Cat Hicks
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grimalkina.bsky.social
Cat Hicks
@grimalkina.bsky.social
12K followers 1.8K following 5.8K posts
Psychologist for the humans of tech. Author of The Psychology of Software Teams (2026). Founder: Catharsis Consulting (strategy * science). she/her 🏳️‍🌈 https://www.drcathicks.com/

Host at: https://www.changetechnically.fyi/
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grimalkina.bsky.social
It just gives me the ick to be trying to understand what we learned from a publicly funded covid study and be met with this
A popup from Brain HQ website gives subscription options that include $14 a month subscription
November 10, 2025 at 8:30 PM
grimalkina.bsky.social
When you speak positively of somebody else's study and your wife knows you
A screenshot of a text that reads wow this must be good if you're impressed lol. An laugh emoji is reacting to it
November 5, 2025 at 7:47 PM
grimalkina.bsky.social
Me bolting to the references when software development makes a rare appearance in intervention science literature!
A screenshot from a research paper reads: ndeed, across disciplines ranging from software development to medicine to education and beyond, between 50 to 90 percent of programs lose voltage at scale, with many of the scaled programs having weak or no effect at scale even though they showed great promise in early trials
November 3, 2025 at 8:27 PM
grimalkina.bsky.social
I don't know, honestly, I think seeing it as ONLY "vc" as the thing is a pretty big excuse for a lot of tech that continues to hold maladaptive beliefs about who can contribute to tech and how tech is used

(source: the culture cycle, as in sparq.stanford.edu/sites/g/file... )
A figure describing the "culture cycle," a four level framework that includes ideas, institutions, interactions, and individuals. Every level interacts with the other levels and changes can flow in either direction from each level
October 28, 2025 at 6:14 PM
grimalkina.bsky.social
One thing we CAN'T do, apparently, is actually talk to queer people before making our pronouncements about all of gender experience, we will instead just use....other people's research!
I focused on heterosexual, married coupled with children under age six, their child-care workers, and others in their world from the top to the bottom of the social class ladder. But the second shift is front and center for many other kinds of couples as well--the unmmaried, gay, and lesbian couples, nonparents, and parents of older children. In particular, gay and lesbian partners are more likely than heterosexual ones, research suggests, to share the second shift--gay partners be specializing in tasks, lesbians by doing similar tasks
October 27, 2025 at 4:17 PM
grimalkina.bsky.social
Yes I have read this book it's actually in my Kindle right now that's why I had a screenshot from it. The citations are in the book here's an example
October 27, 2025 at 1:14 AM
grimalkina.bsky.social
BREAKING: writer discovers "hanging out" lol
“Hide your phone, stop hustling for a second, and read this passionate argument for the importance of unstructured pre-digital hang.” —People Loneliness is an epidemic; it feels harder than ever to connect with others meaningfully. What can we do to remedy this? Sheila Liming has the answer: we need to hang out more.
October 26, 2025 at 9:58 PM
grimalkina.bsky.social
So you don't want a book to reference it? Confused

This is OP's book by the way, definitely a topic no other field has ever thought about
October 26, 2025 at 9:55 PM
grimalkina.bsky.social
????????? From the actual book
October 26, 2025 at 9:15 PM
grimalkina.bsky.social
This is from the 2025 DORA report. As ever, the report is pretty obsessed with forcing clusters to emerge. I am quite skeptical.
October 25, 2025 at 9:45 PM
grimalkina.bsky.social
This is how the mastodon poll is looking so far btw, just for fun! Which is obviously a VERY selected group of people but I find often very cynical about tech so I wasn't sure which direction this would go
A screenshot of a poll reads: On average do you think the majority of your software engineer colleagues would support replacing therapists with tech? (for whatever reason, i.e. not just from malice but from ignorance, or because of a belief about what the tech could do) Responses are 18% yes, 82% no
October 18, 2025 at 10:18 PM
grimalkina.bsky.social
Measurement noise also. Look at this item: many people who might think "some element of AI is going to take away jobs" could get funneled to other responses. Doesn't mean they don't have concerns. Measure validity is a real issue for using it to support the headline stat this is tied to.
An item asks, What worries you the most about integrating AI into your daily workflows? Responses include: Automating away your job Increasing bias in the workplace Introducing defects or vulnerabilities into your work Monetary costs to deploy within your team/organization Impact on climate change Being more gimmicky than helpful Having to change the workflows you have established and are used to Diminishing connections with your peers Causing your skills to atrophy The time it will take to learn how to use new AI tools Automation causing compensation to decrease
October 11, 2025 at 10:08 AM
grimalkina.bsky.social
On deadline, in Europe, fueled by an enormous pumpkin spice roll, surrounded by gorgeous fall leaves, about to tear into this chapter on evidence literacy for software teams let's gooooooooooo
An overhead picture of a pumpkin spice cinnamon roll with a flat white. There are yellow leaves on cobblestones below.
October 11, 2025 at 7:54 AM
grimalkina.bsky.social
A meme that shows a child struggling in water while an oblivious adult holds another child, and underneath them in a second panel, a skeleton. The child struggling is labeled robustly validated measures of experience implying that these are neglected, and the adult is labeled software teams, holding a child labeled data from tippety typing implying this is preferred by software teams. The bottom skeleton is labeled construct development implying it is the most neglected of all
October 8, 2025 at 9:13 PM
grimalkina.bsky.social
Two days down attending the human creativity in the time of genAI perspectives workshop at Schloss Dagstuhl!

Absolutely jam-packed days of introspection, science, ideating, and even some late night hackathoning by yours truly
A photo late in the day of the Schloss Dagstuhl building, a large white building with two main wings. It is a historic country house from 1760
October 7, 2025 at 10:02 PM
grimalkina.bsky.social
Good things happen when you make this your guiding light (slide from my #Monktoberfest talk)
A slide shows a photo of a person in a kayak in a body of water with steep hills in the distance. The person raises their arms in an exulting gesture. The slide reads: action research, we're trying to get somewhere together, scientists are intentional advocates fighting with communities. On the left-hand side text reads lived experience: the rich deeply observed world of practitioners. On the right-hand side text reads empirical studies, rigorous theory and evidence development from experts
October 4, 2025 at 8:55 PM
grimalkina.bsky.social
First time @analog-ashley.bsky.social and I have presented at the same conference together!!!!! This was pure delight ❤️❤️❤️❤️ #monktoberfest
Ashley stands at the Monktoberfest stage with a title slide that reads Developing your neurobullshit detector and it shows a picture of a dog nose
October 3, 2025 at 3:33 PM
grimalkina.bsky.social
At any rate, this trots through some of the basic economics that seem like table stakes to be talking about tech in 2025, but remains pretty fixated on those whiz kids. This bit about science funding made my skin crawl bc computer science funding is FINE. Can't even describe reality now.
I’ve got a few more reasons for Taggar to feel really sad: the mass cancellation of science and research funding, for one. Goodbye, next generation of engineers and computer scientists. “In the name of punishing woke-ism, we’re going to absolutely hobble the innovation engine that has created the economic gains of the last 50 years,” says Hornik, the venture capitalist.
September 22, 2025 at 4:26 PM
grimalkina.bsky.social
All you need is example A) and example B)

Style over substance in the understanding of power, man. "Wizards," "whiz kids," reifying innate brilliance, confusing a commercially convenient narrative about change with a true structural strategy to attain it
In a perverse sense this is good news for me—I cover that ecosystem and its oligarchs, so how great is it to be reporting on history? But in every other sense it’s wildly disturbing. Obviously, my stories evolved with the industry. But here’s something that took me by surprise: how quickly and decisively the visionaries I chronicled aligned themselves with Trump, a man whose values violently clashed with the egalitarian impulses of the digital revolution. How did I miss that? I revisited my familiar turf—which in this era seems suddenly unfamiliar—to find out. I began a love affair with Silicon Valley. The wizards I met were changing the world with tools designed to uplift us—to give the common person the power of an expert. The electronic spreadsheet was sold as a business tool, but it was ultimately an antiestablishment weapon, because anyone with a low-cost PC could challenge the calculations of the executive suite. When Mitch Kapor, a former teacher of transcendental meditation, founded Lotus Development Corporation, which popularized the spreadsheet in the 1980s, he told his money guy that he valued people more than profits, and wanted to invest in his employees. “I was prepared for him to say no,” says Kapor. Fortunately for Kapor, the guy said yes. In the famous “1984” Apple commercial for the Macintosh, an athlete flings a hammer at a Big Brother figure—she was out to pulverize authority. The headline of my Rolling Stone story about the Mac said it all: “The Whiz Kids Meet Darth Vader.” (Meaning IBM. Haha.) This was a righteous battle!
September 22, 2025 at 4:22 PM
grimalkina.bsky.social
More human production happening regardless of machine abilities 😃



As you might recall I love to sew my own clothes. I also love clothes IN GENERAL, their features, their details. In my efforts to shift to make>buy sometimes I force myself to sketch a piece I really love, to break down WHAT I love
A hand drawn ink sketch by Cat in a notebook that shows a cropped hoodie with unusually dramatic sleeves. Details are noted in the sketch like thick pullstrings, sleeve detail, and narrow shoulder
September 20, 2025 at 3:36 PM
grimalkina.bsky.social
😬😬😬😬😬😬😬
A screenshot of the word counter in a scrivener file shows that the current wordcount of a manuscript titles The Psychology of Software Teams is 68,631, and the target total wordcount is 70,000
September 19, 2025 at 5:54 PM
grimalkina.bsky.social
also: yikes
a barchart shows a steadily increasing series of bars over months 1-8. The axis is labeled cumulative percentage of users with 1+ failure. Month 1 has 10%, and the months steadily increase until month 8, which shows 56% of users failed a phishing test at least once during the campaign over time
September 9, 2025 at 2:18 PM
grimalkina.bsky.social
When you are about to interview an empirical security researcher you have to do your homework

We've still got a little room! Join us this week at an open "dev science" office hour with Dr. Ariana Mirian at: www.eventbrite.com/e/empirical-...
four printed research papers are laid on a table with a blue highlighter pen. The titles are "Neither Snow Nor Rain Nor MITM...An Empirical Analysis of Email Delivery Security," "Hack for Hire: Exploring the Emerging Market for Account Hijacking," "A Search Engine Backed by Internet-Wide Scanning," and "Understanding the Efficacy of Phishing Training in Practice"
September 9, 2025 at 2:09 PM
grimalkina.bsky.social
I love that this scrappy brainstorming session was fairly accurate not only to the psychological evidence that I wanted to bring to the attention of software teams, but also to the examples I eventually used in the paper
A screenshot of the final paper reads a long paragraph of text with three examples that are about whether code quality improvement work is supported by a company's culture, how identity-based bias can discourage open source contribution, and how learning culture can discourage developers from accurately vetting and evaluating AI assisted coding
September 5, 2025 at 4:59 PM
grimalkina.bsky.social
Little window into the process of doing psychology for software teams: the humble lab notebook
A notebook is open and two pages of handwritten notes are shown. It is dated Dec 26, 2023 and bullet points read: Psych Affordances paper. Goal: arxiv post, explicitly nerdy, lit review plus examples, better than ACM Queue. Introduction, many things fail in real world, heterogeneity resolution needed, 3 examples, learning culture vs AI assisted coding, visibility of work and code quality culture, belonging and code reviews/low cycle time. Further notes read: goal, end of Jan rough draft, 5k-10k to start? Citations are listed that include "WISE interventions" and "belonging project," and a paragraph at the end reads "If you truly want to diagnose why attempts to raise 'DevEx' don't work, you will need to know the psych affordances. This is more specific than generic psych safety"
September 5, 2025 at 4:57 PM