Misc

I tweeted about a dilemma earlier this week. It's a familiar tale.  In the last few months, I've reviewed 3 papers for the same journal. I am also a co-author of a paper that is under review at the same outlet.   To be completely transparent, our paper has been reviewed as far as I can tell, but it has now spent more time on a desk than with reviewers. A colleague emailed politely asking if the paper would be sent out for review in Feb after it sat for a month with no activity. I emailed again asking for an update on our paper earlier this month. The journal office claims to forward emails on, but we receive zero response from any editor.  What do you do? The problem with not reviewing is that I am not helping authors who deserve to have their paper reviewed in a timely fashion. On a side note, the very same journal also has a habit of giving reviewers a set number of days to complete a review and then cancelling the review before the due date.  And then they wo...

It's that time of year again. In early January, several reports will appear in the press (e.g. The Sun ) suggesting that the third Monday of January has been identified as the most depressing day of the year. This is false. Previous Weekday Research It is true that some days of the week evoke strong emotional responses . In fact, a small body of research has identified regularities between weekday and behaviour, and also between weekday and mood. Across studies on these topics, two main patterns are emphasised. One is the so-called Blue Monday effect. In a wide range of situations and measures, outcomes are especially negative on Mondays. Many of these situations are non-trivial, as they pertain to health and economic matters. For example, heart attack risk is higher, suicide rate is higher, reported mood is lower, and stock returns are lower. Even emails sent on a  Monday also contain more grammatical mistakes  and are less positive. Especially positive outcomes on Fr...

This year, I'm fortunate enough to be supervising a number of interesting projects. A few of these can be completed entirely online. I'm sure my students would be grateful if you have a few spare minutes to take part. Finally, if you chose to leave your email address at the end, we can keep you notified of the results! [CLOSED] Perceptions towards everyday temporal experiences Crime Anxiety Where's the worst place to position a tattoo? Attitudes towards video games Exploring attitudes towards older adults The Social Network