Uploading myself to the world.

Xianglu (TJ) TANG

Hi, I'm Xianglu/TJ 🌊

I'm a psychology researcher exploring how AI can support—not suppress—human agency. At Stanford HAI and Columbia Business School, I study voice, power, and value alignment in algorithmic systems, focusing on how AI can deliver timely, tailored, and targeted interventions in ethical and context-aware ways. I'm also deeply interested in culture and identity—particularly how narratives and perceived scarcity shape behavior across cultural contexts.

Curious about why I named TJ and why I do research, here!

Human Agency & AI

Voice & Power Dynamics

Value Alignment

Culture & Identity

Chat with Xianglu

Ask me anything about my research, psychology, or life!

Hi there! 👋 I'm Xianglu. Feel free to ask me anything about my research in psychology, AI, or just have a casual chat!

Research Projects

Meta-Analysis

Stanford: AI Depression Detection Meta-Analysis

Meta-analytic evaluation of depression detection from social media data, examining pooled predictive accuracy and ethical considerations for real-world deployment. Screened 4,361 records and analyzed 67 eligible studies.

Feb 2025-Present Stanford HAI

AI & Psychology

Stanford: Ubiquitous Well-being & Patchable AI

Runtime-adaptive architecture enabling timely, targeted psychological interventions that can be injected without retraining large language models. Synthesizing ubiquitous computing and intervention science principles.

Feb 2025-Present Stanford HAI

AI & Education

Stanford: SheRockets Child-Safe AI

Child-safe, web-based GenAI experience featuring a female engineer tutor for K-12 girls. Discrete-choice conjoint study with 125 parents examining design attributes and preferences for AI-powered STEM learning tools.

Feb 2025-Present Stanford HAI

AI & Crisis Intervention

Stanford: LLMs for Crisis Detection

Evaluating 30 models across suicide risk detection and dynamic intervention timing. Two-phase evaluation with expert blind review and stakeholder-centered assessment of AI responses in high-risk contexts.

Feb 2025-Present Stanford HAI

AI & Negotiation

Columbia: ACE Negotiation Coaching

LLM-based Assistant for Coaching nEgotiation (ACE) with specialized feedback for underrepresented groups. Testing effectiveness across different conditions and examining identity salience effects on AI coaching gains.

Mar 2024-Present Columbia Business School

Social Psychology

Columbia: Power Dynamics & Ethics

Examining how leaders approaching the end of their tenure engage in compensatory unethical behavior. Analysis of congressional candidates and corruption patterns revealing the "age 59 effect" in Chinese officials.

Mar 2024-Present Columbia Business School

Charity Research

Adream NGO: Charity Narratives

Senior thesis exploring how emotional narratives affect donations and perceptions of charity competence. Analysis of NGO programs and experimental study comparing emotional narratives with factual reports.

Feb 2024-Present First-Ranked Thesis

Education Research

Adream NGO: Teacher Empowerment

Field experiment testing belonging interventions and curriculum scaffolding for volunteer teachers in under-resourced schools. Examining psychological and structural levers to improve teacher persistence.

Feb 2024-Present Ongoing Research

Cross-Cultural Psychology

Independent: Perceived Scarcity Scale China

Cross-cultural validation of the Perceived Scarcity Scale in China, focusing on subjective scarcity perceptions rather than income. Examining cultural differences in social desirability and competitive environments.

May 2024-Present Independent Research

Cognitive Psychology

Independent: Mindfulness & Cognitive Fatigue

Investigating how dispositional mindfulness enhances cognitive resilience by offsetting fatigue's impact on learning capacity. Crossover design study with meditation-naive students using implicit learning tasks.

Jul 2023-Jan 2024 Published Research

Sports Psychology

Research Assistant: Basketball Mindfulness

Effects of brief mindfulness training on "quiet eye" duration and shooting accuracy in college basketball players. Eye-tracking study using Tobii Pro Glasses 2 to measure performance under pressure.

Jun 2022-Jan 2023 Research Assistant

View All Research

Teaching Experience

BNBU Advanced Data Analysis for Psychology

Invited Lecturer May 2025

Delivered a structured 90-minute lecture introducing AI applications in psychological research, including hands-on tasks (e.g., GPT as participant, rater, coder)

Designed four interactive modules covering data cleaning, preprocessing, vignette-based prompt testing, and LLM reliability evaluation

Introduced cutting-edge LLM tools (e.g., GPT‑4o, Gemini, Claude, DeepSeek) and guided students in applying them to classic experimental paradigms

Emphasized critical AI literacy, replicability, and bias awareness in human-AI interaction

BNBU Open Project (Charity Course)

Teaching Assistant February 2024 - June 2024

Optimized course content focused on understanding charity, doing good effectively, and protecting one's rights; managed course administration and provided regular feedback to students

Integrated anthropological perspectives into the curriculum to understand the lives of sex workers, emphasizing equality and avoiding elitist attitudes

Conducted field observations in communities to understand the resources available to sex workers, promoting empathy and equality in helping others

Co-led students in delivering anti-bullying workshops to middle school students, using value affirmation intervention; assisted in refining surveys to measure the effectiveness of educational interventions

Publications

* indicates research assistants under my supervision

Submitted Papers

Tang, X., Jin, Z.*, Ma, E., & Li, X. (2025). AI in the wild: A meta-analytic evaluation of depression detection from social media data. Manuscript submitted for review to the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), AI for Social Impact (AISI) Track, full paper.

Published Papers

Li, X., Tang, X., Ma, E., & Cohen, G. (2025, October). Ubiquitous well-being: Patchable AI unites computing and psychological science. Companion of the 2025 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp Companion'5). DOI: 10.1145/3714394.3754377

Conference Presentations

Tang, X., Ma, E., Li, X., & Cohen, G. (2025, November). High Performance, High Risk? A Meta‑analytic Audit (2022-2025) of Social-Media Depression Models and Their Ethical Gaps. Computational Social Science Conference (CSS 2025), Santa Fe, NM.

Ma, L., Tang, X., & Li, X. (2025, November). The questions we ask to heal: A computational analysis of mindful writing prompts across a decade (2016–2025). Computational Social Science Conference (CSS 2025), Santa Fe, NM.

Zhang, C., Ma, L., Tang, X., & Li, X. (2025, November). Building research-ready textual datasets at scale: An LLM case study on mindfulness prompts. Computational Social Science Conference (CSS 2025), Santa Fe, NM.

Conference Posters

Jin, Z.*, Tang, X., Li, X., & Cohen, G.L. (2026, February). Deep Learning-Based Depression Detection from Social Media: Comparative Evaluation of ML and Transformer Techniques. SPSP Preconvention, Chicago, IL.

Hu, S.*, Tang, X., Li, X., & Cohen, G.L. (2026, February). How AI Reframes Human Distress: A Social-Psychological Analysis of Language Shifts by Large Language Models. SPSP Preconvention, Chicago, IL.

Liu, X.L., Tang, X., Wang Y., Shea. R., Yu. Z., & Morris, M.W. (2025, February). ACEing Negotiation: Empowering Minorities through an AI Coaching Agent. SPSP Preconvention, Denver, CO.

Liu, X.L., Wang Y., Tang, X., Li, H.J., Morris, M.W., & Galinsky, A.D. (2025, February). Lame Ducks and Loose Ethics: Proximity to Term Limits Tempts Officials to Sell Out. SPSP Preconvention, Denver, CO.

Tang, X. & Zheng, M. (2025, February). Cross-Cultural Validation of Perceived Scarcity in China. SPSP Preconvention, Denver, CO. • Winner of Free Registration (Only 3 each year)

Tang, X., Wu, Y., Ma, J.*, Zheng, M. & Chen, R. (2025, February). The Storytelling Dilemma: Emotional Narratives Increase Donations but Weaken Perceptions of Competence. SPSP Annual Convention, Denver, CO.

Tang, X. & Chen, R. (2024, May). Dispositional mindfulness improves implicit learning under cognitive depletion. Association for Psychological Science Annual Convention, San Francisco, CA.

Chen, K., Tang, X., & Chen, R. (2023, August). Does mindfulness inhibit implicit sequence learning: A preliminary inquiry? American Psychological Association Annual Convention, Washington, DC.

Chen, J., Tang, X., & Chen, R. (2023, August). Effects of brief mindfulness training on quiet eye in basketball free throw under pressure. American Psychological Association Annual Convention, Washington, DC.

Recent Blog Posts

Research Toolkit

Building Your Own Research Toolkit—My Playbook

A personal research diary and mini-origin story about creating your own research opportunities, from spotting real-world problems to fearless outreach and cultivating sisu.

December 15, 2024 Read More

Travel

Falling Hard for Finland

A love letter to the land of a thousand lakes, where kindness meets authenticity. From Santa Claus Uber drivers to gentle shop owners, discover the magic of Finnish culture.

December 20, 2024 Read More

AI Research

The Ecological-Psychology Comeback of AI

AI is rediscovering J.J. Gibson's ecological psychology—where perception is action, and the environment teaches us what's possible. From DeepSeek OCR to Meta's affordance maps.

December 22, 2024 Read More

Personal Growth

Becoming TJ: A Journey of Self-Discovery

A reflective exploration of personal transformation and growth, documenting the journey of becoming the person I aspire to be through research, mentorship, and continuous learning.

Coming Soon Read More

View All Posts

My Hobbies & Interests

Fishing

Finding peace and patience by the water, connecting with nature while waiting for the perfect catch to refresh my mind.

Stand-up Comedy

Enjoying the art of humor and storytelling through stand-up comedy shows, appreciating the wit and creativity of comedians.

Dancing

I choreograph and perform contemporary dance, jazz, and hip-hop, expressing myself through movement and rhythm while connecting with the beat.

Traveling & Hiking

Exploring new cultures, cuisines, and landscapes around the world, with Hawaii being my absolute favorite destination for its stunning nature and hiking trails.

Music

My favorite singer is Khalil Fong (方大同), the soulful R&B artist from Hawaii who creates beautiful music blending Chinese and Western influences.

Annual Favorites

📚 Favorite Article of the Year

PNAS: An exploration of basic human values in 38 million obituaries over 30 years

Being remembered is a truly blessed thing. What do you hope to be remembered for? What is it that you've always wanted to show others, that you've been waiting for? I think the best moment is actually right now.

Read the full article

📖 Favorite Books of the Year

Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up

By Jerry Colonna

This book helped me get through the darkest moments of my life, no longer afraid of injustice and evil people. Thank you Alice Li for recommending it to me. This also made me become a better mentor afterwards.

Learn More

The Mushroom at the End of the World

By Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing

Essential reading for anthropology beginners, a profound reflection on progressivism and neoliberalism. Anyone interested in cultural psychology will love this book. I'm still reading and re-reading it, constantly understanding new layers. It makes me reflect on the slogan 'dreams wake us up.' I hope we can all live abundant, boundless lives.

Learn More

Tao Te Ching

By Lao Tzu

Essential reading for the path from art to Tao. If you're interested in Chinese language or Chinese culture, this is a must-read. I hope everyone can be effortless, focusing only on what's in front of them, just doing it well.

Learn More

The Inner Game of Tennis

By W. Timothy Gallwey

This was my first introduction to sports psychology, closely related to my first independent research. It was also the first time I realized the impact of mindset and self-dialogue on a person. It has benefited me for life. Because of this, I've reduced much of my competitive consciousness and focused on myself and the present moment. My mantra is: there's no one else on the court.

Learn More

🎬 Favorite Movies

Her

By Spike Jonze

"The past is just a story we tell ourselves." - I would call this a prophecy of the future. And the director is so good at directing.

Learn More

Kung Fu Panda Series

By DreamWorks Animation

"Your story may not have such a happy beginning, but that doesn't make you who you are. It is the rest of your story, who you choose to be" - It's hard to imagine this was made by non-Chinese creators. I think it's really Chinese. Always an empowering movie series for me.

Learn More

Arrival

By Denis Villeneuve

"So, Hannah... This is where your story begins. The day they departed. Despite knowing the journey... and where it leads... I embrace it. And I welcome every moment of it." - I saw this movie in 2016, and it's hard to describe how it has run through my life (nearly 10 years so far). I began to believe that time might not exist. Language is the boundary of how we perceive the world and think about time. Perhaps things don't happen in chronological order, but our language limits how we understand the world. But I learned to accept how things happen. We are like turkeys in a farmer's farm, we might be fish in a pond. In short, it's a mind-blowing story.

Learn More

Get In Touch

Contact Information

Email

xianglutang111@gmail.com

Location

Stanford Center at Peking University

Academic Affiliation

Stanford Human-Centered AI Institute

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