Category: Twitter

Feature, guest blogger, Health, Methods, Twitter April 23, 2018April 26, 2018

Are tweets a goldmine for psychologists or just a lot of noise? Researchers clash over the meaning of social media data

By guest blogger Jon Brock

Johannes Eichstaedt was sitting in a coffee shop by Lake Atitlan in Guatemala when he received a slack about a tweet about a preprint. In 2015, the University of Pennsylvania psychologist and his colleagues published a headline-grabbing article linking heart disease to the language used on Twitter. They’d found that tweets emanating from US counties with high rates of heart disease mortality tended to exhibit high levels of negative emotions such as anger, anxiety, disengagement, aggression, and hate. The study, published in Psychological Science, has proven influential, already accruing over 170 citations. But three years later, the preprint authors Nick Brown and James Coyne from the University of Groningen claimed to have identified “numerous conceptual and methodological limitations”. Within the month, Eichstaedt and his colleagues issued a riposte, publishing their own preprint that claims further evidence to support their original conclusions.

As recent revelations surrounding Facebook and Cambridge Analytica have highlighted, corporations and political organisations attach a high value to social media data. But, Eichstaedt argues, that same data also offers rich insights into psychological health and well-being. With appropriate ethical oversight, social media analytics could promote population health and perhaps even save lives. That at least is its promise. But with big data come new challenges – as Eichstaedt’s “debate” with Brown and Coyne illustrates.

Continue reading “Are tweets a goldmine for psychologists or just a lot of noise? Researchers clash over the meaning of social media data” →

In Brief, Technology, Twitter March 29, 2016July 30, 2016

Did you really understand that post you just retweeted?

Students showed less
comprehension of the items
they’d chosen to repost.

What fun it is to write something on Twitter or Facebook and see lots of people repost what you said – no matter the disclaimers in people’s online profiles, we usually interpret reposts of our comments as a mark of endorsement. However, a new study in Computers in Human Behavior puts a bit of a downer on things. The researchers based at Peking University and Cornell University say that the very option to share or repost social media items is distracting, and what’s more, the decision to repost is itself a further distraction and actually makes it less likely that readers will have properly understood the very items that they chose to share.

The research was conducted with dozens of Chinese undergrad users of the Chinese micro-blogging site Weibo (very similar to Twitter). In one study, the students had to read forty short (maximum 140 Chinese character) Weibo posts about a recent controversial issue in China – whether or not to help elderly people who have fallen over. Half the participants had the option to repost the items, whereas the others did not. The key finding was that the group who had the option to repost each item performed less well in a subsequent comprehension test of the 40 Weibo posts. Moreover, the participants who could repost made twice as many errors for the posts they had reposted than those they hadn’t. Why should this be? “The feedback function encourages individuals to make quick responses, taking away the time individuals would otherwise use to cogitate and integrate the content information they receive,” the researchers said. They added: “This finding has overarching implications given that the majority users of micro-blogging sites only read and repost others’ messages”.

A second study was similar, with some students given the option to repost Weibo items and others not given this option, but this time the Weibo part of the task was followed by a reading comprehension test on a New Scientist article. The finding – students who’d had the reposting option on Weibo performed worse at the subsequent reading comp test, and this seemed to be because they were more mentally tired after reading the Weibo posts. The researchers said: “When we are reposting and sharing information with others, we unwantedly add burden to our cognitive resources and, as a result, our own understanding of the information is compromised and our subsequent learning hindered.”

—Does micro-blogging make us “shallow”? Sharing information online interferes with information comprehension
_________________________________

Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.

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Announcements, Twitter November 6, 2015July 30, 2016

The 100 most followed psychologists and neuroscientists on Twitter!

Updated for November 2015, here are the 100 most followed psychologists and neuroscientists on Twitter based on follower counts recorded over the last few weeks. If we’ve missed anyone (individuals, not organisations or publications) who should be in the top 100, please let us know via comments and we’ll add them in. This is an update to our November 2014 post. We’re aware there are issues with lists like this (for example, Twitter accounts vary in how many active followers they have), but we hope you will find it useful nonetheless. Three BPS Twitter accounts are included below, but are not counted in the tally towards 100.

1st place Andrew Mendonsa. Clinical psychologist. Followers: 371769
Sam Harris. Neuroscientist, author. Followers: 343930
Steven Pinker. Evolutionary psychologist, author. Followers: 204280
Kiki Sanford. Neurophysiologist turned sci communicator. Followers: 198899
Ian Wallace. “Dream psychologist”. Followers: 147903
Richard Wiseman. Psychologist, blogger and author. Followers: 138755
Laura Kauffman. Child psychologist. Followers: 107074
Dan Ariely. Behavioural Economist, author. Followers: 100889
George Huba. Psychologist. Followers: 98273
10Travis Langley. Social psychologist and author. Followers: 92603
Joe Guse. Comedian turned psychologist. Followers: 72325
Neuroskeptic. Blogger and neuroscientist. Followers: 68538
Daniel Goleman. Emotional intelligence expert. Followers: 62290
Leah Klungness. Author and psychologist. Followers: 60591
Dolors Reig. Social psychologist (tweets in Spanish). Followers: 60875

BPS Research Digest. That’s Us! Followers: 57811

Anthony Risser. Neuropsychologist, blogger. Followers: 49283
Steve Silberman. Author on autism. Followers: 45500

The Psychologist magazine! Followers: 45449

Adam Grant. Organisational psychologist. Followers: 44464
Dylan William. Educational psychologist. Followers: 44060
20Yankı Yazgan. Child psychiatrist/ psychology faculty. Followers: 44073
Melanie Greenberg. Clinical health psychologist. Followers: 42835
Richard Thaler. Behavioural economist. Followers: 41971

BPS Official! Followers: 35062

Amy Cuddy. Social psychologist. Followers: 34125
Jeremy Dean. Psychology blogger. Followers: 25136
25 Shawn Achor. Positive psychologist. Followers: 33404
Vaughan Bell. Clinical neuropsychologist, blogger. Followers: 32683
Simon Rego. Cognitive behavioural psychologist. Followers: 32618
Miguel Escotet. Psychologist. Followers: 31420
Marsha Lucas. Neuropsychologist. Followers: 30353
30 Kelly McGonigal. Psychologist. Followers: 27458
David Eagleman. Neuroscientist, author. Followers: 25882
Mo Costandi. Neuroscience writer, blogger. Followers: 25869
Jo Hemmings. Celebrity psychologist. Followers: 25771
Bob Sutton. Organisational psychologist and author. Followers: 25592
Aleks Krotoski. Psychologist, tech journalist. Followers: 24900
Dean Burnett. Neuroscientist and comedian. Followers: 24896
Dan Gilbert. Psychologist. Followers: 24745
David Dobbs. Neuroscience writer. Followers: 24280
Paul Bloom. Psychologist. Followers: 24164
40 Evan Sinar. Organisational psychologist. Followers: 23,999
Noah Gray. Neuroscience editor. Followers: 22319
John Froiland. School psychologist. Followers: 21285
Susan Whitbourne. Psychologist. Followers: 21212
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore. Cognitive neuroscientist. Followers: 20283
David Ballard. Work psychologist. Followers: 20004
Dorothy Bishop. Developmental neuropsychologist. Followers: 19941
Jonathan Haidt. Psychologist. Followers: 19853
Simon Baron-Cohen. Developmental psychologist. Followers: 19700
Marilyn Price-Mitchell. Developmental Psychologist. Followers: 18937
50 Ciaran O’Keeffe. Parapsychologist. Followers: 18379
Scott Kaufman. Cognitive psychologist, author. Followers: 18649
Daniel Levitin. Psychologist, author. Followers: 17892
Heidi GrantHalvorson. Social psychologist. Followers: 17717
Craig Malkin. Clinical psychologist. Followers: 17701
Robert Cialdini. Social psychologist. Followers: 17298
Uta Frith. Developmental neuropsychologist. Followers: 17163
Sun Wolf. Social neuroscientist. Followers: 17058
Pascal Wallisch. Neuroscientist. Followers: 16275
Micah Allen. Cognitive neuroscientist. Followers: 16050
60 Melissa McCreery. Clinical Psychologist. Followers: 15094

Christian Jarrett. Editor of the Research Digest! Followers: 14950

Tanya Byron. Clinical psychologist, TV presenter, columnist. Followers: 13878
Stephan Guyenet. Neurobiologist. Followers: 13114
Lee Keyes. Psychologist. Followers: 13034
Andrea Kuszewski. Robopsychologist. Followers: 12924
Andrea Letamendi. Clinical psychologist. Followers: 12892
Todd Kashdan. Psychologist. Followers: 12792
Professor Bob. Psychologist. Followers: 12761
Cary Cooper. Occupational psychologist. Followers: 12646
70 David Webb. Psychology tutor, blogger. Followers: 12545
Sophie Scott. Neuroscientist. Followers: 11889
Pam Spurr. Agony aunt. Followers: 11816
Clark Quinn. Organisational psychologist. Followers: 11674
Petra Boynton. Psychologist, sex educator. Followers: 11622
Susan Weinschenk. Psychologist and author. Followers: 11605
Philip Zimbardo. You know, the Stanford Prison Experiment guy. 11547
David Rock. Work psychologist. Followers: 11433
Honey Langcaster-James. Psychologist and coach. Followers: 11337
Maia Szalavitz. Neuroscience journalist. Followers: 10961
80 James Moore. Cognitive Neuroscientist. Followers: 10943
Timothy Lomauro. Clinical psychologist. Followers: 10709
Shelley Bonanno. Psychologist and psychotherapist. Followers: 10341
Jason Goldman. Developmental psychologist, science writer. Followers: 10288
Neuro Bonkers. Blogger. Followers: 10208
Stew Friedman. Organisational psychologist, author. Followers: 10152
Bradley Voytek. Neuroscientist and self-professed geek. Followers: 10133
Michael Woodward “Dr. Woody”. Organisational psychologist. Followers: 10097
Claudia Hammond. Radio presenter. Followers: 9832
Cheryl Arutt. Clinical and forensic psychologist. Followers: 9719
90 Jay Watts. Clinical psychologist, Lacanian. Followers: 9569
Todd Finnerty. Psychologist. Followers: 9448
Margarita Holmes. Psychologist and sex therapist. Followers: 8906
Steven Novella. Neurologist and sceptic. Followers: 8450
Rory O’Connor. Health psychologist, suicide researcher. Followers: 8368
Bruce Hood. Cognitive scientist. Followers: 8336
Patrick McGee: Health psychologist. Followers: 8094
Kevin Mitchell. Neurogeneticist. Followers: 7837
Andy Field. Psychologist and stats whiz. Followers: 7680
Hugo Spiers. Neuroscientist. Followers: 7642
100 Graham Jones. Internet (cyber) psychologist. Followers: 7609

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Mental health, Technology, Twitter May 12, 2015May 10, 2017

Give up the #OCD jokes on Twitter, they won’t make you popular

One of the fictional Twitter accounts
used in Pavelko & Myrick (2015).

Stigma is a problem for all forms of mental illness, but arguably obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) – a condition that at its most severe can ruin lives – is subject to a disproportionate amount of trivialisation and ridicule.

A brief perusal of the hashtag #OCD on Twitter makes this obvious – the term is used frequently everyday to lampoon fussy, perfectionist behaviours. A new study asks how this Twitter trivialisation affects other users’ views of the condition and of the people who do the trivialising.

Rachel Pavelko and Jessica Myrick created several fictional Twitter accounts (half were male, half female), together with bio, avatar and 15 recent tweets. Half of the fictional account users self-identified as having OCD. Their bios said: “Enjoy friends and good movies. Making my way through this world with a diagnosis of OCD.” (A self-identifying hashtag–#livingwithOCD–was also included in their tweets). The other accounts without an OCD identity had bios that said: “I love: friends, good movies, sports, and ice cream.”

For each of the accounts, nine of the visible tweets were fillers and said things unrelated to OCD like:

“When I’m old, I’m totally using the scooters at the grocery store.”

For the OCD tweets, some accounts always framed the condition respectfully and in clinical terms, as in:

“It’s not easy to deal with, but therapy and my great support system certainly help me everyday. #livingwithOCD”.

“Raising money for the National Alliance on Mental Illness to support my aunt in her struggle with #OCD”

Other accounts always trivialised the condition, with tweets like:

“Can’t stand all these crazy perfectionist people in my office. Not impressed that your file folders are alphabetized. #ThatsSoOCD.”

The remaining accounts featured a mix of serious and trivial OCD tweets.

Nearly 600 participants were recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk site (just over half were male, the average age was 33), a minority of whom reported having OCD (3.9 per cent) or other mental illness (29.2 per cent), or having a family member with OCD (9.3 per cent). Each participant looked at one of the Twitter accounts and answered questions about their feelings towards the fictional person and about people with OCD in general.

Good news: those participants shown accounts that trivialised OCD were no more likely to say they wanted to keep their distance from people with the condition. More good news: people who self-identified as having OCD on Twitter, regardless of how they tweeted about their condition, were in general like more by the participants than those who didn’t. And what about the accounts where the person didn’t have OCD but wrote tweets that trivialised the condition? Such accounts were liked less by the participants than those that treated the condition with respect.

“This implies,” the researchers said, “that trivialisation, while seemingly cute or done in jest, can actually backfire for social media users.”

The researchers also said that the positive reaction among participants to the fictional account holders with OCD suggests that Twitter, and possibly other forms of social media, could be a safe space for people with the condition to share their experiences with others.

_________________________________

Pavelko, R., & Myrick, J. (2015). That’s so OCD: The effects of disease trivialization via social media on user perceptions and impression formation Computers in Human Behavior, 49, 251-258 DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2015.02.061

—further reading—
Should you help a person with OCD do their checks?
What’s it like to have OCD?

Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.

Announcements, Twitter November 21, 2014July 30, 2016

The 100 most followed psychologists and neuroscientists on Twitter

Updated for November 2014, here are the 100 most followed psychologists and neuroscientists on Twitter based on follower counts recorded over the last few weeks. If we’ve missed anyone (individuals, not organisations) who should be in the top 100, please let us know via comments and we’ll add them in. This is an update to our February 2014 post. Check the comments to that earlier post for even more psychologists on Twitter than we were able to include here. We’re aware there are issues with lists like this (for example, Twitter accounts vary in how many active followers they have), but we hope you find it useful nonetheless. BPS Twitter accounts are presented below, but not counted in the tally towards 100.

Andrew Mendonsa. Clinical psychologist. Followers: 393234
Sam Harris. Neuroscientist, author. Followers: 250966
Kiki Sanford. Neurophysiologist turned sci communicator. Followers: 174275
Steven Pinker. Evolutionary psychologist, author. Followers: 151984
Richard Wiseman. Psychologist, blogger and author. Followers: 135145
Laura Kauffman. Child psychologist. Followers: 106984
Dan Ariely. Behavioural Economist, author. Followers: 81949
Oliver Sacks. Neurologist and author. Followers: 80157
George Huba. Psychologist. Followers: 77181
Joe Guse. Comedian turned psychologist. Followers: 74914
Leah Klungness. Author and psychologist. Followers: 60591
Travis Langley. Social psychologist and author. Followers: 60043
Dolors Reig. Social psychologist (tweets in Spanish). Followers: 58700
Neuroskeptic. Blogger and neuroscientist. Followers: 47625

BPS Research Digest. The BPS Research Digest! Followers: 46828

Yankı Yazgan. Child psychiatrist/ psychology faculty. Followers: 40381
Melanie Greenberg. Clinical health psychologist. Followers: 38751
Anthony Risser. Neuropsychologist, blogger. Followers: 34450

The Psychologist magazine. Followers: 33234

Dylan William. Educational psychologist. Followers: 32928
Miguel Escotet. Psychologist. Followers: 31948
Marsha Lucas. Neuropsychologist. Followers: 31073
Richard Thaler. Behavioural economist. Followers: 30206
Vaughan Bell. Clinical neuropsychologist, blogger. Followers: 29263

BPS Official. Followers: 26746

Adam Grant. Organisational psychologist. Followers: 29103
Aleks Krotoski. Psychologist, tech journalist. Followers: 24255
25th place Simon Rego. Cognitive behavioural psychologist. Followers: 23932
Jo Hemmings. Celebrity psychologist. Followers: 23740
Jeremy Dean. Psychology blogger. Followers: 23424
Shawn Achor. Positive psychologist. Followers: 23,330
Amy Cuddy. Social psychologist. Followers: 22837
Kelly McGonigal. Psychologist. Followers: 21733
Mo Costandi. Neuroscience writer, blogger. Followers: 21614
David Dobbs. Neuroscience writer. Followers: 21427
Noah Gray. Neuroscience editor. Followers: 20954
Bob Sutton. Organisational psychologist and author. Followers: 20879
David Eagleman. Neuroscientist, author. Followers: 205714
Dean Burnett. Neuroscientist and comedian. Followers: 18759
David Ballard. Work psychologist. Followers: 18459
Marilyn Price-Mitchell. Developmental Psychologist. Followers: 17652
Dan Gilbert. Psychologist. Followers: 17418
Paul Bloom. Psychologist. Followers: 16957
Sun Wolf. Social neuroscientist. Followers: 16517
Susan Whitbourne. Psychologist. Followers: 16511
Daniel Levitin. Psychologist, author. Followers: 16108
Dorothy Bishop. Developmental neuropsychologist. Followers: 15937
Pascal Wallisch. Neuroscientist. Followers: 15910
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore. Cognitive neuroscientist. Followers: 15829
Scott Kaufman. Cognitive psychologist, author. Followers: 15675
Ciaran O’Keeffe. Parapsychologist. Followers: 15504
Melissa McCreery. Clinical Psychologist. Followers: 15394
Heidi GrantHalvorson. Social psychologist. Followers: 15277
50th place Craig Malkin. Clinical psychologist. Followers: 15004
Robert Cialdini. Social psychologist. Followers: 14980
John Froiland. School psychologist. Followers: 14905
Simon Baron-Cohen. Developmental psychologist. Followers: 14824
Jonathan Haidt. Psychologist. Followers: 14225
Uta Frith. Developmental neuropsychologist. Followers: 13529
Micah Allen. Cognitive neuroscientist. Followers: 12540
Christian Jarrett. Editor of the Research Digest. Followers: 12312
Andrea Letamendi. Clinical psychologist. Followers: 11809
Todd Kashdan. Psychologist. Followers: 11623
Lee Keyes. Psychologist. Followers: 11399
David Webb. Psychology tutor, blogger. Followers: 11369
Honey Langcaster-James. Psychologist and coach. Followers: 11285
Maria Konnikova. Neuroscience blogger and author. Followers: 11182
Petra Boynton. Psychologist, sex educator. Followers: 10960
Professor Bob. Psychologist. Followers: 10783
James Moore. Cognitive Neuroscientist. Followers: 10298
Tanya Byron. Clinical psychologist, TV presenter, columnist. Followers: 10287
Cary Cooper. Occupational psychologist. Followers: 10275
Pam Spurr. Agony aunt. Followers: 10170
Susan Weinschenk. Psychologist and author. Followers: 10010
David Rock. Work psychologist. Followers: 9995
Maia Szalavitz. Neuroscience journalist. Followers: 9968
Jay Watts. Clinical psychologist, Lacanian. Followers: 9341
Andrea Kuszewski. Robopsychologist. Followers: 9135
75th place Bradley Voytek. Neuroscientist and self-professed geek. Followers: 9002
Timothy Lomauro. Clinical psychologist. Followers: 8996
Stephan Guyenet. Neurobiologist. Followers: 8795
Jason Goldman. Developmental psychologist, science writer. Followers: 8749
Sophie Scott. Neuroscientist. Followers: 8722
Cheryl Arutt. Clinical and forensic psychologist. Followers: 8690
Margarita Holmes. Psychologist and sex therapist. Followers: 8689
Claudia Hammond. Radio presenter. Followers: 8430
Neuro Bonkers. Blogger. Followers: 8397
Todd Finnerty. Psychologist. Followers: 8066
Bruce Hood. Cognitive scientist. Followers: 7870
Steven Novella. Neurologist and sceptic. Followers: 7635
Graham Jones. Internet (cyber) psychologist. Followers: 7529
John Grohol. Founder of Psychcentral. Followers: 6814
Shelley Bonanno. Psychologist and psychotherapist. Followers: 6549
Jay Dadlani. Psychologist. Followers: 6361
Rory O’Connor. Health psychologist, suicide researcher. Followers: 6292
Jordan Gaines Lewis. Neuroscientist, blogger. Followers: 6247
Jesse Bering. Psychologist, blogger. Followers: 6239
Kevin Mitchell. Neurogeneticist. Followers: 6230
Patrick McGee: Health psychologist. Followers: 6202 Kathleen Young. Clinical psychologist. Followers: 5930
Gary Marcus. Psychologist, author and blogger. Followers: 5923

Hugo Spiers. Neuroscientist. Followers: 5817
100th place Andy Field. Psychologist and stats whiz. Followers: 5737

_________________________________

Thanks to Emma Smith at the BPS for updating the follower counts.

Twitter February 28, 2014July 30, 2016

The 100 most followed psychologists and neuroscientists on Twitter

Updated for 2014, here are the 100 most followed psychologists and neuroscientists on Twitter based on follower counts recorded over the last few weeks. You can follow all 100 as a Twitter list here (thanks @psychoBoBlogy). If we’ve missed anyone who should be in the top 100, please let us know via comments and we’ll add them in to future iterations of the list. This is an update to our July 2013 post. Check the comments to that earlier post for even more psychologists on Twitter than we were able to include here.

Andrew Mendonsa. Clinical psychologist. Followers: 364822
Sam Harris. Neuroscientist, author. Followers: 184675
Kiki Sanford. Neurophysiologist turned sci communicator. Followers: 160730
Richard Wiseman. Psychologist, blogger and author. Followers: 128927
Steven Pinker. Evolutionary psychologist, author. Followers: 113671
Laura Kauffman. Child psychologist. Followers: 106763
Oliver Sacks. Neurologist and author. Followers: 65207
George Huba. Psychologist. Followers: 62246
Dan Ariely. Behavioural Economist, author. Followers: 61143
Leah Klungness. Author and psychologist. Followers: 55908
Dolors Reig. Social psychologist (tweets in Spanish). Followers: 55383
BPS Research Digest. The BPS Research Digest! Followers: 38113
Travis Langley. Psychologist. Followers: 37107
Melanie Greenberg. Clinical health psychologist. Followers: 32929
Miguel Escotet. Psychologist. Followers: 32382
Yankı Yazgan. Child psychiatrist/ psychology faculty. Followers: 32260
Marsha Lucas. Neuropsychologist. Followers: 31916
Neuroskeptic. Blogger and neuroscientist. Followers: 31331
Dylan William. Educational psychologist. Followers: 24258
Anthony Risser. Neuropsychologist, blogger. Followers: 24139
Richard Thaler. Behavioural economist. Followers: 24006
Aleks Krotoski. Psychologist, tech journalist. Followers: 23498
The Psychologist magazine. Followers: 23376
Vaughan Bell. Clinical neuropsychologist, blogger. Followers: 21397
Jo Hemmings. Celebrity psychologist. Followers: 21394
Jeremy Dean. Blogger. Followers: 20179
BPS Official. Followers: 20126
Mo Costandi. Writer, blogger. Followers: 18543
David Eagleman. Neuroscientist, author. Followers: 18414
David Dobbs. Neuroscience writer. Followers: 18085
Noah Gray. Neuroscience editor. Followers: 17661
Kelly McGonigal. Psychologist. Followers: 17655
David Ballard. Work psychologist. Followers: 16431
Sun Wolf. Social neuroscientist. Followers: 15789
Melissa McCreery. Clinical Psychologist. Followers: 15711
Daniel Levitin. Psychologist, author. Followers: 14697
Amy Cuddy. Social psychologist. Followers: 14449
Heidi GrantHalvorson. Social psychologist. Followers: 14030
Craig Malkin. Clinical psychologist. Followers: 13489
Dorothy Bishop. Developmental neuropsychologist. Followers: 13077
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore. Cognitive neuroscientist. Followers: 13019
Ciaran O’Keeffe. Parapsychologist. Followers: 12865
Dean Burnett. Neuroscientist and comedian. Followers: 12612
Susan Whitbourne. Psychologist. Followers: 12079
Dan Gilbert. Psychologist. Followers: 11267
Honey Langcaster-James. Psychologist and coach. Followers: 11241
Jonathan Haidt. Psychologist. Followers: 11042
Paul Bloom. Psychologist. Followers: 11020
Simon Baron-Cohen. Developmental psychologist. Followers: 10762
Todd Kashdan. Psychologist. Followers: 10732
Petra Boynton. Psychologist, sex educator. Followers: 10558
Andrea Letamendi. Clinical psychologist. Followers: 10395
Uta Frith. Developmental neuropsychologist, autism expert. Followers: 10545
Christian Jarrett. Editor of the Research Digest. Followers: 10310
David Webb. Psychology tutor, blogger. Followers: 10117
Micah Allen. Cognitive neuroscientist. Followers: 9960
Jay Watts. Clinical psychologist, Lacanian. Followers: 9298
Professor Bob. Psychologist. Followers: 9182
David Rock. Work psychologist. Followers: 8848
Lee Keyes. Psychologist. Followers: 8790
Susan Weinschenk. Psychologist and author. Followers: 8647
Cary Cooper. Occupational psychologist. Followers: 8563
Margarita Holmes. Psychologist and sex therapist. Followers: 8411
Maria Konnikova. Neuroscience blogger and author. Followers: 7805
Bradley Voytek. Neuroscientist and self-professed geek. Followers: 7704
Pam Spurr. Agony aunt. Followers: 7590
Graham Jones. Internet (cyber) psychologist. Followers: 7356
Timothy Lomauro. Clinical psychologist. Followers: 7350
Bruce Hood. Cognitive scientist. Followers: 7338
Jason Goldman. Developmental/evolutionary psychologist. Followers: 7308
Claudia Hammond. Radio presenter. Followers: 7171
Neuro Bonkers. Blogger. Followers: 7095
Sophie Scott. Neuroscientist. Followers: 7067
Todd Finnerty. Psychologist. Followers: 7059
Andrea Kuszewski. Robopsychologist. Followers: 6515
John Grohol. Founder of Psychcentral. Followers: 6367
Jay Dadlani. Psychologist. Followers: 6300
Jesse Bering. Psychologist, blogger. Followers: 5753
Kathleen Young. Clinical Psychologist. Followers: 5601

G. Tendayi Viki. Social psychologist. Followers: 5548
Scott Kaufman. Cognitive psychologist, author. Followers: 5392
Marco Iacoboni. Neuroscientist, mirror neuron expert. Followers: 5204
Miriam Law-Smith. Clinical evolutionary psychologist. Followers: 4996
Steven Brownlow. Clinical and forensic psychologist. Followers: 4995
Lyle Becourtney. Specialist in anger management. Followers: 4845
Kevin Mitchell. Neurogeneticist. Followers: 4841
Jon Sutton. Editor of The Psychologist. Followers: 4824
Gary Marcus. Psychologist, author and blogger. Followers: 4722
Rory O’Connor. Health psychologist, suicide researcher. Followers: 4640
Earl Miller. Cognitive neuroscientist. Followers: 4626
Sandeep Gautam. Blogger. Followers: 4587
Joseph LeDoux. Neuroscientist, rocker. Followers: 4546
Hugo Spiers. Neuroscientist. Followers: 4484
Chris French. Anomalistic psychologist. Followers: 4408
Daniel Simons. Cognitive psychologist, author. Followers: 4403
Judith Beck. Clinical psychologist. Followers: 4341
Andy Field. Psychologist and stats whiz. Followers: 4323
Roxana Rudzik-Shaw. Counselling psychologist. Followers: 4279
Rita Handrich. Psychologist, editor. Followers: 4216
Molly Crockett. Neuroscientist. Followers: 4102

Thanks to Emma Smith for compiling the update.

Facebook, Personality, Technology, Twitter February 18, 2014July 30, 2016

Student narcissists prefer Twitter; more mature narcissists favour Facebook

Media headlines frequently link young people’s widespread use of Facebook with the narcissism of their generation (e.g. “Facebook’s ‘dark side’: study finds link to socially aggressive narcissism). A new investigation involving hundreds of US college students and hundreds of members of the US public has found that it’s actually the older generation for whom this claim is more accurate. However, use of Twitter tells another story.

First to challenge those Facebook headlines. Shaun Davenport and his colleagues found that students (average age 20) who scored higher on narcissism (measured by the Narcissistic Personality Inventory) were no more likely to post Facebook status updates, nor did they tend to have more Facebook friends.

By contrast, among the general public recruited online (average age 32), higher narcissism was linked with more use of Facebook, in terms of number of updates and number of friends. The researchers speculated that for young people who have grown up with Facebook, it’s common practice to use the social network regardless of one’s personality type. For older generations who did not grow up with Facebook (the age range for the public sample was 18 to 75), Davenport and his team said sending status updates was “not part of their social norms” and may instead be driven by narcissistic motives.

What about Twitter? Analysis showed that for the students, higher narcissism was associated with more active usage of Twitter. Moreover, higher narcissism was associated with students’ motives for using the site. More narcissistic students were likely to say they posted updates to attract followers and to gain admiration on the site. There were associations between student narcissism and vain motives for using Facebook too, but these links were weaker than for Twitter. “This pattern of results suggests that college narcissists prefer Twitter to Facebook and narcissism predicts reasons for usage as well as active usage,” the researchers said. They added that Twitter may have a number of features that particularly appeal to narcissists, including the fact that relationships need not be reciprocal (people can follow you on Twitter, without you having to follow them).

For the general public, higher narcissism was also linked with more active Twitter usage (more so even than Facebook usage). However, for this sample, links between narcissism and vain motives for using Twitter were weaker than for links between narcissism and vain motives for using Facebook.

A strength of this study is the use of two large samples covering different age groups. A weakness is its correlational design, which means we can’t know for sure if one factor (say, narcissism) is really driving a second factor (e.g. more Twitter updates). It’s possible the relationship works in reverse or that some other factor or factors are at play. “We concur with other researchers who have called for a greater use of experimental designs,” said Davenport and his team. “Given the early stages of SNS [social networking site] research, such methods would allow for greater control to isolate variables and allow for tests of causality.”

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Shaun W. Davenport, Shawn M. Bergman, Jacqueline Z. Bergman, & Matthew E. Fearrington (2014). Twitter versus Facebook: Exploring the role of narcissism in the motives and usage of different social media platforms. Computers in Human Behavior DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2013.12.011

Further reading

Facebook or Twitter: What does your choice of social networking site say about you?
These are the unwritten rules of Facebook
What your Facebook picture says about your cultural background

Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.

Technology, Twitter November 4, 2013July 30, 2016

Are you more likely to click headlines that are phrased as a question?

In the competition for readers’ mouse clicks, a favoured trick is to phrase headlines as questions. This isn’t an Internet innovation. As a way to grab attention, question headlines have been recommended by editors and marketeers for decades. But what is new, is the easy ability today to measure how often readers choose to click a headline. For a new paper, researchers in Norway have used Twitter to find out if question headlines really do entice more clicks.

Linda Lai and Audun Farbrot used a real science communication Twitter feed that had 6,350 followers at the time of the study. Real stories were tweeted to these followers twice, an hour apart. The first tweet used a statement headline, such as “Power corrupts”. The second tweet, referring to the same story, was phrased as a question that was either self-referencing, as in “Is your boss intoxicated by power?” or non-self-referencing, as in “Are bosses intoxicated by power?”

Lai and Farbrot found that self-referencing question headlines were clicked on average 175 per cent more often than statement headlines (this advantage dropped to 150 per cent for non-self-referencing question headlines). The difference in clicks for question and statement headlines was statistically significant, but the difference between the self-referencing and non-self-referencing headlines was not.

A follow-up study was similar but was conducted via the Norwegian equivalent of Ebay, known as Finn.no. Lai and Farbrot posted adverts for an iPhone, a couch, a TV and a washing machine using either statement headlines or question headlines (self-referencing or not), such as: “For sale: Black iPhone4 16GB”; “Anyone need a new iPhone4?”; or “Is this your new iPhone4?”

Overall, across the four products, non-self-referencing question headlines were clicked on 137 per cent more often on average than statement headlines; this rose to 257 per cent more often for self-referencing question headlines. This time the difference between the two types of question headline was statistically significant. This overall benefit of question headlines was observed despite one anomaly that the researchers were unable to explain – question headlines for washing machines actually led to fewer clicks than statement headlines.

Lai and Farbrot cautioned that they’ve only investigated the power of question headlines in a limited context. Another potential criticism of their work is surely that some of the question and statement headlines may have differed in other ways besides their quizzical status. In the previous example about bosses, for example, the question headlines were longer and referenced the concept of “intoxication” whereas the statement headline did not. Assuming questions really do provoke more clicks than statements do, another weakness of this paper is that it doesn’t tell us anything about why this is the case.

These issues aside, the clear take-out from this research is that you should phrase your headlines as questions, especially self-referencing ones, if you want to attract more clicks. “The combined strategy [of question headlines and self-referencing] seems to represent a useful tool for practitioners in attracting readers to their Internet-based communications,” the researchers said. However, an issue they don’t address is what happens if headline writers heed this message and adopt question headlines universally. Perhaps then statement headlines would appear more original and distinctive and attract more clicks. What do you think?
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Linda Lai, and Audun Farbrot (2013). What makes you click? The effect of question headlines on readership in computer-mediated communication. Social Influence DOI: 10.1080/15534510.2013.847859

Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.

Announcements, Twitter July 1, 2013July 30, 2016

The 100+ most followed psychologists and neuroscientists on Twitter

Here are the 100+ most followed psychologists and neuroscientists on Twitter based on follower counts recorded over the last few weeks. If we’ve missed anyone who should be here, please let us know via comments and we’ll add them in. This is an update to our September 2011 post “Psychologists who Tweet“. Check the comments to that earlier post for even more psychologists on Twitter than we were able to include here.

Andrew Mendonsa. Clinical psychologist. Followers: 688276
Kiki Sanford. Neurophysiologist turned sci communicator. Followers: 150106
Sam Harris. Neuroscientist, author. Followers: 142451
Richard Wiseman. Psychologist, blogger and author. Followers: 121261
Laura Kauffman. Child psychologist. Followers: 106623
Steven Pinker. Evolutionary psychologist, author. Followers: 74775
George Huba. Psychologist. Followers: 53644
Leah Klungness. Author and psychologist. Followers: 53063
Dolors Reig. Social psychologist (tweets in Spanish). Followers: 51383
Oliver Sacks. Neurologist and author. Followers: 50504
Dan Ariely. Behavioural Economist, author. Followers: 49533
Travis Langley. Psychologist. Followers: 33621
Marsha Lucas. Neuropsychologist. Followers: 31273
BPS Research Digest. The BPS Research Digest! Followers: 30007
Melanie Greenberg. Clinical health psychologist. Followers: 28104
Miguel Escotet. Psychologist. Followers: 25464
Yankı Yazgan. Child psychiatrist/ psychology faculty. Followers: 23280
Aleks Krotoski. Psychologist, tech journalist. Followers: 22583
Neuroskeptic. Blogger and neuroscientist. Followers: 19851
Jo Hemmings. Celebrity psychologist. Followers: 19548
Vaughan Bell. Clinical neuropsychologist, blogger. Followers: 17992
Melissa McCreery. Clinical Psychologist. Followers: 17289
Richard Thaler. Behavioural economist. Followers: 16709.
Jeremy Dean. Blogger. Followers: 16404
Dylan William. Educational psychologist. Followers: 16261
Mo Costandi. Writer, blogger. Followers: 15689
David Eagleman. Neuroscientist, author. Followers: 15509
Noah Gray. Neuroscience editor. Followers: 14923
Sun Wolf. Social neuroscientist. Followers: 14728
David Ballard. Work psychologist. Followers: 14479
The Psychologist magazine. Followers: 14176
BPS Official. Followers 14169
David Dobbs. Neuroscience writer. Followers: 13998
Anthony Risser. Neuropsychologist, blogger. Followers: 13245
Daniel Levitin. Psychologist, author. Followers: 12985
Heidi GrantHalvorson. Social psychologist. Followers: 12124
Craig Malkin. Clinical psychologist. Followers: 12066
Kelly McGonigal. Psychologist. Followers: 11771
Honey Langcaster-James. Psychologist and coach. Followers: 11291
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore. Cognitive neuroscientist. Followers: 10373
Ciaran O’Keeffe. Parapsychologist. Followers: 10251
Todd Kashdan. Psychologist. Followers: 9991
Dorothy Bishop. Developmental neuropsychologist. Followers: 9976
Petra Boynton. Psychologist, sex educator. Followers: 9895
Andrea Letamendi. Clinical psychologist. Followers:
Susan Whitbourne. Psychologist. Followers: 9593
Dean Burnett. Neuroscientist and comedian. Followers: 9216
Jay Watts. Clinical psychologist, Lacanian. Followers: 8719
Amy Cuddy. Social psychologist. Followers: 8409
Jonathan Haidt. Psychologist. Followers: 7899
David Webb. Psychology tutor, blogger. Followers: 7851
Uta Frith. Developmental neuropsychologist, autism expert. Followers: 7774
David Rock. Work psychologist. Followers: 7611
Micah Allen. Cognitive neuroscientist. Followers: 7537
Dan Gilbert. Psychologist. Followers: 7529
Simon Baron-Cohen. Developmental psychologist. Followers: 7383
Professor Bob. Psychologist. Followers: 7275
Graham Jones. Internet (cyber) psychologist. Followers: 7255
Lee Keyes. Psychologist. Followers: 7229
Christian Jarrett. Editor of the BPS Research Digest. Followers: 7135
Margarita Holmes. Psychologist and sex therapist. Followers: 7053
Paul Bloom. Psychologist. Followers: 7050
Cary Cooper. Occupational psychologist. Followers: 6876
Bruce Hood. Cognitive scientist. Followers: 6814
Susan Weinschenk. Psychologist and author. Followers: 6561
Timothy Lomauro. Clinical psychologist. Followers: 6123
Jay Dadlani. Psychologist. Followers: 5981
Todd Finnerty. Psychologist. Followers: 5783
Bradley Voytek. Neuroscientist and self-professed geek. Followers: 5775
Miriam Law-Smith. Clinical evolutionary psychologist. Followers: 5700
Claudia Hammond. Radio presenter. Followers: 5661
Pam Spurr. Agony aunt. Followers: 5646
John Grohol. Founder of Psychcentral. Followers: 5612
Maria Konnikova. Neuroscience blogger and author. Followers: 5588
Jason Goldman. Developmental & evolutionary psychologist, blogger. Followers: 5382
Andrea Kuszewski. Robopsychologist. Followers: 5329
G. Tendayi Viki. Social psychologist. Followers: 5224
Kathleen Young. Clinical Psychologist. Followers: 5116

Sophie Scott. Neuroscientist. Followers: 4954

Neuro Bonkers. Blogger. Followers: 4944
Jon Sutton. Editor of The Psychologist. Followers: 4448
Marco Iacoboni. Neuroscientist, mirror neuron expert. Followers: 4396
Jesse Bering. Psychologist, blogger. Followers: 4154
Rita Handrich. Psychologist, editor. Followers: 4152
Sandeep Gautam. Blogger. Followers: 4022
Steven Brownlow. Clinical and forensic psychologist. Followers: 3979
Joseph LeDoux. Neuroscientist, rocker. Followers: 3911
The Neurocritic. Blogger. Followers: 3894
Chris French. Anomalistic psychologist. Followers: 3818
Gary Marcus. Psychologist, author and blogger. Followers: 3801
Lyle Becourtney. Specialist in anger management. Followers: 3739
Mark Changizi. Cognitive psychologist, author. Followers: 3610
Earl Miller. Cognitive neuroscientist. Followers: 3562
Judith Beck. Clinical psychologist. Followers: 3420
Pam Dodd. Organisational psychologist. Followers: 3321
Kevin Mitchell. Neurogeneticist. Followers: 3317
Maria Panagiotidi. Grad student. Followers: 3263
Hugo Spiers. Neuroscientist. Followers: 3137
John Cacioppo. Psychologist, social neuroscientist. Followers: 3133
Daniel Simons. Cognitive psychologist, author. Followers: 3285
Scott Kaufman. Cognitive psychologist, author. Followers: 3190
Rory O’Connor. Health psychologist, suicide researcher. Followers: 3162
Andy Field. Psychologist and stats whiz. Followers: 3015
Brian MacDonald. Clinical psychologist. Followers: 3015
Geraint Rees. Neuroscientist. Followers: 3005
Wendy Cousins. Psychologist and skeptic. Followers: 2881
Roxana Rudzik-Shaw. Counselling psychologist. Followers: 2862
Prerana Shrestha. Neuroscientist. Followers: 2833
Björn Brembs. Neurobiologist. Followers: 2828
Aaron Kucyi. Neuroscientist. Followers: 2818
Brian Earp. Psychologist. Followers: 2733
Molly Crockett. Neuroscientist. Followers: 2726
Chris Atherton. Cognitive psychologist. Followers: 2718
David Timony. Educational psychologist. Followers: 2593
Rebecca Symes. Sports psychologist. Followers: 2559
Charles Fernyhough. Developmental psychologist, author. Followers: 2545
Andrew and Sabrina. Psychological scientists. Followers: 2540
BPS Occupational Digest. The BPS Occupational Digest. Followers: 2497
Daniel Willingham. Psychologist. Followers: 2390
Atle Dyregrov. Psychologist, expert in crisis psychology. Followers: 2381
Jon Simons. Cognitive neuroscientist. Followers: 2380
Ana Loback. Psychologist. Followers: 2348
Fretes Torruella. Educational psychologist. Followers: 2301
Tom Stafford. Psychologist, author. Followers: 2298
Jon Simons. Cognitive scientist. Followers: 2151
Jon Brock. Autism blogger, wannabe neuroscientist. Followers: 2125
Tom Hartley. Neuroscientist. Followers: 2030
Keith Laws. Cognitive neuropsychologist. Followers: 2007
Shelley Bonanno. Psychodynamic psychotherapist. Followers: 1924
Chris Chambers. Psychologist and neuroscientist. Followers: 1917
Rolfe Lindgren. Psychologist, personality expert. Followers: 1860
Patricia Lockwood. Psychologist, cognitive neuroscientist. Followers: 1860
Wray Herbert. Writer for APS, author. Followers: 1859
Frederik Anseel. Work psychologist. Followers: 1805
Luis Valdes. Sports psychologist. Followers: 1801
Rob Archer. Organisational psychologist. Followers: 1781
Adam Alter. Marketing psychologist. Followers: 1748
Michael Britt. Podcast host. Followers: 1747
Graham Davey. Psychologist. Followers: 1734
Jonathan Wai. Psychologist. Followers: 1722
Michelle Dawson. Autistic researcher. Followers: 1666
Alex Linley. Positive psychologist. Followers: 1611
Jamie Madigan. Cyberpsychologist. Followers: 1610
Manon Eileen. Clinical psychologist and criminologist. Followers: 1595
Michael Hogan. Psychologist and neuroscientist. Followers: 1570
Mark Stokes. Cognitive neuroscientist. Followers: 1560
Vanessa Bohns. Social psychologist. Followers: 1547
Karen Pine. Psychologist, author. Followers: 1546
Monica Whitty. Cyberpsychologist. Followers: 1543
Pete Etchells. Biological psychologist. Followers: 1536
Ioannis Nikolaou. Organisational psychologist. Followers: 1534
David Matsumoto. Psychologist and judoka. Followers: 1527
Victoria Galbraith. Counselling psychologist. Followers: 1482
Dave Brodbeck. Comparative/evolutionary psychologist. Followers: 1474
Christine Allen. Clinical psychologist and executive coach. Followers: 1470
Daryl O’Connor. Health psychologist. Followers: 1470
Sally Canning. Clinical Psychologist. Followers: 1469
Peter Kinderman. Clinical psychologist. Followers: 1464
Sanjay Srivastava. Psychologist. Followers: 1408
Christopher Chabris. Cognitive psychologist. Followers: 1398
Jonathan Firth. Psychology teacher and author. Followers: 1393
Sandra Aamodt. Neuroscience writer. Followers: 1366
Voula Grand. Psychologist and writer. Followers: 1355

Jenna Condie. Environmental psychologist. Followers: 1320
Ciaran Mc Mahon. Psychologist. Followers: 1304
Matt Wall. Neuroscientist. Followers: 1293

If we’ve missed any psychologists or neuroscientists who should be in the top 100 please let us know via comments and we’ll add them in.

–Thanks to Emma Smith for help with compiling the update.

Social, Technology, Twitter May 6, 2013July 30, 2016

Why your friends on Twitter are (probably) more interesting than you, and what to do about it

Statistical logic means that your lover has probably had more sexual partners than you. Similarly, at the gym, most of the other users train more frequently than you. And your friends have more friends than you do – this last observation was labelled the “friendship paradox” by sociologist Scott Feld. It’s a fact because popular people get counted in more people’s tallies of how many friends their friends have (here’s more explanation).

Now thanks to a new paper by Nathan Hodas and his colleagues, we can add to this humbling stats lesson the fact that for most users of Twitter, our followers and followees (the people we choose to follow), are better connected, more active, and more interesting than we are.

Hodas’ team analysed Twitter data from the second half of 2009 featuring 476 million tweets and 5.8 million users, with 193.3 million links between them. First off, they found that for most of us, the people we choose to follow are better connected – that is, they typically follow ten times as many people as we do. Our followers too are better connected, typically by a factor of twenty.

Seeing as we choose how many other people we want to follow, this first observation isn’t such a blow to the ego. However, the researchers found a similar result for popularity. That is, the people who follow us are typically ten times more popular than we are (in terms of their own follower count). Less surprising, the people we choose to follow are also more popular than we are. Here there are two distinct groupings – in one, the people we follow are typically ten times as popular as us; in the other, they are typically 10,000 times as popular (this is thanks to celebrity accounts and such like).

Not only are our followers and the people we follow better connected and more popular than we are, the people we follow are also usually more active. Eighty-eight per cent of users were found to be less active than a typical person they followed; this rose to 99 per cent when omitting accounts that ceased activity during the period covered by the data. This is probably because we’re more likely to follow accounts that are more visible by virtue of being more active.

A related observation was the link between activity and popularity – that is, more active users tended to be more popular, a correlation the researchers described as “especially strong”. This suggests being more active on Twitter could be a simple way to gain more popularity, although we need to be cautious because there’s no proof here for a causal link. “The detailed mechanism for this explanation is not yet clear,” the researchers admitted.

To connectivity, popularity and activity, we can add interestingness. The researchers looked at the “virality” of links shared on Twitter – literally how many times they were re-tweeted. Here they found that 79 per cent of Twitter users posted less viral content than the people they follow.

Another issue the researchers looked at was what they called “information overload”. Here they found that as the number of people we follow increases, the information that we’re subjected to increases “super-linearly” – each new user that we follow typically equals hundreds of new items of information in our Twitter stream. In part this is because, as we heard, the people we follow are usually highly active (or at least more active than we are). The risk is that we end up subscribing to more information than we can possibly manage to consume.

This last point about overload is relevant to readers hoping to boost their popularity and interestingness on Twitter. Comparing overloaded Twitter users (the third receiving the most amounts of info), and the underloaded (the bottom third), Hodas and his colleagues found that the overloaded tended to receive information that had gone massively viral, but tended to overlook “mini-cascades” – information that had viral potential. “It appears that overloaded users are only good detectors for information of mid-range interestingness,” the researchers said. “Most likely the information that their friends already know.” This suggests that if you want to be the kind of user who helps to break the next big story on Twitter, you need to be careful not to follow too many accounts in the pursuit of this aim. Pick and choose who you follow with care.

“If you have ever felt like your friends are more interesting or more active than you are,” the researchers concluded, “it seems the statistics confirm this to be true for the vast majority of us.”

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Nathan O. Hodas, Farshad Kooti, and Kristina Lerman (2013). Friendship Paradox Redux: Your Friends Are More Interesting Than You. arXiv arXiv: 1304.3480v1

Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.