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Brendan Barrett

@bjjbarrett.bsky.social

850 followers 570 following 410 posts

dad / evolutionary (behavioral) ecologist MPI-AB and Uni Konstanz social learning, cultural evolution, extragenetic inheritance, dispersal. field & stats & math. cyclist & runner /doom metal aficionado. he/him.

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Brendan Barrett @bjjbarrett.bsky.social · Aug 20

New paper from my group led by Odd Jacobson, former PhD student & current postdoc @livingingroups.bsky.social : How do animal groups simultaneously balance between- and within-group competition in dynamic environments and does this impact movement and space use? www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Between-group competitive advantage offsets foraging costs for bigger groups in harsher seasons

Larger animal groups are widely understood to require more space and travel farther to mitigate the foraging costs of within-group competition. Yet, between-group interactions and shifting resource di...

www.biorxiv.org

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Reposted by Brendan Barrett

Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 1d

I really strongly feel that some fields of research would profit if researchers stopped collecting online data for some time and instead maybe just read a bit outside of their field.

The ‘harm hypothesis’ strikes me as being deeply rooted in contemporary WEIRD values rather than being the result of a specific ‘evolved’ or ‘innate’ instinct or psychological mechanism. And indeed the literature cited to support it seems to suggest this.

Costello & Acerbi cite 5 papers in the paragraph above to support the model:

Stewart-Williams et al., 2024: the sample here consists of Prolific users mostly in the UK.

FeldmanHall et al., 2016: the samples were MTurk users in the US and volunteers in the UK.

Curry et al., 2004: the sample is convicted offenders in Texas in 1991.

Graso et al., 2023: US MTurk users again.

Graso & Reynolds, 2024: this is a review paper which does make some cross-cultural claims, but when you check the references you can see some important limitations. For example, they write that “Across cultures, women were perceived as less powerful than men but were seen more positively,” and when you check the reference it goes to Glick et al., 2004, which samples from 16 nations. However, when you read that paper they note in the methods that, “Most samples consisted primarily of college students participating for extra credit.”

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Reposted by Brendan Barrett

Zoë Goldsborough @zoegoldsborough.bsky.social · 2d

Want to know more about monkeys kidnapping other monkeys?🐒 I had an amazing chat together with @bjjbarrett.bsky.social on @sidedoorpod.bsky.social about the Coiban capuchins and their wild antics. Science really is stranger than fiction! Listen 👂 here: www.si.edu/sidedoor/mon...

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Reposted by Brendan Barrett

Alejandro Pérez Velilla @apvelilla.bsky.social · 12d

I am happy to announce that our project on risk and social learning is now in press at Psychological Review. Several new additions and revisions thanks to detailed feedback from colleagues and anonymous reviewers. osf.io/preprints/so...
@psmaldino.bsky.social @babeheim.bsky.social

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Reposted by Brendan Barrett

Michael Boo-tancourt @betanalpha.bsky.social · 7d

On Wed, Dec 10 I will be offering my comprehensive introduction to regression modeling at a steep discount in an effort to raise funds for World Central Kitchen and United Farm Workers. Details about the course and registration process can be found on my website, betanalpha.github.io/courses/.

Courses

betanalpha.github.io

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Reposted by Brendan Barrett

Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · 13d

Seen in the hallways of Aarhus University. <<Chef’s kiss>>

Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky, images from their 1971 televised debate. Text reads (from Everything Everywhere All At Once): “I wanted to say, in another life, I would have really liked just doing taxes and laundry with you.”

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Brendan Barrett @bjjbarrett.bsky.social · 12d

I will be using my annual conference carbon flight credit to go to this conference (unless anyone else would like to bike to Morocco from Spain with me...)

ces2026 @ces2026.bsky.social · 19d

👉 Full guidelines and requirements are available on the conference website.

🔗 Submit here: airess.fgses-um6p.ma/ces2026

We look forward to your contributions to CES2026!

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Reposted by Brendan Barrett

Tim Waring @twaring.bsky.social · Aug 21

🧠 Want to integrate cultural evolution into your course using award winning materials created by the field's experts, and get paid $2000 to do it? 💵

🚨 The Cultural Evolution Society is seeking applications for the ACE Teaching Innovation Awards.

🔖 Apply here: vuw.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

Qualtrics Survey | Qualtrics Experience Management

The most powerful, simple and trusted way to gather experience data. Start your journey to experience management and try a free account today.

vuw.qualtrics.com

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Brendan Barrett @bjjbarrett.bsky.social · Aug 20

There are abundant dyadic social relations models and DAGs in the SI. This is recently submitted and hopefully in review, so any feedback is welcome! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Brendan Barrett @bjjbarrett.bsky.social · Aug 20

Big groups groups had better home ranges in dry season and maintained consistent fruit intake across seasons-- suggesting that benefits of between-group competitive ability offset within-group costs during resource-scarce periods

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Brendan Barrett @bjjbarrett.bsky.social · Aug 20

during dry season, resource concentration around rivers ⬇️ spatial overlap but ⬆️ intergroup encounters, especially in more productive areas-- capuchins are more territorial in dry season.

Brendan Barrett @bjjbarrett.bsky.social · Aug 20

From SRMs, larger groups encroach onto the overlap ranges or expand into the home ranges of smaller, rather than larger neighbors, and small neighbors might be sneaking into the overlap ranges of two-equally matched neighbors who are avoiding each other

Brendan Barrett @bjjbarrett.bsky.social · Aug 20

We show that bigger groups compensate for reduced per-capita foraging efficiency by expanding into less-exploited areas over longer timescales instead of increasing daily travel, but seasonality matters

Brendan Barrett @bjjbarrett.bsky.social · Aug 20

Using 33 years of movement data (partially georeferenced from historical written records) on 12 neighboring groups, focal follow data, and remotely sensing/climate records we extended the social relations model to examine within-group and between group-dyad predictors of competition over space use

Brendan Barrett @bjjbarrett.bsky.social · Aug 20

Between-group competitive advantage offsets foraging costs for bigger groups in harsher seasons

www.biorxiv.org

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Reposted by Brendan Barrett

michael chimento @mchimento.bsky.social · Aug 13

📣 Interested in cultural evolution and artificial life? Call for abstracts for our upcoming workshop at @alife2025.bsky.social. Accepted abstracts will be presented as flash talks, and are not archival. Deadline is the September 12, w/ rolling acceptance. Details: sites.google.com/view/planetx... 🧪

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Brendan Barrett @bjjbarrett.bsky.social · Aug 7

its a `beepr` kind of day

Reposted by Brendan Barrett

Daniel Redhead @danielredhead.bsky.social · Aug 4

🐒🕸️ New preprint! Confused about how to model animal social networks?

ASNA can be confusing—but also full of opportunity. We break down 5 common misunderstandings in animal social network analysis and share solutions from behavioural ecology, anthro, stats, & network science. Hope it helps!

A 🧵

Five misunderstandings in animal social network analysis

ecoevorxiv.org

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Reposted by Brendan Barrett

Tim Waring @twaring.bsky.social · Jul 9

@michelleakline.bsky.social @ehbea.bsky.social
@ehbea2025.bsky.social @durhampsych.bsky.social
@durhamanthropology.bsky.social @eslr.bsky.social @bjjbarrett.bsky.social @nataliabdutra.bsky.social @rebeccasear.bsky.social @acerbialberto.com @nicolewen.bsky.social @iyadrahwan.bsky.social ‪

Tim Waring @twaring.bsky.social · Jun 9

New 2 year post-doc position on cultural adaptation in complex environmental management.

Post-Doctoral Position on Cultural Adaptation in Forest Management

The University of Maine seeks a post-doctoral researcher for a two-year project on human cultural adaptation in forest management, requiring a strong quantitative background and experience in modeling.

timwaring.info

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Brendan Barrett @bjjbarrett.bsky.social · Jul 7

Congrats to Dr. @zoegoldsborough.bsky.social on successfully defending her dissertation @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social and @imprs-qbee.bsky.social

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Brendan Barrett @bjjbarrett.bsky.social · Jul 3

Hot new summer guilty pleasure read 🏖️

Reposted by Brendan Barrett

Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · Jun 30

In an effort to make old papers more reproducible, I’ve put the code on GitHub for:

Kempe, Lycett & Mesoudi (2014) From cultural traditions to cumulative culture: parameterising the differences between human and nonhuman culture. Journal of Theoretical Biology 359, 29-36

github.com/amesoudi/kem...

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Reposted by Brendan Barrett

Dr Craig R McClain @drcraigmc.bsky.social · Jun 24

I've wanted to write this article for years. About my and other's struggles to even survive sometime in #academia. Thank you to the amazing editors at @plosbiology.org that gave me the forum to write this piece. #science

Too poor to science: How wealth determines who succeeds in STEM

From student to researcher, a career in science can come with a high price tag. This Perspective explores how persistent financial barriers limit who can succeed in science, revealing how wealth shape...

journals.plos.org

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Brendan Barrett @bjjbarrett.bsky.social · Jun 8

Also this by @dominikdeffner.bsky.social @dingdingpeng.the100.ci & @rmcelreath.bsky.social journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

journals.sagepub.com

Brendan Barrett @bjjbarrett.bsky.social · Jun 6

the key in all of these papers is to read the SI

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