Community Call: Watch Party for Dr. Cat Hicks' posit::conf keynote, The Psychology of Technologists

[stefaniebutland]

We can use this issue to add updates as we plan.

Dr. Cat Hicks gave an incredible keynote at posit::conf 2025: The Psychology of Technologists. The Openscapes team watched the recording together and knew this was something we wanted to shout from the rooftops. So we're hosting a watch party we can all absorb it together. TODO: add something about highlights emphasizing that these are things the Openscapes and broader open science communities are already doing. Gives empirical foundation. ...

In the comment below, we share notes from our Openscapes core team watch party.

Abstract for The Psychology of Technologists

Technology teams are struggling to be heard. Technologists are grappling with high turnover, high burnout, and low resilience in the face of rapidly-accelerating technological change. Even though effective technical teams are an essential part of our world continuing to work, many organizations struggle to understand their technical teams, stuck in old stereotypes that treat technical people like isolated machines. To build a thriving future, we need a new way of working together and understanding our own minds as we build technology. In my empirical research across thousands of developers, technical managers and their teams, we've explored what a psychologically-rich environment looks like for modern technologists and found important signals that can guide teams toward greater resilience, innovation, and thriving. In this keynote we'll unlock access to the psychological sciences and evidence that you can use to make your every day more human.

Bio

Dr. Cat Hicks, Psychologist for Software Teams, Catharsis Consulting
Cat Hicks is a psychologist for software teams and defender of the mismeasured. She is the author of the Developer Thriving framework, the AI Skill Threat framework, and the VP of Research at Pluralsight. Cat is the founder of the Developer Success Lab, an open science research lab that creates industry-changing empirical evidence about how organizations and individuals can achieve sustainable, resilient innovation in technology and create more wellbeing for technologists. Cat is also the founder of Catharsis Consulting, a scientific consultancy that connects organizations to human-centered evidence strategies. Cat holds a Ph.D. in Quantitative Experimental Psychology from UC San Diego, serves on the Advisory Council of the University of San Diego Center for Digital Civil Society, and is the author of a forthcoming book on the psychology of software teams. https://drcathicks.com/

Date: TBD
Time: TBD 1.5hr duration Pacific Time; accommodate Hawai'i to Alaska.
Location: Zoom, (via zoom registration)

As soon as Posit posts this talk to YouTube, we'll schedule this call.

Agenda

Example times (PT)

• 9:45 - sign into Zoom to setup/check audio etc
• 9:55 - start rotating slides and letting people in Zoom
  • one slide says we'll start at at :02 after, say hello in Chat
• 10:00 - start pump up music, slides keep rotating
• 10:02 - welcome
• 10:05 - Celebrity interview or other speaker content
• 10:30 - Audience Q & A
• 10:50 - closing & thank you
• 10:55 - end

Examples of previous Openscapes Community Calls: https://www.openscapes.org/tags/community-call/

TODO

In the checklist below, DATE is placeholder for deadline, to be filled in.

• set up zoom registration; add zoom link to Google Invites & Doc
• create page at https://openscapes.org/events
• create draft Google Doc for event
• promo announcement via Slacks, Mastodon, Bluesky
• engage potential participants / stakeholders
• planning meeting with speakers, Stef, Julie, 1-week prior to event
• Reminders
  • Slack, Mastodon, Bluesky
  • Zoom reminder email to registrants (since they each have unique zoom link; easily lost in earlier email)
• ask speakers about their favorite pump-up song/a song that we'll play at the intro
• create intro slides
• call takes place
• update Event page - event past
• publish blog post & promote
• add post link to Event page

[stefaniebutland]

A lot of the research, elements and images from this keynote can be seen in Dr Hicks' publications and reports at https://www.drcathicks.com/projects and https://www.drcathicks.com/research.

These are notes from the Openscapes team watch party.

• As technologists we think of ourselves as inventors, but we’re great immitators. Social learners. Demo: Learning the dance silently (Jan-June birthdays with eyes closed)

• Cultural ratcheting: solutions improved by the group
• Anna Hevesi, OG community manager for Stack overflow. Hicks & Hevesi 2024
• Is technical effort truly seen? ~75% of managers say yes, ~24% of developers say yes

• “We are building castles in our mind and sometimes we wake up to a single email that tears it down”
• If social learning is so impactful and important, why does it still feel so hard to actually do in the workplace?
• “Talk out loud” sessions - Cat interview method as they’re fixing bugs or learning a new code base
• Learning debt sabotagees the cumulative culture - people feel that they can’t show the need for learning in the face of bad social interactions
  • “Bad psychology”
• Psychological Affordances
• Kayak analogy - design affordance - I’m not a great swimmer but paddling a kayak lets me get out on the ocean in Kauai
• The messages around people that designs what they think is possible for them

• Stereotypes about technology work have negative impacts on our ability to activate social learning
• “Brains in jars model of software dev” - great way to picture the silos. Applies beyond devs. 3 traps/tells if you’re a “brains-in-jars”
  • Brittle productivity trap - the only way to get it done is with “the grind”. “We are all hitting our targets and all burning out”. Anxious rumination does not equal “I’m meant for this work”.
  • Chilly climate trap - the idea that we need to be non-emotional, chilly personalities. Can’t show fear
  • Lone genius trap. “The 10x engineer”
    • The Myth of the “Genius Programmer” (Google I/O 2009 talk - youtube)

• Hicks et al 2024. Image above: self-reported productivity
• Tension between performance and mastery
  • Mastery - learning for its own sake. A more sustainable source of motivation.
  • Over-emphasis on performance can make us feel like we can never make a mistake - avoidance
  • Normal learning pattern is getting worse before getting better

• Seed x soil metaphor to show mindset x context
  • Walton et al, Psychological Science 2020.
  • Leaders - job is the soil. ICs - job is the seed
• Cat’s Law
• Lone genius cultures often have pervasive “brilliance beliefs” and “technical contests”
• Cumulative cultures have a learning culture and a sense of belonging
• Lone genius cultures have a much higher sense of AI skill threat. And cumulative cultures have higher productivity and team effectiveness

• “Team effectiveness” as a measure that is NOT “individual productivity” which is often measured. Cat measures “team effectiveness”.
• The 10x developer thing is wrong:
  • Meritocracy bias: Individual explanations are more cognitively accessible so we discount true systemic explanations
  • Meritocracy messages in organizations make managers more biased when evaluating performance
  • Evidence for 10x developer is poor
• An empirical intervention for code review anxiety. Lee et al (Hicks lab), 2024
  • Intervention - a psychology workshop that targets anxiety, self-efficacy & self-compassion. NOT about making ppl better coders
  • Workshop improved anxiety, self-efficacy & self-compassion. Big deal - really hard to move self-compassion
    • Workbook available! https://developer-success-lab.gitbook.io/code-review-anxiety-workbook-1

• Newsletter https://www.fightforthehuman.com/about/

• Q&A: In remote/online situations, you get fewer social cues, so the ones you do get are ramped up