.G.B*. (2018). Optimality bias in moral judgment. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 79, 149–163 [supp. materials]
De Freitas, J., Sarkissian, H., Newman, G. E., Grossman, I., De Brigard, F., Luco, A., & Knobe, J. (2018). Consistent belief in a good true self in misanthropes and three interdependent cultures. Cognitive Science, 42, 134–160. [supp. materials].

2017

De Freitas, J., Cikara, M., Grossmann, I., & Schlegel, R. (2017). Origins of the belief in morally good true selves. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 21(9), 634–636.
Phillips, J., De Freitas, J., Mott, C., Gruber, J. & Knobe, J. (2017). True happiness: The role of morality in the concept of happiness. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 146(2),165–181.
De Freitas, J., DeScioli, P., Nemirow, J., Massenkoff, M., & Pinker, S. (2017). Kill or die: Moral judgment alters linguistic coding of causality. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 43(8), 1173–1182. [supp. materials]
DeScioli, P., Karpoff, R., & De Freitas, J. (2017). Ownership dilemmas: The case of finders versus landowners. Cognitive Science, 41(S3), 502–522.
De Freitas, J., Tobia, K., Newman, J. E., & Knobe, J. (2017). Normative judgments and individual essence. Cognitive Science, 1551–6709. [supp. materials]

2016

De Freitas, J.*, Thomas, K. A.*, DeScioli, P., & Pinker, S. (2016) Recursive mentalizing and common knowledge in the bystander effect. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 145(5), 621–629.
De Freitas, J., Myers, N. E., & Nobre, A. C. (2016). Tracking the changing feature of a moving object. Journal of Vision, 16(3), 1–21.

2015

Newman, J. E., De Freitas, J., and Knobe, J. (2015). Beliefs about the true self explain asymmetries based on moral judgment. Cognitive Science, 39(1), 96–125.

2014

De Freitas, J., Liverence, B., & Scholl, B. J. (2014). Attentional rhythm: A temporal analogue of object-based attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(1), 71–76.