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Sebastian Dieguez

@sebastiandieguez.eurosky.social
1.9K followers 1.8K following 130 posts

Cognition, neuroscience, belief, fiction. Author: Total bullshit (2018), Le Complotisme: cognition, culture, société (2021), Croiver (2022), L’Expertise sans peine (2023), La Force de nos bugs (2023) sites.google.com/view/sebastian-die…

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Reposted by Sebastian Dieguez
Tanay Katiyar @adigitaltanay.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Does spreading mental health awareness online amplify self-diagnosis? In my first PhD pre-print, I empirically examine this question (n =3392) with some kick-ass collaborators and tools from cultural evolution A 🧵
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Noel Healy @drnoelhealy.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
The assault on US universities didn't start in 2025. Our new paper traces the decades of corporate capture that made it possible, and why climate research is a primary target. Open access: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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Amanda J. Wright @ajwright.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Since our paper on the Changing How I Live Life (CHILL) Study is now out in Psychological Science (doi.org/10.1177/0956...), here's a LONG overdue post on the intervention work we've been doing the past few years! Have you ever wanted to change one of your personality traits?
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Evan Westra @evanwestra.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Me and @dryan149.bsky.social's commentary on @julianje.bsky.social and @yarrowdunham.bsky.social's excellent BBS target article "The Institutional Stance" just went live. JJ-E and YD argue that sometimes, we rely on role-based representations instead of mentalizing... philpapers.org/rec/WESWDW-2
philpapers.org
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Adam Toon @adamtoonphilos.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
📚 Our Cambridge Element on Mental Fictionalism is out now and available free until 19th October! 📚 Download it here: doi.org/10.1017/9781... @keithfrankish.com @universitypress.cambridge.org #philsky #philmind #philpsy #cogsci
Cover of Mental Fictionalism, by Ted Parent, Adam Toon and Tamas Demeter (Cambridge Elements in Philosophy of Mind).
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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Happy to see @genetang.bsky.social's review article on Charles Bonnet Syndrom now available as early-online in Brain! #VisionScience #neuroskyence #PsychSciSky doi.org/10.1093/brai...
doi.org
The neural mechanisms of Charles Bonnet syndrome
Charles Bonnet syndrome is characterised by visual hallucinations that cannot be explained by any other cause in individuals with visual impairment. Tangta
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Steve Fleming @smfleming.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
📖 New review out today in @natrevneuro.nature.com: Towards an integrative neuroscience of metacognition 🧠🧪 Full-text link to the paper is here: rdcu.be/9YK3mF7dYhFa
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Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu · 14/09/2026
Your regular reminder: If the Russians stop fighting, the war ends. If the Ukrainians stop fighting, their land will be occupied, their leaders will be killed, their history and language will be erased, their children will be kidnapped to serve Russia.
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Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 26/08/2026
There's even a wikipedia page about this, so it's not even that unknown of a technique, but my goodness does it work well! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_as... 35/
en.wikipedia.org
Just asking questions - Wikipedia
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Derek Arnold @visnerd.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
This is our summary of where we think the field of Aphantasia research stands. Congenital aphantasia: what we (think we) know, what we thought we knew but were mistaken about, and what we don't know. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Congenital aphantasia: what we (think we) know, what we thought we knew but were mistaken about, and what we don't know
Congenital Aphantasia initially described a lifelong inability to visualise. But it is now understood to manifest as imaginative inabilities that can …
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Awais Aftab @awaisaftab.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
The Lawsuit That Came to Symbolize the Fall of Psychoanalytic Psychiatry: Eric Caplan on Osheroff v. Chestnut Lodge www.psychiatrymargins.com/p/the-lawsui...
psychiatrymargins.com
The Lawsuit That Came to Symbolize the Fall of Psychoanalytic Psychiatry: Eric Caplan on Osheroff v. Chestnut Lodge
Eric Caplan is a historian of American psychiatry and the author of "When Healing Harms"
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Riccardo Fusaroli @fusaroli.eurosky.social · 10/09/2026
How does the architecture of a city shape the way we think, talk, and draw space? And how do spatial conventions travel across cultural generations? New paper in Open Mind, spearheaded by Z Alinam (w J Nölle, C Vesper, K Tylén & me): doi.org/10.1162/OPMI.a.380 🧵 1/
doi.org
When the City Speaks: How Urban Form Shapes the Cultural Transmission of Spatial Conceptualization
Abstract. How do urban environments shape the way people conceptualize and communicate space? Using a cultural transmission experiment in virtual reality, we asked participants to navigate one of two ...
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Melanie Mitchell @melaniemitchell.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
What, an Anthropic researcher states (without evidence) that there is a 10% chance that AI will cause human extinction? Incredible, we have never before heard such a claim!
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depths of wikipedia @depthsofwikipedia.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
45 years ago today, the Reagan administration suggested school lunch administrators stretch the definition of “vegetable” to include things like ketchup and relish!!! btw this wikipedia article is twice as long as the "ketchup" page
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Alissa Rivero @alissarivero.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
My first paper (with Jared Vasil and Mike Tomasello) is officially published! 🎉 Question: When can children coordinate decisions with each other in groups? Answer: Age 3! Read it here: academic.oup.com/chidev/advan... 🧵 (1/6)
academic.oup.com
Two- and three-year-olds coordinate decisions in dyads and triads
Abstract. Even young toddlers coordinate actions with a partner. But coordinating choices or decisions is more challenging, particularly in multi-party gro
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Social Epistemology Journal @socialepistemology.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
➡️ 🔓 [OPEN ACCESS] “Is the Far-Right Anti-Science? Hierarchies, Metapolitics and Struggles for Epistemic Authority” by Catherine R. Baker 📖 Read the full paper here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... #SocialEpistemology #FarRight #Gender #Race #PhilosophyofScience #Journal #Article
tandfonline.com
Is the Far-Right Anti-Science? Hierarchies, Metapolitics and Struggles for Epistemic Authority
The right-wing actors are widely described as being anti-science. However, while the far-right often rejects science outright when it conflicts with their ideological, economic, or cultural priorit...
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Antonio Martínez Ron @aberron.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Sadí de Buen, el médico que impulsó la mayor campaña contra la malaria en España al que fusiló el franquismo. Por @calvoroy.bsky.social www.eldiario.es/1_cdafbb?utm...
eldiario.es
Sadí de Buen, el médico que impulsó la mayor campaña contra la malaria en España al que fusiló el franquismo
Los trabajos entre 1920 y 1936 del epidemiólogo, fusilado por los sublevados hace 90 años, rozaron la erradicación de la malaria, que repuntó tras la Guerra Civil, con la organización antipalúdica des...
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Grace Lindsay @neurograce.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
This paper shows how measures and constructs in psychology get introduced but rarely reused. Would love to see a similar analysis done on methods of analyzing neural data. A Fragmented Field: Construct and Measure Proliferation in Psychology" Anvari et al., 2025 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Treemap plots for (top) personality and social psychology and (bottom) clinical and health psychology. Each tile shows one measure, labeled with its acronym if it fits on the tile. Larger tiles indicate that the measure has been used a higher number of times; the many smaller tiles show fragmentation.
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Per Engzell @pengzell.bsky.social · 28/11/2025
A thread of directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) that look like record covers... because that's EXACTLY what the world needs 1. Huey Lewis and the News: link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...
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Sebastian Dieguez @sebastiandieguez.eurosky.social · 25/08/2026
Tu l’avais vu celui-là @floriancova.bsky.social ?
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Aidan McGlynn @aidanmcglynn.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
It was only a matter of time
Epistemic Assholes
Cameron Boult
Synthese (forthcoming)

Abstract
In this paper, I develop and defend the concept epistemic assholes. An epistemic asshole is someone who exhibits a distinctive form of epistemic badness characterized not by gross irrationality or hostility to truth, but by a stable, entitled disregard for one’s epistemic relations with others. Drawing on Aaron James’s (2012) account of moral assholes, I examine how people can systematically exploit epistemic cooperation by allowing themselves special advantages—such as “freedom from inquiry”, “doxastic comfort”, and “freedom to criticize”—while remaining insulated from criticism by an entrenched sense of entitlement. The resulting view, the Relational Approach to Epistemic Assholes (REA), explains why epistemic assholes are not epistemically the worst, yet are nonetheless deeply galling. After motivating the need for this concept, I show how REA captures both “impure” cases (involving both epistemic and moral assholery) and “pure” epistemic assholes, whose objectionable conduct is driven by epistemic aims themselves. I further explore connections between epistemic assholes and epistemic vice, and the causal role that epistemic assholery can play in active ignorance and epistemic exploitation. Through this latter connection, I argue that epistemic assholes play an insidious causal role in sustaining objectionable social power dynamics. The concept of epistemic assholes provides a valuable lens for understanding and calling out important but often-hidden hazards in our social epistemic environment.
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Journal of Applied Philosophy @the-joap.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
#NewArticle #OpenAccess #Philsky #Philosophy Performative Blame Avoidance | Nicolas Nicola Read it here 👇 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Performative Blame Avoidance
Sometimes we avoid or minimize criticism for our failings by performing a merely symbolic act aimed at addressing a real or perceived blame allegation. Consider individuals or institutions performing...
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Arthur Prat @arthurpr4t.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
We broke Weber's law. By manipulating the prior (ie the frequencies of small and large magnitudes), we changed how people's accuracy depended on magnitude. When large magnitudes were more frequent, subjects became more precise about them. This points to efficient coding, dynamically implemented.
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Mr. Blabalino 🇳🇴🇺🇸💙 @blabalino.com · 22/08/2026
Found this recording of Rita Moreno performing “Fever” on The Muppet Show from 1976. 14/10
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roterote @roterote.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Here is the full suspension letter from UGent that was sent to Nathan Cofnas, it shows ample reason for his suspension and potential termination. Including breach of contract, using the University of Ghent’s name and legitimacy to promote his racial supremacist views and causing reputational damage.
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Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 22/08/2026
Musk decoder: "in five years" = in 25 years "in ten years" = in 150 years "one day" = never
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Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science bot @oecs-bot.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Reasoning evolved not as a solitary quest for truth, but as a specialized social tool for evaluating and producing arguments with others. Reasoning and Argumentation by Hugo Mercier doi.org/10.21428/e2759450.96cf440a #CognitiveScience
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "Reasoning and Argumentation" by Hugo Mercier. By a common definition, reasoning is the private mental act of weighing reasons to decide whether to accept a given conclusion. In argumentation, reasons in favor of a conclusion are exchanged between
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Sebastian Dieguez @sebastiandieguez.eurosky.social · 21/08/2026
C’est regrettable, mais c’était difficile de faire autrement: cette chronique est indispensable et il n’existe malheureusement aucune autre personne au monde capable d’écrire dans un magazine de philo.
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Anthony Pecqueux @pecqueuxanthony.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
[Veille] J'avais raté le 1er volet, voici le second de la 𝘙𝘦𝘷𝘶𝘦 𝘥𝘦 𝘮𝘦́𝘵𝘢𝘱𝘩𝘺𝘴𝘪𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘦𝘵 𝘥𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘭𝘦 consacré à "Responsabilité" & dirigé par Simon-Pierre Chevarie-Cossette Il faut feuilleter les sommaires des 2 livraisons; ici un article du même Chevarie-Cossette sur les excuses chez Strawson 1/2
shs.cairn.info
Strawson et les excuses
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Phil Corlett @philcorlett.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
New from @m-meyer.bsky.social myself and team: osf.io/preprints/ps... We asked whether people in the general population endorsed misidentification-like delusions. They do! Surprisingly often.
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Ian Boudreau @ianboudreau.com · 19/08/2026
This is framed as though it's a subversion of the tech but this is what the glasses are for
futurism.com
Teen Boys Are Using Meta Glasses to Harass and Bully Girls at High Schools and Middle Schools
Teen boys are using Meta's AI glasses to harass and bully victims -- overwhelmingly girls -- at middle schools and high schools.
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André Loez & podcast Paroles d’histoire @andreloez.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Hello la team profs d'histoire! La reprise approche et pour nourrir vos cours, vos évals ou vos curiosités n'oubliez pas de faire un tour sur la page "L'HISTOIRE PAR LES TEXTES" sur le site @aphg.fr Des centaines de documents à consulter et à partager. Ajouts bienvenus ! www.aphg.fr/lhistoire-pa...
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Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
New: An "expert witness" in a $61 million lawsuit over an industrial explosion that killed three people and destroyed 200 homes used ChatGPT to write his report for the court. He prompted ChatGPT to "show how 3M is 0% at fault for the explosion at Watson Grinding" www.404media.co/show-how-3m-...
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lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Shilling your book off a bloke's suicide is just so classless wtf, is he not rich enough already!? Bring back shame.
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Janne M. Korhonen @jmkorhonen.fi · 16/08/2026
If someone says "University of Ghent" from now on, pretty sure my first reaction will be "oh the place that hired a white supremacist antivaxxer who spent Ghent money to hound one academic to suicide and wants to hound others in order to become a professor of race 'science' and eugenics at Harvard?"
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Tobias Kube @tobikube.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Is 10% the same as 1 in 10? It is not, our results suggest, at least not in terms of how people respond to such likelihoods when it comes to medical diagnostic information. Results speak to the importance of thoughtful likelihood framing in clinical practice. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti....
sciencedirect.com
When ‘unlikely’ is not the same as ‘likely not’: Effects of likelihood framing and numerical format on patients’ responses to normal diagnostic test results
Communicating the results of diagnostic testing is a central task in clinical practice. Even when results are normal, patients may remain concerned, p…
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depths of wikipedia @depthsofwikipedia.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
amazing article
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Jessie Sun @jessiesun.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
New paper on virtue trade-offs in everyday life, led by my PhD student, Qilin Zhang! A growing literature emphasizes trade-offs between competing moral principles (e.g., kindness vs. honesty), but are such trade-offs ubiquitous in everyday life? 1/5
Screenshot of abstract from PDF of an article titled "Virtue-Trade-Offs in Everyday Life".
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Sebastian Dieguez @sebastiandieguez.eurosky.social · 12/08/2026
Superbe série d’articles sur les spectres et fantômes!
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Cool Bike Art @coolbikeart1.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Cognitive psychologist Jean Piaget takes a tootle Happy #BicycleBirthday, Jean! August 9 (1896-1980)
Two photos of Jean Piaget. On the left he's riding a bike. On the right he's parking a bike in bicycle parking lot.
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Cedric Boeckx @cedricboeckx.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Great preprint by @jingnandu.bsky.social @annebillot.bsky.social @wendysun23.bsky.social @gregoryhickok.bsky.social & Randy Buckner, showing that human language engages nested distributed networks each specialized for distinct components of language processing 🧪🧠🗣️ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Multiple Nested Distributed Language Networks in the Human Brain
Brain regions specialized for language have been extensively described, yet their arrangement into one or multiple networks remains debated. Using precision functional mapping across three independent...
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Futurism @futurism.com · 08/08/2026
We did see that coming.
trib.al
Meta Caught Paying Nazis to Post on Facebook
An investigation found that Meta has been paying prominent neo-Nazi accounts to post on Facebook through its invite-only monetization program.
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-Boulet- @bouletcorp.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
J'en peux plus de vos conneries en IA, même pour vos takes de gauche. C'est de la chiasse. C'est de la merde jaunasse, pas drôle, mal branlée, qui ne raconte rien. Le moindre dessin de presse réalisé par un humain est mieux foutu et plus intéressant que ce dégueulis. Arrêtez, bordel.
De la chiasse IA: Une mauvaise parodie de couverture d'un album d'Asterix. On y voit Obelix chasser d'un grand coup de pied une romaine nommée Brecelectronix qui s'envole au son de son bracelet électronique. Elle a les traits de Marine  Le Pen. L'ensemble est confus et moche, et a probablement coûté 4h de flotte à robinet ouvert, mais qu'est-ce qu'on en a à foutre, hein ?Montage IA de chiasse avec 3 images superposées :
- vampire vs soleil 
- Superman vs Kryptonite 
- Facho vs Livres d’histoire
Évidemment le facho est un gros bonhomme en marcel parce que hihihi on est très intelligent les fachos ils sont MOCHES hihihi. Il fallait absolument accélérer la destruction des métiers artistiques et de la planète pour faire cette vanne qui aurait été exactement aussi efficace avec des bonshommes-bâtons mais on n'aurait pas eu les reflets sur la tête du gros monsieur (il est gros parce que pour dire que quelqu'un est moche il FAUT qu'il soit gros, mais on n'est pas grossophobes parce que ça c'est de droite)
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Aidan McGlynn @aidanmcglynn.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
One regret I have is not sitting in on @bryanpickel.bsky.social's course on Stebbing before he moved to Glasgow - this is a nice review of Chapman's recent collection of her papers, making the case that it's a good introduction to her work but also that specialists will learn things too:
ndpr.nd.edu
Susan Stebbing: Philosophical Papers
Susan Stebbing (1885-1943) was a prominent analytic philosopher in the generation after Russell and Moore. Stebbing was highly influential on the post-war gene…
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Petter Törnberg @pettertornberg.com · 06/08/2026
We keep asking what social media does to voters. The wrong end of the pipe. Platforms don't just distribute politics — they teach political actors what kind of speech pays. So I measured the going rate: what X, Bluesky and Mastodon reward in public speech. 🧵 arxiv.org/abs/2607.04220
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David Colaço @davidcolaco.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
My chapter in the book "Scientific Mistakes and Mistaken Science: Malfunction, Error, Failure" is now available online: My chapter is titled: "Detecting Phenomena in Datasets: Is the Rest Noise?" (This is microwave oven case) #philsci #philsky link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...
link.springer.com
Detecting Phenomena in Datasets: Is the Rest Noise?
When detecting scientific phenomena, researchers often aim to separate datasets into signal and noise. This signal-noise distinction captures that not all data one collects are relevant to this phenom...
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Wajahat Ali @wajali.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...
theguardian.com
‘If we don’t fight back, we don’t have a future’: the journalist taking on the ‘tech fascists’ of Silicon Valley
As Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and their peers have grown richer and more influential, Gil Durán argues they have all but abandoned democracy – and found the perfect government to enable them
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Vivek Nityananda @viveknityananda.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Very proud of the special issue of Animal Behaviour I worked on with @wascherclaudia.bsky.social and @nicolakoyama.bsky.social on addressing biases in animal behaviour. Thanks to all authors- plenty of cool papers to read. Here's our editorial: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @asab.org
sciencedirect.com
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Anthony Guihur @anthonyguihur.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Quelque soit le partie politique 👌 « On sait que les personnalités sombres sont davantage attirées par le pouvoir, sans nécessairement chercher à améliorer la société » wp.unil.ch/uniscope/hon... www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
wp.unil.ch
« Honnêteté » et « humilité », ces qualités qui entravent l’accès au pouvoir - L'uniscope
Une étude internationale, à laquelle l’Unil a participé, s’est penchée sur l’analyse des comportements sous la coupole.
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