A Demographic Theory of Similarity-Biased Social Learning. Now out in PNAS, led by the incomparable @apvelilla.bsky.social . We use modeling to explore conditions for the (cultural) evolution of parochial (and anti-parochial) learning biases. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Want to do a PhD to work on models of opinion dynamics and the inequalities of information flow, with an emphasis on climate change and climate policy? Apply by October 15 to work with Ago Merico and myself, based at @leibniz-zmt.de in Bremen, Germany. www.leibniz-zmt.de/en/vacancies...

Doctoral candidate (gn) - WG Systems Ecology

Das Leibniz-Zentrum für Marine Tropenforschung (ZMT) erforscht tropische und subtropische Küstenökosysteme und ihre Bedeutung für Natur und Menschen erforscht.

leibniz-zmt.de

A novel and exciting approach to understanding cooperation. Linking compromise and responsibility attribution to risky decision-making in dyadic foraging | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Linking compromise and responsibility attribution to risky decision-making in dyadic foraging | PNAS

From hunting to financial planning, many decisions are made under risk and alongside social partners whose decisions and outcomes are coupled with ...

pnas.org

🚨This preprint is now out in PNAS: www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.... We combine a dyadic foraging paradigm w/ computational modeling + ABM to study how people navigate differing preferences, share responsibility for shared outcomes & what that means for the group! more in 🧵⬇️ @fearbrain.bsky.social

Ketika Garg@ketikagarg.bsky.social · 8mo ago

🚨 Excited to end the year with a new preprint w/ Wenning Deng (not on bsky) and Dean Mobbs @fearbrain.bsky.social 🎉 🎉 "Blame and Compromise During Risky Dyadic Foraging" osf.io/preprints/ps... Feedback is very welcome! Thread: 🧵 1/n

This is such an important paper. A lot of key disagreements are not about desired outcomes, but rather about the strategies for securing those outcomes. And the rifts often come down to how much we are willing to risk in trying to secure those ends. Ketika and co explore this brilliantly!

Ketika Garg@ketikagarg.bsky.social · last mo.

🚨This preprint is now out in PNAS: www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.... We combine a dyadic foraging paradigm w/ computational modeling + ABM to study how people navigate differing preferences, share responsibility for shared outcomes & what that means for the group! more in 🧵⬇️ @fearbrain.bsky.social

🚨This preprint is now out in PNAS: www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.... We combine a dyadic foraging paradigm w/ computational modeling + ABM to study how people navigate differing preferences, share responsibility for shared outcomes & what that means for the group! more in 🧵⬇️ @fearbrain.bsky.social

Ketika Garg@ketikagarg.bsky.social · 8mo ago

🚨 Excited to end the year with a new preprint w/ Wenning Deng (not on bsky) and Dean Mobbs @fearbrain.bsky.social 🎉 🎉 "Blame and Compromise During Risky Dyadic Foraging" osf.io/preprints/ps... Feedback is very welcome! Thread: 🧵 1/n

I'm teaching an online workshop on ABM and model-based thinking through ICPSR next month. Details linked below in case you or someone you know is interested.

ICPSR Summer Program@icpsrsummer.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Interested in building models? 🤔🖥️ During "Introduction to Agent-Based Modeling and Model-Based Thinking" you will learn to understand, design, and build agent-based models of complex social systems! Register now: https://myumi.ch/3R7q1 #ICPSR #SumProg26 #AgentBasedModeling #ModelBasedThinking

Semantic knowledge is key for human innovation and cultural evolution! Our paper (thread in repost), led by fantastic @anilyaman.bsky.social & rising star @ts-brain.bsky.social is out in @pnas.org! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... I will present this work at APS Barcelona (29/5), happy to chat!

Björn Lindström@bjornlindstrom.bsky.social · 10mo ago

How do humans keep inventing tools and technologies that no single person could create alone? Our new preprint, led by @anilyaman.bsky.social & @ts-brain.bsky.social shows that semantic knowledge guides innovation and drives cultural evolution. 🧠📘 arxiv.org/abs/2510.12837

we accept nominations on a rolling basis, but the organizing committee is meeting monday next week to select speakers for next semester. speakers from all career stages and disciplines related to network science and complex systems are welcome. we encourage self-nominations, too!

haily merritt, phd@h-merritt.bsky.social · 3mo ago

it’s that time again! @wins-society.bsky.social is accepting nominations for our seminar series, so if you or someone you know is looking to share their work with a friendly, multidisciplinary audience, please submit a nomination here docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

🚨🚨 The Social Learning and Decisions Lab is hiring! 🚨🚨 We're looking for a postbacc project coordinator/research assistant to join our team this summer. More details about the position and how to apply here: drive.google.com/file/d/1ySeA... Please share widely and reach out with any questions!

new preprint of work with @dimitrisbolis.bsky.social that will be published this summer! across the cognitive sciences, there has been a recent emphasis on *interaction* in studies of behavior. here, we take the implications of this shift seriously. osf.io/preprints/ps...

🚨FULLY FUNDED PHD POSITION!🚨 If you are interested in trying to answer the question of "How did climate shape the movements, interactions, and evolution of hominin populations?" Come join my lab at @humanorigins.bsky.social 🧬🧪 deadline 7th of June ⬇️ uni-tuebingen.de/universitaet...

A computational theory of Aha! moments! New paper explaining why Aha! moments occur & why they feel so good. TLDR: They are a form of meta-cognitive prediction errors i.e. they occur when we surprise ourselves about our own abilities! @rachitdubey.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

New preprint alert 🚨 ! Check out the full thread below 👇

Ketika Garg@ketikagarg.bsky.social · 4mo ago

New preprint w/ @fearbrain.bsky.social, Bo Zhang, @aanixel.bsky.social & @pandascholar.bsky.social where we examine online political debates to understand how interactions become hostile using data from Reddit, real-time online chat experiments & brain imaging during chats - osf.io/preprints/ps... 🧵

I’m excited to share our new preprint: A Multi-Level Examination of How Hostility Unfolds During Online Argumentation. osf.io/preprints/ps... This is the first paper to examine how toxicity manifests from belief differences and how they are represented in the human brain.

New preprint out -- the first from my postdoc work @caltech.edu -- excited to share this interdisciplinary collaboration that combines Reddit, Online Chat, and fMRI data! Thanks also to the rest of our team @ketikagarg.bsky.social, Bo Zhang (no Bluesky), and @pandascholar.bsky.social!

Professor Dean Mobbs@fearbrain.bsky.social · 4mo ago

I’m excited to share our new preprint: A Multi-Level Examination of How Hostility Unfolds During Online Argumentation. osf.io/preprints/ps... This is the first paper to examine how toxicity manifests from belief differences and how they are represented in the human brain.

New preprint w/ @fearbrain.bsky.social, Bo Zhang, @aanixel.bsky.social & @pandascholar.bsky.social where we examine online political debates to understand how interactions become hostile using data from Reddit, real-time online chat experiments & brain imaging during chats - osf.io/preprints/ps... 🧵

What function did ~100k-year-old engravings from Blombos Cave & Diepkloof serve? Decoration, identity marking, proto-writing? osf.io/preprints/ps... uses transmission chains + cognitive experiments to find out & help answering one of the hardest questions in cognitive archaeology. long thread! 1/

the amazing @mayankchugh.bsky.social once again powerfully captures the lived realities of inequality in academic mobility by sharing his experiences. this artwork "weighing" Indian and American passports hits really hard -- goes much beyond mobility privileges.

I was set to lead an undergraduate research trip abroad. Then my visa was denied

Through flexibility, problem-solving and the generosity of colleagues, I shepherded students through fieldwork remotely.

nature.com

I was supposed to finish this March 31 and then the #Claude Code leak happened, handing me the perfect opening example Some of it has been in the works for longer: it's also a version of (part of) my #DHd2025 keynote titled "What makes LLMs so irresistible?" Read it here: doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

Forwarding predatory conference invites for co-authored work to your co-authors is a good equivalent of ‘thinking of you’ texts.

Press release for our new paper! “…people across the world created inclusive political systems, even under difficult conditions…An understanding of the hallmarks of autocracy and democracy can help identify threats and pump the brakes on burgeoning totalitarian regimes.” phys.org/news/2026-03...

New study shows democracy has deep global roots—not just Greece and Rome

A new study on ancient societies from around the world is rewriting what we thought we knew about democracy. A team of researchers analyzed archaeological and historical evidence from 31 ancient socie...

phys.org

People re-use each other's words, syntax and semantics in conversation, arguably to facilitate common ground. In a new Proceedings of the Royal Society B we assess whether this tendency can be used an individually reliable trait (e.g. to correlate it to something else): doi.org/10.1098/rspb... 1/

📅 Save the date! Join us next Monday, Mar 9th 11 AM ET, for another exciting seminar with Yasaman Asgari (University of Zurich) on global science landscape. Hoping to see you all there!✨

✨New Perspective out w/ Wenning Deng and @fearbrain.bsky.social in @cp-iscience.bsky.social ! We argue that social foraging gives us a unifying, and ecologically grounded way to study how decisions unfold across levels — from individuals and dyads to collectives. www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

✨New Perspective out w/ Wenning Deng and @fearbrain.bsky.social in @cp-iscience.bsky.social ! We argue that social foraging gives us a unifying, and ecologically grounded way to study how decisions unfold across levels — from individuals and dyads to collectives. www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

We developed a novel network analysis method to investigate this. 'App-journey networks' quantify the patterns by which users transition across Apps in a phone use session, directly from real-world phone use data.

The Epstein files document what many women researchers have long experienced but rarely seen laid bare so starkly: exclusion operating behind closed doors, shaping who gets funded, invited, mentored, and taken seriously. How many of these networks, norms, and gatekeepers remain in place?

19thnews@19thnews.org · 5mo ago

The trove of files released by the Department of Justice, illuminates Epstein’s deep interest and entrenchment in the scientific community. But the files also underscore how he used his power and money in ways that kept women out of places where they might succeed. https://bit.ly/4qWgPLz

📅 Save the date! Join us next Monday, Feb 23rd 11 AM ET, for another exciting seminar with Dr. Assemgul Kozhabek (Heriot-Watt University) on urban mobility networks. Hoping to see you all there!✨

This gets to some important points. There was always something cold, even chilling, about Brockman's "Edge" culture. That feeling still pervades some scientific circles. There's a real problem here that won't go away with Epstein. www.theverge.com/2019/9/19/20...

Jeffrey Epstein infiltrated science because it was ready to accommodate him

What could “nerd tunnel vision” possibly mean?

theverge.com