New paper! One of the things I love about our findings in this paper is that even children who thought they knew a lot about a topic in absolute terms sometimes recognized that an expert would know a little or a lot more than them. That's a start!

Please consider submitting to our special issue @socialdevelopment.bsky.social on Political Engagement in Childhood and Adolescence: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal...

Think Lab members have made it back from #SRCD2025! It's a lab tradition that after a conference, each person who attended shares a 2-3 minute overview of a poster or presentation they enjoyed. It's a great way to discuss all we learned. Wishing I saw more of you there... but next time!

The Think Lab will be at #SRCD2025 - looking forward to seeing many of you there!

NEW: NSF announces it's "terminating awards that are not aligned with agency priorities...including but not limited to those on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and misinformation/disinformation." #HigherEd #AcademicSky

Substantial updates to the list of cancelled grants👇 - THANK YOU to all who have contributed. Crowdsourcing restores faith in humanity. - It's still a work in progress. You'll see more updates shortly. - There are multiple teams & efforts engaged in tracking & advocacy. More to come soon!

How do we change our minds about our knowledge or beliefs? And why is it sometimes so difficult for people to realize they might be wrong? We study these sorts of questions with kids, but here's a story of someone trying to convince his dad to disengage w/ conspiracies: www.npr.org/2025/02/26/g...

How does the capacity to demonstrate intellectual humility - to recognize limits to one's beliefs or knowledge - develop and change? And are there things that can be done to foster greater intellectual humility? Come join our SRCD pre-conference to discuss these questions and more!

The Cognitive Development Society now has a Bluesky account!

Here's another one, trying to build from what we know about kids to provide advice on how parents might manage the Santa Claus myth.

This is the first Christmas since our initial Santa article was published (doi.org/10.1037/dev0...), so @thaliargoldstein.bsky.social and I have had some opportunities this season to talk with reporters or see the project discussed in newsletters, articles, and blogs. This is a fun one!

APA allows editors to designate one manuscript from each issue for special recognition. Given the stellar work, this is one of the hardest & most challenging parts of the job. So, to finish up the calendar year, here are the 12 Editor's Choice Articles from 2024 in Developmental Psychology. 1/13

To celebrate deleting my twitter, I'm reposting some of my classic cognitive development memes from the other site. First, one of my all-time faves

Hello BlueSky! A quick intro for new folks: I'm a developmental psychologist interested in children's thinking and learning. Some ongoing studies are examining topics like early biological reasoning, parent explanation, intellectual humility, curiosity, and skepticism about Santa Claus.

if you are an NIH-funded investigator, or really just a person doing developmental science #psychscisky #neuroskyence in the states, you should be concerned about this proposal to eliminate the NICHD. take 5 minutes to write to [email protected] to voice your concern. Here's what I just sent

I am excited to share that my first first-author article was recently published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology! If you would like to read it yourself, I will link it below, but I'll also share some of the highlights here.

The Think Lab will be at the Cognitive Development Society conference this week. Come visit us!

Finally got Bluesky running again on my computer and discovered this great news! Thanks to Koraly and the Developmental Psychology team, including several great reviewers, for helping us to improve our manuscript! More Santa research to come!

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a professor hoping to use time between college classes ending and their children’s public school break as an opportunity to dig themselves out of their work sinkhole will have a child who has to stay home from school.

Bing image creator produced this fascinating image to illustrate “people thinking about the Psychology of Santa”. Doesn’t this make you want to attend our workshop on Friday? Come join us! See my previous posts for more info!

If you’ve signed up for the Psychology of Santa Claus workshop, make sure to follow the instructions in emails from @rkapitany.bsky.social and log into Discord before the starting time! Join us!

We are recruiting a new Dean for Behavioral and Brain Sciences at UT Dallas. We have strong research across neuroscience, psychology and audiology with vibrant educational programs. If you’re interested please reach out. #academicjobs

We are so excited to share our NY Times guest essay about talking with children about Santa! The guest essay is here: www.nytimes.com/2023/11/24/o... The paper recently published in Developmental Psychology is here: psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...

New paper! Convenience samples have a bad rap. What role, if any, should they have in developmental research? @mcxfrank.bsky.social & I argue they can--under some conditions--help achieve key goals of the field: advancing theory & reducing bias. How? Read the paper!: osf.io/preprints/ps...

Come join us for a workshop on the Psychology of Santa!

Curious about the Psychology of Santa Claus (i.e. how we understand him, not his mental state)? Come to our free online workshop! Researchers, interested students, and elves of all kinds welcome. Talks, Q&As, open discussion abt future work. Register: durhamuniversity.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

Excited to give Blue Sky a try! Lots of #devpsy to discuss soon, including some new findings related to Santa! I'll also be sharing information about the upcoming launch of Project GARDEN (specific date TBD, but we're close). For now, you can find out more here: childrenhelpingscience.com/garden/