Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Dr. Candice Mills @candicemmills.bsky.social · 9d

Love it! Gorgeous art.

Dr. Candice Mills @candicemmills.bsky.social · Sep 11

New paper!

One of the things I love about our findings in this paper is that even children who thought they knew a lot about a topic in absolute terms sometimes recognized that an expert would know a little or a lot more than them. That's a start!

Judith Danovitch @danovitch.bsky.social · Sep 10

🚨New publication alert: How do children think about how much they know in absolute terms and relative to what an expert knows? with @candicemmills.bsky.social
@ajwilliamsgant.bsky.social
@patelkhushboo.bsky.social @nataliequint3ro.bsky.social

Currently free at authors.elsevier.com/a/1lknv51Y-X...

authors.elsevier.com

3

Reposted by Dr. Candice Mills

Harriet Tenenbaum @harriet-tenenbaum.bsky.social · May 15

Please consider submitting to our special issue @socialdevelopment.bsky.social on Political Engagement in Childhood and Adolescence: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal...

Social Development

We are upgrading Wiley Online Library over the weekend of May 17th–18th. All content will continue to be available, but some functionality may not work as expected. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

2 4

Dr. Candice Mills @candicemmills.bsky.social · May 6

Think Lab members have made it back from #SRCD2025!

It's a lab tradition that after a conference, each person who attended shares a 2-3 minute overview of a poster or presentation they enjoyed. It's a great way to discuss all we learned.

Wishing I saw more of you there... but next time!

8

Dr. Candice Mills @candicemmills.bsky.social · Apr 29

The Think Lab will be at #SRCD2025 - looking forward to seeing many of you there!

2 18

Reposted by Dr. Candice Mills

Megan Zahneis @mzahneis.bsky.social · Apr 18

NEW: NSF announces it's "terminating awards that are not aligned with agency priorities...including but not limited to those on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and misinformation/disinformation." #HigherEd #AcademicSky

Updates on NSF Priorities

www.nsf.gov

2 38 49

Dr. Candice Mills @candicemmills.bsky.social · Apr 16

I wish there was a repository for people to share stories! Someone set up a shared google doc when one of my undergraduate mentors, Jeff Farrar, passed away, and it was lovely to read so many stories over the years.

Flavell seemed like a brilliant but also kind person.

1

Dr. Candice Mills @candicemmills.bsky.social · Apr 16

It is amazing how often children seem to revise their beliefs about fantastical characters to make them seem more logical within our world!

1

Reposted by Dr. Candice Mills

Scott Delaney @scott-delaney.bsky.social · Mar 18

Substantial updates to the list of cancelled grants👇

- THANK YOU to all who have contributed. Crowdsourcing restores faith in humanity.

- It's still a work in progress. You'll see more updates shortly.

- There are multiple teams & efforts engaged in tracking & advocacy. More to come soon!

Rescinded NIH & NSF Grants

docs.google.com

14 160 260

Dr. Candice Mills @candicemmills.bsky.social · Feb 28

How do we change our minds about our knowledge or beliefs? And why is it sometimes so difficult for people to realize they might be wrong?

We study these sorts of questions with kids, but here's a story of someone trying to convince his dad to disengage w/ conspiracies:

www.npr.org/2025/02/26/g...

How a son spent a year trying to save his father from conspiracy theories

Zach Mack spent a year attempting to rescue his father from the depths of the conspiracy rabbit hole. Their family was forced to reckon with clashing realities, ideological divides and misinformation.

www.npr.org

1 5

Dr. Candice Mills @candicemmills.bsky.social · Feb 4

How does the capacity to demonstrate intellectual humility - to recognize limits to one's beliefs or knowledge - develop and change? And are there things that can be done to foster greater intellectual humility?

Come join our SRCD pre-conference to discuss these questions and more!

Samuel Ronfard @samuelronfard.bsky.social · Feb 3

We are excited to invite you to the pre-conference workshop, “Towards a developmental science of intellectual humility,” taking place before the 2025 Society for Research in Child Development Biennial Meeting. Wednesday, April 30th, 2025. Register at www.developingintellectualhumility.com/srcd-2025.

4 8

Dr. Candice Mills @candicemmills.bsky.social · Feb 2

The Cognitive Development Society now has a Bluesky account!

The Cognitive Development Society (CDS) @cogdevsoc.bsky.social · Jan 29

Welcome to our Bluesky community! We're excited to connect, share updates, and engage with you. Follow us and be part of the conversation!

2

Dr. Candice Mills @candicemmills.bsky.social · Dec 20

Here's another one, trying to build from what we know about kids to provide advice on how parents might manage the Santa Claus myth.

Los Angeles Times @latimes.com · Dec 20

Weighing when to tell your children about Santa? Don’t let them resort to Google. Here’s how you can do it without ruining the Christmas magic. www.latimes.com/california/s...

How parents tackle the truth behind Santa without ruining the Christmas magic

Deciding how to tell kids the truth behind Santa isn’t easy for parents. Here's what experts say about how and when to tell them without ruining the Christmas spirit.

www.latimes.com

2 4

Dr. Candice Mills @candicemmills.bsky.social · Dec 20

Yes! @thaliargoldstein.bsky.social and I will probably submit it for review in January. Thalia will be first author on that one, but please feel free to reach out to either of us via email about it.

I'd love to hear more about your paper/book!

1

Dr. Candice Mills @candicemmills.bsky.social · Dec 19

Blog post: wollenblog.substack.com/p/its-ok-to-...

It's OK To Lie About Santa Claus

In defence of lying to children

wollenblog.substack.com

1

Dr. Candice Mills @candicemmills.bsky.social · Dec 19

This is the first Christmas since our initial Santa article was published (doi.org/10.1037/dev0...), so @thaliargoldstein.bsky.social and I have had some opportunities this season to talk with reporters or see the project discussed in newsletters, articles, and blogs. This is a fun one!

Amos Wollen @goingawoll.bsky.social · Dec 16

Why it’s OK to lie about Santa Claus. 🧵 1/

1 3 4

Dr. Candice Mills @candicemmills.bsky.social · Dec 19

Thanks for mentioning our "Debunking the Santa Myth" paper! This was a fun read. @thaliargoldstein.bsky.social and I have also been working on a study with parents about "lying" about Santa. Perhaps not surprisingly, there's a lot of variability in how acceptable parents view statements about Santa.

2 2

Reposted by Dr. Candice Mills

Koraly @drkoraly.bsky.social · Dec 18

APA allows editors to designate one manuscript from each issue for special recognition. Given the stellar work, this is one of the hardest & most challenging parts of the job.

So, to finish up the calendar year, here are the 12 Editor's Choice Articles from 2024 in Developmental Psychology.

1/13

2 16 36

Reposted by Dr. Candice Mills

Melissa Kibbe @levelsof.bsky.social · Nov 14

To celebrate deleting my twitter, I'm reposting some of my classic cognitive development memes from the other site. First, one of my all-time faves

Two choices meme - one button says "Where Sally thinks the marble is" and the other button says "Where the marble actually is". The sweating man who is tasked with making the choice between the two buttons is labeled "3-year-olds"

5 24 230

Dr. Candice Mills @candicemmills.bsky.social · Nov 13

Hello BlueSky! A quick intro for new folks: I'm a developmental psychologist interested in children's thinking and learning. Some ongoing studies are examining topics like early biological reasoning, parent explanation, intellectual humility, curiosity, and skepticism about Santa Claus.

1 2 11

Reposted by Dr. Candice Mills

samuel mehr @mehr.nz · Aug 6

if you are an NIH-funded investigator, or really just a person doing developmental science #psychscisky #neuroskyence in the states, you should be concerned about this proposal to eliminate the NICHD.

take 5 minutes to write to [email protected] to voice your concern. Here's what I just sent

email screenshot to NIHReform@mail.house.gov (text cut off here):

Dear Cathy Rodgers:

I am an NIH-funded Associate Professor Adjunct at the Yale Child Study Center. In my lab we do basic science research on auditory perception, supporting a variety of health applications for infants and their families. These have particular importance for underprivileged American families.

As a stakeholder and as a highly research-active faculty member whose work is tied directly to NICHD priorities, my feedback is simple: The proposed elimination of the NICHD, to be subsumed by a new NIH institute on disability, would be disastrous.

The science of child development is of the utmost importance for the future of our nation, and would be left without a home at the NIH, the world's largest science funder. Indeed, many key advances in developmental cognitive science, with a variety of national and international health applications and outcomes, can be traced back to NICHD-funded research and initiative

1 11 9

Reposted by Dr. Candice Mills

Anthony J Monroe @anthonyjmonroe.com · May 17

I am excited to share that my first first-author article was recently published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology! If you would like to read it yourself, I will link it below, but I'll also share some of the highlights here.

1 3 8

Dr. Candice Mills @candicemmills.bsky.social · Apr 24

Very interesting! Can you also find out if universities require psychology research/writing classes? For instance, at UTD, the "Experimental Projects" course is at the end of the stats sequence and requires designing studies and writing an APA-style paper.

1

Dr. Candice Mills @candicemmills.bsky.social · Mar 19

The Think Lab will be at the Cognitive Development Society conference this week. Come visit us!

3 14

Dr. Candice Mills @candicemmills.bsky.social · Jan 25

My intuition is that many kids eventually look back at Santa as a fun game of pretend, but others feel like their parents lied to them. I'd be curious to see how children's different perceptions of how their parents handled Santa affect them. (2/2)

3