Rob Ross

Curious about how psychological theories are built, tested, and refined in practice? This summer, the Theory Methods Society is launching the very first edition of the summer school Theory Building in Psychology at the University of Amsterdam (July 6–10, 2026).

theorymethodssociety.org

Front cover of my book, titled "Comparative musicology: Evolution, universals, and the science of the world's music" (published today by Oxford University Press)

1st of my 4-page essay published in Nature today titled "Music is not a universal language - but it can bring us together when words fail" Picture caption: "Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny (centre) performed in Spanish at the half-time show of the 2026 American Football Super Bowl LX."

My book is now published! 🌏🎶🧪

You can download it for free at academic.oup.com/book/62353 - I’d be grateful if you do!
I also published an accessible summary with audio/video today in @nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Try reading that first, then give the whole book a read if you like it!

📢 Post-doc position – Toulouse (France) 🇫🇷
A post-doctoral position (12 months) is open at CNRS in Toulouse to work with me on the relationship between signal detection theory, conspiracy beliefs, and perceptions of corruption...
🔗 emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/CDD/U...
Feel free to share!

Rethinking psychological measurement: Validity potential versus realised validity We propose a concept of validity with a novel feature that we argue can facilitate improved measurement validation practices in the psychological scie…

Thrilled to share our new paper introducing “validity potential” versus “realised validity” as a key distinction for psychological measurement, with @davidmkaplanx.bsky.social, Alexander Gillett, @suttonprofessor.bsky.social, and @robert-m-ross.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I haven't read closely, so don't have strong opinions on who is correct, but Kelly has an earlier paper disputing Dawson (1999): www.doi.org/10.1558/ijsn...

Genuine question: What do you think are the most compelling studies providing evidence for cognitive dissonance?

Published today: One of the biggest #science #communication studies to date. We asked 71,922 people in 68 countries how they #engage with information about #science and combined the data with several country-level factors: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... #OpenAccess

Pseudo Effects: How Method Biases Can Produce Spurious Findings About Close Relationships - Samantha Joel, John K. Sakaluk, James J. Kim, Devinder Khera, Helena Yuchen Qin, Sarah C. E. Stanton, 2025 Research on interpersonal relationships frequently relies on accurate self-reporting across various relationship facets (e.g., conflict, trust, appreciation). Y...

In a new paper, my colleagues and I set out to demonstrate how method biases can create spurious findings in relationship science, by using a seemingly meaningless scale (e.g., "My relationship has very good Saturn") to predict relationship outcomes. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Research Scientist | Alessandro Sparacio 🤝 Join Our Global Study on Mindfulness & Mental Health! 🌍 We are seeking international collaborators for a funded, multi-site study: "Building Resilience Across Socioeconomic Contexts." This projec...

My collaborator Alessandro Sparacio is leading a new multisite study examining the effectiveness of self-administered mindfulness meditation for stress reduction. More details here: www.linkedin.com/posts/alessa...

Those experiencing delusions were more likely to jump to conclusions on certain tasks.

🤔 But the *strength* of delusional beliefs did not correlate with propensity to jump to conclusions.

Open access link below.

#logic #psychiatry #criticalThinking #cogSci #decisionScience

AMPPS Accepts First Manuscript From Innovative Peer Review System The APS journal Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science has accepted its first manuscript through a collaboration with a nonprofit that offers decentralized, community-driven peer review.

APS's journal AMPPS has accepted its first manuscript through a collaboration with a nonprofit that offers decentralized, community-driven peer review. @dsbarra.bsky.social 

The ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test’ may be less robust than we thought | BPS A new paper assesses the widely-used tool.

oh wow! lovely to see people engaging with my research 😃

www.bps.org.uk/research-dig...

Article is open access 🙂 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Is there a relationship between delusional ideation and a jumping to conclusions cognitive bias? Our new meta-analysis led by Rose Doherty (wisely not on social media) syntheses evidence from 42 studies and finds... nothing! First publication from her PhD research 🎉

Our recently published paper in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review on #reasoning styles and #belief in God is now featured by @psychonomicsociety.bsky.social!
Thanks, Jonathan Caballero, for the interesting article.

📄 Read the paper here: doi.org/10.3758/s134...

Reflecting on godly matters … and on cognitive reasoning styles Our world is incredibly vast and culturally diverse. One of the evident ways in which cultures differ includes their religious beliefs, creating a rich array of expressions and practices. Wandering…

Mysterious ways our reasoning styles relate to belief in God. #psynomPBR paper by @omidghasemi.bsky.social @onurcanyilmaz.bsky.social @jennyterry.bsky.social @robert-m-ross.bsky.social. Post by J Caballero

I had hoped AI could unlock the secrets of the universe. Sadly, I was wrong...

Wendy Higgins recently joined BlueSky (@wchiggins.bsky.social) and was awarded her PhD! Follow her for more cutting edge developments in psychological measurement, including measurement of ToM 🙂

Differences in psychologists’ cognitive traits are associated with scientific divides - Nature Human Behaviour Scientific disagreements are not just a matter of using different methods or having conflicting data. Sulik et al. surveyed psychological scientists and found that disagreements are also associated wi...

Why do scientists disagree with each other? This new study from @justinsulik.bsky.social et al. surveys psychologists to find that scientific divides are associated with differences in researcher cognitive traits. @mi3lab.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

For the full story see this summary by the leader of the research project @willgervais.com
bsky.app/profile/will...

Atheists have a soft spot for God, new study shows

Just in time for Easter lighthouse.mq.edu.au/article/apri...

new preprint available!

Trust from Mistrust: When is Trust Rationally Justified?

Co-authors @michalk.bsky.social @stevebland.bsky.social @robert-m-ross.bsky.social

osf.io/preprints/ps...

Drawing on insights from Nietzsche's Human All-too-human, we develop a framework for wisely placing trust 🧵

Thanks. You're right! I failed to notice these stats on the researcher profile. I agree that this is much less neat (and useful) than publons was -- all this blah (which duplicates Google Scholar profiles and the Pure blah) detracts from the single piece of information that is very useful. Sigh.

Wendy Higgins (@wchiggins.bsky.social), who developed all these projects that interrogated the validity of the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test, has just been awarded her PhD and joined BlueSky! Follow her for more cutting-edge research on measurement and meta-science!

Dr Wendy Higgins, who developed several brilliant projects that interrogated the validity of the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test, has been awarded her PhD and joined BlueSky! Follow her for cutting-edge research on measurement and meta-science as she begins the next stage of her academic carer! 😀

If it's totally dead I guess it's a "failed attempt" to reward peer review?

Is Publons defunct? It got bought by Clarivate Analytics several years ago (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publons). When I dig around on their webpage attempting to access it I go round in circles. I was thinking of mentioning it in a metascience paper as an example of an attempt to reward peer review.

Thanks! Lion's share of the credit for this work goes to Wendy Higgins!

Encourage your students to take up the baton and examine more social cognitive measures please 🙂

I reckon a process of elimination is the best approach. There are typically two absurd responses and then it's a coin toss to identify the "correct" response.