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Sara Emily Burke

@saraburke.bsky.social
626 followers 240 following 215 posts

Associate Professor at Syracuse University (psychological science of intergroup bias)

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Reposted by Sara Emily Burke
Journal of Democracy @jodemocracy.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Americans have never been angrier with one another. But polarization is not the disease—it is the response to a revanchist movement seeking to roll back sixty years of social progress. 🆕 by @lilymasonphd.bsky.social muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/a...
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
I am recruiting a PhD student to start Fall 2027 (application deadline is December 1). sburke08.expressions.syr.edu/get-involved/
The Intergroup Bias Lab at Syracuse University. A line drawing of a human head with colorful human icons inside. This symbolic artwork is included for decorative purposes and should not be construed as part of Syracuse University branding.
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
8647: I hereby call upon Congress to "86" Donald Trump by impeaching him and removing him from office. (If Comey had said "kick him out," perhaps Trump would have claimed it was a threat to strike him with a foot. Trump and his administration do not care whether anything they say makes sense.)
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
999 Days [thread]
Sign on bulletin board: "(1) Maintain ethical principles; (2) Survive - unless it conflicts with (1); (3) Don't shut up - unless it conflicts with (2). Remind yourself and others that this state of affairs is not normal, acceptable, or inevitable"
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Dr Katie Twomey @k2mey.eurosky.social · 18/04/2026
Why are we aiming for the homogenisation of creativity? Especially in universities. Using an LLM for any aspect of my research takes the creativity out of it (yes it's possible to be creative and objective at the same time) and would be hugely disrespectful to my participants. And unethical.
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
A recent piece by my colleague, Len Newman: fascists should just call themselves fascists. newmanl.substack.com/p/an-open-le...
newmanl.substack.com
An Open Letter to The Republicans of 2026
Back in the 1980s, when I lived in a Manhattan co-op, I found myself at what turned out to be a very contentious building meeting.
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Technology Connections @techconnectify.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
Let's do this. www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtQ9...
youtube.com
You are being misled about renewable energy technology.
YouTube video by Technology Connections
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
I love Wikipedia, and I'm proud to be a monthly donor and to have been an (occasional, sporadic) editor for nearly 20 years. This is a good video. www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zi0... Here are some choice lines:
youtube.com
Wikipedia and the Destruction of Trust
YouTube video by Hank Green
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
Any university that takes a bribe in exchange for swearing loyalty to any aspect of Trump's ideology is abandoning its legitimacy as an institution of higher education. www.pbs.org/newshour/pol...
pbs.org
Trump asks 9 colleges to commit to his political agenda for better access to federal money
A document sent to the universities encourages them to adopt the White House’s vision for America’s campuses, with commitments to accept the government’s priorities on admissions, women’s sports, free...
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
The chancellor of Texas Tech has apparently ordered faculty to ignore the scientific research literature when teaching about the psychology of gender (at least in the classroom). This undermines the credibility of a psychology degree from Texas Tech. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/u...
nytimes.com
Texas Tech Moves to Limit Academic Discussion to 2 Genders
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 25/09/2025
Academic freedom should protect honest criticism of Charlie Kirk, even if the criticism is delivered with an irreverent tone. My new opinion piece on Syracuse.com: www.syracuse.com/opinion/2025...
syracuse.com
Syracuse University must protect faculty who criticize Charlie Kirk (Your Letters)
To maintain the ethos of thorough inquiry at universities, "we must protect professors from institutional interference in the things they say and write," says the letter writer.
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 20/09/2025
Forms of Psychological Bias Against Transgender Women and Men and People with Nonbinary Gender Identities -- now online at Personality and Social Psychology Review. Main article: doi.org/10.1177/1088... Preprint: doi.org/10.31234/osf... #SocialPsychology #IntergroupBias #Transgender #Nonbinary
doi.org
Forms of Psychological Bias Against Transgender Women and Men and People With Nonbinary Gender Identities - Sara Emily Burke, Alexandria Jaurique, Benjamin M. Valen, Natalie M. Wittlin, Mackenzie L. M...
Academic The present review examines bias against transgender women and men and bias against people with nonbinary gender identities. A central contention is th...
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
Political violence is bad. Killing people for their opinions is bad. If you agree, you should speak out against Charlie Kirk. Unlike most of his current detractors, Charlie Kirk supported political violence.
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Hakeem Jefferson @hakeemjefferson.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
Every chance you get, say “fuck you” to authoritarian demands. One of the regime’s tools is making people believe resistance is futile—that acquiescence is the only option. But especially for those with power and privilege, the most basic, necessary act is to say: FUCK YOU.
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
Another day wasted when university presidents & chancellors could have been in front of microphones. The total lack of loud public collective action condemning this & explaining to Americans why this is a complete disaster is utterly maddening. bsky.app/profile/mcop...
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 06/04/2025
Thousands of people gathered peacefully in Syracuse this afternoon to protest against Trump's and Musk's senseless destruction. (Pictured: my hastily-lettered sign reading "Hands off our beloved transgender Americans, immigrants, and students" on the front and "Hands off democracy" on the back.)
My hastily-lettered cardboard sign reading "Hands off our beloved transgender Americans, immigrants, and students" on the front and "Hands off democracy" on the back
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
"The free movement of our international community members is therefore essential to the functioning of the University and serving our mission." More public declarations of this sort are urgently needed. Let Tufts serve as a role model for other universities.
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Stand Up for Science! @standupforscience.net · 29/03/2025
We are excited to announce our official partnership with @indivisible.org for the National Day of Action on April 5th! Stand Up for Science says: HANDS OFF OUR SCIENCE! #standupforscience #handsoffourscience Find and register for an event near you: handsoff2025.com?utm_source=s...
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 02/04/2025
When Cory Booker is finally finished with this speech, we should remember an important lesson from it. Even when we are not sure precisely what to do, we must keep talking to remind ourselves that the unfolding catastrophe is not normal, acceptable, or inevitable.
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 27/03/2025
No government ever has the right to arrest someone for criticizing the government or its allies. Any government that regularly does so abandons its claim to legitimate authority. www.wgbh.org/news/local/2... www.reuters.com/world/us/tuf... www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2024...
wgbh.org
Tufts international graduate student taken into ICE custody
The student was reportedly detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and remains in federal custody, according to an email sent by the university Tuesday evening.
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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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Michael Yarbrough (he/him) @mwyarbrough.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
CALL TO ACTION FOR ALL WHO SUPPORT HIGHER ED: Please join us in signing this public commitment to the value and values of higher ed as a crucial part of healthy democracies, and calling on our leaders to actively defend us against attack! bit.ly/DemocracyAnd...
bit.ly
Speaking Out for Democracy and US Higher Education
Speaking Out for Democracy and US Higher Education To add your name to this statement, go to https://bit.ly/DemocracyAndHigherEdSign We publicly affirm our commitment to the enterprise of higher educ...
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
Attacks on DEIA programs cause harm by interfering with the programs themselves, but also by raising questions about who really belongs on campus. This open letter is a good opportunity (one among many) for faculty to tell students that we value diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.
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Paul Bloom @paulbloomatyale.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
New post! smallpotatoes.paulbloom.net/p/its-fine-i...
smallpotatoes.paulbloom.net
It's fine if your studies don't work outside the lab
In praise of theoretical psychology
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
The concept of "conflict of interest" is vital to understanding why strict freedom of speech protections are among the most important limits placed on government.
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Bill Chopik @chops310.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
Had fun at the Stand Up for Science event! Here's my sign (and me holding it backwards to be pro-pet food). Scientific advances dramatically alleviate the burden of disease/illness and has made many areas of life better and more equitable. We should keep that up. @standupforscience.bsky.social
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
Today I attended the "Stand Up for Science" rally in Hartford. Pictured: cardboard sign with sections reading "Embrace a truth-seeking mindset | Strive for informed disagreement | DearNiece2024.com" and "Preserve public data | Fund research and education | Stand up for science | DearNephew2020.com"
Hand-made cardboard sign with sections reading "Embrace a truth-seeking mindset | Strive for informed disagreement | DearNiece2024.com" and "Preserve public data | Fund research and education | Stand up for science | DearNephew2020.com"
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 03/03/2025
Here is Alec from Technology Connections describing mass-market large language models as "the purest form of lazy anti-intellectualism." The analogy he draws between algorithmic curation and algorithmic text is imperfect but thought-provoking.
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
What I want for my birthday is to end Trumpist ideological interference in science, healthcare, and the basic nonpartisan functions of government (including, for example, the important work done at the FBI, the CDC, and the CFPB).
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Neil Lewis, Jr. @neillewisjr.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
6/8. In science, and in institutions of learning like colleges and universities, there is a shared understanding that edicts should not go unquestioned—that we all have a duty to systematically investigate the world around us and to interrogate claims about it. We do not simply obey.
Coat of arms of the Royal Society, which has the motto "nullius in verba," meaning take nobody's word for it.
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Neil Lewis, Jr. @neillewisjr.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
1/8. This week I had a few different conversations with scholars who, in the face of the attacks on science and institutions of learning in the U.S., are wondering what to do. One suggestion I have is: keep doing your work. It matters in and of itself. Why do I say that? A few reasons.
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Alon Zivony @alonzivony.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
Our very minimal obligation as researchers is to stick to the evidence and insist on the truth. If a government says that "there are no trans kids" or "there's no prejudice against trans ppl", it's up to us to answer "No. You're either wrong or lying, and you're hurting ppl in the process".
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
According to some reports stemming from an internal CDC email, agency researchers have been ordered to change the text of manuscripts submitted for peer review to remove terms such as "gender" and "transgender." www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/... insidemedicine.substack.com/p/breaking-n...
washingtonpost.com
CDC removes gender, equity references in public health material
Large sets of data are being scrubbed of references to transgender and LGBTQ+ people, among others, which could compromise their use in research.
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
As criminals remove public data from government websites, I am grateful for the vital work of the Internet Archive, the ICPSR, and other data archives.
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
Statistical power often gets shoehorned into conversations where it is unhelpful. For example, reviewers sometimes ask about power when they already know the results of the experiment. This piece conveys some valuable reminders of why that rarely makes sense.
psychologicalscience.org
Powerful Myths: Common Misconceptions About Statistical Power
Lukas Lengersdorff and Claus Lamm discuss three misconceptions that stand in the way of an informed discussion.
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 25/01/2025
I'm just a small-town political scientist, but it seems like "one party is now so extreme that it is going to dismantle the modern state & all of its basic functions" should have been front page news during the last months & weeks of the 2024 election. bsky.app/profile/mcop...
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 25/01/2025
Forceful moral condemnation is not the best strategy for coaxing Trumpists out of their disastrous mindset. If you have the fortitude to hold that condemnation in mind while you speak as though you just want to understand their perspective, I commend you. But do not give up the condemnation itself.
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 22/01/2025
In October, I wrote to my niece: "As you work to build a better world, I hope you will make at least one specific commitment: reject the incoherent epistemology of Trump's movement."
dearniece2024.com
Dear Niece (2024)
Letter to my niece's future self about Trump
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
Throughout the coming wave of catastrophes, my most fervent hope is that we can limit the extent to which Trump's cultural movement achieves its primary goals: entrenching bigotry as a permanent norm and killing the expectation that people should think carefully.
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Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
Navigating the Nonsense and Propaganda of Clownish Authoritarianism   Ignoring what Trump says won’t work. Constant outrage is not a viable strategy either. We must find a more productive way to engage Trump’s dangerous outlandishness.   New piece:
thomaszimmer.substack.com
Navigating the Nonsense and Propaganda of Clownish Authoritarianism
Ignoring what Trump says won’t work. Constant outrage is not a viable strategy either. We must find a more productive way to engage Trump’s dangerous outlandishness
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Berna Devezer @devezer.bsky.social · 06/08/2023
1. Reproducibility is not a generally reliable indicator of particular issues in a field. The problem as we understand is to expect high levels of reproducibility unconditionally, regardless of the specifics of the scientific field. We need to calibrate our expectations.
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 21/12/2024
When academics condemn Trumpism, high-minded folks sometimes accuse us of failing to truly understand the perspectives of serious Trump supporters. There is some truth there: it is very difficult to understand anyone else's perspective. But my condemnation does not stem from a failure of empathy.
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 20/12/2024
The main challenge with information today is not finding it but rather evaluating its quality. Higher education can help people learn to vet sources and establish trust. Large language models, in contrast, disguise sources and undermine trust.
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
Four years ago, I wrote a letter to my then-2-year-old nephew about Donald Trump (not for now but for when he grows up). This year, I wrote a sequel for my 3-year-old niece. Both letters are public and corrections are welcome. dearniece2024.com
dearniece2024.com
Dear Niece (2024)
Letter to my niece's future self about Trump
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 16/12/2024
To conclude my two weeks of posting reruns from other social media platforms, I will call attention to my free educational resources about applied statistics, available at saraemilyburke.com/statistics.h... This thread showcases a handful of examples.
saraemilyburke.com
Sara Emily Burke | Statistics
This section of the site contains a collection of miscellaneous examples, explanations, and materials I have found useful in teaching statistics.
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 15/12/2024
Suppose you've designed a study and found a "null" result, and you'd like to argue that you've found evidence against the phenomenon in question producing a large effect. Should you emphasize how statistically powerful your study was? Don't bother.
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
Why I love the logic of null hypothesis significance testing [thread]
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 08/12/2024
All human subjects research in psychology should report the date range of data collection. We seem to have a consensus that some demographic description of the sample should be available to readers by default; the approximate historical context is similarly important.
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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
Americans sometimes react dismissively toward both biracial people and bisexual people. Is this a coincidence, or is there something about being seen as "intermediate" that evokes a dismissive reaction? Article: doi.org/10.1111/jasp... Preprint: doi.org/10.31234/osf...
doi.org
Distinctive negative reactions to intermediate social groups
Although considerable research has examined how members of advantaged groups think and feel about disadvantaged groups, fewer studies have examined responses to “intermediate” social groups—groups th....
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Roseanna Sommers @rosesomm.bsky.social · 14/11/2024
Kate Weisburd and I have a new empirical paper out in the Northwestern University Law Review! We ask: what do ordinary Americans believe about how Miranda rights are invoked? t.co/fjpjlJ4vUY 1/4
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