Sorry, Bluesky, but I have to say it: AI can already do social science research better than most professors with PhDs. And, for the first time in my life, I really have no idea what happens in five years. Things are changing already, we just need to wake up.

Mass psychopathy. They are laughing at committing war crime after war crime. Disgusting. Understand that this is the ELECTED leader of America. He is a reflection of the rot in the country's culture.

The Iran war should be a lesson for Keir Starmer's Government. If you take a clear line on an issue where the public agree with you then it's your opponents who end up having to back down, not you

Why do some people want to migrate while others don’t—even in similar conditions?🌍 My new #openaccess article in IMR shows how psychology🧠—notably values, risk tolerance, and personality—predict both aspiration and irregularity willingness.🔎🔓 journals.sagepub.com/eprint/XEJZT...

This is actually what I most wanted to highlight. I remember hearing a Labour MP argue that politics was ultimately just "a game of competitive storytelling", and then reflecting on just how disturbing the implications for democracy, accountability, and policymaking would be if that were wholly true

fuck, I’m sorry, I can’t compete with this

Watercolour of parrot tulips, a good subject to struggle with #botanicalart #watercolour #watercolor

How do institutions communicate about #migration? With @jamesrdennison.bsky.social & @mcduarte.bsky.social, we built a database of migration communication campaigns in Europe. We’re expanding it now. Do you know a campaign? Please take this 1-min survey. eui.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

The bad thing about this happening in a Labour seat is it gives the press a big excuse to ignore the fact Reform’s strategy is failing. They’ve now lost 3 in a row in 3 different countries to 3 different parties because their plan of coming through a split vote isn’t working. Their vote is too low

New evidence estimates that the Israeli military directly killed 75200 Gazans between Oct '23 and Jan '25. 22800 children were killed. Children, women, and the elderly were 56% of the killed. Non-violent deaths were also far higher than pre-"war". www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Amazing analysis of pub closures in the UK, by @laurenleek.eu, and the corporate interests behind them. Some important political and policy implications open.substack.com/pub/laurenle...

Details of my book launch are now available - everyone welcome. It will be hybrid for those not in London and recorded. www.ucl.ac.uk/laws/events/...

New at ESR! Does moving often as a child weaken social capital later in life? #RValente #MVacchiano find a more complex picture: childhood moves reduce place attachment, but can strengthen personal agency, supporting social capital in adulthood! 🔥 #OpenAccess: doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcag001

Really happy this work with @fraraffaelli.bsky.social found a home at EJPR. We show that growing up at times of high salience of immigration produces cohorts of voters who are more likely to vote for parties that they agree with specifically on immigration. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

It's a shame that in these anti-political times, Jenrick doing extremely lucrative planning favours for mega-rich donors is not something anyone bothers to mention about him

Surely, surely, this will allow most Reform supporters finally to wake up to the fact that they are backing the very same self-serving, corrupt, venal right wing grifters they’ve been trying to reject since the last election? www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cr...

On the Robert Jenrick defection psychodrama: His team have been plotting for months, so it was going to blow up at some point! Most of my Tory sources agree he decided to defect after months of losing momentum in his bid to topple Badenoch as leader, as she started to improve

Spoiled brats are running the world.

Margaret Thatcher was kept in dark over Reagan's attack on Grenada Daily Telegraph. It's an old tradition of the "special relationship."

A message for you all to carry through the year

They gentrified the tinfoil hat

"social science has to answer questions that people beyond academia care about..academia can['t] just be self-referential as it grows infinitely. I think there are challenges to understand what’s going on in the United States and the world and to talk about it to broad audiences in plain language.."

The worst, most dishonest prime minister we’ve ever had, rocks back and forth in his Daily Mail cubbyhole spewing out idiotic bilge to kid himself that he and his disastrous Brexit weren’t an almighty national fuck-up. A deeply pathetic threat from an abject failure of a man.

Jo Cox was murdered before the vote by a far-right terrorist & this is the language this complete disgrace chooses to use

This is extremely important

For the historical polling nerds out there, an article about our project with @ropercenter.bsky.social that digitised ~800 surveys by Gallup poll in Britain between 1955 and 1991 has been published in JEPOP. The merged dataset contains over three-quarters of a million respondents.

Damning overview of the nudging literature. "[We] provide the most comprehensive synthesis of the effectiveness of nudging." "We find a small aggregated effect size." "[Our results show] the urgent need for higher quality, preregistered meta-analyses to clarify the true impact [of nudging]."

How hard would it have been to say "of course not... that's not what it's for"? I get that you've got a product to sell, but have some self-respect, man.

This is v good

Very cool paper using physiology to measure issue salience academic.oup.com/poq/advance-...

Breaking. Liz Truss wins this year's FIFA Prize for Economics.

Experimental participants to us

"Broad claims of generalized cognitive enhancement resulting from physical exercise appear premature"

A critique of our (w/ @bertous.bsky.social) paper “Instrumentally inclusive” has just been published. Our response is under review (see below on process) but we feel obliged to share our draft for balance since the comment has been released without the response. osf.io/rn6h3/files/...

Is welfare spending ''out of control''? It's estimated to be 10.8 per cent of GDP this financial year. That's just 0.8 per cent of GDP higher than in 2007-08, and total welfare spending has actually fallen fallen by 1.2 per cent of GDP since 2012-13⤵️ buff.ly/s5mz97u

The number of British citizens emigrating hasn’t increased, btw. Outward migration is up, but the increase is mostly non-EU migrants leaving the UK. The methodology counting emigration of British citizens changed in 2021, which increased the number, and it’s been pretty much flat ever since…

Really great and interesting paper: "Using British electoral panel data, it shows that greater open-mindedness, tolerance for uncertainty, and social distrust are associated with greater political attitudinal volatilty."

Thrilled to share my new article in Political Psychology: “The psychology of political attitudinal volatility.” In it, I attempt to answer why do some people change their political views more than others? Open access at: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.... @ispp-pops.bsky.social

Do Americans judge acts of partisan political violence impartially? No. We show that Democrats and Republicans exhibit clear partisan bias: both see the same violent act as more justified when it targets the other party than when it targets their own side. osf.io/preprints/so... #polisky

lads i found ANOTHER Table of Impossible Summary Statistics in a "green economics" paper 🚩 Can you see the problem?

New publication w/ my friend & amazing coauthor @fedetrastulli.bsky.social in @ejprjournal.bsky.social! 🎉 doi.org/10.1017/S147... We explore: Who considers which political issues as important & how is this related to sociodemographic/socioeconomic variables?

I'm happy to share my *open access* contribution to the "IPSA Companion to Political Science: A Practical Introduction to the 200 Most Important Concepts" entitled simply "Immigration". I hope that the entry is of use for researchers at all levels! link.springer.com/rwe/10.1007/...

Looking at this fiasco, and the mess Starmer is making of government, it’s looking more and more like the defeat of Corbynism was about its own limitations rather than the Machiavellian machinations of the Labour right

It’s very revealing how the techno-futurist crowd assumes that the rest of us also treat other people as props and gadgets in our lives, as opposed to valuing the fact that there’s a thinking, feeling person there.

This is an absolutely fantastic video by @jameskerlindsay.bsky.social : "Could Britain rejoin Europe?" www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KKk...

Those claiming Dems should retreat on racial justice aren't hard-headed realists, they're pushing against the electoral tide rather than leaning into it. The story of Gen Z isn't about racist backlash or red-pilled young men. It's the most racially progressive generation in American history. 🧵

📢 @jamesrdennison.bsky.social, @lorenzopiccoli.bsky.social & Mariana Carmo Duarte: Migration communication campaigns: towards a research agenda and open database 🔗https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13501763.2024.2419550