Matt Williams
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matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams
@matthewmatix.bsky.social
1.7K followers 160 following 120 posts

Associate prof at Massey University. Interested in statistics, open science, meta-psychology, and conspiracy theories. https://mattwilliams.netlify.app/

Videos
Psychology 36%
Sociology 17%
Posts Replies Media Videos

Reposted by Andrew Livingstone, Matt N Williams

perfors.net
Andrew Perfors @perfors.net · 4d
Getting nervous for the talk I'm about to give at a workshop about "using AI to drive impact" which features slides such as these.
Slide is titled: You don't need to use LLMs. Science is a process of collaborative meaning making, by which we try to understand the world Even if AI were perfect, we rely on it at our peril — it is not science if we (i.e., humanity as a whole) do not understand and cannot recapitulate all parts of it I very, very rarely use LLMs myself. You can give yourself permission not to. Don’t FOMO yourself into it Conclusion: Don't rely on something you don't understand and can't control If you must use LLMS: 1. Treat them like you would an intern: only use them for things you can easily and thoroughly check 2. Make your process as robust as possible 3. Be aware of your own (human) cognitive biases

Reposted by Matt N Williams, John R. Kerr

mdmarques.com
mat marques, ph.d. @mdmarques.com · 6d
@srhastraea.bsky.social is a humble & busy guy so the aussie will announce his successful #marsden

Unpacking how we choose who to trust for knowledge in complex, contentious issues with the potential for misinformation

@scicomguy.bsky.social @matthewmatix.bsky.social
@rachelprozac.bsky.social
Marsden Fund Awards 2025
Published on 6 Whiringa-ā-rangi November 2025 You can download an Excel spreadsheet of these results here: 2025-Marsden Fund Supplement The definitions of the 8 Marsden Fund panels can be found here...
www.royalsociety.org.nz

matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams @matthewmatix.bsky.social · 8d
"This pattern seems difficult to explain as the result of a natural process, as does the correlation between white blood cell count and patient ID number of 0.45."

Oh dear

Reposted by Matt N Williams, Johannes Breuer

lakens.bsky.social
Daniel Lakens @lakens.bsky.social · 12d
Are you interested in thinking about which studies are worth replicating? Then you have 10 articles to dig into in Meta-Psychology, representing a very wide range of viewpoint on this topic, out now: open.lnu.se/index.php/me...
LnuOpen | Meta-Psychology
Original articles
open.lnu.se

Reposted by Matt N Williams, Nathan P. Kalmoe, John R. Kerr , and 1 more

eddieclarke.bsky.social
Eddie Clarke @eddieclarke.bsky.social · 19d
Extremely pleased to see this work published! Thank you so much to my excellent collaborators @fmsmallfield.bsky.social @scicomguy.bsky.social @srhastraea.bsky.social @lingtax.bsky.social @mdmarques.com @matthewmatix.bsky.social
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Extremism at the center: Uncovering political diversity among midpoint responders on the left–right self‐placement item
The midpoint of the left-right self-placement item is hiding important political diversity, and may be conflating moderate responders with populists and other political sub-groups. Survey researchers...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com

matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams @matthewmatix.bsky.social · 19d
I don't think this scenario is explicitly covered in the moderation case list but it sounds like a plausible use case so you might as well give it a try?

Reposted by David Chester, Patrick S. Forscher, Matt N Williams , and 4 more

bsiepe.bsky.social
Björn Siepe @bsiepe.bsky.social · 19d
We built the openESM database:
▶️60 openly available experience sampling datasets (16K+ participants, 740K+ obs.) in one place
▶️Harmonized (meta-)data, fully open-source software
▶️Filter & search all data, simply download via R/Python

Find out more:
🌐 openesmdata.org
📝 doi.org/10.31234/osf...

Reposted by Matt N Williams, James E. Bartlett

dsbarra.bsky.social
David A. Sbarra @dsbarra.bsky.social · 20d
Papers from July to Sept 2025 at AMPPS are killer. We don't have formal print issues, but we have this-- journals.sagepub.com/toc/ampa/8/3
Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science - Volume 8, Number 3
Table of contents for Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 8, 3
journals.sagepub.com

Reposted by Matt N Williams

Andrew Gelman et al. @statmodeling.bsky.social · 24d
Separating the whack from the chaff in critiques of decision theory
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/10/17/s...
Separating the whack from the chaff in critiques of decision theory | Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu

matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams @matthewmatix.bsky.social · 25d
This is roughly what our ethics code says, in politer words. But getting either researchers or ethics committee members to pay any attention to it is another story....

matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams @matthewmatix.bsky.social · 25d
The existential threat model suggests stress & anxiety can lead to belief in conspiracy theories. And prior studies have showed they are *correlated* with belief in CTs.

But do they *cause* belief in CTs? Find the answer here...

(Or apply Betteridge's law of headlines, if you're pressed for time)

matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams @matthewmatix.bsky.social · 26d
Reasonably simple ones:

routledgeopenresearch.org/articles/2-3...

doi.org/10.5114/cipp...

More complicated:
doi.org/10.1002/ejsp...

doi.org/10.1111/bjso...

Do these suit?
routledgeopenresearch.org

matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams @matthewmatix.bsky.social · 26d
May the search for moderators and mediators commence!

matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams @matthewmatix.bsky.social · 27d
In psychology it's more like "anything with a vaguely right wing vibe"

matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams @matthewmatix.bsky.social · 27d
Agreed. Though while we're being pessimistic, one worry I have is that preprint servers are a very easy target for anyone trying to manipulate citation stats on existing papers.

Reposted by Linda J. Skitka, Matt N Williams

ianhussey.mmmdata.io
Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 27d
Results of the replication are in!

Chocolate is more desirable than poop:

Cohen's d_rm = 6.20, 95%CI [5.63, 6.78]

N = 486, two single item 1-7 Likert scales of desirability.

w/
@jamiecummins.bsky.social
ianhussey.mmmdata.io Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 29d
Make an effect size prediction!

@jamiecummins.bsky.social and I are replicating Balcetis & Dunning's (2010) "chocolate is more desirable than poop" (Cohen's d = 4.52)

Let us known in the replies what effect size you think we'll find. Details of the study in the thread below.

Reposted by Matt N Williams

socio-steve.bsky.social
Stephen Nuñez @socio-steve.bsky.social · 28d
Neoliberalism has several sins but, "super high tariffs" and "nanny state scolding about nutritional value," are not among them.

matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams @matthewmatix.bsky.social · 28d
Nice! This lines up with work by @eddieclarke.bsky.social showing that the people who endorse the midpoint of the left-right item are far from homogeneous...

osf.io/preprints/ps...
OSF
osf.io

matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams @matthewmatix.bsky.social · 28d
d = 3.6

(Original estimate less a completely made-up factor for publication bias)

Reposted by Ian Hussey, Matt N Williams, Jill A. Jacobson , and 1 more

psych.peercommunityin.org
PCI Psychology @psych.peercommunityin.org · 29d
PCI Psychology is open for submissions! Did you know that you can easily submit your recommended preprint to any of the 20+ PCI Psych friendly journals? See all friendly journals here: psych.peercommunityin.org/about/pci_fr...
#PsychSciSky #SciPub

Reposted by Matt N Williams

nickfoxnz.bsky.social
Nick Fox @nickfoxnz.bsky.social · 29d
Excited for my doctoral research to be published, thanks to the support of @matthewmatix.bsky.social @srhastraea.bsky.social
Do Stress, Depression, and Anxiety Lead to Beliefs in Conspiracy Theories? - Nick D. Fox, Matt N. Williams, Stephen R. Hill, 2025
Previous research has found positive correlations between manifestations of psychological distress, such as anxiety, depression, and stress, and belief in consp...
doi.org

matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams @matthewmatix.bsky.social · Oct 10
In which the authors of a 2023 Psych Science paper claim that the correlation between two constants is 1

Reposted by Mel Bartley, Jörg Peters, Philip N. Cohen , and 5 more

ianhussey.mmmdata.io
Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · Oct 4
My article "Data is not available upon request" was published in Meta-Psychology. Very happy to see this out!
open.lnu.se/index.php/me...
LnuOpen | Meta-Psychology
open.lnu.se

matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams @matthewmatix.bsky.social · Oct 3
This is a fun study, and I agree the CLPM totally sucks. Still... the question of how severe a test it is relates to how it behaves when testing a *false* hypothesis. So the fact we don't know how many of those 98*2 causal effects exist in reality seems a little troublesome...

matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams @matthewmatix.bsky.social · Oct 2
So please send us your work!

(And yes, I know it's a bit weird that I'm located about as far from Europe as one can get without a spaceship)

Reposted by Mark Rubin

matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams @matthewmatix.bsky.social · Oct 2
I'm joining the brilliant @jkarl.bsky.social as co-EIC at Europe's Journal of Psychology. ejop.psychopen.eu/index.php/ejop

EJOP is a generalist psych journal, and applies a diamond open access model (no APC). I'd love to see more submissions with rigorous methods & well-calibrated conclusions!
Europe’s Journal of Psychology
Quarterly peer-reviewed open access journal of scientific psychology featuring original studies, research, critical contributions written by and intended for psychologists worldwide.
ejop.psychopen.eu

matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams @matthewmatix.bsky.social · Oct 1
PhD holder who didn't collect any original data for my thesis checking in 🙋 The world isn't short of data to analyse!

(I did collect data for my Masters... pen-and-paper surveys from primary school kids... back in the olden days!)
dingdingpeng.the100.ci Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · Oct 1
A lot of psych is already conducted with online convenience samples & ppl are probably excited about silicon samples bc it would allow them to crank out more studies for even less 💸

How about we reconsider the idea that sciencey science involves collecting own data.
www.science.org/content/arti...
AI-generated ‘participants’ can lead social science experiments astray, study finds
Data produced by “silicon samples” depends on researchers’ exact choice of models, prompts, and settings
www.science.org

Reposted by Joanna Bryson, Meredith Broussard, Ingo Rohlfing , and 9 more

dingdingpeng.the100.ci
Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · Oct 1
A lot of psych is already conducted with online convenience samples & ppl are probably excited about silicon samples bc it would allow them to crank out more studies for even less 💸

How about we reconsider the idea that sciencey science involves collecting own data.
www.science.org/content/arti...
AI-generated ‘participants’ can lead social science experiments astray, study finds
Data produced by “silicon samples” depends on researchers’ exact choice of models, prompts, and settings
www.science.org

matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams @matthewmatix.bsky.social · Sep 29
Have you considered getting them to use SPSS via a remote desktop connected to a university machine? Because I find that's always fun too

matthewmatix.bsky.social
Matt Williams @matthewmatix.bsky.social · Sep 24
No. Post-publication peer review is an essential and under-appreciated service to the scientific community, and not remotely criminal. I'm sure it's upsetting to have problems in your work identified, but the solution is to do better science.