Matt Williams
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matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams
@matthewmatix.bsky.social
1.7K followers 160 following 120 posts

Associate prof at Massey University. Interested in statistics, open science, meta-psychology, and conspiracy theories. https://mattwilliams.netlify.app/

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Psychology 36%
Sociology 17%
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matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams @matthewmatix.bsky.social · 12h
Thank you for your excellent work as editor, David. AMPPS is such a great asset for the field.

Reposted by Dorothy Bishop, Ian Hussey, Matt N Williams

dsbarra.bsky.social
David A. Sbarra @dsbarra.bsky.social · 15h
My time as Editor of AMPPS is coming to an end-- here are some parting thoughts. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.... .
Taking Stock of Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science at the End of the Beginning - David A. Sbarra, 2025
journals.sagepub.com

Reposted by Steve Peers, Matt N Williams

marsdenfund.bsky.social
Marsden Fund @marsdenfund.bsky.social · 1d
What prompts people to change their minds about conspiracy theories? Associate Professor Matt Williams and team from Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa Massey University set out to answer this curious question! 👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽

www.royalsociety.org.nz/research/new...
What prompts people to change their minds about conspiracy theories?
Conspiracies DO happen...
www.royalsociety.org.nz

Reposted by Matt N Williams

mdmarques.com
mat marques, ph.d. @mdmarques.com · 1d
our dear leader @matthewmatix.bsky.social has posted on what the Antipodean Misinformation and Conspiracies Club has been up to over the past few years

www.royalsociety.org.nz/research/new...

Reposted by Matt N Williams

elisabethbik.bsky.social
Elisabeth Bik - Perpetrator 5, a fraudulent microbiologist @elisabethbik.bsky.social · 9d
JW: We developed a tool, INSPECT SR, which looks at various red flags, such as retractions, inconsistencies between preregistration and publication, image duplications, means vs SDs, outcome data, etc.
We do give training workshops.
bmjopen.bmj.com/content/14/3...
#IRICSydney
Example of INSPECT SR with a table asking several questions

matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams @matthewmatix.bsky.social · 14d
What more information could they possibly need to warrant a retraction? A signed confession presented in triplicate?

Reposted by Gordon Pennycook, Linda J. Skitka, Sebastian Karcher , and 1 more

brendannyhan.bsky.social
Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 14d
Experimental participants to us

Reposted by Matt N Williams, José Pina-Sánchez

hansonmark.bsky.social
Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 15d
More fundamentally, every active scientist has been brought up in a system where The Drain was already normalized.

This system hasn't always existed. For-profit publishers are a recent invention. Their value proposition has always been awful, and now they are actively eroding trust in science.

5/n
2. Stopping the drain Back in the 1950s, when for-profit journal publishing was just getting going, British scientific leaders predicted that ‘the moment commercial gain began to dominate this field, the welfare of the scientific community would suffer’ (1). They were right – and it is past time that we acted. The first step we must take is to recognize the seriousness of the problems that scientific publishing’s engagement with for-profit publishing have become.

Reposted by Dorothy Bishop, Colin F. Camerer, Ben C. Sheldon , and 35 more

hansonmark.bsky.social
Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 15d
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.

Reposted by Andrew Livingstone, Matt N Williams

perfors.net
Andrew Perfors @perfors.net · 20d
Getting nervous for the talk I'm about to give at a workshop about "using AI to drive impact" which features slides such as these.
Slide is titled: You don't need to use LLMs. Science is a process of collaborative meaning making, by which we try to understand the world Even if AI were perfect, we rely on it at our peril — it is not science if we (i.e., humanity as a whole) do not understand and cannot recapitulate all parts of it I very, very rarely use LLMs myself. You can give yourself permission not to. Don’t FOMO yourself into it Conclusion: Don't rely on something you don't understand and can't control If you must use LLMS: 1. Treat them like you would an intern: only use them for things you can easily and thoroughly check 2. Make your process as robust as possible 3. Be aware of your own (human) cognitive biases

Reposted by Matt N Williams, John R. Kerr

mdmarques.com
mat marques, ph.d. @mdmarques.com · 22d
@srhastraea.bsky.social is a humble & busy guy so the aussie will announce his successful #marsden

Unpacking how we choose who to trust for knowledge in complex, contentious issues with the potential for misinformation

@scicomguy.bsky.social @matthewmatix.bsky.social
@rachelprozac.bsky.social
Marsden Fund Awards 2025
Published on 6 Whiringa-ā-rangi November 2025 You can download an Excel spreadsheet of these results here: 2025-Marsden Fund Supplement The definitions of the 8 Marsden Fund panels can be found here...
www.royalsociety.org.nz

matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams @matthewmatix.bsky.social · 24d
"This pattern seems difficult to explain as the result of a natural process, as does the correlation between white blood cell count and patient ID number of 0.45."

Oh dear

Reposted by Matt N Williams, Johannes Breuer

lakens.bsky.social
Daniel Lakens @lakens.bsky.social · 27d
Are you interested in thinking about which studies are worth replicating? Then you have 10 articles to dig into in Meta-Psychology, representing a very wide range of viewpoint on this topic, out now: open.lnu.se/index.php/me...
LnuOpen | Meta-Psychology
Original articles
open.lnu.se

Reposted by Matt N Williams, Nathan P. Kalmoe, John R. Kerr , and 1 more

eddieclarke.bsky.social
Eddie Clarke @eddieclarke.bsky.social · Oct 23
Extremely pleased to see this work published! Thank you so much to my excellent collaborators @fmsmallfield.bsky.social @scicomguy.bsky.social @srhastraea.bsky.social @lingtax.bsky.social @mdmarques.com @matthewmatix.bsky.social
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Extremism at the center: Uncovering political diversity among midpoint responders on the left–right self‐placement item
The midpoint of the left-right self-placement item is hiding important political diversity, and may be conflating moderate responders with populists and other political sub-groups. Survey researchers...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com

matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams @matthewmatix.bsky.social · Oct 22
I don't think this scenario is explicitly covered in the moderation case list but it sounds like a plausible use case so you might as well give it a try?

Reposted by David Chester, Patrick S. Forscher, Matt N Williams , and 4 more

bsiepe.bsky.social
Björn Siepe @bsiepe.bsky.social · Oct 22
We built the openESM database:
▶️60 openly available experience sampling datasets (16K+ participants, 740K+ obs.) in one place
▶️Harmonized (meta-)data, fully open-source software
▶️Filter & search all data, simply download via R/Python

Find out more:
🌐 openesmdata.org
📝 doi.org/10.31234/osf...

Reposted by Matt N Williams, James E. Bartlett

dsbarra.bsky.social
David A. Sbarra @dsbarra.bsky.social · Oct 21
Papers from July to Sept 2025 at AMPPS are killer. We don't have formal print issues, but we have this-- journals.sagepub.com/toc/ampa/8/3
Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science - Volume 8, Number 3
Table of contents for Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 8, 3
journals.sagepub.com

Reposted by Matt N Williams

Andrew Gelman et al. @statmodeling.bsky.social · Oct 17
Separating the whack from the chaff in critiques of decision theory
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/10/17/s...
Separating the whack from the chaff in critiques of decision theory | Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu

matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams @matthewmatix.bsky.social · Oct 17
This is roughly what our ethics code says, in politer words. But getting either researchers or ethics committee members to pay any attention to it is another story....

matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams @matthewmatix.bsky.social · Oct 17
The existential threat model suggests stress & anxiety can lead to belief in conspiracy theories. And prior studies have showed they are *correlated* with belief in CTs.

But do they *cause* belief in CTs? Find the answer here...

(Or apply Betteridge's law of headlines, if you're pressed for time)

matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams @matthewmatix.bsky.social · Oct 15
Reasonably simple ones:

routledgeopenresearch.org/articles/2-3...

doi.org/10.5114/cipp...

More complicated:
doi.org/10.1002/ejsp...

doi.org/10.1111/bjso...

Do these suit?
routledgeopenresearch.org

matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams @matthewmatix.bsky.social · Oct 15
May the search for moderators and mediators commence!

matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams @matthewmatix.bsky.social · Oct 14
In psychology it's more like "anything with a vaguely right wing vibe"

matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams @matthewmatix.bsky.social · Oct 14
Agreed. Though while we're being pessimistic, one worry I have is that preprint servers are a very easy target for anyone trying to manipulate citation stats on existing papers.

Reposted by Linda J. Skitka, Matt N Williams

ianhussey.mmmdata.io
Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · Oct 14
Results of the replication are in!

Chocolate is more desirable than poop:

Cohen's d_rm = 6.20, 95%CI [5.63, 6.78]

N = 486, two single item 1-7 Likert scales of desirability.

w/
@jamiecummins.bsky.social
ianhussey.mmmdata.io Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · Oct 13
Make an effect size prediction!

@jamiecummins.bsky.social and I are replicating Balcetis & Dunning's (2010) "chocolate is more desirable than poop" (Cohen's d = 4.52)

Let us known in the replies what effect size you think we'll find. Details of the study in the thread below.

Reposted by Matt N Williams

socio-steve.bsky.social
Stephen Nuñez @socio-steve.bsky.social · Oct 14
Neoliberalism has several sins but, "super high tariffs" and "nanny state scolding about nutritional value," are not among them.

matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams @matthewmatix.bsky.social · Oct 13
Nice! This lines up with work by @eddieclarke.bsky.social showing that the people who endorse the midpoint of the left-right item are far from homogeneous...

osf.io/preprints/ps...
OSF
osf.io

matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams @matthewmatix.bsky.social · Oct 13
d = 3.6

(Original estimate less a completely made-up factor for publication bias)

Reposted by Ian Hussey, Matt N Williams, Jill A. Jacobson , and 1 more

psych.peercommunityin.org
PCI Psychology @psych.peercommunityin.org · Oct 13
PCI Psychology is open for submissions! Did you know that you can easily submit your recommended preprint to any of the 20+ PCI Psych friendly journals? See all friendly journals here: psych.peercommunityin.org/about/pci_fr...
#PsychSciSky #SciPub

Reposted by Matt N Williams

nickfoxnz.bsky.social
Nick Fox @nickfoxnz.bsky.social · Oct 12
Excited for my doctoral research to be published, thanks to the support of @matthewmatix.bsky.social @srhastraea.bsky.social
Do Stress, Depression, and Anxiety Lead to Beliefs in Conspiracy Theories? - Nick D. Fox, Matt N. Williams, Stephen R. Hill, 2025
Previous research has found positive correlations between manifestations of psychological distress, such as anxiety, depression, and stress, and belief in consp...
doi.org