Marek Vranka
@mvranka.bsky.social
psychologist & researcher, interested in soc and moral psy, statistics & critical thinking
the Online Gathering of MPRG is happening right now (and continues tomorrow)!
The Moral Psychology Research Group will host an Online Gathering this fall November -- all are welcome! Speakers include Joshua Greene, Meltem Yucel, and Paul Bloom as inaugural recipient of the The Stephen P. Stich Award for Career Achievement in Moral Psychology
sites.google.com/view/mprg/on...
sites.google.com/view/mprg/on...
MPRG - Online Events
An Online Gathering for Moral Psychology -- Fall 2025*
Friday, November 7th: 4:00pm to 7:00pm (EST)
Saturday, November 8th: 11:00am to 3:15pm (EST)
sites.google.com
November 7, 2025 at 9:09 PM
the Online Gathering of MPRG is happening right now (and continues tomorrow)!
Reposted by Marek Vranka
📚 Core principles of responsible generative AI usage in research link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Core principles of responsible generative AI usage in research - AI and Ethics
In a rapidly evolving Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) landscape, researchers, policymakers, and publishers have to continuously redefine responsible research practices. To ensure guidance o...
link.springer.com
October 16, 2025 at 7:28 AM
📚 Core principles of responsible generative AI usage in research link.springer.com/article/10.1...
yeah, but also "... —or if you need to do it to pay the bills." 🙃
“Doing research is a choice, and unless you’re involved in some urgent project—curing a disease or winning a war or righting some injustice or raising living standards or whatever—or some interesting project—baseball statistics or the theory of random walks or whatever—you shouldn’t do it.”
More on the decline and fall of Steven Levitt
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/09/24/m...
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/09/24/m...
September 27, 2025 at 6:44 AM
yeah, but also "... —or if you need to do it to pay the bills." 🙃
Reposted by Marek Vranka
This is the largest cross-linguistic study on SP to date that used computationally selected stimuli and a continuous lexical decision task. The results reveal consistent & robust priming effects across both Latin & non-Latin languages, pointing to a generalizable cognitive mechanism of SP.
a woman wearing a plaid shirt and a hat says we speak the same language
ALT: a woman wearing a plaid shirt and a hat says we speak the same language
media.tenor.com
September 25, 2025 at 6:25 PM
This is the largest cross-linguistic study on SP to date that used computationally selected stimuli and a continuous lexical decision task. The results reveal consistent & robust priming effects across both Latin & non-Latin languages, pointing to a generalizable cognitive mechanism of SP.
Reposted by Marek Vranka
“On the poor statistical properties of the P-curve meta-analytic procedure”
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/09/25/o...
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/09/25/o...
“On the poor statistical properties of the P-curve meta-analytic procedure” | Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu
September 25, 2025 at 3:51 PM
“On the poor statistical properties of the P-curve meta-analytic procedure”
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/09/25/o...
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/09/25/o...
we can even play bingo with this thread bsky.app/profile/ianh... by @ianhussey.mmmdata.io !
Depolarization is not "a scalable solution for reducing societal-level conflict.... achieving lasting depolarization will likely require....moving beyond individual-level treatments to address the elite behaviors and structural incentives that fuel partisan conflict" www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
September 24, 2025 at 6:03 PM
we can even play bingo with this thread bsky.app/profile/ianh... by @ianhussey.mmmdata.io !
Reposted by Marek Vranka
New blog post from Data Colada, responding to the recent criticisms on p-curve analysis. It is a *very* good response. As in, it addresses exactly the points I would have expected in a reply, and it explains why I will still teach p-curve analysis. datacolada.org/129
September 23, 2025 at 12:41 PM
New blog post from Data Colada, responding to the recent criticisms on p-curve analysis. It is a *very* good response. As in, it addresses exactly the points I would have expected in a reply, and it explains why I will still teach p-curve analysis. datacolada.org/129
Reposted by Marek Vranka
'Tylenol' is known in the civilised world as Paracetamol
2.4 million children born in Sweden between 1995 and 2019. Studied 186,000 children whose mothers were treated with paracetamol during pregnancy.
news.ki.se/no-link-betw...
2.4 million children born in Sweden between 1995 and 2019. Studied 186,000 children whose mothers were treated with paracetamol during pregnancy.
news.ki.se/no-link-betw...
No link between paracetamol use during pregnancy and autism or ADHD in children
In the largest epidemiologic study to date of the risk of giving birth to a child with autism, ADHD or intellectual disability following acetaminophen use during pregnancy, researchers found no associ...
news.ki.se
September 22, 2025 at 9:05 AM
'Tylenol' is known in the civilised world as Paracetamol
2.4 million children born in Sweden between 1995 and 2019. Studied 186,000 children whose mothers were treated with paracetamol during pregnancy.
news.ki.se/no-link-betw...
2.4 million children born in Sweden between 1995 and 2019. Studied 186,000 children whose mothers were treated with paracetamol during pregnancy.
news.ki.se/no-link-betw...
Reposted by Marek Vranka
this is a very sharp piece on why it makes no sense to run universities as if they are businesses. They're not businesses.
www.afr.com/work-and-car...
www.afr.com/work-and-car...
September 22, 2025 at 7:09 AM
this is a very sharp piece on why it makes no sense to run universities as if they are businesses. They're not businesses.
www.afr.com/work-and-car...
www.afr.com/work-and-car...
Villeneuve should make finishing this www.imdb.com/title/tt3188... the top priority, especially in light of developments like these: thebulletin.org/2025/09/the-... ...
September 19, 2025 at 10:47 PM
Villeneuve should make finishing this www.imdb.com/title/tt3188... the top priority, especially in light of developments like these: thebulletin.org/2025/09/the-... ...
since I first heard about LLM "silicon samples," I've been baffled by the idea. even if a group of humans were able to predict the behavior or answers of others, no one would use it instead of real data, cause there would clearly be unknown biases and situations in which the predictions would fail.
Can large language models stand in for human participants?
Many social scientists seem to think so, and are already using "silicon samples" in research.
One problem: depending on the analytic decisions made, you can basically get these samples to show any effect you want.
THREAD 🧵
Many social scientists seem to think so, and are already using "silicon samples" in research.
One problem: depending on the analytic decisions made, you can basically get these samples to show any effect you want.
THREAD 🧵
The threat of analytic flexibility in using large language models to simulate human data: A call to attention
Social scientists are now using large language models to create "silicon samples" - synthetic datasets intended to stand in for human respondents, aimed at revolutionising human subjects research. How...
arxiv.org
September 19, 2025 at 10:18 AM
since I first heard about LLM "silicon samples," I've been baffled by the idea. even if a group of humans were able to predict the behavior or answers of others, no one would use it instead of real data, cause there would clearly be unknown biases and situations in which the predictions would fail.
just found out that a study about chatGPT predictions of experimental condition effects that I was a tiny bit involved in was published - already a year ago 😅 royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.... - even the now archaic gpt-4 did as well as humans, would be interesting to see current models
September 17, 2025 at 9:56 PM
just found out that a study about chatGPT predictions of experimental condition effects that I was a tiny bit involved in was published - already a year ago 😅 royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.... - even the now archaic gpt-4 did as well as humans, would be interesting to see current models
Reposted by Marek Vranka
What does that mean?
Bad news: democratic views are even more fluid than recently shown. In times when we feel poorly, we evaluate opponents + institutions more harshly.
Good news: there are limits to this. Short-term changes in affect (eg traffic jam) won’t shift views or prompt intolerance
7/8🧵
Bad news: democratic views are even more fluid than recently shown. In times when we feel poorly, we evaluate opponents + institutions more harshly.
Good news: there are limits to this. Short-term changes in affect (eg traffic jam) won’t shift views or prompt intolerance
7/8🧵
September 17, 2025 at 3:11 PM
What does that mean?
Bad news: democratic views are even more fluid than recently shown. In times when we feel poorly, we evaluate opponents + institutions more harshly.
Good news: there are limits to this. Short-term changes in affect (eg traffic jam) won’t shift views or prompt intolerance
7/8🧵
Bad news: democratic views are even more fluid than recently shown. In times when we feel poorly, we evaluate opponents + institutions more harshly.
Good news: there are limits to this. Short-term changes in affect (eg traffic jam) won’t shift views or prompt intolerance
7/8🧵
thanks to all attendees and panelists for a great discussion, and a special shout-out to Jeff for bringing up Imre Lakatos ❤️
September 13, 2025 at 6:09 PM
thanks to all attendees and panelists for a great discussion, and a special shout-out to Jeff for bringing up Imre Lakatos ❤️
if you’re at #APSA2025 in Vancouver, check out our roundtable on the Nuclear Taboo (Sat, Sep 13, 8 AM), with a great lineup of nuclear non-use scholars discussing norm contestation, elite–public attitudes, and the alleged erosion of the nuclear taboo
Theme Panel: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine and the “Nuclear Taboo” #APSA2025
Theme Panel: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine and the “Nuclear Taboo”
In-Person Roundtable Participants: (Chair) Michal Smetana, Charles University (Presenter) Lauren Sukin, University of Oxford (Presenter) R. Charli Carpenter, University of Massachusetts, Amherst (Presenter) Stephen Herzog, Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (Presenter) Naomi Egel, University of Georgia (Presenter) Jeffrey W. Knopf, Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (Presenter) Marek Vranka, Charles University (Presenter) Ondrej Rosendorf, Institute of Political Science, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University…
politicalsciencenow.com
September 11, 2025 at 1:15 PM
if you’re at #APSA2025 in Vancouver, check out our roundtable on the Nuclear Taboo (Sat, Sep 13, 8 AM), with a great lineup of nuclear non-use scholars discussing norm contestation, elite–public attitudes, and the alleged erosion of the nuclear taboo
funny how banning smartphones in classrooms has become one of the few things both sides agree on 🙃 however, the research was kind of flimsy... now a new big study out of India shows some benefits; especially for struggling students – although the overall boost looks small (about d 0.08)
The first large-scale randomised control study yields a ringing endorsement
Banning smartphones in classrooms helps students
The first large-scale randomised control study yields a ringing endorsement
econ.st
September 4, 2025 at 12:05 PM
funny how banning smartphones in classrooms has become one of the few things both sides agree on 🙃 however, the research was kind of flimsy... now a new big study out of India shows some benefits; especially for struggling students – although the overall boost looks small (about d 0.08)
pinging @fsv.charlesuni.cuni.cz for some inspiration re: office furniture 😉
September 4, 2025 at 11:41 AM
pinging @fsv.charlesuni.cuni.cz for some inspiration re: office furniture 😉
Reposted by Marek Vranka
Experts of BlueSky: what are the best recent papers, studies & sources on mercenaries / private security companies, particularly how the field has evolved as business over the last few years? I'm interested in global examples, rather than just Western & Russian ones.
September 4, 2025 at 9:12 AM
Experts of BlueSky: what are the best recent papers, studies & sources on mercenaries / private security companies, particularly how the field has evolved as business over the last few years? I'm interested in global examples, rather than just Western & Russian ones.
Reposted by Marek Vranka
I've updated the marketing replication tracker through 2024. So far, 5 out of 45 (11%) of all direct replications of marketing studies (studies published in scientific marketing journals such as Journal of Consumer Research and Journal of Marketing Research). openmkt.org/research/rep...
January 1, 2025 at 11:23 PM
I've updated the marketing replication tracker through 2024. So far, 5 out of 45 (11%) of all direct replications of marketing studies (studies published in scientific marketing journals such as Journal of Consumer Research and Journal of Marketing Research). openmkt.org/research/rep...
Reposted by Marek Vranka
The Moral Psychology Research Group will host an Online Gathering this fall November -- all are welcome! Speakers include Joshua Greene, Meltem Yucel, and Paul Bloom as inaugural recipient of the The Stephen P. Stich Award for Career Achievement in Moral Psychology
sites.google.com/view/mprg/on...
sites.google.com/view/mprg/on...
MPRG - Online Events
An Online Gathering for Moral Psychology -- Fall 2025*
Friday, November 7th: 4:00pm to 7:00pm (EST)
Saturday, November 8th: 11:00am to 3:15pm (EST)
sites.google.com
September 1, 2025 at 1:40 PM
The Moral Psychology Research Group will host an Online Gathering this fall November -- all are welcome! Speakers include Joshua Greene, Meltem Yucel, and Paul Bloom as inaugural recipient of the The Stephen P. Stich Award for Career Achievement in Moral Psychology
sites.google.com/view/mprg/on...
sites.google.com/view/mprg/on...
Reposted by Marek Vranka
Interesting read, even if worrying. Much more reliance on paid WoS in Czechia. But some promotion models started going the Scholar way. Maybe a mistake…
Since search is dead, how soon do you think Google Scholar is headed for the Google Graveyard? I'm betting it's soon, and academia is NOT prepared
Google Scholar Is Doomed
Academia built entire careers on a free Google service with zero guarantees. What could go wrong?
hannahshelley.neocities.org
August 27, 2025 at 7:06 AM
Interesting read, even if worrying. Much more reliance on paid WoS in Czechia. But some promotion models started going the Scholar way. Maybe a mistake…
Reposted by Marek Vranka
This thread. Sheesh.
1. I need to recover this thread from X about a review on lithium in tap-water and suicide. It shows that papers aren't retracted despite being total nonsense
1. There seem to be several issues with this new paper about lithium in tap water and suicide. Thanks for sending me a pdf >
August 18, 2025 at 7:52 AM
This thread. Sheesh.
although my priors regarding claims by @jburnmurdoch.ft.com are quite low, there seems to be a real d=0.4 difference (cf grimoiremanor.substack.com/p/no-conscie...) However, it's based on a non-representative convenience sample of online respondents, so no way to tell what is the cause...
Will only post one of @jburnmurdoch.ft.com's charts, you need to read the whole thing and look at the others in the FT.
August 17, 2025 at 9:58 PM
although my priors regarding claims by @jburnmurdoch.ft.com are quite low, there seems to be a real d=0.4 difference (cf grimoiremanor.substack.com/p/no-conscie...) However, it's based on a non-representative convenience sample of online respondents, so no way to tell what is the cause...
Reposted by Marek Vranka
PsyArXiv is seeking new moderators to help combat an increase in AI submissions! If you've ever posted a preprint to PsyArXiv, please consider joining. Minimum commitment 1h/month, there's a training session this Monday @ 1pm ET. More info here: forms.gle/9LB1rEtxHAeZ... #PsychSciSky
Expression of Interest in Serving as a PsyArXiv Moderator
As you might have heard, PsyArXiv is having some issues with an increase in low-quality submissions, ranging from AI generated manuscripts to inflate citation metrics, incoherent or nonsensical docume...
forms.gle
August 15, 2025 at 5:31 PM
PsyArXiv is seeking new moderators to help combat an increase in AI submissions! If you've ever posted a preprint to PsyArXiv, please consider joining. Minimum commitment 1h/month, there's a training session this Monday @ 1pm ET. More info here: forms.gle/9LB1rEtxHAeZ... #PsychSciSky
reading about left-wing authoritarianism (doi.org/10.1111/pops...) reinforced my pet peeve with political psych: treating ideology as a personality trait is doomed to fail as complex, context-bound worldviews can’t be meaningfully flattened into neutral questionnaire items...
A specter is haunting political psychology—a specter of left‐wing authoritarianism: Development and validation of left‐wing authoritarianism scale in a post‐communist society
The position of left-wing authoritarianism (LWA), contrary to its right-wing counterpart, has long been contested within the psychological literature. Efforts to examine the nature of LWA have recent...
doi.org
August 17, 2025 at 8:48 AM
reading about left-wing authoritarianism (doi.org/10.1111/pops...) reinforced my pet peeve with political psych: treating ideology as a personality trait is doomed to fail as complex, context-bound worldviews can’t be meaningfully flattened into neutral questionnaire items...