I personally would like to thank global football for continuing to offer such off pitch entertainment for those of us who don't enjoy the game itself but do find it fascinating to observe comeuppances...

John Bull@garius.bsky.social · 6d ago

basically for those who like SCHISMWATCH football is now on schismwatch. If FIFA push through their unbelievably corrupt (even for them) corporate sell-off, then Uefa will schism, taking all the european nations with it. And Concacaf (which includes the USA) have all but confirmed they'd join them

Papers are starting to come out regularly now so I've finally created a project publications page to keep them together... bires.webspace.durham.ac.uk/publications/

Lynda Boothroyd@drboothroyd.bsky.social · last wk.

New paper from the BIRES team! Ana Chamorro led this awesome work with Wayuu communities in Colombia, exploring how globalisation is changing appearance pressures & creating identity conflicts for Wayuu young people. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #BodyImage #SocialPsychology #Anthropology

Update: My paper's editor is no longer available and they're looking for a new editor... 🤷‍♀️

Lynda Boothroyd@drboothroyd.bsky.social · last wk.

Anyone having problems with PLoS One? I sent back a fairly easy R&R paper in December last year. I still haven't heard anything back. I checked with the editorial office in April and May and was just told they were waiting on comments from 'a reviewer'. But it's been >7mos now!

New paper from the BIRES team! Ana Chamorro led this awesome work with Wayuu communities in Colombia, exploring how globalisation is changing appearance pressures & creating identity conflicts for Wayuu young people. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #BodyImage #SocialPsychology #Anthropology

Anyone having problems with PLoS One? I sent back a fairly easy R&R paper in December last year. I still haven't heard anything back. I checked with the editorial office in April and May and was just told they were waiting on comments from 'a reviewer'. But it's been >7mos now!

Since I know lots of peeps doing fieldwork in Congo and Uganda - if you haven't had the AZ covid jab, then you can volunteer for an ebola vaccine study!

madeline odent@oldenoughtosay.com · last wk.

I am not eligible for this study because i got the AstraZeneca covid vaccine, along with probably a significant proportion of Oxford, so if you didn’t get that particular jab and you’re local and willing to help save lives, please follow the link!

and write to your politicians. vote for parties and people who take climate change seriously. make personal changes if you can but remember that the bulk of environmental impact is from large corps, and that needs to be controlled with policy. vote and campaign.

I often have conversations re how 'we live in the future now' cos we have video calls and pocket sized data pads and voice controlled computers but... we also live in the climate catastrophe future I was scared shitless about 20 years ago. It's already here. Not just this 👇. Where are all the bees?

madeline odent@oldenoughtosay.com · 2w ago

i've outrun more than a few wildfires in my time and i thought of typing up some advice on doing that but honestly what can i even say because. this many wildfires in regions that do not normally get wildfires like this is a direct result of bad policies and failure to act on climate change.

A study in Discover Psychology examines coping strategies in under-represented ethnic groups of war refugees through a cross-cultural lens and suggests culturally sensitive interventions for psychological well-being. #PsychSciSky

Resilience and coping behavior among war refugees from diverse ethnic backgrounds - Discover Psychology

Background Given the psychological toll of forced displacement, understanding coping behavior is crucial for informing culturally sensitive interventions that foster resilience and mental well-being. This study examined resilience and coping behavior among war refugees from four ethnic groups: Ukrainians (N = 117), Palestinians (N = 19), Yemenis (N = 38), and Sudanese (N = 33) aged 18–45 y.o. Methods Participants completed the COPE and CD-RISC-10 scales via online surveys. Data analysis followed a multi-step approach: Differential Item Functioning (DIF) and Multiple Indicators Multiple Causes (MIMIC) modeling were used to establish partial scalar measurement invariance, ensuring valid cross-group comparison of latent means. Multigroup Bayesian Network Analysis (MBNA) was then employed to map the structural organization of coping strategies. Results Partial invariance was confirmed for both scales, validating cross‑group comparisons. Active coping, instrumental social support, planning, and positive interpretation and growth emerged as universal hubs. Group differences were consistent: Arabic‑speaking refugees reported greater reliance on religious coping, positive interpretation, social support, and planning. Structurally, acceptance was central for Ukrainians, while religious coping integrated with planning among Arabic‑speakers. Least used strategies across groups were substance use, disengagement, denial, and humor. Latent mean resilience scores were not culture-contingent. Conclusions The findings highlight both shared and distinct coping patterns among war refugees of the four ethnic groups. This emphasizes the importance of culturally sensitive and strengths-based interventions that promote adaptive coping strategies and psychological well-being. In particular, the findings suggest acceptance‑focused approaches for Ukrainians and integrated religious coping with planning for Arabic‑speakers. This study fills a research gap by examining coping strategies in under-represented ethnic groups of war refugees through a cross-cultural lens. It contributes to a broader understanding of cross-cultural resilience and coping behavior in war-displaced populations.

bit.ly

Nice discussion here of some work by my excellent @durhampsych.bsky.social colleagues and some related work on dolphins and whales. Brains are amazing. 🧠

Matthew Sheffield@matthew.flux.community · 2w ago

This is an interesting study. Echolocation in humans is real and can be learned. Likely also explains how cetaceans and bats, animals native to low-light environments, came to rely on it so extensively.

vertebrate: mah babby look lik me but smol coral: i spent eternity as a larva in the drift, then i cloned myself into a reef

Myself the BIRES team were interviewed about our experience of running an interdisciplinary, cross-cultural research project. As we said in the interview - interdisciplinarity and cross-culture research are one and the same, as disciplines are cultures! Great to see that thread picked up here.

Inquiry into interdisciplinary mental health research - Centre for Mental Health

This report examines interdisciplinary research practices in mental health, with lessons from eight case studies both in the UK and further afield.

centreformentalhealth.org.uk

The piece highlights the way these unis get marketed to ppl without entry qualifications. But we ask for these for a reason - to be sure the student can engage with and benefit from the course and won't fail early on. Govt money would be better spent supporting access to foundation courses. #UKHE

Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 2w ago

Another component of the higher education ecosystem overdue for serious scrutiny. Profit levels of 20% should surely be a red flag for systematic scrutiny.

So I think I want to use this in teaching Felson and aggression but would be grateful if ppl who saw it live can clarify - who are the guys in grey-blue t shirts and black trousers? Linesmen? Spanish club staff? (Also why did Parades only get a red card for this, isnt it criminal assault?)

Big Mike@cursedoxlong.bsky.social · 2w ago

this angles even worse tf

So international fees are about to go up by £925 at all universities, yes? 🙄 What's even the point of the levy? It would be so easy to just take international students out of immigration numbers because they are here as temporary (highly) paying customers.

Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 3w ago

'Providers will pay a levy of £925 for every international student they have registered above an exempt floor of 220.... This amount is not dependent on fee level, or level or mode of study – the only exception is where the teaching is done as a part of a transnational education programme'. 1/2

I don't know any of the obscure programming languages Brother A uses in his engineering job, so I think I would be a very bad drummer, tapping out a basic bum-tish beat in Brother B's professional function band?

Bethany Albertson@albertsonb2.bsky.social · 3w ago

Thought experiment- if you were suddenly appointed to do your sibling’s job, how badly would you suck at it?

This is excellent from Sam Neill - good lessons for academics here as well

Daniel Benneworth-Gray@danielgray.com · 3w ago

Sam Neill on tackling depression and imposter syndrome when you’re between jobs.

My beloved historians still injecting fun into the sports ball proceedings... (h/t my friend and Medieval History graduate Lindsey for spotting this)

I am not someone who enjoys football but I am absolutely someone who enjoys karmic schadenfreude and I would like to thank Belgium for giving me a dose of that this morning (while sending commiserations to the US players who are not actually responsible for their president's phone calls.)

This screenshot popped up in my FB memories and I had to laugh because I managed something almost exactly like this with @babeheim.bsky.social at #ehbea few years later by simply wearing Starfleet earrings...

I don’t ever ever ever ever want to hear one more ignorant person saying “hurp durp more vocational training”. If nursing ain’t that then nothing is. This Labour government do not want our young people educated. Period.

David Kernohan@dkernohan.bsky.social · last mo.

wonkhe.com/wonk-corner/... Yikes.

Walked into my bedroom, wondered why the wall was even more red than normal. Turns out the sun had morphed into the Eye of Sauron, glaring malevolently across Durham from above Aykley Heads.

Lovely @durhampsych.bsky.social graduation ceremony today. It's the last of my PhD students graduating for a couple of years and the weather was perfect.

Tienes interes en la imagen corporal en poblaciones hispanohablates? Quieres medir la internalizacion de ideal de curvas en mujeres? Tenemos un articulo para ti! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I may not like football, but I sure do like Renaissance History jokes about football...

John Bull@garius.bsky.social · last mo.

Habsburg derby let's goooo winner gets Naples.

Is this a good time to stop calling fascist technologies "tools" and to stop calling racism "bias"? hai.stanford.edu/news/ai-hiri...

AI Hiring Tools Can Yield Racial Bias and Systemic Rejection | Stanford HAI

The first large-scale study of hiring algorithms in the wild finds concerning patterns to how systems reject candidates.

hai.stanford.edu

I am not even slightly interested in football, but this cropped up on my feed today and it's a lovely example of music and collective emotion. I might use it in next term's Social Psychology lecture on affiliation (much nicer than the paper on emotional fusion and violence in super fans!)

UNREAL SCENES! England Players Sing OASIS With Fans After Epic Victory! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿⚽

YouTube video by FUTEBOL MAX TV

youtube.com

So I literally did this as part of a tutorial once. WC: mum worked as a cleaner, free school meals in infants, hand-me-down clothes, brother left school at 16 and is a drummer. MC: parents are teachers, brother is a civil engineer, lived in a stone cottage in Rutland They never guessed both were me.

Will Jennings📉🗳️@drjennings.bsky.social · 2mo ago

It's quite a fun exercise to try to work out what the most working class and most middle class version of the story of your own social background you could tell. (I could tell wildly different stories about my own social class by picking the biographies of two grandparents - one from each parent.)

An excellent and comprehensive article by @cattownsend.bsky.social about Epstein and his scientific enablers/launderers, start with Pinker in this 'part 1'. I cannot imagine forgetting that I'd been paid £10K for a letter... www.liberalcurrents.com/epsteins-gif...

Epstein's Gifted Scientists

Somehow it’s never the billionaires who are told that they have bad genes and shouldn’t breed.

liberalcurrents.com

Pat Savage@patrickesavage.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Extremely damning stuff strongly suggesting (among many other disturbing things) that Pinker allowed Epstein to shape the letter Pinker wrote for Epstein’s legal defense, received $10k for the letter, and later lied about it 😮.

If you do research on body image, body perception, appearance psychology or related topics in social or health sciences, please do get involved with Perspectives in Body Image. It was an amazing conference with ppl from so many countries last year. Can't wait to see everyone's work in 2027.

Perspectives in Body Image@persbodyimage.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Save the date! The second PiBI will bring together body image researchers from around the globe for an accessible, online conference once more on the 21st-23rd September 2027! Sign up below for the mailing list and check back for more news soon! lgboothroyd.webspace.durham.ac.uk/perspectives...