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Contact information:
Email: joao.santos@ispa.pt
Personal website: joao-o-santos.gitlab.io
ORCID: 0000-0001-6640-126X
GitLab: gitlab.com/joao-o-santos
GitHub: github.com/Joao-O-Santos
Assistant Professor at ISPA with a background in social psychology. My PhD research focused on how adults perceive children as a social category. I enjoy connecting philosophy of science with research methods, statistics, and data analysis across my research, teaching, and quantitative consulting. I also develop open-source software to support more reproducible research workflows.
Assistant Professor at ISPA — 2023–present
Independent Consultant, research methods, statistics, and data analysis — 2021–present
Selected consulting projects:
Teaching Assistant, Faculdade de Psicologia, Universidade de Lisboa (FPUL) — 2023–2024
Visiting Assistant in Research, Yale University, Department of Psychology — February–March 2019. Full-time appointment under Yarrow Dunham.
PhD, Social Psychology (2024), Faculdade de Psicologia, Universidade de Lisboa (FPUL). Thesis: “You’re too young to understand”: Investigating childist beliefs and practices. Supervisors: Sara Hagá (FPUL), Leonel Garcia-Marques (FPUL), and Yarrow Dunham (Yale University).
MSc, Applied Social Cognition (2017), Faculdade de Psicologia, Universidade de Lisboa (FPUL). Thesis: Do we infrahumanize our children? Supervisor: Sara Hagá (FPUL).
BSc, Psychological Sciences (2015), Faculdade de Psicologia, Universidade de Lisboa (FPUL).
Daniela Correia Guerreiro, MSc in Neuropsychology, Universidade Católica Portuguesa (Lisbon) — co-supervisor, 2026 (ongoing). Thesis: The Role of Declarative Memory in Pain Memory Bias and Subsequent Pain. Co-supervisor with Rita Canaipa.
PhD Fellowship, Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) — PD/BD/135465/2017.
Garcia-Marques, T., Lapa, A., & Santos, J. O. (in press). Why we should stop being prejudiced against non-representative samples: The myth of the representative sample. Collabra: Psychology.
Soares, S., Santos, J. O., Simão, C., Gonçalves, M., Barata, R., Jerónimo, R., & Kolinsky, R. (2026). Tell me how: Teaching science with narration vs. exposition. Learning and Instruction, 106, 102436. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2026.102436
Santos, J. O., Do Bú, E., Hara, T., Mendonça, C., Hagá, S., Pogacar, R., & Kouril, M. (2026). Implicit association tests for all: Using iatgen for non-English and offline samples. PLOS ONE, 21(4), e0342742. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0342742
Santos, J. O., & Mendonça, C. (2026). How Much Did They Move? Measuring Attitude Change in Persuasion Research [In preparation].
Hagá, S., & Santos, J. O. (in preparation). Humanness and Valence Norms for Portuguese Words.
Hagá, S., & Santos, J. O. (in preparation). Regarding children as less human than adults.
tr.iatgen — R package co-developed with Michal Kouril for adapting
iatgen-generated Qualtrics QSF files for non-English samples. Described in
Santos et al. (2026).
NRB — initiated and primarily develop and maintain this open collection of European Portuguese teaching materials on research methods, statistics, R, and scientific writing, with contributions and review from RUGGED colleagues. https://rggd.gitlab.io/nrb
RUGGED (2021–) — co-created this informal R user group
for people working and studying in psychology and related fields; led much of
its initial setup and continue to maintain parts of its infrastructure and
related projects.
pi-sych — a small package built around Pi to make longer LLM-assisted projects easier to organise and review, using files to keep important project information explicit. Source · Documentation
pi-filler — deterministic DOCX/PDF tooling for Pi. Source
Other Pi tools — small open-source tools for LLM-assisted work, including pi-pew-pew, pi-lease, and pi-auch, collected in J’s Pi Bakery.
SciOps — initiated templates and practices for reproducible and transparent research workflows; later extended by two QHELP students I mentored in 2023.
SPGrow 360 (2021–2023) — Collaborated with Sérgio Moreira on an R/Shiny application for automatic generation of 360-degree worker social-performance evaluation reports.
QHELP (2022–2023) — mentored a student group during the Padua mobility in
2022; in Arrifana in 2023, helped organize the event, taught git/GitLab and
SciOps sessions, and mentored the SciOps student project.
LiSP PhD programme website (2017–2021) — Helped maintain the programme’s existing website alongside other LiSP students.
Santos, J. O., Almeida, F. de., Mendonça, C., Melita, V., & Hildred, K. (2026, April). Would You Like to Update Now? Depends on Who’s Asking — Human or AI? Invited talk at III Jornadas de Psicologia Social e das Organizações, ISPA, Lisbon, Portugal.
Santos, J. O., Almeida, F. de., Mendonça, C., Melita, V., & Hildred, K. (2026, March). Would You Like to Update Now? Depends on Who’s Asking — Human or AI? 20º Encontro da Associação Portuguesa de Psicologia Experimental (APPE), UMinho, Braga, Portugal.
Santos, J. O., Hagá, S., & Garcia-Marques, L. (2025, May). Questões e Respostas, Filosóficas e Práticas, Sobre a Crise de Replicabilidade. XII Simpósio Nacional de Investigação em Psicologia (SNIP), FPCE-UP, Porto, Portugal.
Santos, J. O., Hagá, S., & Garcia-Marques, L. (2023, March-April). Questions, Answers, Problems, and Suggestions For the Replication Crisis. 17º Encontro da Associação Portuguesa de Psicologia Experimental (APPE), FPUL, Lisbon, Portugal.
Santos, J. O., Hagá, S., Ricoca-Peixoto, M., & Garcia-Marques, L. (2022, June). Childism: Idadismo dirigido a crianças. SNIP XI Simpósio Nacional de Investigação em Psicologia, Universidade de Trás-Os-Montes e Alto Douro, Vila Real, Portugal.
Santos, J. O., Garcia-Marques, L., & Hagá, S. (2022, March). How Philosophy of Science Can Help Us Sort Out the Replication Crisis. JIP22, FPUL, Lisbon, Portugal.
Santos, J. O., Hagá, S., Dunham, Y., & Garcia-Marques, L. (2021, September). What and how do we think of children? Are we discriminating them? ESCON 2021 Transfer of Knowledge Conference, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria (Online).
Santos, J. O., Garcia-Marques, L., & Hagá, S. (2021, May). Sorting Out the Replication Crisis with Philosophy of Science. XVI PhD Meeting in Psychology, ISCTE-IUL, Lisbon, Portugal (Online).
Santos, J. O., Hagá, S., & Garcia-Marques, L. (2020, February). Innocent until proven child? Adults expect children to commit more mishaps than adults, but can restrain these expectations. To be presented at the International APPE-SEPEX Meeting, University of Algarve, Portugal. (Conference canceled).
Hagá, S. & Santos, J. O. (2020, June–July). Perceiving Children as Less Human Than Adults. To be presented at the 19th General Meeting of the EASP, University of Kraków, Poland. (Conference canceled).
Santos, J. O., Hagá, S., Dunham, Y., & Garcia-Marques, L. (2020, June–July). What is acceptable? An age old question…quantitative and qualitative evidence of discrimination against children. To be presented at the 19th General Meeting of the EASP, University of Kraków, Poland. (Conference canceled).
Hagá, S., & Santos, J. O. (2019, September). Of mice and boys: Perceiving children as less human than adults. 21st ESCON Transfer of Knowledge Conference, University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France
Santos, J. O., Hagá, S., & Garcia-Marques, L. (2019, May). How do we stereotype and feel about children and adults? XV PhD Meeting in Social and Organizational Psychology, ISCTE-IUL, Lisbon, Portugal.
Santos, J. O., & Hagá, S. (2018, May). We need to talk…about childism: Perceived acceptability of discriminatory statements targeting children. XIV PhD Meeting in Social and Organizational Psychology, ISCTE-IUL, Lisbon, Portugal.
Hagá, S., & Santos, J. O. (2018, April). Perceiving children as less human than adults. 13º Encontro da Associação Portuguesa de Psicologia Experimental (APPE), Braga, Portugal.
Santos, J. O. & Hagá, S. (2017, March). Do we infrahumanize our children? Dia do Jovem Investigador em Psicologia (DJIP), FPUL, Lisbon, Portugal.
Melita, V., Almeida, F. de., Mendonça, C., Santos, J. O., & Hildred, K. (2026, March). It’s Not You, It’s AI Aversion: No Label Can Fix a Trust Problem. 20º Encontro da Associação Portuguesa de Psicologia Experimental (APPE), UMinho, Braga, Portugal.
Santos, J. O., Do Bú, E. A., Hara, T., Mendonça, C., Hagá, S., Pogacar, R., & Kouril, M. (2025, April). Implicit Association Tests for All: Using iatgen for Non-English and Offline Samples. 19º Encontro da Associação Portuguesa de Psicologia Experimental (APPE), FPCEUP, Porto, Portugal.
Santos, J. O., Hagá, S., & Garcia-Marques, L. (2021, April). Innocent until proven child? Adults' assumptions about children’s and adults' behaviors. 15º Encontro da Associação Portuguesa de Psicologia Experimental (APPE), ISPA, Lisbon, Portugal (Online).
Santos, J. O., Hagá, S., & Garcia-Marques, L. (2019, May). Children are curious and adults are responsible: Stereotypes and feelings towards children and adults. 14º Encontro da Associação Portuguesa de Psicologia Experimental (APPE), FPCE-UÉvora, Évora, Portugal.
Ricoca-Peixoto, M., Hagá, S., Santos, J. O., & Garrido, M. P., (2019, May). Would you rather meet a childlike adult or an adultlike child? Childlike and adultlike as attributes in person perception. XIV PhD Meeting in Social and Organizational Psychology, ISCTE-IUL, Lisbon, Portugal.
Ricoca-Peixoto, M., Hagá, S., Santos, J. O., & Garrido, M. P., (2019, May). A criança e o adulto dentro de nós, vistos de fora: Percepção de pessoas descritas como “muito crianças” ou “muito adultas”. 14º Encontro da Associação Portuguesa de Psicologia Experimental (APPE), FPCE-UÉvora, Évora, Portugal.
Santos, J. O., Hagá, S., & Garcia-Marques, L. (2018, June). Childism is no child’s play: Experimental and anecdotal evidence of discrimination against children. Future of Social Cognition workshop, East Anglia, England.
Santos, J. O., & Hagá, S. (2018, April). While you’re young it’s acceptable: Perceived acceptability of discriminatory statements targeting children. 13º Encontro da Associação Portuguesa de Psicologia Experimental (APPE), Braga, Portugal.
Santos, J. O., & Hagá, S. (2017, June). Are children perceived as less human than adults? XIII PhD Meeting in Social and Organizational Psychology, Lisbon, Portugal.
Santos, J. O., & Hagá, S. (2017, May). Wild children and civilized adults: Studies on the infrahumanization of children. 12º Encontro da Associação Portuguesa de Psicologia Experimental (APPE), Porto, Portugal.
2023: SciOps: Next-Level OpenScience? Workshop presented at the QHELP 2023 Mobility event, Arrifana, Portugal
2023: git and GitLab. Workshop presented at the QHELP 2023 Mobility
event, Arrifana, Portugal
2022: Openness & Community: Catalysts for Quality Ethical Science. Workshop presented at a QHELP Multiplier event, at the University of Lisbon - Department of Psychology. (Co-author: Inês Ramalhete)
2021: Modelos Multinível no R: Uma Missão ImPossível. Invited
Workshop at the University of Lisbon - Department of Psychology.
2020: O que é e como se faz a ciência? Dicas para produtores e consumidores. Workshop presented at the Dezember Workshops at the University of Lisbon - Department of Psychology.
2020: Um novo robô de cozinha: o R! Utilização e receitas básicas. Workshop presented at the Dezember Workshops at the University of Lisbon - Department of Psychology.
2017: Workshop on mouse-tracking, Invited Workshop at the University of Lisbon - Department of Psychology (Main author: Sara Hagá)
Volunteer Mentor, GAPE, Faculdade de Psicologia, Universidade de Lisboa — 2017–2019 (two annual mentoring cycles). Professional/career mentoring of undergraduate students.
4th LiSP Annual Meeting, Universidade de Lisboa — 2020. Member of the local PhD-student organizing team.
ISPA — Instituto Universitário de Ciências Psicológicas, Sociais e da Vida
Faculdade de Psicologia, Universidade de Lisboa
Associação Portuguesa de Psicologia Experimental (APPE) - Member since 2018
Associação Portuguesa de Psicologia (APP) - Member since 2025
2022: QHelp, one week intensive seminar in quantitative thinking, statistics (including R and Shiny apps) at KU Leuven (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)
2019-2021: WriteOn, Scientific Writing Workshop at the University of Lisbon - Department of Psychology
2019: Analyzing discourse and communication for understanding socio-psychological processes at ISCTE-IUL
2018: X Summer School In Advanced Methods Of Data Analysis, at the University of Lisbon - Department of Social Sciences (ICS-UL)
Introduction to Quantitative Analysis
Multivariate Analysis (in R) at the University of Lisbon
Structural Equation Modeling (in R)
2018: Introduction to E-Prime: From the design of the experiment to data management and processing at ISCTE-IUL
2018: Qualitative data analysis with NVivo 11 at ISCTE-IUL
2018: Systematic literature review and meta-analysis in Psychology at ISCTE-IUL
2018: Moderated Mediation at ISCTE-IUL
2018: Publishing empirical articles that have information value at ISCTE-IUL
2017: Techniques of Data Analysis I at ISPA
Quantitative research and analysis: R, statistical modelling, data visualisation, experimental and survey methods, reproducible analysis and reporting.
Research tools and workflows: Git, Linux, shell/command-line workflows, Make, CI/CD, Quarto, R Markdown, Pandoc, and LaTeX.
Research software: experience developing and maintaining R packages, R/Shiny applications, research and teaching tools, small TypeScript/Node tools, and LLM-assisted research and development workflows.
Portuguese (native speaker)
English (fluent)
French (basic comprehension)
Spanish (basic comprehension)
Latin (very basic comprehension; personal interest)
Copyright (c) 2026 João O. Santos, licensed
under
CC-BY-ND-4.0