Aaron D. Cherniak

Psychologists & related fields: what is a big methods question that you believe remains somewhat unanswered & that you'd love to see adressed? There may be an opportunity for a large-scale meta-science project with many teams trying to figure out a question.

Any thoughts welcome! #psychscisky

Received notice that this article was selected as an @apajournals.bsky.social Editor's Choice!
"Editor’s Choice papers represent the best science in each area of our discipline, reflecting science that is exceptionally important, impactful, and deserves additional visibility for the whole field."

How prescient was this- even before Grok was seemingly trained on Mein Kampf

Last year, @jacobsaday.bsky.social and @trpr-ucsf.bsky.social asked: "Psychedelic assisted psychotherapy: where is the psychotherapy research?"

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

How soon can we say "here it comes"?

There are pros and cons to different types of study design. Your post mischaracterizes the study and my comments about it. I encourage you to read the study more closely. Also there is a difference between how some people *can* use something and how the general population does.

Feature on our recent paper

Psychedelics linked to religious disaffiliation—but not spiritual change—in large-scale study Psychedelics are often described as spiritual tools—but do they change people’s religious beliefs? A large new study found that while psychedelic use was associated with religious disaffiliation, it did not cause lasting changes in religiosity or spirituality over time.

Psychedelics linked to religious disaffiliation—but not spiritual change—in large-scale study

Thank you to the Open Science of Religion project funded by @templetonfdn.bsky.social

Psychedelics might gently reorient the compass of meaning, but they don’t build or destroy temples. Their impact on spirituality is personal, evolving, and never guaranteed.

Full link -> doi.org/10.1037/rel0...

We highlight the context-dependence of psychedelics and their effects and relating them to secularization-related trends. While mystical experiences are widely reported, long-term shifts may be more subtle — and shaped by existing beliefs and life context.

1) In 2 birth cohorts from the UK (N>22k), we compared the frequency of religious changes (vs. stability in affiliation) among users vs. non-users.
2) In a prospective study (N=9,732), we compared users vs. non-users on changes in sense of religiosity and spirituality.

New #openaccess in @apajournals.bsky.social Psych of #Religion and #Spirituality:

How do #psychedelics affect religiosity/spirituality?
Do psychedelics increase the likelihood of religious conversions?

We (Pehr Granqvist & I) explored these q's in 2 large preregistered longitudinal studies:

Survey for APA members: baylor.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
Win 1 of 10 $50 gift cards.

The first webinar in our series, entitled: Psychedelics: Past, Present and Future, is slated for 4/23/24 at 4 PM PST. Here is the link to register: div12.org/live-webinars/ Participants will receive 1 FREE CE hour for attendance.

The program includes a series of webinars eligible for FREE Continuing Education credits, a survey to assess psychologists’ perspectives on PAT, and a basic toolkit to support practitioners and their clients.

I am representing Div. 36 on psych of religion/spirituality with colleagues from Divs. 56 (trauma), @scpdiv12.bsky.social, 29 (psychotherapy), 30 (hypnosis), 32 (humanistic psych).

The goal: To increase education and collaboration around psychedelic-assisted therapy across the field of psychology.

I am thrilled to be part of a cross-division
APA/CODAPAR project on psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy called Broadening Perspectives: Educating Psychologists on Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy.

The Blogs: Tuning out Noise, into Signal: Purim, Presence, and Listening From the blog of Aaron D. Cherniak at The Times of Israel

A fire alarm interrupted the reading of Megillat Esther this Purim. I wrote up a humble reflection on listening closely to something so fragile, so quiet, when the world seems to be screaming.
blogs.timesofisrael.com/tuning-out-n...

Celebrate submission day, not/in addition to publication day.

Too many hours go into writing and submitting a manuscript to wait until its accepted to celebrate.

Starting a starter pack for #psychology of #religion and #spirituality. Additions welcome!

a yellow background with the word psych written in blue ALT: a yellow background with the word psych written in blue

New to BlueSky?

Interested in Psychology?

Click on this post and scroll up for a thread of 40 starter packs containing experts in different areas of psychology.

#Psychology #AcademicSky #EduSky 🧪

A scientist new to Bluesky? @steveharoz.com and @markrubin.bsky.social have put together some great resources to get you started!

New study looks to better understand Jews’ relationships with psychedelics The survey, “Jewish Journeys,” will be conducted by Emory University and the nonprofit Shefa, with funding from the Jim Joseph Foundation

I was recently interviewed by eJewishPhilanthropy for a piece about the Jewish Journeys study run by Shefa: Jewish Psychedelic Support and Emory U. They are doing very important work identifying the needs of Jews in the context of psychedelic use.
ejewishphilanthropy.com/new-study-lo...

🚀 MetaROR is Live! 🚀
MetaROR is a free community-owned platform for open peer review in metaresearch by RoRI & AIMOS.

With our Publish-Review-Curate model, we’re making the publication process faster and more open.

Find out more: researchonresearch.org/introducing-...

Are causes of mental disorders in the person or in the environment? » Eiko Fried Brief summary of our new paper on the personal-internal reification of p-factor causes with Merlijn Olthof and Anna Lichtwarck-Aschoff

Blog on our new JoPACS viewpoint led by @molthof.bsky.social, highlighting problems of ignoring socio-environmental causes for psychopathology, using the example of the p-factor for which all dominant theories position liability *within* the person.

eiko-fried.com/causes-of-me...

Picture of textbook cover with title "Introduction to Behavioral Neuroscience"

Announcing a new open access textbook for entry level behavioral neuro. Funded by NSF. Written by a collection of 26 neuro experts. Method demonstration videos and author interviews too. Consider using it in your courses to reduce financial barriers to education.

openstax.org/details/book...

Just accepted at Clinical Psych Science ✨

"Engaging people with lived experience of psychological disorders: Current research and future directions for community-engaged measure development in psychological science"

osf.io/preprints/ps...

Gathering scientists engaged with the psychology of religion and spirituality very broadly defined.
Please reply or DM to be included.

go.bsky.app/9CwwkDe

Religiosity, Spirituality, Meaning-Making, and Suicidality... : Harvard Review of Psychiatry uicidality and suicide. Thus far, reviews on the topic have largely been descriptive, and there are no meta-analyses focused on psychiatric patients. This study systematically evaluates all empirical ...

🚨 New paper! 🚨
In @HarvardRevPsych

#Religiosity, #Spirituality, Meaning-Making, and #Suicidality in Psychiatric Patients and Suicide Attempters: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

H/t Bart van den Brink et al

journals.lww.com/hrpjournal/f...

1) Completing PhD in psychotherapeutic mechanisms of change in psychedelic-assisted therapy
2) Mixed-methods study on psychedelic experiences and spiritual development
3) Exile & Ecstasy - Madison Margolin