Thanks to The Conversation for inviting me to share my "unsung hero of science", who I chose to be Carolyn Wood Sherif 💘 theconversation.com/my-unsung-he...

Identity-Based Motivation "People can infer that difficulty signals self-relevance and value (difficulty-as-importance – this is important to me, 'no pain, no gain') and self-irrelevance and low odds of success (difficulty-as-impossibility – this is not for me, 'know when to walk away').

Climate change impacts are here, but public support for action remains polarized. Which climate messages move people? In a ~13,500-person megastudy, we tested 10 of the most-cited messages. Six increased pro-environmental attitudes in the U.S.—but only by 1–4 percentage points. 🧵

Seems like we should know something about how grading affects motivation, right? Surprisingly, the research literature hasn't been synthesized - until now! Sievers et al reviewed 34 studies and identified what we (don't) know and what research needs to happen next. #PsychSciSky #AcademicSky #EduSky

My latest column is an interview with renowned historian of higher ed, Eddie Cole. Come for learning about HBCUs and stay for his thoughts on why accreditation is the biggest issue we're not talking enough about in higher ed. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

Each year, people speak 338 less words per day (on average). These effects accumulate. In 2019, people were speaking 28% less words each day than in 2005 (!). journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Before moving to Berlin for my sabbatical, I spoke with Bethany Wilinski on her podcast. We discussed burnout, mid-career challenges, daily life at an IAS, logistics of moving a family abroad, & how to structure your time during a sabbatical. @wiko-berlin.bsky.social youtu.be/yF8RsR3W-V0?...

Out today in PNAS: Young children are surprised when a stranger has “insider knowledge” about them—and even make on-the-fly inferences about how that person could have learned it. So much fun working on this with Aaron Chuey and @julianje.bsky.social! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2525150123

SO excited for this to be out (open access)! @ljalley.bsky.social asked students what they think about when answering surveys about motivational climate. This study made a bit of a splash two AERAs ago because...1/2 @aera-motsig.bsky.social @aeradivc.bsky.social doi.org/10.1080/0022...

New short report out from my team (Shannon Clark, Darren Henry, Jordan Rineer)! We asked elementary teachers what kinds of responses they tend to give their students in math 1/7 link.springer.com/article/10.1...

New paper out in Science Advances! I'm really (really) proud of this one. Let's get into it. doi.org/10.1126/scia...

Excited to share that @chrisrozek.bsky.social & I are guest editing a special issue of Contemporary Educational Psychology: “Promoting Equitable and Authentic School Belonging: Barriers, Facilitators, and Mechanisms.” Call for abstracts due March 1, 2026: www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu...

Paper on statistical power necessary for interaction effects doi.org/10.1177/2515...

Can very young children craft a strong scientific counterargument using evidence and causal language? Yes! Teachers can help develop this skill by asking students to explore and refute multiple alternative explanations. doi.org/10.1037/dev0... #PsychSciSky #AcademicSky #EduSky

🚨 New paper! Think of a place you feel deeply attached to. When you're in that place, do you feel like your life is more meaningful? New work from @ashleykrause.bsky.social suggests you probably do! Just accepted at Journal of Environmental Psychology, we find places can give our life meaning 🧵

📊 Sometimes belonging comes down to a checkbox. Our new paper in PSPB led by Brenda Straka finds that the way Latino identity is formatted on demo forms, especially the traditional two-question census format, can subtly undermine feelings of inclusion and belonging news.illinois.edu/study-demogr...

It was puzzle box day again and I'm very relieved that the 2nd group of students also had fun!! Resources at osf.io/q2zk3/files/...

If someone paid you $4.75 every night you slept 7+ hours, would you sleep more? And--more importantly--would that increase in sleep change your behavior in other meaningful ways? This new paper ran an experiment to find out.

🚨New paper alert!🚨 Super proud of the work that went into this one, which includes a systematic review and MEGA-ANALYSIS of the development of sense of belonging in STEM education across Grades K-12, with special attention to gender differences. (1/N) link.springer.com/article/10.1...

🚨 📣 Summer Fellows Program Call for undergraduates interested in education research: What are the barriers to effective learning in college? How can we support motivated learning? For more details, visit: sites.edb.utexas.edu/slam/fellows/ #cogscisky #edusky #academicsky #psychscisky

🎉 My PhD work has just been published in @natcomms.nature.com! How do we learn who caused what - and how much control we had - when outcomes depend on multiple people? We studied how humans do so using a new social learning task, computational modelling and fMRI. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧵👇

Trust in others and institutions predicts subjective well-being and vice versa. This makes me even more attuned to the costs of people and systems that undermine trust. The decay of trust as a public health issue. #PsychSciSky #AcademicSky #EduSky doi.org/10.1037/bul0...

Have you noticed how we often describe people from disadvantaged backgrounds as “strivers” or “go-getters” (💪🏼) rather than naturally gifted (🧠)? This may sound benign, but our new KiDLAB research shows that it reveals a harmful, early-emerging stereotype. (1/5)

I am thrilled to announce that this framework is out! Who is responsible for inequality? @tanialombrozo.bsky.social and I show that answers depend on whether people are judging causes or obligations, and the past vs the future. doi.org/10.1177/1745...

Ever try to encourage student creativity in undergraduate education? Out now and open access, our new paper documents an iterative (4 study) exploration and evaluation of our approach doi.org/10.1016/j.ts... #edpsych #highered #creativity

Don't underestimate the effect of the arts—music, dance, visual, gardening, crafts, theater—for promoting health, a systematic review @naturemedicine.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

In our research on socioeconomic background in academia, we ran a survey. Over 2,000 faculty members responded (thanks if you were one!) Social & cultural capital showed up time and again as key issues. A few findings you might be interested in...🧵

Experimental evidence that students are more likely to contest grades when they are delivered by an evaluator with a female-sounding name. "These findings suggest that women in evaluative positions face disproportionate resistance when delivering negative assessments."

How are students' motivational and emotional self-regulation related? In our new article, we advocate for more integrative approaches and discuss possible conceptual and functional linkages between MR and ER. doi.org/10.1080/0046...

New paper in PSPB on the benefits of giving positive feedback to students, especially from underrepresented groups. Although not the norm in STEM, giving positive feedback boosts self-efficacy and belonging, which increases STEM performance, attitudes, interest journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

This critique of twin studies is well written and convincing. www.madinamerica.com/2024/09/the-...

New paper building a theory of stereotype negotiation. How people don't just let stereotypes happen to them; instead they constantly and actively navigate social impressions and others' evaluations by @cydneydupree.bsky.social: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Motivated reasoning is a well-understood phenomenon - or is it? In a new paper just published at @collabrapsychology.bsky.social we discuss three known unknowns. doi.org/10.1525/coll... Here is a 🧵

Paper out today in @nathumbehav.nature.com: 1) those groups (women, African Americans, lower SES, rural) that are underrepresented in science have been less trusting of science. 2) If you improve representation in science, you improve trust among those groups. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New paper with Esha Naidu and Emmy Reilly! As U.S. campuses grow more diverse, what really matters isn’t just who is on campus—it’s how universities shape interactions. Randomized roommates when supported with institutional backing can strengthen belonging journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Academic accommodations in college more than doubled between 2011 and 2024 (4% -> 10%) and is driven by students getting accommodations for mental health conditions - job market paper by @alvinchristian.bsky.social

New paper in press at JPSP! An adversarial collaboration focusing on a large-scale test of how strongly implicit racial attitudes predict discriminatory behavior. Pre-print here: osf.io/preprints/ps...

Happy to share our latest study published in PNAS. Using data from 274,316 French students, we find that lower-SES students are less likely to wait for better university offers, even when waiting would lead to more prestigious or better-fit programs. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Excited to share a new paper by my grad student and myself, highlighting how classroom experiences such as positive classroom climate relate to changes in STEM motivational beliefs across the semester 🤸‍♀️🎉https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1m8Px,8E16MF-A

How can psychology help fight poverty? Our @pnas.org article shows how “culturally wise” interventions can support women’s agency and boost poverty reduction (Patrick Premand, Thomas Bossuroy, Abdoulaye Sambo, Hazel Markus, Greg Walton @stanforduniversity.bsky.social): t.co/maI5vf3meP

We replicated one of the oldest experiments in Psychology (Triplett, 1898) as a registered report. Children completed a task faster in pairs than when they were alone. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Starting the week strong with a newly accepted paper in Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, co-authored with postdoc @lizsnoland.bsky.social and Sohad Murrar! We merged two largely independent research lines to call for data disaggregation of Asian Americans and MENA Americans

What happens when a lottery determines which proposals for third-party funding get reviewed? Details here (#OpenAccess and fresh off the press): doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Kudos to Leiming Ding on this super cool study showing that STEM college students' cost perceptions interacted with early assessment performance to predict dropout intentions. #PsychSciSky #AcademicSky #EduSky

New in @pnas.org. Preschool teachers were less likely to accept participation attempts by children from working-class backgrounds, regardless of their perceived language level. With a great team: @andreicimpian.bsky.social @sebastiengoudeau.bsky.social & Louise Goupil. doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Open-access publication alert!! This is a special one; it represents two years of work with an amazing team of researchers, teachers, educational stakeholders, and technology experts to identify infrastructure that would advance equity in STEM education: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

New publication! 🤓 This experience sampling study examines how motivational regulation and cost predict students’ momentary motivational conflicts and emotions.

Your LMS clicks say more than you think. 🖱️💭 New research shows that students’ digital traces—like opening readings or requesting hints—can reveal how they self-regulate learning. #PsychSciSky #AcademicSky #EduSky 🔗 doi.org/10.1037/edu0...

💖This paper has been ~11 years in the making - and probably my favorite project of all time. Thrilled to see it in @pnas.org! I'm so lucky that Zach decided to do a second PhD and join my lab @psychillinois.bsky.social back in 2014 - a fabulous scientist & human being! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

This special issue "invites submissions on research areas recently de-prioritized and/or de-funded that address or discuss how social cognition approaches can aid in the understanding of these critical societal issues." Plz consider submitting!