Andrew Chalfoun

YouTube video by TerriClarkVEVO Terri Clark - Better Things To Do

youtu.be/h1ScBNkXaJk?...

Wow! This is quite the song!

These are excellent! Thanks!

Nice! Maxwell's Silver Hammer was already in there but the others are great additions!

Working on a playlist for my students. What are people's favorite songs about violence? Bonus points if they're cheerful!

I have never felt more American than I do working on the proofs for a journal that enforces British spelling.

I will be hiring a full-time pre-doctoral Research Professional to work with me at Chicago Booth.

Know someone interested in studying conversation and connection? Please help spread the word!

More details, including application instructions, are here: www.chicagobooth.edu/-/media/facu...

This paper outlines a distributional approach to institutional analysis, reconceptualising institutions as distributions of knowledge and activity across people. We argue that institutionalisation and institutional change are best understood by focussing on actors with the requisite knowledge and motivation to keep institutional patterns going, fix them when they go awry, or transform them when required, here called functionaries. The distributional approach allows us to distinguish between two main types of institutional change often conflated in the literature: Content-based and formal change. Content-based change, the one most often discussed, involves the importation, recombination, or expansion of specific patterns of activity. In contrast, formal change, often neglected in the literature, refers to shifts in the distribution of knowledge and activity, leading to dynamics of centralisation and decentralisation of institutional patterns. In this way, the distributional approach highlights the role of functionaries in both institutional stability and change, providing a micro-level perspective on institutional dynamics.

New paper out with Marshall Taylor and @olizardo.bsky.social:

Functionaries: A Distributional Approach to Institutional Analysis

Instead of institutions as things that contain people, we suggest institutions as expertise distributed across people.

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

When cooking with garlic, always remember the fundamental rules:

1) If the recipe calls for 3-4 cloves, use double
2) If the recipe calls for 1-2 cloves, use triple
3) The little cloves are freebies; don't count them

Christianity and Politics in Tribal India - Reading Religion Through an ethnohistorical study of the Nagas—a congeries of tribes inhabiting the Indo-Myanmar frontier—this book explores an unusually interest...

New from me in @readingreligion.bsky.social! I reviewed G. Kanato Chophy's book "Christianity and Politics in Tribal India," which documents an interesting case of the relationship between religious identity and ethno-national mobilization.

Volume 67, issue 1, of TSQ is now LIVE, featuring articles by @achalfoun.bsky.social, @gio-rossi.bsky.social, @daeunjung.bsky.social, @djhardingsoc.bsky.social, @criminovelist.bsky.social, @mmaroto.bsky.social, @dnpetti.bsky.social, @andiewinnipeg.bsky.social, and more!

Read it at bit.ly/45ezfzx

A Researcher Made an AI That Completely Breaks the Online Surveys Scientists Rely On We can no longer trust that survey responses are coming from real people.”

We can no longer trust that survey responses are coming from real people.”

Congratulations! 🎉

Secretly he really loves Reservoir Dogs but thinks admitting it would hurt his credibility

You should take this post down since it includes six people who voted no

Guess I'm watching a Mira Nair movie tonight

my paper with my colleague and friend Victoria Tran is finally out!

There may be no atheists in foxholes, but there plenty of agnostics in badger setts. And don't get me started all the freethinking that goes on in rabbit warrens

FREE TO READ

Andrew Chalfoun, Giovanni Rossi, & Tanya Stivers show that everyday requests are made with an optimistic stance. Across seven language communities, people ask as if the answer will be “yes,” revealing a pervasive optimism bias in routine interaction.

Read more at bit.ly/4oKjWWs

6/ Overall, we’re freer to just ask for big things than existing theory suggests. The pressure falls on recipients, who must respond to high-stakes requests—requiring their time, energy, or social capital—already set in motion by others.

5/ Turns out people use pre-requests only when there’s an obvious, local obstacle that can’t be ignored. But even then, they lean optimistic: 67% of pre-requests favor a positive outcome. Not “Are you busy...?” but “Are you free this weekend?”

4/ By contrast, opening with a pre-request (“Are you busy this weekend?”) tests the waters before the ask and offers an easy way out if needed. Smart move, right? But it’s also inherently pessimistic: it anticipates and draws attention to a potential problem.

3/ Instead of cautiously checking (“Are you busy this weekend?”), people usually dive straight in (“Can you help me move?”). They open with base requests 76% of the time, and those turns are overwhelmingly designed to nudge others toward yes.

2/ We looked at “major” requests—those that cost time, energy, or social capital. Only 21% got an easy yes. With big asks, resistance is the norm, not the exception. Still, people lead with optimism, and they do so in two main ways.

Incurable Optimism about Getting What We Want: Anticipating Success in Everyday Requests When asking for something significant from another person, speakers not only set the tilt of the question toward the affirmative or negative but also display an optimistic or pessimistic stance tow...

When we ask for something big—time, effort, money—do we hedge against rejection or assume success? With @gio-rossi.bsky.social & Tanya Stivers, we find that people are incurably optimistic, even though big requests often meet resistance. Published open access in @socquarterly.bsky.social. #EMCA

Photo of whooping cranes through binoculars

So glad to get to see Whooping Cranes today! Photo credit goes to @lenayeakey.bsky.social

Trump defends use of U.S. military against 'enemy within' Earlier, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the purpose of the department would exclusively be "war fighting."

JUST IN: President Trump has told top U.S. commanders that the military would be used against "enemy within."

The U.S. Military’s Recruiting Crisis The ranks of the American armed forces are depleted. Is the problem the military or the country?

Interesting moment to be fat shaming military personnel. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Man, for someone who can't follow a football game, I sure do use a lot of sports references

Nothing but love for reviewers who say, "I have principled objections to some of the positions taken in this paper, but it's a good paper that should be published anyway."