iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by John V. Kane

Verasight @verasight.io · 02/10/2026

"The inflation rate is still positive, right? Prices are still increasing, just at a slower rate than before. Yet again, over half the sample said that that would mean that prices decreased. Again conflating rates with prices."

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Many thanks to @verasight.io for interviewing me about my recent research w/ @cbwlezien.bsky.social ! Had fun discussing how the public (mis)understands inflation information, and why it matters 👍

youtu.be

How do people process inflation news? The Effects of Inflation Information

YouTube video by Verasight

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Thank you for including me in here, Jay—what an honor!!! 🙏

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Excited to share this fully revamped WP w/ @cbwlezien.bsky.social on the effects of information about economic inflation on people's economic & political attitudes. Lots of great data from @verasight.io, two of my favorite experimental designs ever, plus some extra-fun @stata.bsky.social graphs! 😁

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

🧐 What do citizens think about "null results" in scientific research? To find out, @johnholbein1.bsky.social & I fielded a large-scale online experiment. We gave respondents straightforward info about a study, asked them some Qs, showed them the results, then asked them Qs again.

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

What happens when you remind Republicans that, if they give Trump more power, Democrats will one day engage in payback? ~GOP support for giving Trump more power goes ⬇️, BUT ~Democrats become more OK with it 🤯 Lesson for understanding democratic backsliding: time matters.⏰

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

🤯 Wow--truly humbled by this! #1 in the category of Social Sciences Research. Many sincere thanks to all those who've purchased "Truth Addict." I am immensely grateful and sincerely hope you are finding it useful, informative, and maybe even a little bit fun🙏

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

🚨Super excited to share this new WP with Joohye Jeong, @adamberinsky.bsky.social, Soong & Parker. We ask a simple but extremely practical Q for survey researchers: 𝐃𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐞 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐬/𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐲? Answer: Not really, no. 👍

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

OUT TODAY! 🥳 A straightforward, non-technical guide to thinking like a quantitative social scientist. Written for students, journalists, and curious citizens. A lot of thought and heart went into this. I genuinely hope folks enjoy it!

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

TODAY IS THE DAY! 🥳 "Truth Addict" is officially out! If you/your students want to understand the logic of quantitative research, but w/o the math & jargon, then I'm 95% confident you'll enjoy this book 😉 Anything you can do to help spread the world would be SO appreciated! 🙏

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

🥹IT'S REAL!!! I can hold it in my hand! My best attempt to explain the logic of quantitative social-scientific research--I truly hope folks enjoy it! It's officially out Aug 4th, but can be pre-ordered at @ucpress.bsky.social now *at 30% off* with discount code 𝐔𝐂𝐏𝐒𝐀𝐕𝐄𝟑𝟎. 👍

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

👋 Attn: Stata users, a recording of my two-day virtual seminar "𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐕𝐢𝐬𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐚" is now available on demand at the Instats website. I cover lots of different graphs and various tips & tricks for prettier visualizations! 😁 instats.org/seminar/bett...

instats.org

Better Data Visualizations in Stata - On-Demand Research Training | Instats

PhD-level seminar on Better Data Visualizations in Stata with John Kane . Live Q&A plus on‑demand access. Join via your university’s Instats membership or enroll directly.

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

My very first book interview has just been published! 🥳 Thanks to Christina Gessler at the outstanding @academiclife.bsky.social podcast for featuring me! Available for pre-order at University of California Press site, plus get 30% off with code 𝐔𝐂𝐏𝐒𝐀𝐕𝐄𝟑𝟎 😁 open.substack.com/pub/christin...

open.substack.com

Inside A Book: Truth Addict

The Academic Life Newsletter by Christina Gessler, Ph.D.

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

So excited to be featured in this spectacular new edited volume! Many thanks to @profkarpo.bsky.social & Jeremy Pope for putting this together, and of course to my co-authors @lilymasonphd.bsky.social and @juliewronski.bsky.social ! 😊

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

💡For those who teach intro to stats, I wrote up a series of ungraded assignments I've been doing for years in my class. Students build a dataset of their favorite movies, and each assignment helps them develop a key skill. Hope you find it useful! (Incidentally, I also reveal some of my favs.)👇

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

Had the sudden urge to make a custom scatterplot, and what else could this lifelong New Yorker possibly make right now but this? 🤞🤞🤞 (p.s., 𝘳 = -0.16)

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Happening this Monday morning! If you want to move beyond basic graphs in Stata, I hope to see you there! @statacorp.bsky.social

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

👋 Happening in 1 week: my data visualization seminar with @instats.bsky.social. If you or your students use Stata and want to up your graph game, this is designed for you. June 8 and 9, 10am-2pm Eastern. Link 👇

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

🚨 Do you or your students use @statacorp.bsky.social? Want to learn some tricks for better graphs? If so, I'm hosting a seminar w/ @instats.bsky.social on June 8 and 9! Lots of tips, tricks & guidance for clearer, prettier data viz for descriptive & inferential analyses. Pls spread the word! 🙏

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

🎉🎉🎉NOW AVAILABLE for Pre-Order! 🥳 So much thought, time, energy and love went into writing this. For those kind enough to order it, I genuinely hope you enjoy and find value in it. I tried my best to write for those who want to learn how to do quant social science research.

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

Until next time, Palmer House lobby. You used to terrify me, but now I kind of enjoy you 😊 @mpsa.bsky.social

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

🚨New working paper w/ the legendary @cbwlezien.bsky.social! Lots of talk about inflation & voters' political views. But how well do voters actually understand info about inflation? We find that most citizens conflate changes in rates w/ changes in prices. This has important consequences...

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Reposted by John V. Kane

Opinion Today @opiniontoday.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

Inflation Conflation: Our study reveals citizens' widespread tendency to conflate changes in the inflation rate with changes in prices. (@uptonorwell.bsky.social and @cbwlezien.bsky.social) preprints.apsanet.org/engage/apsa/...

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

🤩 The book has a cover! One step closer to being a real thing, floating around in the world, hopefully doing some good. Out August 4th via @ucpress.bsky.social 👍

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

ATTN: survey researchers: Just learned that Qualtrics now has an AI-powered prompt for encouraging respondents to give more detailed open-ended responses. 🤯 Could be a *really* simple and useful way to get better open-ended/qualitative data. 👍

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

🙏 Many sincere thanks to @sysilviakim.bsky.social & Brandon Ives at the Seoul Workshop for Empirical Research in Politics (SWERP) for inviting me to chat about null results in survey experiments. I loved it! If you would like to have me talk for your students/group, feel free to email/DM me! 😁

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

Happening tomorrow evening for US folks--𝐓𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟑/𝟏𝟐 𝐚𝐭 𝟗𝐩𝐦 𝐄𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧. I genuinely love this topic and hope you can join! 😁 @sysilviakim.bsky.social

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Stuart Soroka @snsoroka.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

I am excited about this new paper, Negativity & Misinformation, just out with @cbwlezien.bsky.social in @polcommjournal.bsky.social: "durable biases in information processing, by media organizations and humans more generally, can produce misinformation and misperceptions..." doi.org/10.1080/1058...

doi.org

Negativity and Misinformation

There are large and growing bodies of research highlighting inaccuracies in news coverage. In this paper, we suggest that negativity biases account for a substantial portion of longstanding inaccur...

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

Finally had some inspiration to play with the 'colorpalettes' package in @statacorp.bsky.social. Tried out one of the Wes Anderson palettes (originally made for R, I believe) and now I feel like I've been missing out for the past several years... 😕

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

🚨 Interested in survey experiments? I'll be giving a virtual talk on (false) null results in experiments--and how to protect against them--at SWERP on 3/13 (3/12 8pm EST). Hope to see you there, and thanks to @sysilviakim.bsky.social for inviting me! Link to join: swerp.netlify.app

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

🥳 Well, the small milestone has arrived. It's nowhere near many others, but it would've been impossible for me to imagine ever happening when I first started the PhD With the kids having school canceled today & tomorrow after a 9-day vacation, this is a nice gift. Thx citers!!!

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

🚨Fully revamped paper with @iganson.bsky.social: We study levels of, and partisan differences in, "unconditional political bias" (UPB). This is a partisan's own admission that *nothing* a politician could do would lower their support for that politician.

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Had a 𝐰𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐮𝐥 time presenting on survey experiments & null results in @semrasevi.bsky.social's class at U of Toronto! Such great student questions! 🚨If you would like me to present in your course, please feel free to reach out--I truly love talking w/ others about this topic!😁

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

Are Americans polarized in their attitudes toward higher education? 🤔 Using some @electionstudies.bsky.social data, the answer seems to be: Yes, but not dramatically so, and there's a tendency for more experience with higher ed. to be associated w/ more positive ratings. 👍

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

I will find it hard to pay much attention to his approval rating until it dips below this 35% mark. To me, that would signal a true shift. But it still might be unlikely. For reference, Richard Nixon—Nixon!—left office at 24%. That’s probably the real “floor,” not 0%.

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

💡For those teaching stats, data literacy, methods--I just wrote a short Medium piece for @asjadnaqvi.bsky.social's amazing Stata Gallery. The piece covers how and why graphs with two y-axes can be so deceiving. Includes an applied example (with code). Hope it's useful! 😁 Link 👇

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

Ever need to add reference lines in @statacorp.bsky.social graphs? If so, you've probably noticed that the lines go *behind* bars/bins. 🤷🏻‍♂️ Today I discovered a hack to fix this. Instead of using e.g., "xline()", use "scatteri". Ref lines will go *on top* of bars, not behind. Code in thread 👇

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

We all know about omitted variable bias: when X⬆️Y, Z is ➕ correlated w/ X & Y, & we omit Z, it biases the effect of X on Y upward (too positive).🥱 But what about when the true effect is 𝐧𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞? Is OVB just the mirror opposite, biasing the effect to be too negative? No.👇

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

Hoping to coin a new term: parAInoia Definition: The increasing feeling of dread (felt among teachers/professors while grading a paper) that a student's work was written, at least in part, by AI. Example: "It took forever to get my grading done because I was feeling intense parAInoia."

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

Stata users: if you aren't already, definitely start using bookmarks to create headings and sub-headings in your .do files. Such a big help! **# in a .do file creates a heading; **## = subheading; **### = sub-subheading. Then double-click on them to jump right to that section 👍

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

Always amazed how, each semester, teaching data analysis inevitably teaches me something new. This week I learned that spatially correlated residuals in FE models (w/ data from Bailey's great book) probably doesn't require clustering SEs. Thx to @nickchk.com's AMAZING website--what a resource! 🙏

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

I think a lot about how quant & qual methods relate/differ. At its best, qual research feels like shining a huge light inside the black box that quant folks often ignore. 👍 At its worst, qual research feels like a scatterplot for which the researcher gets to choose which dots to show. 😬

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Quantitude the Podcast @quantitude.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

Join us tomorrow as we repeat ourselves. Join us as we repeat ourselves tomorrow. Tomorrow, we repeat ourselves. Join us!

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Andrew Heiss @andrew.heiss.phd · 02/11/2025

Wrote up a little intervention post/explanation for my class about why using LLMs for trying to learn programming (as first time learners!) is bad and detrimental datavizf25.classes.andrewheiss.com/news/2025-11...

In the first week of class, I had you read an article about how ChatGPT is philosophical “bullshit”, as well as this other post about AI and LLMs in this class.

I’ve seen a surprising increase in the amount of ChatGPT-based weekly check-ins and graph interpretations in the exercises. (In the past, I’ve even had students tell me they PDFs of the slides into ChatGPT to generate interesting and confusing things.) Don’t do this! LLMs cannot find three things that you personally found interesting from the readings. LLMs are not you.

It’s a huge waste of time for all of us to for me to spend time evaluating and grading output from ChatGPT. I want to read what you think and do, not what a computer invents.

NoteMy personal stance on AI and LLMs
Many of you have asked about how I think about and use LLMs in my own work (and in the class materials). Please check this short little page where I explain what I do with text, images, code, research, and learning.

In short, I do not use LLMs to create any of the materials for this class, and I do not use them to grade or evaluate any of your work.

I’ve even had several students submit completely made up stuff for mini projects and final projects. In your final project, your job is to take a dataset, make three different plots with it, and combine the plots into one graphic that tells some sort of story. I’ve (really truly) received projects like this:

(a ChatGPT-generated plot of completely made up data from gapminder)

At a very quick glance, that looks like a plausible image. But holy crap it falls apart fast, both comically and tragically. Comically because, like, look at the y-axis in the scatterplot; or the x-axis ticks in the population grown chart that are sometimes spaced every 20 years, sometimes every 10 years, and has 1980 there twice; or the weird blobs in the map.

Tragically—and most importantly—literally nothing in this image is real and none of the annotations make sense and none of the colors make sense and everything here is completely meaningless and devoid of any information. It’s pure philosophical bullshit—an image “produced without concern for its truth.”

That’s what I mean when I say that it’s a forgetful and unreliable resource. Lots of that code is helpful as an illustration of what’s going on. Lots of the explanation is good and fine. But it subtly changed its mind halfway through and didn’t realize it (because it can’t realize it! it’s just a chain of statistically likely text!)

Hopefully you can see where this is dangerous for learning. It can often “teach” you wrong, and you can only recognize that if you know stuff already.

It’s extra dangerous if you then take that example output, paste it into your exercise, and submit it.

I’m not even concerned about the plagiarism aspect of that—code is code and there are only a few ways to write {dplyr} code that will do this, and it’s easy to adapt from real human-based examples online, so I’m less worried about stealing other people’s work here.

I’m concerned that it’s not real data.

It made up values of 1, 2, 3, and 4 for some countries to illustrate grouping and summarizing. That’s good and normal.

None of that is real. Don’t treat it as real.

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Nick Valentino @nickvalentino.bsky.social · 01/11/2025

ANES Data Release! electionstudies.org/data-center/... The 3-wave ANES panel is now available. It merges data from 3 election studies (2016-2020-2024), the first time the ANES has collected interviews of the same respondents across 3 presidential elections.

electionstudies.org

2016-2020-2024-panel-merged-study - ANES | American National Election Studies

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John V. Kane @uptonorwell.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

Halloween fun fact 🎃: "Skeleton" has its own IMDB page. 💀 In fact, it stars in one of my favorite horror movies as a kid: House on Haunted Hill (1959 version). Not necessarily the best performance in the film, but also not bad given that it lacks a central nervous system.

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