Rob Booth

It's nice how you've handed out cigarillos to people in the audience.

"I am very poorly today and very stupid and hate everybody and everything." Charles Darwin, 1861

I guess even the best of us get bad days sometimes 🤓

Happy birthday Charlie!

Don't forget to register for SAS 2026! While you can still register up til the day of the conference, you get the best rates with the early bird special 🐥🦜🐦‍⬛ #SAS2026

The postdoc will work at Sabanci University, for two years, at standard TÜBİTAK salary: currently 43,500.00 TL.

Please message me for more details!

This is a picture, prepared by my university, to publicise the fact that I received a research grant.

I need a postdoc for my project “Panel Studies of Optimism Bias and Positive Mood”.

I need someone with an interest in affective science, very strong English and writing skills, and experience of using SEM with longitudinal data.

Thread continues ...

A social media announcement about my new grant, made by my university.

My university announced my new grant on social media.

They did not announce it here on BlueSky, where all the academics hang out ... 🤦

Daniel Gumb's cave and the Cheesewring, Bodmin Moor

A windswept tree, Bodmin Moor

A ruined mill building, Bodmin Moor

Bodmin Moor was looking gorgeous this morning ... misty and mysterious ...

Today, TÜBİTAK have funded my project on optimism bias and positive mood. Thanks, folks! 🤓

This means I will soon need a postdoc. If you are interested in affective science, and have some experience with longitudinal SEM analyses, please get in touch with me!

Back-scratching bovine leads scientists to reassess intelligence of cows Brown Swiss in Austria has been discovered using tools in different ways – something only ever seen in humans and chimpanzees

Veronika the cow shows evidence of tool use? Wow!

"There is no suggestion that Veronika’s skills are evidence of the evolution of an ominous new species of super-cow." 🤓

www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

My 6 year old, pressing his sandwich together like he's a fancy chef

Halfway through dinner, my Turkish/English boy spontaneously made himself a meatball-and-yogurt sandwich 🥰 🧿

Happy New Year!
İyi seneler!

New preprint!

Not a headline-grabber, but an important step for my lab group: Demonstrating the good psychometric properties of my probability bias (expectancy bias) measure.

The preprint, and the measure in both English and Turkish, are freely available here:

doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/GXJK8

They're handsy people, these clinical associates.

Proofread needed ..! :)

Turns out @mikeflanaganfilm.com , @stephenking.bsky.social and @markhamillofficial.bsky.social were right: I just saw The Life of Chuck, and it really is excellent.

Well done, lads.

Please post here too :)

Increasing Depressive Symptoms of Students in Turkey (Türkiye), 1990-2023: Effects of Gender, Socioeconomic Status, Anxiety, and the COVID-19 Pandemic Manuscript under review. This project includes the dataset, and the preprint. Hosted on the Open Science Framework

New preprint!

"Increasing Depressive Symptoms of Students in Turkey (Türkiye), 1990-2023: Effects of Gender, Socioeconomic Status, Anxiety, and the COVID-19 Pandemic"

This is under review: the final published version may end up looking very different to this ;)

doi.org/10.17605/OSF...

Trying to submit my paper from the cafe at Dolmabahçe Palace today ... Keep getting distracted by dolphins 😍

Of course, just because those two authors are successful journalists, it doesn't necessarily follow that their opinions on psychology are any good 😂

But in both these cases, I found myself nodding along in agreement most of the time!

Really enjoyed @helenlewis.bsky.social 's new book, The Genius Myth. Interesting historical perspective, and I love the idea of 'scenius'

Pairs nicely with The Intelligence Trap ( @davidarobson.bsky.social )

Diving at Cynthiana Beach, Paphos, July 2025 YouTube video by GUE TR

Had a nice little rec dive in Cyprus last week. Thanks to Ray at Dive Point Cyprus!

youtu.be/7RxSp_naDiU?...

Me speaking at the conference, looking sweaty while pointing at my slides

I'm very late mentioning this, but I had a good time at the European Congress of Psychology in Cyprus last week!

Spoke about my recent paper on the Best Possible Self intervention, and met some nice people :)

Just bagged tickets to see @danielsloss.bsky.social in Istanbul... Again!

Said to my wife: "Daniel Sloss is coming back"

She said: "Why..?"

Tinsel the calico glares at you with a furrowed brow

“I asked chatGPT-“ ok, and I asked Tinsel, and she said you’re an uninspired, vapid dork who needs a computer to think for them.

The wildest thing about being a professor is that it's somehow acceptable to email the smartest experts in the world to help you with your homework, and they just...write you back with help.

Sometimes they compliment your question, or even thank you for asking.

It's bonkers.

The barista drew a cock and balls on my flat white :(

I'm gonna give my barista the benefit of the doubt, and assume this was meant to be a heart

Scholarships: MS students receive 32,500 TL per month, and a two-person dorm. PhD students start on 50,000 TL per month and a private dorm. The monthly stipends increase a little if you do not want to live on campus.

Sabanci University, Istanbul, is accepting applications for master's and PhD programs in Psychology!

There will be events on 8th May (Tuzla campus; 14:30, FASS 1089) and 13th May (Minerva Han, Karaköy; 16:00-19:00) where you can meet some of us, and learn about the programs and scholarships.

‘Dangerous nonsense’: AI-authored books about ADHD for sale on Amazon Experts say online retailer has ethical responsibility to guard against chatbot-generated work on sensitive topics Amazon is selling books marketed at people seeking techniques to manage their ADHD that claim to offer expert advice yet appear to be authored by a chatbot such as ChatGPT. Amazon’s marketplace has been deluged with AI-produced works that are easy and cheap to publish, but which include unhelpful or dangerous misinformation, such as shoddy travel guidebooks and mushroom foraging books that encourage risky tasting. Continue reading...

‘Dangerous nonsense’: AI-authored books about ADHD for sale on Amazon

Fork of Probability bias, optimism/pessimism, intolerance of uncertainty Manuscript submitted for publication. Hosted on the Open Science Framework

New preprint!

Probability Bias Predicts Depressive Symptom Severity, Independently of Optimism/Pessimism and Intolerance of Uncertainty

By Robert W. Booth (me!) and Dinkar Sharma. Freely available from the link below.

NOT YET PEER REVIEWED, will probably change!

doi.org/10.17605/OSF...

It's a PowerPoint error message, that says my document hasn't been updated since the 1st of January, 1601.

PC did a weird update today, and threw me a spectacular error message.

I guess it HAS been a while since I worked on that document!

Group photo of speakers at the session.

My presentation. 'Optimistically-Biased Probability Estimates Longitudinally Predict Positive Mood'

Results of Study 4: When positive mood at Time 1 is controlled, optimism bias at Time 1 significantly predicts positive mood at Time 2, 4 weeks later. Standardised beta equals .24

Interesting time at the International Conference on Positive Psychology at Üsküdar U. last weekend. Thanks to Ebru Morgül for chairing the session!

Presented my recent work, showing that optimism bias (optimistic expectancies) predict positive mood up to 4 weeks later. Preprint coming soon ...

We are so excited to announce our Free Summer Prize Draw!​

Spotted any ghost gear whilst diving?

You can win a GFUK prize bundle worth up to £100!
It includes a hoody, tee and a bracelet.

Competition information and full T&Cs here

www.ghostfishing.co.uk/competition/