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Stefan Pfattheicher

@stepf.bsky.social
335 followers 322 following 49 posts

Here to share The Transparent and Open Science Game: osf.io/t9ngd boredom | empathy | pro- and antisocial behavior and traits | pasta | Aarhus University

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Reposted by Stefan Pfattheicher
Klaus Pforr @klauspforr.eurosky.social · 02/10/2026
The sheer figure of 20% blows my mind. Experts are probably well aware of that. That seems to be a little higher than the chances for russian soldiers to die within one year on the front. And we talk about scaring them away by depriving them of money or putting them in camps. And people think it's
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Thomas Talhelm @thomastalhelm.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
🚨 It's published! 🚨 This is the big one. 100 cultures, 12,000 people, 108 researchers. Why people (and our most-used surveys) get collectivism wrong and how to fix it. www.nature.com/articles/s41... @natureportfolio.nature.com
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Sergio Pirla @sergiopirla.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
New paper out in SBE! Self-employment is linked to lower boredom, a relationship that is not captured by traditional measures of well-being. A less boring life may be an overlooked (an independent) component of the well-being gains from self-employment! link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com
Boredom and psychological well-being among the self-employed - Small Business Economics
Individuals not only seek a happy and meaningful life, but an interesting rather than a boring one. In this paper, we analyze data from 19,000 individuals across 25 European countries to demonstrate t...
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Stefan Pfattheicher @stepf.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
What about this bsky.app/profile/elif...
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Reposted by Stefan Pfattheicher
David Roberts @volts.wtf · 23/08/2026
I hope everyone caught this Lancet study confirming that Elon Musk & DOGE are responsible for genocidal levels of suffering & death.
thelancet.com
Evaluating the impact of two decades of USAID interventions and projecting the effects of defunding on mortality up to 2030: a retrospective impact evaluation and forecasting analysis
USAID funding has significantly contributed to the reduction in adult and child mortality across low-income and middle-income countries over the past two decades. Our estimates show that, unless the a...
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Michael Bang Petersen @m-b-petersen.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Vaccination is collective action: Vaccination helps others by hindering disease-spread But there is an incentive free-ride: if enough others vaccinate, you don't need to pay those costs In a new paper, we provide new evidence with data from 6+ mil covid-vaccinations: osf.io/preprints/ps... 🧵1/7
Abstract
Classical theories in health psychology explain individuals’ decisions about whether or not to
engage in protective behavior such as vaccination during a health emergency as guided by
trade-offs about personal risks and benefits. Yet, vaccinations involve a clear collective action
component, where individuals can protect others by getting vaccinated, beyond the personal
benefits. Following recent research, we develop the argument that individual differences in the
motivation to engage in collective action should influence vaccination decisions during the most
significant health emergency in the 21st century, the COVID-19 pandemic, above and beyond the
predictors proposed by classical theories. We test this argument by combining survey observations
from 380,516 unique Danish adults with population-wide registry data on COVID-19 vaccination
status for 6.1 million individuals in Denmark, of whom 4.9 million received at least one vaccine
dose. Using this unique data infrastructure, we compare classical psychological correlates of
protective behavior with psychological measures of individual-differences in collective action motivation.
The results demonstrate collective action motivation was more strongly associated with
vaccination behavior than threat appraisal or coping appraisal across the vaccination sequence,
spanning completion of the recommended primary vaccination course, booster receipt, time to
full vaccination, and vaccination uptake among the children of survey respondents. Furthermore,
high levels of collective action motivation strongly weakened the role of personal considerations
that would otherwise deter vaccination uptake, both in terms of whether or not the individual
gets vaccinated and how quickly the individual gets vaccinated. These findings provide important
information on the prerequisites of successful vaccination campaigns during major health crises
and how governments and authorities can facilitate them.
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Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
what on EAAAAAAARTTTTTTHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Narcissism. In the interest of maximizing data availability and minimizing social desirability and self-deception biases, we measured CEO narcissism unobtrusively (Chatterjee and Hambrick, 2007, Grijalva et al., 2020). Consistent with prior research on CEO narcissism (e.g., Cragun et al., 2020, Ham et al., 2017, Ham et al., 2018, O’Reilly et al., 2014), we collected four unobtrusive indicators of CEO narcissism and created a composite index: (1) the prominence of the CEO’s photograph in the company’s annual report; (2) the CEO’s signature size; (3) the CEO’s cash compensation divided by that of the second-highest paid executive in the firm; and (4) the CEO’s non-cash compensation divided by that of the second-highest-paid executive in the firm (Chatterjee and Hambrick, 2007, Ham et al., 2017). These formative indicators reflect CEOs’ tendencies to be portrayed as special and superior—both in centering their images and identities in company communications and in displaying entitlement to pay themselves more than others (e.g., Oesterle et al., 2016, Rijsenbilt and Commandeur, 2013). Of the 318 CEOs, 259 CEOs had available data for all four indicators. To ensure the most accurate representation of where each CEO fell in the population, we standardized each narcissism indicator using all available data.2 Our results were consistent in magnitude and direction when we standardized the data after removing CEOs with missing data from the sample.
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Reposted by Stefan Pfattheicher
Brendan Barrett @bjjbarrett.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
excited about this one: using longitudinal movement data and dyadic models, we show that orangutan moms adjust their ranging patterns so their kids can play with age-mates independent of kinship, at personal costs. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Mothers with similarly aged offspring share more space, and their offspring play more.
Posterior effect sizes from social relations models (SRMs) of (a, b) infant-infant play scans (n = 996
infant-dyad-years across 79 mother dyads) and (c) mother-mother home-range overlap (Bhattacharyya coefficient; n
= 282 mother-dyad years across 71 mother dyads). Panel (a) shows the hurdle component (probability of play
occurrence), sign-flipped so positive values indicate higher probability of play occurrence; panel (b) shows the count
component (play frequency). Points and thick and thin lines show posterior medians with 66% and 89% credible
intervals, respectively. (d) Counterfactual home-range overlap for each dyad when offspring are the same age versus
6 years apart. Points show posterior medians across all mother-mother dyads (one horizontal bar per dyad);
background densities show population-level predictions. (e) Offspring age-difference effect on home-range overlap
versus intersection area. (f) Posterior difference between the two effects (BC overlap minus intersection area).
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Rasha Kardosh @rasharasha.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
Out in PNAS pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Inequality is not only hard to solve. Sometimes, it is hard to *see*. We ask a simple question: Do people notice when members of minority groups are absent? Across field studies and experiments, the answer was often no.
pnas.org
PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
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Nicholas A. Coles, PhD @nicholascoles.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
Can gratitude interventions make the world happier? We tested 6 gratitude practices across 34 countries with 10,696 participants to find out — and the answer is more interesting than a simple yes 🧵 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
pnas.org
A multinational megastudy of the effects of gratitude practices on subjective well-being | PNAS
Scholars have observed people from a variety of cultures using a variety of gratitude-related practices to change their emotions, outlooks, and soc...
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Robert Böhm @robertboehm.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
🚨NEW PREPRINT🚨 together with Jürgen Huber & Michael Kirchler: “Massaging Significance in the Age of Open Science: A Satirical Tutorial,” which is a public service for anyone unwilling to let inconvenient data get in the way of a compelling narrative. 😉 Link to preprint: osf.io/preprints/ps...
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Reposted by Stefan Pfattheicher
Malte Elson @malte.the100.ci · 24/04/2026
This is why we (@jamiecummins.bsky.social @bethclarke.bsky.social and I) have developed RegCheck, a tool that automatically checks for potential deviations. regcheck.app
regcheck.app
RegCheck
RegCheck is an AI tool to compare preregistrations with papers instantly.
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Stefan Pfattheicher @stepf.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
Show participants the decisive winner-loser moments of an NBA game, then immediately ask (economic) zero-sum beliefs.
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Stefan Pfattheicher @stepf.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
Interesting paper, the experimental evidence could be oversold though. In S3 and S4, the effects are small, about .18 to .20 points on a 7 point scale, d = .15 to .16 (p-values .007 & .018 - one-tailed). Also likely, conceptual overlap between IV and DV & demand effects:
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Reposted by Stefan Pfattheicher
Oded Rechavi @odedrechavi.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
Every PI
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Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 01/04/2026
Majestic, well done @rickcarlsson.bsky.social
The alt text for this image is available upon reasonable request.
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Stefan Pfattheicher @stepf.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
But also the smaller the n the larger effects you can find
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Reposted by Stefan Pfattheicher
Eiko Fried @eikofried.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
3 new studies on using psychedelics as treatments for mental disorders just came out; 2 in JAMA Psychiatry, 1 in Lancet Psychiatry. I reviewed one of these submissions. Here are the core results. 🧵
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Stefan Pfattheicher @stepf.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
In addition, "Two serious adverse reactions were reported after psilocybin, 25 mg, including 1 case of hallucinogen persisting perception disorder".
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Reposted by Stefan Pfattheicher
Jenny Saffran @jennysaffran.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
The fee to publish an open access paper at Trends in Cognitive Science is now over $7,000. Seriously, @elsevierconnect.bsky.social ??? For a 4,000 word piece? Talk about a broken system.
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Stefan Pfattheicher @stepf.bsky.social · 15/03/2026
Mein Handy ist mir auch ins Müsli gefallen.
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Reposted by Stefan Pfattheicher
Marc Malmdorf Andersen @ndersen.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
Denmark is often portrayed as a fairly equal society, but when looking at the distribution of wealth a different picture emerges. The richest 1% of the population owns more wealth than the bottom 82% combined. Wealth tax is now being debated. #dkmedier #dkpol #dkvalg (oxfam.dk/publikatione...)
oxfam.dk
Ny analyse: Top 1 pct. har mere formue end 82 pct. af den danske befolkning
En ny opgørelse viser, at de rigeste cirka 48.000 mennesker i Danmark har lige så meget formue som 3,9 millioner danskere tilsammen.
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Reposted by Stefan Pfattheicher
Joe Noonan @joenoonan.se · 13/03/2026
Coming up with a post-hoc theory section when your results are weird:
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Stefan Pfattheicher @stepf.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
Finally! 😄
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Stefan Pfattheicher @stepf.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
Wow the effect sizes are wild, a d of 21.5 on stress!! I'll get some Omega 3 now.
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Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 03/03/2026
Hannah Ritchie has built a fun little tool where you can compare energy usage of various products and activities. This is super helpful imho, because it's so hard to develop intuitions even just about the scales involved here. hannahritchie.substack.com/p/does-that-...
Screenshot of the "Does that use a lot of energy?" online app
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Stefan Pfattheicher @stepf.bsky.social · 01/03/2026
doi.org/10.1093/aje/...
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Stefan Pfattheicher @stepf.bsky.social · 01/03/2026
This is purely correlational. Authors themselves state "the cross-sectional nature of our study design precludes any causal interpretations. For example, non-normative action intentions may lead people to expressing heightened threat from repression”. Much more caution is needed, also in the title.
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Christopher Barrie @cbarrie.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
🧵on my new paper "Synthetic personas distort the structure of human belief systems" w Roberto Cerina I'm v excited about... 🚨 Do synthetic samples look like human samples? We compare 28 LLMs to the 2024 General Social Survey (GSS) to find out + develop host of diagnostics...
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Reposted by Stefan Pfattheicher
Peter Tennant @pwgtennant.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
This recent RCT of an "AI stethoscope" claims the technology "shows promise" for diagnosing cardiovascular conditions. It does not. It is a textbook example of the risks of conducting unprincipled 'per protocol analyses'. Once again, peer review at a major medical journal has failed. 🧵 1/
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Daniel Lakens @lakens.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
198 effect sizes in ego depletion resesrch showed an effect size of d=0.62. Preregistered large replications (including some by original authors) yielded an effect size of 0. No one has been able to offer any other explanation for this huge research waste than massive p-hacking.
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Dave Wenning @rxdavid.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
This too…
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Stefan Pfattheicher @stepf.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
Sorry, I don't understand how that addresses the issue of power and the robustness of each interaction.
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Stefan Pfattheicher @stepf.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
Cool idea, cool studies! I'm a little concerned though by the robustness of the central interactions. S1: p = .019, S2: p = .031, in S3 p = .036. Huge sample sizes are need for robust attenuated interactions doi.org/10.1177/2515...
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Malte Elson @malte.the100.ci · 14/02/2026
Just an aside: 41 of the 100 meta analyses published in Psych Bull between 2023 and 2025 do not include *any* quality screening of identified studies. To the degree that those literatures include bad studies, they are being laundered together with the good ones.
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Stefan Pfattheicher @stepf.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
Just had a similar experience at Scientific Reports. We will submit to Meta Psychology, great outlet! open.lnu.se/index.php/me...
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Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 22/01/2026
Positive and negative self-esteem are two (or one?) such offenders that I cover in my blog post. www.the100.ci/2023/06/13/d...
the100.ci
Disentangling the Dark and Bright Side of Constructs with a Bright and Dark Side
This blog post resulted from a draft that was supposed to become a proper article at some point. Michael Dufner and Tailcalled both worked on the draft and contributed important ideas. But, as so ofte...
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Stefan Pfattheicher @stepf.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
Scientific Reports is the new Frontiers, from my experience. Low quality control, high publication fees, they have a deadline for reviewers of 10 days.
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Stefan Pfattheicher @stepf.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
Many people, unfortunately, also just don't know how bad it is (one of my colleagues had no clue; now she has and she is angry).
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Stefan Pfattheicher @stepf.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
This is a chance for behavioral science. Moving away from weak online studies, weak experimental manipulations, and moving to studying real behavior in real life. Remember the 60s? Social psychology was real. Asch, Milgram, et al.
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John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 25/12/2025
Researchers recently asked Americans what income level other people need in order to live a good life. A whopping 86% of Americans reported income levels well below what others say they themselves need. Fascinating!
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Ruben C. Arslan @ruben.the100.ci · 18/12/2025
Finally, @bjoernhommel.bsky.social's and my paper introducing the SurveyBot3000 is officially out in AMPPS. It's a fine-tuned language model that guesstimates correlations between survey items from text alone. Not perfectly, but useful for search, for example. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Fig. 3. Scatter plots of the synthetic and empirical estimates, validation study (Stage 2). Showing N = 30,135 item-pair correlations, N = 257 scale reliabilities, and N = 1,568 scale-pair correlations for (top) the pretrained SBERT model and (bottom) the fine-tuned SurveyBot3000 model. SBERT = all-mpnet-base-v2 model.Fig. 4. Prediction error of the synthetic estimates, validation study (Stage 2). Our prediction model allowed the error term to vary freely according to the predictor, the synthetic estimate. The thin-plate splines show that some synthetic estimates were predictably more accurate.
Fig. 5. Accuracy by domain. Accuracy differed across domains. SurveyBot3000 accuracy (colored) was always higher than SBERT accuracy (gray). Results were largely consistent whether accuracy of items was tested (left, circle) within domains or (right, cross) across domains.Fig. 1. Multistep training procedure for the SurveyBot3000, which produces synthetic estimates of interitem correlations. (a) Pretraining base model (SBERT). (b) Fine-tuning SurveyBot3000. (c) Validation. SBERT = all-mpnet-base-v2 model.
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Sander van der Linden @profsanderlinden.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
New paper out in @science.org! We unveil the online manipulation market with the Cambridge Online Trust & Safety Index (COTSI). We show in real time the cost of purchasing fake accounts across every social platform around the world - so they can be held accountable www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Mapping the online manipulation economy
A market perspective on digital manipulation may help improve online trust and safety
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Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 09/12/2025
Achal Agrawal is on Nature’s list of 10 people who shaped science in 2025. His work helped change India’s university rankings system to include a penalty for large number of retractions. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
This science sleuth revealed a retraction crisis at Indian universities
Achal Agrawal is part of Nature’s 10, a list of people who shaped science in 2025.
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Christoph Schild @schildchristoph.bsky.social · 09/12/2025
🚨STOP, replication time!🚨 Does Feeling “Right” Make the Good More Good (and the Bad More Bad)? Achar & Lee found that when people experience regulatory fit, moral predispositions get amplified—moral folks act more moral, less moral folks act less moral. Big, exciting claim!
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jon ben-menachem @jbenmenachem.com · 08/12/2025
Our new study provides rare causal evidence about NYC’s speed camera program. We find large reductions in collisions (30%) and injuries (16%) near intersections with cameras. www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1... @astagoff.bsky.social ky.social @brendenbeck.bsky.social nbeck.bsky.social 🧪
pnas.org
Can speed cameras make streets safer? Quasi-experimental evidence from New York City | PNAS
Each year, approximately 40,000 people die in vehicle collisions in the United States, generating $340 billion in economic costs. To make roads saf...
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Karolina Ścigała @kascigala.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
Does “feeling right”—that is, experiencing regulatory fit—lead us to act more in line with our moral preferences? With @schildchristoph.bsky.social and @stepf.bsky.social, we conducted a series of the first large-scale, independent close replications in the field of regulatory fit.
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Snowden St. @snowden.st · 02/12/2025
Currently dorking out over this graph about child mortality with my brother. Just mind boggling to take in.
chart of child mortality in history, roughly 48% for all societies across the globe…until the 20th century, where it plummets to 4%
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Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 01/12/2025
"We will call the 12th month of the year 'December'... which means 'tenth month.'"
Screenshot of SNL's George Washington sketch from 10/28/23 with Nate Bargatze
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Stefan Pfattheicher @stepf.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
Sharp analysis on why 'Why $100,000 Is the New Poor' www.yesigiveafig.com/p/part-1-my-...
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