Lou Safra est titulaire d'un doctorat en sciences cognitives délivré par l'École Normale Supérieure, Paris en 2017. Elle est actuellement professeur assistant en psychologie politique au CEVIPOF-Sciences Po et chercheur associé à l'Institut d'Études Cognitives (Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives & Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives et Computationnelles, École Normale Supérieure, Paris).

Lou s'intéresse aux mécanismes cognitifs qui sous-tendent les comportements sociaux et politiques, notamment le choix du leader et la coopération. En particulier, elle adopte une approche écologique et évolutive pour mieux comprendre les différences interindividuelles dans ces domaines, à travers l'espace et le temps. Pour ce faire, elle s'appuie sur des données comportementales, des enquêtes sociales, la modélisation informatique et, plus récemment, l'analyse d'artefacts culturels tels que des peintures et des livres. 

• Friederike Richter, Cyrille Thiébaut, Lou Safra. Not just by means alone: why the evolution of distribution shapes matters for understanding opinion dynamics. The case of the French reaction to the war in Ukraine. Frontiers in Political Science, 2024, 6, ⟨10.3389/fpos.2024.1327662⟩. ⟨hal-04450073⟩
• Amine Sijilmassi, Lou Safra, Nicolas Baumard. ‘Our Roots Run Deep’: Historical Myths as Culturally Evolved Technologies for Coalitional Recruitment. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2024, pp.1-44. ⟨10.1017/S0140525X24000013⟩. ⟨hal-04568963⟩
• Lou Safra. Laboratory Experimentation. LIEPP Methods Brief n°26, 2023, 5 p. ⟨hal-04159031⟩
• Lou Safra. Expérimentation en laboratoire. LIEPP Fiche méthodologique n°25, 2023, 5 p. ⟨hal-04159011⟩
• Cyrille Thiebaut, Friederike Richter, Lou Safra. Saisir les opinions au-delà de la moyenne : La perception des enjeux de défense en France dans le contexte de la guerre en Ukraine. 2023. ⟨hal-04146058⟩
• Cyrille Thiébaut, Friederike Richter, Lou Safra. Etudier l'évolution des opinions au-delà des moyennes : le cas des perceptions des enjeux de défense en France dans le contexte de la guerre en Ukraine. 2022. ⟨hal-03860522⟩
• Lou Safra, N. Lettinga, Pierre Olivier Jacquet, Coralie Chevallier. Variability in repeated economic games: comparing trust game decisions to other social trust measures. Royal Society Open Science, 2022, 9 (9), pp.210213. ⟨10.1098/rsos.210213⟩. ⟨hal-03837372⟩
• Klaudia B Ambroziak, Lou Safra, Manos Tsakiris. Non-political anger shifts political preferences towards stronger leaders. Scientific Reports, 2022, 12 (1), pp.11766. ⟨10.1038/s41598-022-15765-8⟩. ⟨hal-03860416⟩
• Nicolas Baumard, Elise Huillery, Alexandre Hyafil, Lou Safra. The cultural evolution of love in literary history. Nature Human Behaviour, 2022, 6 (4), pp.506-522. ⟨10.1038/s41562-022-01292-z⟩. ⟨hal-03860431v2⟩
• Hugo Mell, Lou Safra, Perline Demange, Yann Algan, Nicolas Baumard, et al.. Early life adversity is associated with diminished social trust in adults. Political Psychology, 2022, 43 (2), pp.317-335. ⟨10.1111/pops.12756⟩. ⟨ijn_03472762⟩
• N. Baumard, Élise Huillery, Alexandre Hyafil, Lou Safra. The cultural evolution of love in literary history. Nature Human Behaviour, 2022, 6. ⟨hal-03908470⟩
• Cyrille Thiébaut, Friederike Richter, Lou Safra. Does information increase opinion quality? The differential effects of information on the quality of opinions towards defence issues 1. American Political Science Association Conference, Sep 2021, Seattle (Online), United States. ⟨hal-03860540⟩
• Ruben T Azevedo, Sophie de Beukelaer, Isla Jones, Lou Safra, Manos Tsakiris. When the lens is too wide: The political consequences of the visual dehumanization of refugees. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 2021, 8 (1), pp.115. ⟨10.1057/s41599-021-00786-x⟩. ⟨hal-03860445⟩
• Lou Safra, Amine Sijilmassi, Coralie Chevallier. Poverty and Threat Reactivity. 2022. ⟨hal-03860491⟩
• L. Safra, A. Sijilmassi, C. Chevallier. Disease, perceived infectability and threat reactivity: A COVID-19 study. Personality and Individual Differences, 2021, 180, pp.110945. ⟨10.1016/j.paid.2021.110945⟩. ⟨hal-03860435⟩
• Annabelle Lever, Lou Safra. Rethinking the Epidemiogenic Power of Modern Western Societies. Frontiers in Sociology, 2021, 6, pp.638777. ⟨10.3389/fsoc.2021.638777⟩. ⟨hal-03551816⟩
• Guillaume Dezecache, Jean-Rémy Martin, Cédric Tessier, Lou Safra, Victor Pitron, et al.. Nature and determinants of social actions during a mass shooting. PLoS ONE, 2021, 16 (12), pp.e0260392. ⟨10.1371/journal.pone.0260392⟩. ⟨hal-03517025⟩
• Lou Safra, Nicolas Baumard, Coralie Chevallier. Why would anyone elect a narcissistic untrustworthy leader? A behavioural ecology approach. 2020. ⟨ijn_03064938⟩
• Lou Safra, Coralie Chevallier, Julie Grèzes, Nicolas Baumard. Tracking historical changes in trustworthiness using machine learning analyses of facial cues in paintings. Nature Communications, 2020, 11 (1), ⟨10.1038/s41467-020-18566-7⟩. ⟨ijn_03064674⟩
• Lou Safra, Nicolas Baumard, Valentin Wyart, Coralie Chevallier. Social motivation is associated with increased weight granted to cooperation-related impressions in face evaluation tasks. PLoS ONE, 2020, 15 (4), pp.e0230011. ⟨10.1371/journal.pone.0230011⟩. ⟨inserm-02555559⟩
• Hugo Mell, Lou Safra, Perrine Demange, Yann Algan, Nicolas Baumard, et al.. Early life adversity is associated with diminished social trust in adults. 2020. ⟨hal-03393061⟩
• Lou Safra, Coralie Chevallier, Stefano Palminteri. Depressive symptoms are associated with blunted reward learning in social contexts. PLoS Computational Biology, 2019, 15 (7), pp.e1007224. ⟨10.6084/m9.figshare.8199293⟩. ⟨hal-03860502⟩
• Pierre Jacquet, Lou Safra, Valentin Wyart, Nicolas Baumard, Coralie Chevallier. The ecological roots of human susceptibility to social influence: a pre-registered study investigating the impact of early-life adversity. Royal Society Open Science, 2019, 6 (1), pp.180454. ⟨10.1098/rsos.180454⟩. ⟨ijn_03065796⟩
• Lou Safra, Christina Ioannou, Frédérique Amsellem, Richard Delorme, Coralie Chevallier. Distinct effects of social motivation on face evaluations in adolescents with and without autism. Scientific Reports, 2018, 8 (1), pp.10648. ⟨10.1038/s41598-018-28514-7⟩. ⟨hal-03962072⟩
• Lou Safra, Nicolas Baumard, Coralie Chevallier. No strong evidence that authoritarian attitudes are driven by a lack of control. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2018, 115 (6), pp.E1076-E1077. ⟨10.1073/pnas.1721565115⟩. ⟨ijn_03065812⟩
• Hugo Mell, Lou Safra, Yann Algan, Nicolas Baumard, Coralie Chevallier. Childhood environmental harshness predicts coordinated health and reproductive strategies: A cross-sectional study of a nationally representative sample from France. Evolution and Human Behavior, 2018, 39 (1), pp.1-8. ⟨10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2017.08.006⟩. ⟨ijn_03065806⟩
• Lucile Gamond, Emma Vilarem, Lou Safra, Laurence Conty, Julie Grèzes. Minimal group membership biases early neural processing of emotional expressions. European Journal of Neuroscience, 2017, 46 (10), pp.2584-2595. ⟨10.1111/ejn.13735⟩. ⟨inserm-02461679⟩
• Lou Safra. Using facial cues to produce social decisions. A cognitive and evolutionary approach. Cognitive Sciences. Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris VI, 2017. English. ⟨NNT : 2017PA066317⟩. ⟨tel-01724105⟩
• Lou Safra, Yann Algan, Teodora Tecu, Julie Grèzes, Nicolas Baumard, et al.. Childhood harshness predicts long-lasting leader preferences. Evolution and Human Behavior, 2017, 38 (5), pp.645-651. ⟨10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2017.05.001⟩. ⟨hal-03962076⟩
• Lou Safra, Yann Algan, Teodora Tecu, Julie Grèzes, Nicolas Baumard, et al.. Childhood harshness induces long-lasting preference for authoritarian leaders. Evolution and Human Behavior, 2017, 38 (5), pp.645 - 651. ⟨10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2017.05.001⟩. ⟨inserm-02461685⟩
• Hugo Mell, Lou Safra, Nicolas Baumard, Pierre Jacquet. Climate is not a good candidate to account for variations in aggression and violence across space and time. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2017, 40, ⟨10.1017/S0140525X16001060⟩. ⟨ijn_03065831⟩
• Florent Meyniel, Lou Safra, Mathias Pessiglione. How the Brain Decides When to Work and When to Rest: Dissociation of Implicit-Reactive from Explicit-Predictive Computational Processes. PLoS Computational Biology, 2014, 10 (4), pp.e1003584. ⟨10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003584⟩. ⟨hal-01342614⟩