Simone Zhang
@sxz.bsky.social
1.8K followers 560 following 14 posts
Assistant Professor of Sociology at NYU. Classification, prediction, and AI in decision-making, social policy, and law. www.simonezhang.com
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Reposted by Simone Zhang
kbroussard.bsky.social
TWO new Assistant Professor positions in Sociology at USC! Seeking candidates with expertise in the following: 1) Institutions & Inequalities and 2) Socially Informed AI and/or Data Science (links to job ads below👇). Happy to talk about what it's like to work/live here! #sociology (1/3)
Reposted by Simone Zhang
adigitaltanay.bsky.social
On Prolific, "we estimate that about 34% of online study participants use LLMs to answer open-ended questions atleast some of the time..."

Seems like a very timely paper for behavioural scientists using online samples: osf.io/preprints/so... ;

We really need more papers on this issue
Reposted by Simone Zhang
thomasdavidson.bsky.social
I’m delighted to share that the August 2025 special issue of Sociological Methods & Research on Generative AI is out now. Along with my co-editor, Daniel Karell, we put together this issue to build on the conference we organized last year.

Here's a thread on each of the ten papers:
A screenshot of the Sociological Methods & Research website showing the special issue title
sxz.bsky.social
Big thank you to many people who've provided feedback and supported this project!
sxz.bsky.social
Using a nationally representative sample of U.S. parents, we find that most parents view algorithms as fairer than status quo methods like lotteries, counselor discretion, parent requests, and admin. rules.

But there's polarization: higher-SES, liberal parents are more supportive of algorithms.
sxz.bsky.social
New paper with Rebecca Johnson (@rebeccaj.bsky.social) on parental perceptions of using algorithms to allocate scarce resources in schools, now out in Sociological Science (@sociologicalsci.bsky.social):
Reposted by Simone Zhang
sociologicalsci.bsky.social
NEW: Rebecca A. Johnson, Simone Zhang, "Predictive Algorithms and Perceptions of Fairness: Parent Attitudes Toward Algorithmic Resource Allocation in K-12 Education." sociologicalscience.com/articles-v12...
sociologicalscience.com
sxz.bsky.social
Many thanks to our RAs, reviewers, and terrific special issue editors @thomasdavidson.bsky.social
and Danny Karell. Special thank you to the incredible community resource that is the Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences (TESS) program @jeremyfreese.bsky.social @mocraig.bsky.social
sxz.bsky.social
Do you field online surveys and experiments? Ever get back text responses that look unusually diplomatic and polished?

In this paper, now out at Sociological Methods & Research, we study the emerging use of AI among online study participants.
sxz.bsky.social
Thanks for sharing Hakeem!

Our project started when we too were piloting open-ended questions for a study and noticed unusually long/typo-free/diplomatic responses. Others reported similar experiences.

Latest version of the paper here: osf.io/preprints/so...
sxz.bsky.social
This is an emerging challenge! My colleagues and I have a working paper on this issue: osf.io/preprints/so...
OSF
osf.io
sxz.bsky.social
Very cool! I laughed out loud when I reached that sentence on false positive hosts because I immediately heard "hey, Ryan Reynolds here"
sxz.bsky.social
I'd also love to be added, thank you!
sxz.bsky.social
It's COMPASlicated is such a great paper 🙂