Rense Corten | Lightnews

Rense Corten 🟥

@rensec.bsky.social

1.6K followers 1.2K following 700 posts

Sociologist at Utrecht University, NL, studying cooperation, trust, social networks, social media, platform economy, using computational social science and experimental methods. I mostly follow academics.
Also: @RenseC@mastodon.online .. more

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Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 5d

Earlier, I voiced my doubts here about a recent PNAS paper claiming that an alleged "rise in connectivity" explains an increase in polarization. PNAS was kind enough to publish our comments this week: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 21h

Zeker, dat kan haast niet missen dan

Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 22h

Maar was die koffie voor of na zijn Nobelprijswinnende werk?

Reposted by Rense Corten

Manlio De Domenico @manlius.bsky.social · 23h

A lot of “network analysis” about the Epstein Files.

Nearly all of them missing the point: when a system operates under strong incentives for discretion, what gets documented is NOT a neutral sample of reality.
Results are conditional on what is observed!

open.substack.com/pub/manlius/...

The “Epstein Files” and the anatomy of hidden social networks

How secrecy reshapes structure and why its analysis is conditional on the data

open.substack.com

Reposted by Stephen P. Jenkins, Dave O’Brien, Tom van der Meer , and 4 more Stephen P. Jenkins, Dave O’Brien, Tom van der Meer, Willem de Koster, Matthijs Rooduijn, Rense Corten, Peter Fallesen

Thijs Bol @thijsbol.bsky.social · 1d

I’m looking for three PhD students for my new ERC project, starting 1 September. The goal is to understand how firms shape inequality in workers’ careers—using population registers.

Please spread the word! Deadline is March 8, more info here (see projects 4-6):

ics-graduateschool.nl/vacancies/

Vacancies | ICS

ICS Sociology PhD positions vacancies Graduate school program Social Sciences Methodology

ics-graduateschool.nl

Reposted by Robbert Sanderman, Tom van der Meer, Rense Corten

Saskia Bonjour @saskiabonjour.bsky.social · 3d

Deze collega's schrijven:
"Zo berichte NRC over een studie die liet zien dat migratieonderzoekers met uiteenlopende ideologische opvattingen tot tegenstelde conclusies kwamen op basis van dezelfde dataset"
Deze grafiek uit de studie laat zien dat dat n volstrekt onjuiste interpretatie is.

Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 3d

I know, of course. I was (jokingly) comparing to the Netherlands in the past

Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 3d

Just their livers though. Also, it's no longer as common here.

Reposted by Stephen P. Jenkins, Étienne Ollion, Damian Trilling , and 2 more Stephen P. Jenkins, Étienne Ollion, Damian Trilling, Patrick Präg, Evan Roberts

Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 5d

📢WORK! At the Sociology department of @utrechtuniversity.bsky.social we are hiring a postdoc who will work on applications of AI in sociological research. Join our vibrant-yet-cohesive research community doing cutting-edge research. Please share or apply! www.uu.nl/en/organisat...

Postdoctoral researcher on applications of AI in sociological research

Are you able to lead sociological research into the AI age?

www.uu.nl

Reposted by John Drury, Brendan Nyhan, Gordon Hodson , and 5 more John Drury, Brendan Nyhan, Gordon Hodson, Calvin K. Lai, David J. Hughes, Mogens Jin Pedersen, Rense Corten, Juanjo Medina

Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 5d

A meta-analysis on reducing discrimination finds:
1) passive interventions, such as short-term education or bias reminders, are ineffective
2) targeting behavior directly to inhibit bias (eg making individuals accountable or changing social norms) is helpful
psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?d...

Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 5d

I feel like there's a lot of missed opportunities for cool titles here

Sociological Science @sociologicalsci.bsky.social · 6d

NEW: Valeria Rainero, Jörg Stolz, Ruud Luijkx, The Faith Factor. How Scholars’ Religiosity Biases Research Findings on Secularization sociologicalscience.com/articles-v13...

sociologicalscience.com

Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 5d

As these things go, the original authors do not agree. We don't think their responses are adequate, and we may choose to try and publish our remaining doubts, but for now, judge for yourself: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

PNAS

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...

www.pnas.org

Reposted by Rense Corten

Sociological Science @sociologicalsci.bsky.social · 6d

NEW: Valeria Rainero, Jörg Stolz, Ruud Luijkx, The Faith Factor. How Scholars’ Religiosity Biases Research Findings on Secularization sociologicalscience.com/articles-v13...

sociologicalscience.com

Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 7d

Van de 18 ministerskandidaten zijn er acht jonger dan ik. Toch best confronterend.

Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 7d

Looks great, congratulations!

Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 7d

Back to good old telephone surveys, or pen-and-paper

Reposted by Dean Eckles

Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 7d

Fascinating new working paper by @bokanyie.bsky.social and colleagues showing a gradual decrease in social closure in the Netherlands over 10 years, based on population networks arxiv.org/abs/2602.002...

Fragmentation of a longitudinal population-scale social network: Decreasing structural social cohesion in the Netherlands

Population-level dynamics of social cohesion and its underlying mechanisms remain difficult to study. In this paper, we propose a network approach to measure the evolution of social cohesion at the po...

arxiv.org

Reposted by David Lazer, Miranda J. Lubbers, Rense Corten

Michał Bojanowski @mbojan.bsky.social · 8d

Today Springer published an Open Access book edited by @janlo.de , Marijn Keijzer and myself covering a diverse range of Computational Social Science approaches to questions about social cohesion and polarization. Come and get it at link.springer.com/book/10.1007...
🧵1/4

Computational Social Science of Social Cohesion and Polarization

This open access book explores the decay of social cohesion in democratic societies through the lens of Computational Social Science (CSS)

link.springer.com

Reposted by Jonathan A. Eisen, Brian A. Nosek, Gavin L. Foster , and 25 more Jonathan A. Eisen, Brian A. Nosek, Gavin L. Foster, Simon Roux, Paul Goldberg, Martin Jung, Steve Peers, Alistair Munro, Tom Shakespeare, Richard Shaw, Iikka Korhonen, Chris Marshall, Patrick S. Forscher, Trevor A. Branch, Stephen D. Murphy, Andrés Guadamuz, Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, Adam Leaver, Zen Faulkes, Johannes Breuer, Urška Demšar, Rense Corten, Florian Keusch, Étienne Becht, Christina Pagel, Maksym Polyakov, Markus P. Eichhorn, Maximilian Hanusch

Theo Sanderson @theo.io · 8d

I made a map of 3.4 million Bluesky users - see if you can find yourself!

bluesky-map.theo.io

I've seen some similar projects, but IMO this seems to better capture some of the fine-grained detail

Bluesky Map

Interactive map of 3.4 million Bluesky users, visualised by their follower pattern.

bluesky-map.theo.io

Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 11d

Nope

Reposted by Rense Corten

WOinActie.bsky.social @woinactie.bsky.social · 11d

Uitstekende column van ‘onze eigen’ Willem Halffman.

www.voxweb.nl/bericht/de-a...

De aanslag op de universiteiten steunde op een draagvlak dat nog steeds aanwezig is - Vox magazine

COLUMN - Waarom, vraagt columnist Willen Halffman zich af, moest er zo nodig bezuinigd worden op de universiteiten? 'Daar ligt nu onze grote uitdaging: hoe maken we van onze universiteiten instellinge...

www.voxweb.nl

Reposted by David Lazer, Jon Green, Justin H. Kirkland , and 4 more David Lazer, Jon Green, Justin H. Kirkland, Scott Clifford, Markus Wagner, Jens Rydgren, Rense Corten

Jona de Jong @jonadejong.bsky.social · 14d

Do ordinary Republicans and Democrats really avoid each other in everyday life? In a new working paper with Delia Baldassarri, we present descriptive and experimental evidence to challenge the view that partisanship drives the formation of social relationships.

osf.io/preprints/so...

1/15

Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 16d

Aan dit soort berichtgeving hebben we weinig. Wat is een "AI-camera"? nos.nl/ttapp

Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 16d

Interesting work, but what do the linksin the network mean?

Reposted by Joanna Bryson, Mor Naaman, Lesley A. Hall , and 6 more Joanna Bryson, Mor Naaman, Lesley A. Hall, Margot C. Finn, Kevin O’Sullivan, Rense Corten, Greg Linden, Jill A. Jacobson, Gilles Louppe

Mark Riedl @markriedl.bsky.social · 17d

“We found that using AI assistance led to a statistically significant decrease in mastery.”

Props to Anthropic for studying the effects of their creation and reporting results that are not probably what they wished for
www.anthropic.com/research/AI-...

How AI assistance impacts the formation of coding skills

Anthropic is an AI safety and research company that's working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems.

www.anthropic.com

Reposted by Rense Corten, Tom Louwerse

Tom van der Meer @tomwgvdmeer.bsky.social · 17d

Let wel:

De Staatscommissie Parlementair Stelsel (cie-Remkes) pleitte weloverwogen tégen een hogere kiesdrempel. Er zijn aanpassingen mogelijk die minder verstoren (oa aantal benodigde handtekeningen voor verkiezingsdeelname).

De commissie pleitte ook níét voor hervorming kiesstelsel Eerste Kamer.

Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 19d

Die CEO is werkgever van o.a. softwareontwikkelaars; zijn ervaring met AI op de werkvloer vind ik wel relevant. Voor universitaire opleidingen is het op dit gebied nu grotendeels gissen wat de arbeidsmarkt wil.