For the first time ever, I am done with grading before Christmas. A miracle, or better course design? You decide.

“‘My most daring idea is to refuse,’ she said to applause.”

It's been a challenging semester in many ways, but I'm taking a moment to reflect on the accomplishments of the past year. 👉 We published 5 papers, covering a range of topics from children's preferences for hierarchy to using neural networks to model person perception

You don’t have to be a parent to know this is heartbreaking

Brown University now says police do NOT have a shooting suspect in custody and that community members should continue to shelter in place.

wondering aloud: might LLMs be the death of humor? If they just generate the probabilistic words/phrases, then you dont get the unexpectedness that is characteristic of humor. Probably not all humor of course -- some of the LLM-generated roasts are somewhat amusing. but not what i'm talking about

I ate it on a patch of ice walking to work this morning and if that’s not a metaphor for the end of the semester, idk what is

Corny, but since it's thanksgiving season, I'm thankful that @sakierahudson.bsky.social invited me to be part of a fantastic new paper forthcoming in PIBBS on how intersectionality can be fruitfully and concretely applied in policy. Preprint link here: osf.io/preprints/ps...

#AcademicSky anyone remember a Science™️ article published that challenged the orthodoxy that men and women sorted into hunter and gatherer roles, respectively because of evolved biological diffs? I can't google my way to it so hoping someone knows what i'm referring to....

My hot take for the day: abolish asking “how are you” as a greeting. takes too much energy to lie and say fine when everyone is just hanging on by a thread

One thing I continue valuing about doing work with kids is that you have to interact with them to collect data

The Wicked marketing has gotten out of hand

why even bother having schedules @septaphilly.bsky.social? these days it’s more like show up and see what you get. Maybe it’s on time or maybe it’s 45 min late. or canceled.

And the pretty copy-edited version of paper is out here: psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-...

Increasingly believe tenure is protection for sucking at your job when service takes up all your time

At a time when so much funding for diversity science has been pulled, I am SO thankful to the American Psychological Foundation (APF) for awarding me & former student (now PhD student!) Lizy Szanton the Springfield Grant to examine kid biases at the intersection of race and gender nonconformity.

Spanberger's love for her family, and their love for her, is palpable on the screen and it is always so wonderful to see families that love each other like that in politics. But particularly Spanberger's husband crying when she was saying how much she loved him. Men should show their feelings!

LFG Pennsylvaniaaaaaaa

what is this new fresh hell where NSF is requiring a "one-time code" every time i go to submit a GRFP rec letter.

So....what happens to folks hired into "AI & Psych" jobs when the AI bubble bursts? Chase the next hot thing?

someone called me mid-career the other day and i was like how very dare you.

it's recommendation letter season, and the requests are flooding in. Trying to reframe as a way for me to tell colleagues about the fantastic students that've worked in my lab. Hoping that gets me through the letters...

🚨new article!🚨 led by former postdoc Grace Reid, with Ariana Orvell, Emily Foster-Hanson, & undergrad Selim Yigit! We consider what soc-cog abilities children have at diff ages and how that impacts what they learn from racial socialization messages compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Every developmental psychologist Is like “but my lecture slides!”

Has anyone else found it much more difficult to update preprints on OSF?

So, if you have new lines of work that are not exactly your "main line" that you're known for, how might you get opportunities to give talks about it and get feedback (besides publishing and hoping people see it, which can be slow)?

Lots of chatter about how AI is harmful/bad when used for writing, but i'm curious what people's thoughts are on using it for coding. I have to admit I find it useful for generating functions (broadly speaking), and code for data cleaning I might not know how to do.

Y'know, this girl from Mean Girls was supposed to be a joke, but at least she had VISION. Knew the world sucked but still had hope.

Two blocked field goals?! And one to win the game? Lets goooooo #GoBirds

Maybe this will help folks realize that...everything is political. Choosing to not track hunger is a political choice.

this is a genuine question (and might be me putting foot in mouth)-- what value does the AAUP add? All i ever see are "statements of concern", etc. there is no sense of collective bargaining, organizing, or anything that labor unions typically do. But perhaps I am just not seeing it?

unsolicited hot take of the day: Psych depts would benefit from de-siloing. As someone who sits at the intersection of two subfields, it's maddening when people misunderstand, mis-conceptualize, or just miss entirely (pun intended) what and how other areas think of similar topics.

🚨We're hiring!🚨 The Dept of Psychology at Rutgers is hiring an Assistant Professor in Social Psychology. Review of applications begin on Oct 18. Details here: jobs.rutgers.edu/postings/259... I'm chairing the search committee and am happy to field questions about the position. 🧵

My lab is hiring a lab manager! Application deadline = 11/1, start date sometime between June & September 2026 (to be arranged with finalist). Please spread the word & apply here: opportunities.columbia.edu/jobs/a3f80f7.... #AcademicSky #PhdSky #PsychSciSky #SocialPsyc #DevPsyc #psychjobs

Had a stressful dream about the first day of class, so happy new academic year I guess?

I'm seeing quite a few developmental jobs at SLACs. I'm happy to chat with anyone who's thinking of applying (or if your students are applying). Doing dev work at a SLAC can be super rewarding but also brings a number of unique challenges.

which children's recess game do you prefer: red light/green light, or a land-based version of sharks and minnows? Going to make my students play one on the first day so they feel like a kid again (for dev psych)

writing my first tenure letter and online advice (e.g., from the Chronicle or InsideHigherEd) suggests including metrics such as "inclusion in syllabi". How the heck is a candidate even supposed to find that information?? Maybe a "please let me know" on social media but lots of folks aren't online

The College of the Holy Cross is hiring for 2 tenure-track psychology positions: 1 in Cognitive Psychology (specifically, higher-order cognition) and 1 in Developmental Psychology. Please share widely! Developmental job ad: apply.interfolio.com/171704 Cognitive job ad: apply.interfolio.com/171698

New paper accepted at JEP:G with @sakierahudson.bsky.social, Brandon Kinsler, & former students Ian Davis and Alissa Vandenbark! Come for the opening Aladdin quote, stay for a developmental perspective on SDO! osf.io/preprints/ps...

Our Psychological and Brain Sciences department at Colgate University is hiring a TT position in Clinical/Developmental! Please share or apply! After 10 years here, I feel confident it’s a really special place with strong support for both teaching and research: apply.interfolio.com/171967

Four papers, totalling ~1100 children's worth of data, under review by EOW. So many hours of data collection, analyses, and writing. Praying to the paper gods that they all hit.

Someone pointed out that millennials often do a reflexive "lol" to end or begin a sentence and now I notice it everywhere

Why is the last 5% of a paper the part that takes forever? Starting a petition for journals to have requirement free (beyond the basics) initial submissions and then impose all the minutiae if it gets an R&R

Haverford is hiring a Neuroscientist! Please spread the word and share with anyone interested in a faculty position at a research-intensive liberal arts college. Motivated students, competitive start ups, hard money, great location, wonderful colleagues! www.haverford.edu/provost/news...

Hah! I actually DID learn and checked data and wrote for a SECOND paper.

Analyzed some data I’d been sitting on for a year. Took me a day to finish doing data analysis and write it up. Will I learn to not procrastinate? Almost certainly no.

Work....or re-watch K-pop demon hunters....again?

Who, in your opinion is a diva or icon that doesn't get enough of her due? My pick is Christine Baranski.

Today's musing: I feel like there is a lack of solid descriptive work in psychology these days -- maybe because it doesn't really get published? or that we're too obsessed with causality? But seems like an important thing we don't do enough of...