Bojana Većkalov

PhD Position: Factual Belief Polarisation and its Attitudinal Consequences | Radboud University Do you want to work as a PhD at the Nijmegen School of Management? Check our vacancy!

🚨 Job alert! 🚨

We are looking for a PhD candidate for my Vidi project on factual belief polarization and its attitudinal consequences.

The position will be at the Department of Political Science of Radboud University (Netherlands). Check out the full job profile below!

www.ru.nl/en/working-a...

1/8 🧠 New study out! We analyzed data from 10,000+ people across 26 countries on trust in climate scientists — and how political ideology shapes it. Here’s what we found ⬇️ #ClimatePsychology #TrustInScience
🔗: doi.org/10.1016/j.je...

A common challenge in communicating about climate data is that differences can seem small or noisy on the graph but are actually hugely consequential. An interesting new paper shows that making it binary (e.g., lake froze vs. did not freeze) can increase the perceived climate impacts.

You do not need to be Dutch to sign. If you simply care to preserve programs that have been leaders in rigor and reform in psychology, then signal your support for them to continue to thrive.

The Rector of the University of Belgrade, Vladan Đokić, was summoned to the criminal police in New Belgrade. Faculty staff, students, and many other citizens have come out to support him. #studentprotests

Political ideology and trust in scientists in the USA - Nature Human Behaviour In this Registered Report, Gligorić et al. find that liberals in the USA tend to have higher trust in most scientists compared with conservatives. However, they find no evidence that a series of inter...

🎉 Just published in Nature Human Behavior 🎉

Do liberals or conservatives in the US trust scientists more? You might assume it's liberals, but studies often fail to consider the diversity of scientific disciplines! 🔬

nature.com/articles/s41...

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HELP PLEASE 🙏
🛫✈️ We’re designing a conjoint experiment to test public support for a more ambitious air travel #carbon tax in Denmark—varying tax levels, revenue use, and progressivity.

We're now deciding which three tax levels to test—each reflecting different levels of ambition. Any suggestions?

Research shows that people are more likely to reject science when they feel psychologically distant from it—when it seems abstract, irrelevant, or conducted by people unlike them.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1...

Thanks for the mention, Matthew!

This also marks the last chapter of my PhD dissertation being published! 🎉

Huge thanks to my coauthors Natalia Zarzeczna, Frenk van Harreveld and Bastiaan Rutjens!

This builds on our work showing that higher psychological distance to science (PSYDISC) predicts science skepticism across multiple science domains (doi.org/10.1177/0146...) & is the first to demonstrate that PSYDISC is a malleable construct that could be useful in science communication efforts!

We find that communicating about GM food (and nanotechnology) science as:

📍 an endeavour happening nearby
⏱️ with implications in the present
🧑‍🔬 done by scientists that are willing to engage with the public
💪 and confident about their work

can improve evaluations and reduce science skepticism.

How can we improve public attitudes towards contested science domains? In a new paper featuring 4 highly-powered experiments (3 preregistered), we show that psychological closeness (vs. distance) can help!

The paper is published OA in the Journal of Social Issues: lnkd.in/dFN8_8KA

Thanks for the shout out! :)

Another job posting from the Climate Accountability Lab at the University of Miami just dropped, this one in the psychology of climate change communication and psychological inoculation against misinformation...

More info and application form here: careers.miami.edu/us/en/job/R1...

A 27-country test of communicating the scientific consensus on climate change - Nature Human Behaviour Across 27 countries, Većkalov and Geiger et al. find that scientific consensus messaging on climate change is an effective, non-polarizing tool for changing misperceptions, beliefs and worry but not s...

Exciting news 😊
Our new paper is now out in Nature Human Behaviour!
Across 27 countries, scientific consensus on climate change reduces misperceptions and increases belief in (human-caused) climate change and worry, also among those with low trust and on the right.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Behavioral science policy recommendations early in the pandemic were *largely correct*. Our global collaboration of 80+ experts covers 747 studies (average sample size over 16,000!) & supports 16 of 19 claims. Many lessons for science & policy.

Out today in Nature:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Thanks for sharing!

We discuss alternative methods to elicit analytic thinking, as well as recent work pointing to a potentially more complex relationship between analytic thinking and conspiracy beliefs that depends on prior beliefs and motivation to be accurate.

This might not come as a surprise as that the studies in question used priming tasks, but it underscores the need for more work on the causal relationship between thinking styles and belief in conspiracy theories.

No evidence that priming analytic thinking reduces belief in conspiracy theories: A Registered Repor... Analytic thinking is reliably associated with lower belief in conspiracy theories. However, evidence for whether increasing analytic thinking can redu…

Analytic thinking is related to lower belief in conspiracies. So can analytic thinking decrease belief in conspiracy theories? We don’t really know, as the one set of studies in support of this does not seem to replicate.

With @marijapetrovic.bsky.social, @vukasin.bsky.social
#socialpsyc #PsychSci

New study on system justification:

"An underperforming system can threaten one’s belief that the social world is a just and safe place, consequently, misperception of such a dysfunctional system can protect our psychological well-being."

🧪 #SocialPsyc #Psychology