Fran Cavanagh
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francavanagh.bsky.social
Fran Cavanagh
@francavanagh.bsky.social
Postgraduate Researcher at Durham University | Quantitative Social Psychology

Researching social attitudes and prejudice. Machine learning, computational methods, large text datasets, survey experiments.

Reposted by Fran Cavanagh
Since 1954, "The Handbook of Social Psychology" has been the field’s most authoritative reference work, and today is the launch of the 6th edition with 50 new chapters by 100 leading scholars. Best news? The HSP is now an open-access public resource—free to read, download, and share. the-hsp.com
May 19, 2025 at 3:49 PM
Also Pratchett, Red Dwarf
Douglas Adams
decades of cyberpunk fiction, and I don't believe a single writer fully predicted how embarrassingly stupid so much of AI was going to be
May 19, 2025 at 4:13 PM
Reposted by Fran Cavanagh
FPP brutally supressed UKIP in 2015 and Reform in 2024, but is boosting up Reform this week - they have passed the tipping point where the electoral system goes from deadly enemy to best friend
May 2, 2025 at 2:16 PM
Reposted by Fran Cavanagh
"Facebook’s infamous emotional-contagion study" was actually more ethical than this, given that the Facebook feed algorithm doesn't pretend to be a human, and there's no reasonable expectation of such.
May 3, 2025 at 8:36 AM
Reposted by Fran Cavanagh
Great turnout today on @ducu.bsky.social pickets. On strike to protect professional services staff jobs.

An attack on one is an attack on all!

Management tried to pit academics against professional services staff - they've failed!

We are *all* the university!
April 28, 2025 at 10:03 AM
Reposted by Fran Cavanagh
Congrats Dr Patrick Kotzur, Prof Stefania Paolini @durhamuniversity.bsky.social & team for receiving International Best Paper Award from the Society of Existential Psychology for 'Psychological well-being in Europe after the outbreak of war in Ukraine - Nature Communications'👏 go.nature.com/3E5CmiF
Psychological well-being in Europe after the outbreak of war in Ukraine - Nature Communications
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has affected the global economy, environment, and political order. Here, the authors show that it also coincided with a temporary decline in psychological well-being ac...
www.nature.com
April 1, 2025 at 2:33 PM
Reposted by Fran Cavanagh
AfD overwhelmingly won votes from non-voters and the centre-right. This is a standard pattern. It is a myth that the radical right are mainly winning disaffected centre-left voters.
Dazu kommen noch die ehemaligen Nichtwähler :/
February 24, 2025 at 7:25 AM
Reposted by Fran Cavanagh
NEW: updated long-run gap in voting between young men and women in Germany:

Gender divide continues to widen, but contrary to what is often assumed, young men continue to vote roughly in line with the overall population, while young women have swung sharply left.

www.ft.com/content/29fd...
A new global gender divide is emerging
Young men and young women’s world views are pulling apart. The consequences could be far-reaching
www.ft.com
February 24, 2025 at 12:09 PM
Reposted by Fran Cavanagh
Glad to have contributed to this panel of reactions to the German elections yesterday. Also including an important intervention by @casmudde.bsky.social

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Germany has swung to the right. What does that mean for the country – and Europe? Our panel responds
Friedrich Merz’s CDU/CSU may have won the German election, but all eyes are on the far-right AfD after its huge gains, say Fatma Aydemir, Katja Hoyer and others
www.theguardian.com
February 24, 2025 at 11:23 AM
Reposted by Fran Cavanagh
Vote choice by birth cohort and gender in the 2024 European election in Germany:
- Increased gender gaps among young voters for several parties.
- AfD share more than twice as high among young men (21% vs. 10%).
- 49% of young men voted for the right-leaning parties, but only 32% of young women.
February 7, 2025 at 10:16 AM
Reposted by Fran Cavanagh
Since everyone is talking about research funding, this perspective by the vice-president of the European Research Council might be of interest.

Blue states: Consider joining a multinational research council.
Alternative models of funding curiosity-driven research | PNAS
Funding of curiosity-driven science is the lifeblood of scientific and technological innovation. Various models of funding allocation became instit...
www.pnas.org
February 6, 2025 at 7:21 PM
Reposted by Fran Cavanagh
With <4 weeks until election day, how strong is #Germany's #farright #AfD? I have compiled 19 months of polling data so that you don't have to. Several major scandals have done no lasting damage to their support. And the events & debates of the last 12 weeks have been a boon for them.
January 28, 2025 at 5:10 PM
Reposted by Fran Cavanagh
This multi-year, multi-country analysis shows that right-wing populist politicians spread more online misinfo than their mainstream counterparts and explains how “the rise of political misinformation is associated to the recent wave of radical-right populism.”

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
January 20, 2025 at 6:46 PM
Reposted by Fran Cavanagh
Scholars argue whether rightists or extremists are more prone to conspiracies. A new analysis across 77 samples (and 18 countries) concludes "there is no single functional form" of the ideology-conspiracy relationship.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

#socialpsych #psychscisky #polisky
September 5, 2024 at 2:31 PM
Reposted by Fran Cavanagh
Very interesting and accessible take on probability worth a read!

www.nature.com/articles/d41...
December 18, 2024 at 4:40 PM
Reposted by Fran Cavanagh
Stereotype threat: a once-dominant idea in social psychology that shaped how we think about identity and performance. But what happens when the evidence crumbles? A deep dive into the failed replications, the myths, and what it all means. Read my latest essay: open.substack.com/pub/michaeli...
Revisiting Stereotype Threat
A Reckoning for Social Psychology
open.substack.com
December 18, 2024 at 1:16 PM
Reposted by Fran Cavanagh
Never assume your measures are doing what you think they’re doing, especially if you haven’t validated them using multiple populations.
Appreciate the shoutout from @poqjournal.bsky.social!

I show misalignment btwn Black Americans’ expressed partisan & ideological identities (red line below) stems from unfamiliarity w/ terms “liberal” & “conservative,” making the standard, oft-used lib-con measure invalid for this population.
December 17, 2024 at 5:19 PM
Reposted by Fran Cavanagh
Lots of puzzles to unpack here but not talked about so much is the shift in far right (recall) among young women

Young men increased ~50%
Young women increased ~100% (19v24)

Gender gap remains (larger in consid. set) but trend is clear: rising far-right support among both young men & women
New Gender Update out in @ejpgjournal.bsky.social. With data from the new wave of the EES, I show a strong increase in support for the far right among young voters. Especially the share of young men who consider voting for the far right has exploded.
bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/journal...
December 13, 2024 at 5:21 PM
Reposted by Fran Cavanagh
A scientist new to Bluesky? @steveharoz.com and @markrubin.bsky.social have put together some great resources to get you started!
A guide to BlueSky for Scientists
* Common questions
* Links to resources
* An explanation of feeds
* A directory of science feeds

Please share with scientists on BlueSky!

Written by me and @markrubin.bsky.social

🧪 #stats #PsychSciSky #neuroscience
BlueSky for Scientists
BlueSky for Scientists Authors: Steve Haroz and Mark Rubin URL: http://blueskyscience.steveharoz.com Features you may miss from Twitter or Mastodon As BlueSky is in beta, some features are not impleme...
blueskyscience.steveharoz.com
December 5, 2024 at 5:31 PM
Reposted by Fran Cavanagh
New to BlueSky?

Interested in Psychology?

Click on this post and scroll up for a thread of 40 starter packs containing experts in different areas of psychology.

#Psychology #AcademicSky #EduSky 🧪
a yellow background with the word psych written in blue
ALT: a yellow background with the word psych written in blue
media.tenor.com
November 18, 2024 at 7:14 AM
Reposted by Fran Cavanagh
🦋 New to BlueSky?

🧪 Interested in science?

👀 Wanna find posts by scientists in specific fields?

📃 Click here for an ever-growing list of +230 science-related feeds and their hashtags: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

#AcademicSky #PhDSky #EduSky
a man with glasses and suspenders is standing in front of a group of people and says science !!
ALT: a man with glasses and suspenders is standing in front of a group of people and says science !!
media.tenor.com
November 18, 2024 at 7:23 AM
Reposted by Fran Cavanagh
I am happy to stop saying Psych has a replication crisis. Instead I would say we are having a Methodology crisis where every aspect of the way we design studies, collect data and provide evidence for our results needs to be carefully examined and reconsidered in relation to the questions we ask
January 18, 2024 at 7:28 PM
Reposted by Fran Cavanagh
UK Government invests £10M in a new metascience unit to investigate issues like:

🔹️ "What makes a researcher more likely to make bold discoveries?"

🔹️ "How do we best incentivise replicable research?"

#MetaSci #PhilSci #HistSci #STS 🧪
Positive to see Govt getting interested in research on research (eg what works in research funding) although I don’t love the term metascience. It will be important to involve a wide range of the community in helping set which questions to explore assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/655e2a...
November 22, 2023 at 5:55 PM
Reposted by Fran Cavanagh
Special issue: "Is psychology self-correcting? Reflections on the Credibility Revolution in Social and Personality Psychology." Edited by @simine.com and I.

Check out the nine articles with diverse perspectives and approaches to examining the reform movement:

spb.psychopen.eu/index.php/sp...
November 20, 2023 at 1:56 PM
Reposted by Fran Cavanagh
Yes I will offer my online science-focused Statistical Rethinking course again starting in January 2024. Registration going up at the end of this month. All the course materials are already online though, so why wait? Update your posterior starting today 🧪 #stats www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdnM...
Statistical Rethinking 2023 - 01 - The Golem of Prague
Full course details at https://github.com/rmcelreath/stat_rethinking_2023Chapters:00:00 Introduction03:30 DAGs (causal models)17:50 Golems (stat models)43:06...
www.youtube.com
November 16, 2023 at 8:10 AM