This is a worthwhile read. Will the lessons have staying power this time?

Melvin Manis, professor of psychology at the Univ. of Michigan, died yesterday in Chicago after 3 hours in hospice. Mel was known as scholar social judgment and was the first editor of the Attitudes and Social Cognition Section of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (starting in 1979).

Nine years ago at the Dick Nisbett festschrift. I can hardly express what an honor it was (and is) to be part of the Nisbett legacy. To those who say social psychology has no legacy before 2017, I say “Feh, you cannot know what you’re talking about. This group is loaded with counter-evidence.”

The extraordinary scientist “will often seem a man [sic] searching at random, trying experiments just to see what will happen, looking for an effect whose nature he cannot quite guess (p. 87).” Kuhn, T. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions, 2nd Ed. #Metascience #Openscience

Our paper, “The Politics of Black Classification: Sociopolitical Cues and Racial Perception” (w/ Lauren Davenport & @hrendleman.bsky.social), has been conditionally accepted at Perspectives on Politics! Sharing abstract below. Long time coming, but we are really proud of this paper. More soon!

New work and events... 🔸 Workshop on the politics and finances of open science reform 🔸 Symposium: “Who critiques the critique? Toward a reflexive metascience” 🔸 Preprint encourages establishing phenomena before testing theories 🔸 Systematic review of questionable research practices

The end of Viktor Orbán’s autocratic regime is a victory not just for Hungary, but for people who value democracy around the world. Congratulations to Tisza, to incoming leader Péter Magyar, and to Hungarians everywhere.

📣SPSP Members📣 Check out the Action Alert from @cossa.bsky.social below to learn how you can advocate for protecting the SBE Directorate at NSF. (More action items to come from SPSP and our partner organizations soon!) #WhySocialScience #SaveSBE

This post is part of a longer thread and we really wanted to make sure it got attention from our community. Many thank you's to Paige Amormino (@amormino.bsky.social) for putting together this action guide to help scholars advocate for the Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences!

Thrilled to serve as a Guest Editor for the Political Ideology and Religion collection for Scientific Reports! This Collection welcomes research examining the psychological determinants of political ideology and religion. Please submit by 12/17/26 and reshare! www.nature.com/collections/...

It feels a little weird to share a collection of social media posts as a post on a social media platform, but we had a ton of fun making this recap with some of our favorite #SPSP2026 posts! Check it out below and thank you again for sharing your experience with us! wakelet.com/wake/xIGZ7RG...

Postdoctoral Fellow in Social Psychology at the Australian National University jobs.anu.edu.au/jobs/postdoc...

That’s all, folks! Thank you to everyone who joined us for the SPSP 2026 Annual Convention. You made #SPSP2026 unforgettable. Safe travels home!

The 2026 Presidential Symposium at #SPSP2026 will feature Eran Halperin on doing research amid atrocity and Rebecca Covarrubias witness and resistance in higher education. 🧪

It's happening! #SPSP2026 virtual preconferences kick off today, covering topics from misinformation science to existential psychology to open science reform. Check out the agenda here: https://ow.ly/ry8A50YkpUy#SPSP2026 Are you joining us? Share what you're attending! 👇

Here's a 🧵 connecting a number of Mark Rubin's contributions on p-hacking and statistical inference as connected to one's philosophy of science. Under differing regimes, p-hacking and preregistration can have large or small or no consequence for scientific inferences.

GASP, the GLBTQ+ Alliance in Social and Personality Psychology is sponsoring a mentoring lunch with a TERRIFIC group of mentors at the SPSP Meeting on Friday, Feb 27. Take a look here: www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0C4EAB...

Progress Bar reviews"Why Federal Funding of Science" and begins a look at the question of how to improve decisions on how to distribute it. Watch this space! open.substack.com/pub/kristine... #metascience

I don’t think we should have ceded control quite so quickly and without so much as a fight.

Working on a principled way to describe the sample size, N, in #science papers. Will be attempting to prove Holmes' theorem over the next few years. Feedback welcome 🙏 #stats

'Spontaneous public response to a marauding knife attack on the London underground: Sociality, coordination and a repertoire of actions evidenced by CCTV footage' Now 'In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by @altmetric.com' bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

The full #SPSP2026 schedule is live! Explore research presentations, networking events for all career stages, and professional development sessions. Start planning your Chicago experience today: https://ow.ly/IBJI50XT9zS

The 2026 Presidential Symposium at #SPSP2026 will feature Eran Halperin on doing research amid atrocity and Rebecca Covarrubias witness and resistance in higher education. 🧪

Come #SPSP2026 in Chicago! Over 2,275 have registered for the main meeting (a bit up from the previous year); more than 2,000 for preconferences. It's the largest convention of social and personality psychologists in the world, teeming with new research & ideas. spsp.org/events/annua...

A worthwhile review of a less-than-credible statistic to “detect” biased reporting of results. There’s no shortcuts for these difficult analyses.

MAGA discovers the effects of cuts on science. 🧪

It’s not a panacea. It’s not even an improvement. en.ara.cat/science-tech... #metascience

Please consider participating in or sharing the recruitment advertisement for our new study, which is focused on understanding body image in bisexual women. The link is in the alt text.

Wow!

An Introduction To Forensic Metascience by James Heathers #RStats https://bigbookofr.com/chapters/field%20specific.html#an-introduction-to-forensic-metascience

More Feyerabend, being sensibly anarchic about the unproven “rules of good science” being forced upon us.

I’ve been reading Jeremy Bentham on the Panopticon—the circular prison where authorities can see what all the prisoners are doing (the prisoners cannot tell when they’re being monitored). The point of openness is —> surveillance, a hallmark of distrust. It is **designed** to be demotivating.

Paul Feyerabend, Against Method. Prescriptions about how science MUST be done? Simply a bad, authoritarian idea. And based on the history of science, not good for scientific progress. #metasci

I know that #JamesDobson has died, and people have feelings, including ill will. But I want to point you toward Sojourners magazine, which is an excellent antidote to the authoritarian approach to narrow, disapproving Christianity. sojo.net/articles/sor...

I have some good news, and some bad news.

Shai Davidai has pissed a lot of people off, but he’s also been a very productive and interesting social psychologist. It really does seem he’s been pushed out of Columbia for showing up and speaking, which is a reasonable expectation for a professor. www.tabletmag.com/sections/new...

I know Chicago winter is a huge departure from our usual SPSP locations, but Chicago is worth it!!! There’s so much good food here! Come hang out!

I am privileged to announce the publication of the Anti-Autocracy Handbook: sks.to/autocracy 1/12

"Reporting critical-effect-size values can. . . underscore how the distinction between a significant & nonsignificant result is not determined solely by the presence/absence of a true effect but also by sample size and complexity of the analysis." #metascience journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

The Perspectives on Psych Science Editor has published a provocative editorial. The journal \site has erased the previous editor from history, jumping the editor prior to him. I realize his departure was controversial, but the erasure isn't very transparent. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Engaging with art helps us think in abstract ways, new study says www.artsprofessional.co.uk/news/newsree...

Thrilled to have won @nature.com 2025 #ScientistAtWork photo competition! 🧪🐳📷 www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

Something to brighten up your Friday😊April's images of the month features a tattooed tardigrade, dazzling auroras and some super-trippy maths illustrations. By me in @nature.com www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

Academic friends, if your NSF grants have been terminated by the administration, FABBS is hosting a webinar Friday about appealing the decisions. It's important that as many people appeal as possible to show we're not accepting this targeting of science. Link to the webinar registration is below.

This short blog post about NC elections is worth it.