Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Erin Westgate @erinwestgate.bsky.social · 13h

Noooooooooo but yes all the goldens except one are related 😅

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Reposted by Erin Westgate

Jibran Khokhar @drjkhokhar.bsky.social · 21h

I definitely feel like a “mid” career scientist right about now!

Erin Westgate @erinwestgate.bsky.social · 22h

My undergrads think the Diener Mid-Career Award is hilarious because to them it sounds like it’s for having a “mid” career 🫠

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Erin Westgate @erinwestgate.bsky.social · 22h

UPDATE: If you count unborn golden puppies, it’s now 2:1 (or more!!)

Erin Westgate @erinwestgate.bsky.social · 25d

Not convinced? We have the highest golden retriever:faculty ratio* in all of social psychology.

*1:1 as of 9/12/25

Good boys and girls Cora, Bravo, and (mama) Harper

My two golden fuzzballs, Teddy and Thea! Did I mention BEACH?

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Erin Westgate @erinwestgate.bsky.social · 22h

My undergrads think the Diener Mid-Career Award is hilarious because to them it sounds like it’s for having a “mid” career 🫠

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Erin Westgate @erinwestgate.bsky.social · 1d

Just a reminder that Florida is hiring this year - we'd love to see your application! Deadline is 10/10

Erin Westgate @erinwestgate.bsky.social · 25d

🚨 TT job alert! 🚨 The University of Florida is hiring an Assistant Professor in Social Psychology; open to ALL AREAS within social psych.

Review begins 10/10.

Job ad here: explore.jobs.ufl.edu/en-us/job/53...

I'm co-chair of the search committee and happy to answer questions! 🧵

Payne's Prairire, where you could watch the sunset every evening if you came to UF

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Erin Westgate @erinwestgate.bsky.social · 3d

Get in ya’ll, it’s spooky season in north central Florida!! 😎 🎃 👻

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Reposted by Erin Westgate

Jack Tripper @chadstanton.blacksky.app · 3d

The fact they jumped straight to AI actors modeled after women when, if I’m not mistaken, male actors are a higher labor cost kind of says it all doesn’t it,

Dr. Damien P. Williams Wants A Better Sociotechnical Paradigm @wolvendamien.bsky.social · 3d

Like… it's kind of right there, no?

"AI" generated image of woman with dark hair sitting in a chair in front of posters with random shapes and symbols meant to look like images and text on movie posters, all superimposed with a post from k.w.bogen reading
"AI actresses can't negotiate. They can't say they'd prefer their bodies not be shown certgain ways. They can't refuse degrading scenes. They can't express distress about disturbing content. They can't ask the creators :why would you do that to me? Why put any woman through watching that? If AI film winds up being the path, we're about to see an entirely new generation (and more brutal depiction) of media misogyny."

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Reposted by Erin Westgate

Jo Wolff @jowolff.bsky.social · 3d

I wouldn’t normally endorse AI prompts but these are indeed essential for all academics.

profserious @profserious.bsky.social · 3d

Here are your 10 -essential- AI prompts for academics ... make your life easy with help from @profserious.bsky.social profserious.substack.com/p/10-ai-prom...

10 AI Prompts for Academics

making those hard jobs a little easier ...

profserious.substack.com

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Reposted by Erin Westgate

profserious @profserious.bsky.social · 3d

Here are your 10 -essential- AI prompts for academics ... make your life easy with help from @profserious.bsky.social profserious.substack.com/p/10-ai-prom...

10 AI Prompts for Academics

making those hard jobs a little easier ...

profserious.substack.com

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Reposted by Erin Westgate

samuel mehr @mehr.nz · 5d

man, academic science. you'll be plodding along editing a revision and then BAM your reviewer hits you with this citation

pubmed screenshot of the paper "Chickens prefer beautiful humans"

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Reposted by Erin Westgate

Robert Boessenecker, Dr. of Whaleontology ™️ @coastalpaleo.bsky.social · 4d

#fossilfriday The beautiful skull of the dwarf baleen whale Herpetocetus bramblei (Cetotheriidae) I discovered and excavated as an undergrad from the 5-6 myo Purisima Formation near Santa Cruz, California. Now in @ucmpberkeley.bsky.social collections!

A partial skull of a small baleen whale; it is about a meter long, light brown in color, with a long blowhole and a narrow, pyramidal braincase with high muscle attachment crests and a large eye socket. It's sitting on a white sheet with scale bars next to it.

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Reposted by Erin Westgate

Zoe Liberman @zoeliberman.bsky.social · 5d

Spread the word: I'm looking to recruit a PhD student for Fall 2026 to @ucsb.bsky.social! Reach out if you are applying this cycle and hoping to study infant and child social cognition, specifically expectations about friendship and/or groups. Bonus: live in paradise! And.. 1/3

UCSB Campus. Meadow in the foreground with Storke Tower and mountains in the distance

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Reposted by Erin Westgate

Hanbo Xie @psychboyh.bsky.social · 6d

Can Think-Aloud be really useful in understanding human minds? Building on our previous work, we formally propose reopening this old debate, with one of the largest Think-Aloud datasets, "RiskyThought44K," and LLM analysis, showing Think-Aloud can complement to comp cogsci.

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Reposted by Erin Westgate

noam chompers @noamchompers.bsky.social · Jul 27

Always liked this related joe heath take

induecourse.utoronto.ca/absent-minde...

Absent-mindedness as dominance behaviour | In Due Course

induecourse.utoronto.ca

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Reposted by Erin Westgate

samuel mehr @mehr.nz · Jul 27

one academic view i hold is that declared helplessness surrounding administrative tasks is both rude and non-credible

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Reposted by Erin Westgate

Garvin Brod @garvinbrod.bsky.social · 7d

You can learn better by making your own predictions than by watching someone else's predictions, even if they are the same as yours. New computational approach to show the benefits of active/generative learning developed together with the fabulous @ebonawitz.bsky.social rdcu.be/eILdR

Do it yourself: discerning the effects of self-directed activity on conceptual learning

npj Science of Learning - Do it yourself: discerning the effects of self-directed activity on conceptual learning

rdcu.be

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Reposted by Erin Westgate

Whitney Ringwald @whitneyringwald.bsky.social · 6d

Fascinating. This study identified environmental features associated with obesity rates from satellite images. Here are street views of some of the most important features, per their models.

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Reposted by Erin Westgate

JESP @jexpsocpsych.bsky.social · 6d

Looking to run more? A new paper by Emily Balcetis, Jordan Daley, Bradley Tao, &
Bryce Lexow highlights how to best finish that race! The takeaway? Runners get to the finish line by focusing on subgoals rather than the larger goal of completing the race

www.eurekalert.org/news-release...

What motivates runners? Focusing on the “how” rather than the “why”

Many might think that when fatigue sets in during a running race, the key to perseverance is reminding oneself why the effort is worth it or focusing on reasons why they set the goal—intuition t...

www.eurekalert.org

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Reposted by Erin Westgate

ISPP @polpsyispp.bsky.social · 6d

ISPP Small Grants are back for 2026! 💡 $50k total available; request up to $5k for research or network/workshop projects. Open to current ISPP members. Proposals due Dec 1, 2025. Selection uses a lottery among proposals that meet all criteria. Apply: ispp.org/funding/smal...

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Reposted by Erin Westgate

Tyler T Reny @tylerreny.bsky.social · 6d

We replicate with experiments: When prejudiced Whites are primed to think about population growth, their support rises for assuring Latina women---but not White women---have access to abortion, contraception, and sterilization.

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Reposted by Erin Westgate

Tyler T Reny @tylerreny.bsky.social · 6d

Across large-N surveys and original data, we find:
➡️ Whites in places with more Latino growth are more supportive of legal abortion.
➡️ This effect is absent among non-Whites.
➡️ It’s driven exclusively by Whites higher in prejudice.

plot showing relationship between demographic change and support for abortion among different racial and ethnic groups

plot showing relationship is almost exclusively driven by prejudiced whites

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Reposted by Erin Westgate

Tyler T Reny @tylerreny.bsky.social · 6d

📢 New paper w @mfroman.bsky.social and Ben Newman: Why do some conservative White Americans support abortion? It's not gender or religion. They want to slow the growth of disliked out-groups. bit.ly/4mFYYXd

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Marcel Roman @mfroman.bsky.social · 6d

Natalism for me but not for thee. Read my new working paper w/ @tylerreny.bsky.social and Ben Newman: we show some conservative white people support legalizing abortion and contraception access in an effort to minimize the growth of the non-white population.

Tyler T Reny @tylerreny.bsky.social · 6d

📢 New paper w @mfroman.bsky.social and Ben Newman: Why do some conservative White Americans support abortion? It's not gender or religion. They want to slow the growth of disliked out-groups. bit.ly/4mFYYXd

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Reposted by Erin Westgate

Center for Open Science @cos.io · 7d

🚧 Downtime Reminder 🚧

OSF will be offline Sat., October 4 from 9am–~5pm ET while we deploy the updated OSF interface.

Saved content will remain available, but be sure to save in-progress wiki edits, preprints, & project drafts beforehand & close any open tabs.

More info:

Coming Soon: A New Look for OSF

In early October 2025, the Open Science Framework (OSF) will launch a refreshed design that makes the platform easier to navigate and use. The update modernizes the interface and improves performance, while preserving the familiar workflows that users are accustomed to.

www.cos.io

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Crystal Lewis @cghlewis.bsky.social · 7d

If colleagues or students share a dataset with you and you make this face, consider sharing these resources with them. ☺️

datamgmtinedresearch.com

1. Organizing data (Ch. 3)
2. Naming variables and files (Ch. 9)
3. Documenting data (Ch. 8)
4. Cleaning data (Ch. 14)

a man is covering his mouth with his hands and the word schitts creek is on the bottom right

ALT: a man is covering his mouth with his hands and the word schitts creek is on the bottom right

media.tenor.com

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