Associate prof of psychology Vanderbilt Univ, studies how adults and children learn true and false information, she/her, lkfazio.com
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Itâs not just that the President of the United States posted a video of eleven people being murdered in international waters itâs that the President of the United States ordered the murder of eleven people in international waters so he could post a video of it.
I feel like in the 1980âs/90âs this would be a major plot point in a Tom Clancy novel, and the operation would be carried out as an off-book, illegal black op, with various characters trying to cover it up lest they face congressional hearings. Now the President just announces it.
New by me, as we launch this new academic year.
Thank you, Dan, for going around asking white people for their proof of legal immigration status.
Important Kevin Munger: "The temporal validity issues that I have been screaming about in the study of digital media are radically accelerated when it comes to LLMs." kevinmunger.substack.com/p/ai-as-norm...
Notre Dame is investing in democracy research in lots of exciting ways, including these hires. Happy to talk to senior folks about working at Notre Dame and living in South Bend. (Spoiler: There are lots of good reasons I've spent my entire career here).
At some point, you have to defend democracy, not just pivot to talking points, or there won't be fair future elections to win www.cnn.com/2025/08/31/p... What I told @ronbrownstein.bsky.social (joking/not joking):
Fun fact: if you teach any type of organismal biology you can justify buying the inaccurate skeletons (to yourself) by saying âIâm bringing this to class and having students identify all the inaccuracies as a learning opportunityâ The students in my ornithology class loved it
𧪠And House appropriators say: no cuts to NIH budget! House subcommittee version just came out (link below). Holds NIH flat at $48 billion. To be clear: this is far from over. But a good sign that science still matters across both sides of aisle. YOUR VOICE MATTERS!!
Agree. @aaup.org is on the front lines fighting for higher education, academic freedom, and solidarity among academic workers, students, and our surrounding communities. Join up!
Creative writing prompt: Make a simple press statement about a car accident sound suspicious on at least three different levels.
100% this. Unfortunately, that circle also fits fully inside another circle of people immune to feeling shame about their hypocrisy.
Our posting is now up for a Lecturer (Asst prof) in Social Psych at the University of Auckland Please apply! Portal closes 20 Oct NZT. That's the 19th stateside bc here in New Zealand we live in the future I'm not on the committee so am unconflicted and happy to chat with interested folks
Review of applications begins Sept 15 for this quantitative Psych position. Please share; TYIA!
We adore our dobies. They're very much velcro dogs that always want to be near their pack, very sweet. Smart and very much want to please. Ours with uncropped ears was prone to ear infections, our big boy has bad allergies, those are the only recurring health issues we've had.
Mood.
Weâre hiring an assistant or associate professor to join our psychology department at the University of Illinois Chicago! Weâre a vibrant research-active department in a great city, a diverse institution with a purpose-driven mission, and a fun place to work! #psychjobs uic.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...
Children with brain cancer
You spelled ENDANGERING wrong, @nytimes.com. âPushing the boundariesâ is a *positive* frame implying unconventional innovations. There are no innovations here. Just medieval anti-science populist attacks on some of best methods of truth seeking we have.
Today in scam automation fails: this scammer introduced himself to me as myself.
Where the Science Homecoming authors are fromâŚso far đ§Şđ
I was honored by the @psychscience.bsky.social DEI Committee's invitation to help curate this collection of outstanding articles addressing a range of issues related to anti-Black racism. I also couldn't have asked for a more thoughtful and thorough partner in @johnjost.bsky.social. Please share!
New study by @brendannyhan.bsky.social, @jasonreifler.bsky.social & colleagues demonstrates that prebunking election fraud rumors â by warning about anticipated false claims & filling conceptual gaps that those claims exploit â helps to reduce belief in falsehoods: www.science.org/content/arti...
Iâm so grateful that I have tenure and the academic freedom to call it like I see it. âDr. Kathleen Bachynski, a professor of public health at Muhlenberg College, described Kennedyâs comments as âabsolute gibberishâ and slammed the HHS secretary as a âdangerous buffoonâ who is âthreatening us all.â
I'm seeing quite a few developmental jobs at SLACs. I'm happy to chat with anyone who's thinking of applying (or if your students are applying). Doing dev work at a SLAC can be super rewarding but also brings a number of unique challenges.
So Vandy has a women's volleyball team again for the first time in 45 years (which is very exciting!). To celebrate they're playing a match tonight on the lawn right outside my office window. All very cool except they keep testing the sound system and shaking my windows with the bass đ
NEW: Don't ask too many questions, but... NIH may not re-terminate the 900ish grants at issue in the main NIH lawsuits after all. To the PIs of reinstated grants, SPEND NOW! 𧾠Here's what NIH is probably thinking. Bear with me:
APS Fellow @lewan.bsky.social & colleagues have recently developed the Anti-Autocracy Handbook, which they describe as âa call to action, resilience, and collective defense of democracy, truth, and academic freedom in the face of mounting authoritarianism.â
"Responses that, early on, can feel pragmaticâwaiting it out, remaining silent, cutting a dealâonly embolden autocrats, leading ultimately to the demise of democracy itself." Essential reading - I hope our leaders across all fields are listening
My job now is to go school to school, university to university trying to help them sort through the challenge of teaching in a world with AI and the first thing I recommend to improve the teaching of writing is cut the number of students per instructor in half. No one is going to do that, though.
đđŻ Stunts are good politics because they send signals of how serious problems are to the public & media. This is why, e.g., university presidents should have gathered en masse on the Capitol steps to make the public aware of the existential threat to higher ed all the federal budget cuts pose.
"Pat, why do you carry that ridiculous 600mm lens on long hikes?" Buddy, I can see mountains reflected in the eyes of a trailside pika.
New: In 7 months, Kennedy has broken the CDC, perhaps irreparably. For all heâs done with mass firings, gutting expertise, and attacking vaccines, Wednesdayâs loss of its most senior and competent leadersâtruly the CDCâs backboneâis the most consequential attack yet. www.msnbc.com/msnbc/news/c...
"They are professionals who have worked to build what are essentially their own media companies. They do not need you; you need them."
cc: everyone in a position of power and responsibility
i have to say i'm enjoying the "you can't fire me, bitch" responses to trump's attempts
âMy grandfather, who I am named after, stood up to fascist forces in Greece & lost his life doing so. I am resigning to make him & his legacy proud. The nationâs health security is at risk & is in the hands of people focusing on ideological self-interest.â Dr. Daskalakis, CDC immunization director
We don't have to live like this.
Fucking yikes www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/b...
Rawr! đ˘
âI am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponization of public health,â wrote Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.
In a functional government, this would be a five alarm fire where Congress calls in Kennedy and asks him what the fuck is going on
omg, I love this so much. When does the album drop??
It enrages me how useful grant proposals are lol Also, related, one of the ways that cancelling future grant opportunities harms science is that it scales back a process that often helps scientists really think through our ideas When we do less of it, the science can suffer
I haven't figured out how to bend my research agenda to meet the moment (I'm a Congress guy and Congress is sitting this one out), but you better believe I'm gonna teach political science harder than I've ever taught political science before.
This is such an embarrassing way to end a democracy.
So many #tinyjoys!!
#Psychjobs My former institution Colby College is hiring a tenure track in intergroup relations, broadly defined & open to many psych areas (not just social). This is my replacement line. I truly enjoyed my time at Colby and it's a great dept! Happy to answer Qs if I can. apply.interfolio.com/172552
âThe loyalists around Trump are much more open and much bolder in their authoritarianism than they were six months ago," says Steve Levitsky. "Theyâve learned fight by fight that they can get away with it." Trump's accomplices are running wild. Examples below: newrepublic.com/article/1996...
National Weather Service meteorologist applicants are now being asked to pledge their support for Trumpâs executive orders. (Image reposted with alt-text)
And you thought your faculty meetings were bad
Despite what some Democratic consultants suggest, the pro-democracy partyâs first question shouldnât be, âDoes stopping fascism poll well?â
This is right. Any effect on the economy is of secondary importance. Trump is weaponizing the government against people he doesn't like. The very definition of an authoritarian.
You can explain the last decade of American politics with two memes.
ââthe arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justiceâ âŚIt doesnât bend on its own. History tells us we often have to apply force needed to make sure that the arc gets where it needs to go. This is one of those times.â
Universities may be collapsing left and right under authoritarianism, but some things are eternal.
Restock alert! Mark your calendars for September 6th, 10am PT Lots of cups and a few larger pieces will be available. Listing previews coming soon ⨠Amyraehill.com #sciart #bsnm
"Whatâs missing and desperately needed is these events being connected to one another and presented collectively and aggressively by the media, the Democratic Party, and other prominent institutions as one megastory: Trumpâs attempt to become Americaâs dictator."
If the networks could just try harder to show how objective and straight down the middle they can be, if they can back up their view further into nowhere, then surely Trump will drop his attacks.
Nothing even remotely subtle or confusing about what this is.
The short answer is that every one of Shorâs tested âmessagesâ sucks. None of them are authentic. Itâs like reading people the chemical formula for a flavor and asking if itâs delicious.
For the love of God, no! It is not a political horse race, it is an authoritarian attack on our democracy.
First they came for the immigrants, and I did not speak out (because the message test performed at a low percentile rank compared to other messages in our testing bank for non college men who opt into online surveys through various consumer reward programs)
This! The right has been so good at giving its constituents a role â something to do â beyond voting. If the left (or whatever is the opposition to Trumpism) wants to compete, it needs to be *participatory* â ie, it needs to create opportunities for action in both the digital and physical worlds.
To be clear, I like polling! But Democrats have vastly over-indexed on one-shot message testing. No magic here.
As I say anytime anyone asks, itâs gotta be more fun to be in the movement than to not be in the movement.
This scavenger hunt is so charming and smart and actively engaging. It gets New Yorkers out and about, exploring the city, talking to one another, taking advantage of public transportation and working toward a common cause. The levels! Itâs just so great.
lol, some of you know my dad retired this summer after many many years of being a professor. He realized this week that this is the first time since starting kindergarten that August is just August with no deeper meaning or panic đ¤Ż
Not a time for subtlety - what I told the AP about the Bolton prosecution and the DC occupation www.kgw.com/article/news...
New York Times story with profiles of researchers whose grants were terminated. [Gift Link] www.nytimes.com/2025/08/24/o...
"exposure to public service broadcasting and broadsheet newspapers was associated with accurate belief stabilization and correction, whereas [...] social media consistently undermined accurate beliefs, increased transitions into misinformation or uncertainty, and hindered corrective belief updating.
We donât just scrollâwe learn while scrolling. This âincidental learningâ can shape what we know, believe, and even how we act. Sometimes useful, sometimes risky (hello, misinformation). What have you learned incidentally lately? #PsychSciSky #AcademicSky #EduSky
Perfect. Those words the consultants say Dems should stop using? They don't use them. *Republicans* use them... in the process of saying that Dems use them.
Can we talk about that headline? If itâs true, you donât need âDemocrats say.â If itâs untrue, donât put it in a headline. Either way, youâre fucking reporters. Find out whatâs true, and write that.
(This would all be much less opaque if we stuck with machine learning for the protein issue and AI or LLM for the rest of it but alas, conflating them for political gain was and is the entire point.)
This is so nerdy - I love it!
đ¨ Major shake-up in NSF funding for K-12 STEM ed: Caps proposals at $750K max for 3 years. Prior cap used to be $5M up to 5 years for some programs. Archives several existing programs (DRK-12, AISL, CSforAll, TD, parts of ECR:Core). Combines into broad program with much lower expected # of awards.
We are in awe of our community's response -- over 300 people have volunteered to moderate PsyArXiv! Weâve already cleared 13% of the backlog and expect to make even faster progress next week. Thank you for your patience as we work through this, and special thanks to our volunteers! đ #PsychSciSky
No one would be confused about what's happening if you saw it in another country. No one.
Reminder: It does not matter if Lisa Cook filled out a form wrong or if the raid finds some document in a file folder in John Bolton's house. These actions are wrong no matter what because they selectively target opponents of the government. The rule of law is under attack.
i think people need a refresher on what constitutes a Distraction. the cracker barrel logo thing (zero stakes, obviously invented controversy) is a Distraction. the ongoing military occupation of washington dc (ample footage of random delivery drivers being violently detained by feds) is not
Imagine explaining to Bill Watterson while he was drawing this that "Calvinball" would one day appear in a United States Supreme Court dissent
And that's why Bob is VP of marketing
TL;DR: 5 justices say Trump doesn't have to immediately restore the funding, but 5 *also* signal that the underlying directives are unlawful. That sends a fairly strong (if mixed) message that Trump will lose these cases *eventually,* but only once they're brought in the Court of Federal Claims.
"Halting studies midway can also ruin the data already collected and ultimately harm the countryâs potential for scientific breakthroughs by disrupting scientistsâ work in the middle of their careers" apnews.com/article/supr...
New job ad: Assistant Professor of Quantitative Social Science, Dartmouth College apply.interfolio.com/172357 Please share with your networks. I am the search chair and happy to answer questions!
Literally the language of genocide: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_T...
As the team works on fixing the server (thank you!), let's bring back the tradition of emailing your new articles to colleagues/ friends. This summer, two people emailed me their new papers and I really liked that. I know that was more common back then when there were no journal alerts/ preprints.
Just a reminder about this session tomorrow. Hope to see you there!
A functional approach to the psychology of inequality Perspective by Michael W. Kraus (@mwkraus.bsky.socialâŹ), Daniel J. Sanji, Megan E. Burns, Aline da Silva Frost, Iseul Cha-Ju, A. Chyei Vinluan, LaStarr Hollie & Cydney H. Dupree (âŞ@cydneydupree.bsky.socialâŹ) go.nature.com/4fMVfVV
Love how much yâall use this assignment. Keep on keeping on!
Seeking scientist volunteers for this fall! Want to practice science communication and help author a đcomicđ about your research? I need collaborators for the next cohort of SciComm & Comics art and design students. All countries and scientific fields eligible.
If this is helpful for anyone going on the social psych tenure track job market in US, here are my Colby (in 2018) and UIC (2023) statements: osf.io/ef7s3/files/... My lab website has links to other people's materials. Of course the markets were very different back then. www.pbandjlab.com/resources
As this preprint is picking up some steam again, here's a note that the link is temporarily not working because of a PsyArXiv issue. You can instead directly access the preprint PDF here: www.sinclairlab-rice.com/publications...
Resharing my post from earlier this week, just in case you're working on your syllabus and want to give a think about how you're going to be dealing with AI with assignments. scienceforeveryone.science/how-i-am-thi... đ§Ş
I wouldn't try to deliver any essential content bc lots of students won't be there day one (they'll switch in during add/drop) but great place to do a teaser on what's to come. 2/2
Mostly syllabus review but also give them a taste of what the rest of the class will be like - what's the burning questions, a mini version of the types of activities you'll be using, get them interested and excited for what's to come. 1/2
This special issue "invites submissions on research areas recently de-prioritized and/or de-funded that address or discuss how social cognition approaches can aid in the understanding of these critical societal issues." Plz consider submitting!
Social Cognition invites papers for a special issue on disrupted scholarship guest edited by Galen Bodenhausen, Jacqueline Chen, & Franki Kung. bit.ly/3HkcyBf