Elizabeth Canning
Social Psychologist. Associate Professor of Psychology at Washington State University in Pullman, WA. Researches motivation and social-psych interventions to reduce inequality. On sabbatical 2025-2026 in Berlin as a Fellow of the @wiko-berlin.bsky.social
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningIf someone paid you $4.75 every night you slept 7+ hours, would you sleep more? And--more importantly--would that increase in sleep change your behavior in other meaningful ways? This new paper ran an experiment to find out.
- Reposted by Elizabeth Canning🚨New paper alert!🚨 Super proud of the work that went into this one, which includes a systematic review and MEGA-ANALYSIS of the development of sense of belonging in STEM education across Grades K-12, with special attention to gender differences. (1/N) link.springer.com/article/10.1...
- Reposted by Elizabeth Canning🚨 📣 Summer Fellows Program Call for undergraduates interested in education research: What are the barriers to effective learning in college? How can we support motivated learning? For more details, visit: sites.edb.utexas.edu/slam/fellows/ #cogscisky #edusky #academicsky #psychscisky
- Reposted by Elizabeth Canning🎉 My PhD work has just been published in @natcomms.nature.com! How do we learn who caused what - and how much control we had - when outcomes depend on multiple people? We studied how humans do so using a new social learning task, computational modelling and fMRI. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧵👇
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningTrust in others and institutions predicts subjective well-being and vice versa. This makes me even more attuned to the costs of people and systems that undermine trust. The decay of trust as a public health issue. #PsychSciSky #AcademicSky #EduSky doi.org/10.1037/bul0...
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningHave you noticed how we often describe people from disadvantaged backgrounds as “strivers” or “go-getters” (💪🏼) rather than naturally gifted (🧠)? This may sound benign, but our new KiDLAB research shows that it reveals a harmful, early-emerging stereotype. (1/5)
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningI am thrilled to announce that this framework is out! Who is responsible for inequality? @tanialombrozo.bsky.social and I show that answers depend on whether people are judging causes or obligations, and the past vs the future. doi.org/10.1177/1745...
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningEver try to encourage student creativity in undergraduate education? Out now and open access, our new paper documents an iterative (4 study) exploration and evaluation of our approach doi.org/10.1016/j.ts... #edpsych #highered #creativity
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningDon't underestimate the effect of the arts—music, dance, visual, gardening, crafts, theater—for promoting health, a systematic review @naturemedicine.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningIn our research on socioeconomic background in academia, we ran a survey. Over 2,000 faculty members responded (thanks if you were one!) Social & cultural capital showed up time and again as key issues. A few findings you might be interested in...🧵
- ❓ What do people’s own words reveal about their economic decisions? A new JEL article by Ingar Haaland, Christopher Roth, Stefanie Stantcheva and Johannes Wohlfart shows how open-ended survey responses offer insights that standard surveys often miss. 🔎Read more here: www.nhh.no/en/research-...
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningExperimental evidence that students are more likely to contest grades when they are delivered by an evaluator with a female-sounding name. "These findings suggest that women in evaluative positions face disproportionate resistance when delivering negative assessments."
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningHow are students' motivational and emotional self-regulation related? In our new article, we advocate for more integrative approaches and discuss possible conceptual and functional linkages between MR and ER. doi.org/10.1080/0046...
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningNew paper in PSPB on the benefits of giving positive feedback to students, especially from underrepresented groups. Although not the norm in STEM, giving positive feedback boosts self-efficacy and belonging, which increases STEM performance, attitudes, interest journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningThis critique of twin studies is well written and convincing. www.madinamerica.com/2024/09/the-...
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningNew paper building a theory of stereotype negotiation. How people don't just let stereotypes happen to them; instead they constantly and actively navigate social impressions and others' evaluations by @cydneydupree.bsky.social: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningMotivated reasoning is a well-understood phenomenon - or is it? In a new paper just published at @collabrapsychology.bsky.social we discuss three known unknowns. doi.org/10.1525/coll... Here is a 🧵
- Reposted by Elizabeth Canning
Paper out today in @nathumbehav.nature.com: 1) those groups (women, African Americans, lower SES, rural) that are underrepresented in science have been less trusting of science. 2) If you improve representation in science, you improve trust among those groups. www.nature.com/articles/s41... - Reposted by Elizabeth CanningNew paper with Esha Naidu and Emmy Reilly! As U.S. campuses grow more diverse, what really matters isn’t just who is on campus—it’s how universities shape interactions. Randomized roommates when supported with institutional backing can strengthen belonging journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningAcademic accommodations in college more than doubled between 2011 and 2024 (4% -> 10%) and is driven by students getting accommodations for mental health conditions - job market paper by @alvinchristian.bsky.social
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningNew paper in press at JPSP! An adversarial collaboration focusing on a large-scale test of how strongly implicit racial attitudes predict discriminatory behavior. Pre-print here: osf.io/preprints/ps...
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningHappy to share our latest study published in PNAS. Using data from 274,316 French students, we find that lower-SES students are less likely to wait for better university offers, even when waiting would lead to more prestigious or better-fit programs. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningExcited to share a new paper by my grad student and myself, highlighting how classroom experiences such as positive classroom climate relate to changes in STEM motivational beliefs across the semester 🤸♀️🎉https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1m8Px,8E16MF-A
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningHow can psychology help fight poverty? Our @pnas.org article shows how “culturally wise” interventions can support women’s agency and boost poverty reduction (Patrick Premand, Thomas Bossuroy, Abdoulaye Sambo, Hazel Markus, Greg Walton @stanforduniversity.bsky.social): t.co/maI5vf3meP
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningWe replicated one of the oldest experiments in Psychology (Triplett, 1898) as a registered report. Children completed a task faster in pairs than when they were alone. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Arising out of discussions in @csi-research.bsky.social we conducted a Registered Report replicating Triplett’s (1898) experiment with over 400 children, showing children completed the task faster when paired with a coactor, compared to competing the task alone rdcu.be/eQwAE 1/3
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningStarting the week strong with a newly accepted paper in Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, co-authored with postdoc @lizsnoland.bsky.social and Sohad Murrar! We merged two largely independent research lines to call for data disaggregation of Asian Americans and MENA Americans
- Unpacking Broad Racial Labels: The Disaggregation of Data on Race and Ethnicity: osf.io/eyv7b
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningWhat happens when a lottery determines which proposals for third-party funding get reviewed? Details here (#OpenAccess and fresh off the press): doi.org/10.1038/s414...
- Full author list: @finnluebber.bsky.social @soerenkrach.bsky.social @fmpaulus.bsky.social Lena Rademacher (not on Bluesky) and @rimamrahal.bsky.social
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningKudos to Leiming Ding on this super cool study showing that STEM college students' cost perceptions interacted with early assessment performance to predict dropout intentions. #PsychSciSky #AcademicSky #EduSky
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningNew in @pnas.org. Preschool teachers were less likely to accept participation attempts by children from working-class backgrounds, regardless of their perceived language level. With a great team: @andreicimpian.bsky.social @sebastiengoudeau.bsky.social & Louise Goupil. doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningOpen-access publication alert!! This is a special one; it represents two years of work with an amazing team of researchers, teachers, educational stakeholders, and technology experts to identify infrastructure that would advance equity in STEM education: link.springer.com/article/10.1...
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningNew publication! 🤓 This experience sampling study examines how motivational regulation and cost predict students’ momentary motivational conflicts and emotions.
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningYour LMS clicks say more than you think. 🖱️💭 New research shows that students’ digital traces—like opening readings or requesting hints—can reveal how they self-regulate learning. #PsychSciSky #AcademicSky #EduSky 🔗 doi.org/10.1037/edu0...
- Reposted by Elizabeth Canning💖This paper has been ~11 years in the making - and probably my favorite project of all time. Thrilled to see it in @pnas.org! I'm so lucky that Zach decided to do a second PhD and join my lab @psychillinois.bsky.social back in 2014 - a fabulous scientist & human being! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningThis special issue "invites submissions on research areas recently de-prioritized and/or de-funded that address or discuss how social cognition approaches can aid in the understanding of these critical societal issues." Plz consider submitting!
- Social Cognition invites papers for a special issue on disrupted scholarship guest edited by Galen Bodenhausen, Jacqueline Chen, & Franki Kung. bit.ly/3HkcyBf
- My new office for the year! I’ll be spending my sabbatical in Berlin as a Fellow of the @wiko-berlin.bsky.social Excited to read, write, learn, and meet some amazing new people.
- Wir stellen unseren Fellowjahrgang 2025/2026 vor - We are delighted to announce our Fellow class 2025/2026: www.wiko-berlin.de/fellows/fell...
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningNow published: Our paper investigating cognitive processes of ingroup favoritism across 20 countries. Free to read (hashtag#OpenAccess) at www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2417456122
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningWhat do first-year students think about STEM course office hours? How do these perceptions change over time? So excited to share a new paper in the International Journal of STEM Education where we conducted a longitudinal study to find out! 1/7 stemeducationjournal.springeropen.com/articles/10....
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- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningAs women became a larger share of undergraduate student bodies in the United States over the course of the 20th century, research on gender-related topics increased in science as a direct result.
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningThrilled to share our new @NatureComms paper: "Exploration is associated with socioeconomic disparities in learning and academic achievement in adolescence." www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧵1/7
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningImagine going to the gym and thinking "lifting this heavy weight is hard, so lifting it is not making me stronger." Not how it works, right? Yet that's, in essence, how many students view mental effort and learning. Let's help students embrace mental effort. #PsychSciSky #AcademicSky #EduSky
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningNew paper out from the Self & Motivation Lab on Safety and Threat in the Environment Perceptions (STEP). The STEP scale assesses people's overall, gut-level impressions of any given space and uniquely predicts engagement, interest, & desire to recruit others journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningOur new paper is out! 🎉 Led by Echo Yan (along with @drmuenks.bsky.social), we used a vignette-based experiment to test the effects of perceived instructor and peer field-specific ability beliefs (FABs) on students' motivation, psychological experience, and anticipated behavior: t.co/WnzqHsvGyn
- Reposted by Elizabeth Canning🔥Excited to share our new paper in PsychScience! Shout out to best-ever collaborators Aida Davani, @ruyuan-zuo.bsky.social, @shreyahavaldar.bsky.social, Eleanor Chestnut, @mdehghani.bsky.social & @andreicimpian.bsky.social 🧵1/8… doi.org/10.1177/0956...
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningHow do our brains and bodies support social learning in real time? We take an ecological and multimodal neuroscience approach to study mutual prediction and social coordination when learning with others. It took 5 full years for this one! Full open-access pre-print: osf.io/preprints/ps...
- Reposted by Elizabeth Canning[This post could not be retrieved]
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningA meta-analysis of meta-analyses substantiates that teacher-student relationships matter for academic & other outcomes. "Thus, it is central to train teachers to develop positive TSRs to give their students a sense of safety and belonging." #PsychSciSky #AcademicSky #EduSky doi.org/10.1037/bul0...
- Reposted by Elizabeth Canning2️⃣ new papers to share! First is a paper in CBE-Life Sciences Education led by former undergrad Gabby Dauber '24, examining student motivations and experiences in STEM course office hours (OH). She conducted interviews with students about their knowledge of and 1/5 www.lifescied.org/doi/10.1187/...
- Reposted by Elizabeth Canning🚨🚨🚨 New publication alert! We took a look at students' reported costs in chemistry, statistics, and English composition and examined how they differed over time, across courses, and by gender! @ecallen.bsky.social www.researchgate.net/publication/...
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningSince 1954, "The Handbook of Social Psychology" has been the field’s most authoritative reference work, and today is the launch of the 6th edition. Best news? The HSP is now open-access—free to read, download, and share. the-hsp.com
- Reposted by Elizabeth Canning[This post could not be retrieved]
- Reposted by Elizabeth CanningIt’s a tough time for STEM education research right now, but we are still excited to share our new PNAS paper, “Divergence in children’s gender stereotypes and motivation across STEM fields”! We have big surveys (2,765 students in Grades 1-12), 2 pre-registered studies, and open data. (1/13)
