🚨 Big News for European Political Science 🚨

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of the European Political Science Society (EPSS): a new, member-led, not-for-profit association built to support our scholarly community.

🔗 epssnet.org

Here’s a thread with everything you need to know.

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💥Postdoc call 💥

Join my @erc.europa.eu project #YOPOW at Aarhus University

🎇 3-y position (possibility of 1-y extension)

❓How societal norms give rise to biased beliefs about political power in youth

🤖 Computational social science (large-scale text & image data)

Deadline May 15: bit.ly/4hIpSeD

🎉 I am THRILLED to announce that I will be starting at Colby College as an assistant prof. Of Psychology In Fall 2025! 🎉

I’ll be starting the ExPo Lab, and will be focused on working with undergraduates to study the causes and consequences of extremism and polarization.

Our findings reveal that news media companies have an incentive to produce news headlines containing out-group derogation to maximize engagement, which may, in turn, heighten animosity between groups.

This was led by @jesperrasmussen.bsky.social @steverathje.bsky.social @crobertson500.bsky.social

Past work has found that negativity and identity language both predict online engagement.

In this working paper, we find that engagement is highest when negativity and identity language are combined -- especially if an *out-group* identity term is used.

Thanks very much to everybody who chimed in on this thread about attention --I wrote up some notes!

My conclusion from the discussion is that polisci should coordinate on an info board / faux feed design to study (probs v. heterogeneous effects on attention)

alexandercoppock.com/attention.pdf

6/6: Comments more than welcome! osf.io/h3cn5_v1

5/6 This research builds on previous research which has focused on the effect of identity language (onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....) and negativity (www.nature.com/articles/s41...) in isolation. Our research suggests that combining these two are even more powerful!

4/6 We also provide a causal test of the “out-group animosity” hypothesis: Our estimates suggest that negativity about out-groups (e.g., political opponents) boosts engagement by 14.1%, while negativity about in-groups has a much smaller effect (1.6%).

3/6 Headlines that include both negativity & identity language increase clicks by ~9.9% — significantly more than effect of negativity (4.3%) or identity language alone (5.9%).

2/6 We examined thousands of headline experiments from the Upworthy Research Archive (upworthy.natematias.com). This unique dataset allows us to test the causal effects of negativity + identity language.. Paper by @natematias et al. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🚨 New WP on online news consumption (osf.io/h3cn5_v1) 🚨

KEY FINDING: Negativity + identity language is particularly effective at generating engagement—and even more when targeting out-groups

With @steverathje.bsky.social, @crobertson500.bsky.social , @jayvanbavel.bsky.social
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2/6 We examined thousands of headline experiments from the Upworthy Research Archive (upworthy.natematias.com). This unique dataset allows us to test the causal effects of negativity + identity language.. Paper by @natematias et al. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Jeg er en af talerne på denne konference i Folketinget 18. feb om MF'ernes arbejdsvilkår sammen med gode kolleger Helene Helboe @aarhusuni.bsky.social @jesperrasmussen.bsky.social & @stinuslindgreen.bsky.social @tonnihansen.bsky.social etc.

Tilmelding via linket [1/2]

www.ft.dk/da/aktuelt/n...

Meta’s new content moderation policy might align with public opinion more than you'd think. 🗯️

I show that *who* hate targets has limited effects on support for hate speech laws. People simply just want to restrict “high-severity violations" (e.g. threats) no matter who’s targeted (osf.io/j4nuc)

🚨 Investing in citizens' competences through actionable communication from health authorities decreases misinformation sharing during a pandemic. Coauthored with @lindekilde.bsky.social & @m-b-petersen.bsky.social in @jepsjournal.bsky.social

PAPER: bit.ly/3UuKZJb

A Starter Pack to connect with political scientists at Aarhus University 🥳

go.bsky.app/CbDyBb1

Great discussion and sorry for jumping in. In my reading these examples (by @brendannyhan.bsky.social @aecoppock.bsky.social & Andy Guess) illustrate @hugoreasoning.bsky.social point. I think I've also seen similar evidence by @ethanvporter.bsky.social @thomasjwood.bsky.social (maybe I am mistaken)