Hi everyone! My paper on cognitive representations of relationships and their developmental origins is finally out! I had a blast responding to the commentary and was honored to be able to engage with people who laid the foundation for my research program. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Hiring! Athulya Aravind and I are looking for a full-time Postgraduate Associate at Yale (Linguistics/Psychology). The position is designed as preparation for PhD applications in linguistics, cog sci, or psychology, including structured mentoring and research training. tinyurl.com/mrxjya5t

Job Alert 🚨 - please share! My brilliant friend and collaborator, Fumihiro Kano, is launching a new Ecological & Collective Cognition lab at Kyushu University, and has postdoc, grad, and tech openings! Lab video: youtu.be/rXT-yjQzJxU More details: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Thrilled to have @rbzsparks.bsky.social joining us!!

Looking forward to #CDS2026! Come learn about the work that my students and I are doing @emmayu23.bsky.social @cogdevsoc.bsky.social

Come see the Thomas Lab's work at @cogdevsoc.bsky.social conference! #CDS2026

🚨🚨 My lab is hiring a Pre-doc Researcher/Lab Manager! 🚨🚨 Full-time pre-doc research opening in my lab at Harvard Psych (start: Summer/Fall 2026). Review begins April 10 Apply: jobs.smartrecruiters.com/HarvardUnive... Please repost + tag folks who might be a good fit! 👇

I'm hiring a new lab manager for my lab @ UCSD! For more info on the lab, check out our website: lillab.ucsd.edu Target start date is June 1 (flexible) and application deadline is March 26. Please share with anyone you think might be a good fit! Apply here: employment.ucsd.edu/laboratory-c...

The number of children in ICE detention on an average day has skyrocketed 6x since Trump took an office. Families complain of poor medical care and worm-infested food. "It’s only a matter of time before we see a child die," one advocate said. www.themarshallproject.org/2026/01/29/i...

One small thing you can do today: ICE is ramping up in Maine. Food For All is delivering meals to 300 families that can't leave their homes. They need $7k a day to continue operations. The Culture Study community is raising enough to cover a day—join us? Donate directly: givebutter.com/Scx87A or

Wow. This is devastating. www.science.org/content/arti...

Oops -- we should have included a pre-print, but here it is! osf.io/preprints/ps... Abstract core knowledge may shape the basins of cultural attraction: romantic kissing as a case study

Yale Psychology is accepting applications for the Susan Nolen-Hoeksema postdoctoral fellowship! Open to a broad range of areas in psychology, and applicants should identify 1 or more potential faculty mentors. Apply by Feb 1, 2026: apply.interfolio.com/178435

Hossein was supposed to come to my lab as a grad student but couldn’t because of the travel ban. I had a blast writing this paper with him, but it was bittersweet knowing he should have been in person with us. ❤️ check out 🧵below. part of a special issue on kissing led by Deb Lieberman.

This is a fundraising post! An anonymous donor is matching contributions to Children Helping Science up to 100K through the end of the year - if it's in your giving budget, please consider supporting open science infrastructure! giving.mit.edu/search/node/... Details below...

Thank you to Christina Steele for sharing her work with @ashleyjthomas.bsky.social in lab meeting today! Christina shared neat findings on implicit attitudes toward interracial couples, building on her prior work on development of understanding about relationships. Interesting & important project!

Fully funded #PhDposition in Comparative Cultural Psychology @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social. We will use touchscreen experiments & eyetracking to study mental simulations in nonhuman apes & human children across different cultures. All info here: www.eva.mpg.de/career/posit... Please share / apply!🙏

Interested in understanding how young humans think about social relationships? I am reading PhD applications this year! **Please note**, that Harvard now requires the GRE. More information here: www.ashleyjthomas.com/workwithme

Are humans really the only rational animals? Our NEW PAPER 🎉 out in @science.org suggests otherwise! In a large collaboration led with my joint first author @hanna-schleihauf.bsky.social, we show that “Chimpanzees rationally revise their beliefs” 🧵

Interested in understanding how young humans think about social relationships? I am reading PhD applications this year! **Please note**, that Harvard now requires the GRE. More information here: www.ashleyjthomas.com/workwithme

Interested in applying to graduate programs or research positions in psychology? Want more information and feedback on your submission materials? Then Harvard’s Prospective Ph.D. & RA Event in Psychology (PPREP) Is for you!! psychology.fas.harvard.edu/pprep More info in the link!! Please retweet!

🚨Out in PNAS🚨 with @joshtenenbaum.bsky.social & @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social Punishment, even when intended to teach norms and change minds for the good, may backfire. Our computational cognitive model explains why! Paper: tinyurl.com/yc7fs4x7 News: tinyurl.com/3h3446wu 🧵

The lab feels so empty without our summer interns!

I and my lab are happy to be at #cogsci2025! Here's a shortcut to find work from the fabulous folks in my lab (and me) 😄

The Learning Lab is heading to CogSci 2025 (@cogscisociety.bsky.social) to share our latest research! Come say hello!

Who's excited for #CogSci2025? 💭

The SoCal Lab is headed to #cogsci2025 this week! Here's where you can find us:

Looking forward to #CogSci2025! Anushka Laha and I will be sharing some of the first work from our lab

If you are attending #CogSci2025 I hope you will consider attending our pre-conference workshop on July 29 - "Putting it Together: Interactions Between Domains of Cognition" sites.google.com/view/cogsci2...

@brandonwoo.bsky.social @lizettepizza.bsky.social

Come see my lab at the Cognitive Science Society Conference #cogsci2025

New preprint! Led by Bill Pepe, with @brandonwoo.bsky.social and @ashleyjthomas.bsky.social. We asked if infants think helping and hindering stem from actors' dispositions (i.e. good/nice v bad/mean) or their social relationships, by testing expectations for future behavior: osf.io/preprints/ps...

📣 Join the K/Creative Ape Team 🤓 2 PhDs on Creativity in Wild Chimpanzees & Bonobos; w myself & the v awesome @kathelijnekoops.bsky.social @snf-fns.ch Uni Zurich @uniofstandrews.bsky.social @efp2026.bsky.social @ips-primatenews.bsky.social @primatesocietygb.bsky.social @primbehavecol.bsky.social 🐵🧪

🎈 Out now: 🎈 "The capacity limits of moving objects in the imagination" (by Balaban & me) of interest to people thinking about the imagination, intuitive physics, mental simulation, capacity limits, and more www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Massachusetts: $107,694,933 Approved by Congress. Illegally withheld by the DOE.

It's a summer conference season, so I thought I'd tell you about the tremendous efforts our conservation biology colleagues have been making to make conferences more INCLUSIVE & friendly to early career researchers (ECRs) not fluent in English. I find their accomplishments truly inspiring. 🧵(1/10)

Infants have been shown to individuate objects before people in a visual occlusion task. Why? @brandonwoo.bsky.social, @ashleyjthomas.bsky.social, et al. find that engagement matters. Infants *do* individuate people who actively engage with them.

Undergrads interested in philosophy of science? Please share that applications are open for our summer development program! lpssdp.com?fbclid=IwY2x...

🔆 I'm hiring! 🔆 There are two open positions: 1. Summer research position (best for master's or graduate student); focus on computational social cognition. 2. Postdoc (currently interviewing!); focus on computational social cognition and AI safety. sites.google.com/corp/site/sy...

🚨Only a few hours left to leave a public comment re: RFK Jr. and Trump administration limiting access to vaccines through the CDC!!! Public Comment at CDC is open until June 20th at 11:59pm EDT. peoplescdc.substack.com/p/rfk-jr-and...

NYT found the “big beautiful bill” would be the largest transfer from the poor to the rich in a single law since at least 1990. In fact, it would be the largest transfer *ever.* Reagan’s low-income cuts were MUCH smaller - and his tax cuts were done separately. And before him, nothing comes close.

New paper just dropped🎉 With novel "Curiosity Boxes", we find that chimps & children are very curious about social interactions, & some even give up a reward to gain info! Fun collaboration with @alisongopnik.bsky.social, @janengelmann.bsky.social & others royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

This is such a great idea

How bad will it be? Catastrophic. Proposed cuts to #NSF, #NIH, and #NASA will set the US R&D landscape back 25 yrs+, cause economic and job loss now, and undermine innovations to come. But, this is the WH's *proposed* budget. Speak up now before it is too late. (inflation adjusted $-s below)

So cool!!

🥳🥳 New paper in @nathumbehav.nature.com: “When development constricts our moral circle." Contrary to popular belief, younger kids may start out with broader moral circles than older ones. Check it out here 👉 rdcu.be/eoaSe w/ @mattiwilks.bsky.social @karrineldner.bsky.social & Lucius Caviola

Today I found out that this article was selected for the June print edition. This is so cool! Now I just need to figure out how to get a hard copy for my parents (because this is still a thing) 😆

Me: Where will you put your clothes when you take them off? (We've been working on keeping room tidy) U (6 years): nowhere Me: Where is nowhere? U: giggles Me: explains conversation of mass