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Dr. Cat Hicks

@grimalkina.bsky.social

12K followers 1.7K following 4.9K posts

Psychologist for Software Teams (& writing a book about it). Founder: Developer Success Lab, Catharsis Consulting. VP of Research. Defender of the mismeasured. she/her 🏳️‍🌈 https://www.drcathicks.com/ Host at: https://www.changetechnically.fyi/

www.drcathicks.com

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · Jul 22

NEW Change, Technically just dropped where we go all in on Star Wars: Andor and the Psychology of Resistance ! 🤩

www.changetechnically.fyi/2396236/epis...

Andor and the psychology of resistance - Change, Technically

SHOW NOTES Dominic Packer’s Normative Conflict Model of Dissent is described in this paper as well as his other work: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1088868307309606 Cat also mentio...

www.changetechnically.fyi

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 1h

Our amazing perspectives workshop is moving into the research design phase, aka my favorite thing. Your girl loves a method.

Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 1d

Two days down attending the human creativity in the time of genAI perspectives workshop at Schloss Dagstuhl!

Absolutely jam-packed days of introspection, science, ideating, and even some late night hackathoning by yours truly

A photo late in the day of the Schloss Dagstuhl building, a large white building with two main wings. It is a historic country house from 1760

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 3h

And when you give it your own code as its context to build on, I have found that incredibly useful. Statistical literacy still key to be clear on the intent but having a tool that you can point at all the documentation of a package you're struggling with is wild

Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 3h

Yup. It's very very clear to me we need to shift to teaching people how to evaluate code carefully in this era, but I'm glad you see the incredible possibilities of it no longer being the blocker it has been.

Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 3h

I am also a member! Just caught up late to it

Reposted by Dr. Cat Hicks

Kathleen Bachynski @bachynski.bsky.social · 12h

A study of nearly 300,000 people published today in the New England Journal of Medicine found “that last season’s 2024–2025 mRNA COVID vaccines reduced people’s risk of emergency department visits by 29 percent, their risk of hospitalizations by 39 percent and their risk of death by 64 percent.”

Annual COVID Vaccines Save Lives, New Study Shows

A new study shows that receiving an updated COVID vaccine reduced people’s risk of severe disease and death in all age groups, regardless of immunity from prior infection or vaccination

www.scientificamerican.com

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 12h

My hot take about being evidence informed is that if you're not following emerging/junior scholars in an area you're going to miss the best stuff

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 12h

too high commit freq turning into maladaptive sense of self importance is...wait...maybe a good model

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 12h

I actually LIKE tippety tying data and think it is interesting!!!! Just that it's its own thing!

Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 12h

A meme that shows a child struggling in water while an oblivious adult holds another child, and underneath them in a second panel, a skeleton. The child struggling is labeled robustly validated measures of experience implying that these are neglected, and the adult is labeled software teams, holding a child labeled data from tippety typing implying this is preferred by software teams. The bottom skeleton is labeled construct development implying it is the most neglected of all

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 12h

personal accomplishment as commit freq I am honestly dying do you think it also goes up linearly forever

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 12h

why aren't we allowed to just say, "we're using a measure called 'failure rate'"

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 12h

this smells extremely "we had AI look up a burnout model and propose how we would measure these with software data we already had" ngl. This is WILD stuff and doesn't have a single ounce of psychological thinking in it

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 12h

Like you don't just get to say you're measuring latent factors via the number of characters typed, and that this is the same measure as a burnout inventory (that looks like it had some structural validity problems in the first place)

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 12h

Psychometrics and evidence science folks, I feel like we need to help software engineering out more because they are trying to measure constructs like depersonalization via software activity data?!?!!?

github.com/Rootly-AI-La...

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Reposted by Dr. Cat Hicks

Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 1d

I'm excited to share the news that our climate change project won the @spspnews.bsky.social Robert Cialdini Prize for a "paper that uses field methods and demonstrates the relevance of social psychology to outside groups and communities"!

You can read it here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 19h

It did not!! You were very pleasantly having a real conversation, all the things that exhaust me are when it's clear people aren't actually trying to do that

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 20h

Absolutely right. They get a lot of joy from it straight up that's why no matter if it's disguised by leftist language you can tell they just want to create fake reasons they have earned harassing you

Reposted by Dr. Cat Hicks

Nicole Rust @nicolecrust.bsky.social · 1d

Please spread the word! I am recruiting a PhD student this cycle (Fall 2026 start) to join my team in a new venture: the neuroscience of mood.

If you are curious to learn more, this short talk provides a good overview of why, what and how.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjIK...

Nicole Rust - The representation of mood in the primate insula (May 6, 2025)

YouTube video by Simons Foundation

www.youtube.com

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 21h

Not quite as bad as the person who said I needed to examine my privilege when I said I enjoyed playing my harp but close

Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 21h

Something that has actually genuinely surprised me on social media these days is how many people are viscerally mad I'm writing a book and say so

Thought you guys were all about supporting creators or something

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 21h

My notes: "am pretty and having fun at an academic retreat with friends" 🥰

Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 21h

Same. Although I do take a professional curiosity in it tbh

Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 21h

I'd love to hear how many women who have the Dr or PhD on their socials understand this and do it for similar reasons of credibility and protection in their fields

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 21h

"I'm an expert in privilege and I'll also call a queer woman a pet"

Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 22h

Fun too when people think they know my identities and don't

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