Session 2A at #ICRN2026: how can new methods reveal where contact happens and how it can be designed? One take-away: while VR work on intergroup contact is very exciting, it is also difficult. Avatars' social identity is interpreted quite differently from that of human interaction partners. (1/3)

Excellent presentation by @francavanagh.bsky.social today at #EASP2026 on developing a new scale of right-wing populist attitudes in the UK.

Since 1954, "The Handbook of Social Psychology" has been the field’s most authoritative reference work, and today is the launch of the 6th edition with 50 new chapters by 100 leading scholars. Best news? The HSP is now an open-access public resource—free to read, download, and share. the-hsp.com

Also Pratchett, Red Dwarf

FPP brutally supressed UKIP in 2015 and Reform in 2024, but is boosting up Reform this week - they have passed the tipping point where the electoral system goes from deadly enemy to best friend

"Facebook’s infamous emotional-contagion study" was actually more ethical than this, given that the Facebook feed algorithm doesn't pretend to be a human, and there's no reasonable expectation of such.

Great turnout today on @ducu.bsky.social pickets. On strike to protect professional services staff jobs. An attack on one is an attack on all! Management tried to pit academics against professional services staff - they've failed! We are *all* the university!

Congrats Dr Patrick Kotzur, Prof Stefania Paolini @durhamuniversity.bsky.social & team for receiving International Best Paper Award from the Society of Existential Psychology for 'Psychological well-being in Europe after the outbreak of war in Ukraine - Nature Communications'👏 go.nature.com/3E5CmiF

AfD overwhelmingly won votes from non-voters and the centre-right. This is a standard pattern. It is a myth that the radical right are mainly winning disaffected centre-left voters.

NEW: updated long-run gap in voting between young men and women in Germany: Gender divide continues to widen, but contrary to what is often assumed, young men continue to vote roughly in line with the overall population, while young women have swung sharply left. www.ft.com/content/29fd...

Glad to have contributed to this panel of reactions to the German elections yesterday. Also including an important intervention by @casmudde.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Vote choice by birth cohort and gender in the 2024 European election in Germany: - Increased gender gaps among young voters for several parties. - AfD share more than twice as high among young men (21% vs. 10%). - 49% of young men voted for the right-leaning parties, but only 32% of young women.

Since everyone is talking about research funding, this perspective by the vice-president of the European Research Council might be of interest. Blue states: Consider joining a multinational research council.

With <4 weeks until election day, how strong is #Germany's #farright #AfD? I have compiled 19 months of polling data so that you don't have to. Several major scandals have done no lasting damage to their support. And the events & debates of the last 12 weeks have been a boon for them.

This multi-year, multi-country analysis shows that right-wing populist politicians spread more online misinfo than their mainstream counterparts and explains how “the rise of political misinformation is associated to the recent wave of radical-right populism.” journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Scholars argue whether rightists or extremists are more prone to conspiracies. A new analysis across 77 samples (and 18 countries) concludes "there is no single functional form" of the ideology-conspiracy relationship. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... #socialpsych #psychscisky #polisky

Very interesting and accessible take on probability worth a read! www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Stereotype threat: a once-dominant idea in social psychology that shaped how we think about identity and performance. But what happens when the evidence crumbles? A deep dive into the failed replications, the myths, and what it all means. Read my latest essay: open.substack.com/pub/michaeli...

Never assume your measures are doing what you think they’re doing, especially if you haven’t validated them using multiple populations.

Lots of puzzles to unpack here but not talked about so much is the shift in far right (recall) among young women Young men increased ~50% Young women increased ~100% (19v24) Gender gap remains (larger in consid. set) but trend is clear: rising far-right support among both young men & women

A scientist new to Bluesky? @steveharoz.com and @markrubin.bsky.social have put together some great resources to get you started!

New to BlueSky? Interested in Psychology? Click on this post and scroll up for a thread of 40 starter packs containing experts in different areas of psychology. #Psychology #AcademicSky #EduSky 🧪

🦋 New to BlueSky? 🧪 Interested in science? 👀 Wanna find posts by scientists in specific fields? 📃 Click here for an ever-growing list of +230 science-related feeds and their hashtags: docs.google.com/spreadsheets... #AcademicSky #PhDSky #EduSky

I am happy to stop saying Psych has a replication crisis. Instead I would say we are having a Methodology crisis where every aspect of the way we design studies, collect data and provide evidence for our results needs to be carefully examined and reconsidered in relation to the questions we ask

UK Government invests £10M in a new metascience unit to investigate issues like: 🔹️ "What makes a researcher more likely to make bold discoveries?" 🔹️ "How do we best incentivise replicable research?" #MetaSci #PhilSci #HistSci #STS 🧪

Special issue: "Is psychology self-correcting? Reflections on the Credibility Revolution in Social and Personality Psychology." Edited by @simine.com and I. Check out the nine articles with diverse perspectives and approaches to examining the reform movement: spb.psychopen.eu/index.php/sp...

Yes I will offer my online science-focused Statistical Rethinking course again starting in January 2024. Registration going up at the end of this month. All the course materials are already online though, so why wait? Update your posterior starting today 🧪 #stats www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdnM...