This is encouraging news. But deaths from alcohol remain unnacceptably and stubbornly high. Our economy and productivity, our NHS and public services, our communities and loved ones are still reeling from the impacts of alcohol harm. Government cannot see this as job done.

Any postdocs outside the UK interested in applying for a Marie Curie fellowship with me (sensory processing, decision making, vision), get in touch! Our school of psychology @unibirmingham.bsky.social is offering costs towards a campus visit to give a talk, develop a proposal and attend training!

Impacted wisdom tooth removal: ouch 🥴

We've got another cool new modelling paper out today in @plosmedicine.org estimating the public health impacts of increasing the Minimum Unit Price for alcohol in Scotland to 65p and the alternative impacts of different decisions. doi.org/10.1371/jour...

Rethinking drug use and addiction 😍 A philosopher advocates for a more humane and context-informed approach Superb review by Cassandra Boness of Hanna Pickard's important book, provocatively titled: "What would you do alone in a cage with nothing but cocaine?" www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Brilliant to present an overview of my Fellowship in the @sarg-scharr.bsky.social monthly meeting earlier today — feeling very grateful for how everything has worked out!

Fluff ball begging for his dinner 2 hours early

Our experimental alcohol administration study on the tension reduction hypothesis has been published in Addiction! 🎉 See preprint thread below for a summary :) Https://doi.org/10.1111/add.70213

Really recommend applying to this @addiction-ssa.org scheme! I was able to visit @james-g-murphy.bsky.social and @katiew.bsky.social earlier this year and it was brilliant both professionally and personally 🇺🇸

Heading into Sheffield for #ESCOP25 I'm taking part in a symposium on using drift diffusion models for between group comparisons,organised by @ambercopeland.bsky.social W/ @cmanning.bsky.social Craig Hedge and Alekhya Mandali also speaking. Lot to discuss,should be a great session!

We are delighted to announce our 2025 prize winners, Leon Xiao and Gemma Taylor. Find out more about the SSA's prizes and funding schemes: tinyurl.com/7m5d8yyn

🧠 We're hiring a computational postdoc! 3+ years with me & @mitulamehta.bsky.social on @wellcometrust.bsky.social funded social cognition/paranoia research at the IoPPN. Lead & develop computational work, collaborate with experimentalists on psychosis/THC data. DM for details! lnkd.in/eCMy9Jf5

Presenting my talk at #ESCOP2025 today at 4pm in the symposium "Cognitive Mastery in Play: From Board to Digital Games as Models of Expertise" in LT2 🎮🎲 Hope you see you there!

My love language is a Yorkshire teabag. #ESCOP2025 delivering the goods!

With less than week until #ESCOP2025, we're super excited to kick-off our conference with something truly special - an Algorave! 🤩 (1/12 👀)

Perfect day for a long walk in the Peaks

'SARG researcher @ambercopeland.bsky.social secures major Wellcome funding to model how context influences alcohol consumption' | | @sarg-scharr.bsky.social sarg-sheffield.ac.uk/news-media/s...

Delighted to share that this October, I will be starting a 5-year Early Career Fellowship funded by the @wellcometrust.bsky.social 🥳 You can read more about my project 👇

It’s a good day - Friday and a paper acceptance 🥳

This new paper led by @sophiebright.bsky.social introduces the Intersectional Alcohol Inequities Framework (IAIF), a conceptual tool designed to visually illustrate how diverse factors across multiple levels and domains intersect to shape inequities in alcohol consumption and related harms.

An absolutely brilliant morning! More photos:

Brilliant first day at RSA, including delivering a symposium on innovative methods for behavioural economic research 🤩

First day in New Orleans with @ambercopeland.bsky.social ahead of Research Society on Alcohol Conference which starts tomorrow. First US experience: big food

We know that Minimum Unit Pricing for alcohol has reduced harms in Scotland, but could a similar approach work for tobacco? Our new paper, led by @drduncgillespie.bsky.social is here with the answers: tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/earl...

Who's excited for RSA in New Orleans!? I look forward to chairing the annual affect regulation symposium on Sunday June 22nd at 10am Central Time in room Celestin ABC! Come by to learn about exciting new experimental&EMA data from Colin Echeverri (Creswell lab), Sarah Pedersen, Andrea King, and me!

✨ Job opportunity! ✨ We're currently seeking a Research Associate in Psychology for a new project led by @fieldmatt.bsky.social which will use machine learning to develop a better understanding of why many people drop out of treatment for gambling problems. More project info at: bit.ly/45WEyVb

Looks like a brilliant paper for anybody interested in experimentally researching evidence accumulation processes journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

New on the SARG Blog! @ambercopeland.bsky.social talks about findings from her recent study which used computer modelling to explore the links between mood and smoking choices. Her research reveals surprising insights into how our feelings actually influence decisions about tobacco.

New paper! ‘Value-based decision-making in daily tobacco smokers following experimental manipulation of mood’ with @fieldmatt.bsky.social, @jonasdora.bsky.social, @tomstafford.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy, @kevinmking.bsky.social pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40424143/

This university bookstore is a giant Stroop test

Demand for heroin in rats: effects of non-drug alternative substitutes and complements 👉 Opioid value depends on the broader behavioral economic context in which opioids and non-drug alternatives are available www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Pleased to be able to share my new article in @theconversation.com. It was inspired by recent papers with colleagues @chrysanthi-bltk.bsky.social @ioanaacristea.bsky.social @samuelacuff.bsky.social & ongoing work with @ambercopeland.bsky.social, and many others! theconversation.com/addiction-is...

Petition for transparent peer-review to include reaction videos of the author discovering the comments

We have a new paper out today in Lancet Public Health looking at increases in alcohol-specific deaths in England. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🚀 Thrilled to share the stellar #ESCOP2025 satellites lineup! From @psychopy.org to Bayesian modelling, fNIRS, eye-tracking, gen AI in teaching, Knowledge Exchange & the @wicseurope.bsky.social 25-year anniversary!🥳🎂 www.escop2025.com/satellite-ev... @escop.bsky.social @sheffielduni.bsky.social

Lovely day for a walk and some ice cream ☀️

Got the cat a new treat. Curiosity quickly escalated into GIVE ME THAT NOW

Another great week, this time visiting the University of New Mexico Center on Alcohol, Substance use, And Addictions (casaa.unm.edu). During this visit, I was able to get valuable feedback from Dr Katie Witkiewitz on my fellowship application along with advice on advancing in an academic career.

What an amazing week visiting the University of Memphis HABIT lab (www.memphis.edu/psychology/r...). Dr Jim Murphy (@james-g-murphy.bsky.social) is one of the kindest people I have ever met, with so many ambitious and clinically meaningful research ideas and ongoing projects.

Lovely evening in Memphis 🇺🇸 BBQ food for dinner with @james-g-murphy.bsky.social and @samuelacuff.bsky.social, and lots of interesting discussions!

When deaths from alcohol increase by over 40% in just five years, how can anyone seriously claim our current approach to controlling this problem is anything other than inadequate?

Can you run Pavlovia experiments on mobile phones? YES Just use mouse/buttons as your response! An example demo from #linguistics - semantic priming Try it ✨ https://buff.ly/40AtzO0 Adapt the files 🖥️ https://buff.ly/42agP20 #language #psychology #researchtools

Our current study investigates how self-monitoring and financial incentives can help people cut down. Participants breathalyse themselves three-times daily for 21 days, and attend three lab sessions to complete surveys and decision-making tasks. Find out more at bit.ly/sheffieldalcoholstudy

Our Health Economics evaluation of the Drink Less app is out, led by Prof @victimofmaths.bsky.social. Rollout of the Drink Less app is estimated to be health improving, cost saving, and health inequalities reducing. www.valueinhealthjournal.com/article/S109... www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Fallacies in the supermarket

We had a fantastic Open Research Conversation on citizen science yesterday… recording available on the link below:

***JOB OPPORTUNITY*** Looking for some research experience in psychology or public health? We have a short-term, part-time post on a small project about use of alcohol-free and low-alcohol drinks by low-income groups. More information below and at the link: www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DLM054/r...

it me 😬

I'm excited to share a new preprint: In a novel experimental paradigm, we found evidence that stress induces a computational bias during alcohol-related decision-making in favor of alcohol, but this bias was only sometimes strong enough to overcome competing considerations (e.g., taste preferences).

Does effort make life more meaningful? Was Sisyphus living the dream? In our new paper (now accepted in Cognition!), across 6 studies with nearly 3,000 participants, we found that more effortful tasks feel more meaningful 🧵