JOSEPH SOMMER
I am currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton's University Center for Human Values (UCHV). I'm primarily interested in belief, bounded rationality, and the interaction of cognition with computational and environmental constraints. My research aims to understand the mechanisms of belief formation and how beliefs are updated (or not) in response to evidence.My work on belief integrates research across several disciplines, including Cognitive Science (judgment and decision making, problem solving, reasoning), Social Psychology (attitudes, persuasion, social influence), Philosophy (philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, mental representation, epistemology), Economics (decision theory, behavioral econ) and AI (reason maintenance, belief revision, case-based reasoning).
Email: joseph.sommer@princeton.edu
RESEARCH
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
BELIEF
The Cognitive Science of Belief
Sommer, J. (preprint). When Ought Implies Can't: The Bounded Rationality of Belief. https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/fzm9j_v1Sommer, J. (in press). Why the Cognitive Sciences Need Belief. In N. Van Leeuwen & T. Lombrozo (Eds.). The Oxford Handbook of the Cognitive Science of Belief. Oxford University Press.Sommer, J. (2026). In the Mind or In the World? Types of Beliefs and the Locality of Evidence. Psychological Inquiry 37(1), 1-26.Sommer, J., Musolino, J., & Hemmer, P. (2024). Updating, Evidence Evaluation, and Operator Availability: A Theoretical Framework for Understanding Belief. Psychological Review. 131(2), 373–401. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000444Sommer, J., Musolino, J., & Hemmer, P. (2022). Toward a Cognitive Science of Belief. In J. Musolino, J. Sommer, & P. Hemmer (Eds). The Cognitive Science of Belief: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Cambridge University Press.
Consistency Among Beliefs
Sommer, J. & Lombrozo, T. (under review). The Psychology of Inconsistent Beliefs: Recognizing, Reconciling, and Revising.Sommer, J. & Lombrozo, T. (in press). Judgment Under Inconsistency: Tolerance for Inconsistent Political Beliefs. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 48.Sommer, J. & Lombrozo, T. (2025). Do Whales Have Hair? Are Whales Mammals? Identifying Synchronic Inconsistencies Among Beliefs. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 47.Sommer, J., Musolino, J., & Hemmer, P. (2023). A Hobgoblin of Large Minds: Troubles With Consistency in Belief. WIREs Cognitive Science, e1639.
https://doi.org/10.1002/wcs.1
Measuring Beliefs
Broomell, S. B., Sommer, J., Anglin, S. M., & Drummond Otten, C. (under review). Untangling the web of belief: Reconsidering belief updating from a measurement perspective
Beliefs and Behavior
Sommer, J. & Oktar, K. (2025). Maps by Which We May Not Steer: Why Psychologists Should Expect Low Belief-Behavior Correspondence. Psychological Inquiry, 36(1), 60–66.
Understanding Religious Belief
Sommer, J. (2025). Engaging, Authoritative, but also Evidential. Invited commentary on W. Gervais (2024). Disbelief: The Origins of Atheism in a Religious Species. Religion, Brain, and Behavior.Sommer, J. (2024). Religion as Belief, A Realist Theory: A Commentary on Religion as Make-Believe, A Theory of Belief, Imagination, and Group Identity. Philosophical Psychology.
Evolutionary Pressures on Belief
Sommer, J. (in press). When Does Evolution Select for True Beliefs? In N. Van Leeuwen & T. Lombrozo (Eds.). The Oxford Handbook of the Cognitive Science of Belief. Oxford University Press.
MINIMALLY COUNTERINTUITIVE CONCEPTS
Sommer, J., Musolino, J., & Hemmer, P. (under revision). Coherence and the Memorability of Supernatural Concepts.Sommer, J., Musolino, J., & Hemmer, P. (2023). Counterintuitive Concepts Across Domains, A Unified Phenomenon? Cognitive Science, 47(4), e13276.Sommer, J., Spencer, C., Musolino, J., & Hemmer, P. (2023). A New Methodological Tool for Research on Supernatural Concepts. Behavior Research Methods, 55(1), 220-235.Sommer, J., Musolino, J., & Hemmer, P. (2022). The Memorability of Supernatural Concepts: Some Puzzles and New Theoretical Directions, Journal of Cognition and Culture, 22(1-2), 90-135.
MISCELLANEOUS
WORKS IN PROGRESS
Is Belief Updating Rational? Multiple Cognitive Processes Respond to Evidence - with Pernille Hemmer, I find support for the distinction - proposed in Sommer et al. (2024) - between belief updating and evidence evaluation processes (with Pernille Hemmer)The Philosophy of Science Writ Small - A paper on the deep connections between philosophy of science and the cognitive science of belief; Accepted for a symposium on the cognitive science of belief at the Philosophy of Science Association's biannual meeting (with Preston Lennon)The Effect(s) of Memory on Decision Making - A chapter on memory and decision making for a forthcoming Cambridge Handbook (with Pernille Hemmer)
BOOKS
I read a lot of books, and track them on Goodreads here:
