Wendy Higgins

Wendy Higgins

@wchiggins.bsky.social

Post Doctoral Research Fellow at UniMelb. Metascience, psychological measurement validity, social cognition, philosophy of science

128 followers82 following19 posts

Wendy Higgins reposted

Association for Psychological Science
@psychscience.bsky.social

Psychological Science invites submissions presenting innovative research that brings psychological science “into the wild.” #Psychology Submit full manuscripts by January 15, 2027. Questions? Ask the Editors: Roni Porat and @vishnusreekumar.bsky.social

psychologicalscience.orgSpecial Issue Call for Submissions: “From Lab to Life: Psychological Science in the Real World”Editors: Roni Porat and Vishnu SreekumarPsychological Science invites submissions presenting innovative research that brings psychological science “into the wild,” whether to strengthen its ecological...
Wendy Higgins
@wchiggins.bsky.social

Glad you liked it @ajgillett.bsky.social And a big thank you to AIMOS for the invitation to talk about my favourite topic

ajgillett.bsky.social@ajgillett.bsky.social

Great talk by @wchiggins.bsky.social "Rethinking measurement validity". Wendy introduces an interesting distinction between 'validity potential' and 'realised validity' to help untangle some problems in measurement practices in psychology: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ni4N...

youtube.comRethinking measurement validity | Wendy Higgins | 2026 AIMOS Metascience SeminarYouTube video by AIMOS Inc

Wendy Higgins reposted

Jamie Cummins
@jamiecummins.bsky.social

This paper has now been accepted at Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science!

Jamie Cummins@jamiecummins.bsky.social

1/ "Silicon samples" are becoming more and more common in research and polling. One problem: depending on the analytic decisions made, you can basically get these samples to show any effect you want. The updated version of this preprint is now online! THREAD🧵 arxiv.org/abs/2509.13397

arxiv.orgThe threat of analytic flexibility in using large language models to simulate human dataSocial scientists are now using large language models to create "silicon samples": synthetic datasets intended to stand in for human respondents. However, producing these samples requires many analyti...

Wendy Higgins reposted

Robert Ross
@robert-m-ross.bsky.social

Survey research is often interpreted as showing that belief in conspiracy theories can be surprisingly widespread, including belief in conspiracy theories that would be astonishing if true. For example, in The Atlantic we learn that “12 million Americans believe lizard people run our country”

Wendy Higgins
@wchiggins.bsky.social

Let’s stop talking about “valid measures.” No measurement procedure will *always* measure what it is supposed to measure. Instead: Consider Validity Potential when selecting a measure. Check for Realised Validity when interpreting its output.

Wendy Higgins
@wchiggins.bsky.social

We also argue measurement requires a causal relationship from target attributes to measurement outcomes, making it a causal claim. Upshot 1 even correlations between measured variables rely on causal inference. Upshot 2 since good causal inference is hard, establishing realised validity is hard.

Wendy Higgins
@wchiggins.bsky.social

Validity Potential = how likely is it that this measurement procedure will measure what I want it to measure? Realised Validity = does the specific output I collected from this measurement procedure measure what I am interpreting it as measuring?

Wendy Higgins reposted

Julia M. Rohrer
@dingdingpeng.the100.ci

A lot of psych is already conducted with online convenience samples & ppl are probably excited about silicon samples bc it would allow them to crank out more studies for even less 💸 How about we reconsider the idea that sciencey science involves collecting own data. www.science.org/content/arti...

science.orgAI-generated ‘participants’ can lead social science experiments astray, study findsData produced by “silicon samples” depends on researchers’ exact choice of models, prompts, and settings

Wendy Higgins reposted

simine vazire
@simine.com

My editorial on how journals can earn trust. We often use journal names as proxies for quality. This is bad bc it’s not valid. But it could be. Editors could make journal name a valid signal. And we could place value on journals that show us how they do that. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Wendy Higgins reposted

Robert Ross
@robert-m-ross.bsky.social

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!

Robert Ross@robert-m-ross.bsky.social

Have you every found yourself wondering whether the most widely used measures of social cognitive ability measure what they are supposed to measure?

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Wendy Higgins
@wchiggins.bsky.social

My thesis - Measurement in Crisis? A Critical Evaluation of Measurement Validation Practices in the Psychological Sciences - was awarded the Macquarie University Vice-Chancellor’s Commendation for Academic Excellence.

Wendy Higgins
@wchiggins.bsky.social

It includes a series of papers critiquing the validity of the widely used Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test. Conclusion: The Eyes Test is unsubstantiated, and thus, uninterpretable as a measure of social cognitive ability www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... scholar.google.com.au/citations?us...

sciencedirect.comConstruct validity evidence reporting practices for the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test: A systematic scoping reviewThe Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) is one of the most influential measures of social cognitive ability, and it has been used extensively in …

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