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Reka Blazsek

@rekablazsek.bsky.social
468 followers 732 following 57 posts

Cognitive & social science by day (CEU @weareceu.bsky.social), piano also by day 🔸 ownership, norms, moral psychology, institutions 🔸 interdisciplinary science 🔸 economics & public policy 🎧 curates playlists at headphoneson.substack.com

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Reka Blazsek @rekablazsek.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Happy to announce that I defended my thesis today ☺️
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Reka Blazsek @rekablazsek.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
In the end I gave the title "Jargon and jargon of jargon" (Cognition and the nature of ownership). I considered "When cognition met ownership" after When Harry met Sally, but was talked out of it
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Reka Blazsek @rekablazsek.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Congratulations! I can't DM you, so reaching out here. I'm defending my PhD very soon at CEU Vienna, in behavioural / cognitive science and with work on AI-assisted creativity. Looking forward to learning more about the postdoc opportunity.
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Oded Ritov @oded-ritov.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Do chimpanzees value their friendships enough to pass on juicy pineapple? In our new paper, out now at Evolution and Human Behavior, we find that they do! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Screenshot of the paper header on ScienceDirect. Evolution and Human Behavior, Volume 47, Issue 6, November 2026, article 106948. Title: "Chimpanzees steal less from their friends and expect them to do the same." Authors: Oded Ritov, Christoph J. Völter, Liran Samuni, Avi Benozio, Dacher Keltner, Jan M. Engelmann, Laura S. Lewis, Esther Herrmann.
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Reka Blazsek @rekablazsek.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Ofc it’s unfortunate that the story was discovered by a racist. It’s more tragic that someone brilliant lost a promotion to a crook. Plus this story will negatively affect BIPOC/working class/disabled etc scholars. Their work will receive more scrutiny because of Arday.
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Reka Blazsek @rekablazsek.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Concluding paragraph of my thesis 🤭:
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Reka Blazsek @rekablazsek.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
Thought provoking essay on the different meanings and consequences of anthropomorphic AI open.substack.com/pub/legitima...
open.substack.com
The Ghost in the Machine Goes to China
Unpacking China's law on anthropomorphic AI and what it tells us about AI visions
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Reka Blazsek @rekablazsek.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
Cannot stop watching these videos of euphoria 🥹
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Reka Blazsek @rekablazsek.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
Chasing academic success does feel like this sometimes
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Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu · 13/04/2026
Finally, Hungary we will be sovereign, not a vassal of Russia
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Reka Blazsek @rekablazsek.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
Historic night in Budapest 🥲 #Hungaryelects
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Reka Blazsek @rekablazsek.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
🤯🤯🤯
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Reka Blazsek @rekablazsek.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
The past month has gone by very fast, with a major scandal in the media almost every day. The last few hours feel incredibly slow. #Hungaryelects
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Katalin Halmai @eublogo.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
🇭🇺 Hungarian elections Voter turnout stands at 66.01% as of 3:00 p.m. It is huge. The previous turnout record was set in 2002, during the second round of the then-two-round electoral system, when 53.59% of voters had cast their ballots by 3:00 p.m.
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Thom Scott-Phillips @thomscottphillips.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
There's been lots of coverage of the elections in the international media in recent days. For something different, I recommend this from Ábel Bede, on the rise of Péter Magyar, the expected winner today hungarianobserver.substack.com/p/the-surfer...
hungarianobserver.substack.com
The Surfer and the Waves
Ábel Bede discusses the reasons behind the rise of Péter Magyar, with reports from Tisza rallies in County Békés and County Pest.
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Reka Blazsek @rekablazsek.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
Top of hvg.hu also shows comparisons from 2022 per constituency
hvg.hu
| hvg.hu
HVG – Hiteles hírek és elemzések gazdaságról, politikáról, kultúráról és életmódról, Magyarország vezető portálján.
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Adam Schwarz @adamjschwarz.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
Tens of thousands chant “Russians, go home!” at tonight’s anti-Orbán concert in Budapest’s Heroes’ Square ahead of Sunday’s Hungarian election.
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Sacha Altay @sachaltay.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
One of my favorites paper got published 🤓 It covers a lot of ground and it’s the best summary of my views on misinformation and what to do about it. Give it a read :) 🔓 osf.io/preprints/ps... 👉 doi.org/10.1177/1461...
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Reka Blazsek @rekablazsek.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
Can't wait to submit my thesis, "Witty catchphrase: Length-enhanced superlative verbiage of obscure topic"! It took just under half a decade of my life.
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Manikya Alister @manikyaalister.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
Humans have a remarkable capacity for efficient, intelligent reasoning. In a new working paper, @perfors.net and I discuss how our ability to reason from *social* information is one way that we achieve this capacity. osf.io/preprints/ps...
Figure from the paper. How does social reasoning enable efficient intelligence? 1. Directs us to the information that is most important for learning. 2. Inferences about others' minds help us interpret information they provide (and provide better information for others). 3. Avoids some of the costs of direct learning like cognitive/physical effort, and negative outcomes. 4. Enables us to build on and refine the knowledge of others. 5. Provides cues that help us infer which agents' knowledge we should build on without needing to observe their behaviour directly.
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Reka Blazsek @rekablazsek.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
I worry about what Part 2 brings 😳
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Duncan Stibbard Hawkes @dstibbardhawkes.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
LLMs are imputation machines. They pull patterns from text data; Useful for things like coding, especially coding that has been done before. Academics work in knowledge generation, which goes far beyond imputation. If you think LLMs can replace grad students, you are telling on yourself.
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Ed Newton-Rex @ednewtonrex.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
This tweet, from Suno’s lead investor, will surely be used in court one day. She says she has shifted her listening from Spotify to Suno. *This is a direct admission that Suno competes with the music it trains on.* 🧵 1/5
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Aeon Magazine @aeon.co · 13/02/2026
Institutions are the social technologies that power our world, allowing us to rely on complete strangers every day of our lives. But how do we ensure that this trust isn’t misplaced? In this Essay, the game theorist Julien Lie-Panis explores what makes institutions function @jliep.bsky.social
buff.ly
Institutions are how we scale up cooperation among millions | Aeon Essays
Good institutions are social technologies that scale trust from personal relations to entire nations. How do they work?
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The Cognitations podcast @cognitations.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
🎙️ EP #19 Think our ancestors lived in a state of "primitive communism"? New research reveals our deep past was far more complex than the "noble savage" myth suggests. @adigitaltanay.bsky.social & Jay explore this & much more with @manvir.bsky.social youtu.be/1BRZy9O665k?...
youtu.be
The Social Lives of Our Ancestors | Manvir Singh
YouTube video by The Cognitations Podcast
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Stephen Collins @stephencollins.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
Every ad now
[Scene is a kitchen - a middle aged woman called JANET is boiling peas at the stove. A younger more colourfully dressed woman named LIZ approached her.]

JANET:
Ugh...

LIZ:
What's up?

JANET:
I am so bored of cooking peas!

LIZ:
Have you tried...

AI peas?

JANET:
AI peas?

LIZ:
They're peas with AI!

[Liz holds up to us a packet of peas labelled: Pea-i AI - Peas with AI].

LIZ:
Al-powered peas harness the potential of your peas

JANET:
What

LIZ [Now a voiceover as we cut to a whizzy technology diagram of peas all connected by meaningless dotted lines]

Why not take your peas to the next level with Al Peas' new Al tools to power your peas?

[Show a techno diagram of a pea with a label reading 'AI' pointing to a random zone in it]

LIZ:

Each pea has Al in a way we haven't quite worked out yet but it's fine

[Show Janet and Liz now in a Matrix-style world of peas]

LIZ:
With Al peas you can supercharge productivity and make AI work for your peas!

JANET:
What

LIZ:
Shut up

LIZ:
Our game-changing Pea-Al gives you the freedom to unlock the potential of the power of the future of your peas workflow

From opening the bag of peas

to boiling the peas

to eating the peas

To spending millions on adding Al to the peas and then having to work out what that even means.

JANET:
Is it really necessary to-

LIZ [Grabbing Janet by the collar]:
THE PEAS HAVE GOT AI, JANET

[Cut to an advert ending screen, with the bag of peas and the slogan:

AI PEAS: Just 'Peas' for god's sake buy the AI peas.

[Ends]
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Thom Scott-Phillips @thomscottphillips.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
No question, this is the most original paper I have ever written It says that something that seems plain and obvious - humans have an intuitive sense of what is and is not grammatical - and describes how this apparent common sense is actually misleading Thread coming soon!
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Reka Blazsek @rekablazsek.bsky.social · 27/11/2025
Huh! So in Finnish it’s ‘on Helsinki’ but ‘in Stockholm’?
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Reka Blazsek @rekablazsek.bsky.social · 26/11/2025
Happy World Linguistics Day from Budapest, capital of a peculiar linguistic phenomenon--the Hungarian language!
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Nature Portfolio @natureportfolio.nature.com · 25/10/2025
Brazil, Australia and Italy have the highest satisfaction scores in Nature’s global 2025 PhD survey. A Nature Careers article examines what makes earning a doctorate in these countries different. #Academicsky 🧪
go.nature.com
Are these the happiest PhD students in the world?
Brazil, Australia and Italy have the highest satisfaction scores in Nature’s global 2025 PhD survey — but are these nations really the best places to do a doctorate?
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Reka Blazsek @rekablazsek.bsky.social · 20/10/2025
Sometimes my devices misunderstand my (arguably not so heavy) Hungarian accent and Siri activates when I say "see..." but it never activates in the rare occasions when I do intend to use Siri. Which is for entertainment purposes, not timers. Siri is quite good at telling dad jokes.
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Evolutionary Psychology (the podcast) @epthepod.bsky.social · 09/09/2025
This week, Language and Communication (and the Lindy Hop) with @thomscottphillips.bsky.social! youtu.be/Gex5b6Nbq7I?... www.podbean.com/ew/pb-dur6p-... podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e...
youtu.be
Language and Communication with Thom Scott-Phillips
YouTube video by Evolutionary Psychology (The Podcast)
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Reka Blazsek @rekablazsek.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
I've been wondering about this myself too, also more broadly in the context of any intellectual property (eg artistic outputs). Afaik the law in general places more weight on completed & published outputs than to initiated but unfinished ones. Not sure if lay intuitions overlap though.
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Reka Blazsek @rekablazsek.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
Who owns new creations? with @jfkominsky.bsky.social & @heintz-c.bsky.social is out in #cogsci2025 proceedings! escholarship.org/content/qt4m...
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Reka Blazsek @rekablazsek.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
Read the full paper here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... 4/4
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
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Reka Blazsek @rekablazsek.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
We find evidence for a model where cues and commonly known norms trigger different readings of ownership & moral judgements via mental state attribution. Also, moral judgements don't correlate with ownership judgements 100% ("he *owns* it but it is wrong"). 3/4
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Reka Blazsek @rekablazsek.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
We might have a hunch that a box of stuff next to a trash can is abandoned and therefore free game, but the same box next to a car is not. Similarly, in some US cities with abundant parking spots, even a piece of cardboard is widely understood as a reservation (cf www.minethebook.com). 2/4
minethebook.com
Mine!: How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control Our Lives
In this eye-opening exploration of who owns what and why, two acclaimed experts uncover the hidden rules of ownership that control our lives.
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Reka Blazsek @rekablazsek.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
How do people know that what is owned in the absence of explicit information? Do people make inferences on ownership based on contextual cues, incl others' beliefs and knowledge of norms? 1/4
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Reka Blazsek @rekablazsek.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
Happy to see my paper on mind-reading & ownership with @heintz-c.bsky.social out in Cognitive Science! 🧵
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Thom Scott-Phillips @thomscottphillips.bsky.social · 05/08/2025
Is mind-reading involved in ownership judgments? By @rekablazsek.bsky.social & @heintz-c.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
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Tobias Gerstenberg @tobigerstenberg.bsky.social · 03/08/2025
Brilliant keynote by @laurennross.bsky.social at #cogsci2025 on cognitive science and its philosophy. Lauren pointed out the myriad ways in which cogsci and philosophy support and benefit one another, using explanation and causal reasoning as case studies. Thank you for a great talk!! 🙏
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CEU Department of Network & Data Science @ceu-dnds.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
How do social inequalities shape epidemic outcomes? Our PhD alum Adriana Manna shares insights from her award-winning dissertation on contact patterns, vaccination gaps & a novel modeling framework. 📖 Interview: bit.ly/44uT6KF #NetworkScience #EpidemicModeling
bit.ly
How Do Socioeconomic Factors Influence Epidemic Outcomes? | Central European University
Research illuminating the characteristics driving behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic was carried out by PhD candidate Adrianna Manna.
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The Dissenter @thedissenteryt.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
New episode (1120), my second interview with Dr. Pascal Boyer. We talk about ritualized behavior, ownership #Psychology, and victim-devaluation. #Anthropology #Science YouTube: youtu.be/ZcvVxnyFQoo Podcast: bit.ly/46v51JL
youtu.be
#1120 Pascal Boyer: Ritualized Behavior, Ownership Psychology, and Victim-Devaluation
YouTube video by The Dissenter
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Reka Blazsek @rekablazsek.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
From Questions to Answers? From Questions to Understanding? + the subtitle, which is great imo
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Reka Blazsek @rekablazsek.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
I was having trouble logging in yesterday but today it works ok. Maybe this is a +ve sign of troubleshooting
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Reka Blazsek @rekablazsek.bsky.social · 31/05/2025
media.tenor.com
Size Matters GIF
ALT: Size Matters GIF
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Reka Blazsek @rekablazsek.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
Hats off to Reddit mods who handled the case very well. www.reddit.com/r/changemyvi...
reddit.com
From the changemyview community on Reddit
Explore this post and more from the changemyview community
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Reka Blazsek @rekablazsek.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
Ethics of AI researchers violate fundamental ethics norms in academia. Incredible story. www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...
theatlantic.com
‘The Worst Internet-Research Ethics Violation I Have Ever Seen’
The most persuasive “people” on a popular subreddit turned out to be a front for a secret AI experiment.
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Hadas Weiss @hadas.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
my revised article arriving at manuscript central
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