Stephen Spiller
@spillersas.bsky.social
Professor of Marketing & Behavioral Decision Making at UCLA Anderson. Studies decisions. Has opinions about graphs. Thinks we should say "I don't know" more.
The cyclospora outbreak is tailor-made (Taylor-made?) to force careful thinking about evidence. FDA retracts positive test of Taylor Farms lettuce sample. Does that test provide evidence? No! Can we maintain an evidence-based belief Taylor Farms is the source? Yes! www.nytimes.com/2026/07/20/w...
Despite ‘False Positive’ Test, Taylor Farms Is Still Focus of Cyclospora Investigation
The F.D.A. said it was continuing to look into the supplier as a big player in the outbreak.
nytimes.com
“Widely-Used Measures of Overconfidence Are Confounded With Ability” papers.ssrn.com/abstract=446... Now accepted at Management Science! 🤓📄🧵 1/
The Behavioral Lab at the UCLA Anderson School of Management is looking to hire its next Lab Manager! Applications will be reviewed starting April 30th. jobs.ucla.edu/jobs/10354?l...
Behavioral Lab Manager in Los Angeles, California | The Regents of the University of California on behalf of their Los Angeles Campus
UCLA is hiring a Behavioral Lab Manager in Los Angeles, California. Review all of the job details and apply today!
jobs.ucla.edu
Monstrous acts and crimes are being committed right now, in our names, with our tax dollars: -Renee Good - murdered by an armed agent of the state for protesting -Alex Pretti - murdered by an armed agent of the state for protesting -Liam Ramos (5) - used as bait to lure his father out of the house
This guy went to work today, put a mask on, kidnapped a 5 year old child, and then used him as bait so both he and his father could be sent behind bars
Conditional Probabilities Are Hard, Example #1073: WSJ seemingly equates "P(X|Y) is low" (post text) with "P(Y|X) is low" (headline text). (With the nuance that, in this case, both are presumably true, even though one need not imply the other!)
The Wall Street Journal@wsj.com · 8mo agoKids who are stars in sports and music don’t usually grow up to be stars as adults, a new study found. 🔗 on.wsj.com/3KPddMF
The University of Virginia became the fifth school to rebuff a White House proposal to give universities preferential treatment if they uphold a set of government demands.
University of Virginia Won’t Join White House’s Compact for Colleges
It was the fifth school in a matter of days to refuse an offer of preferential funding treatment from the government, even as the White House has threatened schools that do not sign up.
nyti.ms
This is what is happening when the cameras are running
Brad Lander@bradlander.bsky.social · 10mo agoI was back at 26 Federal Plaza today, where an ICE agent violently threw this bereft woman to the ground in front of her kids. She had not touched him. She did not pose any threat. She had to be taken to the hospital. (🎥: Elias Eliahu)
Do you know anyone that has benefitted from prescription drugs? What if these drugs were not available for you or your loved ones? Cuts to federal science funding mean delays for new treatments and cures. Tell Congress: Science saves lives #SpeakUp4Science https://bit.ly/4mgBMQ9
My lab at UCLA is hiring 1-2 PhD students this cycle! Join us to work at the intersection of cognitive science and AI applied to pressing societal challenges like climate change. More info about me: rachit-dubey.github.io My lab: ucla-cocopol.github.io Please help repost/spread the word!
Terence Tao (@teorth.bsky.social) has written a thread on Mastodon about the impact of the federal grant freeze to UCLA, particularly to his own field of Mathematics. UCLA's IPAM (Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics) could shut down entirely mathstodon.xyz/@tao/1149568...
Terence Tao (@tao@mathstodon.xyz)
The current administration in the US has, through various funding agencies such as the NSF and NIH, has recently suspended virtually all federal grants to my home university, UCLA (including my own p...
mathstodon.xyz
The sixth HotFresh recommended paper is: Mirny, D. J., & Spiller, S. A. (2025) Source memory is more accurate for opinions than for facts, Journal of Consumer Research. academic.oup.com/jcr/advance-...
Source Memory Is More Accurate for Opinions than for Facts
Abstract. Effective communication relies on consumers remembering, sharing, and applying relevant information. Source memory, the ability to link a claim t
academic.oup.com
Kudos to Jim Ryan for a terrific tenure as the President of UVA. Again, this is not normal. We should all be alarmed.
When things get difficult over the next few years remember today. The number of people who want democracy vastly outnumber the people who want a king.
Via "One First," my quick write-up of President Trump's "Presidential Memorandum" purporting to federalize 2000 California National Guard troops; the relevant legal authorities for doing so; and how the move is both a modest *and* dangerous escalation of what's going on in and around Los Angeles:
156. Federalizing the California National Guard
President Trump's Saturday night "memorandum" federalizing 2000 California National Guard troops is a tentative step toward abusing authorities for domestic use of the military, but a dangerous one.
stevevladeck.com
Not to pick on this post, but a good example of why base populations (what group of people you're talking about) are so important, and how easily that detail can get muddled in retelling -- the article says "Nearly a quarter of **consumers using buy now, pay later loans** finance groceries"
This is a terrible self-own, particular at a time when we are trying to compete with China on AI, EV technology, etc. Not to mention that this will kill one of our strongest exports (higher ed), which a trade-deficit-obsessed president should theoretically care about.
Opinion | Trump is killing one of our strongest exports
The president wants to balance U.S. trade deficits? He can’t do it without this industry he hates.
washingtonpost.com
Trump team orders stop to new student visa interviews, as it weighs expanding social media vetting www.politico.com/news/2025/05...
Trump team orders stop to new student visa interviews, as it weighs expanding social media vetting
The directive came in a Tuesday cable obtained by POLITICO.
politico.com
Hundreds of National Science Foundation staffers turned out for a group photograph to celebrate the besieged agency’s 75th anniversary—despite efforts by NSF officials to prevent the picture from being taken. scim.ag/4jcGpIt
Is a photo subversive? NSF staff overcome obstacles to 75th anniversary portrait
Management tried to quash outpouring of support for beleaguered agency
scim.ag
🎇It's #PubDay for THE HANDBOOK OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY (6e)!🎇 This is the latest edition of the most venerated institution in social psychology, dating back to 1954. Fifty definitive chapters, over 8,000 manuscript pages. (The TOC appears below.) And: IT'S 100% OPEN-ACCESS: www.the-HSP.com.🧵
How much of the change in predictions following White Smoke and before announcement is (a) rational market reactions (decision reached fairly quickly; more likely it was a predictable favorite), (b) concluding most-likely-as-more-likely without supporting information, or I guess (c) insider trading?
On 5/2, the @nytimes.com published a graphic showing the % change for each agency in Trump's proposed budget, compared to the 2025 budget. For my undergraduate class, I made a variant that gives $ amounts. It uses the NYT data. Happy to share w/ other instructors. DM or email if you want the ppt.
A new and fresh paper calls for a fresh start on a new platform. Hi y'all! 👋 Check out my paper with @spillersas.bsky.social and @krajbichlab.bsky.social - we look at the multi-faceted role of attention in opportunity cost neglect, using eye-tracking + computational modeling. Read more at the link!
Krajbich Lab@krajbichlab.bsky.social · last yr.New article on the role of attention in opportunity-cost neglect, with the fabulous Steph Smith and @spillersas.bsky.social. Outside options that are explicit (Keep Money) vs implicit (Don't Buy), attract more attention, both gaze and gaze effect on choice. 1/n authors.elsevier.com/c/1kycc_Ebvv...
We also find that people look less at the Buy option when there are explicit outside options. Overall, we identify two different attentional mechanisms by which the framing of opportunity costs (i.e., the outside options) impacts people's willingness to make purchases. 3/n
