ACCEPT Lab

Applied causal and cultural evidence for policy targeting

ACCEPT Lab is a research group within the School of Psychological Sciences at Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington, and is affiliated with the Centre for Applied Cross-Cultural Research (CACR).

Why Causality?

Does participation in an after-school tutoring programme cause better marks? Simple observation might show participants have higher scores, but those students might also be more motivated or have more supportive families. Distinguishing intervention effects from background differences is the central challenge of evaluation. At ACCEPT Lab, we use causal inference and machine learning to estimate whether interventions work, for whom they work, and under which conditions. This work supports clear decisions in psychological science and public policy.

Why Culture?

Policy effects vary across cultural settings. Religious identity, belief, practice, and community structure can change both exposure to interventions and responses to them. Studying variation in religion is therefore essential for external validity and responsible policy targeting. ACCEPT Lab combines causal methods with cross-cultural evidence to explain when findings travel across groups and when they do not.

What We Do

We study causal questions in the social sciences using observational and experimental data.

We teach practical causal methods through coursework, workshops, and supervision.

We collaborate with researchers and communities to produce evidence for policy targeting.

What We Study

Places Map Infrastructure

We maintain Places Map, an open research infrastructure for studying places of worship and cultural context. The project supports reproducible spatial analysis for policy targeting and public scholarship. Code and data workflows are maintained in the places-of-worship repository.

Application Domains

We study volunteering and charity, institutional trust, political psychology, personality, health and well-being, meaning and purpose, spirituality, and religion.

Recent Work

Visit our Presentations section to explore recent research talks and workshops.

Start Here

Visit our about page for methods, resources, and contact details.

Collaborate

If you would like to collaborate or discuss opportunities, email us directly or visit the about page.

Email: joseph.bulbulia@vuw.ac.nz

Updates

Stay updated with our latest research, publications, and events in the news section.

--- title: "ACCEPT Lab" body-classes: home --- ::: {.hero} <h1 class="hero-title">ACCEPT Lab</h1> <p class="hero-subtitle">Applied causal and cultural evidence for policy targeting</p> ::: ACCEPT Lab is a research group within the [School of Psychological Sciences](https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/psyc) at Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington, and is affiliated with the [Centre for Applied Cross-Cultural Research (CACR)](https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/cacr). ## Why Causality? Does participation in an after-school tutoring programme *cause* better marks? Simple observation might show participants have higher scores, but those students might also be more motivated or have more supportive families. Distinguishing intervention effects from background differences is the central challenge of evaluation. At ACCEPT Lab, we use causal inference and machine learning to estimate whether interventions work, for whom they work, and under which conditions. This work supports clear decisions in psychological science and public policy. ## Why Culture? Policy effects vary across cultural settings. Religious identity, belief, practice, and community structure can change both exposure to interventions and responses to them. Studying variation in religion is therefore essential for external validity and responsible policy targeting. ACCEPT Lab combines causal methods with cross-cultural evidence to explain when findings travel across groups and when they do not. ## What We Do We study causal questions in the social sciences using observational and experimental data. We teach practical causal methods through coursework, workshops, and supervision. We collaborate with researchers and communities to produce evidence for policy targeting. ## What We Study ### Causal Methods in Social Science We state clear causal questions, then build doubly robust models to answer them. We use causal forests to estimate heterogeneous treatment effects, and we study longitudinal modified treatment policies for multi-exposure settings. ### Places Map Infrastructure We maintain [Places Map](https://www.placesmap.org/), an open research infrastructure for studying places of worship and cultural context. The project supports reproducible spatial analysis for policy targeting and public scholarship. Code and data workflows are maintained in the [places-of-worship repository](https://github.com/go-bayes/places-of-worship). ### Application Domains We study volunteering and charity, institutional trust, political psychology, personality, health and well-being, meaning and purpose, spirituality, and religion. ## Recent Work Visit our [Presentations](presentations.qmd) section to explore recent research talks and workshops. ## Start Here Visit our [about](about.qmd) page for methods, resources, and contact details. ## Collaborate If you would like to collaborate or discuss opportunities, email us directly or visit the [about](about.qmd) page. [Email: joseph.bulbulia@vuw.ac.nz](mailto:joseph.bulbulia@vuw.ac.nz){.btn .btn-primary} --- ::: {.callout-note} ## Updates Stay updated with our latest research, publications, and events in the [news](news.qmd) section. :::