The Think Lab will be at #CDS2026 in Montreal! Join us!

We're getting close to the early bird registration deadline for CDS! Please see the below for more information.

The Journal of Cognition and Development is looking for a new Editor-in-Chief. Please consider applying or spreading the word to someone who you think would be a great fit!

🧵New preprint: Adults often agree with their ingroup even when evidence says otherwise. Why?

To find out, we studied kids, who show the same tendency but *before* political identities take hold. With developmental data, we can see the basic psychological ingredients.

doi.org/10.31234/osf...

1/11

Great project!

I know this wasn't the focus of the project, but in looking at the graphs, it seems like there was a fair amount of variability in how much kids endorsed their ingroup's claims. Do you think some kids might have a stronger affiliation motive than others, impacting their endorsement?

The poster submission due date for CDS is almost here!

Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker 🧵

Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...

If you've ever visited ChildrenHelpingScience.com, please consider donating below! There's a campaign for matching contributions, and every bit helps.

Image of Montreal with text noting that poster submissions for the upcoming SRCD conference are due on January 8, 2026

A reminder: poster submissions for CDS 2026 are due by January 8, 2026.

For more information, please view our website:
cogdevsoc.org/submissions/

Check out a recent article that talks about some of our research related to children's experiences transitioning to skepticism about Santa Claus! We'll have a lot more to say about this in the upcoming couple of years with some new projects.

@thaliargoldstein.bsky.social

Integrating cognitive neuroscience and clinical perspectives on metacognitive mechanisms in psychopathology - Nature Reviews Psychology Cognitive neuroscience and clinical psychology have made substantial advances in knowledge about metacognitive processes, but these fields have progressed in parallel. In this Review, Seow et al. inte...

Very pleased to share our new review in @natrevpsychol.nature.com on integrating cognitive neuroscience and clinical perspectives of metacognition in mental health! With @tobiasuhauser.bsky.social, Lena Jelinek, and Steffen Moritz. (1/3)

Web: www.nature.com/articles/s44...
PDF: rdcu.be/ePxUG

CDS Secretary here!

Please follow our CDS account to receive reminders of upcoming deadlines and opportunities as well as to learn about new articles in the Journal of Cognition and Development.

🎉UTD now has a #PCSAS accredited Clinical program🎉
I can/hope to accept clinical folks through psych or cogneuro PhD for Fall 2026!

bbs.utdallas.edu/departments/...

Love it! Gorgeous art.

New paper!

One of the things I love about our findings in this paper is that even children who thought they knew a lot about a topic in absolute terms sometimes recognized that an expert would know a little or a lot more than them. That's a start!

Social Development We are upgrading Wiley Online Library over the weekend of May 17th–18th. All content will continue to be available, but some functionality may not work as expected. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Please consider submitting to our special issue @socialdevelopment.bsky.social on Political Engagement in Childhood and Adolescence: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal...

Think Lab members have made it back from #SRCD2025!

It's a lab tradition that after a conference, each person who attended shares a 2-3 minute overview of a poster or presentation they enjoyed. It's a great way to discuss all we learned.

Wishing I saw more of you there... but next time!

The Think Lab will be at #SRCD2025 - looking forward to seeing many of you there!

Updates on NSF Priorities

NEW: NSF announces it's "terminating awards that are not aligned with agency priorities...including but not limited to those on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and misinformation/disinformation." #HigherEd #AcademicSky

I wish there was a repository for people to share stories! Someone set up a shared google doc when one of my undergraduate mentors, Jeff Farrar, passed away, and it was lovely to read so many stories over the years.

Flavell seemed like a brilliant but also kind person.

It is amazing how often children seem to revise their beliefs about fantastical characters to make them seem more logical within our world!

Rescinded NIH & NSF Grants

Substantial updates to the list of cancelled grants👇

- THANK YOU to all who have contributed. Crowdsourcing restores faith in humanity.

- It's still a work in progress. You'll see more updates shortly.

- There are multiple teams & efforts engaged in tracking & advocacy. More to come soon!

How a son spent a year trying to save his father from conspiracy theories Zach Mack spent a year attempting to rescue his father from the depths of the conspiracy rabbit hole. Their family was forced to reckon with clashing realities, ideological divides and misinformation.

How do we change our minds about our knowledge or beliefs? And why is it sometimes so difficult for people to realize they might be wrong?

We study these sorts of questions with kids, but here's a story of someone trying to convince his dad to disengage w/ conspiracies:

www.npr.org/2025/02/26/g...

How does the capacity to demonstrate intellectual humility - to recognize limits to one's beliefs or knowledge - develop and change? And are there things that can be done to foster greater intellectual humility?

Come join our SRCD pre-conference to discuss these questions and more!

The Cognitive Development Society now has a Bluesky account!

Here's another one, trying to build from what we know about kids to provide advice on how parents might manage the Santa Claus myth.

Yes! @thaliargoldstein.bsky.social and I will probably submit it for review in January. Thalia will be first author on that one, but please feel free to reach out to either of us via email about it.

I'd love to hear more about your paper/book!

It's OK To Lie About Santa Claus In defence of lying to children

Blog post: wollenblog.substack.com/p/its-ok-to-...

This is the first Christmas since our initial Santa article was published (doi.org/10.1037/dev0...), so @thaliargoldstein.bsky.social and I have had some opportunities this season to talk with reporters or see the project discussed in newsletters, articles, and blogs. This is a fun one!

Thanks for mentioning our "Debunking the Santa Myth" paper! This was a fun read. @thaliargoldstein.bsky.social and I have also been working on a study with parents about "lying" about Santa. Perhaps not surprisingly, there's a lot of variability in how acceptable parents view statements about Santa.