Mark Thornton
@markthornton.bsky.social
Social neuroscientist studying how people understand and predict each other. Assistant Professor at Dartmouth College. http://markallenthornton.com
Another ~monthly update on the state of the #psychjobs market: more jobs continue to trickle in, though at a decreasing pace. We've nearly hit parity with covid in absolute terms, although the prior year baseline was higher this year than that, so we still see a slightly larger relative decrease.
November 4, 2025 at 6:54 PM
Another ~monthly update on the state of the #psychjobs market: more jobs continue to trickle in, though at a decreasing pace. We've nearly hit parity with covid in absolute terms, although the prior year baseline was higher this year than that, so we still see a slightly larger relative decrease.
We're a month further into the job market - how are things looking? The good news is that the market does seem to have been delayed: ~150 new listings have appeared since my last post. The bad news is that the total is still substantially lower than what it was during the covid dip.
October 3, 2025 at 5:26 PM
We're a month further into the job market - how are things looking? The good news is that the market does seem to have been delayed: ~150 new listings have appeared since my last post. The bad news is that the total is still substantially lower than what it was during the covid dip.
Today, SCRAP Lab returned (right) to the Path of Life Garden in Windsor, VT - the site of our first in-person get-together as a lab 5 years ago (left) - to welcome our newest member, graduate student @gabefajardo.bsky.social!
September 4, 2025 at 11:21 PM
Today, SCRAP Lab returned (right) to the Path of Life Garden in Windsor, VT - the site of our first in-person get-together as a lab 5 years ago (left) - to welcome our newest member, graduate student @gabefajardo.bsky.social!
I tried to do something like that in my original blog post on the job market years ago (markallenthornton.com/blog/psychjo...), but I haven't updated that code to deal with the structure of the new wiki. Here's what it would look like in a "normal" year based on the old data:
September 3, 2025 at 8:45 PM
I tried to do something like that in my original blog post on the job market years ago (markallenthornton.com/blog/psychjo...), but I haven't updated that code to deal with the structure of the new wiki. Here's what it would look like in a "normal" year based on the old data:
There will be more postings to come, no doubt. I don't have easy access to when each job was posted in previous years. However, historically most applications are due by mid October (see histogram below) which suggests that the majority of ads would normally have been posted by now.
September 3, 2025 at 6:27 PM
There will be more postings to come, no doubt. I don't have easy access to when each job was posted in previous years. However, historically most applications are due by mid October (see histogram below) which suggests that the majority of ads would normally have been posted by now.
The psych job market may not be dead... but it is gravely injured 😬 So far it's looking like the Trump administration's attacks on higher ed/research are going to have more than 2x the impact on the job market as the covid-19 pandemic. #psychjobs #neurojobs #academicjobs
September 3, 2025 at 6:27 PM
The psych job market may not be dead... but it is gravely injured 😬 So far it's looking like the Trump administration's attacks on higher ed/research are going to have more than 2x the impact on the job market as the covid-19 pandemic. #psychjobs #neurojobs #academicjobs
After 5 years, I finally carved out time to turn this blog post on FDR (markallenthornton.com/blog/fdr-pro...) into a manuscript. The preprint features a much broader range of simulations showing how FDR promotes confounds, and how this effect compounds with publication bias: osf.io/preprints/ps...
August 29, 2025 at 3:43 PM
After 5 years, I finally carved out time to turn this blog post on FDR (markallenthornton.com/blog/fdr-pro...) into a manuscript. The preprint features a much broader range of simulations showing how FDR promotes confounds, and how this effect compounds with publication bias: osf.io/preprints/ps...
I haven't been doing much astrophotography for the last year or so because the deck I use for it had become unsafe. But it's repaired now, so I'm back at it! I think this is the best shot of Andromeda that I've managed to date!
August 24, 2025 at 5:42 PM
I haven't been doing much astrophotography for the last year or so because the deck I use for it had become unsafe. But it's repaired now, so I'm back at it! I think this is the best shot of Andromeda that I've managed to date!
I've had a coffee plant as a house plant for the last few years, and it finally produced some ripe cherries. I peeled them, fermented the coating off the beans, roasted them, and did a taste test (vs. store bought). The homegrown won (less astringent)! Enjoyed w/ (also) homegrown aronia jam on toast
August 13, 2025 at 8:17 PM
I've had a coffee plant as a house plant for the last few years, and it finally produced some ripe cherries. I peeled them, fermented the coating off the beans, roasted them, and did a taste test (vs. store bought). The homegrown won (less astringent)! Enjoyed w/ (also) homegrown aronia jam on toast
New paper from me at Cognition and Emotion! "Deep neural network models of emotion understanding" I discuss how deep nets can be used as cognitive models of emotion perception, prediction, and regulation: doi.org/10.1080/0269...
(h/t @ltjaql.bsky.social for the illustrations!)
(h/t @ltjaql.bsky.social for the illustrations!)
August 7, 2025 at 3:20 PM
New paper from me at Cognition and Emotion! "Deep neural network models of emotion understanding" I discuss how deep nets can be used as cognitive models of emotion perception, prediction, and regulation: doi.org/10.1080/0269...
(h/t @ltjaql.bsky.social for the illustrations!)
(h/t @ltjaql.bsky.social for the illustrations!)
Oops! My categories got scrambled when I was merging data from the new and old wikis. Should have double-checked that. Here's the corrected version - sorry about that, folks!
July 28, 2025 at 11:41 PM
Oops! My categories got scrambled when I was merging data from the new and old wikis. Should have double-checked that. Here's the corrected version - sorry about that, folks!
In advance of next year's (likely dire) job market, here are the 2024-2025 numbers from the psych job wiki: the overall number of tenure-track job listings in psychology and neuroscience fell slightly, from 860 to 822 (this doesn't include canceled searches, which are often not properly reported).
July 28, 2025 at 9:30 PM
In advance of next year's (likely dire) job market, here are the 2024-2025 numbers from the psych job wiki: the overall number of tenure-track job listings in psychology and neuroscience fell slightly, from 860 to 822 (this doesn't include canceled searches, which are often not properly reported).
I believe the computational rigor, diversity of data and data collection methods, and broad coverage of this work make it well-suited to serve as a new foundation for research on relationships, and will allow us to integrate relationship concepts more closely into other facets of social cognition.
March 13, 2025 at 6:23 PM
I believe the computational rigor, diversity of data and data collection methods, and broad coverage of this work make it well-suited to serve as a new foundation for research on relationships, and will allow us to integrate relationship concepts more closely into other facets of social cognition.
New paper out at @naturehumbehav.bsky.social!
This is the most comprehensive investigation ever conducted into how people think about relationships: a true tour de force! We identify 5 dimensions and 3 categories that organize relationship concepts. Proud to have made a (small) contribution to it!
This is the most comprehensive investigation ever conducted into how people think about relationships: a true tour de force! We identify 5 dimensions and 3 categories that organize relationship concepts. Proud to have made a (small) contribution to it!
![a, Pipeline for generating PLM embeddings. The query (dashed box) was formulated as ‘[DESC] The most salient feature of the relationship [TERM] is [MASK]’, where the [DESC] component was generated by GPT-4 and the [TERM] component was replaced with one of the 258 relationships. The [MASK] component was filled by the PLM with words that are most likely to occur there, given the context. The last layer vector was extracted on the position of [MASK] for each of 258 relationships, resulting in a 258 × 768 matrix. The resemblance of human representations and PLM representations (pretrained on a modern Chinese corpus) was 0.553. b, PCA on modern PLM embeddings. By correlating human ratings on 33 dimensional features with the first seven principal components of PLM embeddings, we found that PLM representations had captured corresponding features of FAVEE structures. c, Correspondence between PCA on human ratings and PCA on modern PLM embeddings (in purple) and ancient PLM embeddings (in green). d, Generalizability of the FAVEE-HPP model in ancient and modern times. RSA correlation on RDMs suggested that the FAVEE dimensions and HPP categories can significantly predict relationship representations in historical and modern times. The box plots indicate RSA correlation distributions at chance level by permutation, and the dashed lines indicate noise ceilings. e, Model comparison analysis suggested that the FAVEE model outperformed 15 other existing theories in predicting ancient and modern PLM embeddings. Broadly, FAVEE was significantly better than any random combination of theoretical features, Ancient–modern differences. Using linear combinations of the five FAVEE components as regressors to predict ancient and modern PLM embeddings, we found substantial changes on ‘formality’ and ‘equality’ for their explained variance in ancient and modern PLM representations, suggesting that these two dimensions may contribute differently to relationship conceptualization across time.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:5teacbkgrgyiydupyz5e7npy/bafkreid3iu7oqhtstub2knrlklm6grpcxtoutbajovpnqpe7ubnqu6wu3m@jpeg)
March 13, 2025 at 6:23 PM
New paper out at @naturehumbehav.bsky.social!
This is the most comprehensive investigation ever conducted into how people think about relationships: a true tour de force! We identify 5 dimensions and 3 categories that organize relationship concepts. Proud to have made a (small) contribution to it!
This is the most comprehensive investigation ever conducted into how people think about relationships: a true tour de force! We identify 5 dimensions and 3 categories that organize relationship concepts. Proud to have made a (small) contribution to it!
Finally, we digitally altered faces to experimentally manipulate the traits associated with them, and showed that this produced targeted, specific effects on situated attributions of individual mental states. This effect generalized (with some variability) across participants from five continents!
December 6, 2024 at 6:37 PM
Finally, we digitally altered faces to experimentally manipulate the traits associated with them, and showed that this produced targeted, specific effects on situated attributions of individual mental states. This effect generalized (with some variability) across participants from five continents!
We also found that trait impressions of faces alter the representational spaces of the corresponding targets' mental states.
December 6, 2024 at 6:37 PM
We also found that trait impressions of faces alter the representational spaces of the corresponding targets' mental states.
These data allowed us to perform a variance-partitioning analysis, in which we found that (situation-agnostic) trait attributions, but not (situation-agnostic) mental state judgements) of faces accounted for unique variance in situated mental state judgements.
December 6, 2024 at 6:37 PM
These data allowed us to perform a variance-partitioning analysis, in which we found that (situation-agnostic) trait attributions, but not (situation-agnostic) mental state judgements) of faces accounted for unique variance in situated mental state judgements.
Assisted by neural network language- and face-embedding models, we systematically sampled a diverse array of mental state terms, personality trait terms, and images of faces.
December 6, 2024 at 6:37 PM
Assisted by neural network language- and face-embedding models, we systematically sampled a diverse array of mental state terms, personality trait terms, and images of faces.
My own attestation for this starter pack 😊
November 17, 2024 at 3:05 AM
My own attestation for this starter pack 😊
I don't think my cooking rises to the aesthetic level of most of the other replies, but I do grow a lot of the ingredients myself!
November 17, 2024 at 2:07 AM
I don't think my cooking rises to the aesthetic level of most of the other replies, but I do grow a lot of the ingredients myself!
SCRAP Lab (+ friends & family) took a trip to the Vermont Institute of Natural Science (VINS) today! We met a kestrel and a corn snake, watched raptors being bed, toured the canopy walk, and made it out of a dino/bird-evolution themed escape room!
November 16, 2024 at 11:20 PM
SCRAP Lab (+ friends & family) took a trip to the Vermont Institute of Natural Science (VINS) today! We met a kestrel and a corn snake, watched raptors being bed, toured the canopy walk, and made it out of a dino/bird-evolution themed escape room!
Check out the line-up for the SPSP Computational Preconference! Submit for our datablitz by Oct 17, here: spsp.org/events/annua...
October 14, 2024 at 3:44 PM
Check out the line-up for the SPSP Computational Preconference! Submit for our datablitz by Oct 17, here: spsp.org/events/annua...
As the 2023-24 academic job cycle winds down, I have once again (and for perhaps the last time) scraped the psych job wiki. This year 860 tenure-track jobs were posted, down slightly from last year (897), but still the second-highest number on record.
May 13, 2024 at 11:06 PM
As the 2023-24 academic job cycle winds down, I have once again (and for perhaps the last time) scraped the psych job wiki. This year 860 tenure-track jobs were posted, down slightly from last year (897), but still the second-highest number on record.