LLM just said "I appreciate you being direct". Are they getting passive aggressive now? It was bad enough when my printer started talking, not sure I can handle sass from my computer.

A fun little update of the data from this book - this year possibly the highest number of floor-crossings ever (at least since 1990s)? For non-Canadians: multiple floor crossings to the Liberal Party recently, which is on the edge of a majority.

The last few years have really made it clear that people (including academics) basically only have substantive preferences, almost no procedural principles at all. Majoritarianism? Sovereignty? Plain text of constitutions? All completely flipped ideologically. Even among experts!

You're too busy and don't have time to do all the reviews? Easy step one, stop reviewing for Elsevier journals. Later you can also stop editing and submitting to them. (sorry to Electoral Studies, but this calls for market discipline, time to devalue those assets)

So LLMs have guidelines about discussing presidents? Trying out ChatGTP5.2, and it reasons: "OK, I’m thinking through how to respect guidelines on discussing influential politicians. Redirecting to general topics like race and elections research instead of focusing on Obama as an individual."

Reviewing PhD applications for next year, and I can't believe the number and quality of them. We always have good applicants, but this year we could easily admit three full cohorts. And I suspect the acceptance rate will be really high too.

I was an external examiner for a PhD defense for the first time today, and it was a great experience. I went in person rather than zoom. That has costs, but I think its worth it. Partly because its an important event, but also somehow being in person makes it important. 10/10 would examine again.

New work on on Immigration attitudes, out in @irpp.org with @natashagoel.bsky.social We show dramatical increase in anti-immigration opinion in Canada over the past couple of years. Its very different than previous shifts like in 1990s...

Very satisfying year for Toronto to win the American League baseball championship. Just sayin.

Love to see our beautiful wildlife on @utm.utoronto.ca campus

I copy pasted some text from a french-language Word document. And now Word thinks my entire document must be french, and underlined everything in red as misspelled 🤦

Paper submitted 💪

This an interesting phrasing from the Minister of Indigenous services. "Canadians and Indigenous peoples" echoes a common phrasing "Canadians and Quebecers" used by Quebec nationalist politicians as a way of emphasizing that these are two separate groups of peoples.

Another example of universities corrupting our youth 🤣

Free paper idea! Do people from Ontario actually know or care less about provincial politics than people in other provinces?

The Paper Skygest feed is excellent and you should all add it. If you want to see research/paper posts, its clearly the best thing around. Almost like old academic twitter.

I'm just finishing my American Politics syllabus, and used a bunch of podasts/substacks/explainers. So thank you very much to @goodauth.bsky.social @adambonica.bsky.social @donmoyn.bsky.social @juliaazari.bsky.social @egojunk.bsky.social @proflupton.bsky.social @sarahbinder.bsky.social and..

Totally forgot that Converse 1964 include a discussion of ideology and mass support of the Nazi party!

Adding some material to our PhD Canadian course on political behavior of Quebec nationalism/sovereignty. Do you have recommendations for classic or influential pieces?

Here is a fun chart: turnout over time. Contrary to popular wisdom, there is no long slow decline. In fact, there is a single, permeant step down in 2000. I'm pretty sure I know why, but surely someone has published on this before?

When I google CPSA @cpsa-acsp.bsky.social I accidentally get College of Physicians & Surgeons of Alberta. But when I google PSRM @psrm.bsky.social I get the Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova, which seems much more entertaining.

Paper accepted! Literally no one around in my department today, so I'm just going to walk around fist pumping to myself.

Oh a new journal request for a review just arrived. I don't have time right now, but I'm sure in a month I'll have lots of time to do it.

Looking forward to presenting “Electoral Discrimination Reconsidered”, with Selen Onculoglu at #CPSA_ACSP25 The last few years have seen a) major changes in racial politics b) new null results c) methodological developments. So: do ethnic minority candidates really get less votes?

I did a bunch of media interviews this week for the election, and I know it's better to talk in sound bites rather than paragraphs. But its honestly quite difficult.

Updating my CV, and realized I've reviewed for 33 separate journals (not all this year thankfully). And this is on a relatively narrow set of topics. There is a lot of journals out there!

ChatGPT and Copilot can't even format a citation right, what is the point. It supposedly accesses the web, but can't even find the author and date of a news article, so makes it up. I see people posting about amazing results, but then I get this kind of problem and don't know what to think.

Its important that a paper address a gap in previous knowledge, but under no circumstances should it refer to "filling a gap". Similarly, it should review the relevant literature, but must not have a section called "literature review".

Gave a talk to our PhD students today, and feeling appreciative of all the recent methods work on improving common practices. Thanks to all the authors who work to make their work accessible, especially on social media. A few articles we discussed:

Has anyone measured Party ID strength of the other party? Like Dem IDPG strength of Republicans.  Perhaps lower, but not zero. Maybe someone has it in an appendix? If so I'd like to cite it! Maybe @chrispolpsych.bsky.social @lilymasonphd.bsky.social or @agtheodoridis.bsky.social know of any?

Thank you to all authors who specify where they made changes (manuscript page numbers etc) in their R&R responses.

New must read book on polarization! Especially important for our American friends, provides important deep comparative context.

Idle thought just now - would I take up arms if the US invades? Hard to believe that thought could even occur to me.

1/ So, where were we? Oh yep, #duvetknowitschristmas. Firstly, some admin: Twitter/X has evidently been run into the ground by a preening, self-radicalised clot, so while there's a slim possibility that this annual celebration might be thriving over there, I won't know cos I won't be looking.

Apparently there is a mass influx of new accounts from the Netherlands?

Where do people put robustness checks, alternative models, etc? I like a section near the end of the paper, as they’re often distracting or off main topic. But maybe readers think of a problem and miss how its dealt with at the end, or have already made up their mind. Any advice?

Riding a bike while wearing a dress shirt today, got told I "look like a movie professor". 🤷

Does @pgi-wpsa.bsky.social not show reviewers the other reviews? If so this is too bad, I like seeing what other people wrote, and seems like a bad idea to take away even small benefits from reviewing.

Qualtrics is jacking up the price of our departmental license by 30%, I wonder if this is happening to anyone else.

Really excited to share my latest with André Blais now out at Electoral Studies on "Are women election averse?" www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @uoft.bsky.social

Across two experiments, exposure to a brief informative video on Japanese American incarceration and subsequent reparations led to greater support among Asian Americans for the payment of reparations to Black Americans. New paper with Chyei Vinluan! www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Public support for democracy is crucial to prevent backsliding. But existing survey questions focusing on “democracy” may not measure the concept well, as the term “democracy” varies in meaning and may prompt social desirability. polisky 1/3

Kind of want to do an analysis of the election study respondents who said their religion was "wiccan" (45) and "pagan" (71).

Friendly reminder: since the home feed here has no algorithm, you need to actively engage (share, reply) with content you like and actively shun content you dislike. That is what drives visibility. Stop lurking and press that repost button folks. #neuroskyence #psychscisky

Off to Aarhus for a workshop at the "Centre for the Experimental-Philosophical Study of Discrimination". Program looks great! ps.au.dk/cepdisc/cepd...