Tessera

Andrew Livingstone

@andrewlivingstone.bsky.social

Husband, dad, and social psychologist at Uni. of Exeter. Intergroup relations, conflict, emotion, collective action. Student evaluation: 'like an idiot savant' https://worldmakingthings.org/

97 Posts1613 Follower 434 Folgt

Chris Millard @chrismillard83.bsky.social · yesterday

“Universities have managed staff costs significantly below inflation,[between 2016-17 and 2023-24] increasing only 14% compared to the 41.2% increase in RPIX [measure of inflation]” Substantial real terms pay cut, which continues a trend existing years before that…

Cost of undergraduate provision and qualifications in England

A study of the full economic cost of providing undergraduate-level higher education and other qualifications in England.

gov.uk

Daniel C. Blight @danielcblight.bsky.social · last wk.

***URGENT PLEASE SHARE*** University of Brighton management have announced today that they ‘give notice of termination of all collective agreements’. This is a fundamental erasure of workers' rights. Management have announced the termination of all contractual documents, which includes:

University and College Union (UCU)@ucu.org.uk · last wk.

UCU members at Brighton University face the threat of derecognition. We have called an emergency rally tomorrow at 1:15pm. It would be amazing to see as many #TUC26 delegates as possible in attendance. 58-67 Grand Parade, Brighton and Hove, Brighton BN2 0JY

Twonks @twonks.bsky.social · last wk.

Wow

Dave Andress @davidandress.bsky.social · last wk.

Just a reminder as the new academic year kicks off - the UK government has deliberately, ruthlessly, throttled the recruitment of international students, solely to pander to racists, and the resultant 25%+ fall in numbers can and will only accelerate some universities into bankruptcy.

Aeon Magazine @aeon.co · 2w ago

The Pakistani historian of science Mariam Sabri explores the lives of four titans of early Islamic science to find that beyond their superficial differences, they shared something essential: ’none let a single discipline set a boundary on their thinking‘

Four Islamic polymaths prove breadth beats specialisation | Aeon Essays

The fathers of Islamic science hold lessons for students: breadth over specialisation, and never let constraints get in the way

aeon.co

Jo Wolff @jowolff.bsky.social · 2w ago

A few pages later.

Outside lecturers and the students now sit on the faculty; in her medical jour-nal, Annemarie showed me fierce attacks on the professors of medicine which favoured the non-professors and lay healers [. . .] It is all based on the same system: they look for support from those who until now felt themselves neglected, on those (really or seem-ingly) 'without rights', on the hungry, on the mass of little people. In the past the word was: Against the eggheads or against the capitalists! Now, much more appealingly, against the Jews!

Jo Wolff@jowolff.bsky.social · 2w ago

“The regime sees education, scholarship, enlightenment as its real enemies and attacks them accordingly.” Victor Klemperer Germany 1934.

Exeter UCU @exeterucu.bsky.social · 2w ago

What a MAMMOTH result. 100% the product of everyone's efforts over the summer.

RECORD-BREAKING BALLOT RESULT
EXETER UCU VOTES FOR ACTION
90.53% VOTE YES TO STRIKE
73.85% TURNOUT

University of Exeter News @uniofexeternews.bsky.social · 2w ago

The tipping points playbook from Exeter and @earthshotprize.bsky.social reveals 51 environmental solutions that can trigger rapid change to repair the planet. The report brings positive tipping points research into the heart of Earthshot's decision making. greenfuturessolutions.com/news/tipping...

BPS Social Psychology Section @bps-social-psych.bsky.social · 2w ago

We were so thrilled to present the Distinguished Contribution to Social Psychology Award to Professor Nick Hopkins! A wonderfully personal introduction by Prof Stephen Reicher preceded a rich, generous, and insightful conversation titled "The role of luck and privilege in research". #spsconf2026

Prof Reicher stands and faces the audience to introduce Prof Hopkins.

Section Chair Dr Vestergren presents the award

Awardee Professor Hopkins and Section Chair Dr Vestegren deliver the award talk by means of a question and answer format.

Resistance Psychology Network @psychresist.bsky.social · 2w ago

The 5th year of the Psychology of Resistance in Repressive Contexts Virtual Meetings Series is starting! We are currently accepting and reviewing new proposals for sessions. Interested in contributing to our series? Check our formats and apply by 30 September: tinyurl.com/resistance-psych-26-27

Resistance Psychology Virtual Session Proposals

After the successful conclusion of the fourth round of our Psychology of Resistance in Repressive and Violent Contexts meeting series, we are excited to launch the submission form for sessions in 2026...

tinyurl.com

Resistance Psychology Network @psychresist.bsky.social · 2w ago

The 1st session of this year's Psychology of Resistance Virtual Meetings is next Tuesday, September 15: We start with a moderated discussion on resistance- repression of the Congolese climate movement with activists François Kamate Kasereka and others. To register: tinyurl.com/DRC-climate-resistance

Psychology of Resistance Virtual Meetings Series
CLIMATE ACTIVISM IN THE DRC: MULTI-LAYERED REPRESSION AND RESISTANCE
François Kamate Kasereka
(Extinction Rebellion Rutshuru DRC, LUCHA, Debt for Climate DRC), joined by other Congolese climate
activists.
Moderator: Johanna Ray Vollhardt
Tuesday, September 15 , 2026
(90 mins)
7 am Mexico City | 9 am New York | 10 am Santiago 14.00 Kinshasa | 15.00 Warsaw | 16.00 Istanbul 18.30 New Delhi | 21.00 Manila

Link to register or scan QR code

In this panel discussion, Congolese environmental activist François Kamate Kasereka and other Congolese climate activists join us to discuss the multiple layers of repression in their resistance in DRC against the fossil fuel industry, ecological collapse and climate change, and varied resistance tactics they use in response, from a standpoint of nonviolent civic resistance. We will address the multifaceted nature of what climate activists in the DRC are tackling, the different sources of repression of the climate movement, and the different psychological responses to it that can hamper or fuel mobilization. François Kamate Kasereka is an environmental activist and human rights defender from the North Kivu province in the Democractic Republic of the Congo who organizes and mobilizes members of local communities, indigenous groups, young people and other marginalized individuals to defend their rights using nonviolent methods in support of climate justice, social justice, and peacebuilding. He is a member of citizen movement Lutte pour le Changement, which stands for Fight for change (LUCHA), a collective known for its commitment to democracy, good governance, and the protection of human rights in the DRC. He is also a co-founder of Extinction Rebellion Rutshuru DRC, organizing against fossil fuel extraction projects in ecologically sensitive areas such as the Congo Basin. He is also a co-founder of Debt for Climate in DRC, aimed at promoting climate and economic justice in Global South.

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 6mo ago

"The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate any thing. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform. It [cannot] anticipat[e] any analytical relations or truths. Its province is to assist us in making available what we are already acquainted with." — Ada Lovelace, 1843

From Note G, p. 722

It is desirable to guard against the possibility of exag-
gerated ideas that might arise as to the powers of the Ana-
lytical Engine. In considering any new subject, there is
frequently a tendency, first, to overrate what we find to be
already interesting or remarkable; and, secondly, by a sort
of natural reaction, to undervalue the true state of the case,
when we do discover that our notions have surpassed those
that were really tenable.

‘The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to

|
192 #$ ADA, THE ENCHANTRESS OF NUMBERS
originate any thing. It can do whatever we know how to
order it to perform. It can follow analysis; but it has no
power of anticipating any analytical relations or truths. Its
province is to assist us in making available what we are al-
ready acquainted with. This it is calculated to effect pri-
marily and chiefly of course, through its executive
|
1 snce on science itself in ano or, in so
distributing and combining the truths and the formula of
analysis, that they may become most easily and rapidly |
amenable to the mechanical combinations of the engine,
the relations and the nature of many subjects in that sci-
ence are necessarily thrown into new lights, and more pro- |
foundly investigated. This is a decidedly indirect, and a
somewhat speculative, consequence of such an invention. |
It is however pretty evident, on general principles, that in |
devising for mathematical truths a new form in which to |
record and throw themselves out for actual use, views are |
likely to be induced, which should again react on the more |
theoretical phase of the subject. There are in all exten- |
sions of human power, or additions to human knowledge, |
various collateral influences, beside the main and primary |
object attained. |
¥ |

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ@olivia.science · 6mo ago

full book archive.org/details/adae...

Johanna Ray Vollhardt @jrvollhardt.bsky.social · 3w ago

New review article in Nature Reviews Psychology, where we extend Leach's (2020) appraisal-coping model of group victimization and integrate with research on collective victimization beliefs www.nature.com/articles/s44... Paper can be read (view only) here rdcu.be/EZ9kEmdZVMca, or email for the pdf!

An appraisal–coping framework of collective victimization beliefs and their consequences - Nature Reviews Psychology

Responses to violence against the ingroup depend on how people think about their group’s collective victimization. In this Review, Vollhardt et al. organize collective victimization beliefs and their ...

nature.com

Lee Hurley @hleehurley.com · 3w ago

Started... Going etc

Record fine for university that failed to protect the free speech of trans critics
Daily Mail27 Mar 2025By Eleanor Harding Education Editor
SUSSEX University has been fined £585,000 over a transgender row which ended in an academic being driven out of her job.

The Office for Students (OfS) imposed the penalty following an investigation involving Professor Kathleen Stock, who was ‘cancelled’ on campus for her gender views.

It is the first time the OfS has imposed a fine on a university over a free-speech issue, and it paves the way for similar action against other institutions. It is also the highest fine handed out to a university by the OfS.

The three-year inquiry was based around university gender policies and whether they could be creating an unwelcome

‘The policy had a chilling effect’

atmosphere for gender-critical academics. It started in 2021 after a national outcry when Professor Stock, a philosophy lecturer, was hounded out of her job by student activists.

Professor Stock believes those born male should not have an automatic right to women-only spaces if they identify as female, which campaigners challenged.

Students launched a protest to get her fired which included demonstrations and defamatory posters. She resigned in October that year after continuing to receive hostility from not only students but also from colleagues and the University and College Union.

The investigation found Sussex’s transgender equality policy had a ‘chilling’ effect on Professor Stock’s views as well as those of students and other staff.

The policy forced tutors to ‘positively represent trans people and trans lives’ in their teaching, and banned what they called ‘transphobic propaganda’.

Arif Ahmed, director for freedom of speech at the OfS, said: ‘We know that Professor Stock changed the way she taught her course as a result. And we are concerned that a chilling effect may have caused many more students and academics at the university to self-censor their expression or

Screenshot of Guardian article from 14m ago headlined Higher education regulator apologises for imposing £585k fine on university

Exeter UCU @exeterucu.bsky.social · 3w ago

The University of Exeter has confirmed that it won’t proceed with compulsory redundancies “at this time”. This means colleagues do not need to complete the pro forma, and there will be no selection process.

photo of Nicole Kidman looking incredibly joyful and free after her divorce from Tom Cruise was finalised

Mark Dingemanse @markdingemanse.net · 4w ago

Very proud to share this new work led by the amazing Marlou Rasenberg (not on here), with Joel Fischer and me doi.org/10.5281/zeno... We use #EMCA methods to study empirically how LLM users shoulder the burden of solving sequential trouble and end up restructuring their own aims & activities

Abstract: This paper investigates how a core component of human interaction – action projection – is realized in conversations with systems like ChatGPT, which are not able to recognize nor anticipate actions in a sequential sense. We ask what this means for users who engage in longer, multi-step projects built through incremental prompt-response pairs. We draw on Conversation Analysis to examine how early adopters of ChatGPT sequentially organise such interactions, using anonymised naturalistic interactions from the WildChat dataset. Our analysis reveals how action projection in LLM interactions is beset with interactional trouble. In turn, we document a set of practices we term ‘pre-emptive prompting’ that users develop to work around the trouble. In doing so, users employ a range of conversational methods including pre-sequences, prompt categorization, withholding executables, spelling out relevant next actions, eliciting displays of “understanding”, and creating slots for redirection in their attempts to complete their projects. Our work provides empirical evidence of how users interactionally accomplish the configuration work (Alcaras and Ricci 2025) needed to work around the discretization and cluttering that LLMs-in-use produce.

Excerpt 10: ‘wouldnt you require both inputs’ wc_1211945; wc_usr_d2a27584b4185dda [conv_index: 359]
1 user : ok if i said i want to provide you with input A (which is an items description) and just assess its format and presentation then i provided you with input B (which is also a item desctiption for a similar item) but in a way diffrent format could you make the B input into A input
2 LLM: Yes, I can certainly help you with that. Please provide me with Input B, and I will try to make it resemble Input A in terms of format and presentation.
3 user: wouldnt you require both inputs

International Conference on Computational Social Science @ic2s2.bsky.social · 4w ago

IC2S2 2026 Keynote from Kate Starbird, "From Rumors to Influence: Participatory Propaganda to Policy": youtu.be/B5a651PKTN0

2026 IC2S2: Keynote Presentation by Kate Starbird

YouTube video by Vermont Complex Systems Institute

youtu.be

Glen O'Hara @gsoh31.bsky.social · 4w ago

Tomorrow is D-Day for the University of Dundee. Meanwhile the Scottish government just wrings its hands a bit. All solidarity with colleagues there. www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/dund...

6 key questions as worried Dundee University staff wait to learn if jobs are being axed

Dundee University bosses are poised to detail a revised savings plan this week.

thecourier.co.uk

Will Gervais @willgervais.com · 4w ago

Fringe weirdos making racist claims from long-discredited pseudoscience are part of a *decades long political project* cosplaying science. Those predictably turning up with an "academic freedom" red herring to shield racism every time the diaper blows out? Another important part of the project!

Rebecca Sear@rebeccasear.bsky.social · 4w ago

Scientific racism is now mainstream again but Andrew Winston explains here why treating it as mainstream science is a mistake - tackling it with the ordinary scientific methods of peer review won’t be enough to stop it because it’s a “community project”, not science

Petra Boynton @petraboynton.bsky.social · last mo.

Decades of research on bullying in academia tells us abusers are usually known in HEIs (including to HR). They typically stay in post, or are promoted. Their victims (within and outside the uni) are the ones who quit, step down, or are hurt. HEIs generally only act when their reputations are hit /1

Priyamvada Gopal @priyamvadagopal.bsky.social · last mo.

Do people really not think it strange that all of a sudden, liberals who are given to encomiums to 'Western values' and 'our freedoms', albeit more subtly than the right, are suddenly the most ardent antiracists you could find on the planet but focused entirely on one person?

Petra Boynton @petraboynton.bsky.social · last mo.

Grief and loss are far more commonplace in academia than we may think, but often we deal with it poorly. Or act as if surprised by what are often entirely predictable, albeit tragic, outcomes. Here's a short thread that may help you, if your heart is heavy. /1

John Drury @profjohndrury.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I will be advertising a funded PhD studentship shortly, for a project on adding psychological theory (social identity) to modelling of epidemics ( @leverhulme.ac.uk funded, with Marijn Stok). The studentship will start in January 2027. Get in touch now for informal enquiries.

John Heathershaw @jheathershaw.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I never thought that I would have to write this piece about my university. But after weeks of demonstrating privately to senior managers that their case is based on a false prospectus, that their data are inaccurate and their claims misleading, there was little choice. substack.com/@lucasamin/n...

Inside Britain's university crisis

As teaching staff face job loss, their bosses have netted pay rises and bought advice from a “vampiric” management consultancy, writes Prof. John Heathershaw of the University of Exeter

substack.com

man with a mirror @thorstn.bsky.social · 2mo ago

„As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think. Postman (1985, p, xix) on Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World“ Cited after/in …

Iris van Rooij 💭@irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Now reading 📖 Cruz, Nicole (2026). Illusions of Understanding from Outsourcing Thinking to LLMs. Computational Brain & Behavior doi.org/10.1007/s421... 1/🧵

Clive Lewis MP @labourlewis.bsky.social · 2mo ago

1/4 A growing number of higher education institutions are using dirty tactics to undermine staff pension rights, pay and working conditions.

The Psychologist @psychmag.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Representation in Psychology – just another impossible problem? Megan E. Birney (University of Birmingham) considers a WEIRD, but worryingly pervasive, research issue. Plus a response from the British Psychological Society's Academic Publications Team. www.bps.org.uk/psychologist...

Representation in Psychology – just another impossible problem? | BPS

Megan E. Birney (University of Birmingham) considers a WEIRD, but worryingly pervasive, research issue. Plus a response from the British Psychological Society's Academic Publications Team.

bps.org.uk

Dr Laura Sangha @lsangha.bsky.social · 2mo ago

'So, yes, you are historians and we will all continue to be historians after we leave Exeter. You will continue to be historians because we need you. Society, the world, needs you.' #HistoryForever Sign the petition against redundancies at Exeter: www.change.org/p/stop-redun...

A group of world leading historians in their finery, some in gowns, stand together under a tree. Some carry signs saying 'Historian at risk', other raise a glass to the camera.

claudia-cristalli.bsky.social @claudia-cristalli.bsky.social · 2mo ago

c.org/6HhLbyM8yy just take a minute to sign a petition & push back against the dismantling of philosophy in Exeter. Please

Sign the Petition

Stop Redundancies at the University of Exeter

c.org

Gavin Buckingham @drgbuckingham.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The Cognition Group in the Psychology dept at Exeter are at risk of redundancy because "basic cognitive psychology research does not align with the current priorities of funding bodies" If you think this is overtly wrong and misguided, please sign this open letter docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Open Letter in Support of the Cognition Group, University of Exeter

To Executive members of the University of Exeter, including Vice Chancellor Prof. Lisa Roberts, Senior Vice-President and Provost Prof. Dan Charman, Pro Vice Chancellor and Executive Dean Prof. Sallie...

docs.google.com