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Seth Pollak @sethpollak.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Research articles from this Special Section are freely available at academic.oup.com/chidev/issue

academic.oup.com

Issues | Child Development | Oxford Academic

Child Development

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Seth Pollak @sethpollak.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

6 years after COVID, did the pandemic permanently damage a generation? Not really. Children suffered, some more than others. But the latest research suggests COVID did not offset their learning. The research and what we should learn: academic.oup.com/chidev/artic... Free articles in comments.

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Seth Pollak @sethpollak.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

The idea that kids learn best when they feel secure seems obvious, but new research from the UW–Madison shows how a child’s trust in their parents shapes their willingness to explore. Kids who feel their parents are unreliable explore less – even when it's vital to learning. youtu.be/SyaKVJ2Ctsk

youtu.be

Playing It Safe: How Parental Unpredictability Shapes Children’s Willingness to Learn

YouTube video by SciTube

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Seth Pollak @sethpollak.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Why do stressful childhood experiences lead people to make maladaptive choices? This study suggests early experiences lead individuals to expect environments to be volatile, explaining why their decisions feel appropriate to them. shorturl.at/e0tZC 🧪 @kesmith.bsky.social @payampiray.bsky.social

Teenagers red high-tops standing in front of arrows pointing in many directions

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Seth Pollak @sethpollak.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

How do humans learn to weight signals when reasoning about emotions? Children change both kinds of cues they rely on and the ways they use cues in their reasoning. New work from Andrea Stein using adorable stimuli, too. 🧪 dx.doi.org/10.1111/desc... #cogsci #devsci #AffectSci #PsychSciSky

A 3D cartoon alien with a round pink face looks forward. It has large green eyes, a small pink nose, bright blue lips, and short orange eyebrow shapes above its eyes. Blue ear-like shapes stick out on both sides of its head. Two thin antennae rise from the top of its head and bend outward, each ending in shiny, speckled spheres. The background is plain light gray.

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Seth Pollak @sethpollak.bsky.social · 18/08/2025

Demonstrates that while preschoolers initially rely on perceptual information from faces, this diminishes with age; the crux of emotional development in children shifts to conceptual knowledge gained through social experience. 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41... #cogsci #devsci #AffectSci #PsychSciSky

image shows four children posing as if they are thinking or considering an option with thought bubbles depicted above their heads

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Seth Pollak @sethpollak.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

Great talk and fun conversations!

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Seth Pollak @sethpollak.bsky.social · 29/03/2025

🧪 Call for Papers: Rigorous science that examines children's developmental trajectories in the long shadow of COVID-19, with a special focus on heterogeneity among children’s developmental contexts, social experiences, and outcomes. www.srcd.org/call-papers-...

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Seth Pollak @sethpollak.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

New issue of Dædalus on caregiving. Megan Gunnar @rjc3kids.bsky.social and I discuss science parents can rely on to make decisions about care of children. www.amacad.org/sites/defaul... OPEN ACCESS bit.ly/3Qm49ha www.amacad.org/sites/defaul... 🧪 #devsci #psychology #developmentalpsychology

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Hakeem Jefferson @hakeemjefferson.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

It is simply not enough for universities to say, “Our grants & research offices are looking into how research will be affected by the latest directive.” University leaders must actively and very publicly make the case for the kind of work many of us do. The silence on this front is deafening.

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Seth Pollak @sethpollak.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

Childhood adversity influences future decision-making. This systematic review suggests adversity shifts individuals to prioritize information about risks and de-value information about reward- which is likely adaptive in adverse contexts. authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S... @kesmith.bsky.social

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Kristin Valentino @kvalentino.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

Check out this very special Special Issue honoring Dante Cicchetti! I’m grateful for the opportunity to discuss my ideas about the future of the field and to honor my legendary mentor. Fun to read all the other contributors’ ideas too!

field.read

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Ben Rosenberg 🧠👨🏻‍🔬 @benrosenberg.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

I have barely opened the Table of Contents and can already feel my heart racing with excitement... This looks like a truly exceptional special issue! I cannot wait to read it.

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Seth Pollak @sethpollak.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

The special issue of Development and Psychopathology entitled “The Future of Developmental Psychopathology: Honoring the Contributions of Dante Cicchetti” is published! My intro to the volume is doi.org/10.1017/S095... A link to all of the papers from luminaries is in the field is in the comments

doi.org

Continuing the momentum of developmental psychopathology: Lessons learned from the seminal contributions of Dante Cicchetti | Development and Psychopathology | Cambridge Core

Continuing the momentum of developmental psychopathology: Lessons learned from the seminal contributions of Dante Cicchetti - Volume 36 Issue 5

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Martha W. Alibali @marthaalibali.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

Postdoc positions in math cognition & math education! The RISE Postdoctoral Training Program at UW-Madison seeks applicants interested in inclusive mathematics education and in ensuring greater participation in STEM by learners from diverse groups. More info in the flyer and via the QR code.

Info about the training program, which is also at risepostdoc.wcer.wisc.edu

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The Onion @theonion.com · 16/12/2024

‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens theonion.com/no-way-to-pr...

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Karen Smith @kesmith.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

Posting here as well as on the other app. Finally getting around to sharing our (@sethpollak.bsky.social) new theoretical paper! We challenge assumptions around the role of arousal in emotion, highlighting ambiguity in how the construct is defined and measured. journals.sagepub.com/eprint/XWGB4...

journals.sagepub.com

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

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Reposted by Seth Pollak

Ellen Roche @ellroche.bsky.social · 15/12/2024

“Arousal might refer to some set of processes underlying emotion but evidence for its role in emotional experiences and behavior is at best mixed and imprecise” from @kesmith.bsky.social & @sethpollak.bsky.social (Reading as I prep an arousal coding template 💃)

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Seth Pollak @sethpollak.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

Thanks Lior. Always happy to chat more with you!

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Seth Pollak @sethpollak.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

In modern psychology, “affect” refers to the mental counterpart of internal bodily sensations. Affect is part of all emotions but not specific to any particular emotion. We explain this more in Box 9 of the paper with Lisa Feldman Barrett I sent you earlier.

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Seth Pollak @sethpollak.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

Hi Marco! Affect is not emotion. Affect is a property of consciousness that is "on" at every moment, regardless of whether you are experiencing an instance of emotion or not. You can find some good definitions of these terms at the end of this paper: journals.sagepub.com/stoken/defau...

journals.sagepub.com

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

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Seth Pollak @sethpollak.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

Postdoctoral positions in Emotion Research. Come and collaborate with 24 training faculty across disciplines in the nation’s longest standing emotion research training program (also home to the country’s largest local farmers market). Applications are due on Friday, February 7,2025. emotion.wisc.edu

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Seth Pollak @sethpollak.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

Arousal is a construct that feels intuitive and simple but lacks consistent evidence for its role in emotion and is often employed in vague and inconsistent ways, lacking both clarity and usefulness. Thoughtful commentaries from David Sander, Julian Thayer, Bruce Friedman, and Otniel Dror follow.

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Seth Pollak @sethpollak.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

A cheeky new paper that may challenge assumptions about emotion (hopefully, in a productive way). “Arousal Might Not Be Anything to Get Excited About” journals.sagepub.com/share/W6VFCD... asks: Is there really evidence for arousal, or is it just a placeholder for unexplained aspects of emotion?

journals.sagepub.com

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

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Seth Pollak @sethpollak.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

Computational approaches to language at UW-Madison! jobs.wisc.edu/jobs/assista...

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Seth Pollak @sethpollak.bsky.social · 27/09/2024

Lots of research attention to how we learn to infer other people's feelings. We always give a nod to the importance of context but don’t often integrate this into a task. Here, we examine how children versus adults combine facial and contextual cues. rdcu.be/dVjs5

rdcu.be

Children’s and Adolescent’s Use of Context in Judgments of Emotion Intensity

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Seth Pollak @sethpollak.bsky.social · 14/03/2024

New work led by Madeline Harms examines the structure of explore-exploit decision making using four commonly used paradigms to advance understanding of how individuals adapt to changing environments over time. authors.elsevier.com/a/1ikHr2Hxod...

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Seth Pollak @sethpollak.bsky.social · 08/03/2024

Cortisol’s Diurnal Rhythm Indexes the Neurobiological Impact of Child Adversity in Adolescence - Exciting new work led by Birdie Shirtcliff! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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Seth Pollak @sethpollak.bsky.social · 04/03/2024

Deadline for nominations for the APA Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award is March 15. Much more efficient and simpler nomination process than in the past: www.apa.org/about/awards... Help recognize someone who influenced your thinking!

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Seth Pollak @sethpollak.bsky.social · 27/11/2023

Early experiences influence how humans learn from and adapt to their changing circumstances www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Children who experienced their lives as less predictable explore less, and therefore have fewer opportunities to learn about environments and the people in them

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Seth Pollak @sethpollak.bsky.social · 25/11/2023

Come study children's emotions and learning with us at the UW-Madison Child Emotion Lab. Post-doc fellowships on the NIMH Training Program in Emotion Research. Apps due February 2, 2024 (but please contact me before applying). childemotion.waisman.wisc.edu emotion.wisc.edu

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