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Nadia Brashier Profile
Nadia Brashier

@nadiabrashier

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Assistant professor @UCSanDiego . Studying how people judge truth and fall for fake news across the lifespan 🧠

San Diego, CA
Joined May 2018
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
Why do older adults share the most fake news? In a new paper in Current Directions, I argue that cognitive declines are only part of the problem. 1/13
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
1 year
I am super excited to share that my lab is moving to @UCSanDiego this fall! We study memory, misinformation, and aging, with a focus on why young and older adults share fake news. If those topics interest you, keep an eye out - we will be recruiting at all levels!
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
It’s official, ya’ll – I’m a first gen student turned faculty member! This fall, I’m joining Purdue’s Department of Psychological Sciences as an assistant professor. My lab will study memory, misinformation, and aging, with a focus on why young and older adults believe fake news.
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
Is there an optimal time to correct fake news? Yes! And it’s surprising. In a new paper in PNAS, we show that providing fact-checks *after* people read headlines is more effective than supplying the same information before or during exposure. 1/10
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
2 years
Are conspiracy theorists ‘lazy thinkers’? In a new paper in Current Opinion in Psychology, I argue that conspiracy theorists sometimes think too much, rather than too little. 1/8
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
Compared to young adults, older adults shared nearly 7 times more links to political fake news during the 2016 U.S. election. 2/13
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
I invited one of my students to bring her son to lectures, because it’s been hard to find consistent, affordable childcare. I love having him in the classroom, because he gasps in shock whenever I put up a graph. As if that isn’t enough of a gift, today they brought me this ❤️
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
Interested in misinformation, memory, or aging? Come work with me at Purdue! I am recruiting my first graduate student this fall, and I want to especially encourage first-generation, low-income students to apply.
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
If you know me from an academic setting, you’ve never heard my real voice. A professor warned me that my accent would make people think I was unintelligent, so I chose a classmate and copied her speech. This is how my friends and family react to my 9-5 voice lol
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
I’m honored to be named a Rising Star by @PsychScience 🌟 Feeling very grateful for my nominators and all of my mentors over the years
@PsychScience
Association for Psychological Science
3 years
Congratulations, APS Rising Stars! #academictwitter #psychtwitter
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
After lots of delays, I landed in Newark at 3 AM after the last train to Princeton had left. The woman sitting next to me on my flight drove me, adding two hours to her own trip in the middle of the night. We exchanged numbers so I’d know that she made it home, and she sent this
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
6 years
Reality show proposal: America’s Next Assistant Professor
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
I see people interpreting these data as justification for using the term “first gen PhD.” The majority of PhD students do *not* have a parent with a doctorate. Coming from a family where folks hold bachelors or masters degrees ain’t oppression, y’all wild as hell
@aaronclauset
@aaronclauset.bsky.social
4 years
1/ New preprint! The “Socioeconomic Roots of Academic Faculty,” with @alliecmorgan @laberge_nick @DanLarremore Mirta Galesic: We surveyed 7000 U.S. faculty from 8 disciplines to study how socioeconomic status shapes the academic workforce. 🪴 A summary:
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
11 months
sponsored by Bumble
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
What advice do ya’ll wish you’d gotten before teaching your first course?
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
On tough days, I reread emails from my sixth grade teacher, who was the first person to treat me like a scientist. Mr. New passed away last spring, but I still try to make him proud
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
5 years
Repeated claims feel truer than new ones, leaving people vulnerable to fake headlines and misleading ads. Can we prevent this illusory truth effect? Encouragingly, the answer is “yes” – check out my paper with @emmaline_drew , in press at Cognition. 1/8
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
5 years
A random man emailed me an explanation of my own research today - does this mean I’ve made it?
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
Compared to young adults, older adults interact with fewer ‘weak ties,’ or peripheral acquaintances. They also exhibit more interpersonal trust and are less able to spot liars. 8/13
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
I got to chat with the one and only @jvn about misinformation! Can you believe??
@CuriouswithJVN
Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness
3 years
Have you ever read a headline that seems just plausible enough—when you realize it’s fake? This week, Dr. @NadiaBrashier joins @jvn to discuss why we fall for fake news and what we can do about it:
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
Repeated claims feel truer than new ones, leaving us vulnerable to misinformation. Does this illusion persist when the stakes are high? In my new preprint with @DG_Rand , repetition misled people even when they could earn money for correct answers. 1/7
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
Older adults may infer that stories appearing in their timeline are credible, assuming that close friends and family wouldn’t share fake news. 9/13
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
I sleep soundly knowing that the famous professor who sexually harassed, threatened, and retaliated against me saw my name on this list
@PsychScience
Association for Psychological Science
3 years
Congratulations, APS Rising Stars! #academictwitter #psychtwitter
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
Compared to digital natives, older adults notice fewer manipulated photos and sponsored stories. They may also be unaware that algorithms populate their news feeds or even that sharing a story implies their agreement. 12/13
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
Told @catherineho37 that my paper was conditionally accepted at PNAS and she sent this My mentees (literally) sustain me 😭
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
7 months
Can we fight fake news without leaving people behind? In a new paper in Current Opinion in Psychology, I argue that current interventions may benefit the users who see the least misinformation to begin with. 1/8
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
Ya’ll, I am SO excited that Philip will be joining my lab as my first graduate student! 🥳
@lephuc2704hcmc
Phuc Huynh Le
3 years
it's been a long time since i learned about this news in feb, but this sweatshirt, gifted by my #gradschool advisor @nadiabrashier , is screaming for itself: I WILL BE A PHD STUDENT AT @GradPurdue THIS FALL, studying the role of sources in beliefs in fake news across countries!
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
With age, people also increasingly emphasize interpersonal goals (e.g., entertainment) over accuracy when communicating. As a result, older adults may click 'share' before considering a sensational headline's veracity. 10/13
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
Starting out as an assistant professor during a global pandemic is hard. But my family squirreled away hard-earned money, lit candles, and prayed for this, so imma rise to the occasion
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
5 years
In a ‘post-truth world,’ how do we know what to believe? In a new paper in the Annual Review of Psychology, I argue that people infer truth from three kinds of cues. 1/6
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
Interventions targeting older adults’ susceptibility to fake news should consider their shifting social goals and gaps in their digital literacy. 13/13
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
But fluency, or subjective ease of processing, remains intact. Claims feel easier to understand, and thus truer, with repetition. Older adults are no more vulnerable than young adults to this illusory truth effect. 5/13
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
It’s tempting to blame this pattern on cognitive deficits. But the processes involved in evaluating news don’t uniformly decline with age. 3/13
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
It meant a lot to my family when I got the opportunity to go to college. They planted a dogwood to mark the moment when I left - it’s in bloom now 🌸
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
Today was my first day teaching my own course! I'm trying to channel @KristiMulthaup , whose class on the psychology of aging set me on this career path at 18. Here's to hoping I can be that professor for someone else!
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
This may be especially true for the many older adults who are newcomers to social media. Ten years ago, only 8% of people over 65 used a social media site. Today that figure is up to 40%. 11/13
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
A free preprint of our paper is available here:
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
Older adults do experience episodic memory declines. This makes it difficult for them to remember whether content was previously flagged as ‘false.’ 4/13
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
1 year
Celebrating @Sydney_Trask winning an IBNS early career achievement award 🎉
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
In addition, older adults know a lot more facts than young adults do. They draw on this general knowledge to reject misinformation, helping them to outperform young adults in some cases. 6/13
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
Once my Uber driver (who was finishing up a master’s in psychology) explained my own paper to me I couldn’t get in a word edgewise to tell him that it was my work 🥴
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
@tressiemcphd @GregoryRSL Never led me astray! @GregoryRSL remember my dedication read “big ups to all my haters” 😂
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
Maybe:Professor Brashier
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
I worried about teaching for the first time in the middle of a pandemic, especially with a big class. The reviews are in, and we managed to make it fun after all
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
Misinformation about COVID-19 spread as rapidly as the virus itself. Older adults share the most fake news on social media and are also at the greatest risk of dying from coronavirus. How can we intervene? Check out my first op-ed in the @latimes
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
university: we love your timely work on fake news 😍 same university: we make it so hard for you to spend your own money that your experiments on Russian misinformation will be outdated by the time you can run them 🤠
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
Clearly cognitive declines cannot fully explain older adults’ engagement with fake news. What other factors leave them vulnerable? Social changes in late adulthood could lead older adults to share questionable content. 7/13
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
@GregoryRSL @tressiemcphd A-town fitted, who but me 😂😂😂 I’m mad you had a screenshot of this ready to go
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
Please don’t compare me to JD Vance. I made it to the Ivy League from Appalachia - that man is from a suburb in Ohio
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
the schools I eventually did my PhD and post doc at 💪🏻
@mspeacherino
What We Watch ®
3 years
what college did y’all get a rejection letter from?
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
I am so lucky to have @DG_Rand as a collaborator and second mentor He threw a party to celebrate my new job and his twins even made me a sign 😭
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
Ya’ll, one of my first-gen, low-income students needs help. Naomi and her mom were evicted in 2019. Naomi’s name was added to the eviction judgment, though she was never on the lease. This hurts her ability to lease and her credit now, as a Harvard student.
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
Chatted with an older woman outside an ice cream shop and she offered to be the first participant in my first experiment as a professor 🍦
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
I made my first live TV appearance yesterday! It was fun to talk about conspiracy theories with @FemiOke @rameshmedia and @transform6789 The @AJStream segment is available here for anyone who wants to watch
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
Older adults share the most fake news and also vote at the highest rate. As the election approaches, can we reduce their vulnerability to misinformation? Read about my work, as well as a promising new @mediawise intervention, in the @nytimes
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
1 year
@ShaiDavidai Can I ask - what was your intention in showing to ‘friends in hiring committees,’ if not retaliation?
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
Older adults share up to 7 times more fake news than young adults. If your intuitive response is ‘ok boomer,’ read coverage of my new work in @rollingstone . Science points to reasons that may surprise you.
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
Submitted grades so I’m officially done with my first semester on the tenure track 🤪 Big ups to my amazing TAs @HaileyA123 and @bushinski_ak without whom I would have perished lol
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
5 years
New headshots thanks to the very talented @angelaeckim In the style of academics everywhere, I’ll be using this photo until I’m 61.5 years old
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
So far, five Princeton undergrads have asked me what my major is lol
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
5 years
Harvard asked students to vacate campus by Sunday and now my first-gen, low income mentees are scrambling to access storage and flights
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
@ekadamer Girl you have a black emoji in your display name, an MLK quote as your pinned tweet, and you said ‘I’m siding with minorities almost always’ don’t try to go back and forth with me, you do NOT have the range. You lost a customer, take the L
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
How can you tell the difference between credible news and misinformation? I gave some tips to the @washingtonpost It was so much fun to chat about fake news with @NavigatingNikki , as well as to hear @jimmekaanderson 's advice!
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
5 years
Got a paper accepted with minor revisions on my birthday 🥳
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
Marked the transition from postdoc to professor in Atlanta with my oldest friends, thanks Pfizer ☺️
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
just submitted my first grant proposal as faculty
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
Why do people latch onto conspiracy theories? I explained why repeatedly seeing conspiratorial ideas increases their appeal in @KnowableMag @GordPennycook @Sander_vdLinden @Karen_Douglas @JoeUscinski @Nlrosenblum also offered their expertise
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
In the aftermath of these initial attacks on Ukraine, be mindful of the news that you share. We’ve already seen photos from Syria’s civil war being misrepresented as images from Donbas. Consider whether sources are credible and if images have been taken out of context.
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
2 years
Thus, encouraging conspiracy theorists to think harder about their beliefs could unintentionally push them further down rabbit holes (e.g., by prompting them to retrieve more information from low-quality sources). 7/8
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
6 months
Said it in October and I’ll say it again - free Palestine. Hopefully I’ll see some of ya’ll at the UCSD encampment, I’ll be there this afternoon in solidarity with our students
@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
1 year
I don’t have tenure, but imma say it anyways because many students wish they could speak up: We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians. In ten years, I won’t have to ask myself where I stood while genocide happened.
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
Shout out to @DG_Rand for reanalyzing published datasets for us, and thank you to @Briony_Swire and @andyguess for sharing your data!
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
1 year
I don’t have tenure, but imma say it anyways because many students wish they could speak up: We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians. In ten years, I won’t have to ask myself where I stood while genocide happened.
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
5 months
not to be dramatic but logging into concur makes me want to go back in time and un-get these degrees and this job
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
If you want to be more intentional in recruiting, retaining, and supporting first gen, low income students, tune in for some of my mentoring tips tomorrow 😊
@NozariL
NozariLab@IU
3 years
Join @WomenInCogSci mentoring event @Psychonomic_Soc 2021 on Thursday Nov 4, at 4 pm CDT with this fabulous line up. @ShinnCunningham @nadiabrashier @cmuneurosci @KristiMulthaup @KateArrington
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
2 years
Understanding when elaboration and cognitive effort may backfire is key, since conspiracy theories undermine elections, threaten the environment, and harm human health. 8/8
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
5 years
I couldn’t go to SfN, so @prestonthakral brought this gem back for me ☺️🧠
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
the Southern urge to tell open science bros that their cornbread ain’t done in the middle
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
Excited to see our review (led by @UlliEcker ) in print 🤩
@NatRevPsych
Nature Reviews Psychology
3 years
'The psychological drivers of misinformation belief and its resistance to correction', a Review by @UlliEcker , @STWorg , @johnfocook , @PhilippMSchmid , @lkfazio , @nadiabrashier , @Kendeou , @ekvraga & @commscholar
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
1 year
‘Sorry for the slow response! I’m setting up my lab for the second time in two years, with no deferral either time! The first time was during covid! Aging in dog years, Nadia’
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
My students graduated from Harvard today, and I couldn’t be prouder 😭 (Yes, those are matching @theestallion shirts)
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
Regardless of what the media might say, we marched peacefully all the way to Boston Common
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
2 years
At first blush, it seems like conspiracy theorists don’t think hard enough about the information in front of them. On average, they exhibit lower cognitive ability, think less analytically, use more heuristics, and report other ‘weird’ beliefs (e.g., in the paranormal). 3/8
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
5 years
Media literacy tips (e.g., be skeptical of catchy headlines) can improve people’s ability to discern fake from mainstream news. @andyguess described benefits that persisted three weeks after intervention.
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
5 months
This is personal for me — riot police arrested and beat some of my students. I would still welcome a chance to talk to admin, as a professor who visited the encampment and as a scientist whose research balances safety and protected first amendment rights
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
2 years
This weekend, I got to cheer on @jvn while he did gymnastics and stand-up comedy 🤸🏻 Didn’t think I could laugh harder than I did while recording our episode of @CuriouswithJVN - I was wrong 😭
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
The CEO of Prolific, ya’ll 🥴 I’m gonna stick to MTurk
@ekadamer
Ekaterina Damer, PhD
4 years
@SwipeWright @tage_rai Tage, I want to believe you and I'm siding with minorities almost always. But this is starting to sound like paranoia.
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
I’m 5’11,” so when male scientists condescend to me, I just reply ‘you can’t talk down to me from that height’ lmao
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
Being science famous is like being hood rich, I will not be elaborating further at this time
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
2 years
How can we reconcile these seemingly contradictory findings? I argue that cognitive effort fluctuates across stages of conspiratorial ideation: rejecting a mainstream explanation, accepting an alternative account as plausible, seeking out evidence, and resisting corrections. 6/8
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
YOU assumed because I’m at Harvard, I’m someone to play with. You can take the girl out the honky tonk, but you can’t take the honky tonk out the girl
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@ekadamer
Ekaterina Damer, PhD
4 years
@nadiabrashier I'm sorry that you feel this way. You're making a lot of assumptions about me, which is neither helpful nor kind.
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
1 year
I chaired my first program! If you’re @APAconvention , join me and the rest of @APADivision3 for exciting sessions on metacognition, misinformation, cognitive aging, and false memory!
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
3 years
I'm excited that @CBSNews covered our recent work! But I was surprised that they didn't interview us directly. Seems like it would be good for media covering scientific studies to ask the scientists behind the work, no?
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
I got all set up to present to @DG_Rand ’s lab, then realized the talk’s tomorrow 🥴 who else needs a 57 week nap
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
2 years
But conspiracy theorists *do* consider accuracy – by definition, they reject the mainstream explanation of an important event as ‘false,’ often in favor of a more complex account. 4/8
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
2 years
In addition, they expend considerable effort seeking out ‘evidence’ for their beliefs, from misapplications of physics to impossible diagrams. For example, flat Earthers argue that an ice rim at the edge of the world keeps us all from slipping off. 5/8
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
11 months
When tackling a tough problem, we often rely on past experiences. Does easily remembering solutions lead us to overestimate our abilities? In my latest paper, retrieval fluency made people feel prepared for crises like shark attacks and plane crashes. 1/7
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
2 years
Both belief in and concern about conspiracy theories are currently high. Google Trends data reveal recent spikes in searches containing the term ‘conspiracy theory’ amid misleading claims about COVID, QAnon, and election fraud. 2/8
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@nadiabrashier
Nadia Brashier
4 years
All research assistants should receive pay or course credit (only certain students can afford to ‘volunteer’), and their labor should be well-paid. This is a hill I will die on.
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