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Gordon Pennycook
12.2K posts
Gordon Pennycook
@GordPennycook
Associate Prof @Cornell (formerly @UWaterloo/@Yale/@Hill_Levene). Reasoning, beliefs, misinfo, BS, etc. Peddler of gifs, polls. Dad. he/him
- So, um, big news everyone... in July 2023 I'll be leaving @UofRegina to take an Associate Prof position at @Cornell (in social psych)! It was a difficult decision to leave Regina (for many reasons), but I feel so fortunate to be given an opportunity that I couldn't pass up 🥳
- Warning: Sentimentality ahead I'm not someone who publishes papers in Nature. I'm just not. And it's not just this paper, of course. This is just the thing that caused me to reflect on my life and how absolutely bonkers this all still is for me. So, I thought I would share.🚨Out now in Nature!🚨 A fundamentally new way of fighting misinfo online: Surveys+field exp w >5k Twitter users show that gently nudging users to think about accuracy increases quality of news shared- bc most users dont share misinfo on purpose nature.com/articles/s4158… 1/
- Well, friends, it seems that I've officially been granted tenure! 🥳🙌🍻 The milestone has led me to reflect on my career a bit and, I must say, I'm so fortunate to have been surrounded by so many awesome & interesting people. that's right, it's a tenure announcement THREAD 🙄
- The author of "why it pays to break the rules" is now on administrative leave from Harvard Business School for (what appears to be very likely) data fabrication...for research literally on the topic of dishonesty! datacolada.org/109 It's like a movie. A poorly written movie
- The Guardian published an article titled "Why smart people are more likely to believe fake news" which cites *in that very article* our research that indicates the exact opposite.🤦♂️The use of deceptive titles in even reputable outlets is a major problem. theguardian.com/books/2019/apr…
- I try to be a friend to all on here, but I just need to say: Scientific fraud is bad. Very very bad. Everything we do assumes a lack of fraud. "Piling on" is actually necessary, IMO. Imagine the levels of fraud we'd be dealing with if it didn't destroy reputations...
- PSA: Start a Google Scholar page if you haven't already. Doesn't matter if you have 1 publication or 100, just set it up. If I read something you wrote & think it's interesting, I want to find more. If you have a GS page, it's all right there. Help others discover your work!
- Finally got my shot today at a drive thru... and then, as I was parking, passed out and hit a car. (I don't like needles) Props to the paramedic who came to my aid immediately & for the person I ran into for being so nice about it And, for the record, I'd do it all over again!
- New working paper! "On the belief that beliefs should change according to evidence: Implications for conspiratorial, moral, paranormal, political, religious, and science beliefs" psyarxiv.com/a7k96 Read this thread if you're curious about how I (almost) fucked this one up.
- There has been a surge of behavioral research on misinformation & "fake news". To synthesize things, @DG_Rand & I wrote a systematic review: psyarxiv.com/ar96c We take a cognitive/social psych perspective, but we tried to cast a wide net for the review. Feedback welcome!
- New review in @TrendsCognSci “The Psychology of Fake News” w @DG_Rand We synthesize research on belief in, sharing of, & interventions against misinformation, with a focus on false/misleading news cell.com/trends/cogniti… And now a thread that synthesizes our synthesis! 1/
- Our paper "Fighting COVID-19 misinformation on social media: Experimental evidence for a scalable accuracy nudge intervention" is now in press at Psych Science! I’m super proud of this paper - but first, a thread on the results. Preprint: psyarxiv.com/uhbk9/
- Wouter is extremely smart. PhD from Princeton. Harvard postdoc. First-author pubs in JEP:G, Psych Science, Nature Human Behavior. ~400 citations last year alone. 40 apps, 3 interviews, 1 offer. Read Wouter's thread for some insight into what it's like to bear the job market.I've been very lucky with my job offer. Not only because I'll be in an amazing department, but also literally — the odds of getting a tenure track job are super low. Far lower than I though. This is a problem. We need to be transparent about the cons of the academic job market.
