6 years after COVID, did the pandemic permanently damage a generation? Not really. Children suffered, some more than others. But the latest research suggests COVID did not offset their learning. The research and what we should learn: academic.oup.com/chidev/artic... Free articles in comments.

The idea that kids learn best when they feel secure seems obvious, but new research from the UW–Madison shows how a child’s trust in their parents shapes their willingness to explore. Kids who feel their parents are unreliable explore less – even when it's vital to learning. youtu.be/SyaKVJ2Ctsk

Playing It Safe: How Parental Unpredictability Shapes Children’s Willingness to Learn

YouTube video by SciTube

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Why do stressful childhood experiences lead people to make maladaptive choices? This study suggests early experiences lead individuals to expect environments to be volatile, explaining why their decisions feel appropriate to them. shorturl.at/e0tZC 🧪 @kesmith.bsky.social @payampiray.bsky.social

Behold! Decades of evidence show adversity affects development, the challenge to advance knowledge is figuring out why and how experience matters. Our latest thinking: www.annualreviews.org/content/jour... 🧪 @kesmith.bsky.social #devsci #ClinicalPsychology #ClinicalPsychology #PsychScience

Conceptual and Methodological Issues in Studying Early Adversity and Development

Early life adversity is associated with many negative health, behavioral, and cognitive outcomes. However, the causal mechanisms underlying these associations remain obscure, making it difficult to de...

annualreviews.org

How do humans learn to weight signals when reasoning about emotions? Children change both kinds of cues they rely on and the ways they use cues in their reasoning. New work from Andrea Stein using adorable stimuli, too. 🧪 dx.doi.org/10.1111/desc... #cogsci #devsci #AffectSci #PsychSciSky

Demonstrates that while preschoolers initially rely on perceptual information from faces, this diminishes with age; the crux of emotional development in children shifts to conceptual knowledge gained through social experience. 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41... #cogsci #devsci #AffectSci #PsychSciSky

Thank you Koraly!

Koraly@drkoraly.bsky.social · last yr.

April's Editor's Choice: Computational modeling approaches to emotional development. psycnet.apa.org/record/2025-... Andrea Stein & Seth Pollak @sethpollak.bsky.social @apajournals.bsky.social 2/2

🧪 Call for Papers: Rigorous science that examines children's developmental trajectories in the long shadow of COVID-19, with a special focus on heterogeneity among children’s developmental contexts, social experiences, and outcomes. www.srcd.org/call-papers-...

New issue of Dædalus on caregiving. Megan Gunnar @rjc3kids.bsky.social and I discuss science parents can rely on to make decisions about care of children. www.amacad.org/sites/defaul... OPEN ACCESS bit.ly/3Qm49ha www.amacad.org/sites/defaul... 🧪 #devsci #psychology #developmentalpsychology

It is simply not enough for universities to say, “Our grants & research offices are looking into how research will be affected by the latest directive.” University leaders must actively and very publicly make the case for the kind of work many of us do. The silence on this front is deafening.

Childhood adversity influences future decision-making. This systematic review suggests adversity shifts individuals to prioritize information about risks and de-value information about reward- which is likely adaptive in adverse contexts. authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S... @kesmith.bsky.social

Check out this very special Special Issue honoring Dante Cicchetti! I’m grateful for the opportunity to discuss my ideas about the future of the field and to honor my legendary mentor. Fun to read all the other contributors’ ideas too!

Seth Pollak@sethpollak.bsky.social · 2y ago

The special issue of Development and Psychopathology entitled “The Future of Developmental Psychopathology: Honoring the Contributions of Dante Cicchetti” is published! My intro to the volume is doi.org/10.1017/S095... A link to all of the papers from luminaries is in the field is in the comments

Can’t wait to dive into this special issue, featuring a paper from my lab! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Seth Pollak@sethpollak.bsky.social · 2y ago

The special issue of Development and Psychopathology entitled “The Future of Developmental Psychopathology: Honoring the Contributions of Dante Cicchetti” is published! My intro to the volume is doi.org/10.1017/S095... A link to all of the papers from luminaries is in the field is in the comments

I have barely opened the Table of Contents and can already feel my heart racing with excitement... This looks like a truly exceptional special issue! I cannot wait to read it.

Seth Pollak@sethpollak.bsky.social · 2y ago

The special issue of Development and Psychopathology entitled “The Future of Developmental Psychopathology: Honoring the Contributions of Dante Cicchetti” is published! My intro to the volume is doi.org/10.1017/S095... A link to all of the papers from luminaries is in the field is in the comments

The special issue of Development and Psychopathology entitled “The Future of Developmental Psychopathology: Honoring the Contributions of Dante Cicchetti” is published! My intro to the volume is doi.org/10.1017/S095... A link to all of the papers from luminaries is in the field is in the comments

Postdoc positions in math cognition & math education! The RISE Postdoctoral Training Program at UW-Madison seeks applicants interested in inclusive mathematics education and in ensuring greater participation in STEM by learners from diverse groups. More info in the flyer and via the QR code.

‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens theonion.com/no-way-to-pr...

Posting here as well as on the other app. Finally getting around to sharing our (@sethpollak.bsky.social) new theoretical paper! We challenge assumptions around the role of arousal in emotion, highlighting ambiguity in how the construct is defined and measured. journals.sagepub.com/eprint/XWGB4...

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“Arousal might refer to some set of processes underlying emotion but evidence for its role in emotional experiences and behavior is at best mixed and imprecise” from @kesmith.bsky.social & @sethpollak.bsky.social (Reading as I prep an arousal coding template 💃)

Seth Pollak@sethpollak.bsky.social · 2y ago

A cheeky new paper that may challenge assumptions about emotion (hopefully, in a productive way). “Arousal Might Not Be Anything to Get Excited About” journals.sagepub.com/share/W6VFCD... asks: Is there really evidence for arousal, or is it just a placeholder for unexplained aspects of emotion?

Postdoctoral positions in Emotion Research. Come and collaborate with 24 training faculty across disciplines in the nation’s longest standing emotion research training program (also home to the country’s largest local farmers market). Applications are due on Friday, February 7,2025. emotion.wisc.edu

A cheeky new paper that may challenge assumptions about emotion (hopefully, in a productive way). “Arousal Might Not Be Anything to Get Excited About” journals.sagepub.com/share/W6VFCD... asks: Is there really evidence for arousal, or is it just a placeholder for unexplained aspects of emotion?

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

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Computational approaches to language at UW-Madison! jobs.wisc.edu/jobs/assista...

Lots of research attention to how we learn to infer other people's feelings. We always give a nod to the importance of context but don’t often integrate this into a task. Here, we examine how children versus adults combine facial and contextual cues. rdcu.be/dVjs5

Two renewable teaching faculty positions at UW Madison psychology. Come join us! jobs.wisc.edu/jobs/teachin...

Teaching Faculty - Madison, Wisconsin, United States

Job Summary: The Department of Psychology seeks a dynamic and engaging individual with a commitment to teaching as a profession for a full-time, 9-month teaching faculty position. The successful can...

jobs.wisc.edu

New work led by Madeline Harms examines the structure of explore-exploit decision making using four commonly used paradigms to advance understanding of how individuals adapt to changing environments over time. authors.elsevier.com/a/1ikHr2Hxod...

Cortisol’s Diurnal Rhythm Indexes the Neurobiological Impact of Child Adversity in Adolescence - Exciting new work led by Birdie Shirtcliff! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Deadline for nominations for the APA Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award is March 15.  Much more efficient and simpler nomination process than in the past:  www.apa.org/about/awards... Help recognize someone who influenced your thinking!

Early experiences influence how humans learn from and adapt to their changing circumstances www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Children who experienced their lives as less predictable explore less, and therefore have fewer opportunities to learn about environments and the people in them

Come study children's emotions and learning with us at the UW-Madison Child Emotion Lab. Post-doc fellowships on the NIMH Training Program in Emotion Research. Apps due February 2, 2024 (but please contact me before applying). childemotion.waisman.wisc.edu emotion.wisc.edu