We really need to educate people on statistical reasoning and mixed methods research...A RANT THREAD (1/?)
Okay, so, cards on the table, I am published as a mixed methods, social science researcher and have helped co-author multiple reports on LGBTQIA+ public mental health and community experiences. Let's just say, I ain't no amateur on this topic.
So, something that drives me nuts in conversations about trans healthcare and especially trans youth gender-affirming care is that people don't understand basic statistical reasoning.
One of the parts of this that clicked for me today on why so many arguments frustrate me is that people don't actually understand how sampling works and how we reason from a specific sample in a study....
"Almost 80% of the respondents, all from the authoritative #IPCC, foresee at least 2.5C of global heating, while almost half anticipate at least 3C (5.4F). Only 6% thought the internationally agreed 1.5C (2.7F) limit would be met.
Many of the scientists envisage a “semi-dystopian” future, with famines, conflicts and mass migration, driven by heatwaves, wildfires, floods and storms of an intensity and frequency far beyond those that have already struck."
"The #climate#SocialScience community starts their teaching and research where the bulk of the “climate scientists are despairing” type articles end their discussions.
“Hope is a practice.”
"There is a collective feeling of responsibility on the part of climate social scientists to work to advance long-term transformations towards sustainability and justice."
Folks, an open call: I am #hiring TWO Principal Research #Scientists to join the Developer Success Lab!
One is a scientist with statistics/psychometrics focus (R is our ecosystem here), and one is an intervention science focus; both are fully remote roles working directly with me, our current Principal Scientist, and our brand-new Principal Dev Experience Engineer on our public-facing empirical research mission 🙌
Wooooo! I handed in the revision of my latest nonfiction book, which should be out by next summer from WW Norton. Here's a sneak peek at the table of contents. #books#history#psychologicalwar#psyops#socialscience
Our survey on friendships, sexual and romantic relationships closes soon (5/31)!
If you're 18+ in the US (& especially if you're #asexual / #aromantic / #queer),
my collaborators (Canton Winer at UCI and Hannah Tessler at Yale) and I would love to include your perspective in our study.
Our paper just won "Best Paper Engaged in Quantitative Description on an Under-studied Phenomenon" from JQDM for 2023! 🏆 I'm no longer in #ComputationalSocialScience work, but it's still dear to my heart, and this paper was a blast :) Spoiler: We learned a whole lot about #kpop
"Fame and Ultrafame: Measuring and comparing daily levels of ‘being talked about’ for United States’ presidents, their rivals, God, countries, and K-pop." https://doi.org/10.51685/jqd.2022.004
We need to spend more time socializing because screens & social media have left us lonely & selfish. Volunteering, attending classes & events, & hobby, social, belief... groups will foster new relationships & maybe some newfound "fun".
"Why Americans Suddenly Stopped Hanging Out. Too much aloneness is creating a crisis of social fitness."
Is it valid to say 40% of American police officers perpetrate domestic violence?
After half an hour digging through empirical #research I think I can confidently say "no." Why? Because we have no real idea how much DV is perpetrated by cops. Because nobody can really study it with solid methods. Because (IMO, anyway) a lot of scholars are kind of scared of #cops .
One guy testified for Congress in 1991, and he gets cited a lot, but his #ResearchMethods were not perfect. Then the rate of good research on this went down for the next 30 years.
Lots of opinions, "perceptions of...", etc., but `` numbers? I'm currently not finding any I trust a whole lot. One lit review (2016) found estimates of #DomesticViolence rates from 5% to 40%. Another article just said "Probably about the same as the general public," after clearly misreading a couple of previous estimates.
Anyway, nobody knows how much domestic violence police commit, and it sort of feels like the police want it to stay that way.
I'm thinking about how to experimentally test potential effects of social media on populations. Has anybody ever made a non-federating mastodon server, invited some volunteers as users and then experimentally tested if their opinions on topics change if you push or suppress corresponding hastags? With control groups and everything. I couldn't find any papers on that so far.
And then the next question would be the ethics of the whole thing lol
Teens engaged in activism become better critical thinkers, study finds: Youth involved in community-based activism over time become better critical thinkers and more politically active, according to a new University of Michigan study. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-teens-engaged-critical-thinkers.html
New study (N = 896) suggests that white-collar workers may remain silent in the face of abusive supervision practices because they’re more concerned about losing their status and privileges relative to blue-collar workers.
In related news, I'm excited to announce that I'm part of 2 new NOAA-funded #research projects focused on #flood warning communications to different segments of the public. #Vermont currently making a good case for being one of our study areas. #Hydrology#SocialScience#SciComm
Many people feel they work in pointless, meaningless jobs, research confirms: The theory that many people feel the work they do is pointless because their jobs are "bullshit" has been confirmed by a new study. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-people-pointless-meaningless-jobs.html
Positionality statements should not force us to ‘out’ ourselves | Nature Human Behaviour https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-023-01812-5 ($) #SocialScience It is a dilemma: For the sake of contextualizing the analysis, one would need to read a positionality statement. For the sake of protecting vulnerable authors, a positionality statement should not be written. 1/ @academicchatter
Delving into the insightful book "Making Social Science Matter" by Bent Flyvbjerg. As a PhD student in management with an engineering background, Flyvbjerg's exploration of the challenges in social science research truly resonated with me. #SocialScience#Research#BookReview https://tinyurl.com/mtc8v6ev
New publication: "Climate of a cave laboratory representative for rock art caves in the Vézère area (south-west France)"
Leye Cave (Dordogne, France) is a laboratory cave in the Vézère area, a region that contains some of the most famous rock art caves in the world such as Lascaux, Font-de-Gaume and Combarelles, and is listed as Human World Heritage by UNESCO. Leye Cave was selected because it is representative of paint... #Physics#SocialSciencehttps://doi.org/10.5038/1827-806X.52.2.2442