Aurélien Allard
@aurelienallard.bsky.social
Philosopher and Social Psychologist. Assistant professor at Nantes University. Studying justice, morality, replicability and open science. Personal website: https://aurelienallard.netlify.app/
Reposted by Aurélien Allard
What is the meaning of life? 🧪
Some will say "There is none!" But the question has niggled people at least since the The Epic of Gilgamesh, written more than 4000 years ago.
It seems having a positive impact on others is key to feeling your life has meaning. www.newscientist.com/article/2513...
Some will say "There is none!" But the question has niggled people at least since the The Epic of Gilgamesh, written more than 4000 years ago.
It seems having a positive impact on others is key to feeling your life has meaning. www.newscientist.com/article/2513...
How to live a meaningful life, according to science
The meaning of life has puzzled philosophers for millennia, but new research suggests it could be as simple as lending a helping hand
www.newscientist.com
February 3, 2026 at 7:39 PM
What is the meaning of life? 🧪
Some will say "There is none!" But the question has niggled people at least since the The Epic of Gilgamesh, written more than 4000 years ago.
It seems having a positive impact on others is key to feeling your life has meaning. www.newscientist.com/article/2513...
Some will say "There is none!" But the question has niggled people at least since the The Epic of Gilgamesh, written more than 4000 years ago.
It seems having a positive impact on others is key to feeling your life has meaning. www.newscientist.com/article/2513...
Reposted by Aurélien Allard
Today in that-didn't-happen: Cohen's d = 22.
Williams et al. (2014) has 145 citations, putting it in top 1% of most cited psych articles.
It is a load-bearing publication in its area, despite having impossible results.
pubpeer.com/publications...
Williams et al. (2014) has 145 citations, putting it in top 1% of most cited psych articles.
It is a load-bearing publication in its area, despite having impossible results.
pubpeer.com/publications...
February 13, 2026 at 4:51 PM
Today in that-didn't-happen: Cohen's d = 22.
Williams et al. (2014) has 145 citations, putting it in top 1% of most cited psych articles.
It is a load-bearing publication in its area, despite having impossible results.
pubpeer.com/publications...
Williams et al. (2014) has 145 citations, putting it in top 1% of most cited psych articles.
It is a load-bearing publication in its area, despite having impossible results.
pubpeer.com/publications...
Reposted by Aurélien Allard
Meta-scientists cannot demand transparency from scientists while failing to meet those same standards. In this paper we make one simple recommendation: meta-scientific data should be deanonymised by default.
New paper, on a worrying trend in meta-science: the practice of anonymising datasets on, e.g., published articles. We argue that this is at odds with norms established in research synthesis, explore arguments for anonymisation, provide counterpoints, and demonstrate implications and epistemic costs.
Against Anonymising Meta-Scientific Data: https://osf.io/6eyjf
February 13, 2026 at 4:59 PM
Meta-scientists cannot demand transparency from scientists while failing to meet those same standards. In this paper we make one simple recommendation: meta-scientific data should be deanonymised by default.
Reposted by Aurélien Allard
When you open the dataset and the height of the first participant is 179.5701916 centimetres.
a woman is sitting at a table with a man and says fake fake fake
ALT: a woman is sitting at a table with a man and says fake fake fake
media.tenor.com
February 12, 2026 at 4:17 PM
When you open the dataset and the height of the first participant is 179.5701916 centimetres.
Reposted by Aurélien Allard
New blog post about the age-period-cohort identification problem!
In which, for the first time ever, I ask "What's the mechanism?" and also suggest that sometimes you may actually *not* be interested in causal inference.
www.the100.ci/2026/02/13/o...
In which, for the first time ever, I ask "What's the mechanism?" and also suggest that sometimes you may actually *not* be interested in causal inference.
www.the100.ci/2026/02/13/o...
One approach to the age-period-cohort problem: Just don’t.
Just to cause yourself more problems, you seek for something. But there is no need for you to seek anything. You have plenty, and you have just enough problems.
Shunryū Suzuki in a 1971 talk
A ...
www.the100.ci
February 13, 2026 at 2:33 PM
New blog post about the age-period-cohort identification problem!
In which, for the first time ever, I ask "What's the mechanism?" and also suggest that sometimes you may actually *not* be interested in causal inference.
www.the100.ci/2026/02/13/o...
In which, for the first time ever, I ask "What's the mechanism?" and also suggest that sometimes you may actually *not* be interested in causal inference.
www.the100.ci/2026/02/13/o...
Reposted by Aurélien Allard
🚨📄 New paper (conditional accepted at @thejop.bsky.social):
We test whether social desirability bias actually distorts answers in online surveys.
Short version:
It mostly doesn’t.
w. @timallinger.bsky.social @kristianvsf.bsky.social @morganlcj.bsky.social
URL: osf.io/preprints/os...
We test whether social desirability bias actually distorts answers in online surveys.
Short version:
It mostly doesn’t.
w. @timallinger.bsky.social @kristianvsf.bsky.social @morganlcj.bsky.social
URL: osf.io/preprints/os...
February 12, 2026 at 1:06 PM
🚨📄 New paper (conditional accepted at @thejop.bsky.social):
We test whether social desirability bias actually distorts answers in online surveys.
Short version:
It mostly doesn’t.
w. @timallinger.bsky.social @kristianvsf.bsky.social @morganlcj.bsky.social
URL: osf.io/preprints/os...
We test whether social desirability bias actually distorts answers in online surveys.
Short version:
It mostly doesn’t.
w. @timallinger.bsky.social @kristianvsf.bsky.social @morganlcj.bsky.social
URL: osf.io/preprints/os...
Reposted by Aurélien Allard
Very interesting map in the latest @stefanschubert.bsky.social newsletter:
www.update.news/p/why-are-so...
www.update.news/p/why-are-so...
February 12, 2026 at 3:51 PM
Very interesting map in the latest @stefanschubert.bsky.social newsletter:
www.update.news/p/why-are-so...
www.update.news/p/why-are-so...
Reposted by Aurélien Allard
Reposted by Aurélien Allard
We spent months training grad student RAs and GPT-5 mini still beat them by a lot
We coded our ~100k articles using LLMs. Should you believe them? To answer this, we benchmarked 4 human RAs against 3 LLMs on their ability to recover ground truth article data. Details in the paper and appendices, but the LLMs did well and handily beat the highly trained humans.
February 11, 2026 at 5:12 PM
We spent months training grad student RAs and GPT-5 mini still beat them by a lot
Reposted by Aurélien Allard
It's ironic to see a discipline care **so much** about unbiasedness (causal inference!) at the level of a single test but then have a research production system and culture that is basically a ferocious bias generation machine. This is not good.
February 11, 2026 at 5:00 PM
It's ironic to see a discipline care **so much** about unbiasedness (causal inference!) at the level of a single test but then have a research production system and culture that is basically a ferocious bias generation machine. This is not good.
Reposted by Aurélien Allard
I have a new paper. We look at ~all stats articles in political science post-2010 & show that 94% have abstracts that claim to reject a null. Only 2% present only null results. This is hard to explain unless the research process has a filter that only lets rejections through.
February 11, 2026 at 5:00 PM
I have a new paper. We look at ~all stats articles in political science post-2010 & show that 94% have abstracts that claim to reject a null. Only 2% present only null results. This is hard to explain unless the research process has a filter that only lets rejections through.
Reposted by Aurélien Allard
Can scientist perhaps recognize true signals among all errors? Aurélien thinks this might be the case. Scientists can at least rank order effect sizes, although they are overly positive about the actual effect size.
February 11, 2026 at 9:07 AM
Can scientist perhaps recognize true signals among all errors? Aurélien thinks this might be the case. Scientists can at least rank order effect sizes, although they are overly positive about the actual effect size.
Reposted by Aurélien Allard
Now Aurélien Allard with the second talk of #PSE8: How is it possible that there is massive scientific progress, even thought there is a lot of scientific error?
February 11, 2026 at 8:51 AM
Now Aurélien Allard with the second talk of #PSE8: How is it possible that there is massive scientific progress, even thought there is a lot of scientific error?
Reposted by Aurélien Allard
It's like Karl Pearson's old and weird perspective on causation, from his "Grammar of Science" (2nd edition) book: "causation" is when the correlation is perfect. Nowhere does he notice the diff btw prediction and intervention.
February 11, 2026 at 6:59 AM
It's like Karl Pearson's old and weird perspective on causation, from his "Grammar of Science" (2nd edition) book: "causation" is when the correlation is perfect. Nowhere does he notice the diff btw prediction and intervention.
Reposted by Aurélien Allard
Very happy to see "Pretending not to know reveals a capacity for model-based self-simulation", a collaboration with @chazfirestone.bsky.social and @ianbphillips.bsky.social, out in Psych. Science!
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177...
🧵
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177...
🧵
February 10, 2026 at 5:25 PM
Very happy to see "Pretending not to know reveals a capacity for model-based self-simulation", a collaboration with @chazfirestone.bsky.social and @ianbphillips.bsky.social, out in Psych. Science!
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177...
🧵
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177...
🧵
Reposted by Aurélien Allard
📢 New Paper 🚨
Hadza food-sharing is egalitarian, yet offers in giving games have never matched the equitable redistribution seen in real life.
In this study, we allowed people to give *or* take. Lifelike equitable distributions only appeared when people took from peers in surplus.
bit.ly/4kvLOwA
Hadza food-sharing is egalitarian, yet offers in giving games have never matched the equitable redistribution seen in real life.
In this study, we allowed people to give *or* take. Lifelike equitable distributions only appeared when people took from peers in surplus.
bit.ly/4kvLOwA
The “I” in egalitarianism: Hadza hunter-gatherers averse to inequality primarily when personally unfavorable
Abstract. Many economists contend that humans have strong, universal, other-regarding equality preferences with deep evolutionary roots. Indeed, many hunte
academic.oup.com
February 10, 2026 at 4:23 PM
📢 New Paper 🚨
Hadza food-sharing is egalitarian, yet offers in giving games have never matched the equitable redistribution seen in real life.
In this study, we allowed people to give *or* take. Lifelike equitable distributions only appeared when people took from peers in surplus.
bit.ly/4kvLOwA
Hadza food-sharing is egalitarian, yet offers in giving games have never matched the equitable redistribution seen in real life.
In this study, we allowed people to give *or* take. Lifelike equitable distributions only appeared when people took from peers in surplus.
bit.ly/4kvLOwA
Reposted by Aurélien Allard
Un exemple parmi des centaines d'autres de ce que permet cette mise à jour de Gallicagram (bravo l'équipe @bdecourson.bsky.social!):
De la place centrale de @mediapart.fr dans le travail journalistique de traitement et de publicisation des violences sexuelles en France
De la place centrale de @mediapart.fr dans le travail journalistique de traitement et de publicisation des violences sexuelles en France
February 10, 2026 at 4:32 PM
Un exemple parmi des centaines d'autres de ce que permet cette mise à jour de Gallicagram (bravo l'équipe @bdecourson.bsky.social!):
De la place centrale de @mediapart.fr dans le travail journalistique de traitement et de publicisation des violences sexuelles en France
De la place centrale de @mediapart.fr dans le travail journalistique de traitement et de publicisation des violences sexuelles en France
Reposted by Aurélien Allard
🔴 Gallicagram v2, nous voici ! 🔴
Nouvelle interface en react vachement plus stable et rapide, nouveaux corpus (Mediapart, Libé, le Parisien, Le Figaro…), recherche contextuelle, comparaisons inter-corpus, filtre rubrique, bilingue, infinite scrolling... on vous explique tout !
📌 www.gallicagram.com
Nouvelle interface en react vachement plus stable et rapide, nouveaux corpus (Mediapart, Libé, le Parisien, Le Figaro…), recherche contextuelle, comparaisons inter-corpus, filtre rubrique, bilingue, infinite scrolling... on vous explique tout !
📌 www.gallicagram.com
February 10, 2026 at 12:05 PM
🔴 Gallicagram v2, nous voici ! 🔴
Nouvelle interface en react vachement plus stable et rapide, nouveaux corpus (Mediapart, Libé, le Parisien, Le Figaro…), recherche contextuelle, comparaisons inter-corpus, filtre rubrique, bilingue, infinite scrolling... on vous explique tout !
📌 www.gallicagram.com
Nouvelle interface en react vachement plus stable et rapide, nouveaux corpus (Mediapart, Libé, le Parisien, Le Figaro…), recherche contextuelle, comparaisons inter-corpus, filtre rubrique, bilingue, infinite scrolling... on vous explique tout !
📌 www.gallicagram.com
Reposted by Aurélien Allard
In what seems like another life, I tried to convince participants that birds were dinosaurs, and then, pretending to be a different experimenter a few hours later, checked if they had changed how they categorized birds.
It ... didn't work.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
It ... didn't work.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
![Comic. [2x2 chart. Top left quadrant: seem like dinosaurs x are dinosaurs. Silhouettes of dinosaurs stegosaurus, triceratops, tyrannosaurus, velociraptor, and long-neck dinosaur. Top right quadrant: seem like dinosaurs x are not dinosaurs. Silhouettes of mosasaur, quetzalcoatlus, dimetrodon, plesiosaur, and pteranodon. Bottom left quadrant: don’t seem like dinosaurs x are dinosaurs. Silhouettes of penguin, egret, ostrich, pigeon, falcon. Bottom right: don’t seem like dinosaurs x are not dinosaurs. Silhouettes of squirrel, stapler, plant, person, and bicycle.]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:cz73r7iyiqn26upot4jtjdhk/bafkreihcxd5wcrrf5nxz3g4riglsrccbucmdns6kxrtmtj6gjgwqibp3fi@jpeg)
February 9, 2026 at 9:30 PM
In what seems like another life, I tried to convince participants that birds were dinosaurs, and then, pretending to be a different experimenter a few hours later, checked if they had changed how they categorized birds.
It ... didn't work.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
It ... didn't work.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Reposted by Aurélien Allard
New blog post, inspired by the excellent recent qualitative paper by Makel and colleagues: On the reliability and reproducibility of qualitative research.
I reflect on how I will incorporate realist ontologies in my own qualitative research.
daniellakens.blogspot.com/2026/02/on-r...
I reflect on how I will incorporate realist ontologies in my own qualitative research.
daniellakens.blogspot.com/2026/02/on-r...
On the reliability and reproducibility of qualitative research
With my collaborators, I am increasingly performing qualitative research. I find qualitative research projects a useful way to improve my un...
daniellakens.blogspot.com
February 8, 2026 at 7:46 AM
New blog post, inspired by the excellent recent qualitative paper by Makel and colleagues: On the reliability and reproducibility of qualitative research.
I reflect on how I will incorporate realist ontologies in my own qualitative research.
daniellakens.blogspot.com/2026/02/on-r...
I reflect on how I will incorporate realist ontologies in my own qualitative research.
daniellakens.blogspot.com/2026/02/on-r...
Reposted by Aurélien Allard
Need a bit of happy news in your timeline? I haven’t read the full report yet, but this thread makes me happy.
@tomhardwicke.bsky.social
@psychscience.bsky.social
@i4replication.bsky.social
@tomhardwicke.bsky.social
@psychscience.bsky.social
@i4replication.bsky.social
This sparks so much joy: "We would like to acknowledge that the original study was first reproduced by the Psychological Science STAR team, who confirmed the computational reproducibility of the results."
a gold star with the words star team written below it
ALT: a gold star with the words star team written below it
media.tenor.com
February 6, 2026 at 5:42 PM
Need a bit of happy news in your timeline? I haven’t read the full report yet, but this thread makes me happy.
@tomhardwicke.bsky.social
@psychscience.bsky.social
@i4replication.bsky.social
@tomhardwicke.bsky.social
@psychscience.bsky.social
@i4replication.bsky.social
Reposted by Aurélien Allard
Feeling some appreciation for @lnalborczyk.bsky.social's logit dot plots (lnalborczyk.github.io/blog/2018-01...).
February 5, 2026 at 9:48 PM
Feeling some appreciation for @lnalborczyk.bsky.social's logit dot plots (lnalborczyk.github.io/blog/2018-01...).
Reposted by Aurélien Allard
Cream skimming has been a consistent topic when chatting with friends who work as therapists; I didn't know there was a label for it. I think it's widely known that many therapists pick low-hassle clients (some even explicitly say so) 👀 Which obviously means care won't reach those who most need it.
February 5, 2026 at 8:47 AM
Cream skimming has been a consistent topic when chatting with friends who work as therapists; I didn't know there was a label for it. I think it's widely known that many therapists pick low-hassle clients (some even explicitly say so) 👀 Which obviously means care won't reach those who most need it.
Reposted by Aurélien Allard
🧵 New WP with @kaimiele.bsky.social. We document 2 unsettling patterns in mental health care: 1) despite universal coverage, few individuals with mental illness receive guideline-consistent treatment, and 2) the more severe the illness, the lower the treatment uptake & the longer the wait times. 1/n
February 5, 2026 at 8:35 AM
🧵 New WP with @kaimiele.bsky.social. We document 2 unsettling patterns in mental health care: 1) despite universal coverage, few individuals with mental illness receive guideline-consistent treatment, and 2) the more severe the illness, the lower the treatment uptake & the longer the wait times. 1/n
Reposted by Aurélien Allard
Academics:
If you’re trying to make sense of how people you know knew Epstein, it’s book agent John Brockman. He’s savvy enough to lay low, but we should be talking about him.
Friends don’t let friends sign with Brockman.
www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pete...
And
newrepublic.com/article/1548...
If you’re trying to make sense of how people you know knew Epstein, it’s book agent John Brockman. He’s savvy enough to lay low, but we should be talking about him.
Friends don’t let friends sign with Brockman.
www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pete...
And
newrepublic.com/article/1548...
How Jeffrey Epstein Bankrolled An Exclusive Intellectual Boys Club And Reaped The Benefits
The Edge Foundation runs what has been called the “world’s smartest website” and held annual “billionaires’ dinners.” It was also financed by Jeffrey Epstein and gave him access to elite circles in sc...
www.buzzfeednews.com
February 4, 2026 at 4:17 PM
Academics:
If you’re trying to make sense of how people you know knew Epstein, it’s book agent John Brockman. He’s savvy enough to lay low, but we should be talking about him.
Friends don’t let friends sign with Brockman.
www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pete...
And
newrepublic.com/article/1548...
If you’re trying to make sense of how people you know knew Epstein, it’s book agent John Brockman. He’s savvy enough to lay low, but we should be talking about him.
Friends don’t let friends sign with Brockman.
www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pete...
And
newrepublic.com/article/1548...