Marc Malmdorf Andersen

This was such a fun conversation about childhood, play, and agency across cultures. Thanks for having @sheinalew.bsky.social & I on the show!

Recreational Fear Across Childhood. A Cross-Sectional Study of Scary Activities that Children Enjoy - Child Psychiatry & Human Development This study investigated the prevalence of children’s engagement in recreational fear activities — i.e., playful engagement with scary stimuli where both fear and enjoyment are experienced. A detailed ...

🚨 Kids LOVE fear?!🚨
Our new study led by Mihaela Taranu from the Recreational Fear Lab uncovers something surprising:
Children across all ages actively seek out scary experiences - for fun!
📄 doi.org/10.1007/s105...
[1/🧵]

Fear play is mostly social - done with parents, siblings, or friends. And it might serve a purpose: helping kids manage emotions, evaluate risks, and above all promote learning. This is the first study to show how common that is across childhood.
👏👏 Amazing work, Mihaela! Congratulations! 👏👏
[4/🧵]

🪶 They ask to poke a dead bird with a stick.
📱 They sneak peeks at horror clips online.
🏚️ They dare each other to jump from the shed roof.
🔪 They test how close their finger can get to a knife’s edge.
These might sound concerning or odd - but they’re developmentally typical!
[3/🧵]

We asked 1,600 parents of kids aged 1–17 what scares their kids - in a fun way. Climbing trees till their legs shake. Racing bikes downhill. Watching scary movies. Pretending to be monsters. Teasing older siblings. Playing with fire.
👉 93% enjoy at least one scary activity.
[2/🧵]

Recreational Fear Across Childhood. A Cross-Sectional Study of Scary Activities that Children Enjoy - Child Psychiatry & Human Development This study investigated the prevalence of children’s engagement in recreational fear activities — i.e., playful engagement with scary stimuli where both fear and enjoyment are experienced. A detailed ...

🚨 Kids LOVE fear?!🚨
Our new study led by Mihaela Taranu from the Recreational Fear Lab uncovers something surprising:
Children across all ages actively seek out scary experiences - for fun!
📄 doi.org/10.1007/s105...
[1/🧵]

Our daily lives are packed w complex behaviours: reading a novel & piecing together the plot; negotiating decisions w family... How do we build mathematical models of the underlying cognitive mechanisms? Our new preprint osf.io/d2v54_v1 argues for a community approach A 🧵 1/

Well deserved!

Postdoc in medical anthropology/STS - Ledig stilling på Aarhus Universitet Ledig stilling ved Institut for Klinisk Medicin - Interacting Minds Centre (IMC), Aarhus Universitet

Now is the time to go write 📝 your application for this exciting postdoc position in our project exploring how the shift from animal to human-based research models shapes science and society 🔬🌍
Deadline Monday Apr 27

www.au.dk/om/stillinge...
@interacting-minds.bsky.social

Exclusive: a Nature analysis signals the beginnings of a US science brain drain A trawl of job views and application data suggests jobseekers are looking abroad as the Trump administration’s cuts to science take hold.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Our registered exploratory pilot programme using offline tabletop role-playing games hashtag #TTRPG to mitigate social anxiety and reduce problematic involvement in online video games has just been published at Royal Society Open Science @royalsociety.org

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Can playing Dungeons and Dragons be good for you? A registered exploratory pilot programme using offline tabletop role-playing games to mitigate social anxiety and reduce problematic involvement in mu... Gamers with poor self-concept, high social anxiety and high loneliness are more at risk of problematic involvement in video games, such as massively multiplayer online role-playing games. There is a r...

Thrilled to share the publication of "Can playing Dungeons & Dragons be good for you?" led by the brilliant @joelbillieux.bsky.social and his fantastic team. I was lucky to play a small part in this epic quest. 🎲🐉🧟‍♀️🔥⚔️

Link: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

#DnD #MentalHealth #TTRPG

Can playing Dungeons and Dragons be good for you? A registered exploratory pilot programme using offline tabletop role-playing games to mitigate social anxiety and reduce problematic involvement in mu... Gamers with poor self-concept, high social anxiety and high loneliness are more at risk of problematic involvement in video games, such as massively multiplayer online role-playing games. There is a r...

Thrilled to share the publication of "Can playing Dungeons & Dragons be good for you?" led by the brilliant @joelbillieux.bsky.social and his fantastic team. I was lucky to play a small part in this epic quest. 🎲🐉🧟‍♀️🔥⚔️

Link: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

#DnD #MentalHealth #TTRPG

Very cool modelling work by @drelenamiu.bsky.social @ndersen.bsky.social @sheinalew.bsky.social @felixthehauskat.bsky.social, on how childhood exploration drives population-level innovation in cultural evolution
(C.O.I: I have a horse in that race: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36845441/)

New pre-print out with @ndersen.bsky.social @sheinalew.bsky.social @felixthehauskat.bsky.social on how childhood exploration drives population-level innovation in cultural evolution www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Recent Global Temperature: Acceleration or Surge? RealClimate has an excellent post about how exceptional the years 2023 and 2024 were (in terms of global temperature). Here are annual averages since 1970, data from NASA:

Has global warming accelerated?
„At that rate (0.1 °C every 3 years), after we blow past 1.5 °C (this year or next?) it’ll take just 15 more years to reach 2 °C.“

tamino.wordpress.com/2025/03/23/r...

PhD call: Investigate how spatial language and mental body maps are modulated by ageing. Behavioral exps and f/MRI & MEG used to map the structural and functional variability of brain regions known to be involved in linguistic and non-linguistic spatial processing.
Deadline 15 March.

We are looking for a Phd student for a project on modeling second language learning using adaptive cognitive tutors.

Please share with anyone who might be interested! phd.arts.au.dk/applicants/o...

Our new paper is out! 🚀
BaYaka hunter-gatherer children are 3x more active than WHO recommendations & stay active as they age—unlike US/UK kids, whose activity declines with the start of formal schooling 📉.
Read more in @SciReports:
rdcu.be/d72T1

New article by Arnault-Quentin Vermillet, Joshua Skewes and Christine Parsons published in Emotion

Men and women’s waking patterns to infant crying: Preparenthood differences are insufficient to explain uneven sharing of nighttime care

psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?d...