Fran Cavanagh
@francavanagh.bsky.social
Postgraduate Researcher at Durham University | Quantitative Social Psychology Researching social attitudes and prejudice. Machine learning, computational methods, large text datasets, survey experiments.
Mark has kindly invited me to do this interview. How I got into metascience, how my path diverged from the mainstream and more if you're interested. I enjoyed thinking about his questions. Hope you enjoy reading!
Mark Rubin@markrubin.bsky.social · 3d agoQ&A with @devezer.bsky.social about metascience, open science, and her work in this area.
📢TextAnalysisR is now on CRAN: an R package + Shiny app for text mining: topic models (STM/BERTopic), sentiment, and semantic networks. #rstats #NLP #LLM install.packages("TextAnalysisR") App: textanalysisr.org Doc: mshin77.github.io/TextAnalysisR/
TextAnalysisRTextAnalysisR
TextAnalysisR: A text mining workflow tool
textanalysisr.org
Still not over AV being promoted as a legitimate alternative to FPTP for proportional representation fans in the 2011 UK referendum, when it's just another majoritarian system and the Jenkins Commission in fact recommended AV+, which has a proportional top up element.
Sanjay Srivastava@sanjaysrivastava.com · 6d agoWhat is an extremely nerdy/obscure/specific thing you hate with a white-hot wrath?
Great time at Crook Hall Garden with Durham Uni's #SocialPsyc group yesterday. With... @pburgum.bsky.social @nostawnevets.bsky.social @drmbothapsych.bsky.social @fuschia-sirois.bsky.social @lindarrighi.bsky.social @wuliang13.bsky.social @francavanagh.bsky.social
Session 2A at #ICRN2026: how can new methods reveal where contact happens and how it can be designed? One take-away: while VR work on intergroup contact is very exciting, it is also difficult. Avatars' social identity is interpreted quite differently from that of human interaction partners. (1/3)
Excellent presentation by @francavanagh.bsky.social today at #EASP2026 on developing a new scale of right-wing populist attitudes in the UK.
Since 1954, "The Handbook of Social Psychology" has been the field’s most authoritative reference work, and today is the launch of the 6th edition with 50 new chapters by 100 leading scholars. Best news? The HSP is now an open-access public resource—free to read, download, and share. the-hsp.com
FPP brutally supressed UKIP in 2015 and Reform in 2024, but is boosting up Reform this week - they have passed the tipping point where the electoral system goes from deadly enemy to best friend
"Facebook’s infamous emotional-contagion study" was actually more ethical than this, given that the Facebook feed algorithm doesn't pretend to be a human, and there's no reasonable expectation of such.
Amy Bruckman@asbruckman.bsky.social · last yr.The Atlantic talks about the unethical University of Zurich experiment on r/changemyview: www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...
Great turnout today on @ducu.bsky.social pickets. On strike to protect professional services staff jobs. An attack on one is an attack on all! Management tried to pit academics against professional services staff - they've failed! We are *all* the university!
Congrats Dr Patrick Kotzur, Prof Stefania Paolini @durhamuniversity.bsky.social & team for receiving International Best Paper Award from the Society of Existential Psychology for 'Psychological well-being in Europe after the outbreak of war in Ukraine - Nature Communications'👏 go.nature.com/3E5CmiF
Psychological well-being in Europe after the outbreak of war in Ukraine - Nature Communications
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has affected the global economy, environment, and political order. Here, the authors show that it also coincided with a temporary decline in psychological well-being ac...
nature.com
AfD overwhelmingly won votes from non-voters and the centre-right. This is a standard pattern. It is a myth that the radical right are mainly winning disaffected centre-left voters.
SI|e@h🫧@catalinae.bsky.social · last yr.Dazu kommen noch die ehemaligen Nichtwähler :/
NEW: updated long-run gap in voting between young men and women in Germany: Gender divide continues to widen, but contrary to what is often assumed, young men continue to vote roughly in line with the overall population, while young women have swung sharply left. www.ft.com/content/29fd...
A new global gender divide is emerging
Young men and young women’s world views are pulling apart. The consequences could be far-reaching
ft.com
Glad to have contributed to this panel of reactions to the German elections yesterday. Also including an important intervention by @casmudde.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Germany has swung to the right. What does that mean for the country – and Europe? Our panel responds
Friedrich Merz’s CDU/CSU may have won the German election, but all eyes are on the far-right AfD after its huge gains, say Fatma Aydemir, Katja Hoyer and others
theguardian.com
Vote choice by birth cohort and gender in the 2024 European election in Germany: - Increased gender gaps among young voters for several parties. - AfD share more than twice as high among young men (21% vs. 10%). - 49% of young men voted for the right-leaning parties, but only 32% of young women.
Since everyone is talking about research funding, this perspective by the vice-president of the European Research Council might be of interest. Blue states: Consider joining a multinational research council.
Alternative models of funding curiosity-driven research | PNAS
Funding of curiosity-driven science is the lifeblood of scientific and technological innovation. Various models of funding allocation became instit...
pnas.org
This multi-year, multi-country analysis shows that right-wing populist politicians spread more online misinfo than their mainstream counterparts and explains how “the rise of political misinformation is associated to the recent wave of radical-right populism.” journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
Scholars argue whether rightists or extremists are more prone to conspiracies. A new analysis across 77 samples (and 18 countries) concludes "there is no single functional form" of the ideology-conspiracy relationship. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... #socialpsych #psychscisky #polisky
Stereotype threat: a once-dominant idea in social psychology that shaped how we think about identity and performance. But what happens when the evidence crumbles? A deep dive into the failed replications, the myths, and what it all means. Read my latest essay: open.substack.com/pub/michaeli...
Revisiting Stereotype Threat
A Reckoning for Social Psychology
open.substack.com
Never assume your measures are doing what you think they’re doing, especially if you haven’t validated them using multiple populations.
Hakeem Jefferson@hakeemjefferson.bsky.social · 2y agoAppreciate the shoutout from @poqjournal.bsky.social! I show misalignment btwn Black Americans’ expressed partisan & ideological identities (red line below) stems from unfamiliarity w/ terms “liberal” & “conservative,” making the standard, oft-used lib-con measure invalid for this population.
Lots of puzzles to unpack here but not talked about so much is the shift in far right (recall) among young women Young men increased ~50% Young women increased ~100% (19v24) Gender gap remains (larger in consid. set) but trend is clear: rising far-right support among both young men & women
Tarik Abou-Chadi@tabouchadi.bsky.social · 2y agoNew Gender Update out in @ejpgjournal.bsky.social. With data from the new wave of the EES, I show a strong increase in support for the far right among young voters. Especially the share of young men who consider voting for the far right has exploded. bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/journal...
A scientist new to Bluesky? @steveharoz.com and @markrubin.bsky.social have put together some great resources to get you started!
Steve Haroz@steveharoz.com · 3y agoA guide to BlueSky for Scientists * Common questions * Links to resources * An explanation of feeds * A directory of science feeds Please share with scientists on BlueSky! Written by me and @markrubin.bsky.social 🧪 #stats #PsychSciSky #neuroscience
New to BlueSky? Interested in Psychology? Click on this post and scroll up for a thread of 40 starter packs containing experts in different areas of psychology. #Psychology #AcademicSky #EduSky 🧪
a yellow background with the word psych written in blue
ALT: a yellow background with the word psych written in blue
media.tenor.com
🦋 New to BlueSky? 🧪 Interested in science? 👀 Wanna find posts by scientists in specific fields? 📃 Click here for an ever-growing list of +230 science-related feeds and their hashtags: docs.google.com/spreadsheets... #AcademicSky #PhDSky #EduSky
a man with glasses and suspenders is standing in front of a group of people and says science !!
ALT: a man with glasses and suspenders is standing in front of a group of people and says science !!
media.tenor.com
I am happy to stop saying Psych has a replication crisis. Instead I would say we are having a Methodology crisis where every aspect of the way we design studies, collect data and provide evidence for our results needs to be carefully examined and reconsidered in relation to the questions we ask
UK Government invests £10M in a new metascience unit to investigate issues like: 🔹️ "What makes a researcher more likely to make bold discoveries?" 🔹️ "How do we best incentivise replicable research?" #MetaSci #PhilSci #HistSci #STS 🧪
Hetan Shah@hetanshah.bsky.social · 3y agoPositive to see Govt getting interested in research on research (eg what works in research funding) although I don’t love the term metascience. It will be important to involve a wide range of the community in helping set which questions to explore assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/655e2a...
Special issue: "Is psychology self-correcting? Reflections on the Credibility Revolution in Social and Personality Psychology." Edited by @simine.com and I. Check out the nine articles with diverse perspectives and approaches to examining the reform movement: spb.psychopen.eu/index.php/sp...
