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Dr. Cat Hicks

@grimalkina.bsky.social

12K followers 1.7K following 5K posts

Psychologist for Software Teams (& writing a book about it). Founder: Developer Success Lab, Catharsis Consulting. VP of Research. Defender of the mismeasured. she/her 🏳️‍🌈 https://www.drcathicks.com/ Host at: https://www.changetechnically.fyi/

www.drcathicks.com

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · Jul 22

NEW Change, Technically just dropped where we go all in on Star Wars: Andor and the Psychology of Resistance ! 🤩

www.changetechnically.fyi/2396236/epis...

Andor and the psychology of resistance - Change, Technically

SHOW NOTES Dominic Packer’s Normative Conflict Model of Dissent is described in this paper as well as his other work: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1088868307309606 Cat also mentio...

www.changetechnically.fyi

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 1h

It's just a punching bag for people who do data work and want to make fun of anyone who came from a lab that used a gui instead of R

Particularly more common in areas of psych that work with real and clinical populations instead of R1s

Guess the probability of the demographics involved

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 1h

Skills Judged By Tool

Peter Tennant @pwgtennant.bsky.social · 23h

In honor of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand:

"Statistical analysis used SPSS"

🏰meg⚔️ @Birthright Audiobook! @impavid.us · 3d

In honor of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand

I'll go first: Six page commercial lease.

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 3h

Just a few more and we'll get 'em I'm sure

Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 3h

Omg?????!!!! I'd read for sure

Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 3h

Neither a journal publication nor a preprint but a secret third option*

*me funneling rigor and empirical data collected in collaboration with practitioners into a paper-shaped object that I can email to my friends in staff engineer roles suddenly in charge of developer experience

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 3h

Enjoy the peace of just having people go "oh nice!"

Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 3h

When the academics start saying the answer is we should never trust preprints but you're an interdisciplinary applied scholar so all your papers get rejected because they're with real world populations or get wildly biased reviews from hostile applied reviewers who don't know methods

a cartoon of ralph from the simpsons sits in an orange seat

Alt: a cartoon of ralph from the simpsons sits in an orange seat. Text reads chuckles, I'm in danger

media.tenor.com

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 3h

Cursed to be both a social scientist who doesn't like to think of phenomena as discrete and isolated "effects" and to be a person who understands that content engagement 10x's every time you describe something as The Whatever Effect

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 4h

Oh that's so true. I am working on designing a coat right now and had loads of inspiration

Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 4h

I only just realized that I can tell people I'm an author instead of telling them I'm a psychologist or a researcher and honestly having this alternative was worth the effort of writing a book

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 18h

That's fair and why I considered it worth my time to write about it (as opposed to just completely ludicrous things). Any consideration of something in the realm of empirical claims can be an entry point to thinking about evidence literacy

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 18h

Way too many things working this way lately 😞😞😞

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 18h

When I got an internship at Google as a PhD student the only thing my advisor ever said about it? "Why on earth would they want someone like you"

Excruciating lack of vision to impact the real world and sabotage for those who try. There's a reason I don't speak to grad programs much anymore.

Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 18h

I also think a huge intellectual misstep is how little academic social scientists cared about doing work with populations like software developers. That disdain for applied work really biting them now imho.

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 18h

Totally your prerogative! Do you follow any social scientists at universities publishing on learning and problem solving? You might enjoy.

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 18h

I've raised money for better studies including funding an open science research lab for three years that created a lot of shared work on better understanding the experiences of developers. It's hard but certainly not impossible. Especially given the impact of how we develop software on our world.

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 18h

I disagree that it correctly identifies its caveats, I found the caveats yet claims pretty confusing to read and contradictory. I also think poor estimates can do as much damage as no estimate at all, frankly, but I agree I find the bro hype more noxious.

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 19h

Bakery themed software conference when??

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 19h

Really interesting what a hold this study has on AI critics then

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 19h

There's a lot of context here I need to learn about clearly. I was wondering about the funding model

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 19h

For me too!

Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 19h

Thank you for this cultural knowledge 🙏

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 19h

Wait really?? Link?

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 19h

Conversations about AI all last week and today on here have me thinking:

How would we see the possibilities of software work for people if we had goals of human expression rather than production?

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 19h

That's fair and I appreciate the dialogue, I also believe those claims should be scrutinized and that velocity IS an interesting thing to study!