Professor Sander van der Linden was conferred to the Fellowship of the Academy in spring 2025. He is Professor of Social Psychology in Society and Director of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge.
Professor Sander van der LindenFAcSS
Sander has won numerous awards for his research on human judgment, communication, and decision-making, including the Rising Star Award from the Association for Psychological Science (APS). He co-developed the award-winning fake news game, Bad News and regularly advises governments, public health authorities, and social media companies on how to combat the spread of misinformation.
Sander is ranked among the top 1% of highly cited social scientists worldwide and has published over 200 research papers. His research is regularly covered in outlets such as the New York Times, BBC, NPR, and Rolling Stone, and he has given expert testimony to the House of Lords about his research on misinformation.
Before joining Cambridge, Sander held academic positions at Princeton, Yale, and the LSE. His is the author of Foolproof: Why We Fall for Misinformation and How to Build Immunity which was named a Nature, Financial Times, and Waterstones Book of the Year and was recipient of the Best Book Prize from the American Psychological Association, the British Psychological Society, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology and the Harvard Shorenstein Centre. His latest book, The Psychology of Misinformation, was a Cambridge Press Book of the Year 2024. Sander is also a member of the UK National Security Risk Assessment, the ONS Citizen Data Advisory Group and the WHO’s Infodemic Alliance.
Why do the social sciences matter?
Many of the world’s most important challenges – from the global spread of disinformation to climate change and intergroup conflict – are fundamentally problems of human behaviour and decision-making. The social sciences can offer important insights about not only how humans interact with each other but also with new technology and our physical and online environments. In sum, if we want to understand and improve society, we need the social sciences.
What inspires you about your work?
I am often inspired by my students who bring fresh and novel ideas to some of society’s biggest problems. I enjoy working on real-world social issues because it offers the opportunity to take basic theories out of the controlled laboratory and test them in the real-world. I often do research that I hope will be in the public interest, such as helping citizens spot manipulation and disinformation and seeing that work be adopted in policy and education to empower future generations is a big source of motivation. I see social science as an opportunity to help create a better world.
What is the most urgent issue social scientists need to tackle today and within the next three years?
One of the major impediments to solving many major societal challenges, whether it’s global climate change, inequality, polarisation, or social conflict, is the spread of mis-and-disinformation. In fact, misinformation is a “meta-risk” that amplifies all other risks in the sense that when people have misconceptions, for example about the reality of climate change, economic policy, or the safety of vaccines, it can derail societal progress on these critical issues. So, for me, it is crucial that we build information resilience in the population which will require tackling the global spread of misinformation and disinformation.
What does being a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences mean to you?
I am incredibly honoured to be elected a Fellow of the Academy. Joining such a long-standing and esteemed society which represents the interests of rigorous social science to help understand and solve some of the world’s biggest problems is a major privilege and I look forward to engaging with the Academy.