Todd Jennings

I will give another talk about mediation analysis and I have finally figured out what I want to say about "design-based" solutions:
- longitudinal data can help rule out certain types of confounding
- if you sequentially intervene on X and M, you need assumptions to piece the estimates together
>

DOGE is ending 8 months early. It will have cost us $135B to rehire workers, $21.7B in waste, a potential loss of more than $500B billion in tax revenue over 10 years & a loss of $10B in economic activity with the loss of programs that previously returned billions to taxpayers.

Study In The Journal Of Pediatrics Finds Trans Youth Care Lowers Suicidality, Few Detransition The groundbreaking study found that suicidality dropped for transgender youth receiving hormone therapy by nearly 70%, with only 7 patients of 432 discontinuing treatment.

1. A landmark study was just published in The Journal of Pediatrics.

It found a 68% reduction in suicidality for trans youth getting HRT.

It also found only 7 of more than 400 stopped taking HRT... and of those that did, 4 still identified as gender-diverse.

Transgender care saves lives.

This paper provides guidance and tools for conducting open and reproducible systematic reviews in psychology. It emphasizes the importance of systematic reviews for evidence-based decision-making and the growing adoption of open science practices. Open science enhances transparency, reproducibility, and minimizes bias in systematic reviews by sharing data, materials, and code. It also fosters collaborations and enables involvement of non-academic stakeholders. The paper is designed for beginners, offering accessible guidance to navigate the many standards and resources that may not obviously align with specific areas of psychology. It covers systematic review conduct standards, pre-registration, registered reports, reporting standards, and open data, materials and code. The paper is concluded with a glimpse of recent innovations like Community Augmented Meta-Analysis and independent reproducibility checks.

There is no reason why systematic reviews can't be open. The data used for synthesis is *already* open and there are many excellent open source tools that can facilitate the easy sharing of analysis scripts.

Here's a nice guide for performing open systematic reviews doi.org/10.1525/coll...

Research Assistant Professor in Personalized Medicine for the Treatment of Alcohol Use Disorder Seeking applicants for a Research Assistant Professor faculty position at the University of New Mexico on an NIH funded grant evaluating personalized ...

Research Assistant Professor position at @unm.edu - join a dynamic team working with @cassie-boness.bsky.social. This position is to work on an NIH grant evaluating personalized medicine approaches for the treatment of alcohol use disorder. Submit via UNMJobs by Nov 26: unm.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...

Techniques in Couples Therapy and Relationship Coaching — Sexual Health Alliance Elevate your expertise with top experts in couples therapy and relationship coaching at our evidence-based event on techniques and research in sexual health.

Next weekend, I’m giving a talk for the Sexual Health Alliance entitled “Naked and (Un)afraid: The Role of Body Image in Sexual Health, Functioning, and Satisfaction.” Join us!

Note: I was a late addition to the schedule, but I am presenting!! :)

sexualhealthalliance.com/couples-ther...

Major win for our field: finally a large, replicable effect.

Results of the replication are in!

Chocolate is more desirable than poop:

Cohen's d_rm = 6.20, 95%CI [5.63, 6.78]

N = 486, two single item 1-7 Likert scales of desirability.

w/
@jamiecummins.bsky.social

If you have two measures of the same confounder, you can just include both of them in your regression model Sometimes, researchers worry about multicollinearity in situations where it’s actually a non-issue. Here’s one such scenario. Imagine a situation where you are interested in the effect of X on Y (X...

New blog post!

Let's say you have two measures meant to capture the same confounder. They're highly correlated. Can you still proceed with your regression analysis?

(I admit, the title is a bit of a spoiler)

www.the100.ci/2025/10/13/i...

Statistical evidence in psychological networks - Nature Human Behaviour Psychometric network models have become increasingly popular in psychology and the social sciences. Huth et al. show that a large proportion of reported network findings are based on weak or inconclusive evidence inviting caution when interpreting results.

A new take on the limitations of "psychometric networks" now out in Nature Human Behavior. You don't want to put too much confidence in individual edges. Something we cautioned against in 2017.

1/2

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

I have a full course on R for Psychology and Neuroscience, which includes sample programs and lecture videos. Also has some recommended books on R programming. Perfect for beginners!
rworkshop.missouri.edu

Would love some recommendations for biostats texts! Especially biostatistics using R. Feeling a little out of my depth with this, but hoping to find a great resource for self-teaching.

YouTube video by HiTOP Using HiTOP in Research

We’ve just published another video on HiTOP that tries to flesh out a bit more how the framework can be helpful in research: youtu.be/q0jOi_Nl1yo

We hope it’s useful, and are keen to hear any feedback

Thanks again so much to @tashtc.bsky.social for all of her hard work creating this video series ✨

🚨 Position Alert! 🚨
I am looking for a full-time Research Scientist 1 to join my lab in Albuquerque, NM at the Center on Alcohol, Substance Use, and Addiction (CASAA). We will be studying how stress and trauma influence cannabis and substance use. 🧠🌿 (1/5)

Development of an Offline-Friend Addiction Questionnaire (O-FAQ): Are most people really social addicts? - Behavior Research Methods A growing number of self-report measures aim to define interactions with social media in a pathological behavior framework, often using terminology focused on identifying those who are ‘addicted’ to engaging with others online. Specifically, measures of ‘social media addiction’ focus on motivations for online social information seeking, which could relate to motivations for offline social information seeking. However, it could be the case that these same measures could reveal a pattern of friend addiction in general. This study develops the Offline-Friend Addiction Questionnaire (O-FAQ) by re-wording items from highly cited pathological social media use scales to reflect “spending time with friends”. Our methodology for validation follows the current literature precedent in the development of social media ‘addiction’ scales. The O-FAQ had a three-factor solution in an exploratory sample of N = 807 and these factors were stable in a 4-week retest (r = .72 to .86) and was validated against personality traits, and risk-taking behavior, in conceptually plausible directions. Using the same polythetic classification techniques as pathological social media use studies, we were able to classify 69% of our sample as addicted to spending time with their friends. The discussion of our satirical research is a critical reflection on the role of measurement and human sociality in social media research. We question the extent to which connecting with others can be considered an ‘addiction’ and discuss issues concerning the validation of new ‘addiction’ measures without relevant medical constructs. Readers should approach our measure with a level of skepticism that should be afforded to current social media addiction measures.

Had missed this absolutely brilliant paper. They take a widely used social media addiction scale & replace 'social media' with 'friends'. The resulting scale has great psychometric properties & 69% of people have friend addictions.

link.springer.com/article/10.3...

Transformation starts at the periphery of networks where pushback is less - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Transformation starts at the periphery of networks where pushback is less

Intervening on a central node in a network likely does little given that its connected neighbors will "flip it back" immediately. Happy to see this position supported now.

"Change is most likely [..] if it spreads first among relatively poorly connected nodes."

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

“Not only is change from baseline a very problematic response variable; the very notion of patient improvement as an outcome measure can even be misleading. A patient who starts at the best level and who does not worsen should be considered a success.”

Tell me why: An ecological momentary assessment study of “unknown” substance use motive endorsement and the predictive utility of affect Theoretical models of substance use motives emphasize the role of affect when making decisions about use and propose that there are moments during whi…

So excited to share my first, first-author publication where we used EMA to examine the prospective relationship between momentary positive and negative affect and an “I don’t know” response option when asked about motives for use. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

@drandreahoward.bsky.social, hold my beer..

Latent class growth models are worse than useless, and we've known this for more than 20 years.

(See Bauer 2007)

oh noooo

So much for the exclusion restriction I guess 😘

Chiles vs Salazar—Conversion Efforts Bans and Free Speech This Viewpoint discusses an upcoming US Supreme Court case that will examine whether Colorado’s ban on conversion efforts for minors appropriately regulates substandard clinical practice or is a viewp...

Our latest paper is out in JAMA Pediatrics, discussing the upcoming Supreme Court case that aims to overturn conversion therapy bans.
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

The psych job market may not be dead... but it is gravely injured 😬 So far it's looking like the Trump administration's attacks on higher ed/research are going to have more than 2x the impact on the job market as the covid-19 pandemic. #psychjobs #neurojobs #academicjobs

[cite_start]A screenshot of the first page of a court document from the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts[cite: 3]. [cite_start]The document is titled "MEMORANDUM AND ORDER" [cite: 43] [cite_start]and was filed on September 3, 2025[cite: 1]. The document lists two related civil actions: * [cite_start]**Civil Action No. 25-cv-11048-ADB**: President and Fellows of Harvard College, et al., Plaintiffs, v. United States Department of Health and Human Services, et al., Defendants[cite: 4, 5, 14, 17, 21]. * [cite_start]**Civil Action No. 25-cv-10910-ADB**: American Association of University Professors - Harvard Chapter, et al., Plaintiffs, v. United States Department of Justice, et al., Defendants[cite: 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 36]. [cite_start]The order is from Judge Burroughs, D.J.[cite: 44]. [cite_start]The text begins by identifying the plaintiffs in the consolidated cases[cite: 45].

A screenshot of pages 81 and 82 from a court order, detailing the judge's rulings and the relief granted. **Rulings:** * **For Harvard's case:** The court grants Harvard's motion for summary judgment on several counts, including violations of the First Amendment and Title VI. It grants in part Harvard's motion regarding the "Freeze Orders" and grants in part the defendants' motion regarding the "Termination Letters," citing a lack of jurisdiction. * **For the Organizational Plaintiffs' case:** The court grants the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment on their First Amendment claims and denies the defendants' cross-motion on several counts. The ruling on the "Freeze Orders" and "Termination Letters" mirrors the one in Harvard's case. **Ordered Relief:** 1. The court vacates and sets aside the Freeze Orders as arbitrary and capricious. 2. The court vacates and sets aside the Freeze Orders and Termination Letters as violations of the First Amendment. 3. The court vacates and sets aside the Termination Letters as violations of Title VI. 4. The court permanently enjoins the defendants from implementing the Freeze Orders, Termination Letters, and their unconstitutional conditions.

JUST IN: Harvard won summary judgment against the Trump administration with the court finding that the admin violated Harvard's 1st amend. rights. The court has vacated the funding freeze orders and termination letters and issued a permanent injunction.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Models as Prediction Machines: How to Convert Confusing Coefficients into Clear Quantities Abstract Psychological researchers usually make sense of regression models by interpreting coefficient estimates directly. This works well enough for simple linear models, but is more challenging for more complex models with, for example, categorical variables, interactions, non-linearities, and hierarchical structures. Here, we introduce an alternative approach to making sense of statistical models. The central idea is to abstract away from the mechanics of estimation, and to treat models as “counterfactual prediction machines,” which are subsequently queried to estimate quantities and conduct tests that matter substantively. This workflow is model-agnostic; it can be applied in a consistent fashion to draw causal or descriptive inference from a wide range of models. We illustrate how to implement this workflow with the marginaleffects package, which supports over 100 different classes of models in R and Python, and present two worked examples. These examples show how the workflow can be applied across designs (e.g., observational study, randomized experiment) to answer different research questions (e.g., associations, causal effects, effect heterogeneity) while facing various challenges (e.g., controlling for confounders in a flexible manner, modelling ordinal outcomes, and interpreting non-linear models).

Figure illustrating model predictions. On the X-axis the predictor, annual gross income in Euro. On the Y-axis the outcome, predicted life satisfaction. A solid line marks the curve of predictions on which individual data points are marked as model-implied outcomes at incomes of interest. Comparing two such predictions gives us a comparison. We can also fit a tangent to the line of predictions, which illustrates the slope at any given point of the curve.

A figure illustrating various ways to include age as a predictor in a model. On the x-axis age (predictor), on the y-axis the outcome (model-implied importance of friends, including confidence intervals). Illustrated are 1. age as a categorical predictor, resultings in the predictions bouncing around a lot with wide confidence intervals 2. age as a linear predictor, which forces a straight line through the data points that has a very tight confidence band and 3. age splines, which lies somewhere in between as it smoothly follows the data but has more uncertainty than the straight line.

Ever stared at a table of regression coefficients & wondered what you're doing with your life?

Very excited to share this gentle introduction to another way of making sense of statistical models (w @vincentab.bsky.social)
Preprint: doi.org/10.31234/osf...
Website: j-rohrer.github.io/marginal-psy...

Preregistration does not improve the transparent evaluation of severity in Popper’s philosophy of science or when deviations are allowed - Synthese One justification for preregistering research hypotheses, methods, and analyses is that it improves the transparent evaluation of the severity of hypothesis tests. In this article, I consider two…

New paper by Mark Rubin confirms that my conceptual approach to justify the practice of preregistration is coherent, and a solid and strong logic that provides a basis for preregistrstion in science: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

I often talk to international colleagues about how understanding mass shootings in the US is misguided without understanding the larger context of the fact that we just tolerate excess death from **all causes** at a rate that most high income countries do not

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES No. 25A103 NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH, ET AL. U. AMERICAN PUBLIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION, ET AL. ON APPLICATION FOR STAY August 21, 2025] The application for stay presented to JUSTICE JACKSON and by her referred to the Court is granted in part and denied in part. The application is granted as to the District Court's judgments vacating the Government's termination of various research-related grants. See Department of Ed. v. California, 604 U.S. _ (2025) (per curiam). The Administrative Procedure Act's "limited waiver of [sovereign] immunity" does not provide the District Court with jurisdiction to adjudicate claims "based on" the research-related grants or to order relief designed to enforce any "obligation to pay money pursuant to those grants. Id., at _ (slip op., at 2). And while the loss of money is not typically considered irreparable harm, that changes if the funds "cannot be recouped" and are thus "irrevocably expended." Philip Morris USA Inc. v. Scott, 561 U. S. 1301, 1304 (2010) (Scalia, J., in chambers). The Government faces such harm here. The plaintiffs do not state that they will repay grant money if the Government ultimately prevails. Moreover, the plaintiffs' contention that they lack the resources to continue their research projects without federal funding is inconsistent with the proposition that they have the resources to make the Government whole for money already spent. The application is otherwise denied.

BREAKING: The Supreme Court, on a 5-4 vote with Justice Barrett as the deciding vote, allows the Trump administration to cancel NIH grants as part of the administration’s attack on “DEI” while litigation proceeds. Five justices write. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24p...

I will be interviewing for a clinical psychology PhD student in the Precision Psychopathology + Dynamic Immunopsychiatry Lab this interview cycle.

Please see our website for more info about what we do + share with applicants you think might be a good fit.

share.google/uJRyS3NY9Kdo...

⚠️ UNM has a new non-clinical PhD program, Diversity & Health Data Science Across the Lifespan! This area adopts a multidisciplinary lens to frame research questions at the intersection of human development, health, and sociocultural diversity.

Details and faculty here: psych.unm.edu/graduate/pro...