Ryan SangBaek Kim, Ph.D.
Founder & Director, Ryan Research Institute
Affective Neuroscience · Cognitive Science & Philosophy · AI Ethics
Ryan Research Institute
Institute for Affective Sovereignty and Interdisciplinary Studies
The Ryan Research Institute (RRI) is an officially registered independent research institute in Paris, dedicated to advancing the emerging field of Affective Sovereignty Studies.
Our work integrates affective neuroscience, philosophy of mind, psychology, and AI ethics, while building bridges into law, business studies, and the arts.
We explore the deep structures of emotion, cognition, freedom, and human identity, with a mission to develop new frameworks for the ethical design of human-centered technologies and societies.
At the core of our mission lies a conviction:
To understand the architecture of feeling is to redraw the map of what it means to be human
This website serves as the official archive of our peer-reviewed publications, books, musical works, and essays — and as an evolving hub for interdisciplinary research, international collaboration, and ethical policy dialogue.
🔎 Latest Research Highlight (Aug 2025)
AI-Mediated Cognitive Distortions and Digital Echo Delusions: Toward a Resonant Amplification Framework — introducing the concepts of AI-MCDs and DEDs.
News & Highlights
🎓 Implementing Affective Sovereignty: Formal Foundations, Design Architecture, and Computational Governance
This work advances the concept of Affective Sovereignty — keeping humans the final interpreters of their own emotions — and develops it into a rigorous framework for affective AI. By combining formal risk functions, Sovereign-by-Design architecture, and proof-of-mechanism simulations (DRIFT + ASC), the study shows how abstract rights can become enforceable, testable standards for emotional AI.
🧩 Defensive Motivational Nodes (DefMoN): A Theory-Grounded Generative Framework for Psychodynamics in Text
Currently under review, this study introduces the Defensive Motivational Node framework (DefMoN) — a theory-constrained generative model operationalizing Vaillant’s ego defenses and Plutchik’s psychoevolutionary emotions into a controllable text process.
By releasing DefMoN-Syn v1 (EN/KO/FR/KA, 300 utterances) and a full reproducibility package, the study provides rigorous benchmarks for multilingual NLP. Results show strong in-domain performance (macro-F1 > 0.95), robust zero-shot transfer, and reliable uncertainty calibration.
DefMoN reframes synthetic data generation as construct operationalization, foregrounding auditability (seeds, validators, manifests) and reproducibility. It highlights how psychodynamic theory can serve as a generative guardrail for low-resource and cross-lingual settings.
🍀 Resonant Amplification Framework (RAF): Cognitive Circuit Breakers for Human–AI Interaction
Currently under review, this study introduces the Resonant Amplification Framework (RAF) — explaining how linguistic and affective feedback loops in human–AI interaction can escalate into Digital Echo Delusions (DEDs).
By proposing Cognitive Circuit Breakers, RAF outlines a phased intervention model (detect → interrupt → reorient), moving beyond filter bubbles and echo chambers. Integrating insights from HCI, psychology, and AI ethics, it offers a design framework for safer and more resilient socio-technical systems.
Research Programs
Ryan Research Institute currently develops three flagship research programs, each exploring a different dimension of affective sovereignty and human–AI interaction:
- DMN (Defensive Motivational Nodes) — Language × Defense × Affect
- RAF (Resonant Amplification Framework) — Human–AI Amplification & Circuit Breakers
- PESAM (Predictive Emotional Selfhood in Artificial Minds) — Computational Selfhood
Decoding how defense mechanisms and emotional motivations shape human expression.
Explaining how linguistic–affective loops escalate into digital distortions, and how to design cognitive circuit breakers.
Modeling emotional selfhood as the synergy of affective precision, self-priors, and homeostasis in adaptive agents.
👉 Each program addresses a unique aspect of emotion and cognition, while together they form the foundation for ethical, human-centered AI design.
Explore All Research Programs →
Books
📘 You Don’t Really Know Your Emotions
A neuroscience-based guide that reveals why your emotions are not what you think — and how to truly feel them.
📗 Feel First. Act Freely
How to trust your emotions again, stop overanalyzing, and restore your emotional rhythm through body and brain.
📙 Strategic Psychology for CEOs
A strategic psychology manual for CEOs integrating neuroscience and behavioral science.
Contact & Institutional Affiliations
Email (General Inquiries): ryan@ryanresearch.org
ORCID (Research Registry): https://orcid.org/0009-0006-2751-496X
Affiliated Academic Networks:
EurAI — European Association for Artificial Intelligence
BCS — The Chartered Institute for IT (SGAI)
© 2025 Ryan Research Institute. All rights reserved.
A multidisciplinary hub for research, ethics, and the arts in the age of AI
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