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Dr Ellen J Thompson

@ejthompson.bsky.social
385 followers 527 following 21 posts

Life course mental health researcher • Interested in longitudinal & genetically sensitive methods, inequalities and comorbidity • Lecturer at University of Sussex • She/Her profiles.sussex.ac.uk/p300252-ellen…

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Reposted by Dr Ellen J Thompson
Per Engzell @pengzell.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
Dream job for anyone who’s worked with cohort surveys
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Dr Ellen J Thompson @ejthompson.bsky.social · 10/07/2025
1️⃣: Our paper: TIDAL - Tool to Implement Developmental Analysis of Longitudinal data has just been published in the International Journal of Epidemiology: academic.oup.com/ije/article/... 🎉🎉🎉
academic.oup.com
Software Application Profile: TIDAL—Tool to Implement Developmental Analysis of Longitudinal data
Growth-curve modelling uses repeatedly measured data from the same individuals to estimate trajectories that describe how variables change over time and id
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ReproducibiliTea @reproducibilitea.org · 01/07/2025
📚 AI, peer review and the human activity of science www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
AI, peer review and the human activity of science
When researchers cede their scientific judgement to machines, we lose something important.
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Gerome Breen @psychgenomics.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
Excited about our new preprint: 1st successful genome-wide study of >61,000 panic attack and 29,000 panic disorder cases. www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1... We find 17 associations & evidence that peripheral neurons in eye, lungs and heart are involved in panic & other psychiatric disorders 1/n
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Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience @kingsioppn.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
Researchers have found #genetic factors that may make people more or less sensitive to the environments they experience. It is the largest genetics study of identical #twins to date. 🔗 kcl.ac.uk/news/largest... @kingscollegelondon.bsky.social @uclbrainscience.bsky.social @qmulfmd.bsky.social
"Differences in individuals’ sensitivity to life experiences can explain why the same negative or positive experiences may have varying effects on people’s mental health, depending on their genetic make-up. Our findings suggest that specific genetic variants influence how environmental exposures impact psychiatric and neurodevelopmental symptoms." Dr Elham Assary, Postdoctoral Researcher at King’s College London
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Dylan Williams @dylwil.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
One year later ... a major update to our manuscript showing that most Alzheimer's disease is attributable to the gene APOE. We expanded it to analyses of four studies, now with data on about 460,000 people in total..... www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1... #Alzheimers #Dementia #Epidemiology #EpiSky
medrxiv.org
The proportion of Alzheimer's disease attributable to apolipoprotein E
Objective To estimate the proportions of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and all-cause dementia burden attributable to the common risk alleles ε3 and ε4 in the APOE gene Design Genetic association analyses i...
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The Lancet @thelancet.com · 21/05/2025
Adolescence, “a time of ideas, reimagination, revolution, and a creation of new approaches—exactly what we all need for a better future and the survival of our planet.”   Lancet editors on the 2nd Commission on adolescent health & wellbeing. Read 👉 bit.ly/4jadJQj
Editorial: A wake-up call: the second Commission on adolescent health
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Smooth Dunk @smoothdunk2.bsky.social · 18/05/2025
Politicians During Mental Health Awareness Month
4 panel comic

Panel 1: Politician on podium saying “Wooo! Let’s talk about mental health awareness!

Panel 2: Audience member with raised hand says “And also funding for mental health services?”

Panel 3: Politician presses button that triggers two rockets to pop out the sides of the podium

Panel 4: Politician makes a swift exit through the skylight above, mercifully avoiding any tricky questions about actually providing substantial care for people with metal health issues.
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Becca Lacey @rebeccalacey.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
I am hiring for a new researchers on my @nuffieldfoundation.org young carers project. Closes 4thJune. After someone with strong quant longitudinal skills, passion for communicating research beyond academia & wants to work with people w lived experience/other sectors jobs.sgul.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx...
jobs.sgul.ac.uk
Job Opportunity at St George's University of London: Research Fellow in Social Epidemiology
The Research Fellow will investigate young carers and health inequalities using advanced longitudinal quantitative methods. Responsibilities include data analysis, literature reviews, publishing findi...
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Nature Human Behaviour @nathumbehav.nature.com · 12/05/2025
The application of polygenic risk scores (PRS) in clinical practice has advanced but also received criticism. In this Perspective by Saskia Sanderson & @mikeinouye.bsky.social, major psychological and behavioural arguments against PRS applications have been assessed. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Psychological and behavioural considerations for integrating polygenic risk scores for disease into clinical practice - Nature Human Behaviour
The application of polygenic risk scores (PRSs) in clinical practice has advanced but also received criticism. In this Perspective, major psychological and behavioural arguments against PRS applicatio...
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Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 11/05/2025
Thanks to everybody who chimed in! I arrived at the conclusion that (1) there's a lot of interesting stuff about interactions and (2) the figure I was looking for does not exist. So, I made it myself! Here's a simple illustration of how to control for confounding in interactions:>
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Luisa Fassi @fassiluisa.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
After 3 years in the making, our Registered Report is out in @nathumbehav.nature.com! We analyse nationally representative UK data from 3,340 adolescents (aged 11–19) to examine how social media use differs between those with and without mental health conditions. 🧵 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Social media use in adolescents with and without mental health conditions - Nature Human Behaviour
Using a nationally representative UK sample of adolescents with clinical-level mental health symptoms, this Registered Report examined differences in social media use. The results suggest that adolesc...
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Per Engzell @pengzell.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
Remember the good times when the main threat to the scientific endeavor was conditioning on a collider
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Claire Niedzwiedz @drcenz.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
📢 New publication out today in BMJ Mental Health. We looked at whether climate change worry is associated with an increased risk of future depression, anxiety and sleep disturbance across European countries, using data from the European Social Survey. mentalhealth.bmj.com/content/28/1...
mentalhealth.bmj.com
Climate change worry and the association with future depression and anxiety: cross-national analysis of 11 European countries
Background Climate change affects people’s mental health directly and indirectly. Climate anxiety, characterised by persistent worry and distress about environmental changes, is increasingly recognise...
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Andrea Allegrini @andrealle.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
Our work on intergenerational transmission of psychiatric risk is now out!! www.nature.com/articles/s41... @naturecomms.bsky.social with thanks to my super coauthors @leofrach.bsky.social @jessiebaldwin.bsky.social and several others who made this possible
nature.com
Intergenerational transmission of polygenic predisposition for neuropsychiatric traits on emotional and behavioural difficulties in childhood - Nature Communications
Parental neuropsychiatric traits relate to children’s emotions and behaviours beyond genetic transmission alone. Here the author's findings suggest potential environmental risk factors that can act on...
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Dr Ellen J Thompson @ejthompson.bsky.social · 04/04/2025
Trying really really hard this year to not ramp up my work load before the spring break in order to “get things off my desk”. I don’t know who needs to hear this but you’re allowed a break without your work load doubling before or after your leave!
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Dr Zeynep Nas @zeynepnas.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
First post will be a plug for our national fellowship network ➡️ We have an exciting new session focused on NIHR fellowships! 💡 Come along to this brilliant event and do spread the word for the network led by @flosheen.bsky.social @alice-kininmonth.bsky.social and myself 👇
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Reposted by Dr Ellen J Thompson
Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 20/03/2025
New blog post! In which I explain the issue with mediation analysis and sketch out one way to deal with the underlying causal inference problem -- in just a bit over 1,000 words! If you have never found the time to read up on this, now is your chance. www.the100.ci/2025/03/20/r...
the100.ci
Reviewer notes: That’s a very nice mediation analysis you have there. It would be a shame if something happened to it.
Mediation analysis has gotten a lot of flak, including classic titles such as “Yes, but what’s the mechanism? (Don’t expect an easy answer)” (Bullock et al., 2010), “What mediation analysis can (not) ...
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Dr Ellen J Thompson @ejthompson.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
Nice snippet from @popres-uk.bsky.social on the value of longitudinal population studies for understanding life course society and health, and the support PRUK can offer
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Ruben C. Arslan @ruben.the100.ci · 18/03/2025
New comment by @faridanvari.bsky.social and friends arguing that psychology is fragmented into the study of too many constructs and measures with too few links. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Defragmenting psychology
Nature Human Behaviour - Psychology is fragmented into the study of a myriad of constructs and measures, most of which are used very rarely. This hinders cumulative knowledge generation. We call on...
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Eiko Fried @eikofried.bsky.social · 12/03/2025
Are you doing EMA research and wonder how to go about it? In recent work we've adressed some open questions and challenges, here is a brief summary of papers and materials. 🧵 #PsychSciSky 🧪 #StatsSky
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Angelica Ronald @angelicaronald.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
The London Genetics Network has arrived on Bluesky! Follow us here if you'd like @ldngenenet.bsky.social
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Ola Demkowicz @olademk.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
International Women’s Day seems as good a time as any to remind folks that adolescent girls continue to face a range of gendered challenges in their day-to-day lives and they point to these as critical issues in understanding the gender mental health gap 👇
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UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies @clscohorts.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
1 / 2 Data from the 1970 British Cohort Study Age 51 Sweep are now available to download from @ukdataservice.bsky.social These new data offer opportunities for research on midlife and ageing, and for cross-cohort comparisons with earlier-born generations. Read more: buff.ly/Lcl8IqK
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Dr Giorgia Michelini @giorgiamichelini.bsky.social · 03/03/2025
Special issue of JCPP Advances on *Transdiagnostic Approaches to Child and Adolescent Mental Health*! We especially encourage submissions on developmental processes, cultural factors, methodological innovation and translation to clinical care and policy 👇 Letter of intent due 28 March 2025
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rachaelbedford.bsky.social @rachaelbedford.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
Advertising 2 new positions in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. A postdoc & an RA at Queen Mary University of London as part of our UKRI-funded Animating Minds Project. More details and how to apply here: Postdoc: www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DLX749/p... RA: qmul-jobs.tal.net/vx/appcentre...
jobs.ac.uk
Postdoctoral Research Associate at Queen Mary University of London
Apply now for the Postdoctoral Research Associate role on jobs.ac.uk - the leading job board for higher education jobs. View details.
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Mental Health Platform @mhplatform.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
🌟 ECRs – Funding Alert! 🌟 Our UKRI MHP ECR Fellowship Awards open 1st March 2025! 💡 <£300K, 1–3 years 🤝 Collaborate with MHP Hubs 📚 Access training, resources & PPIE support 📅 Apply by 30th April 2025 🔗 Learn more: buff.ly/42Qn3UZ #MentalHealth #ECR #Fellowship
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UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies @clscohorts.bsky.social · 20/02/2025
✨ We’re delighted the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) have given the go ahead to a new UK-wide birth cohort study! We're looking forward to submitting our proposal. The news follows on from the #EarlyLifeCohortFeasibilityStudy - find out more here: buff.ly/4i4f9fa
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Reposted by Dr Ellen J Thompson
Alt CDC (they/them) @altcdc.altgov.info · 10/02/2025
The hardest part about public health is that when we succeed, there's no crisis, no epidemic. People carry on with daily life, unaware of a near-miss. We may never know how bad it could have been - because our public health workforce is always taking action to avoid, prevent, and control threats.
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HiTOP @hitop-system.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
Some of our members have submitted a letter to Meta protesting their revised policy on hateful conduct that now allows allegations of mental illness on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity You can read the letter and list of signatories here: www.hitop-system.org/letter-to-meta 1/2
hitop-system.org
Letter to Meta
Letter from some of the HiTOP membership (signatories listed) to Meta, protesting their revised policy on hateful conduct that permits allegations of mental illness on the basis of sexual orientation ...
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Dr Zoë Ayres @zjayres.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
On International Day of Women and Girls in Science, a reminder to not close your eyes and turn away from what is happening in the US right now. Fascism is an assault on scientific integrity, knowledge, and innovation. www.chron.com/news/space/a...
chron.com
NASA to wipe mentions of women, Indigenous people from websites
NASA employees told to remove mentions of women, indigenous people, and environmental justice from websites.
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Saloni @scientificdiscovery.dev · 10/02/2025
Twin births have risen dramatically since the 1980s. 🧵
The chart titled "Share of births that are twins" displays the percentage of twin births over time, spanning from 1858 to 2021. The vertical axis represents the share of births that are twins, ranging from 0% to 2%.

There are five colored lines, each representing a different country: the United States, France, Canada, Australia, and England and Wales. Throughout the years, the percentage of twin births shows a noticeable increase in each of the countries shown, particularly from the 1980s.

A note on the chart indicates that delayed childbearing, alongside technologies such as IVF, has contributed to this rise in twin births. 

The data for this chart is sourced from the Human Multiple Births Database in 2024. The chart is credited under a Creative Commons BY license, and is published by Our World in Data.
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John Drury @profjohndrury.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
University of Sussex @sussex.ac.uk announces new scholarships for Palestinian students staff.sussex.ac.uk/news/article...
staff.sussex.ac.uk
University announces new scholarships for Palestinian students
These scholarships will provide fully-funded support for two Palestinian students, with a particular focus on those impacted by the conflict in Gaza
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Dr Ellen J Thompson @ejthompson.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
Such a brilliant and useful tool for finding out about longitudinal studies across the globe!
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Mental Health Research Incubator @mhrincubator.bsky.social · 15/01/2025
In 2025, we're running two fully-funded Writing Retreats for #mentalhealth #researchers. Express your interest using the link below👇 mentalhealthresearch.org.uk/writing-retr... Here's what one of our participants said about their experience at the last retreat:
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Dr Ellen J Thompson @ejthompson.bsky.social · 14/01/2025
Really enjoyed this brilliant explanation of how researchers study the genetics of eating disorders by @helenadavies.bsky.social 🌟 Fascinating area with lots of work to be done!
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Tania Gergel @drtgergel.bsky.social · 12/01/2025
1/2 V. disappointed to see this article making headlines yet again, with no mention of its deep methodological flaws and the vilification of its opponents. www.thetimes.com/uk/society/a...
thetimes.com
Do antidepressants work? This British professor says they don’t
Joanna Moncrieff is a professor and NHS psychiatrist who dared to argue that depression is not a physical illness. As a result she has been abused by peers — and championed by Tucker Carlson. Is her t...
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Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽 @needhibhalla.bsky.social · 12/01/2025
“‘It’s very easy to assume that science is going to change organically towards equality — and what this study shows is that that’s not happening…It is an ‘important reminder for us that we need to stay vigilant in working towards equality in science’” @crsugimoto.bsky.social 🧪 #AcademicSky 👩🏽‍🔬
nature.com
Who’s quitting academia? Data reveal gender gaps in surprising fields
Even in scientific areas in which women are well represented, they are up to 40% more likely than men to leave research within 20 years.
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MQ Mental Health Research @mqmentalhealth.bsky.social · 07/01/2025
YOU are invited to the launch of the ATLAS of Longitudinal Datasets. A new web-based, searchable platform that maps thousands of longitudinal datasets from research studies around the world. Find out more & book your free place for the launch event here: www.mqmentalhealth.org/atlas-of-lon...
mqmentalhealth.org
Launch of the Atlas of Longitudinal Datasets
Next month, researchers at King’s College London will be launching the Atlas of Longitudinal Datasets; A ground-breaking platform that can facilitate research.
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Madhu Pai, MD, PhD @madhupai.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
Non-native English speakers need 50% more time to write a paper When they do, they face a 2.5 times higher chance of being rejected because of language journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
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Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 13/12/2024
Do you know any early career researchers in the UK who have contributed something special to improve research practices? The call for the 2025 Dorothy Bishop award is open now! Nominations close on 26 January 2025. www.ukrn.org/2024/12/12/t...
A picture of a trophy. The real award looks much cooler.
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Alex Lloyd @dralexlloyd.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
Excited to share our new review on PPI with young people in mental health research, including recommendations for how to conduct co-production and co-design! We also have a response from two young people with experience of collaborating on mental health research. Link to the paper below
acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
JCPP Advances | ACAMH Child Development Journal | Wiley Online Library
Involving young people with lived experience in youth mental health research is important. The current review examined this question and identified common practices for collaborating with experts by ...
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Darío Moreno-Agostino @dmorenoagostino.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
📰 Our latest study, “Gender inequalities in the disruption of long-term life satisfaction trajectories during the COVID-19 pandemic and the role of time use: evidence from a prospective cohort study”, has just been published in BJPsych Open! doi.org/10.1192/bjo....
doi.org
Gender inequalities in the disruption of long-term life satisfaction trajectories during the COVID-19 pandemic and the role of time use: evidence from a prospective cohort study | BJPsych Open | Cambr...
Gender inequalities in the disruption of long-term life satisfaction trajectories during the COVID-19 pandemic and the role of time use: evidence from a prospective cohort study - Volume 10 Issue 6
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Maria Loades @marialoades.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
Have you seen these short videos? Aimed at researchers who are keen to involve young people in their research as advisors/project partners, we coproduced this series of supportive HOW TO videos. digitalyouth.ac.uk/resources/wa... #copro #youthinvolvement
digitalyouth.ac.uk
Watch & listen - Digital Youth
Explore our video and podcast library What is genuine collaboration? What does good involvement look like?
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Prof Andy Field @profandyfield.com · 18/11/2024
Want to learn/teach R? I'm still actively developing my package of learnr tutorials at github.com/profandyfiel... Just added a tutorial on multilevel models and repeated measures.
github.com
GitHub - profandyfield/discovr: discovr package for R to accompany Discovering Statistics Using R and RStudio
discovr package for R to accompany Discovering Statistics Using R and RStudio - profandyfield/discovr
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The Mental Elf @thementalelf.bsky.social · 13/05/2024
Are psychological interventions effective in preventing relapse and recurrence in depression? www.nationalelfservice.net?p=194016 Andrea Cipriani is back, this time summarising an individual patient data meta-analysis on the use of psychological interventions for preventing relapse in depression.
nationalelfservice.net
Are psychological interventions effective in preventing relapse and recurrence in depression? - National Elf Service
Andrea Cipriani is back, this time writing with Rosario Aronica to summarise an individual patient data meta-analysis on the use of psychological interventions for preventing relapse in depression.
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Eric Hehman @erichehman.bsky.social · 10/05/2024
SEM approach to treating variance as a latent factor psycnet.apa.org/record/2022-...
psycnet.apa.org
APA PsycNet
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Understanding Society @usociety.bsky.social · 26/03/2024
We’ve worked with What Works Wellbeing to create a dashboard to make data on wellbeing easier to find and use. It’s live on our site now!
understandingsociety.ac.uk
New wellbeing data dashboard - Understanding Society
What Works Wellbeing collaboration makes trends accessible
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Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 02/03/2024
Do you think that learning more about causal inference is not worth it because you're running experiments anyway, or because you're interested in predictive questions? In that case, I've written a paper just for you, out now in SPPC: compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Causal inference for psychologists who think that causal inference is not for them. Correlation does not imply causation and psychologists' causal inference training often focuses on the conclusion that therefore experiments are needed—without much consideration for the causal inference frameworks used elsewhere. This leaves researchers ill-equipped to solve inferential problems that they encounter in their work, leading to mistaken conclusions and incoherent statistical analyses. For a more systematic approach to causal inference, this article provides brief introductions to the potential outcomes framework—the “lingua franca” of causal inference—and to directed acyclic graphs, a graphical notation that makes it easier to systematically reason about complex causal situations. I then discuss two issues that may be of interest to researchers in social and personality psychology who think that formalized causal inference is of little relevance to their work. First, posttreatment bias:...DAG illustrating posttreatment bias which can be induced in randomized experiments whenever researchers condition on posttreatment variablesFigure illustrating various reasons why demonstrations of incremental validity may be unimpressive: established predictors are omitted, measurement error is ignored, only little predictive utility is gained
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