A screenshot of an RStudio window. On the left-hand side is a new pain called Posit Assistant. The Posit Assistant had recently run code making a lat-lon plot of Washington state, colored by whether the point had been marked as forested or not.

Today we're releasing AI for RStudio. It's really, really good—I'd encourage you to point it at the messiest data sources you have and see what it can do.

www.simonpcouch.com/blog/2026-03...

In an interesting #SPSP2026 talk, @asmiley.bsky.social presented work suggesting that the proportion of out-partisans at one’s church had a curvilinear association with affective polarization—politically balanced churches showed the lowest rates of affective polarization.

If they start next season in the championship does that mean the whole season is St Totteringham’s year?

#SPSP2026 was awesome! Great to see friends new and old and get to spend a weekend talking about really cool research!

If you’re at #SPSP2026 come check out our symposium this afternoon!!

Ameliorators and Aggravators of Affective Polarization 🫏 🐘

2-3:10pm in E353A

(Gift link 🎁)

Edward L. Deci, 83, Dies; Found Self-Determination as a Key to Happiness

I met Ed a few years ago when he lived at my grandparents’ senior living home in Rochester. He showed me his amazing art collection, with 100+ paintings of Monhegan Island, and answered my many questions about his career. A true legend, and a kind and generous soul.

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/26/s...

Another cool data blitz from #SPSP political psych precon. People asume there are two large coalitions in the U.S.: liberals & conservatives. But, work by @isaiasghezae.bsky.social suggests there are instead 3: (1) conservatives,
(2) ideological liberals, and (3) a liberal demographic group.

Some interesting talks this morning at the #SPSP political psychology preconference! First up, Beth Anne Helgasom discussed work across five studies (1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, and 3) that found that partisans are more lenient in judging the falsehoods said by politicians they support versus oppose, because

We hope you’ll join us for our SPSP session this Saturday, 2/28, from 2-3:10pm in room E353A (Level 3). 🧵 6/6

Talk 4: @abdoe.bsky.social explores the impact of watching political debates. Two experiments suggest watching debates can increase intellectual humility about the topic of debate and also less affective polarization. He will also describe what YouTube comments on debate videos can teach us. 🧵 5/6

Talk 3: Zarnab Zahoor finds that, across 8 nations, religious nationalism (the desire to fuse politics and religion) is associated with greater support for undemocratic practices and partisan violence. 🧵 4/6

Talk 2: I examine whether religious behavior is associated with affective polarization (AP) in American Christians. I find that those who attend politically balanced churches are less effectively polarized. I’ll also present pilot data showing that studying the Bible may help reduce AP. 🧵 3/6

Talk 1: Jan Voelkel examines the relationship between attitudinal and affective polarization by testing whether interventions designed to manipulate both forms of polarization in turn lead to reductions in the other form of polarization Across dozens of interventions he finds… not usually! 🧵 2/6

Ameliorators and Aggravators of Affective Polarization, an SPSP 2026 symposium from 2-3:10 on Saturday Feb 28th in E353A

Very excited to be chairing this symposium at @spspnews.bsky.social this Saturday at 2 with @abdoe.bsky.social! With Zarnab Zahoor (UIC) and Jan Voelkel (Cornell), we will collectively discuss the factor which can combat or amplify group-based animosity amidst rampant polarization. (Room E353A) 🧵1/6

Brick — Take Back Control of Your Screen Time Brick helps you focus and live intentionally. One tap locks your phone so you can reclaim time for what matters most. Works with iPhone & Android.

I’m a big fan of Brick - which makes it so you need to physically tap your phone on a magnet instead of just overriding your own screen time locks on your phone - to access apps or websites you select. Has saved me many many hours of scrolling! getbrick.app?srsltid=AfmB...

Who is more religious: religiously unaffiliated Latin Americans or European Christians? We compared these groups on three measures:
🌟 Belief in God
🙏 Frequency of prayer
🤲 If they consider religion to be very important in their lives.

🧵👇

Oh interesting: the MN National Guard had publicly promoted that, if deployed, they would wear bright vests to differentiate themselves from DHS, who wear camo despite not being in the U.S military — and it appears they really did!

In 13% of special issues produced by several major publishers over the past decade, the guest editor contributed more than 1/3 of the papers themselves

As usual, MDPI and Frontiers journals are among the worst offenders.

Pt. 2/2

Pt. 1/2

Felt compelled to say something about the harms of self-serving politicians, so I wrote my first ever op-ed which was just published in The Tennessean! (Un-paywalled version in replies, below) www.tennessean.com/story/opinio...

That was maybe the most obvious handball of the season so far… no clue how they don’t give that

Trump: NATO members to face tariffs increasing to 25% until a Greenland purchase deal is struck Trump recently hinted that he may pursue a tariff strategy on Greenland similar to the one he used to force foreign countries to change their drug prices.

A downside to literally no one in this Administration understanding basic economics is that "we're going to raise tariffs until you give up Greenland" is the econ version of "I'm going to repeatedly kick myself in the testicles until you do what I want"

www.cnbc.com/2026/01/17/t...

“ICE Watch works because it surrounds men seeking approval with people loudly expressing their disapproval.“

Circular Pew Research Center logo; Spiral John Templeton Foundation logo

@pewresearch.org, with support from the @templetonfdn.bsky.social, invites researchers at all career stages (including doctoral students) to submit proposals for new research publications using recent Global Religious Futures datasets.

🗓️ Apply by March 2, 2026

sssreligion.org/announcement...

US Senate passes bill to boost federal science spending after White House sought major cuts The U.S. Senate voted on Thursday to approve billions of dollars in funding for federal science agencies, rejecting deep cuts proposed by President Donald Trump in space and other areas.

In 2026!??? 🥹
www.reuters.com/world/us-sen...

Bukayo Saka on what his faith means to him ❤️

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