Edgar Dubourg

PhD in Cognitive Science (ENS-PSL)

Postdoctoral researcher studying how human motivational preferences shape human behaviors (e.g., health practices) and cultures (e.g., story consumption), combining computational modeling, AI, and large-scale behavioral data.

Institut Curie ENS-PSL Institut Jean Nicod

Research

Motivation & Emotions

Some people love horror, others avoid it. Some are drawn to moral outrage, others to humor. These differences in what engages us emotionally are not random. I study the computational architecture of motivational preferences. In particular, I investigate why these preferences vary across individuals, drawing on personality psychology and behavioral ecology, and how the same high-level motivations can lead to different decisions, building on theories of goal hierarchies.

Selected Publications
Openness to Experience: From Ecology to Culture
Trends in Cognitive Sciences · 2026
Dubourg, E.*, Jach, H.*, Beuchot, T., Smillie, L., Baumard, N.
Vulnerability and the computational logic of fear: insights from the horror genre
Evolution and Human Behavior · 2025
Dubourg, E., Scrivner, C.
Human motivation is organized hierarchically, from proximal (means) to ultimate (ends)
Behavioral and Brain Sciences · 2024 · Commentary
Dubourg, E., Chambon, V., Baumard, N.

Stories & Fiction

Not everyone loves the same stories, and these differences are not random. I study how personality and motivation shape preferences for narratives, imaginary worlds, and other cultural products. Using computational methods and large-scale cultural datasets, I trace how individual-level preferences scale up to cultural change across societies and centuries, from ancient myths to modern entertainment.

Selected Publications
Why Imaginary Worlds? The psychological foundations and cultural evolution of fictions with imaginary worlds
Behavioral and Brain Sciences · 2022 · Target Article
Dubourg, E., Baumard, N.
Exploratory preferences explain the human fascination for imaginary worlds
Scientific Reports · 2023
Dubourg, E., Thouzeau, V., de Dampierre, C., Mogoutov, A., Baumard, N.
Quantifying and explaining the rise of fiction
Evolutionary Human Sciences · 2025
Dubourg, E., Thouzeau, V., Borredon, Q., Baumard, N.

Health & Public Policy

People often know what they should do but don't act on it, a gap that standard public health campaigns fail to close. I apply the same motivational framework to health contexts, developing personalized communication strategies that align messages and treatments with individuals' motivational profiles, with the goal of improving engagement and behavior change.

Selected Publications
Preferred Levels of Agency: The Development and Validation of the Goal Abstraction Preference (GAP) Scale
PsyArXiv · Preprint
Dubourg, E., Chevallier, C., Chambon, V.
Beyond One-Size-Fits-All: Personalising Health Communication to Drive Real Behaviour Change
Submitted
Avenel, J., Chevallier, C., Dubourg, E.
Motivational content features improve tailoring of anti-smoking advertisements
Submitted
Avenel, J., Bidant, E., Pasquereau, A., Guignard, R., Nguyen-Thanh, V., Chevallier, C., Nettle, D., Dubourg, E.
Selected Papers
Why Imaginary Worlds? Exploratory preferences and imaginary worlds Vulnerability and the logic of fear The rise of fiction Nested structure of knowledge DEEP: Gaming preferences Imaginary worlds in history Goal Abstraction Preference Scale Origins of science fiction Curiosity and ecological contexts Cultural annotation by LLMs Fictions as entertainment technologies Hierarchical motivation Insight-seeking and curiosity Imaginary worlds: evolutionary lens Did teddy bears evolve to be cuter? Motivational alignment Is cinema less innovative? Do fictions impact beliefs? Evolution of music Instrumental inference Regulatory variables

Publications

Peer-Reviewed Articles

Openness to Experience: From Ecology to Culture
Dubourg, E.*, Jach, H.*, Beuchot, T., Smillie, L., Baumard, N.
Trends in Cognitive Sciences · 2026 (Accepted)
Vulnerability and the computational logic of fear: Insights from the horror genre
Dubourg, E., Scrivner, C.
Evolution and Human Behavior · 2025
Quantifying and explaining the rise of fiction
Dubourg, E., Thouzeau, V., Borredon, Q., Baumard, N.
Evolutionary Human Sciences · 2025
Charting the rise of imaginary worlds in history
Dubourg, E., Safa, R., Thouzeau, V., Baumard, N.
Humanities and Social Sciences Communications · 2025
People use the nested structure of knowledge to infer what others know
Dubourg, E., Dheilly, T., Morin, O.†, Mercier, H.†
Psychological Science · 2025
Insight-seeking is consistent across domains and distinct from other forms of curiosity
Mercier, M., Dubourg, E., Mercier, H.
Personality and Individual Differences · 2025
Did teddy bears culturally evolve to be cuter? A preregistered replication
Borredon, Q.*, Bulamac, Z.*, (…), Morin, O.†, Dubourg, E.†
Journal of Cognition and Culture · 2025
DEEP: A model of gaming preferences informed by the hierarchical nature of goal-oriented cognition
Dubourg, E., Chambon, V.
Entertainment Computing · 2025
A Step-By-Step Method for Cultural Annotation by LLMs
Dubourg, E., Thouzeau, V., Baumard, N.
Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence · 2024
Does curiosity vary with ecological contexts? A correlational study with socio-economic status
Dubourg, E., Baumard, N.
Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences · 2024
The psychological origins of science fiction
Dubourg, E., Thouzeau, V., Baumard, N.
Poetics · 2024
Exploratory preferences explain the human fascination for imaginary worlds in fictional stories
Dubourg, E., Thouzeau, V., de Dampierre, C., Mogoutov, A., Baumard, N.
Scientific Reports · 2023
Why Imaginary Worlds? The psychological foundations and cultural evolution of fictions with imaginary worlds
Dubourg, E., Baumard, N.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences · 2022 · Target Article
Why and How Did Narrative Fictions Evolve? Fictions as Entertainment Technologies
Dubourg, E., Baumard, N.
Frontiers in Psychology · 2022

Preprints & Submitted

Motivational Alignment, Not Demographic Similarity, Predicts Narrative Interest
Maunoir, P., Chambon, V., Baumard, N., Thouzeau, V., Dubourg, E.
PsyArXiv · 2026
Preferred Levels of Agency: The Development and Validation of the Goal Abstraction Preference (GAP) Scale
Dubourg, E., Chevallier, C., Chambon, V.
PsyArXiv
Beyond One-Size-Fits-All: Personalising Health Communication to Drive Real Behaviour Change
Avenel, J., Chevallier, C., Dubourg, E.
Submitted
Cues of benignity explain why some misfortunes are funny
Hye-Knudsen, M., Dubourg, E.
Under review
Motivational content features improve tailoring of anti-smoking advertisements
Avenel, J., Bidant, E., Pasquereau, A., Guignard, R., Nguyen-Thanh, V., Chevallier, C., Nettle, D., Dubourg, E.
Submitted
Carving Stories at their Natural Joints
Dubourg, E., Thouzeau, V., Beuchot, T., Bonard, C., Boyer, P., Chevallier, C., Clasen, M., Boon-Falleur, M., Fiorio, G., Fitouchi, L., Fisher, M., Gantman, A., Grant, A., Hye-Knudsen, M., Katiyar, T., Kjeldgaard-Christiansen, J., Mercier, M., Mercier, H., Morin, O., Salmon, C., Scott-Phillips, T., Scrivner, C., Sijilmassi, A., Singh, M., Smith, M., Sobchuk, O., Stubbersfield, J., Varnum, M., van Mulukom, V., Verpooten, J., Wylie, J., Zhong, Y., Baumard, N.
Submitted
The Rise of the Morally Ambiguous Protagonist
Abdeljaouad, S., Dubourg, E., Baumard, N.
Submitted
A universal motivational architecture linking personality to story preferences worldwide
Dubourg, E., Thouzeau, V., Freynet, R., Darcy, G., Beuchot, T., Noël, N., Chevallier, C., Baumard, N.
Submitted

Commentaries

Distinguishing regulatory variables and ecological affordances
Dubourg, E., Baumard, N.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences · 2025
Human motivation is organized hierarchically, from proximal (means) to ultimate (ends)
Dubourg, E., Chambon, V., Baumard, N.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences · 2024
Imaginary Worlds through the Evolutionary Lens
Dubourg, E., Baumard, N.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences · 2022 · Target Article
When instrumental inference hides behind seemingly arbitrary conventions
Dubourg, E.†, Fitouchi, L.†, Baumard, N.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences · 2022 · Target Article
The Evolution of Music: One Trait, Many Ultimate-Level Explanations
Dubourg, E., André, J.-B., Baumard, N.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences · 2021
Les mondes imaginaires dans les fictions
Dubourg, E.
Acta Fabula · 2021

Book Chapters & Proceedings

Is Cinema Becoming Less and Less Innovative With Time?
Dubourg, E., Mogoutov, A., Baumard, N.
Proceedings of Computational Humanities Research Conference · 2023
Do fictions impact beliefs? A critical view
Dubourg, E., Baumard, N.
Handbook of Fiction and Belief · 2023
L'origine des fictions : l'hypothèse des fonctions évolutionnaires sociales
Dubourg, E., André, J.-B., Baumard, N.
Fabula LhT · 2021
La Reconnaissance intuitive des fictions
Dubourg, E.
XXI-XX, Reconnaissance littéraire, Classique Garnier · 2020
La Conquête de la Fiction
Dubourg, E.
Romanesques, Classique Garnier · 2020

Presentations

Talks

Personality, Cognition, and Story Preferences Worldwide
French Society for Evolutionary Human Sciences · Montpellier, France · Nov 2025
Why Imaginary Worlds?
Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES) · Aarhus, Denmark · May 2024
Is cinema becoming less and less innovative with time?
Computational Humanities Research (CHR) Conference · Paris, France · Dec 2023
The Cognitive Foundations of Fictional Stories: Further empirical developments
From Evolution to Cognition to Fiction Workshop · ENS-PSL, France · Jun 2023
Leveraging the hierarchical structure of goal-directed cognition to explain the variability of gaming preferences
Forum BrainPlay · Sorbonne Université, France · May 2023
Cognitive mechanisms activated by fiction: A comprehensive framework
European Human Behavior and Evolution Association (EHBEA) · University of London, UK · Apr 2023
A Comprehensive Framework to Study the Psychological Appeal for Narrative Fictions
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History · Jena, Germany · Jun 2022
Exploratory preferences explain the human fascination for imaginary worlds
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History · Jena, Germany · Jun 2022
The cultural evolution of non-existent worlds in fictions
International Society for Fiction and Fictionality Studies (ISFFS) · University of Chicago, online · Mar 2022
The cultural evolution of imaginary worlds
French Society for Evolutionary Human Sciences · Nov 2021
The cultural evolution of imaginary worlds in fictions
Leda Cosmides and John Tooby: Honoring 40 years of innovation · Royaumont, France · Sep 2021
Why Fiction? An evolutionary and cognitive approach
Workshop "Debating Fictions" · UNIL Lausanne / Sorbonne Nouvelle · Nov 2020
L'évolution culturelle de la comédie au cinéma
Colloquium "State of the art of comedy in France" · Université Caen Normandie, France · Mar 2020

Posters

Cognitive mechanisms activated by fiction: A comprehensive framework
French Society for Evolutionary Human Sciences · Toulouse, France · Nov 2022
Experimental evidence suggests that exploratory preferences explain the cultural distribution of fictions with imaginary worlds
European Human Behavior and Evolution Association (EHBEA) · Online · Apr 2022
Why Imaginary Worlds? Exploratory preferences explain the cultural success of fictions with imaginary worlds
Poster Award finalist · Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES) · Online · Jun 2021
Why Imaginary Worlds?
European Brain and Behaviour Society (EBBS) · Online · Sep 2021
Why Imaginary Worlds?
Culture Conference · Online · Jun 2021
The cultural evolution of imaginary worlds
European Human Behavior and Evolution Association (EHBEA) · Online · Mar 2021
Exploratory preferences explain the cultural success of fictions with imaginary worlds
European Human Behavior and Evolution Association (EHBEA) · Online · Mar 2021

Invited Talks

Neuchâtel University
Switzerland · 2025
Royal Holloway, University of London
London, UK · 2023
Central European University
Budapest, Hungary · 2022
Musée de l'Homme
Paris, France · 2022

Book

Histoire naturelle de la fiction

Why do humans invest so much emotion in stories that never happened? Drawing on evolutionary psychology and cognitive science, this book traces the deep origins of our fascination for fiction – from One Piece to Game of Thrones – and shows that these mechanisms emerged long before novels or cinema.

Published September 2025 · HumenSciences

▶ TEDx Talk
Histoire naturelle de la fiction

Outreach

Science Popularization

Ultimate motivations and the strange things we do everyday
Substack · Mar 2026
Engineering Fear: Protagonist Vulnerability and the Evolutionary Design of Horror
HBES Blog · Jan 2026
L'entre deux : une réalité biologique
L'Entre Deux · Sep 2025
L'origine de notre fascination pour les mondes imaginaires
La Recherche · Jun 2024
Why Do Humans Enjoy Fictional Stories?
ProSocial World · Mar 2024
Pourquoi les mondes imaginaires sont-ils de plus en plus populaires ?
The Conversation · Mar 2023

Interviews & Radio

The Psychological Foundations and the Cultural Evolution of Fiction
The Dissenter · 2025
Histoire naturelle de la fiction
France Culture (CQFD) · Dec 2025
Pourquoi aimons-nous la fiction ?
Radio Suisse RTS · Sep 2025
Pourquoi est-on accros aux mondes imaginaires ?
France Inter · Oct 2023
L'attrait pour la fiction
Papier Crayon · 2024
Comment expliquer notre fascination pour les mondes imaginaires ?
ENS-PSL · Mar 2023
Pourquoi sommes-nous fascinés par les fictions ?
TEDx Mines Nancy · Jun 2023

Press Coverage

"Homo sapiens, the storytelling animal"
Roger-Pol Droit · Le Monde des Livres · Sep 2025
Passionnés par Harry Potter ou Star Wars…
Audrey Guiller · Ouest France · Jan 2024
Pourquoi les mondes imaginaires sont-ils de plus en plus populaires ?
Sud Ouest · Oct 2023
Why Are Imaginary Worlds So Appealing?
Livia Dyring · Inspire the Mind · May 2023
Cerveau, socio et fiction
Camille Gaubert · Sciences et Avenir · Apr 2023
Homo Fictionus
Alexandra Pihen · Epsiloon · Feb 2023
¿Por qué son irresistibles los mundos de fantasía?
Jon Gurutz Arranz · El País · Dec 2022
Les mondes imaginaires, refuge des générations désenchantées
Arte (28 minutes) · Dec 2022
Les mondes imaginaires et nous
Lou Héliot · Le 1 des libraires · Nov 2022
Pourquoi nous créons des mondes imaginaires
Marius Mercier · Le Point · Sep 2021

Teaching

Guest Lectures

Student Supervision

T. Alabdeen Ali (2026), N. Noël (2026), M. Mirosavic (2026), P. Maunoir-Guérin (2025–26), E. Bidant (2025), R. Fraynet (2025), N. Ryszfeld (2024), R. Safa (2024), Q. Borredon (2023).

CV

2025–2028

Postdoctoral Fellow

Institut Curie · Health Psychology & AI · PSL–Google · Sup.: V. Chambon

2020–2025

PhD in Cognitive Science

Institut Jean Nicod, ENS-PSL · Sup.: N. Baumard · Cognition Studentship

2017–2019

Master in Literary Theory & Philosophy

ENS-PSL · Highest honors

2012–2015

BA in Human & Social Sciences

Sciences Po Paris

Fundings

2024

PSL–Google "AI for Societal Impact"

Post-doctoral grant · 160k € · Sup.: V. Chambon

2024

ANR Collaborative Research

Named collaborator · Measuring Agency in Gamified Interactive Contexts · 340k € · PI: V. Chambon, C. Chevallier

2020

Frontiers in Cognition Studentship

Fully funded 5-year PhD

Reviewing (selection)

Nature, Humanities & Social Sciences Communications, Behavioral & Brain Sciences, Evolutionary Human Sciences, Evolutionary Studies in Imaginary Culture, Review of Philosophy and Psychology, Personality and Individual Differences, Empirical Studies of the Arts, PLOS ONE, American Journal of Psychology, Poetics, Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences.

Contact

edgar.dubourg@gmail.com Google Scholar Twitter / X Substack Bluesky LinkedIn