Whoops! I irritated a sleeping turtle 😔 #ErmanDiveCenter #DiveBodrum
Rob Booth
@robertbooth.bsky.social
Psychology researcher at Sabanci University. Interested in cognition in anxiety and depression. Also, diving!
Today my student Selen Gönül's paper is published in Cognition and Emotion! It's a review of unconscious/preconscious threat processing in social anxiety, which is an oddly under-researched topic. So proud, Selen! doi.org/10.1080/0269...
Threat prioritisation under limited awareness in social anxiety: a review of masking and suppression paradigms
Social anxiety (SA) is characterised by heightened vigilance to socially evaluative threat, yet the extent to which this vigilance operates outside conscious awareness remains understudied. This re...
doi.org
And now, congratulations to my master's student Şeyma Nur Kara, who successfully defended her thesis today! Well done, Şeyma!
Congratulations to my first PhD student, now-doctor Selen Gönül, who successfully defended her thesis today! They grow up so fast ... 🤓
Just saw Pete Doherty play a tiny room in Istanbul. Did well!
New article, freely available in PLoS One! "Psychometric properties of the Probability Bias Measure" Written with three of my awesome graduates 💪 journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...
Psychometric properties of the Probability Bias Measure
Probability bias is the tendency to think that negative events are relatively likely to happen, and that positive events are relatively unlikely to happen. It is reliably associated with depressive an...
journals.plos.org
I guess even the best of us get bad days sometimes 🤓 Happy birthday Charlie!
Don't forget to register for SAS 2026! While you can still register up til the day of the conference, you get the best rates with the early bird special 🐥🦜🐦⬛ #SAS2026
I need a postdoc for my project “Panel Studies of Optimism Bias and Positive Mood”. I need someone with an interest in affective science, very strong English and writing skills, and experience of using SEM with longitudinal data. Thread continues ...
Bodmin Moor was looking gorgeous this morning ... misty and mysterious ...
Today, TÜBİTAK have funded my project on optimism bias and positive mood. Thanks, folks! 🤓 This means I will soon need a postdoc. If you are interested in affective science, and have some experience with longitudinal SEM analyses, please get in touch with me!
Veronika the cow shows evidence of tool use? Wow! "There is no suggestion that Veronika’s skills are evidence of the evolution of an ominous new species of super-cow." 🤓 www.theguardian.com/science/2026...
Back-scratching bovine leads scientists to reassess intelligence of cows
Brown Swiss in Austria has been discovered using tools in different ways – something only ever seen in humans and chimpanzees
theguardian.com
Halfway through dinner, my Turkish/English boy spontaneously made himself a meatball-and-yogurt sandwich 🥰 🧿 Happy New Year! İyi seneler!
New preprint! Not a headline-grabber, but an important step for my lab group: Demonstrating the good psychometric properties of my probability bias (expectancy bias) measure. The preprint, and the measure in both English and Turkish, are freely available here: doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/GXJK8
Turns out @mikeflanaganfilm.com , @stephenking.bsky.social and @markhamillofficial.bsky.social were right: I just saw The Life of Chuck, and it really is excellent. Well done, lads.
New preprint! "Increasing Depressive Symptoms of Students in Turkey (Türkiye), 1990-2023: Effects of Gender, Socioeconomic Status, Anxiety, and the COVID-19 Pandemic" This is under review: the final published version may end up looking very different to this ;) doi.org/10.17605/OSF...
Increasing Depressive Symptoms of Students in Turkey (Türkiye), 1990-2023: Effects of Gender, Socioeconomic Status, Anxiety, and the COVID-19 Pandemic
Manuscript under review. This project includes the dataset, and the preprint. Hosted on the Open Science Framework
doi.org
Trying to submit my paper from the cafe at Dolmabahçe Palace today ... Keep getting distracted by dolphins 😍
Really enjoyed @helenlewis.bsky.social 's new book, The Genius Myth. Interesting historical perspective, and I love the idea of 'scenius' Pairs nicely with The Intelligence Trap ( @davidarobson.bsky.social )
Had a nice little rec dive in Cyprus last week. Thanks to Ray at Dive Point Cyprus! youtu.be/7RxSp_naDiU?...
Diving at Cynthiana Beach, Paphos, July 2025
YouTube video by GUE TR
youtu.be
I'm very late mentioning this, but I had a good time at the European Congress of Psychology in Cyprus last week! Spoke about my recent paper on the Best Possible Self intervention, and met some nice people :)
Just bagged tickets to see @danielsloss.bsky.social in Istanbul... Again! Said to my wife: "Daniel Sloss is coming back" She said: "Why..?"
“I asked chatGPT-“ ok, and I asked Tinsel, and she said you’re an uninspired, vapid dork who needs a computer to think for them.
The wildest thing about being a professor is that it's somehow acceptable to email the smartest experts in the world to help you with your homework, and they just...write you back with help. Sometimes they compliment your question, or even thank you for asking. It's bonkers.
I'm gonna give my barista the benefit of the doubt, and assume this was meant to be a heart
Sabanci University, Istanbul, is accepting applications for master's and PhD programs in Psychology! There will be events on 8th May (Tuzla campus; 14:30, FASS 1089) and 13th May (Minerva Han, Karaköy; 16:00-19:00) where you can meet some of us, and learn about the programs and scholarships.
New preprint! Probability Bias Predicts Depressive Symptom Severity, Independently of Optimism/Pessimism and Intolerance of Uncertainty By Robert W. Booth (me!) and Dinkar Sharma. Freely available from the link below. NOT YET PEER REVIEWED, will probably change! doi.org/10.17605/OSF...
Fork of Probability bias, optimism/pessimism, intolerance of uncertainty
Manuscript submitted for publication. Hosted on the Open Science Framework
doi.org
PC did a weird update today, and threw me a spectacular error message. I guess it HAS been a while since I worked on that document!
Interesting time at the International Conference on Positive Psychology at Üsküdar U. last weekend. Thanks to Ebru Morgül for chairing the session! Presented my recent work, showing that optimism bias (optimistic expectancies) predict positive mood up to 4 weeks later. Preprint coming soon ...
