Michael S. Pollard
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sociologian.bsky.social
Michael S. Pollard
@sociologian.bsky.social
1.8K followers 480 following 200 posts

Sociologist and Demographer at RAND. Research mostly on social connection, substance use (alcohol and cannabis), and migration, but with many tangents. Opinions = my own, RTs ≠ endorsements.
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=iRep51wAAAAJ&hl=en .. more

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sociologian.bsky.social
Michael S. Pollard @sociologian.bsky.social · Nov 11
13 months ago I refused to promise "no cats" on this account. Here, finally, is a shameless appeal to new followers: my cat in a box.
A calico cat sitting in a box that is far too small, surrounded by cat toys that cost money but are being ignored at the expense of the box.

sociologian.bsky.social
Michael S. Pollard @sociologian.bsky.social · 2d
What a wild finish, though!

Reposted by Shannon Vallor, Mark Bray, Richard S.J. Tol , and 18 more

merriam-webster.com
Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 10d
❤️

sociologian.bsky.social
Michael S. Pollard @sociologian.bsky.social · 11d
Check out the (possible) lingering impact "Freedom Fries" had on political preference for French Fries.

sociologian.bsky.social
Michael S. Pollard @sociologian.bsky.social · 11d
Fantastic. I'm surprised PAA hasn't already pounced on this. I mean PAA "the Potato Association of America," not the @popassocamerica.bsky.social I usually mean when I say PAA. www.potatoassociation.org/Pages/defaul...
www.potatoassociation.org

Reposted by Michael Pollard

emayfarris.bsky.social
Emily Farris @emayfarris.bsky.social · 11d
Dear @today.yougov.com - can you please get me some new data on Americans’ favorite way to eat a potato for my Survey Research class: today.yougov.com/topics/consu...
Which, if any, of the following ways to eat potatoes is your favorite? | Daily Question
Which, if any, of the following ways to eat potatoes is your favorite?
today.yougov.com

sociologian.bsky.social
Michael S. Pollard @sociologian.bsky.social · 14d
“Friends, please – and we cannot emphasize this enough – stop hiding animals in weird places on your body and then trying to sneak them through airport security,” the TSA said..." www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
‘Stop hiding animals’: TSA lists unusual objects people tried to sneak on planes
An imitation pipe bomb topped the list, followed by turtles stashed away in a bra and pair of pants
www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Michael Pollard

philipncohen.com
Philip N Cohen @philipncohen.com · 17d
News today, ht @sarahotner.bsky.social
Why China’s women are having fewer babies
The economy is weak, divorces are rising and fewer young people are getting married
www.ft.com

sociologian.bsky.social
Michael S. Pollard @sociologian.bsky.social · 19d
brown rice and green peppers!

sociologian.bsky.social
Michael S. Pollard @sociologian.bsky.social · 19d
Delighted to see Iron Maiden thriving 50 years in, getting news coverage and new fans. Also amused to see the footnote to this article that "An earlier version incorrectly said Iron Maiden had not released any greatest hits compilations." (they have at least 6). www.theguardian.com/music/2026/j...
Release the beast! How Iron Maiden and a naked Ralph Fiennes created the ultimate big-screen needle drop
The Number of the Beast lights up an unforgettable scene in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple thanks to director Nia DaCosta expertly blending ‘craziness and romance’
www.theguardian.com

sociologian.bsky.social
Michael S. Pollard @sociologian.bsky.social · 21d
"The cost of raising a child in China is more than 6.3x as high as its GDP per capita, compared with 4.11x in the US...China also removed condoms from the list of VAT-exempt items raising concerns that the gov't is trying to make it harder to avoid pregnancy."
www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...
China’s population falls again as birthrate drops 17% to record low
Fourth year of decline deepens concerns over ageing, shrinking workforce and long-term economic impact
www.theguardian.com

sociologian.bsky.social
Michael S. Pollard @sociologian.bsky.social · 26d
“This is not a first for European countries,” said Le Minez, highlighting that 20 of the EU’s 27 countries had registered more deaths than births in 2024. “But this time, this is also the case for France.” www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...
France records more deaths than births for first time since end of second world war
Country joins EU neighbours in demographic crunch of ageing population and falling birthrate
www.theguardian.com

sociologian.bsky.social
Michael S. Pollard @sociologian.bsky.social · 26d
Excited to see this research come out! First author Max Griswold was a RAND School fellow at the time! We provide evidence for the utility of LLMs to assess sentiment and stance in huge amounts of text data, with some recommendations for use.
polanalysis.bsky.social Political Analysis @polanalysis.bsky.social · 27d
Currently in FirstView: In “Stay Tuned: Improving Sentiment Analysis and Stance Detection Using Large Language Model,” Max Griswold, Michael Robbins, and @sociologian.bsky.social evaluate fine-tuning strategies to improve LLM performance using social media data surrounding the 2020 election.

Reposted by Michael Pollard

polanalysis.bsky.social
Political Analysis @polanalysis.bsky.social · 27d
Currently in FirstView: In “Stay Tuned: Improving Sentiment Analysis and Stance Detection Using Large Language Model,” Max Griswold, Michael Robbins, and @sociologian.bsky.social evaluate fine-tuning strategies to improve LLM performance using social media data surrounding the 2020 election.

sociologian.bsky.social
Michael S. Pollard @sociologian.bsky.social · Dec 23
Watched it and generally enjoyed it last night, other than a scene where it is nighttime in France and California at the same time. (Not a spoiler).

sociologian.bsky.social
Michael S. Pollard @sociologian.bsky.social · Dec 17
One data source we used was all available tweets from the 1% Twitter Firehose API between January 5, 2020 and August 15, 2022. Related: sadly, last night I accidentally updated my Twitter phone app for the first time since it became X (July 2023) and I lost the Twitter Bird icon.

Reposted by Michael Pollard

kwcollins.bsky.social
Kevin Collins @kwcollins.bsky.social · Dec 17
I hear they rely now on machine learning models on the text of letters to the North Pole to evaluate whether kids are naughty or nice. Calling it "Sentiment And Naughtiness Text Analysis" or SANTA for short

sociologian.bsky.social
Michael S. Pollard @sociologian.bsky.social · Dec 17
More findings: 2) tuning leads to notable improvements over pretrained models, 3) cross-target tuning can provide a viable alternative to in-target tuning in some settings, and 4) complex prompting strategies lead to improvements over pretrained models but underperform tuning approaches. 2/2

sociologian.bsky.social
Michael S. Pollard @sociologian.bsky.social · Dec 17
New publication alert! In this study, we evaluate lexicon-based models, supervised models, and LLMs for stance detection using two corpuses of social media data. Our findings demonstrate that: 1) LLMs can distinguish stance on a specific target even when multiple subjects are mentioned...1/2
cambup-polsci.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press Political Science & IR @cambup-polsci.cambridge.org · Dec 17
#OpenAccess from @polanalysis.bsky.social -

Stay Tuned: Improving Sentiment Analysis and Stance Detection Using Large Language Models - https://cup.org/3XZutSs

- Max Griswold, Michael W. Robbins & @sociologian.bsky.social

#FirstView
Logo for Political Analysis with the hashtag OpenAccess displayed on a yellow and red background.

Reposted by Michael Pollard

cambup-polsci.cambridge.org
Cambridge University Press Political Science & IR @cambup-polsci.cambridge.org · Dec 17
#OpenAccess from @polanalysis.bsky.social -

Stay Tuned: Improving Sentiment Analysis and Stance Detection Using Large Language Models - https://cup.org/3XZutSs

- Max Griswold, Michael W. Robbins & @sociologian.bsky.social

#FirstView
Logo for Political Analysis with the hashtag OpenAccess displayed on a yellow and red background.

sociologian.bsky.social
Michael S. Pollard @sociologian.bsky.social · Dec 12
Sociologists! Were any of you involved with the nomination/development of the CIP Code: 45.0102 Social Science, Research Methodology and Quantitative Methods? Would love to get in touch. The nomination apparently included supporting materials from @asanews.bsky.social

nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cipcod...
CIP user site
Classification of Instructional Programs
nces.ed.gov

sociologian.bsky.social
Michael S. Pollard @sociologian.bsky.social · Dec 10
Another daily reminder that other than the Baby Boom cohort, these other cohorts are all just loosely defined without real agreement. They didn't even get the Boomer age correct here.

sociologian.bsky.social
Michael S. Pollard @sociologian.bsky.social · Dec 9
I like that only the opossum is singled out for peculiar flavor here. Did any pages look like well-used recipes with spills/stains?

Reposted by Michael A. Messner, Rebecca Sear, Cameron Campbell , and 2 more

philipncohen.com
Philip N Cohen @philipncohen.com · Dec 8
New from me: In the New Republic @newrepublic.com, I wrote that we should refuse to choose between the easy way and the hard way to boost birth rates.
What If Both Sides in the Birth Rate Debate Are Wrong?
The right wants to steer women away from work and toward motherhood. The left wants to provide them with more state support so it’s easier to have children. We should refuse this choice.
newrepublic.com

sociologian.bsky.social
Michael S. Pollard @sociologian.bsky.social · Dec 4
This new commentary over at the Council on Foreign Relations, based on work with my colleagues at RAND, highlights a few ways women in China have been impacted by the legacy of the One Child Policy and China's hukou (household registration) system.
www.cfr.org/blog/gendere...
Gendered Legacies of Control: How China’s Population Policies Reshaped Women’s Lives
Guest Contributors are Tahina Montoya, a defense and policy researcher at RAND, and Kelly Atkinson, a political scientist at RAND.
www.cfr.org

sociologian.bsky.social
Michael S. Pollard @sociologian.bsky.social · Dec 3
SMALLER BRAINS

sociologian.bsky.social
Michael S. Pollard @sociologian.bsky.social · Dec 3
"Raccoons have adapted to living in urban areas to such an extent that they are now showing physical changes that resemble early signs of domestication...Their snouts have become shorter... smaller teeth, curlier tails, smaller brains and floppier ears."

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Drunk raccoon found passed out in Virginia liquor store
Store employee found masked bandit sleeping off a bender after invading booze store and tippling a tad too much
www.theguardian.com

sociologian.bsky.social
Michael S. Pollard @sociologian.bsky.social · Dec 2
All the under-foot floof attests to a best lived life.

sociologian.bsky.social
Michael S. Pollard @sociologian.bsky.social · Dec 2
One of the cool things in this report is an analysis of Chinese of public sentiment towards the 2- and 3-Child Policies. Changes in net sentiment align with two phases of pronatalist policy: introduction (people are optimistic) and implementation (people grow frustrated).
A chart showing public sentiment towards the Two- and Three Child Policies in Chinese social media posts from 2017 to 2025. Based on post volume and net sentiment trends in the Figure, we identify four distinct periods: 1. From January 2018 to January 2020, social media users posted at high volumes, with sentiment generally negative. 2. From January 2020 to January 2023, post volume decreased (and remained at low levels) and net sentiment turned from negative to positive, strengthening in positivity. 3. From January 2023 to July 2024, net sentiment decreased until leveling out at zero, reflecting neutral sentiment. 4. From July 2024 to July 2025, net sentiment briefly turned positive before decreasing. We assess that the changes in net sentiment align with two phases of pronatalist policy: introduction and implementation. Net sentiment after the two-child policy was implemented is consistently negative, with many QQ users expressing frustration over the recklessness and lack of empathy of Chinese policymakers who overlooked public opinion and ignored their basic needs for building a livable, fulfilling, and sustainable life. With the launch of the three-child policy in 2021, we assess that the steadily increasing net sentiment score reflects social media users’ optimism about the policy change. Yet after local governments began implementing the policy in 2023, net sentiment turned negative. We assess that this change reflects the mismatch between social media users’ expectation for promising policy and disappointment at the reality of implementation. Social media users reflect positive sentiments again in 2024, which aligns with the government’s issuing of 13 targeted and comprehensive measures to promote fertility. As the government continued to struggle to reverse declining fertility and implemented cash subsidies in 2025, net sentiment again turned negative.

Reposted by Mike Brewer, Ben Barr, Michelle Kelly‐Irving , and 10 more

pengzell.bsky.social
Per Engzell @pengzell.bsky.social · Nov 28
A thread of directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) that look like record covers... because that's EXACTLY what the world needs

1. Huey Lewis and the News: link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...