Jenna Watling Neal

Want to promote transparency and clarity in network research by helping develop 𝐆𝐮𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐑𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐍𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚 (𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐃)?

Sign up to get involved here: tinyurl.com/help-with-GR...

▪️ All career stages welcome
▪️ All fields welcome
▪️ Be compensated for your time

Republicans are more likely than democrats to think the government should play a role in encouraging people to have kids.

But, there's also less support among Republicans for any actual government policies like subsidized childcare, family medical leave, or IVF coverage.

I'm looking for a PhD student to do some trailblazing at the frontier of personality genomics and lifespan gene-environment transactions (start Fall 2026)! If you want to work with me: psychology.msu.edu/graduatestud...
(PS @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social is taking a student too, in moral psych/dev!)

A calico cat sleeping in a blue chair near a sunny window.

(No) Labor Day

Not that there would be anything wrong with demonizing meat...

I'm disappointed in NPR's sensationalist coverage of this new UN report. They paint the issue as a problem (it's complicated), hold women responsible (they're not), and mainly describe the perspective of pro-natal think-tanks.

For a different take on the issue, check out thechildfree.org

Hostile Attribution Biases and Evaluation of Vocally Enacted Responses to Peer Provocation in Early Adolescents Hostile Attribution Bias (HAB) is the tendency to perceive ambiguous social information as threatening. The social information processing (SIP) model provides a theoretical framework for determining ....

In a new paper, Payton Nault and Michele Morningstar demonstrate that hat hostile attribution bias is linked to youth’s evaluation of tone of voice when selecting responses to peer provocation
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Temperament, Parenting, and Trajectories of Anxious and Regulated Shyness in Chinese Children: A 4‐Year Longitudinal Study Anxious shyness refers to social inhibition and wariness toward familiar peers or authority figures, possibly due to concerns about negative social evaluation. In contrast, regulated shyness is chara...

Publication alert! A 4-year longitudinal study by Xiyuan Xu and Lijn Zhang illustrates the complex interplay between temperament and culture in the development and differentiation of shyness in childhood.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Congrats! We’ll miss you!

I just found out that the Sunbelt in Paris has a bluesky account! @sunbelt2025paris.bsky.social‬

The politics of pronatalism and the two-child benefit cap - British Politics and Policy at LSE Nigel Farage supports the scraping the two-child benefit cap as a way of encouraging people to have more children. But pronatalist policies that offer a one-off "baby bonus" are not effective.

Another excellent piece from a demographer, this time Stuart Gietel-Basten, on how "pronatalism is a dead end"

"Without addressing the root causes of low fertility—inequality, instability, and the incompatibility of work and family life—top-down efforts to “encourage” childbearing will fail"

A common claim in #EvoPsych is that the persistence of psychological sex differences in gender-egalitarian* countries shows that the differences are innate. I've argued that ignores the highly-gender-unequal media environment. Now @larawood.bsky.social has proved me right!

#EHBEA
#HBES

Ironic that transit from #NetSci2025 @netsciconf.bsky.social is disrupted due to failure of a high-betweenness node.

Mr Predator and Mrs Prey: Gender Stereotypes in Children's Films Correlate With Explicit and Implicit Gender Stereotyping Children acquire gender stereotypes at a young age and these subsequently influence cognition and behavior. Stereotypes may be learned through a child's direct observation of gender differences as we...

Children’s animated films inaccurately and consistently portray predators as male and prey as female. Young children learn and maintain these gender stereotypes into adulthood.  

See thread by @larawood.bsky.social or read the whole paper
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Software and Data satellite at @netsciconf.bsky.social:

Mr Predator and Mrs Prey: Gender Stereotypes in Children's Films Correlate With Explicit and Implicit Gender Stereotyping Children acquire gender stereotypes at a young age and these subsequently influence cognition and behavior. Stereotypes may be learned through a child's direct observation of gender differences as we....

🚨New publication... Children's films contain innacurate gender stereotypes and these corresespond to children's (and adult's) implicit and explicit gendered associations.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Read thread for more details...

I'm excited to be participating in this #NetSci2025 satellite on sharing network data and software next week!

Oh! I really like that idea. I’d love to see the form you used.

Hi #AcademicBluesky

I'm prepping a new writing intensive undergrad course & am looking for resources and fun activities to build writing skills.

Any recommendations of what has worked for you? Bonus points for content related to AI, crafting clear arguments, and outlining papers.

Thanks!

We invite abstracts for short papers describing an interactive classroom activity designed to illustrate, demonstrate, or reinforce network features or processes. Submissions are welcome for activities designed: • for teaching about any network feature or process • for any level of student (e.g., high school, undergraduate, graduate) • for any discipline (e.g., social science, natural science) • for any course (e.g., specialty course on networks, general course with a module about networks) We especially encourage abstracts co-authored by instructors who have designed/used the activity and students who have participated in the activity. Authors of selected abstracts will be invited to submit a full paper in Spring 2026. Invited submissions will be peer-reviewed, and accepted papers will be published open-access in Connections at no cost to the author. Submit your abstract (up to 300 words) to zpneal@msu.edu by 15 September 2025

𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐀𝐋𝐒

𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐈𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐞 𝐨𝐧
"𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐦 𝐀𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐓𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐍𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬"

Do you use a classroom activity to help students understand networks? Share it with others in Connections!

Submit your abstract (up to 300 words) to zpneal@msu.edu by 15 September 2025

No thank you

When what a tie is/represents remains undefined, interpreting any network analysis of those "data" becomes an impossible exercise in reading tea leaves.

Knowledge and comfort predict teaching about sexism in school teachers - Social Psychology of Education Although lessons about sexism can increase gender egalitarianism in children, teachers often shy away from discussing sensitive topics, such as sexism, in classrooms. We conducted two studies to exami...

Our new paper finds that knowledge and comfort predict greater teaching about sexism: link.springer.com/article/10.1..., which is why we created a website with resources for teachers: www.teachgenderequality.org. Please share our resources! @surreypsychology.bsky.social @socialpsychology.bsky.social

Empathy as a Risky Strength: Associations With Parent and Child Depressive Symptoms in Middle Childhood Healthy human relationships incorporate empathy; yet empathy may sometimes be a risky strength. Here we examine whether links between parent and child depressive symptoms are moderated by child empat...

Check out this paper by Planalp and colleagues who show that empathy, while essential in human relationships, can be a risky strength, as it may lead to personal distress and higher depressive risk.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Researchers should share the network data and materials necessary to reproduce reported results via a publicly accessible repository when an associated manuscript is published...but access to or use of shared data and materials may be restricted if necessary to avoid harm or comply with regulations

Interested in the intersection of #OpenScience and #NetworkScience? Check out the new @insna.bsky.social Recommendations for Sharing Network Data and Materials.

Read the recommendations 👉 www.zacharyneal.com/datasharing

Endorse the recommendations 👉 forms.gle/sgpjyUnkufJF...

Six trapezoids.

1. Quick—which of these shapes is different from the others?

AERA, in partnership with the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness, has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Education over the unlawful dismantling of the Institute of Education Sciences. www.aera.net/Newsroom/AER...

Photo of a gray-brown otter with a white chest. He is holding a rock in front of him with both hands and looking down fondly at it. His fur is spiky and slightly wet. He has long white whiskers and a small wrinkled brown nose. The caption reads "Did you know? Otters have a pocket in their skin to keep their favorite rock in. Some keep the same rock their entire lives."

It's been a heavy week! The only heaviness these otters have to worry about is the weight of their favorite object. Rock on, otters! 🪨🦦

Goodnight!

The Real Reasons Autism Rates Are Up in the U.S. A hard look at whether the rise comes from more awareness, better diagnosis—or something else

My expertise is not in autism, but I find this to be a good explainer of why rates of autism have increased. And it ain’t vaccines. www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-....

An overhead shot of people walking across a street. The text says MSU study finds number of US nonparents who never want children is growing.

An overhead shot of people walking across a street. The text is a quote from Zachary Neal: “We knew from our prior research that childfree adults were a large and growing group in Michigan. These new results confirm this is part of a nationwide trend that has been unfolding for over 20 years.”

An MSU study found that the percentage of nonparents in the United States who never want children has doubled over the past 20 years.

Full story here: psychology.msu.edu/news-events/...

Co-authors of study: @zpneal.bsky.social @jennawneal.bsky.social ✨

#PsychologyResearch #Childfree