Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Mario Gollwitzer

@mariogollwitzer.bsky.social

1.6K followers 580 following 46 posts

social psychologist (@LMU Munich) fascinated by antisocial behavior

Videos

Psychology 44%

Sociology 17%

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Reposted by Mario Gollwitzer

Chris Crandall @chriscrandall.bsky.social · 11d

Ecologist Jeremy Fox considers transparency and trust, and their observed *negative* correlation. Are we motivating better science?

H/t @MarkRubin.Bskyk.social

dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2025/09/24/e...
#metascience

Transparency vs. trust

Over the years, this blog often has been praised by readers for making the unwritten “rules of the game” (aka “hidden curriculum”) of academia explicit and transparent. Espe…

dynamicecology.wordpress.com

2 1 3

Reposted by Mario Gollwitzer

Leibniz-Institut für Psychologie (ZPID) @zpid.bsky.social · 23d

Unser Direktor @kaisassenberg.bsky.social hat zusammen mit @mariogollwitzer.bsky.social einen spannenden Aufsatz mit dem Titel "Komplexer als gedacht" zum Thema Replizierbarkeit von Forschungsbefunden veröffentlicht.
#forschung

▶️Forschung und Lehre
www.forschung-und-lehre.de/heftarchiv/a...

Cover des Magazins Forschung und Lehre 9 2025

1 6

Mario Gollwitzer @mariogollwitzer.bsky.social · 27d

Congratulations, Karolina! So well-deserved!😊

Reposted by Mario Gollwitzer, Efrén O. Pérez, Scott Clifford , and 1 more Mario Gollwitzer, Efrén O. Pérez, Scott Clifford, David Darmofal

Fabian Guy Neuner @fabianneuner.bsky.social · 28d

New preregistered report @jepsjournal.bsky.social

"Thin" populism treatments manipulate perceptions of people-centrism + anti-elitism

But: some treatments (e.g., "American people") affect perceptions of host ideology, complicating causal analyses of impact of populist rhetoric

cup.org/4n3DvZm

Abstract for paper: Scholars increasingly conceptualize populism by whether politicians use people-centric
and anti-elite appeals that pit a homogeneous people against a corrupt elite. These appeals
reflect “thin” ideology because they offer no programmatic content and thus politicians
must pair these appeals with more substantive positions, termed their “host” (or thick)
ideology, which often consists of nativism on the right (e.g., espousing anti-immigrant
positions) and socialism on the left (e.g., prioritizing redistribution). An emerging
literature has thus sought to estimate whether populists garner support due to their thin
ideology or their substantive host ideology. To date, no research has validated whether
populism treatments (1) truly operationalize populist thin ideology, and (2) do so without
manipulating host ideology. Results from three conjoint validation experiments fielded in
both the United States and the United Kingdom show that thin ideology treatments
successfully manipulate the underlying concepts but caution that some operationalizations
also affect perceptions of host ideology.

Shows that thin populism treatments shift perceptions of people-centrism and anti-elitism as expected

Shows that thin populism treatments can also affect perceptions of host ideology. In particular, using treatments such as "American people" affects perceptions of a candidate's position on immigration

Shows suggestive evidence that people are less likely to use populist thin ideology appeals as heuristics for inferring host ideology when partisan information is included

2 10 10

Reposted by Mario Gollwitzer

Social Psychology - Hogrefe @socpsyjournal.bsky.social · Aug 27

New:

Köhler et al. (incl. @mariogollwitzer.bsky.social) developed the "Moral Perspectives & Foundations Scale" & found that perspective-specific moral foundations do a better job at predicting political outcomes than perspectives or MFTs alone.

Open Access: doi.org/10.1027/1864...

Combining Moral Foundations and Justice Sensitivity Perspectives to Understand Political Orientation
Lucas J. E. Köhler
, Ulf Steinberg
, Maxim Egorov
, Claudia Peus
, and Mario Gollwitzer
Abstract: Political orientation is systematically related to individuals’ endorsement of different moral domains. Yet, current findings suggest that differences between conservatives and liberals can also be explained by a sensitivity to self-oriented or other-oriented moral transgressions. We argue that conceptualizing moral foundations as perspective-specific advances our understanding of differences in moral judgments across the political spectrum. We test a new instrument measuring perspective-specific moral foundations in a nationally representative German sample (N = 2,042). Our findings indicate that (a) an Integrated Foundations × Perspective Model fits the data better than models only representing moral foundations or moral perspectives and (b) a self-oriented moral sensitivity is related to right-wing political orientation, while an other-oriented moral sensitivity is related to left-wing political orientation across all moral foundations.

1 4 10

Reposted by Brian A. Nosek, Mario Gollwitzer, Kai Sassenberg , and 2 more Brian A. Nosek, Mario Gollwitzer, Kai Sassenberg, Ingo Rohlfing, Jan R. Boehnke

Lena Hahn @lenahahn.bsky.social · Aug 18

How complete are preregistrations?

Short answer: 53% include all 6 procedural specifications

Medium answer: 🧵

Long answer: check out my publication with A. Glöckner @mariogollwitzer.bsky.social J. Hellmann, J. Lange, S. Schindler & @kaisassenberg.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1177/2515...

A Cross-Sectional Study of the Completeness of Preregistrations by Psychological Authors From German-Speaking Institutions - Lena Hahn, Andreas Glöckner, Mario Gollwitzer, Jens Hellmann, Jens Lange, S...

Preregistering confirmatory research aims at reducing researchers’ degrees of freedom and increasing transparency to ultimately increase replicability. Yet the ...

doi.org

1 34 65

Reposted by Mario Gollwitzer, Roland Imhoff

Kai Epstude @kaiepstude.bsky.social · Nov 7

The European Journal of Social Psychology is looking for junior consulting editors

www.easp.eu/news/itm/ejs...

EJSP seeks Junior Consulting Editors

Social Psychology News Articles

www.easp.eu

13 11

Reposted by Mario Gollwitzer, Mark J. Brandt, Mark Rubin , and 5 more Mario Gollwitzer, Mark J. Brandt, Mark Rubin, Calvin K. Lai, Jonas R. Kunst, Michael W. Kraus, Andrew Livingstone, Sofia Stathi

Jin X. Goh | 吴晋勋 @jinxungoh.bsky.social · Jul 20

Newly accepted in PSPB! We examined whether Asian and Black Americans perceived one another through a zero-sum lens. Inspired by the SCOTUS affirmative action decisions, I wanted to know if Asians thought they were losing to Black people and how this mindset affects coalition
osf.io/preprints/ps...

OSF

osf.io

6 52 130

Reposted by Mario Gollwitzer, Ingo Rohlfing, Patrick S. Forscher , and 1 more Mario Gollwitzer, Ingo Rohlfing, Patrick S. Forscher, Sebastian Karcher

moin syed @syeducation.bsky.social · Jul 5

New post! "A Tale of Two Science Reform Movements," in which I compare the recent #Metascience2025 and #SIPS2025 conferences, and find that I am much more at home at one than the other. getsyeducated.substack.com/p/a-tale-of-...

A Tale of Two Science Reform Movements

Reflections from meetings of Metascience 2025 and the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science

getsyeducated.substack.com

14 42 130

Reposted by Mario Gollwitzer, Dolly Jørgensen, Kate Fullagar

Iris van Rooij 💭 @irisvanrooij.bsky.social · Jun 28

If you agree with our 5 requests to our universities, please sign 🖊️ the open letter and don’t forget to confirm your email! ☺️🙏

openletter.earth/open-letter-...

• Resist the introduction of AI in our own software systems, from Microsoft to OpenAI to Apple. It is not in our interests to let our processes be corrupted and give away our data to be used to train models that are not only useless to us, but also harmful.

• Ban AI use in the classroom for student assignments, in the same way we ban essay mills and other forms of plagiarism. Students must be protected from de-skilling and allowed space and time to perform their assignments themselves.

• Cease normalising the AI hype and the lies which are prevalent in the technology industry's framing of these technologies. The technologies do not have the advertised capacities and their adoption puts students and academics at risk of violating ethical, legal, scholarly, and scientific standards of reliability, sustainability, and safety.

• Fortify our academic freedom as university staff to enforce these principles and standards in our classrooms and our research as well as on the computer systems we are obliged to use as part of our work. We as academics have the right to our own spaces.

• Sustain critical thinking on AI and promote critical engagement with technology on a firm academic footing. Scholarly discussion must be free from the conflicts of interest caused by industry funding, and reasoned resistance must always be an option.

7 120 260

Reposted by Mario Gollwitzer

Frank Renkewitz @renkew.bsky.social · Jun 27

🚨 PhD position (75%, TV-L E13) at LMU Munich!
Join our DFG funded META REP project on heterogeneity & replicability in psychology.
Work on meta analysis, simulations, modeling in R/Python.
📅 Apply by July 15
🔗 shorturl.at/939tP
🔗 shorturl.at/2bRLD
👇🧵

Research Associate (m/f/x)

shorturl.at

1 8 10

Mario Gollwitzer @mariogollwitzer.bsky.social · Jun 19

In the project that I am involved in (B05: "Problem Solving in Teams"), we are looking at whether personality distributions in teams predict collaborative problem solving above&beyond individual-level personality traits. Interested in working with us?? Check out: job-portal.lmu.de/jobposting/c...

Doctoral Candidate (m/f/x)

job-portal.lmu.de

1 3

Reposted by Mario Gollwitzer

Michèle Nuijten @michelenuijten.bsky.social · Jun 19

📣New Preprint Alert!

Esther Maassen meticulously simulated the effect of p-hacking and publication bias on effect size & heterogeneity estimates.

💡bad: selective outcome reporting & optional dropping
💡bad: publication bias
💡not so bad: optional stopping/outlier removal

osf.io/preprints/ps...

OSF

osf.io

2 19 34

Mario Gollwitzer @mariogollwitzer.bsky.social · Jun 19

...and now we are looking for early-career researchers (pre-doc and post-doc) who would like to work with us in Munich! Check out our job posts: www.en.mcls.uni-muenchen.de/research/sha.... And submit your applications on our portal: www.portal.graduatecenter.lmu.de/ocgc/sharp

Open positions – join the SHARP team! - Munich Center of the Learning Sciences - LMU Munich

www.en.mcls.uni-muenchen.de

Mario Gollwitzer @mariogollwitzer.bsky.social · Jun 19

**NEW COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH CENTER IN MUNICH** In October 2025, @lmumuenchen.bsky.social and @tum.de will start a new joint CRC on Simulation-Based Learning in Higher Education (www.trr419-sharp.de). 29 PIs, 21 individual projects, 11 Mio Euros funding for the first 4 years.

Collaborative Research Centre - SHARP (TRR419) - Munich Center of the Learning Sciences - LMU Munich

www.trr419-sharp.de

2 3 9

Reposted by Mario Gollwitzer

RMZ HU @hu-rmz.bsky.social · Jun 18

In next week's Jour Fixe, @devezer.bsky.social (University of Idaho) presents her work on "Claims about scientific rigour require rigour" www.rmz.hu-berlin.de.... Join us on Wednesday, 25.06.25, 11am online or in person in Berlin. @ibi-hu.bsky.social

RMZ Jour fixe/ Claims about scientific rigour require rigour

Berna Devezer (University of Idaho, United States)

www.rmz.hu-berlin.de

1 5 9

Mario Gollwitzer @mariogollwitzer.bsky.social · Jun 10

You really deserve this, Emily -- your work is so important! Looking forward to collaborating with you on this!!

Reposted by Mario Gollwitzer, Constantina Badea

irsp_rips @irsp-rips.bsky.social · May 23

🔔‼️ New papers alert

In these papers, @lakens.bsky.social
takes a deep dive into the two major crises in psychology.
Concerns about replicability, theorizing, relevance, generalizability, and methodology are discussed.

A must-read for every psychology researcher!

Available in #OA 👇👇

1 9 15

Mario Gollwitzer @mariogollwitzer.bsky.social · May 6

English version (of the job ad) here: job-portal.lmu.de/jobposting/d...

Research Associate (m/f/x)

job-portal.lmu.de

Reposted by Mario Gollwitzer, Lusine Grigoryan, Margo J. Monteith

Kai Sassenberg @kaisassenberg.bsky.social · Apr 25

Job Alert: We are searching for a postdoc (1 fte, 22 months) for a DFG-funded project on bias reduction via cognitive conflicts. Feel free to contact me via e-mail (address provided in the post) or DM.
leibniz-psychology.onlyfy.jobs/job/ux0vb9i0

Postdoctoral Researcher (m/f/d)

leibniz-psychology.onlyfy.jobs

12 14

Reposted by André Melzer

Mario Gollwitzer @mariogollwitzer.bsky.social · Apr 24

🎺JOB ALERT👀: We (@LMU Munich) are hiring a postdoc (full-term) for the coordination of META-REP, a metascientific research consortium (www.lmu.de/psy/de/forsc...). Application deadline May 15, 2025. See full job ad here: job-portal.lmu.de/jobposting/3.... Contact me if you need more info!

Research Associate (m/f/x)

job-portal.lmu.de

1 55 53

Reposted by Mario Gollwitzer, Adam J. Berinsky, Brian Medeiros , and 7 more Mario Gollwitzer, Adam J. Berinsky, Brian Medeiros, Erika Franklin Fowler, Michelle L. Mazurek, Aaron Shaw, Mogens Jin Pedersen, etobias, Daniel Zappala, Carlos Carroll

Mary Feeney @mkfeeney.bsky.social · Apr 24

For the last 3 yrs, I was the director for the Science of Science program at the NSF. We funded projects on science communication - science communication to the public, communication of public priorities to scientists, citizens engagement & participation in science. 🧵

15 430 980

Mario Gollwitzer @mariogollwitzer.bsky.social · Apr 15

Fantastic paper!!

Mario Gollwitzer @mariogollwitzer.bsky.social · Apr 15

BS.

Reposted by Mario Gollwitzer

Robert Böhm @robertboehm.bsky.social · Apr 2

Looking for a PhD candidate to join a project at the intersection of health comms & computer science! We’ll use LLMs to create synthetic patient populations to test vaccine uptake interventions & build a training tool for better vax communication. jobs.univie.ac.at/job/Project-... Please repost!

Project staff (Phd candidate)

jobs.univie.ac.at

1 18 15

Reposted by Mario Gollwitzer, Kai Sassenberg

André Bittermann @abitter.bsky.social · Mar 5

Remember the old #Twitter and when you decided to migrate? How important were your peers for your decision?

In our current study, we use data from 250k researchers during the 2022 migration to #Mastodon to examine #socialinfluence within the research community.

👉 doi.org/10.23668/psy...

🧵1/4

1 16 32

Reposted by Mario Gollwitzer, David M. Driesen, Roger Patulny , and 7 more Mario Gollwitzer, David M. Driesen, Roger Patulny, Lisa Simpson, Subhajit Basu, Ina Ganguli, Constance Steinkuehler, Alexandra Filindra, Aurélien Eyquem, Deborah M. Kolb

Fred Guttenberg @fredguttenberg.bsky.social · Feb 28

"History will remember this day— when an American President and Vice President abandoned all we stand for."

3.1K 34K 130K

Reposted by Mario Gollwitzer, Lukas F. Stoetzer, Calvin K. Lai , and 2 more Mario Gollwitzer, Lukas F. Stoetzer, Calvin K. Lai, M Josep, Pietro Castelli Gattinara

Vicente Valentim @valentimvicente.bsky.social · Feb 28

Very happy that our paper (w/ @dziblatt.bsky.social & E Dinas) has been accepted @bjpols.bsky.social .

We've seen the center right increasingly adopt far-right rhetoric.

Our experiment in 🇩🇪 finds that this erodes anti-prejudice norms *more* than when the far-right employs similar rhetoric.

1/3

Abstract: How does anti-immigrant rhetoric by mainstream politicians affect norms of tolerance? How does this compare to similar statements made by radical-right politicians? Drawing on experimental evidence, we find that statements by mainstream politicians lead to more norm erosion than similar statements by radical-right politicians. Subsample analyses suggests that this is because statements by mainstream-right politicians erode norm perceptions of right-wing individuals, while those by radical-right politicians induce backlash among left-wing individuals, who hold closer to the norm in place. The latter effect (backlash by the left) disappears when similar statements are made by mainstream right politicians. We argue that this difference occurs because mainstream politicians represent the views of a larger part of the population or have a higher status. Our results highlight the pivotal role of mainstream politicians in enforcing or eroding democratic norms, and that similar political statements can have different effects depending on their sender.

10 200 460

Reposted by Mario Gollwitzer

Mark Rubin @markrubin.bsky.social · Feb 26

A Guide to Multiverse Analyses

"The large array of defensible options available for researchers to select along the workflow creates what is known as the ‘garden of forking paths’."

Preprint: doi.org/10.31222/osf...

1 20 56

Reposted by Mario Gollwitzer

Mark Rubin @markrubin.bsky.social · Feb 21

Alone but not Lonely!

New study finds "people with negative beliefs about being alone experience a steep increase in loneliness after spending time alone in daily life, whereas those with positive beliefs feel less lonely after spending time alone."

Open Access: doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Abstract
Loneliness is a widespread issue routinely targeted by the media and public health campaigns. We propose that these efforts, though well-intentioned, may exacerbate this problem by negatively influencing a potential driver of loneliness: people’s beliefs about being alone. Supporting this thesis, we show that contemporary U.S. news articles are 10 times more likely to describe being alone as harmful than beneficial (Study 1, N = 144 articles) and that exposure to such articles causally impacts people’s beliefs about being alone (Study 2, N = 456). Further, a 2-week experience-sampling study (Study 3, N = 161) demonstrates that people with negative beliefs about being alone experience a steep increase in loneliness after spending time alone in daily life, whereas those with positive beliefs feel less lonely after spending time alone. Finally, multi-national studies demonstrate the generalizability of these results across nine countries spanning six continents (Studies 4 and 5, N = 2930). Together, these findings reveal the critical role of beliefs about being alone in shaping loneliness.

4 12 52