Kai Sassenberg

New paper, on a worrying trend in meta-science: the practice of anonymising datasets on, e.g., published articles. We argue that this is at odds with norms established in research synthesis, explore arguments for anonymisation, provide counterpoints, and demonstrate implications and epistemic costs.

Dear colleagues - we want to better understand perceptions of data fraud and its detection and need your support! Are you currently a #researcher in #psych (or related fields) working with #data? Perfect - please respond to & share this short study (7min): sosci.rlp.net/detection/?r... Thank you!! 🫶

If you have any questions regarding the position, please feel free to contact me via DM or email.

Deadline for applications: February 17!

Postdoctoral Researcher (f/m/d)

Job alert!

At Leibniz-Institut für Psychologie (ZPID), we are searching for a postdoc who works with us toward a better understanding of the need for Open Science support of researchers in psychology and to improve the user friendliness of our products.
leibniz-psychology.onlyfy.jobs/job/ylp9kss4

Oxford University ‘withheld information about harassment claims’ Miles Hewstone, who quit in 2019 but retained his emeritus titles for years, is accused of making unwanted advances towards students and researchers

Miles Hewstone, who quit in 2019 but retained his emeritus titles for years, is accused of making unwanted advances towards students and researchers

(S+) Klimapolitik der Bundesregierung: Fünf Entscheidungen für die Energiewende 2026 Umweltminister Carsten Schneider wacht über die deutschen Klimaziele, doch seine Kabinettskollegen arbeiten oft gegen ihn. Was jetzt passieren muss, damit die Energiewende eine Chance hat.

Übrigens: Im digitalen Zeitalter könnt ihr mit eurer Aufmerksamkeit einen Unterschied machen. Medien messen die Klicks von Artikeln. Je mehr ihr Klimainhalte klickt, lest und teilt, umso größer der Antrieb sie zu veröffentlichen

www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft...

Nah dran: Zählen heute noch Argumente? Sozialpsychologe Kai Sassenberg | BR.de

🎙️ Wissenschaft im Gespräch

Zählen Gefühle mehr als Fakten?

@kaisassenberg.bsky.social war zu Gast beim Radio #BR2 und sprach darüber, warum persönliche Überzeugungen zunehmend als Argumente genutzt werden.

🎧Ganze Folge hier: www.br.de/radio/bayern...

#psychology #podcast

In other words, our results failed to replicate the impact of co-opetition on flexibility. We discuss the impact of online data collection and changes in the understanding of competition as potential causes of the failed replication. 4/4

In the new paper, two conceptual and one direct replication (total N = 1,340) found no difference in cognitive flexibility after / in co-opetition compared to the other types of interdependence. Bayesian analysis showed strong evidence against an effect (BF10 < 0.05). 3/4

In 2016, we studied the impact of co-opetition–the demand to cooperate and compete with the same target–on cognitive flexibility. Back then, we found that compared to pure competition and cooperation, experiencing co-opetition increases cognitive flexibility (eg, generating more diverse ideas). 2/4

The Impact of Co-Opetition on Cognitive Flexibility: A Replication Study of Landkammer and Sassenberg (2016): Social Psychology: Vol 56, No 4

New paper alert: @claudiaaraya.bsky.social and I published a failed (conceptual and exact) replication of one of the studies I published with Florian Landkammer 10 years ago doi.org/10.1037/xge0... on the impact of conflicting demands on cognitive flexibility 1/4
econtent.hogrefe.com/doi/full/10....

Do fears drive media consumption? A longitudinal study on the relationships between different fears and media consumption during COVID-19 in Germany During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, cross-sectional work identified differential relationships between health-related vs. economic fears and the consumption of quality versus alternativ...

New paper co-authored with @kaisassenberg.bsky.social and @lpummerer.bsky.social out: We used five waves of longitudinal data to untangle how health vs. economic fears relate between- and within-subjects to quality vs. alternative media use www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

We are hiring a new Ph. D. student on neuroimaging and/or computational modeling on motivation and emotion. Tübingen is a great place to pursue work on these topics!!

uni-tuebingen.de/fakultaeten/...

At ZPID we are searching for a tenure track assistant professor for Psychological Metascience in joint appointment with @unitrier.bsky.social preferably someone who has conducted quantitative research in metascience in psychology or related disciplines. Questions? Feel free to contact me personally.

Join us for the EASP 2026 Preconference:
"Social Psychological Processes of Collective Memory"
@easp2026.bsky.social ✨

With @olivierklein.bsky.social @jrvollhardt.bsky.social @michelletwali.bsky.social @elifsandal.bsky.social @laurentlicata.bsky.social

Submit here: www.easp.eu/news/itm/cal...

Researchers are often advised to "reveal the person behind the science" in #scicomm to appear more approachable and trustworthy to their audiences. But does this really work? 🤔 In this short piece for Current Opinion in Psych, I review the recent literature... 👇 1/3
doi.org/10.1016/j.co...

Wir haben eine Promotionsstelle an der @zbw-leibniz.bsky.social ausgeschrieben, Vollzeit, ohne Lehrverpflichtung, mit Einbindung in das @econbiz.econtwitter.net.ap.brid.gy Team.
Bewerbungen bis 14.11. möglich. Fragen gerne auch an mich.
www.wiso.uni-hamburg.de/fachbereich-...

How to design your academic website - Nature Human Behaviour An academic website serves as both a public-facing window on the world wide web and an important internal laboratory resource. In this ‘How to’ piece, I outline how to build your academic website, inc...

#AcademicSky

IMO, academics spend too much time on social media relative to having a basic, solid, useful website.

Some tips here from @gribblelab.org

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

In a new preprint led by @abitter.bsky.social we tested whether open data is useful for reproducibility and usage based on automated and human assessment of data FAIRness. The short answer is: in the majority of cases not really. For more information 👇

#AcademicSky #PrejudiceResearch #PsychSciSky

Our new paper out in American Psychologist.

Led by Meleady, with @debshulman.bsky.social, Kotzur, & Crisp.

Contact "ruptures" (going to university; studying abroad) ==> changes in outgroup attitudes longitudinally

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

Very cool: Lisa Spitzer has made a deviation from preregistrations template, which you can find here: apps.leibniz-psychology.org/prp-dev/

“Knowing what I don’t know” – belief in conspiracy theories relates to lower metacognitive sensitivity: a signal detection theoretic approach Beliefs in conspiracy theories are seemingly hard to dispute through facts. Researchers have partly attributed this resistance to certain information processing styles that are associated with cons...

Why are some people more prone to believe in conspiracy theories? Part of the answer may lie in metacognition, i.e., the ability to correctly estimate one's own knowledge about topics.
-> New paper with @kwinter.bsky.social, @kaisassenberg.bsky.social & Helen Fischer
🔗 doi.org/10.1080/2044...

🌟 From now on we are active with three pages at Bluesky! 🌟

@zpid.bsky.social
@zpidjobs.bsky.social
@psychopengold.bsky.social

#OpenScience #leavingX

Research posts on Bluesky are more original — and get better engagement Bluesky posts about science garner more likes and reposts than similar ones on X.

@nature.com finds science posts on #Bluesky are more original, and earn far higher engagement. Need we say more!?
#Twitter #X #SocialMedia #ResearchSky #AcademicSky

One week left to apply.

Doctoral Researcher (m,f,x)

🚨 We’re hiring! 🚨
The Social&Environmental Psychology Group @ruhr-uni-bochum.de is recruiting 2 PhDs and 1 Postdoc
as part of the ERC-funded SUSCON project on sustainable consumption.

Details here:

PhDs:👉 jobs.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/jobposting/7...

Postdoc:👉 jobs.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/jobposting/e...

Inducing flexibllity mindsets are among the few treatments that influence, in particular, those with pronounced attitudes (not just the undecided fence sitters).
This link might provide you easier access to the paper
authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

Flexibility mindsets: Reducing biases that result from spontaneous processing Spontaneous (i.e., heuristic, fast, effortless, and associative) processing has clear advantages for human cognition, but it can also elicit undesirable outcomes such as stereotyping and other bias...

Flexibility mindsets had similar effects on environmental intentions when induced within or outside the environmental domain. These results add to a line of research @kwinter.bsky.social and I and a number of other colleagues have conducted over the last > 10 years.
doi.org/10.1080/1046...

Flexibility mindsets enhance pro-environmental behavioral intentions among those with a low pro-environmental default tendency Environmental psychology provides several promising approaches to enhance pro-environmental behavior. However, these are usually only effective within…

New paper alert: @kwinter.bsky.social Laura Henn, and I show in 3 studies (N = 1005) that flexibility mindsets (induced by cognitive conflicts) enhance pro-environmental behavioral intentions among those initially low in pro-environmental attitudes.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Strong conspiracy beliefs about COVID = lower perceptions of procedural justice

Study: Conspiracy beliefs predict perceptions of procedural justice www.nature.com/articles/s41...