I am a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Trier. I'm particularly interested in cognitive conflicts and how people make and follow through with decisions that go against their attitudes.
Check out my work at benjaminbuttlar.de
Do you sometimes feel torn when making decisions, like whether to eat unhealthy food or recycle? This is called felt ambivalence: a psychological discomfort from having mixed feelings about something. Check out our new work to know how people resolve such conflicts: doi.org/10.1016/j.je... 🧠💥 1/10
Already planning your last day of #DGPs2026? Join our discussion about #SciComm in Psychology! Together with In-Mind Magazin, represented by moderator @olivergenschow.bsky.social, our interest group @psycomm.bsky.social has put together a really promising fishbowl panel!
It’s amazing what Brian and OSF have done for science. I can imagine how hard the folks at COS must’ve worked to avoid this outcome. I’m extremely grateful to them for creating the reality we live in now. The fact that we’ll miss these services so acutely is a testament to how much they shaped us.
Over the next several months, we will phase out some popular OSF features. These changes do not affect current public content, which remains safe and accessible. We have prepared support material to help users adapt. I am very sorry for the disruption to your work. Please read this post for details.
Immer auf dem Laufenden zur Uni Trier! 💯 Ab sofort findet ihr hier das Bluesky-Startpaket eurer liebsten Hochschule. Alle Profile von Mitarbeitenden und Institutionen auf einen Blick. Wer fehlt noch? Oder ist etwas nicht mehr aktuell? Schreibt einen Kommentar oder eine DM!
bsky.app/starter-pack...
Fellow Europeans, did you know about this alternative to COS/OSF? They have upload templates for the usual academic formats, but also data and even Bachelor's /Master's theses.
www.psycharchives.org/en
#HPGVienna@univie.ac.at is hiring: We are looking for a PhD student (4 years, 75% FTE) to join us and the new research platform Trustworthy Science Communication to complete a research project in the context of human and planetary health 🌍🍎 Apply by 14 May: jobs.univie.ac.at/job/Universi...
🧵 New report just dropped 🚨 "Fractured Reality: How Democracy Can Win the Global Struggle Over the Information Space" — from the EU Joint Research Centre, led by Mario Scharfbillig and I. A landmark read for anyone working on disinformation, platforms & democracy. 👇
1/10
Don't miss out on new replications with the Zotero Replication Checker!
This is the current set of >1.6K studies in the FORRT Library of Replication Attempts (#FLoRA). Many of them belong to large-scale projects and are not even cited in the final report, so how to keep track of them?
Heute: Jan und ich stellen im @psycomm.bsky.social Lunch-Talk @de.in-mind.org vor. Erfahrt mehr über dieses #WissKomm Projekt und wie ihr mitmachen könnt.
✨ Save the date für unseren nächsten Lunch-Talk! ✨
📅 Am Freitag, den 20. März 2026 (12:00–12:45 Uhr) sprechen Laura M. König und Jan Crusius zum Thema "In-Mind Magazin: Psychologie für alle"
💻 Online via Zoom
📩 Anmeldung per E-Mail an: psycomm@dgps.de
Wie immer freuen wir uns auf euch! 💛
New #ScienceandFiction short story 🥦
This time, @benjaminbuttlar.bsky.social writes about a future where eating meat is a part of the past. Want to know why?
🇬🇧 scienceandfiction.net/stories/38_a...
🇩🇪 scienceandfiction.net/de/stories/3...#scicomm#wisskomm#comic
Collabra: Psychology is seeking a new senior editor for the clinical section and new associate editors for the social section. If you are interested in either of these positions and you believe you are qualified, please fill out the application form before 30 April 2026! forms.gle/DgM3484SuLVD...
🚨 Call for Editors: Join the Collabra: Psychology team! We're looking for a senior editor for clinical psychology, plus several social psychology associate editors. Interested? Please fill out our application form before 30 April 2026.
@improvingpsych.orgdocs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Hi everyone! Collabra: Psychology needs a new senior editor for the clinical section as well as several new associate editors for the social section. If you are interested, please fill out the application form before 30 April 2026.
forms.gle/DgM3484SuLVD...
✨ Now published! ✨
Our Special Section in PHAIR is officially out.
The collection emerged from the Human–Animal Relations workstream at the 2025 EASP Summer School (University of Kent) from an exceptional group of PhD researchers.
Read here! phair.psychopen.eu/index.php/ph...
Many are appropriately outraged by Altman’s comments here implying that raising a human child is akin to “training” an AI model.
This is part of a broader pattern where AI industry leaders use language that collapses the boundary between human and machine.
🧵/
SAM ALTMAN: “People talk about how much energy it takes to train an AI model … But it also takes a lot of energy to train a human. It takes like 20 years of life and all of the food you eat during that time before you get smart.”
How strong is the threat to academic freedom? If you are a publishing psychologist, please help us get a better understanding of the threats due to external pressure and self-censorship in the publication process by taking our 5-10 min anonymous survey: t1p.de/t1qof
Results will be shared here!
New #ScienceandFiction short story 🥦
This time, @benjaminbuttlar.bsky.social writes about a future where eating meat is a part of the past. Want to know why?
🇬🇧 scienceandfiction.net/stories/38_a...
🇩🇪 scienceandfiction.net/de/stories/3...#scicomm#wisskomm#comic
🔔 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗯𝗹𝗼𝗴 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁: 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝘄𝗲 (𝗱𝗼𝗻’𝘁) 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗲 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀 🔔
Plant-based, insect-based, or cultivated meat? In their blog post, Lena Szczepanski, Milan Büscher, Lene Strootmann, and Florian Fiebelkorn discuss meat alternatives, their benefits, and the psychological factors that shape their adoption.
In genau einer Woche findet unser nächstes Kolloquium statt! Am 16.1. um 12 Uhr nimmt uns @helenahartmann.com mit in die Welt von "Science and Fiction - WissKomm mit fiktionalen Kurzgeschichten".
Nähere Infos und die Anmeldung findet ihr im Bild.
Wir freuen uns auf euch!
@scienceandfiction.net
🚨 SynthNet is out 🚨
Researchers propose new constructs and measures faster than anyone can track. We (@anniria.bsky.social@ruben.the100.ci) built a search engine to check what already exists and help identify redundancies; indexing 74,000 scales from ~31,500 instruments in APA PsycTests. 🧵1/3
At ZPID we are searching for a tenure track assistant professor for Psychological Metascience in joint appointment with @unitrier.bsky.social preferably someone who has conducted quantitative research in metascience in psychology or related disciplines. Questions? Feel free to contact me personally.
Wir freuen uns sehr über die rege Teilnahme an unserem ersten #WissKomm Kolloquium gestern sowie die anregende Diskussion. Noch einmal vielen Dank an @benjaminbuttlar.bsky.social für den spannenden Beitrag!
Jetzt schon vormerken: Weiter gehts am 19.12., 12 Uhr, mit einem Einblick in die #Forschung!
Los geht unser Kolloquium Wissenschaftskommunikation #WissKomm nächsten Freitag (21.11.) um 12 Uhr mit einem Beitrag von @benjaminbuttlar.bsky.social zum Thema Science Slam.
Habt ihr euch den ersten Vortrag unserer #WissKomm Kolloquiums-Reihe schon in den Kalender eingetragen? Seid diesen Freitag dabei, wenn @benjaminbuttlar.bsky.social über das Format Science Slam spricht!
📆 21.11.2025, 12:00 Uhr
Habt ihr euch den ersten Vortrag unserer #WissKomm Kolloquiums-Reihe schon in den Kalender eingetragen? Seid diesen Freitag dabei, wenn @benjaminbuttlar.bsky.social über das Format Science Slam spricht!
📆 21.11.2025, 12:00 Uhr
Los geht unser Kolloquium Wissenschaftskommunikation #WissKomm nächsten Freitag (21.11.) um 12 Uhr mit einem Beitrag von @benjaminbuttlar.bsky.social zum Thema Science Slam.
Rosi und ich freuen uns schon darauf! Im Science Slam erklären wir, warum wir manchmal bei Entscheidungen, wie etwa beim Fleischessen, hin- und hergerissen sind und was das mit uns macht.
Wenn du mehr über diese Ambivalenz oder Wissenschaftskommunikation im Allgemeinen wissen willst, komm vorbei!
Los geht unser Kolloquium Wissenschaftskommunikation #WissKomm nächsten Freitag (21.11.) um 12 Uhr mit einem Beitrag von @benjaminbuttlar.bsky.social zum Thema Science Slam.
Ankündigung: Kolloquium Wissenschaftskommunikation #WissKomm
🧑🏫 Einblicke in innovative WissKomm-Formate & aktuelle Forschungsthemen
💬 Austausch über konkrete Erfahrungen aus Praxis und Forschung aus Perspektive der Psychologie
📆 3. Freitag im Monat um 12 Uhr
🧵 New paper alert!
People enjoy eating meat but often feel uneasy when being reminded that it comes from animals. To understand how people avoid this conflict, our new study explores how food preparation helps people mentally separate meat from its animal origins. Here’s what we found 👇
1/9
🧵 New paper alert!
People enjoy eating meat but often feel uneasy when being reminded that it comes from animals. To understand how people avoid this conflict, our new study explores how food preparation helps people mentally separate meat from its animal origins. Here’s what we found 👇
1/9
Finally, I want to give a huge thank you to @lenahahn.bsky.social and Monique Chambon, who were instrumental in bringing this paper to life. As always, it was a pleasure working with you!
9/9
🧵 New paper alert!
People enjoy eating meat but often feel uneasy when being reminded that it comes from animals. To understand how people avoid this conflict, our new study explores how food preparation helps people mentally separate meat from its animal origins. Here’s what we found 👇
1/9
Here’s what we found 👇
🥩 When the dish was disassembled, people felt less emotionally aroused and less compassionate than when it was whole.
🔥 When the dish was cooked, people felt less compassionate, but also less negative, conflicted, disgusted, and angry, and had a greater desire to eat it.
6/9
Thereby, our study shows how food preparation can change how people think and feel about meat, and their willingness to eat it.
This knowledge can inform the design of interventions that encourage people to eat less meat in a way that is psychologically informed and situationally sensitive.
7/9
🧵 New paper alert!
People enjoy eating meat but often feel uneasy when being reminded that it comes from animals. To understand how people avoid this conflict, our new study explores how food preparation helps people mentally separate meat from its animal origins. Here’s what we found 👇
1/9
However, food preparation arguably includes at least two different steps:
🥩 Disassembling (chopping, mincing, etc.)
🔥 Cooking (applying heat)
Surprisingly, past research hadn’t clearly teased apart how each of these steps affects people’s feelings about meat.
4/9
So we did! 🧪
We re-analyzed data from 1,189 people (U.S.-representative sample) who each saw one of many meat images varied on two factors:
🥩 Whole vs. disassembled
🔥 Raw vs. cooked
Then we asked about their attitudes and feelings about the presented meat dish and how much they wanted to eat it.
5/9
🧵 New paper alert!
People enjoy eating meat but often feel uneasy when being reminded that it comes from animals. To understand how people avoid this conflict, our new study explores how food preparation helps people mentally separate meat from its animal origins. Here’s what we found 👇
1/9
Many people experience meat-related conflict. This has often been discussed in light of the so-called meat paradox: People like eating meat but don’t like harming animals.
One way people avoid this conflict? They dissociate — mentally separating meat from the animal it once was.
2/9
Food preparation helps with this dissociation.
Cooking, chopping, and seasoning can hide reminders like blood or animal body parts — making meat feel less like an animal and more like… food.
3/9
I tried it, and it was a great experience! You've got to check out the work by Helena and her guest writers! See if it's something you'd like as well - you won't be disappointed if you are interested in science and fiction!
Have you ever tried explaining your research with ... a short story?! 🤔
Believe me, it's extremely gratifying to change your perspective and let your creativity run loose. 💙
Then YOU can be a guest author for @scienceandfiction.net! 😱
DM me for more info 😁
🎉👶 Welcome to the last new born in the Open Science effort!
Replication Research is a diamond open access journal dedicated to robust, transparent and reproducible science.
#OpenScience#ScientificPublication#Replication#OpenAccess
Mich beschäftigt schon lange die Frage, wie Klimapolitik so gestaltet werden kann, dass sie zugleich soziale Gerechtigkeit stärkt. #Mobilität spielt dabei eine zentrale Rolle: Sie bestimmt, wer Zugang zu gesellschaftlicher Teilhabe hat – und sie hat Einfluss auf Lebensqualität. (1/X)
This was a true mess with a ton of AI-generated word salad slop being submitted as preprints. The field owes these moderators a huge thanks for all the work and energy! 🙏👏
PsyArXiv's amazing team of 100+ moderators has now approved all preprints that meet the requirements outlined in the updated PsyArXiv policies (is.gd/paxpolicy). Thank you to everyone who volunteered, this was a true community effort! #PsychSciSky
Do you sometimes feel torn when making decisions, like whether to eat unhealthy food or recycle? This is called felt ambivalence: a psychological discomfort from having mixed feelings about something. Check out our new work to know how people resolve such conflicts: doi.org/10.1016/j.je... 🧠💥 1/10