The psych job market may not be dead... but it is gravely injured 😬 So far it's looking like the Trump administration's attacks on higher ed/research are going to have more than 2x the impact on the job market as the covid-19 pandemic. #psychjobs #neurojobs #academicjobs

Self-care is overrated—helping others has the biggest benefits for everyone involved A new 2-week intervention finds that helping others improves well-being more than "self-kindness", with benefits for depressed mood, anxiety, and loneliness due to social connection psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-...

After a brief, injury-induced hiatus from libraries, I’m pleased to report that I am BACK IN THE MIX. Hello from the reading room of DuPont Circle’s Masonic Temple! 👋

"CPB informed employees that the majority of staff positions will be eliminated with the close of the fiscal year on September 30, 2025." www.npr.org/2025/08/01/n...

Look, it's like I always tell my students. If you don't like the data, just fire the person who told you about them! Bada bing, bada boom. apnews.com/article/trum...

I can’t imagine the courage it takes to be whistleblower, but I’m so grateful for those working to shed light on government corruption. If you want a credible snapshot of what’s happening in the DOJ right now, I highly recommend listening to this interview. open.spotify.com/episode/3eO0...

Oh goodness. The UNC Board of Governors is now requiring every campus to form “compliance committees” to audit whether hiring, training, and departmental practices are sufficiently ideologically neutral. www.theassemblync.com/education/hi...

Been a busy year in the data mines.📊 Just published my mid-year roundup: 29 data visualizations on the state of US democracy, tracking everything from judicial resistance to billionaire influence to why Dems have a mobilization crisis, not a moderation problem. All charts free to use:

I’m so grateful for this life. ❤️

It’s official! Thanks to my lovely colleagues, I now hold an adjunct faculty appointment in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience on top of my primary academic appointment in the Kenan-Flagler Business School. It feels good to get to be a bridge between departments. 🩵

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee released a trove of documents Thursday that back up a whistleblower’s claim that Emil Bove, a senior Department of Justice (DOJ) official, crudely told subordinates to defy court orders. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

She is far too un-self-promoting to do this herself, so I'm shouting out *THE* Elizabeth Page-Gould (@page-gould.bsky.social) for winning the SESP Career Trajectory Award! Liz is the reason they had to invent the high-warmth/high competence quadrant. She is such a gem and so damn deserving of this.

The people who lost children and other loved ones in the Texas floods are owed honest answers from officials. They should be told why flash flood warnings issued hours earlier were not conveyed to people in the path of the water. They don’t need more prayers from politicians. They need answers.

This is so exciting! Last week a journalist from Business Insider interviewed me about a recent publication of mine—and the article officially came out today! www.businessinsider.com/parents-pote...

I’ve called Thom Tillis just about every day for the last month to ask him to oppose this bill—and it looks like he’s officially taking a stand against it and the damage it would cause to North Carolinians! thehill.com/homenews/sen...

"For the child born this summer in Texas, whose parents receive no documents, whose name never appears in any system, and who grows up asking why she can’t go on field trips, apply for scholarships, or open a bank account, the consequences are not legal theory. They are her life."

I'm going to try and communicate with my Republican colleagues in a new way.

Just in: NIH staff have been instructed to REINSTATE these ~900 grants to comply with the court order, per sources. This comes after staff were also directed to cease any further terminations. You can see the lists grants to be reinstated in my post below.

Breaking news: The National Institutes of Health has ceased terminating grants on politically sensitive topics after a federal judge ruled last week that the cancellations were illegal. scim.ag/4l9MO8Y

According to The New York Times, Emile Bove III warned DOJ attorneys that judges might deem the use of the Alien Enemies Act to be illegal. And he preemptively told DOJ attorneys that if that happened, they were to ignore the law and deport people to CECOT anyway. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/24/u...

Y'all, this past week for science funding lawsuits has been 🔥🔥🔥 ✅ Major recent wins regarding: 1. U of California researchers 2. NSF indirects 3. NIH terminations 4. EPA terminations Plus: 5. Brand new NSF lawsuit (about terminations & slowdown of new awards) 🧵 Let's break it down

An estimated five million individuals may be in default on their federal student loans by September, representing a sizable shock to a fragile economy. (gift link)

Instead of CUTTING Social Security benefits, Congress should INCREASE payments by $200 per month and extend the solvency of the Social Security program by 75 YEARS. How? Make the wealthiest Americans pay a fairer share. I’ve got a bill to get it done.

I'm an Associate Editor at Current Directions in Psychological Science and I have a new Special Issue call on Intergroup Allyship. Proposal submissions are due by July 18. Please share widely! www.psychologicalscience.org/publications...

Red-state public universities are just as worried about their blue-state peers about cuts to federal research funds. But they can't say anything publicly for political reasons. www.chronicle.com/article/faci...

Everyone be safe, while protesting today. Here's a know-your-rights flyer from the ACLU.

NEW: The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has granted an administrative stay of Judge Breyer’s order — a move that puts the order on pause, allowing continued deployment of the national guard. Two Trump judges and one Biden judge on the panel.

I'm just so proud of every person across the country who's taken to the streets in protest of this administration. Remember: When the current president says you have no right to assemble, hold rallies, etc., he is lying. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/11/u...

It's the lawlessness that kills me.

It is 100% carrying water for the opposition to participate in this collective delusion that Dems for some reason need to answer for every teen who throws a rock rather than hold the Trump admin accountable for intentionally creating chaos and breaking the law to stoke violence. They are in charge.

Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C.—preparation for a parade of combat vehicles that costs the American people 45 million dollars.

This is not lawful. Again— I repeat— this is not lawful. Trump Says Army Bases Will Revert to Confederate Names www.nytimes.com/2025/06/10/u...

Big Five personality differences by Zodiac sign (N = 324,929). Eta sq are all less than .0008, so less than 0.1% of the variance in personality is explained by Zodiac sign.

Donald Trump’s deployment of the military in Los Angeles over the objection of California leaders is an abuse of power and a dangerous escalation. It’s what you would see in authoritarian states and it must stop. Americans have the right to speak out and peacefully protest.

Some promising trends in the psychology replication crisis since 2004: - Fewer studies publish weak p values (.01 < p < .05) - Studies with weak p values are less likely to get cited - The % of weak p values (26%) is now roughly what we would expect from studies with 80% power.

This sounds like a scandal in the making.

Worth keeping in mind: He’s not actually charged with something that requires proof of gang membership/activity. Which suggests the following 1. We said he was MS 13 2. We have to prosecute him 3. Say he’s MS 13 in the indictment, charge him with something that doesn’t require us to prove it

This made me so emotional. It's been so scary to see a government disappear someone, admit having done so by mistake, and then do nothing to bring him back from a foreign prison. It took months but thankfully, Kilmar will finally get to have his day in court.

Duke University to begin offering retirement incentives to faculty (on top of already offering retirement incentives to staff). "We will, for the foreseeable future, have to be smaller—and do our work with fewer people." youtu.be/9vv9zkoDZwE

“It is not good governance to give your child a cookie every time they lay on the floor and scream that they want one,” a Trustee wrote, of UNC professors who wanted to know why their tenure bids were being denied. www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...

Today’s work-from-home vibes. Brought to you by the National Portrait Gallery.

We often have to judge who is knowledgeable—precisely when we are not. Can humans really do that? Our new paper in Psychological Science shows that, surprisingly, we can. drive.google.com/file/d/1b15E...

Tomorrow will be my 100th day in a row of calling my representatives! So far, I've made just over 320 phone calls. I'm not sure if I'm moving the needle in any way, but I still feel extremely proud of all the time I've spent doing this.

"Roughly 1,500 babies have been born HIV-positive every day since January 21, because Musk cut off their mothers’ medication." prospect.org/power/2025-0...

Plant pride.

Who could have possibly predicted this?! www.nytimes.com/2025/05/31/w...

It just feels like it *must* be satire.

My co-authors and I just published a paper! Our questions?🤔 (1) Whether a gender bias that was first documented 20 years ago would replicate, and if so... (2) Whether its magnitude would depend on whether the women in question were Black rather than White.