I checked 4 preprints servers on Sunday, January 18, 2026 using the Open Science Foundation API. For the period January 11 to January 17, I found 318 new paper(s).

MetaArxiv

Improving Evidence Synthesis with Artificial Intelligence
Amir Mehr; Joshua L. Howard; Cyrus Nouroozi; Behrad Khorramnazari; George Christopher Banks; Louis Tay; Pim Cuijpers; Clara Miguel; Mathias Harrer; John P. Meyer
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Scientific knowledge is represented by approximately 3.3 million new journal articles each year and is expanding at an unprecedented pace, increasing in total size by 59% between 2012 and 2022 [1]. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses provide a structured means of evidence synthesis, but they are slow and labor-intensive, often requiring more than a year to complete. This bottleneck constrains scientific progress and is especially consequential in contexts such as public health crises (e.g., the COVID-19 pandemic), where timely evidence is essential for guiding policy and practice [2, 3]. Here we show that artificial intelligence methods can substantially improve both the efficiency and accuracy of systematic reviews. Using diverse datasets and examining over 30,000 data points, our AI-assisted approach matched or exceeded human performance while greatly reducing the risk of overlooking relevant evidence. In multiple tests of screening performance, the AI achieved 97.2% sensitivity and 96.84% specificity. With respect to extraction, the AI obtained 96.96% extraction accuracy, outperforming human efforts, and completed tasks up to 99% faster. These results demonstrate that AI augmentation can enable more timely and comprehensive evidence synthesis, facilitate living systematic reviews, and better support researchers, policymakers, and practitioners in responding to fast-moving scientific developments. Integrating AI into evidence synthesis represents a decisive advance in the accumulation of scientific knowledge.
Heterogeneous Treatment Effect Estimation with Instrumental Variable Methods
Amir Aamodt Kazemi; Joseph Sexton; Inge Christoffer Olsen
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Instrumental variable (IV) methods are widely used to address unmeasured confounding in observational studies but typically estimate the local average treatment effect (LATE) for compliers. If there exist effect modifying variables that also affect the choice of treatment, the LATE may have limited clinical relevance. To address this limitation, we propose a novel framework for estimating the conditional average treatment effect (CATE) for a categorical treatment variable in the presence of both observed confounding and effect-modifying variables in addition to valid IVs. Building on recent developments in data fusion between randomized trial and observational data, we combine IV estimators with estimators based on covariate adjustment. By making parametric assumptions about the residual unobserved confounding effect, we obtain a consistent estimator of the CATE with relatively high efficiency. In a simulation study with nonlinear effect modification and unobserved confounding, we show that our estimator outperforms competing IV and covariate-adjusted estimators in terms of mean squared error. We further illustrate the applicability of the method, utilizing it to compare tumor necrosis factor alpha inhibitors as the first line biologic treatment of rheumatoid arthritis conditional on age. The analysis identifies modest age-related heterogeneity in treatment effects and provides population-relevant clinically interpretable estimates. This work provides a general framework for combining instrumental and confounding information to estimate individualized causal effects when treatment effects are heterogeneous and there are more than two treatment alternatives.

PsyArxiv

Weak and strong memories are equally reactivated during counterfactual learning, but only weak memories are modified
Wangjing Yu; Lila Davachi
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Adaptively updating memories about familiar others is an important social skill. Here, we examined whether strong or weak social memories are more prone to updating when violated. Participants viewed well-known characters’ emotional reactions to food items either repeatedly or only once. They then studied new events where some characters exhibited unexpected emotions to the same food items, violating initial memories. We found that when violated, strong existing memories, compared to weak memories, led to worse learning of new information, suggesting the resistance of strong memories to updating. Further, using a novel behavioral metric, we assessed the mechanistic role of memory reactivation in the updating of strong and weak memories. We showed that when encountering conflicting information, instead of reflecting their relative encoding strength, reactivation of weak memories reached a level similar to that of strong memories. Meanwhile, strong memories that were more reactivated showed higher likelihood to incorporate new information.
Humans neglect complexity in predictive model selection
Shuze Liu; Yang Xiang; Samuel J. Gershman
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People often face competing predictive models, such as different weather forecasts or music recommendation systems. How do they evaluate which model is better? Past research suggests that people follow Occam's razor, balancing fit and simplicity, but little is known about whether the same principle describes how people select predictive models. In a series of experiments, we gave participants choices between predictive models, allowing them to see the underlying data used to fit the models. Participants systematically neglected model complexity relative to the statistically optimal benchmark, often preferring models that overfit the data. While they partially compensated for complexity neglect by changing their decision thresholds, this strategy failed to appropriately account for the fact that simpler, misspecified models frequently outperform more complex models under noise and limited data. These findings challenge the view that simplicity is a general cognitive preference. When it comes to prediction, people appear to prefer a good fit.
Disrupting the Mad Genius Myth: Emotional Instability Undermines Creative Self- Beliefs Through Lower Subjective Well-Being in Professional Artists
Florence Khoriaty; Arielle Bonneville-Roussy; Pier Luc de Chantal
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The influence of cyclothymic temperament on the creativity of professional artists has long been debated. Popular narratives often suggest that emotional instability fuels creative achievement, giving rise to the enduring cultural figure of the "mad genius". However, empirical literature presents a more complex and often contradictory picture. This study investigates whether subjective well-being (SWB) mediates the association between cyclothymic temperament and creative self-beliefs. A sample of 201 artists with proven professional status completed the Satisfaction With Life Scale, the Temperament Evaluation of Memphis, Pisa, Paris, and San Diego, and a validated nine-item creative self-beliefs scale. Confirmatory factorial analyses supported the measurement models, and structural equation modelling with bootstrapping was conducted. Results indicated that cyclothymic temperament negatively predicted SWB, while SWB positively predicted creative selfbeliefs. These findings suggest that contrary to the “mad genius” myth, heightened cyclothymic temperament may undermine creativity when it reduces well-being, highlighting the importance of addressing factors modulating the SBW of professional artists.
TrAIngles: an LLM-Based Automatic Scoring Tool for Theory of Mind Assessments Across the Life Span
Serena Maria Stagnitto; Daniele Gatti; Irene Ceccato; Fulvia Castelli; Gabriele Chierchia; Luca Rinaldi; Rory Thomas Devine; Elena Cavallini; Serena Lecce
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Understanding how Theory of Mind (ToM), the ability to attribute mental states to others, develops and differs across individuals requires robust and easily applicable measures. Tasks involving open ended verbal responses such as the Triangles Task offer valid indicators of ToM, but their manual scoring is time-consuming and demands substantial training. In this study, we test the validity and reliability of TrAIngles, an automatic scoring software for the Triangles Task developed through fine-tuning of large language models (LLMs). TrAIngles was trained on a dataset of N ~ 11,000 responses collected from 581 Italian-speaking participants aged between 8 and 81 years. LLM-based ToM scores showed high accuracy and reliability metrics (Cohen’s kappa, ICC, Krippendorff’s alpha, Spearman’s rho) comparable to human ratings and consistently exceeding commonly accepted thresholds for inter-rater agreement (i.e., > .80). Performance remained robust across age groups (children, adolescents, young adults, adults, and older adults). Our findings demonstrate that reliable and valid ToM indexes can be obtained from the Triangles Task using this new automated scoring system based on LLMs. TrAIngles thus provides an innovative tool for lifespan ToM assessments relying on open-ended responses, highlighting the potential of training automated scoring systems on archival, human-rated datasets. TrAIngles is openly available for use both as code and via a user-friendly graphical interface.
Fair and Robust Estimation of Heterogeneous Treatment Effects for Optimal Policies in Multilevel Studies
Youmi Suk; Chan Park; Chenguang Pan; Kwangho Kim
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Recently, there have been growing efforts in developing fair algorithms for treatment effect estimation and optimal treatment recommendations to mitigate discriminatory biases against disadvantaged groups. While most of this work has focused on addressing discrimination due to individual-level sensitive variables (e.g., race/ethnicity), it overlooks the broader impact of societal structures and cultural norms (e.g., structural racism) beyond the individual level. In this paper, we formalize the concept of multilevel fairness for estimating heterogeneous treatment effects to improve fairness in optimal policies. Specifically, we propose a general framework for the estimation of conditional average treatment effects under multilevel fairness constraints that incorporate sensitive variables from multiple structural levels. Using this framework, we analyze the trade-off between fairness and the maximum achievable utility by the optimal policy. We evaluate the effectiveness of our framework through a simulation study and a real data study on advanced math courses using data from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009.
Identity-based motivation: Testing assumptions of ecological validity, individual differences and within-person fluctuations
Alysia Burbidge; Daphna Oyserman
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Introduction-Objective: We outline and test three key assumptions of identity-based motivation theory. First, in everyday life, people draw both difficulty-as-importance and difficulty-as-impossibility inferences when tasks or goals feel hard to think about (ecological validity). Second, how much people endorse each inference is both an individual difference and context sensitive (trait-like and state-like). Third, strong (unambiguous) contexts shift momentary endorsement (context matters). Methods: Five studies (N=2,746, undergraduates except Study 2) apply autobiographical recall, secondary data analyses, daily diaries, and experimental methods and validated difficulty-as-importance and difficulty-as-impossibility scales. Results: Ecological validity: people recall making both inferences a few times monthly (Study 1, N=986). Trait-state: difficulty-as-importance and difficulty-as-impossibility scores differ between and fluctuate within persons about equally (Study 2 N=733 elementary-to-high-school-aged students; Study 4 N=260, n=2,789 two-week daily diaries). Trait difficulty-as-impossibility predicts preference for easier tasks (Study 3 N=216); trait difficulty-as-importance predicts daily meaningful engagement with school (Study 4). Daily difficulty-as-importance and difficulty-as-impossibility are associated with daily self-esteem, self-compassion, and self-efficacy (Study 4). Context: Strong contexts shape momentary difficulty-as-importance and difficulty-as-impossibility scores (Study 5 N=551). Conclusion: Results support three key predictions and suggest that difficulty mindsets can be meaningfully considered as consequential traits and as fluctuating states affected by strong (unambiguous) contexts.
Conformity to social norm interventions is not amplified in tighter nations
Jane Acierno; Elisa Tedaldi; Joel Ginn; Danielle Goldwert; Madalina Vlasceanu; Sandra Jeanette Geiger; Gregg Sparkman; Sara Madureira Constantino
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Social norms have a reliable and oftentimes strong influence on individual attitudes and behaviors across environmental and other domains. This influence has been theorized to differ by cultural tightness—the extent to which people adhere to shared cultural norms. Understanding whether and how cultural context moderates the influence of behavioral interventions is essential for the design of culturally-attuned and adaptable interventions to address collective action problems like climate change. Yet, past research has primarily relied on correlational approaches to test this theory, without experimentally manipulating norm information across different settings, limiting insights into how cultural context shapes conformity to norm information. Our study tests the effects of three social norm interventions on the climate-related attitudes and behaviors of 16,070 participants in 42 countries. We find limited evidence that cultural tightness moderates the strength of conformity to social norm information in our study, suggesting a more nuanced relationship between the two.
The social transmission of optimism
Anton Bel-Álvarez; Josué García Arch; Laura Nóbrega; Alin Coman; Mª Teresa Bajo; Lluís Fuentemilla
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The human tendency toward optimism is a fundamental aspect of future thinking, yet how social interaction modulates this bias remains unclear. We investigated whether collaborative future imagination influences individual optimism and its computational underpinnings. Participants engaged in either individual or collaborative prospection, interspersed with likelihood estimations of future events related or unrelated to the imagined scenarios. Collaborative imagination selectively increased optimism bias for related future events. This effect was driven by a social prediction error mechanism, whereby individuals updated their beliefs based on discrepancies between their own optimism and peers’ inferred beliefs. This cognitive update was content-specific and distinct from parallel emotional contagion effects. These findings demonstrate that optimism bias is a malleable, socially transmissible state shaped dynamically by interaction, highlighting a computational mechanism by which social contexts influence prospective cognition.
Women and Girls’ Engagement with Digital Intimate Partner Violence Support Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic: A Systematic Review and Theoretical Synthesis
Alexandra Wakefield; Vivi Antonopoulou; Alexandra Burton; Alison Ruth McKinlay
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Purpose: To synthesise evidence on perceived barriers and facilitators of engagement with digital intimate partner violence (IPV) support. The review focused on women and girls (15+) across high income settings in North America, Europe and Australasia during and after the COVID 19 pandemic. Methods: We conducted a systematic review of qualitative and quantitative studies indexed in MEDLINE, EMBASE and PsycINFO (April 2025), followed by a theory informed synthesis using behavioural science frameworks. Findings were translated into practice oriented strategies using established intervention design and acceptability criteria. Results: Twelve studies met inclusion criteria. Engagement with digital IPV support was shaped primarily by three behavioural domains: Environmental Context and Resources, Emotion, and Beliefs about Consequences. Engagement was constrained when technological access was fragile or surveilled (Theme 1), home environments were unsafe or shared (Theme 2), emotional distress restricted digital interaction (Theme 3), survivors anticipated surveillance, escalation of harm or inadequate care (Theme 4), or doubted the usefulness of digital platforms (Theme 5). Disengagement therefore often reflected active safety management rather than lack of motivation to seek help. These determinants were translated into theory informed recommendations prioritising practical support, safety by design, and flexible service features that make engagement possible even when access is constrained, unsafe, or frequently interrupted. Conclusions: Engagement with digital IPV support is shaped by behavioural, emotional and contextual determinants, such that withdrawal or partial engagement often represents safety driven decision making. Behaviourally informed, trauma responsive digital services embedded within hybrid care ecosystems are therefore critical to supporting safe and sustained engagement.
From expert to learner metrics of transfer: Examination of how learner perceived similarity predicts transfer and moderates instructional practices
David Menendez
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Theories of transfer argue that people are more likely to transfer knowledge to a new scenario the more similar the scenario is to what they have previously learned. However, prior research predominantly relies on expert- or researcher-based judgements of how similar two scenarios are, rather than learner-based similarity metrics. Two studies (N total = 483) with undergraduate students in the United States examined how learner-based similarity judgments relate to transfer. These studies also show how using learner-based metrics can help researchers explore how features of lessons (i.e., the richness of diagrams) influence transfer. Participants sorted the stimuli in the posttest based on their similarity either at the beginning (Study 1) or the end of the study (Study 2). Participants learned about metamorphosis using either perceptually rich or bland life cycle diagrams. After the lesson, they completed a posttest after the lesson and after a month. Both studies showed that participants’ similarity judgments predict transfer. Using this metric also showed that participants were more likely to extend their knowledge to animals similar to the ladybug when they learned with the rich diagram, but to dissimilar animals when they learned with the bland diagram. This was consistent after the one-month delay.
Evaluating Data-Driven Methods to Capture Anxious Arousal with Movie fMRI
Purnima Qamar; Jacob Herman Lentz; Paul Taylor; Oliver Joe Robinson; Daniel S. Pine; Peter Alexander Kirk
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Recent years have seen an expansion in the use of naturalistic stimuli in neuroscience. Movie-watching designs offer a unique platform for studying mental processes and psychiatric illness, including anxiety. Common techniques for analyzing this data are feature-based modeling, functional connectivity, and intersubject correlation. While these continue to provide insight, their limitations warrant exploration of additional measures. In this preregistered analysis of open data, we explored the sensitivity of two other techniques for capturing anxious arousal in movie fMRI: fractional amplitude of low frequency fluctuations (fALFF) and a whole-brain inverse ‘fMRI Arousal Index’ (iFAI). We tested whether these measures differed between anxiogenic and control movie clips. We did not observe significantly altered fALFF in hypothesized regions encompassing subcortical, salience, and default mode areas. On the other hand, iFAI was significantly greater during the anxiogenic clip, correlated with ongoing fluctuations in state anxiety, and appeared partially driven by midcingulate activity. iFAI may therefore hold promise as a complementary data-driven technique for studying anxious arousal.
Evaluating Data-Driven Methods to Capture Anxious Arousal with Movie fMRI
Purnima Qamar; Jacob Herman Lentz; Paul Taylor; Oliver Joe Robinson; Daniel S. Pine; Peter Alexander Kirk
Full text
Recent years have seen an expansion in the use of naturalistic stimuli in neuroscience. Movie-watching designs offer a unique platform for studying mental processes and psychiatric illness, including anxiety. Common techniques for analyzing this data are feature-based modeling, functional connectivity, and intersubject correlation. While these continue to provide insight, their limitations warrant exploration of additional measures. In this preregistered analysis of open data, we explored the sensitivity of two other techniques for capturing anxious arousal in movie fMRI: fractional amplitude of low frequency fluctuations (fALFF) and a whole-brain inverse ‘fMRI Arousal Index’ (iFAI). We tested whether these measures differed between anxiogenic and control movie clips. We did not observe significantly altered fALFF in hypothesized regions encompassing subcortical, salience, and default mode areas. On the other hand, iFAI was significantly greater during the anxiogenic clip, correlated with ongoing fluctuations in state anxiety, and appeared partially driven by midcingulate activity. iFAI may therefore hold promise as a complementary data-driven technique for studying anxious arousal.
A Hierarchical Bayesian Model of Memory for Spatial Memory
Pernille Hemmer
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Episodic memory and schema knowledge are known to interact when we recall everyday events – such as the location of an object in a scene. Recent Bayesian models of memory have assumed that this interaction is a function of the trade-off between the strength of episodic memory and schema knowledge. Ramey et at. (2022) empirically quantified this relationship using the recollection-familiarity paradigm as a proxy for memory strength. They also manipulated the congruency/incongruence of object locations in natural scenes as a proxy for schema strength. Here we replicate their findings and then model the effects using a Hierarchical Bayesian model of memory. We model familiarity/recollection as memory strength, and the congruence versus incongruence as having different priors - with the congruent prior linked to accuracy for congruent new scenes in the experimental data, and the incongruent prior linked to accuracy for incongruent new scenes. The model successfully captures 1) the greater accuracy for schema-congruent versus incongruent object locations 2) the decreasing difference in accuracy between congruent and incongruent scenes across familiarity confidence, and 3) the elimination of the accuracy difference for recollected scenes. We also evaluated the dual-process signal detection theory claim that recollection responses reflect a distinct recollection process. We found that the best fitting parameters for memory precision had a curvelinear relationship where memory precision gradually improved with increasing familiarity and then substantially changed for recollected responses.
Beyond plain packaging: Three experiments on effect of one-variant-per-brand and numerical labelling of cigarettes amongst young adult smokers
Jet Sanders; Anne Havermans; Charlotte Pauwels; Reinskje Talhout
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Background: Cigarette brand and variant names are one of the last remaining marketing tools in countries with plain packaging and advertising bans. Variant names foster product choice and product bonding by signaling quality, taste, and even perceived harm. This study tests two policy measures aimed at reducing the influence of variant names: (1) a one-variant-per-brand policy and (2) replacing variant names with numerical labels. Methods: Three randomised controlled experiments were conducted with 1,381 participants (354 daily smokers aged 18–25; 293 non-daily smokers aged 18–25; 383 non-smokers aged 18–25; and 351 adult daily smokers aged 26+). Experiment 1 used a virtual shop scenario to test purchase intentions. Experiment 2 assessed support for policies and smoking-related intentions. Experiment 3 evaluated perceptions of attractiveness, taste, and harm based on cigarette packaging effects. Both quantitative (closed-ended) and qualitative (open-ended) data were collected. Results: One in three smoking and two in three non-smoking participants supported the policies. Replacing variant names with numbers slightly increased purchase intention. The most reported reason is curiosity. One-variant-per-brand did not change purchase intention. Smoking young adults showed increased intentions to quit or reduce smoking under both policies. The effect was strongest for one-variant-per-brand. Most common reasons to quit or smoke less were that they already had the intentions to quit and the policy offered a nudge. Smoking adults showed no change. Perceptions of harm, attractiveness, and taste were unaffected by the policies, instead policies likely create temporary friction in the smoking experience by breaking brand and variant loyalty, offering people who have an intention to quit or reduce smoking momentum for doing so. No evidence was found that policies would increase uptake among non-smokers or increase smoking; however, indications for substitution toward e-cigarettes and other tobacco products were reported. Conclusions: Both policies may support existing desire for smoking reduction and cessation among young adult smokers, especially non-daily smokers, without unintended smoking increases. Linking such policies to cessation campaigns, monitoring curiosity effects and substitution behaviours is recommended.
UPPS-P Impulsivity, Momentary Affect, and Gambling: An Experience Sampling Method Study
Nathaniel Luke Phillips; Colin Vize; Katherine Collison; Michael Crowe; Donald R Lynam; Josh Miller
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Objective: Examine the relations among UPPS-P impulsigenic traits (i.e., Negative and Positive Urgency, Lack of Premeditation, Lack of Perseverance, Sensation Seeking) and momentary affect with gambling behaviors in daily life. Method: Ninety-nine people who regularly gamble (Mage = 29.61; 69.7% male; 55.6% White) completed baseline self-report assessments of UPPS-P traits and responded to six daily prompts for seven days assessing affective states and gambling behavior. Bayesian mixed-effects models were used to estimate the additive and interactive effects of trait impulsivity and momentary affect on four gambling behaviors: (a) whether participants gambled since the previous signal, (b) time spent gambling, (c) money planned to gamble, and (d) money actually spent. Results: Most estimated effects did not meet the preregistered threshold for significance (99% credible intervals excluding zero). The only robust and statistically significant effect was a positive association between Lack of Premeditation and time spent gambling. Momentary affect variables showed heterogeneous associations with gambling outcomes, and zero cross-level interactions between traits, momentary affect, and gambling pathology severity were supported. Conclusions: The robust association between Lack of Premeditation and gambling duration highlights the value of modeling impulsivity as a multidimensional construct that has varying relations with different forms of gambling behaviors in daily life. Although most effects were small and uncertain, the Bayesian framework allowed us to quantify uncertainty and provide estimates that may facilitate the use of more informed prior probability distributions in future work.
Re. The influence of personality on the risk of myocardial infarction in UK Biobank cohort
Alexander Weiss
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Dahlén, Miguet, Schiöth, and Rukh1 used items from UK Biobank2 to construct “proxies” of the five domains of human personality—Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Openness3. However, the items used came from an existing Neuroticism scale. In my analyses, I demonstrated that the discriminant validities of these proxies are poor, and so should not be used to study personality in UK Biobank or any other dataset.
Three Strikes and Who is Out? Individual Differences in Error-Induced Quitting
Annie Johansson; Alexander Olof Savi; Han L. J. van der Maas; Abe Dirk Hofman
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The biggest threat to learning is to not engage in it. Crucially, sequential errors have been found to be an important cause of quitting from learning. However, little is known about how students differ in their sensitivity to errors. Using intensive longitudinal practicing data from over 200, 000 primary-school students in a large-scale Online Learning Environment, we confirm previous findings that sequential errors strongly increase the probability of quitting from learning. Second, we find large variability in this effect, ranging from no or small tendencies to quit to high sensitivities to quitting following sequential errors. We validate these results in an independent dataset, and show that individual differences are stable across two arithmetic practice domains. Our results corroborate the theoretical notion that students differ in their tolerance to failure and pinpoint a need to individualize how computer-adaptive systems intervene after errors.
Post-Error Slowing is Modulated by Emotional Words
Felix Cramer; David Dignath
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Few things are as instantly frustrating as realizing one made a mistake. Yet, it may be precisely this uncomfortable feeling what pushes us to pay attention, adjust, and do better next time. Affective theories of control argue that the negative or arousing quality of errors serves as feedback signal to respond with more caution. To directly test this idea, we combined a temporal flanker task—a paradigm well established for eliciting response conflict and error-related adjustments—with emotional words that systematically varied in affective context. We found that both arousal (emotional versus neutral) and valence (negative versus positive) of the emotional words modulate behavior following errors, consistent across a pre-registered experiment (N = 60) and a mega-analysis pooling this dataset with data from five other experiments employing a similar design (N = 352). Specifically, results showed increased post-error slowing following negative relative to positive words, supporting the idea that negative affect amplifies the aversive signal of errors. Results also indicated greater post-error slowing following high compared to low arousing words. However, this effect declined with time on task, suggesting that the stimulus-evoked arousal initially amplified an error-related orienting response, but habituated over time. Overall, the findings provide evidence for a functional integration of emotions and control, and we discuss potential mechanisms that may account for this relationship.
Ensemble Blindsight
Patxi Elosegi; Pietro Amerio; Ning Mei; Marta Valdazo; Nirmitee Mulay; Roberto Santana; Axel Cleeremans; David Soto
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A central challenge in consciousness research is to dissociate perception from awareness using rigorous, bias-free methods. Traditional approaches often suffer from two key limitations: the criterion biases in reporting perceptual (un)awareness, and the criterion content fallacy, where awareness measures do not capture the specific information required to perform the perceptual task. These problems are compounded by the widespread use of single-object paradigms, which typically involve presenting isolated stimuli near threshold and suppressing them with masking techniques. These constraints result in a low signal-to-noise ratio that severely limits sensitivity to detect effects, and offer low ecological validity. Here we introduce a novel paradigm based on ensemble perception that overcomes these long-standing limitations. Experiment 1 used a bias-free two-interval forced-choice task in which observers had to discriminate the predominant category in ensembles comprising animate and inanimate items and also detect which interval contained the task-relevant features Experiment 2 extended these findings with a single-interval design, addressing concerns about potential detection inefficiencies. Multiple control analyses across experiments demonstrate robust unconscious ensemble perception: observers reliably discriminated ensemble-level properties even when detection of the task-relevant features was at chance. Additionally, Bayesian ideal observer modeling anchors these findings within a computational account of unconscious perception. Together, our findings demonstrate that perceptual processing of complex visual summaries can occur without conscious awareness - a phenomenon we term ensemble blindsight. The work offers a new framework for studying visual consciousness beyond the limits of traditional single-target paradigms.
Burst-related potentials as a temporal anchor for cognition
Marie C. Schuma; Ayelet N. Landau; Ilka Diester; Michael Anderson; Golan Kavrat
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Traditional approaches probe cognition by aligning brain activity to external stimuli. Building on evidence that transient oscillatory activity marks neural responses, we articulate burst-related potentials (BRPs) as temporal anchors for studying cognitive processes poorly captured by stimulus-locked analyses.
Flexible Modularity in the Human Brain: How Network Architecture Reconfigures Over Time
Karolina Finc; Iga Adamska-Stolarczyk; Danielle S Bassett
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Modular organization—densely interconnected subsystems linked by sparser inter-module connections—is a defining feature of human brain networks. Yet modularity is not static: it reconfigures over seconds during cognition, adapts cumulatively over learning and training, and is reshaped over years across development and ageing. Across these domains, empirical findings can appear inconsistent, in part because similar values of global modularity may arise from qualitatively different underlying network reorganizations, including changes in within-module cohesion, between-module coupling, and community composition across scales. Here we synthesize evidence across cognition, learning, and lifespan research to show that modularity change is best understood as a repertoire of timescale-dependent reconfiguration modes rather than as a single scalar property. By organizing reported findings into key modes—such as transient integration, selective decoupling and stabilization, and slow long-term rebalancing—and relating them to biological mechanisms and constraints already implicated in the literature, we provide a unifying conceptual framework for interpreting flexible modularity as a core principle of adaptive brain organization.
The Morality-Effectiveness Disconnect of Pro-environmental Behaviors
Jareef Martuza; Hege Landsvik
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Not all pro-environmental behaviors are created equal—some are vastly more effective at mitigating climate change than others. Do people judge more effective behaviors as proportionally morally superior? This matters because moral cognition and motivation are powerful drivers of prosocial behavior. Four studies (N = 5,336; three pre-registered) reveal a robust morality-effectiveness disconnect: Behaviors that rank better on objective climate mitigation potential rank worse on individual moral judgments. Exploratory analyses reveal that this disconnect is mediated by stronger personal support for less effective behaviors, and is weaker among individuals more interested in learning about environmental impacts. Study 3, a five-country experiment, reveals that explicitly labeling behaviors' impact reduces the disconnect by 75%, but does not eliminate it. Finally, Study 4 finds that providing detailed information reverses the disconnect, leading people to judge more effective behaviors as proportionally more moral and increase their policy support. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Women and Girls’ Engagement with Digital Intimate Partner Violence Support Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic: A Systematic Review and Theoretical Synthesis
Alexandra Wakefield; Vivi Antonopoulou; Alexandra Burton; Alison Ruth McKinlay
Full text
Purpose: To synthesise evidence on perceived barriers and facilitators of engagement with digital intimate partner violence (IPV) support. The review focused on women and girls (15+) across high income settings in North America, Europe and Australasia during and after the COVID 19 pandemic. Methods: We conducted a systematic review of qualitative and quantitative studies indexed in MEDLINE, EMBASE and PsycINFO (April 2025), followed by a theory informed synthesis using behavioural science frameworks. Findings were translated into practice oriented strategies using established intervention design and acceptability criteria. Results: Twelve studies met inclusion criteria. Engagement with digital IPV support was shaped primarily by three behavioural domains: Environmental Context and Resources, Emotion, and Beliefs about Consequences. Engagement was constrained when technological access was fragile or surveilled (Theme 1), home environments were unsafe or shared (Theme 2), emotional distress restricted digital interaction (Theme 3), survivors anticipated surveillance, escalation of harm or inadequate care (Theme 4), or doubted the usefulness of digital platforms (Theme 5). Disengagement therefore often reflected active safety management rather than lack of motivation to seek help. These determinants were translated into theory informed recommendations prioritising practical support, safety by design, and flexible service features that make engagement possible even when access is constrained, unsafe, or frequently interrupted. Conclusions: Engagement with digital IPV support is shaped by behavioural, emotional and contextual determinants, such that withdrawal or partial engagement often represents safety driven decision making. Behaviourally informed, trauma responsive digital services embedded within hybrid care ecosystems are therefore critical to supporting safe and sustained engagement.
Feeling Worse, Feeling More Overprotected: An Experience Sampling Study Among Adolescents
Savannah Boele; Anne Bülow; Jolene van der Kaap-Deeder; Wendy Rote; Loes Keijsers
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Parental overprotection is often blamed for rising youth emotional problems; yet evidence on everyday processes is limited. This 7-day Experience Sampling study examined within-person linkages between perceived overprotection and adolescent affect. Adolescents (N=143; Mage=15.8, age range=11-18; 64% girls, 92% Dutch/Belgian) provided momentary reports on overprotection (intrusion, unnecessary worry, unneeded help) and affect. Preregistered Dynamic Structural Equation Models showed within-person associations between perceived overprotection and negative (not positive) affect. Negative affect predicted more overprotection several hours later. Overprotection predicted increased concurrent (but not later) negative affect, except for ‘unneeded help’, which was reciprocally associated with fear. These findings guide future research on adolescents’ affective antecedents of experienced overprotection and identifying when, for whom, and which aspects are harmful rather than protective.
The emotional experience of time: Effects of anxiety and interoceptive ability on temporal perception
Gaia Lapomarda; Alessio Fracasso; Carmen Morawetz; Alessandro Grecucci; David Melcher
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Our experience of time is deeply shaped by emotional and bodily states. Anxiety is known to distort our temporal perception, yet the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. Here, we tested whether interoception links anxiety to variability in timing. Thirty participants underwent fMRI while performing a temporal reproduction task within a modified Threat of Scream paradigm. Safe and Threat blocks alternated, with aversive screams unpredictably delivered during Threat blocks. Screams reliably increased subjective anxiety and engaged salience and limbic regions, including the amygdala, hippocampus, and insula. Despite these affective and neural responses, Threat did not produce systematic changes in temporal accuracy. Instead, the interaction between subjective anxiety and interoceptive accuracy predicted reduced temporal accuracy, implicating an interoceptive contribution to anxiety-related time distortions. At the neural level, reproduction compared with the encoding phase increased activity in sensorimotor and parietal regions, with insula, cingulate, and striato-thalamic engagement in the Safe context. Under Threat, the encoding–reproduction differences were modest, and screams robustly recruited a salience–limbic–temporal network relative to both non-emotional tones. Together, these findings provide behavioral and neural evidence that anxiety influences time perception through its coupling with bodily awareness, highlighting interoception as a key pathway for recalibrating time perception.
Navigational Metacognition in Aging: Encoding Strategies and Spatial Representation
Maugan Russell Lloyd; Scott Moffat
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Navigation difficulties in older adults are well-documented and declining wayfinding abilities serve as an early indicator of cognitive impairment. Such deficits can reduce mobility, restrict life space, and predict both nursing home admission and mortality. A major factor underlying this performance decline is the tendency for some older adults to rely on egocentric (self-referential) navigation strategies rather than allocentric (external) spatial representations. However, it is unclear whether this reflects reduced ability to engage in allocentric processing or an avoidance of allocentric strategies for other reasons. Metacognitive monitoring plays a central role in strategy selection, yet its influence on navigation remains chronically underexplored. While older adults can effectively assess their memory performance in associative memory tasks, evidence is less clear for their ability to monitor visuospatial memory. Low confidence in memory abilities has been shown to lead older adults to use less cognitively demanding strategies, which may parallel their preference for egocentric navigation. Navigation research has uncovered strategy clusters: some individuals integrate spatial information into a cognitive survey representation, others tend to default to egocentric navigation, and some struggle with all strategies. Older adults may cautiously adhere to the safer, known route following costly mistakes: that this may be the less cognitively demanding strategy does not show lesser cognitive abilities. This review examines metacognition in navigation in older adults, drawing from non-navigation findings, addresses the role of metacognitive monitoring in navigation strategy selection, and explores the implications for interventions to improve spatial cognition in aging.
Mapping Content-Specific Emotional Effects of Social Media
Inon Raz; Liron Amihai; Yair Ben-Davod; Michael Gilead
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Social networks expose users to a wide range of emotional experiences, yet the psychological mechanisms underlying perceived and actual emotional harm remain incompletely understood. Across three studies, we developed and validated a psychologically grounded, user-derived taxonomy of content dimensions, and examined their associations with negative emotional and cognitive outcomes. The pilot study, which quantified people’s perceptions about harmful content, revealed that social networks were perceived as more emotionally harmful, particularly in relation to political vitriol and social comparison. Study 1 experimentally exposed participants to real-world Twitter content and found that content features derived from language model analysis predicted increases in hostility, distress, and nervousness. Study 2 employed a controlled laboratory design with participants’ own Instagram feeds, showing that exposure to polarized content was associated with increases in distress, fear, and shorter viewing duration, while content related to social comparison caused a reduction in enthusiasm and alertness. Methodologically, the project uses large language models within a psychologically interpretable framework, moving beyond black-box classification approaches. The findings offer initial insights for content moderation, platform design, and interventions aimed at mitigating the psychological costs of digital environments, and highlight the value of users' subjective beliefs as meaningful signals for identifying harmful content.
Voice familiarisation training improves speech intelligibility and reduces listening effort
Freja Baxter; Harriet J Smith; Emma Holmes
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Understanding speech among competing speech poses a substantial challenge. In these environments, familiar voices—including naturally-familiar (e.g., friends, partners) and lab-trained voices—are more intelligible than unfamiliar voices. Yet, whether familiar voices also require less effort to understand is currently unknown. We trained 20 participants to become familiar with three voices, then tested listening effort during a speech intelligibility task. During familiarisation and training, participants were exposed to three talkers for different lengths of time, either speaking 88, 166, or 478 sentences (‘Least Familiar’, ‘Moderately Familiar’, or ‘Most Familiar’ voice, respectively). During each trial of the speech intelligibility task, two competing sentences were presented at a target-to-masker ratio (TMR) of -6 or +3 dB. Participants reported target sentences that were spoken by trained or by novel, unfamiliar talkers. We assessed effort using self-reported ratings and physiologically, using pupil dilation. We found that self-report scores were more sensitive than pupil dilation to differences in TMR, with lower self-reported effort at +3 than -6 dB TMR. The two measures may also be differentially sensitive to the extent of training. We found lower self-reported effort for all three trained voices over unfamiliar voices, with no differences among the trained voices. Whereas, pupil dilation was only lower for the voice that had been trained for the longest. Thus, both self-report scores and pupil dilation showed advantages for the voice that was trained for the longest (~1 hour), but self-report scores additionally showed reduced effort even following relatively short durations of training (less than 10 minutes).
A neural model of conscious mental imagery and aphantasia
Jianghao Liu
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Mental imagery refers to one’s quasi-perceptual experience in the absence of direct external input. Yet around 4% of individuals with “aphantasia” report an inability to voluntarily generate such experiences. This phenomenon provides a natural experiment that challenges current theories of imagery, which typically assume that reactivation of the visual cortex in imagery generation is sufficient for experience. In fact, neuroimaging evidence shows that aphantasic individuals can reactivate visual cortex normally during imagery tasks, indicating that additional, as-yet-unspecified, processes are required for subjective experience to emerge. In this theory paper, I propose an attention-based model of conscious imagery (“the attention model”), in which generation provides initial sensory reactivations, integration binds visual features into coherent perceptual-like content, and amplification enhances them for conscious access. This hierarchical processing of conscious imagery appears to be supported by a fronto-parietal-fusiform network shaped by two interacting attention systems. Aphantasia primarily reflects deficits in top-down modulation, with preserved generation but impaired integration and amplification of internal representations, linked to altered interactions between frontoparietal attention networks and the fusiform gyrus. Overall, this model reframes imagery as an active, constructive process shaped by the dynamic interplay of attention, sensory, and memory networks, rather than a passive reactivation of sensory representation. It offers a testable neuromechanistic account bridging research on imagery and consciousness, motivating future research on unconscious and conscious processing of internal representations.
Prediction of Performance in Standardised Assessments from Computer-Based Formative Assessment Data
Benjamin Garzon; Stéphanie Berger; Charles C Driver; Martin J. Tomasik
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Summative assessments (SAs) and formative assessments (FAs) fulfil complementary functions in the educational endeavour. SAs measure knowledge at the end of a unit in a standardised, high-stakes setting, while FAs evaluate student performance during daily classroom activities to tailor feedback and instruction. Computer-based FA (CBFA) systems enable collecting unprecedented amounts of data objectively and with minimal disruption for students, under conditions that more closely resemble real-life behaviour. Given concerns about student stress and ecological validity associated with SAs, potential biases in teacher judgements, and the high burden entailed by traditional classroom assessments, we investigated whether and how well FA outcomes can predict SA outcomes. Specifically, we estimated student abilities in a large sample of children evaluated at different time points during compulsory schooling and performed a systematic comparison of regression models trained to predict SA abilities on different subsets of features derived from FA abilities and auxiliary variables. A model that included mean abilities in different competence domains performed best, accounting for a considerable proportion of variance (30 - 48 %), although this was still below that explained by past SA measures. Most predictive FA features generally corresponded to abilities from the same or a similar competence domain as the predicted SA ability. We report systematic model biases that would warrant consideration when using the models for decision-making. Our findings provide valuable insights into how learning progress connects to future achievement, which can help teachers adapt instruction earlier and inform policies to reduce reliance on high-stakes testing.
Greed and Ethical Lapses in a Bribery Scenario: Exploring The Role of Moral Disengagement, Moral Identity, and Language Context
Eleni Orfanidou; Alexia Karain; Ioanna Spentza; Lena Pateraki
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Greed is linked to unethical behaviour, yet research on this relationship remains limited. This study examined how greed as a personality trait influences unethical behaviour, focus-ing on moral disengagement and moral identity. Participants (N=500) completed measures of greed, moral disengagement, and moral identity, along with a bribery acceptance task in Greek (native) and English (second language). Results showed that greed increased unethi-cal behaviour, with moral disengagement partially mediating this link by justifying immor-al actions. Moral identity moderated both the direct and indirect effects, weakening greed’s influence on unethical behaviour. Bribery acceptance was higher in the second language. These findings highlight the psychological mechanisms connecting greed, moral disen-gagement and unethical behaviour and emphasize the protective role of moral identity. A deeper understanding of these processes can contribute to the development of strategies aimed at reducing unethical conduct across different contexts.
Weak Links between Speech Perception and Speech Production at the Subphonemic Level
Brian W. L. Wong; Arthur G. Samuel; Efthymia C Kapnoula
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Recent research has shown individual differences in gradiency, defined as sensitivity to fine-grained acoustic differences at the subphonemic level. Consistency also varies, with some listeners providing more stable responses than others to repeated presentations of the same stimuli. However, it remains unclear whether gradiency and consistency are linked between perception and production. To address this question, 80 Spanish speakers completed a Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) task measuring perceptual gradiency and consistency along a Spanish /ba/–/pa/ continuum manipulated in 7–8 ms steps of voice onset time (VOT). The same participants also performed an explicit imitation task using the same stimuli. Results revealed only weak relationships between perceptual gradiency and imitation accuracy, as well as between perceptual consistency and imitation consistency, even after accounting for other factors related to speech perception and imitation. These findings suggest that models proposing strong perception–production coupling may not extend to the subphonemic level.
The bright side of life – Daytime light exposure and well-being in younger and older adults’ daily lives
Anna Jori Lücke; Andreas B. Neubauer; Sabine Baumgarten; Peter Walter; Thomas Kraus; Marcel Schweiker; Jan-Frieder Harmsen
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Objective: People today spend most of their time indoors which likely results in suboptimal lighting conditions and may negatively impact their health and well-being. However, research on the effects of light exposure in daily life is sparse. In the present work, we address this gap by examining the links between daily light exposure with different well-being indicators. Methods: In the present study, 30 younger (Mage=24.1, SD=3.2, 47% women) and 29 older adults (Mage=67.4, SD=5.16, 59% women) wore a light sensor as a pendant for 10 consecutive days in their daily lives, sampling light exposure every 10 seconds. They reported their momentary positive affect (PA), negative affect (NA), vitality, and alertness up to six times per day. We analyzed associations of light exposure in the previous 5, 60, and 180 minutes with these different aspects of well-being. Results: Multilevel models showed that both brighter overall levels of melanopic equivalent daylight illuminance (mEDI) and longer time spent above 250 lx mEDI were associated with higher high arousal PA, vitality, and alertness but not with lower NA. Additional analyses indicated that for PA and vitality this association may mainly exist for natural daylight whereas the light source did not matter for alertness. Exploratory analyses of higher thresholds (500-750 lx mEDI) partly yielded stronger effects. Conclusion: This pattern of results may suggest energizing and activating effects of light exposure and future research should determine whether light exposure behavior could be a target for interventions to increase health and well-being in daily life.
Validation of the Dutch Multidimensional Psychological Flexibility Inventory (MPFI-60 and MPFI-24) and its predictive value for mental health
Ineke Bodok; Tim Batink; Willemieke Kroeze; Marjan Nijkamp; Sanne Peeters; Nele Jacobs; Jennifer Reijnders
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Psychological flexibility, the capacity to remain open, present, and value-driven even in the face of distress, is increasingly recognized as a key determinant of mental health. The aim of this study was to validate the Dutch translations of the Multidimensional Psychological Flexibility Inventory (MPFI-60) and its short form (MPFI-24) and to examine the prospective relation with mental health. A community sample of Dutch-speaking adults (N=832; mean age: 55(SD:13)) completed self-report measures on psychological flexibility and mental health. Confirmatory factor analyses supported a two-factor second-order model representing psychological flexibility and inflexibility, providing a good fit for both the full and short versions. Regarding the MPFI-24 the 12-factor model had an even better fit. Internal consistency across all subscales of both instruments was good. Hierarchical regression analyses demonstrated that psychological flexibility and psychological inflexibility were prospectively associated with well-being and mental health complaints, respectively. However, when both constructs were included in the regression models, only psychological inflexibility emerged as a significant predictor of mental health complaints, including depression, anxiety and stress. The findings support the use of the Dutch MPFI as a valuable tool for assessing psychological flexibility and psychological inflexibility, with the shorter MPFI-24 offering a more practical and efficient alternative in both clinical practice and research.
An exploration of aphasia symptom profiles in speakers of Kalaallisut (West Greenlandic)
Johanne Nedergaard; Frederikke M. Simonsen; Naja B. Trondhjem; Roelien Bastiaanse; Malu A. Hendriksen; Mads Nielsen; Kasper Boye
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Research into language disorders such as aphasia and what they can reveal about the cognitive and neural underpinnings of language should be informed by crosslinguistic descriptions. It is particularly important to include languages that are highly dissimilar to widely studied languages like English. Kalaallisut (West Greenlandic) is one such language – a polysynthetic language of the Inuit-Yupik-Unangan language family spoken by approximately 60,000 people in Greenland and Denmark. A previous study of five Kalaallisut speakers with aphasia (Nedergaard et al., 2020) indicated that non-fluent aphasia in Kalaallisut exhibited different features from those found in English and similar Indo-European languages. However, the previous study was limited by its low number of participants, its focus only on semispontaneous speech narratives, and the fact that a more complete description of aphasia in Kalaallisut was not available. An essential prerequisite for incorporating data from an underresearched language in aphasiology is having sufficient information to reliably identify speakers with aphasia in that language. Gaining such information was the main aim of the present study where we tested a total of 42 speakers of Kalaallisut on repetition tests, language production tests, language comprehension tests, and working memory tests. We used a combination of qualitative judgments by a speech and language pathologist and hierarchical cluster analysis to analyze the results and were able to distinguish between presence or absence of aphasia, between levels of severity of aphasia, between apraxia of speech/dysarthria and aphasia, and to some extent between different aphasia subtypes.
Average-Blindness and Ensemble-Acuity: When Plotted Raw Data Conveys Averages Better Than Plotted Averages
Yang Wang; Sarah Horan Kerns; Timothy F. Brady; Jeremy Bennet Wilmer
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Data visualizations often display averages without underlying data points, aiming to enhance comprehension through visual simplification. Yet the theory that this simplicity improves comprehension remains untested. Using a new drag-and-drop measure, we tested this theory’s most basic prediction: that viewers will locate explicitly plotted, isolated averages more accurately than averages they must estimate from raw data. Remarkably, we found the opposite—accuracy was lower for standard bar or line plots depicting averages than for raw-data plots. This discovery stemmed from two observed phenomena: (1) average-blindness—the mislocation of explicitly marked averages, often placed within bars or along lines rather than at the intended markers; and (2) ensemble-acuity—the accurate estimation of averages from raw data (or ensembles), with variability comparable to confidence intervals and few outright errors. Our findings reveal a paradox of certainty: certainty about the average’s location can obscure it, whereas the uncertainty inherent in raw data can clarify it.
The Hippocampal Latent Diffusion Engine: A Computational Framework for Memory, Perception, and Cognitive Dysfunction
David T. Jones; Michael Breakspear
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The hippocampus is a cognitive hub whose functions are disrupted in most major neurodegenerative dementias. Despite substantial knowledge of its anatomy, physiology, and circuitry, a unifying account that links hippocampal computations, functions and clinical manifestations is lacking. Drawing on recent advances in generative artificial intelligence and systems neuroscience, we conceptualize the hippocampus as a latent diffusion engine that compresses sensory, internal, and cognitive inputs into low-dimensional representations and then regenerates percepts, episodic memories, and imagined scenes for cortical integration. Travelling waves of cortico-hippocampal oscillations, aligned with large-scale functional gradients, schedule and structure this generative process, organizing distributed neural activity into coherent, semantically grounded constructs. Specifically, we propose a stochastic latent oscillatory diffusion (SLOD) framework that maps specific hippocampal–cortical computations onto biological substrates and dynamical processes. The computational architecture mirrors the dominant text-to-image generative AI algorithms (specifically latent diffusion models), adapted and translated into the biological embedding of the cortex and hippocampus. Finally, we demonstrate how major neurodegenerative dementias - including the Alzheimer’s disease spectrum, dementia with Lewy bodies, and the frontotemporal dementia spectrum - can be interpreted as selective breakdowns of the anatomical and computational components of this proposed architecture.
The Moral Compass as a Design Constraint: Ergonomic Principles for Building Safe AGI
Ricardo Twumasi; Paris Alexandros Lalousis
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The transition from narrow AI to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) presents a shift that necessitates moving beyond purely algorithmic solutions toward a sociotechnical perspective. Our article argues that determining the moral compass of AGI is fundamentally a problem of cognitive compatibility and design constraints. We integrate established Human Factors and Ergonomics (HFE) principles, specifically Cognitive Work Analysis (CWA), Joint Cognitive Systems, and Distributed Situation Awareness, to address the process gulf arising from the opacity of AGI goal pursuit. We critically examine seminal AI safety thought experiments through the lens of automation surprises and mode error. Furthermore, we adapt Rasmussen’s Risk Management Framework to model AGI alignment as a hierarchical control problem, introducing the concept of Ecological Alignment Interfaces to visualise the safety envelope. Finally, we argue that AGI safety requires Bidirectional Human-AI Alignment and the rigorous, non-iterative safety protocols found in High Reliability Organisations (HROs). We conclude that the HFE discipline offers the essential toolkit for defining the design constraints necessary for safe AGI. Practitioner Summary: This article argues that Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is a sociotechnical challenge requiring Human Factors expertise. This article demonstrates how practitioners can apply Cognitive Work Analysis and Systems Theoretic Accident Model and Processes to define the moral compass of AGI as a set of rigorous design constraints. We provide a framework for using Rasmussen’s Risk Management model to design governance structures that maintain human control over opaque, autonomous systems.
Assessing a Digital Intervention for Prevention of Sleep Problems among Young People with and without Structural Sleep Barriers
Melissa J Dreier; Aijia Yao; Maya Dalack; Faith Orchard; Jessica L. Schleider; Maria Elizabeth Loades; Jessica L. Hamilton
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Sleep problems rise in prevalence during adolescence and young adulthood and pose risk for a myriad of negative mental and physical health outcomes. Existing behavioral sleep interventions assumes existing moderate to severe sleep problems and that these problems are caused by behavioral habits, not structural/environmental factors. This study tested the proximal impacts of Project Sleep, a digital single-session intervention (SSI) for young people with mild sleep problems OR an interest in learning about sleep habits, with the aim of reducing and preventing sleep problems. This study specifically investigates whether there are differential effects of the intervention for those with structural sleep barriers, to lay the groundwork for future randomized controlled trial and long-term follow up studies assessing the effects of this intervention for this group. Participants were aged 13-25 with self-reported sleep problems (N=759, Mage=18.7; 48% white, 81% girls, 38% LGBTQ+). Structural sleep barriers were reported by 45%: uncomfortable temperature (20%), exceess noise (17%), shared rooms (13%), excess light (10%), nighttime workers in the home (7%), unstable living conditions (2%). Participants rated perceived importance of sleep and making a change to sleep, readiness for change, and perceived control over sleep pre- and post-SSI. Moderation models assessed whether structural factors influenced outcomes. T-tests and correlations tested whether participants’ feedback differed by structural barriers. After adjusting for multiple comparisons, those experiencing structural barriers improved similarly to peers on all pre/post-SSI change metrics (corrected ps > .05). There were also no differences in participants’ feedback about their experience of the SSI by structural barrier (ps > .05). This study thus provides preliminary evidence that Project Sleep may be an effective sleep health promotion tool among young people, including those with structural sleep barriers. However, given this study measured only proximal impacts, future research should continue to test these questions using a randomized controlled trial and long-term follow-up design.
Interdependent Partners Experience Stronger Affective Responses to Simultaneous Positive and Negative Social Feedback
Diego Guevara Beltran; Shanshan Ma; Erin L Maresh; Andrea M Coppola; Matthias R. Mehl; Jessica R. Andrews-Hanna; David Sbarra
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Social rejection and acceptance are typically investigated from the perspective of individuals receiving, or observing, such information independent of others. However, experiences of rejection and acceptance often unfold in dyadic contexts, and can have implications for how partners interact, relate, and support each other, especially when partners experience incongruent social feedback (e.g., when others express caring for you but disapprove of your partner). How do people respond to a partner’s outcomes when faced with this type of challenging (i.e., incongruent) information? Employing a novel dyadic task, we examined affective responses to simultaneous social feedback information among cohabiting couples (Nparticipants = 168). Consistent with preregistered hypotheses, participants reporting higher positive relational interdependence were more likely to experience their partner’s social feedback as a personal reward or loss. This pattern emerged even when participants received incongruent social feedback (e.g., receiving negative feedback while a partner received positive feedback). Moreover, positive affect for a partner’s social feedback was associated with being responsive to the partner’s outcomes (i.e., higher perceived partner support, and perceived capitalization attempts). Together, findings suggest that positive relational interdependence allows people to respond sensitively to their partner’s rewarding and aversive events despite interference that may come from self-directed challenging (i.e., incongruent) information.
The Impact of Mindfulness Training on Driving Performance: A Prospective Controlled Longitudinal Study
Jean-Gérard Bloch; Régis Pradal; Cécile Ricard
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Objectives: To investigate the impact of attention training, through mindfulness meditation, on driving performance. Design: Prospective, active-controlled, longitudinal study. Setting: A training and research institute in Paris. Participants: 186 healthy volunteers aged 20–35 years, with no previous attention or meditation training. Interventions: Two types of training were evaluated: the Mindfulness-Based Short Intervention (MBSI) and the Mindfulness-Based Mobile Intervention (MBMI). The MBSI cohort (n=57) participated in a 6-week online program consisting of six 1.5-hour sessions delivered by a trained instructor, combined with daily 20-minute audio-guided meditations in pairs. The MBMI cohort (n=61) engaged in autonomous pre-recorded audio-guided meditation practice using the Petit Bambou application, with an average frequency mimicking the general public’s use of 3–4 meditations per week, each lasting approximately 11 minutes. The control group (n=68) received no attention training. Main outcome measures: The primary outcome measure was evaluation of reaction time on a driving simulator in six different contexts (Exercises 1–6) before and after attention training. Comparison of MBSI and MBMI was a secondary outcome. Results: Compared with baseline, the MBSI cohort demonstrated statically significant improvements in mean reaction time and attentional performance in three driving exercises by up to 108 ms, 53 ms and 48 ms (p<0.001, p<0.001 and p=.005), and the MBMI cohort in two driving exercises by up to 90ms and 40 (p=.002 and p<.001). Our study did not show any significant interaction between group and time and no significant difference between-cohort, but post hoc analysis showed a significant improvement in Ex5 of 48 ms in reaction time for MBSI only, p = 0.005 and no significance for MBMI, p = 0.75 or control, p = 0.09. In Ex1, 2 post hoc analysis showed significant improvement in reaction time for all groups for the MBSI, 108 ms, p < 0.001, as well as MBMI, 90 ms, p = 0.002 but with a result so close to the significance limit of p<0.05 for the control group, p = 0.046 that it could be considered not significant. Conclusions: Attention training through mindfulness meditation enhanced reaction time and potentially improved other measures of driving performance (i.e., attentional agility; peripheral vision; selective, sustained and executive attention; attentional fatigue), suggesting that meditation practice could be recommended as a preventive measure to improve driver safety
How does increased worry affect worries about unrelated issues?
Jan Urban; Tomasz Grzyb; Dariusz Dolinski; Markéta Braun Kohlová; Kamil Izydorczak
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There are two competing accounts explaining how increased worry about one issue affects people’s worry about unrelated issues. According to one account, it decreases worries about other issues (e.g., the finite pool of worry hypothesis). In the second account, it increases worry (e.g., generalized affect hypothesis, availability heuristics). We conducted a web-based experiment on representative samples of adults in the Czech Republic and Poland (total N = 7,051). We manipulated worry about one of three societal issues and measured the effect of this manipulation on the degree of worry about 12 unrelated issues. We also examined the underlying mechanism by looking at whether the effect was mediated by affect (a mechanism related to generalized affect) and moderated by issue similarity (a mechanism related to availability heuristics). The study provides strong evidence for a small-sized positive cross-effect of worry. Further, there are strong indications that an effect is mediated by generalized affect, specifically its valence. Our result contributes to a better understanding of how increased worry affects worries about other issues.
Neural representations of reward-related memories shift across development
Alexandra O. Cohen; Susan L. Benear; Camille Phaneuf-Hadd; Lila Davachi; Catherine A. Hartley
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Rewards signal information in the environment that is valuable and thus useful to remember. Rewards benefit memory across development, but how reward-associated memories are represented in the brain has not been well characterized. Here we conducted pattern similarity analyses of fMRI data in participants aged 8-25 to elucidate how neural representations in key memory-related brain areas are influenced by reward, and how these relationships change across childhood and adolescence. We found that reward information was reflected in pattern similarity during encoding in ventral temporal cortex and in changes in similarity from encoding to retrieval in anterior hippocampus (aHC). Strikingly, aHC reward-sensitive representations also varied with age such that adults’ memory benefitted from stability of hippocampal representations, whereas younger participants’ memory improvements were associated with greater drift in representations over time. Moreover, across all participants, reward-related univariate activation in the ventral tegmental area was associated with a greater tendency toward representational drift in aHC. Taken together, our findings demonstrate that reward modulates neural memory representations, and that the representational patterns supporting reward-motivated memory shift with age.
When Control Slips Away: Temporal Dynamics of Learned Helplessness and Cognitive Flexibility under Reward Uncertainty
Ruohan FENG; Xin Ashley Hao; Bianca Anita Coronado; Paul Verhaeghen
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Learned helplessness theory suggests that exposure to uncontrollable stress impairs motivation and cognitive flexibility, but how these effects evolve over time remains unclear. This study used a voluntary task-switching paradigm to examine the dynamic impact of controllability on cognitive flexibility under changing reward conditions. A total of 115 undergraduates were randomly assigned to one of three groups: controllable noise, uncontrollable noise, or no-noise control. All completed a baseline and a reward-based phase of the voluntary task-switching task. The reward phase featured four within-subject reward components: increasing, stable-high, decreasing, and stable-low. At baseline, both the uncontrollable and controllable noise groups showed elevated switch rates relative to the control group. However, hidden Markov modeling revealed divergent switching dynamics: participants in the controllable group more frequently transitioned into a high-switching, fast-response state, whereas those in the uncontrollable group predominantly remained in a low-switching state. During the reward phase, only the controllable and control groups modulated their switching in response to reward changes, whereas the uncontrollable group’s behavior remained flat and reward insensitive. Spectral clustering further showed that participants under uncontrollable stress increasingly adopted reward-insensitive behavioral profiles as trials progressed. Although both stress groups initially increased switching, only the controllable group sustained adaptive flexibility. In contrast, uncontrollable stress reduced reward sensitivity and fostered rigid behavior—hallmarks of learned helplessness. These effects emerged gradually, underscoring the importance of perceived control and the value of trial-level modeling in capturing the development of helplessness over time.
Rational Social Learning Makes Group Hiring More Efficient and Biased
Bufan Gao; Xuechunzi Bai
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Humans learn not only from personal experience but also by observing others. Integrating social information often allows groups to make decisions more efficiently and accurately than individuals, yet it can also generate persistent bias. These opposing outcomes are typically attributed to different mechanisms, with optimal outcomes linked to how people rationally update their beliefs, share information, and make decisions, whereas biased outcomes are attributed to frictions in these processes. Here, we show that the same underlying process -- rational social learning -- can produce both effects. Whether social learning improves or degrades group performance depends on the structure of the environment, particularly how clearly options differ. Using hiring decisions as a relevant context, we study networks of Bayesian-rational learners, generative AI agents, human online participants, and hiring professionals making decisions independently or collectively. Our design strips away common biases in social learning by embedding agents in fully connected networks and sharing information in their original form, while causally varying the decision environment and network structure. Across all four cases, integrating social information improves efficiency when one option is objectively optimal. However, when multiple options are equally optimal, the same learning process amplifies early random signals and prematurely reduces exploration, leading to bias. In these cases, biased outcomes do not reflect a failure of rationality, but rather a predictable consequence of rational inference. These results identify a unifying psychological mechanism underlying both collective intelligence and collective bias, with implications for designing fair decision-making systems in human and AI collectives.
Rhythm Cycle Alignment Task (RCAT). Cross-Cultural Differences in Aligning to Long Rhythmic Cycles from North Indian Classical Music.
Nashra Ahmad; Tuomas Eerola; Martin Clayton; Budhaditya Bhattacharyya; Mazha Shibu Muhammed
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Long rhythmic cycles (‘tal’) are a defining feature of North Indian Classical Music (NICM), yet their perceptual processing remains largely unexplored in empirical research. These cycles commonly extend up to 16 beats and last more than 3 seconds, placing substantial demands on memory capacity. Identifying the first beat is critical for understanding any NICM rhythm cycle, as it serves as the structural anchor for rhythmic organisation. How listeners perceive and locate this first beat remains an open question in rhythm cognition, particularly in cross- cultural contexts where rhythmic structures and enculturated listening strategies differ. This study introduces a novel rhythm cycle alignment task to examine how cultural familiarity and musical training shape the ability to identify the first beat of long NICM rhythmic cycles. Participants were required to align a tone track (beeps) with a continuously looping rhythmic cycle in real time, adjusting its position to indicate where they perceived the cycle to begin. Four NICM rhythm cycles were tested (7-beat Rupaktal, 8-beat Kehervatal, 10-beat Jhaptal, and 16-beat Teental). The study included four participant groups (N = 121): Culturally Familiar NICM Musicians, Culturally Familiar (Indian) Non-musicians, Culturally Unfamiliar Western Musicians, and Culturally Unfamiliar Western Non-musicians. Results showed that NICM musicians accurately aligned the first beat across all rhythm cycles, demonstrating robust top- down processing. Western musicians performed above chance only for isochronous cycles, suggesting reliance on temporal regularities common in Western music. Neither Indian nor Western non-musicians aligned the first beat above chance. To examine bottom-up strategies, alignment responses were compared with acoustic templates derived from the rhythmic stimuli. For all groups except NICM musicians, responses were best predicted by weak-to-strong timbral transitions, indicating a reliance on local acoustic salience rather than cycle-level structure. Overall, the study presents a replicable method for measuring rhythm-cycle perception and demonstrates that the accurate identification of the first beat in long NICM cycles is culture- specific and dependent on musical training.
Rethinking empathy in the age of AI
Joshua D Wenger; Daryl Cameron; Madeline G. Reinecke
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People increasingly turn to artificial intelligence (AI) for empathic support, often reporting feelings of being cared for and supported. Longstanding models of empathy, however, center the empathizer’s embodied emotional experience, which AI fundamentally lacks. This tension between human experience and traditional researcher-imposed empathy definitions raises important scientific questions as to what it truly means for AI to “empathize.” In the present paper, we propose an alternative definition and approach to studying empathy which eases this tension, emphasizing the multiple dissociable functions that empathy serves within various relational schemas. Taking a functional-relational approach redefines the study of empathy by centering practical meta-scientific concerns (e.g., surrounding the exploration of empathy within study contexts, foregrounding lived experience). In doing so, we seek to future-proof empathy as a construct, ensuring that our science remains relevant, generalizable across time, and responsive to lived human experience as technology advances and new forms of relationships emerge.
Mapping Content-Specific Emotional Effects of Social Media
Inon Raz; Liron Amihai; Yair Ben-Davod; Michael Gilead
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Social networks expose users to a wide range of emotional experiences, yet the psychological mechanisms underlying perceived and actual emotional harm remain incompletely understood. Across three studies, we developed and validated a psychologically grounded, user-derived taxonomy of content dimensions, and examined their associations with negative emotional and cognitive outcomes. The pilot study, which quantified people’s perceptions about harmful content, revealed that social networks were perceived as more emotionally harmful, particularly in relation to political vitriol and social comparison. Study 1 experimentally exposed participants to real-world Twitter content and found that content features derived from language model analysis predicted increases in hostility, distress, and nervousness. Study 2 employed a controlled laboratory design with participants’ own Instagram feeds, showing that exposure to polarized content was associated with increases in distress, fear, and shorter viewing duration, while content related to social comparison caused a reduction in enthusiasm and alertness. Methodologically, the project uses large language models within a psychologically interpretable framework, moving beyond black-box classification approaches. The findings offer initial insights for content moderation, platform design, and interventions aimed at mitigating the psychological costs of digital environments, and highlight the value of users' subjective beliefs as meaningful signals for identifying harmful content.
How cognitive salience and cue frequency shape grammar: evidence from animacy
Francesca Franzon; Valentina N. Pescuma; Alessia Zampieri; Davide Crepaldi
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Of all the conceptual distinctions that humans can detect in their environment, only a limited set are encoded in grammars, with striking cross-linguistic consistency. Attributes such as numerosity, animacy, and its subdivisions (e.g., sex) recur across languages, structuring grammatical systems in similar ways. This raises the question of whether human cognition is intrinsically biased toward learning these contrasts and using them to organize grammar, or whether their presence can be explained by usage and cue frequency in experience. We address this question using categorization and artificial lexicon learning experiments that contrast animacy with color, a perceptually distinct attribute that is never grammaticalized. In a non-linguistic task (Exp 0), both attributes were spontaneously selected as categorization cues. Novel grammatical systems mapping exclusively onto animacy (Exp 1) or color (Exp 2) were learned equally well. In Exp 3, where cues to the two attributes were equally frequent and ambiguously related to learned words, participants selected either contrast with comparable frequency. Crucially, the two semantic oppositions interacted, with a tendency of color distinction to be encoded more robustly within the animate category. This pattern mirrors cross-linguistic tendencies, where higher-order animacy categories host richer grammatical specifications. These observations reveal an implicit bias in emergent grammatical systems, in which animacy functions as a privileged organizing dimension. We suggest that this bias arises from the salience and real-life frequency of animacy, which provide a reliable foundation for communicative and processing efficiency in grammar and in the broader architecture of language.
Affective Control in Conflict Tasks: A Meta-Analysis on the Congruency Sequence Effect
Felix Cramer; Philipp A. Schroeder; David Dignath
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Emotions influence how we control our thoughts and actions, but theories propose different mechanisms and make opposing predictions how valence and/or arousal modulate control exertion. This meta-analysis of 34 studies (72 experiments, N = 3,748) examined whether and how task-irrelevant emotional stimuli influence the congruency sequence effect (CSE), a widely used measure of control in conflict tasks like Stroop. Overall, results showed increased CSEs following negative compared to positive stimuli across a variety of different experimental procedures (g = .12). This negativity-boost for control was stronger in studies that used tonic (sustained) affect inductions, presented non-threatening stimuli, controlled for feature-binding confounds, and employed the flanker task. In contrast, arousal showed opposing effects depending on the overlap between emotional and task stimuli, as well as the format of the emotional stimuli—for example, high-arousing words or stimuli embedded within the task appeared to facilitate control. The valence findings support affective control accounts suggesting that negative affect enhances control adjustment. The arousal findings are compatible with theories assuming that emotional stimuli interact with attentional resources. Based on these results, we offer a tentative integrative framework that combines elements from several existing models to explain how emotional stimuli can interact with control operations.
Hierarchical relations guide memory retrieval in sentence comprehension: Evidence from a local anaphor in Turkish
Özge Bakay; Faruk Akkus; Brian Dillon
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Real-time sentence comprehension relies on memory resources to establish long-distance syntactic dependencies. There is convincing evidence that formation of many dependencies is mediated by hierarchical constraints. However, it remains an open question how richly hierarchical information is represented and employed in memory processes. Here we ask whether hierarchical relations between noun phrases in a sentence as in x c-commands y (Reinhart, 1976) constrain antecedent retrieval for a local anaphor. We measure the real-time reactivation of c-commanding target antecedents and distractors in processing the Turkish reciprocal birbirleri via three visual world studies. Unlike existing studies that confounded multiple cues, we disentangled c-command from other structural information (clause-mateness, case, subjecthood) and linear order/recency. Experiment 1 compared the availability of c-commanding subjects and non-c-commanding, clause-mate, similarly case-marked distractors; and showed that c-commanding subjects were rapidly distinguished from distractors within the reciprocal window, irrespective of their linear order. Experiment 2 revealed that immediate availability of c-commanding subjects extends to c-commanding indirect objects. Experiment 3 was a pre-registered, high-power replication that yielded similar results. We found limited evidence for interference from distractors, which was not replicated. Overall, we find that hierarchical, item-to-item relations between noun phrases rapidly determine antecedent availability in retrieval beyond other cues. We suggest that hierarchical information may guide access to c-commanding items during retrieval if item representations include hierarchically informed features targeted by retrieval cues; alternatively, hierarchical information may shape the organization of items in memory, with c-commanding items represented in a privileged store allowing direct access during retrieval.
Conceptualizing Science as Explanatory Predicts Elementary-School Children's Science Learning
Aarti Bodas; Deborah Kelemen
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Beliefs and attitudes, like fixed mindset and science identity, are implicated in science achievement. Adult research also suggests that understanding the distinctive nature of science supports the acquisition of complex scientific concepts, like evolution. However, the relative predictive effects of these different constructs on science learning are understudied in children despite the relevance of elementary school to science understanding and engagement. This study examined whether U.S. third-graders’ fixed mindset, science identity, and conceptions of science predicted learning of evolutionary mechanisms from a curriculum on evolution. It also explored whether these variables showed changes after the life science curriculum. Fixed mindset decreased, and science conceptions shifted from stereotypical views toward core understandings of science as evidence-based and explanatory. The most consistent predictor of learning was children’s conception of science as explanatory. These results provide preliminary support for the idea that children’s abstract understanding of science is relevant to their science learning. Keywords: Conceptions of Science, Nature of Science, Mindset, Science Identity, Cognitive Development, Elementary Science Education.
Enhancing Replicability and Reproducibility in Observational Coding Research: A Tutorial in R
Robert Dennis Henry
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Replicating observational‐coding studies is notoriously difficult: coder variance attenuates effect sizes, protocols can be opaque, and raw text/video/audio cannot always be shared. This tutorial presents a three-step, open science workflow that links design decisions to reproducibility outcomes, assuming interchangeable observers and simple mean rating scores. Step 1 shows how (under the appropriate assumptions) the Spearman-Brown Prophecy and attenuated correlation formulas translate coder reliability into sample size targets; in an illustrative example, we illustrate that with two coders and N ≈ 158 participants, researchers retain 80% power to detect a correlation of r = .30. Step 2 provides a six step loop from training coders to calculating inter-rater reliability. This protocol emphasizes the importance of creating agreement matrices and running periodic inter-rater reliability checks; using simulated data, we demonstrate how off diagonal errors pinpoint coder drift. Step 3 addresses coder positionality and ethical data sharing, offering a decision tree that maps media sensitivity and participant consent onto data repository options. Annotated code, simulated data, and a brief consent template are hosted on the OSF repository for this tutorial. Adopting this pipeline enables researchers to plan, monitor, and disseminate observational work in a way that is both transparent and statistically robust.
Exploring the eco-anxiety continuum: calibrating scales with item response theory
Taha Hannachi; Alain Somat
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Eco-anxiety, defined as the psychological distress related to awareness of climate change, has gained increasing attention but remains conceptually and empirically fragmented. Existing tools such as the Climate Change Anxiety Scale (CCAS) and the Hogg Eco-Anxiety Scale (HEAS) capture only partial aspects of the phenomenon. This study aimed to test the continuum hypothesis of eco-anxiety by jointly calibrating these two instruments within an item response theory (IRT) framework. A French sample of 534 participants completed a combined version of the CCAS and HEAS, analyzed using the Graded Response Model. Results showed a satisfactory unidimensional fit, with all items displaying acceptable discrimination. The HEAS predominantly assessed moderate manifestations, while the CCAS reflected more severe functional impairments. However, nearly a quarter of respondents with the lowest levels of eco-anxiety were not captured by either scale, indicating insufficient coverage of the mildest forms. External validity was supported through strong correlations with negative emotions and emotion-focused coping, but weaker associations with action-oriented strategies. These findings support the eco-anxiety continuum and highlight the need for refined tools capable of covering its entire spectrum, from adaptive concern to clinical manifestations.
A Window into Social Preferences: Common Thought Patterns Reflect Generosity, Fairness, and Social Context
Lisa Marie Bas; Ruien Wang; Jonathan Smallwood; Anita Tusche
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Humans generate thousands of thoughts each day, many of which concern other people. Yet it remains unclear whether these ongoing thoughts vary systematically across social contexts that demand meaningful social behavior, and whether they reflect individual differences in social preferences such as generosity and fairness. To address this question, we combined multidimensional experience sampling (MDES) with an altruism task administered online or in person (total N = 320). Participants made monetary sharing decisions across social contexts that varied in partner cues (distressed, neutral, unidentifiable), while intermittently reporting their ongoing thoughts using MDES. Dimensionality reduction of MDES responses using principal component analysis revealed a small set of common, interpretable, and robust thought patterns characterizing moment-to-moment cognition during social choice. Critically, the expression of these thought patterns tracked variation in social context, generosity, and model-based parameters indexing fairness preferences. Moreover, these patterns generalized to a separate non-social task that did not require social behavior, indicating that they reflect common patterns of cognition rather than task-specific artifacts. Together, these findings provide initial evidence that ongoing thoughts offer a reliable window into social preferences, introducing a novel framework for studying the link between ongoing cognition and social behavior in the laboratory and everyday life.
Word Learning Seasons: Climate Effects on Early Vocabulary in Monolingual and Bilingual Children
Laia Fibla; Krista Byers-Heinlein
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Children’s vocabularies reflect the dynamic worlds they inhabit, yet traditional models of language acquisition treat environmental influences as static. This study reveals how seasonal variations in weather systematically influence early vocabulary composition. Three studies involving 16–30 months old monolinguals and bilinguals (total N = 1294), examine how climate conditions affect word learning using parent-reported vocabulary checklists. Children in cold-weather regions (Wisconsin, Montreal) produced significantly more winter-related words compared to peers in milder climates (Texas, Florida), while seasonal analyses showed that within populations, winter word acquisition and knowledge peaked in the coldest months and declined during the warmest months. This pattern was most pronounced in older children, and in bilinguals with greater language exposure. Our research shows how children’s language systems adapt to environmental variations, advancing our understanding of language acquisition as a responsive process shaped by continuous interactions between cognitive development, language exposure, and the changing environmental landscape children navigate.
Longitudinal associations between adverse childhood experiences and alcohol use and misuse among Mexican-origin adolescents
Jenny Zhen-Duan; Nubia A. Mayorga; Lulu Zhang; Mario Cruz-Gonzalez; Margarita Alegria
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Background: Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are potentially traumatic stressors during childhood and are a strong predictor of alcohol misuse and alcohol use disorder (AUD) in adolescence and into adulthood. Given that Mexican-origin adults exhibit some of the highest rates of heavy drinking, identifying factors that buffer the effects of ACEs among Mexican-origin adolescents is critical. Method: Data were collected between April 2021 and October 2024 in a 3-Wave longitudinal study from a community sample of Mexican-origin youth. Bilingual, bicultural research assistants facilitated data collection. Logistic regression models were employed to examine prospective associations between family-level (e.g., maltreatment) and community-level (neighborhood violence) ACEs and alcohol outcomes. Familism and family cohesion were evaluated as potential protective factors of these associations. Results: The sample included 344 Mexican-origin adolescents (Mage = 15.2 at Wave 3) from northern Indiana, USA. Family-level ACEs at Wave 1 were associated with increased odds of alcohol use at Wave 2 and risky drinking and AUD at Wave 3. Community-level ACEs at Wave 1 were associated with increased odds of risky drinking at Wave 2 only. While familism and family cohesion were negatively associated with alcohol use outcomes, familism at Wave 1 exacerbated the association between family-level ACEs at Wave 1 and alcohol use at Wave 2. Conclusions: Our findings underscore the detrimental effects of ACEs on alcohol related outcomes during adolescence for Mexican-origin youth. While familism and family cohesion may serve as a general protective factor against alcohol use, familism may increase the risk for alcohol use in the context of family-level ACEs (e.g., maltreatment, household dysfunction). Equipping families with tools to strengthen relationships and prevent ACE exposure is crucial for fostering resilience and promoting long-term well-being.
Assessing healthy distrust in human-AI interaction: Interpreting changes in visual attention.
Tobias M. Peters; Kai Biermeier; Ingrid Scharlau
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When humans interact with artificial intelligence (AI), one desideratum is appropriate trust. Typically, appropriate trust encompasses that humans trust AI except when they either explicitly notice AI errors or when they are suspicious that errors could be present. So far, appropriate trust or related notions have been mainly investigated by assessing trust and reliance. In this contribution, we argue that these assessments are not sufficient to measure the complex aim of appropriate trust and the related notion of healthy distrust. We introduce and test the perspective of visual attention as an additional indicator for appropriate trust and draw conceptual connections to the notion of healthy distrust. To test the validity of our conceptualization, we formalize visual attention using TVA and measure its properties potentially relevant to appropriate trust and healthy distrust in an image classification task. Thereby, we investigate participants’ attentional capacity and attentional weight towards correct and incorrect classifications. We observe that misclassifications reduce attentional capacity compared to correct classifications. However, our results do not indicate that this reduction is beneficial for a subsequent judgment of the classifications. The attentional weighting is not affected by the classifications’ correctness but by the difficulty of categorizing the stimuli themselves. These results, their implications, and the limited potential for using visual attention as an indicator of appropriate trust and healthy distrust are discussed.
The Psychometric Structure of White Matter and its Relation to Fluid Intelligence
Henrike Maria Jungeblut; Erhan Genç; Michael Burke; Patrick D. Gajewski; Stephan Getzmann; Edmund Wascher; Anna-Lena Schubert
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White matter microstructure is a candidate neurobiological substrate underlying individual differences in fluid intelligence, potentially through differences in neural information transfer. Investigating the association between white matter microstructure and fluid intelligence requires precise modeling of these microstructural properties across the brain. Yet, it remains unclear whether MRI-derived markers of white matter microstructure generalize across tracts to support latent modeling approaches. Therefore, our primary objective was to derive measurement models for markers of white matter integrity (fractional anisotropy, FA), neurite density (intra-neurite volume fraction, INVF), and myelin content (magnetization transfer ratio, MTR) across 52 tracts (HCP-1065 atlas) grouped into ten functional clusters. We investigated data of N = 365 individuals (age range: 18−74) drawn from two independent samples (Dortmund Vital Study: 𝑁 = 150, Clinicaltrials.gov: NCT05155397; Mainz Network Study: 𝑁 = 215). Confirmatory factor analyses consistently favored hierarchical bifactor models, capturing both a general factor per marker and orthogonal hemisphere-specific factors, independent of participants’ age. The general factors FA and MTR of the favored measurement models were significantly associated with fluid intelligence, assessed with matrix reasoning tests, FA: 𝛽 = 0.26, 𝑝 < .001 and MTR: 𝛽 = 0.25, 𝑝 = .017. When controlling for age, the association of fluid intelligence with FA remained significant, 𝛽 = 0.14, 𝑝 < .043, while the association with MTR was no longer significant, 𝛽 = 0.11, 𝑝 = .328. These findings establish anatomically informed measurement models for white matter microstructure and provide a scalable framework for investigating the biological underpinnings of cognitive abilities.
Loneliness and Personality: Noise- and Bias-free True Correlations Between Loneliness and the Big Five Personality Domains
Paddy Maher; Yavor Dragostinov; Uku Vainik; Andrew John Cooper; Jüri Allik; Anu Realo; René Mõttus
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Objective While loneliness is intertwined with many mental and physical health problems, its origins are not yet well-understood. We sought to better understand its link to personality in a large national cohort. Methods Combining self- and informant ratings in multiple samples, we conducted the largest study to date to examine loneliness’ true correlations (rtrues) with the Big Five personality traits, free of single-method biases and transient and random errors. Results Across three samples (Estonian-speaking, N = 20,893; Russian-speaking, N = 762; English-speaking, N = 599), we found a strong relationship between loneliness and Neuroticism (rtrue = .60 to .70). Loneliness also had robust but much weaker associations with Extraversion (rtrue = -.20 to -.30), and only weak associations (rtrue = .10 to -.20) with Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness. Collectively, the Big Five accounted for over 50% of loneliness variance. In a subsample, the associations were only slightly smaller longitudinally over approximately 10 years. Conclusion Overall, feeling lonely is more closely related to Neuroticism than previously understood, and the association endures over time.
The Misinformation Susceptibility Test (MIST): A psychometrically validated measure of news veracity discernment
Rakoen Maertens; Friedrich Martin Götz; Hudson Golino; Jon Roozenbeek; Claudia R. Schneider; Yara Kyrychenko; John R Kerr; Stefan Stieger; William Patrick McClanahan; Karly Drabot
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Interest in the psychology of misinformation has exploded in recent years. Despite ample research, to date there is no validated framework to measure misinformation susceptibility. Therefore, we introduce Verification done, a nuanced interpretation schema and assessment tool that simultaneously considers Veracity discernment, and its distinct, measurable abilities (real/fake news detection), and biases (distrust/naïvité—negative/positive judgment bias). We then conduct three studies with seven independent samples (Ntotal = 8,504) to show how to develop, validate, and apply a Misinformation Susceptibility Test (MIST). In Study 1 (N = 409) we use a neural network language model to generate items, and use three psychometric methods—factor analysis, item response theory, and exploratory graph analysis—to create the MIST-20 (20 items; completion time <2 minutes), the MIST-16 (16 items; <2 minutes), and the MIST-8 (8 items; <1 minute). In Study 2 (N = 7,674) we confirm the internal and predictive validity of the MIST in five national quota samples (US, UK), across 2 years, from three different sampling platforms—Respondi, CloudResearch, and Prolific. We also explore the MIST’s nomological net and generate age-, region-, and country-specific norm tables. In Study 3 (N = 421) we demonstrate how the MIST—in conjunction with Verification done—can provide novel insights on existing psychological interventions, thereby advancing theory development. Finally, we outline the versatile implementations of the MIST as a screening tool, covariate, and intervention evaluation framework. As all methods are transparently reported and detailed, this work will allow other researchers to create similar scales or adapt them for any population of interest.
From chunks to schemas: Learning in the Hebb repetition paradigm
Krzysztof Piątkowski; Katarzyna Zawadzka; Maciej Hanczakowski
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The short-term and long-term memory systems are thought to interact via chunks – long-term memory representations that support maintenance of information for a short term. The creation and use of chunks is examined in the Hebb repetition paradigm, where participants repeatedly study and retrieve the same list of serially presented memoranda (a so-called Hebb list), which ultimately become chunked. Studies conducted to date underscore the inflexible nature of thus created chunks, which always encompass the exact series of memoranda. However, the long-term memory system is thought to often rely on schemas – flexibly adjusted representations that allow for generalization and transfer of learning. Here we examined whether the Hebb repetition paradigm can be used to induce the acquisition of schemas and their use to support short-term memory performance. We adapted the Hebb repetition paradigm so that participants learned and retrieved lists of category exemplars. Crucially, what was repeated here in the Hebb list was the order of categories from which those exemplars were taken, while the memoranda themselves changed from one list presentation to another. We demonstrated that in this task participants were able to derive the schema describing category order in the Hebb list and use it to support short-term memory performance for a novel set of schema-consistent memoranda. We conclude that chunks and schemas can be seen as similar types of representations that jointly provide an interface between short-term and long-term memory.
Mapping mental ill-health and health within a large, representative UK school-based sample of adolescents
Marc Patrick Bennett; William Benjamin Mills; Ido Shalev; David Johnston; Tamsin Ford; Danyal Akarca; Sarah-Jayne Blakemore; Willem Kuyken; Jesus Montero-Marin; Finiki Nearchou
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To support effective healthcare, frameworks are needed that capture the real-world complexity of youth mental health. We applied unsupervised machine learning (Growing Hierarchical Self-Organizing Map; GHSOM) to data from a representative sample of over 26,000 adolescents (11-14 years) from 85 UK schools. Input features included anxiety, depression, conduct, hyperactivity, interpersonal challenges, and markers of mental well-being. GHSOM represents mental health hierarchically, from narrow to broader profiles and, at the highest hierarchical level, eight reproducible profiles were identified. Profiles ranged from flourishing adolescents to those with widespread social-emotional and behavioural difficulties and low mental well-being. Other profiles showed moderate well-being despite minimal symptoms, or focal patterns of internalising or externalising. Regarding sex, females were more likely to experience patterns of anxiety and depression, while males displayed more depression, behavioural, and socialization challenges. Overall, this study offers a data-driven, multidimensional framework for organising youth mental health and informing intervention and healthcare.
Biased Information Distorts Beliefs
Juan Vidal-Perez; Raymond J Dolan; Rani Moran
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We often form beliefs based on information provided by others, but these sources can be biased, distorting our beliefs and decisions. Here, we examine whether individuals can detect biased sources and mitigate their influence. Participants completed a decision-making task where outcome feedback was provided by either unbiased or biased sources. Using a reinforcement learning framework, we show that participants successfully detected source biases and used this knowledge to correct biased feedback. However, these corrections were incomplete, allowing residual biases to continue shaping beliefs and decisions. Moreover, following exposure to biased sources, participants systematically misperceived unbiased sources as biased. We demonstrate how these effects can arise from a “dual-learning” process in which both beliefs about source-biases and value-estimates of choice options are updated to minimize discrepancies between outcome feedback and expectations. Our findings highlight the challenge of forming accurate beliefs and offer mechanistic insights regarding how biased environments bias our beliefs.
Random forests in corpus research: A systematic review
Lukas Sönning
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The increasing popularity of random forests (RFs) in corpus-based work calls for a critical discussion of their utility and use in our field. To provide an empirical basis for this methodological discourse, the current paper conducts a systematic review of RFs in corpus research. This survey targets 6,972 papers published between 2012 and 2024 across 20 linguistic journals, yielding a total of 125 RF models spread across 69 studies. I examine various features including the purpose of the analysis, data structure and as well as model specification, evaluation and interpretation. There is a clear upward trend in the currency of RF models, which are routinely applied to data with a clustering structure, where observations are grouped by speaker/text or lexical item. Essential details about the analysis are frequently missing from the reports. This includes information on software and model specification, predictive performance, and the type of variable importance scores used. Motivated by these insights, the current study provides a checklist for the reporting of RF models as well as an R tutorial on how to obtain key indices. It closes with concrete suggestions for future methodological work on the use of RFs in corpus research.
Developmental Dysgraphia in Chinese: A Review of Neurocognitive Mechanisms, Classification, and Assessment
Zebo Xu; Xiaocong Chen; Caicai Zhang; Marieke Longcamp; Zhenguang Garry Cai
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Handwriting plays a crucial role in literacy development, especially in logographic systems such as Chinese. Many children experience developmental difficulties in acquiring handwriting skills, a specific learning disorder known as developmental dysgraphia. However, there is a lack of systematic review on the neurocognitive processes underlying different types of developmental dysgraphia in Chinese. To fill in this gap, we first propose a cognitive model of Chinese character handwriting based on adult research. Unlike stage-based theory that assumes distinct mechanisms for adults and children, our review supports the continual development theory, suggesting that similar cognitive stages operate across both child and adult handwriters. Based on the cognitive model of handwriting, we identify five categories of developmental dysgraphia, including surface dysgraphia, phonological dysgraphia, deep dysgraphia, graphemic buffer dysgraphia, motor-spatial dysgraphia, and then review on the relationship between dyslexia and dysgraphia. We systematically review their behavioural syndromes and associated brain regions in both alphabetic languages and Chinese, revealing neurocognitive mechanisms for each type. Finally, we examine current assessment tools for diagnosing dysgraphia, highlight their limitations, and call for development of more comprehensive assessments for developmental dysgraphia.
Immune dysfunction in psychiatric disorders: emerging genomic insights
Isabelle McGrath; Mary-Ellen Lynall
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Psychiatric disorders are polygenic conditions of the mind and brain, yet immune associations emerge across genetic and molecular studies. Some immune signals may reflect assay bias or illness effects; immunogenetic approaches help disentangle cause and correlation. Genetic associations in the extended major histocompatibility complex (MHC) remain of unclear relevance to immunopathogenesis but warrant finer-resolution analysis. Integrating non-MHC risk variants with immunological data especially implicates adaptive immune cells in psychiatric pathogenesis. Epigenetic studies show that resting immune cells carry a ‘poised’ landscape encoding past exposures and predicting future responses, illuminating how genetic variability shapes illness risk from environmental insults such as stress and infection. While only some patients may have immune-driven symptoms, the tractability and accessibility of the immune system make it a compelling focus for stratification and therapeutics.
Demystifying the role of goal-related processes in explaining the effects of emotion on information-seeking decisions
Yoann Stussi; Martin Gaudré; David Sander
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Adopting componential and appraisal approaches to emotion, this commentary highlights how Moors’ goal-directed theory allows a deep analysis of the role of emotion in information-seeking decisions. We illustrate how (i) the opportunity to gain information can signal discrepancies with multiple goals, which are reduced by seeking or avoiding information, (ii) goal-related appraisals and goal satisfaction may partly account for the rewarding properties of information, (iii) practical rationality can explain seemingly irrational information-seeking behaviors, and (iv) biased goal prioritization and appraisal biases could lead to maladaptive information-seeking. We suggest that appraisal and goal-directed theories may complement current theoretical frameworks of information-seeking by providing a mechanistic approach to understanding how the evaluation and selection of goals, behavioral strategies, and actions influence information-seeking.
Information on judgment invariance influences contributors' opting-in behavior in sequential collaboration
Vincent Eric Fischer; Maren Mayer; Joachim Kimmerle
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A REVISED AND PEER-REVIEWED VERSION OF THIS PREPRINT IS NOW PUBLISHED IN THE JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL DECISION MAKING. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.70063 Sequential collaboration describes an aggregation process intensively researched for numerical judgments which is characterized by a first contributor creating a judgment that is subsequently adjusted or maintained by following contributors. In previous research, participants performing sequential collaboration were only provided with information about the judgment of the person immediately preceding them in a sequential chain. However, in real-world collaborative projects (e.g., Wikipedia, Google Docs projects), more information about the past development of a sequential chain is often accessible or even directly displayed. As a concise piece of such information, we used judgment invariance, that is, the number of times a current judgment remained unchanged in the immediately preceding steps of a sequential chain. We hypothesized that increasing judgment invariance decreases both the probability and the magnitude of participants' judgment changes. Additionally, we hypothesized that the influence would be weakened with increasing expertise of participants. In three preregistered experiments, (G)LMM analyses suggested that increasing judgment invariance decreased the probability and magnitude of judgment changes confirming our hypothesized main effects. Concerning the interaction hypothesis of judgment invariance and expertise, a more ambiguous picture emerged. Experiment 1 was completely consistent with the interaction hypothesis. Experiment 2 supported it concerning the probability but not the magnitude of participants' judgment changes. In Experiment 3, a directionally reversed interaction effect was observed, possibly due to unconscientious participation. We conclude that the insight into the past development of a sequential chain, specifically information on judgment invariance, influences the judgment behavior of contributors in sequential collaborations. In summary, judgment invariance could be established as a substantial influence in sequential collaboration, which comes with practical implications for real-world collaborative projects.
Conditioning of masked nonwords generalizes to new targets and responses but not to evaluative measures
Philine Thomasius; Christoph Stahl
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A longstanding issue in psychology is whether learning can occur in the absence of awareness. A recent study reported a robust conditioning effect for pattern-masked nonwords, and a regression of participants’ conditioning effect on their ability to perceptually discriminate between these stimuli found a positive intercept and a nonsignificant slope (Greenwald & De Houwer, 2017). These results were interpreted as evidence for an unconscious learning process operating independently from—and in the absence of—awareness. The present study extended the set of awareness measures and addressed procedural limitations as well as analytical assumptions to scrutinize whether the finding indeed presents evidence for unconscious learning. We also tested the contributions of evaluative, perceptual, and motor processes to the conditioning effect. Results contradicted simple evaluative, perceptual, or motor accounts. While consistent with conditioning in the absence of awareness, results yielded evidence against their independence. We discuss alternative accounts of the effect as well as the assumptions underlying the unconscious-learning claim. Materials (data, analysis code, reproducible manuscript) are available at https://osf.io/3jud6. Public Significance Statement: The issue of unconscious learning is relevant for theories of basic cognitive processes. We investigated a finding suggesting that simple forms of learning can occur in the absence of awareness. We replicated the finding, but our data do not unequivocally support the conclusion that it is based on unconscious learning. Nevertheless, the finding exemplifies how our cognitive systems can spontaneously use barely perceptible regularities in the environment to help adapt our behavior.
Does the Value of a Response Always Reflect its Expected Utility or Can it be Influenced by Mere Co-occurrences with Past Outcomes?
Massimo Köster; Yannick Boddez; Bianca Boicu; Agnes Moors
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According to goal-directed models of behavior causation, the degree to which an agent expects a response to lead to a valued outcome determines the value they attribute to it and their engagement in this response. Conversely, a response that is not expected to lead to a valued outcome should not be valued or enacted. However, it is conceivable that a response that used to lead to a positive outcome retains some degree of residual value from its past co-occurrences with the outcome. This idea stems from findings that an evaluative conditioning effect - a change in the valence of a conditional stimulus (CS) after having been paired with an unconditional stimulus (US) - can subsist even if the CS no longer signals the occurrence of the US. We tested whether the same principles apply to response values, that is, whether pairing a response with an outcome changes the value of the response in line with the value of the outcome and whether this value remains when the response is no longer paired with the outcome. The research design further allowed us to assess whether potential residual value stems from (a) an intact referential relation between the response and its past outcome or (b) a change in the intrinsic value of the response, and (c) whether such a residual value would be sufficient to elicit the response itself. The study used a novel task in which a learned contingency between a response and a valued outcome was removed and liking of and engagement in the response were compared to those of a response for which the same contingency was absent from the start. In line with goal-directed models, we did not observe residual liking nor responding for the response that previously led to the positive outcome relative to the response that never did.
Young Children’s Performance Decreases in a Probability Learning Task When Tested Online
Anna Isabel Thoma; Christin Schulze
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With online data collection becoming increasingly common in developmental research, it is crucial to validate the comparability of virtual online and offline in-person methods in assessing children’s cognitive processes and behavior. We examined differences in 3- and 4-year-olds’ choice behavior and strategy use in a probability learning task when tested either online via video chat (n = 60) or offline in person (n = 39). Consistent with previous research, children’s performance across the two testing modalities was similar when averaged across trials. However, we found an interaction between testing modality and trial block: Children tested online were less likely to choose the more frequently rewarded option toward the end of the task than were children tested offline. Computational modeling analyses revealed differences in value-based learning across testing modalities: Children who were tested offline chose the higher-valued option more deterministically toward the end of the task than children tested online. In sum, our findings highlight the importance of considering task length and the characteristics of the online testing environment to ensure valid comparisons between online and offline studies in developmental research and add to a growing body of literature highlighting the context-dependency of reinforcement learning parameters.
Perception and Encoding of Narrative Events During Continuous Speech Listening in Background Noise
Ryan Panela; Alexander Barnett; Yulia Lamekina; Morgan Barense; Bjorn Herrmann
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Everyday speech comprehension involves interpreting overarching themes as they unfold continuously overtime and structuring experiences for effective encoding and future recall. Characterizing downstream cognition, particularly how the brain perceptually organizes and encodes information, can help elucidate some of the mechanisms underlying listening effort. Recent advances in memory research highlight event segmentation, the process of identifying distinct events within dynamic environments, as a core mechanism to how we perceive, encode, and recall experiences. In the current study, we examine how background noise affects event segmentation during speech listening and its downstream effects on memory. Participants listened to and segmented narratives presented at varying signal-to-noise ratios (clear, +2 dB SNR, –4 dB SNR) and subsequently completed a free recall task. Increasing background noise reduced segmentation consistency and recall accuracy, indicating that challenging acoustics disrupt perceptual organization and encoding; however, listeners continued to identify meaningful event boundaries even when intelligibility declined by approximately 30%. Our analyses further suggest that segmentation was predominantly anticipatory, with listeners marking event boundaries towards the end of an event, suggesting a proactive updating of event models rather than a reaction to a prediction error. Additionally, segmentation-recall coupling was strongest under moderate noise, implying that moderate listening difficulty may enhance engagement. Ultimately, these findings demonstrate that while the adverse conditions impair detailed encoding, the cognitive mechanisms that structure experience remain robust, offering insight into how listening effort shapes perception and memory in complex, real-world speech.
Prompt Carefully! ChatGPT Displays Rule-Based Insensitivity to Contingencies
Francisco J. Ruiz; Verónica Cardona-Betancourt
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Rule-governed behavior in humans is characterized by relative insensitivity to changes in contingencies, a phenomenon extensively documented in behavior-analytic research. The present study examined whether Large Language Models (LLMs) exhibit analogous patterns of contingency insensitivity. We employed a rock–paper–scissors task in which models repeatedly made choices between two opponents (Sam or Alex). In the first block of 40 trials, selecting the optimal opponent (e.g., Sam) produced a 70% probability of winning, a 15% probability of a tie, and a 15% probability of losing. In the second block of 40 trials, these probabilities were reversed (i.e., Alex was the optimal opponent). Four frontier LLMs in January 2026 (GPT 5.2, Claude Opus 4.5, Grok 4.1 Fast, and Gemini 3 Flash) were evaluated under a 2 × 2 experimental design manipulating (a) the presence or absence of a rule describing the opponent's skill level and (b) the extended LLM's reasoning (present vs. absent). In rule conditions, prompts specified the purported skill of the initial optimal opponent (e.g., "Sam is not very good at this game"). Results indicated that all models exhibited rule-based insensitivity to contingencies, qualitatively resembling human rule-governed behavior. However, the degree of insensitivity varied across models: GPT 5.2 and Grok 4.1 Fast showed the greatest contingency insensitivity, whereas Gemini 3 Flash and Claude Opus 4.5 were comparatively more sensitive to contingency shift. The effect of extended reasoning varied across LLMs. This study is the first to demonstrate contingency insensitivity in LLMs. These results have important implications for applied LLM contexts, where LLMs' contingency insensitivity might be detrimental.
Eye Movement and Orientation Behaviour during Natural Triadic Conversations: Effects of Noise, Hearing Impairment, and Seating Position
Valeska Slomianka; Florence Mazzetti; Eline Borch Petersen
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Visual cues play a crucial role in supporting speech comprehension and managing turn-taking during conversation. However, how the use of these cues in everyday interactions changes when auditory information is degraded by background noise or hearing impairment - and how such changes are reflected in gaze behaviour - remains poorly understood. We investigated gaze and orientation strategies during natural triadic conversations between familiar interlocutors in a canteen setting. Twelve groups, each comprising one hearing-impaired and two normal-hearing participants, engaged in sixteen four-minute conversations under two background-noise conditions (during and outside lunch hours) and two seating configurations, with interlocutors seated either across from or next to the wearer of mobile eye-tracking glasses. Speech was recorded, and eye movements were tracked for either the hearing-impaired participant or one normal-hearing participant per conversation. Higher noise levels during lunch hours increased visual attention towards interlocutors, particularly among hearing-impaired participants. Seating configuration strongly shaped gaze behaviour: side-seated talkers received less direct gaze, and their presence elicited increased visual scanning. At turn offsets, talker gaze reliably predicted the next speaker, whereas listener gaze was less informative when the upcoming talker was not seated directly in front of them. Despite challenging acoustic conditions, gaze remained a robust marker of turn-taking, highlighting its potential relevance for hearing rehabilitation strategies and the development of gaze-informed technologies, such as beamforming hearing aids.
Finding our ROLE: How and why to reframe essentialist approaches to language
Savithry Namboodiripad; Ethan Kutlu; Anna Babel; Molly Babel; Melissa Baese-Berk; Paras Bassuk; Adeli Block; Reinaldo Cabrera Pérez; Matthew Carlson; Sita Carraturo
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Essentialist categorizations of language users, such as NATIVE SPEAKER, are widely used but lack empirical validity and reinforce social inequities. This article focuses on the NATIVENESS construct, critically examining how its centrality in social-scientific research distorts scholarly inquiry, introduces bias in educational and clinical assessments, and perpetuates exclusion in academia. We argue that such labels impose artificial homogeneity, devalue linguistic diversity, and contribute to systemic biases in society. By reifying social divisions, essentialist categorizations can exclude marginalized groups, perpetuate linguistic discrimination, and hinder scientific progress. We advocate for a shift away from essentialist proxies and toward more contextually grounded and empirically driven characterizations of language use. A reflexive and interdisciplinary approach is necessary to dismantle these harmful frameworks and promote more accurate, inclusive, and equitable research. Our argument is relevant not just to the cognitive sciences, but to any scholarship which involves describing or understanding language. Ultimately, rejecting essentialist assumptions will lead to more nuanced understandings of language, identity, and social belonging, fostering both scientific and societal transformation by promoting justice and accuracy across social-scientific disciplines.
Narrative Tell and Retell in Mandarin-English Bilingual Children
Minsi Sun; Li Sheng; Danyang Wang; Pumpki Lei Su
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Purpose Speech-language pathologists often adopt narrative tasks to assess bilingual children’s language skills. However, limited research guides clinical decisions about elicitation method, assessment language, and interpretation of results for specific bilingual populations. The present study examined the impact of elicitation method (tell vs. retell) and language (Mandarin vs. English) on macro- and microstructure narrative skills in Mandarin-English bilingual children. Method Narrative tell and retell samples were elicited from 79 Mandarin-English bilingual children using the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN). The effects of elicitation method and language were analyzed for macro- and microstructure measures. Results For macrostructure, children produced better narrative retells than tells across story structure, story complexity, and number of internal state terms, with cross-linguistic differences only in story structure (Mandarin > English). Code-switching did not significantly impact macrostructure scores. For microstructure, a retell advantage was found across all measures (story length, lexical diversity, sentence length, and syntactic complexity) in English, but only in story length and lexical diversity in Mandarin. A post-hoc analysis revealed that the differential effect of elicitation method on morphosyntactic outcomes between languages is likely due to linguistic differences. Conclusions This study highlighted distinct narrative patterns in Mandarin-English bilingual children across languages and elicitation methods. Macrostructure was more modifiable when given a narrative model than microstructure and was stable across languages, although cultural factors may affect performance. Microstructure was languagespecific, with Mandarin morphosyntactic skills being the least malleable. These findings offer insights on clinicians’ narrative assessment practices when working with Mandarin-English bilingual children.
The Hidden Cost of Control: Reappraisal Brings Short-Term Benefits but Hinders Adaptation to Unexpected Emotional Reminders
David Brian Rompilla; Connor Bazar; Savannah Dod; Valerie Lu; Takashi Yamauchi
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Cognitive reappraisal is widely viewed as adaptive. Yet this control-based emotion regulation may carry hidden costs when individuals encounter personally meaningful reminders of past adversity. The present study examined these tradeoffs in a naturally occurring subsample of undergraduates with a history of parental divorce. Within a larger experiment, participants viewed sad film clips, including an unexpected divorce-relevant reminder, completed a movement-based Stroop task, and later reported the extent to which the reminder reactivated negative feelings from their own experience. As predicted, instructed reappraisal conferred short-term functional benefits on the Stroop task. However, at a longer timescale, individuals who reported habitually relying more heavily on reappraisal showed evidence of preserved reminder-evoked distress. In contrast, individuals higher in habitual acceptance showed a more normative pattern, such that those with divorces further in the past reported faint to no distress in response to the reminders. Together, these findings point to a central tradeoff in emotion regulation: reappraisal helps people maintain composure in the moment, yet repeated reliance on it keeps emotional echoes of past adversity alive. The divergent effects of these two emotion regulation strategies—reappraisal and acceptance—are discussed through cybernetic and comparator-based models of emotion regulation, where cognitive appraisal acts as a feedback process involving reference signals, error monitoring, and corrective adjustments while acceptance involves release of control.
BackTranslationLLM: An Agentic AI Architecture for Translating and Validating the Content of Psychometric Instruments
Frederico Gonçalves Pedrosa
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The cross-cultural adaptation of psychometric instruments is a methodologically complex, time-consuming, and resource-intensive process. This study introduces and evaluates BackTranslationLLM, a multi-agent Artificial Intelligence (AI) architecture designed to automate the translation and content validation of psychological tests. Guided by principles of AI agent engineering, the system employs a sequential pipeline with specialized agents for translation, back-translation, and refinement, followed by a diversified committee of AI judges for evaluation. The framework was applied to adapt the Cuestionario de Impacto de la Sesión de Musicoterapia from Spanish to Brazilian Portuguese. The results were benchmarked against a parallel validation conducted by five human expert judges. Exploratory Graph Analysis confirmed that the automated translation preserved the instrument's semantic structure. Both the AI and human committees assigned adequate Content Validity Coefficients (CVCs) to the adapted instrument. However, a lack of correlation between the item-level CVCs (e.g., Clarity, ρ = -0.37) revealed divergent judgment heuristics: the AI acted as a auditor of methodological compliance, whereas human experts excelled at evaluating pragmatic and cultural nuances. We conclude that BackTranslationLLM is an effective framework that complements, rather than replaces, human expertise by optimizing the validation process.
Thermal pain tolerance depends on stimulus duration and thermode type
Yi Wei; Julie S.P. Storkson; Kai Sherwood; Maya Joshi Delity; Titilola Akintola; Troy C. Dildine; Hayley Owens; Lauren Yvette Atlas
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Quantitative Sensory Testing (QST) allows researchers and clinicians to evaluate variations in acute pain and thermosensation within and across individuals. However, it is unclear how experimental factors, such as thermode type and stimulation duration, affect pain measurements. We compared three types of thermodes at two stimulus durations to assess potential impacts on QST outcomes. Across two experiments, a total of 83 (45 and 38 respectively) healthy volunteers each completed two QST tasks that varied in thermode type (ATS, CHEPS or T03) and/or stimulus duration (8s or 3s), with order counterbalanced across participants. In each task, heat was applied to 8 sites on the left volar forearm for three runs (24 trials in total) and temperatures were selected through an adaptive staircase calibration procedure. Pain threshold, tolerance, and the strength of the correlation between stimulus temperature and pain ratings (r²) were estimated using linear regression. Results indicate that briefer stimuli were associated with higher pain tolerance (t = -3.28, p = 0.018), while there was no effect of duration on threshold or temperature-rating correlation. Thermode type influenced pain tolerance in short (3s) (t = -3.10, p = 0.01) but not long (8s) durations, such that on 3s trials, tolerance was higher with the smaller surface thermode (T03) compared to the larger surface thermode (CHEPS), consistent with spatial summation. No sex differences were found. These results demonstrate that suprathreshold pain tolerance, but not threshold, is sensitive to stimulus duration and thermode type. These findings also indicate the importance of methodological standardization in QST and the careful selection of suprathreshold pain stimuli in experiment design.
Consciousness seeks simplicity: repetitions trigger illusory awareness in implicit statistical learning
Răzvan Jurchiș; Andrei Preda
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Implicit statistical learning (ISL) is a fundamental cognitive process through which we extract regularities from environmental stimuli. While ISL has several characteristics of unconscious processing (e.g., it operates unintentionally, produces subjectively unconscious knowledge), participants in ISL experiments always report some fragmentary conscious knowledge. Thus, the notion that ISL is truly an unconscious process has been the subject of perpetual debates. In the present study, we challenge the assumption that these conscious reports reflect direct access to the acquired knowledge. Building on predictions from key theories of consciousness and suggestive evidence in the literature, we tested the hypothesis that participants’ conscious reports in ISL reflect a post hoc conscious model of their non-conscious knowledge. Across two artificial grammar learning experiments, participants were exposed to sequences of stimuli (letters, faces, or body movements in VR) generated by different artificial grammars. In a subsequent test, they decided whether novel strings were grammatical or not and reported their subjective awareness trial-by-trial. In both experiments, we found extreme Bayesian evidence that repetitions embedded in the testing strings made participants more aware of the knowledge driving their grammaticality decisions, above and beyond their influence on responses or accuracy. This suggests that, lacking access to the true basis of their decisions, participants attributed their responses to the most salient feature available—the repetitions. Thus, we find evidence that our conscious experience can misrepresent not only the external world but also our own unconsciously learned representations.
BE CAREFUL HOW YOU TEST ME: HOW RETRIEVAL DESIGN AFFECTS THE MECHANISM OF UNITIZATION
Catherine M Carpenter; Nancy Dennis
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The purpose of the current studies is aimed at using three retrieval paradigms that differ in the mechanism they probe (familiarity or recollection) to examine how we unitize information with age. Results show that while both younger and older adults show a benefit of unitization, the mechanism underlying this benefit depends on the retrieval task. Specifically, while retrieval paradigms that allow for efficient usage of familiarity-based processes result in a memory discrimination benefit, so does a recall design that requires the usage of recollection-based retrieval processes. Additionally, results challenge a strict item account of unitization when items are tested against unitized pairs and non-unitized associative pairs under these different retrieval designs.
Character Dynamism Questionnaire: Toward the Operationalization of Mazur’s Cybernetic Approach to Personality
Michał Obidziński; Maria Biernacka; Krzysztof Zaborek
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The Cybernetic Theory of Character (CTC), proposed by Marian Mazur, offers a unique framework for understanding personality. Despite its significance, empirical research on CTC is limited, and no validated tool exists to assess its core assumptions. This study aimed to evaluate CTC's principles using the newly developed Character Dynamism Questionnaire (CDQ) and compare it with the Regulative Theory of Temperament. A total of 211 participants completed the CDQ, with 111 of them also completing the Formal Characteristics of Behaviour – Temperament Questionnaire, Revised Version. Analyses included statistical methods, artificial neural networks, and cluster analysis. Character profiles were consistent with CTC's theoretical assumptions. Most CDQ scales showed good reliability (α > 0.7), except for endodynamism (α = 0.561). Analysis supported accurate prediction of dynamism levels based on character profiles. However, results related to age were inconsistent. Temperament correlated with dynamism only partially and with low to moderate strength. The findings support CTC's assumptions, distinguish it from temperament traits, and indicate that the CDQ is a generally reliable tool. Further refinement of the endodynamism scale and investigation into the link between dynamism and age are needed.
Statistical Inference Regularized with Neural Networks and its Application in Psychometrics
Dmitry I Belov; Oliver Lüdtke; Esther Ulitzsch
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Likelihood-based methods such as marginal maximum likelihood and Bayesian estimation via Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) are widely used for estimating item response theory (IRT) models and perform well in large samples. In small samples, however, these approaches may yield unstable estimates due to insufficient information in the likelihood, unless strong prior distributions are imposed. We address this problem by turning to the fundamentals of estimation via decision theory, showing that small-sample estimation can be viewed as an ill-posed decision problem in the sense that the decision function is sensitive to small changes in the data and, therefore, may not be continuous. We discuss how such ill-posed decision problems—both in IRT estimation and more broadly—can be regularized using neural network (NN)-based approaches that build a continuous map from observations into parameters. We formalize this approach within a general framework termed regularized decision theory and apply it to IRT models. Focusing on the 3PL, we study its properties via simulations.
Biased Information Distorts Beliefs
Juan Vidal-Perez; Raymond J Dolan; Rani Moran
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We often form beliefs based on information provided by others, but these sources can be biased, distorting our beliefs and decisions. Here, we examine whether individuals can detect biased sources and mitigate their influence. Participants completed a decision-making task where outcome feedback was provided by either unbiased or biased sources. Using a reinforcement learning framework, we show that participants successfully detected source biases and used this knowledge to correct biased feedback. However, these corrections were incomplete, allowing residual biases to continue shaping beliefs and decisions. Moreover, following exposure to biased sources, participants systematically misperceived unbiased sources as biased. We demonstrate how these effects can arise from a “dual-learning” process in which both beliefs about source-biases and value-estimates of choice options are updated to minimize discrepancies between outcome feedback and expectations. Our findings highlight the challenge of forming accurate beliefs and offer mechanistic insights regarding how biased environments bias our beliefs.
Mapping the Content Landscape of Self-Transcendent Emotional Experiences Using a Mixed-Method Approach
Tiago Bortolini; Maria Clara Laport; Giovanna Novaes Bortolini; Clarissa Alves de Sá; Ronald Fischer; Jorge Moll
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Self-transcendent emotions (STEs), including positive and threatening awe, compassion, admiration, elevation, gratitude, and love, expand one's focus beyond the self and foster a sense of connection with something larger (e.g., people, nature, a higher power). Despite growing interest, questions remain about the content structure that differentiates or unifies these emotions. We conducted four studies in Brazil, analyzing 1,683 narratives from the general population to clarify the nature and range of STEs in this underrepresented context. Study 1 developed and validated items measuring these emotions in Brazilian Portuguese, particularly critical for awe, as it lacks a direct translation. In Study 2, a bottom-up, qualitative template analysis from participants' narratives yielded an initial coding template with 24 themes. Study 3 refined this template through qualitative coding, producing a final set of 34 unique themes. The theme of 'connection with living forms' emerged consistently across all STE narratives. Self-report valence indicated that several STEs' experiences were ambivalent. In Study 4, a thematic hierarchical analysis revealed a robust link between positive and threatening awe, suggesting that these two variants share distinctive thematic elements compared to other STEs. Our qualitative narrative approach highlights STE's thematical diversity and ambivalent valence, indicating that STEs do not form a homogeneous emotion category. Instead, our findings suggest that STEs are loosely connected to emotional reactions that share transcendental properties and are linked to cultural and social identities, but are likely driven by distinct affective processes.
Agents are coming: A 5-Step Taxonomy of language-based AI-Systems for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Counselling
Raphael Schuster; Constantin Yves Plessen; Per Carlbring; Andreas Walther
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The rapid evolution of Large Language Models has accelerated the development of agentic AI systems capable of pursuing autonomous goals, creating an urgent need for structural frameworks in psychiatry and psychotherapy. While existing classifications often draw parallels to autonomous driving, this paper argues that the mental health domain requires a distinct theoretical grounding due to specific differences in error tolerance, fat-tail risks (low-probability, high-consequence events), and the reliance on common therapeutic factors. To guide clinicians and researchers through these developments, we propose a five-step taxonomy for language-based AI systems, differentiating technical functionality from clinical effectiveness. The taxonomy progresses from Level 1 (Knowledge Level), where systems perform static benchmark tasks; to Level 2 (Elementary Level), characterized by dynamic engagement in specific therapeutic micro-skills; and Level 3 (Integration Level), where systems achieve case-level conceptualization suitable for blended therapy under human oversight. Level 4 (Saturation Level) describes human-in-the-loop systems capable of autonomous function with minimal supervision, while Level 5 (Mastery) represents fully autonomous agents that theoretically outperform human error rates across the entire care pathway. We conclude by discussing the necessity of shifting benchmarking from static knowledge tests to dynamic evaluations of therapeutic capabilities to safely navigate the transition toward autonomous care.
How many psychotherapists does Austria need? A systematic synthesis of treatment gap estimates
Constantin Yves Plessen; Raphael Schuster; Barbara Pammer; Andreas Walther
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Background: Austria lacks consensus on psychotherapy treatment need, with published estimates varying widely. This uncertainty stems from unavailable data and the absence of routine monitoring, impeding evidence-based planning. Objective: To synthesize existing estimates of psychotherapy treatment need in Austria, compare them against capacity estimates, and quantify the treatment gap. Methods: We systematically searched for estimates of psychotherapy need (1990–2025). Thirteen estimates from nine sources were analyzed: (1) population-based estimates derived from surveys or clinical assessments (2.1–15.9%), and (2) prevalence-based models combining mental disorder rates with treatment readiness scenarios (30%, 40%, 50%). Each estimate was rated on three dimensions reflecting methodological rigor and contextual relevance. Need estimates were compared against published capacity data for insurance-funded and total treatment provision. Results: Treatment need estimates ranged from 2.1% to 19.1% of the population (192,738 to 1,752,998 persons). Quality-weighted averaging yielded 11.3% (1,040,148 persons); high-quality estimates (score ≥8) converged on 11.4–19%. Insurance-funded capacity covers 1–2.6% of the population; total capacity including self-funded treatment reaches 4–8.9%. The insurance-funded treatment gap is 77–91% (801,520–948,368 persons lacking access); the total capacity gap is 21–65%. Moreover, only approximately 1% of the population receives fully-funded psychotherapy meeting conventional definitions of adequate treatment. Conclusions: Austria’s psychotherapy treatment gap is substantial to severe under all scenarios. Current insurance-funded capacity meets less than one-third of estimated need, disproportionately affecting those unable to pay out of pocket. Addressing this gap requires expansion of publicly funded services, stepped-care models including digital interventions, and routine monitoring systems.
Psychometric Measurement of Forecasters Using the Wisdom of Crowds
Jessica Helmer; Nikolay Petrov; Sophie Ma Zhu; Ezra Karger; Mark Himmelstein
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Forecasting skill is often measured by the average error between forecasters’ predictions and the ground truth, but the inherent uncertainty in event outcomes adds an additional layer of measurement error onto skill estimation. Intersubjective measures offer an alternative approach to skill measurement: comparing forecasters’ predictions to those of their peers, typically to aggregated forecasts from groups of peers. A key advantage of this approach is that forecasts can be scored in real time, without having to wait for the ground truth outcome to be realized. However, it has another more subtle advantage as well: aggregate predictions can be less noisy than ground truth outcomes, leading to a potential reduction in this additional measurement error. In a simulation study, we demonstrate conditions under which crowd aggregates provide a more reliable indicator of the optimal forecast for a given event than a single realized ground truth outcome, leading to skill measurement with reduced measurement error. We also demonstrate the effectiveness of intersubjective methods in a real-world forecasting study in which 894 participants made both forecasts and metapredictions, i.e., predictions of what others might forecast. As in our simulation, intersubjective measures capture forecasting ability more efficiently than do ground-truth scores, demonstrating their usefulness for identifying high-performing forecasters.
Time Perception in Virtual Reality: Effects of Emotional Valence and Stress Level
Kyriaki Syrigou; Marina Stoforou; Panagiotis Kourtesis
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Immersive virtual reality (VR) enables controlled tests of how emotional context distorts subjective time, yet findings remain mixed. Fifty-seven adults explored three five-minute VR environments (tranquil garden, neutral room, threatening sewer) while eye tracking recorded pupil diameter. Baseline stress was assessed before VR exposure. After each environment, participants estimated elapsed time and rated mood, calmness, and arousal. Repeated-measures ANCOVA (baseline stress as covariate) and linear mixed-effects models converged on a valence gradient: garden intervals were overestimated, sewer intervals underestimated, and neutral estimates were intermediate. Pupil diameter showed the complementary pattern (sewer > garden > neutral) and covaried with the magnitude of temporal distortion. Baseline stress did not predict time estimates and did not moderate valence effects. Results indicate that affectively distinct VR contexts reliably shift perceived time and elicit convergent physiological and self-report responses. These findings inform emotion-aware design of immersive experiences and digital-wellbeing safeguards that support safe, sustained immersion.
Evolved equity but inequity in the household? Reviewing evolutionary accounts of Fairness
Angarika Deb; Christophe Heintz
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Gendered division of household labour is marked by its pervasive inequality, in that women routinely do more housework across the world. But still, most women continue to find it fair, even if they are systematically contributing more. How can evolutionary accounts of fairness explain that fact? We review three major accounts focusing on their psychological claims, discussing what evidence in support of their account and how well they can explain perceptions of fairness about gendered division of household labour. These are three distinct accounts which describe fairness judgements a) arising from the following of local social norms (Henrich and colleagues), b) a sense of equity which evolved in a partner choice ecology (André, Baumard and colleagues) and c) as a sense of egalitarianism, which evolved in response to human coordination problems (Binmore). We find that none of these accounts are fully compatible with observations of gender inequalities in households, though each contain important insights, which can be integrated into a more comprehensive theory. We end our review by providing an outline of what such a comprehensive theory might look like and provide a tool for researchers to enable seamless exploration of multiple factors underlying fairness judgements.
Unravelling the fatigue induced by a prolonged typing task
Léa Vidal; Mathieu Gruet; Maxime Bergevin; Thomas Mangin; Benjamin Pageaux
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Objective The primary aim of this study was to characterise fatigue induced by prolonged typing and its effects on cognitive, motor, and psychomotor functions. A secondary objective was to investigate whether prolonged typing influences the intention to engage in physical activity. Background Typing is an integral part of daily life, at home and at work. Because prolonged engagement in physical or cognitive activities can induce fatigue—characterized by objective and/or subjective manifestations—it is reasonable to assume that typing may induce fatigue. Method Thirty healthy adults (27±5 y.o., 21 females) participated in this within-subjects crossover pre-post design study. Participants completed 90-min of typing or documentary watching. Mental fatigue, effort, motivation, boredom, and perceived workload were assessed during each condition. Cognitive performance, typing performance, maximal voluntary force, and physical activity intention were measured before and after each task. Participants then completed a psychomotor task. Results Typing induced greater fatigue than documentary watching (p=.003, η2p=.172), without impairing physical or cognitive performance. In contrast, psychomotor performance was reduced after typing (p=.018, d=0.457) but not after documentary watching. Regardless of condition, physical activity intention decreased after the tasks (p<.001, η2p=.469). Conclusion Prolonged typing induces a state of fatigue that selectively impairs psychomotor performance. Both typing and documentary watching reduced physical activity intentions, suggesting that prolonged screen-based sedentary activities may negatively influence physical activity intentions. Application The results highlight the need to address prolonged screen-based sedentary activities in occupational settings. Regular active breaks may help limit fatigue-related psychomotor declines and reduction in physical activity intentions.
Social touch as a third-party observer: how interindividual differences shape touch perception
Hanan Ez-zahraoui; Louise P Kirsch
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Social touch is crucial for understanding others and emotional communication. The perception of social touch can be experienced directly on the skin but also vicariously through the observation of touch. However, the pleasantness derived from social touch is not uniform; it is shaped by interindividual differences, including state factors (e.g. depression, loneliness, and anxiety) and traits factors (e.g. anhedonia, touch attitude and experience, and empathy). Despite their relevance, the specific effects of these factors on vicarious social touch perception remain scarce and understudied. To bridge this gap, a behavioural experiment was conducted using the Socio-tactile picture database (SoTact) which includes the target condition: social touch, and two control conditions: social no-touch and non-social touch. Forty-four participants rated the pleasantness of these stimuli while we examined the influence of interindividual differences, assessed via questionnaires. Among state factors, higher anxiety levels predicted reduced pleasantness of social touch stimuli. Conversely, trait factors, specifically anhedonia and touch attitudes, significantly predicted pleasantness ratings for both social touch and social no-touch conditions. Moreover, using a mediation analysis, our study also showed that touch attitudes as a measurement of stable trait can partially explain how state of anxiety modifies touch perception. These findings underscore the critical role of interindividual traits and states in shaping vicarious social touch perception, offering insights for future research on emotion and social cognition.
A Theoretical Model of Racial Stress Shaping Negative Symptoms in Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders
Desmond Jamal Spann; John G. Kerns
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Schizophrenia-spectrum disorders (SSD) are often lifelong with chronic functional impairment. Negative symptoms are strongly related to functional impairment but are poorly treated. A potentially important but neglected aspect of negative symptoms is how they can be influenced by and reflect enduring interaction patterns with the environment. Consistent with this, the current paper presents a model for how one environmental factor, racial stress, influences negative symptoms in Black Americans, a group with increased rates of SSD. Following Strauss1, we use Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model to examine how racial stress occurring across multiple environmental levels can affect negative symptoms. We propose that one critical factor is that racial stress can help create negative self-beliefs. Following Beck’s Generic Cognitive Model, these negative self-beliefs can then affect motivation, goal-directed behavior, and social withdrawal. Importantly, we also propose that a strong racial identity can act as a buffer and prevent the development of negative self-beliefs. This model proposes a novel environmental pathway that might increase negative symptoms in Black Americans and identifies a potentially critical way that future treatment and prevention efforts might decrease or stop the onset of negative symptoms in SSD. By further illustrating how environmental factors can increase negative symptoms, our model helps further lay the groundwork for how other environmental models could help identify precision medicine approaches to treating and preventing negative symptoms in SSD.
Evolved equity but inequity in the household? Reviewing evolutionary accounts of Fairness
Angarika Deb; Christophe Heintz
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Gendered division of household labour is marked by its pervasive inequality, in that women routinely do more housework across the world. But still, most women continue to find it fair, even if they are systematically contributing more. How can evolutionary accounts of fairness explain that fact? We review three major accounts focusing on their psychological claims, discussing what evidence in support of their account and how well they can explain perceptions of fairness about gendered division of household labour. These are three distinct accounts which describe fairness judgements a) arising from the following of local social norms (Henrich and colleagues), b) a sense of equity which evolved in a partner choice ecology (André, Baumard and colleagues) and c) as a sense of egalitarianism, which evolved in response to human coordination problems (Binmore). We find that none of these accounts are fully compatible with observations of gender inequalities in households, though each contain important insights, which can be integrated into a more comprehensive theory. We end our review by providing an outline of what such a comprehensive theory might look like and provide a tool for researchers to enable seamless exploration of multiple factors underlying fairness judgements.
Confidence phenotypes: a unified computational account of value and decision certainty in reinforcement learning
Nicolás A. Comay; Guillermo Solovey; Pablo Barttfeld
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Confidence, the “feeling of knowing” that accompanies every cognitive process, plays a critical role in human reinforcement learning; yet its computational bases in learning scenarios have only recently begun to be studied. Prior work has distinguished between value confidence (certainty in value estimates) and decision confidence (certainty that a choice is correct), but how these two forms of confidence are computed and interact has not been directly tested. Here we combine two experiments and previously published datasets to test competing computational hypotheses. We find that value confidence is best explained by a Bayesian computation reflecting the precision of value estimates, and that it adaptively guides behaviour by reducing exploration and promoting exploitation as certainty increases. In contrast, decision confidence departs from Bayesian predictions, especially on errors. A hybrid model integrating Bayesian probability with the precision of the decision variable better accounts for decision confidence. Moreover, the relative weights assigned to these two sources of information characterize individual differences in confidence reporting and, in addition, they are predictive of task and metacognitive performance, where the more Bayesian the subject, the higher the performance. Together, these results provide a unified computational mechanism through which distinct forms of confidence shape learning and choices in uncertain environments.
Perceptual Distortions in Aided Hearing-Impaired Listeners: Psychophysical Evidence of Excessive Loudness Growth and Altered Timbre Representation
Armand SCHWARZ; Paul Avan; Patrick Susini; Emmanuel Ponsot
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Hearing aid users often report that some everyday sounds are abnormally intrusive or salient. We hypothesize that this issue may stem from distorted coding of sound features due to peripheral impairments and/or hearing aid processing. This study investigates whether aided hearing-impaired (aHI) listeners experience (1) abnormal loudness processing and (2) distorted timbre perception, both of which may contribute to this problem. In Experiment 1, we measured loudness functions using sounds varying in four timbre dimensions (brightness, spectral flux, attack time, roughness) in normal-hearing (NH) and aHI listeners. In Experiment 2, we assessed timbre perception via dissimilarity judgments based on a similar set of sounds. Participant groups included NH listeners with simulated hearing loss and hearing aids to better isolate contributing factors. Results revealed that hearing aids fail to restore normal loudness for low-level sounds, causing excessively steep loudness growth. Although brightness influenced loudness growth similarly across groups, the effect of attack time was specific to aHI listeners. The characterization of timbre perception in aHI listeners showed enhanced weighting of temporal envelope features, likely emphasized by hearing aid compression, as well as non-linear distortions in the perceptual coding of roughness. These findings suggest that both loudness and timbre dimensions are distorted in aided impaired hearing. We propose that these distortions may underlie the excessive salience of certain everyday sounds, though direct measurement of salience effects will be important in future works.
Three distinct components of pragmatic language use: social conventions, intonation, and world-knowledge-based causal reasoning
Sammy Floyd; Olessia Jouravlev; Moshe Poliak; Zachary Mineroff; Edward Gibson; Evelina Fedorenko
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Real-life language comprehension frequently requires non-literal interpretation and inferences about speaker intent. What is the structure of these so-called pragmatic abilities? We applied a dimensionality reduction approach to a large behavioral dataset (776 participants, each completing an 8-hour battery of diverse non-literal comprehension tasks). By examining covariation in performance across tasks, we identified three interpretable components of pragmatic language use: adherence to social conventions, extracting meaning from intonation, and causal reasoning based on world knowledge. Thus, pragmatic language use is relatively low-dimensional cognitively, and its distinct components may a) draw on dissociable neural substrates, b) exhibit distinct developmental trajectories and differential susceptibility to genetic brain disorders, and c) be variably challenging for artificial intelligence systems.
Desequilibrio Esfuerzo-Recompensa en Logística: Cuando la Autonomía no es Suficiente
Nahuel Zufferey
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INTRODUCCIÓN. El sector logístico enfrenta desafíos críticos donde la presión temporal y la exigencia física suelen desplazar la gestión del bienestar psicosocial de los trabajadores. OBJETIVO. Diagnosticar la prevalencia de riesgos psicosociales en una sucursal de distribución de alimentos ubicada en Ibarra, Ecuador, para identificar desequilibrios organizacionales. MÉTODO. Se aplicó un diseño de investigación cuantitativo, descriptivo y transversal sobre una muestra censal (N=21), utilizando el cuestionario estandarizado CoPsoQ-ISTAS 21. RESULTADOS. Se evidenció un perfil psicosocial polarizado: factores protectores en las dimensiones de Trabajo Activo y Doble Presencia (niveles favorables) contrastan con alertas críticas en Compensaciones (57.1% riesgo alto) y Apoyo Social (52.4% riesgo alto). DISCUSIÓN Y CONCLUSIONES. La disonancia entre la alta autonomía operativa y el bajo apoyo percibido sugiere una ruptura del contrato psicológico y un desequilibrio esfuerzo-recompensa, concluyéndose que el fortalecimiento del salario emocional es indispensable para la sostenibilidad y retención del talento en estas unidades operativas.
Modifiable barriers and enablers of medication adherence among people with schizophrenia: A systematic review and theoretical synthesis
Jiaying Wang; Amala Ayyar; Sadie Lawes-Wickwar; Alison Ruth McKinlay
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Background: Despite the efficacy of pharmaceutical treatment, medication adherence is reported to be as low as 40-50% among people with schizophrenia. The objectives of this review were to identify and synthesise evidence on modifiable barriers of pharmaceutical medication adherence among people with schizophrenia and generate recommendations for future interventions using Behaviour Change Techniques. Methods: The literature search included qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods research published in English from the database inception to May 2024. Three databases (MEDLINE, Embase, and PsycINFO) were searched to identify publications on the modifiable barriers. Data synthesis involved data extraction from included papers, which were then inductively synthesised by mapping onto the sub-components of the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) and the Capability, Opportunity and Motivation model of Behaviour. Results: 40 articles met the inclusion criteria. Nine themes were generated: (1) ‘Understanding of experiences’, (2) ‘Knowledge about medication’, (3) ‘Forgetting to take medication’, (4) ‘Relationship with healthcare professionals’, (5) ‘Beliefs about the necessity of taking medication’, (6) ‘Reflecting on past medication use experience’, (7) ‘Fear of side effects’, (8) ‘Feeling social stigma’, (9) ‘Ongoing social support from family/friends’. Six behavioural influences on medication adherence were identified via the TDF (Knowledge, Memory, attention and decision processes, Social/Professional role and identity, Beliefs about consequences, Emotions and Social influences). Conclusion: By highlighting modifiable behavioural influences, findings of this review can be used to inform evidence-based, person-centred approaches that support medication adherence. Potential interventions may involve improving access to information on treatment options, drawing on social support, and reviewing treatment plans to address side effects.
Clearing the Air : A Longitudinal Study of Air Pollution in the French Media
Oriana Gasperin; Laure Malleret; Raquel Bertoldo
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Air pollution is a major environmental and public health issue that has gradually attracted media attention over the past two decades. This longitudinal study examines how the French media represented pollution from 2004 to 2024, by analyzing a corpus of 1166 press articles from national and local media with various political orientations. Using a computer-assisted content analysis, we identified distinct phases of media coverage that describe an evolution from an initially scientific and health-focused discourse, to a more political, legislative, and territorialized discursive debate. Our results reveal that air pollution has evolved from a technical environmental problem to a controversial public object marked by legal action, local governance debates and citizen mobilization. This study contributes to understanding the social construction of environmental risks in media discourse, and highlights the role of the press in public perception and political debate.
Semantic Delegation: Understanding Concepts with a Little Help from our Friends
Anna M. Borghi; Luca Tummolini
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Even if concepts are the basic building blocks of private thoughts, not only do most of our mental representations are acquired from others, but we also routinely rely on experts in many knowledge domains. Evidence suggests that in many of these situations people believe they know what in fact is known by someone else instead. In this contribution, we explore how trust and delegation of semantic expertise influence the way in which concepts are represented and ask whether it is possible to actually ground one’s understanding via the understanding of others. We conclude by deriving some implications for the debate over understanding in contemporary AI systems.
Single-Subject Designs in Character Education: Methods for Rigorous, Contextual, and Practitioner-Led Research
Shane McLoughlin
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Character education research is often constrained by blunt methodological tools. Surveys capture breadth without depth; case studies offer richness but lack replicability; and randomised controlled trials (RCTs), though indispensable at the policy level, are costly, disruptive, and ill-suited to everyday practice with individual pupils. More troublingly, often invite an ergodic fallacy: assuming that what works on average must work for each individual. In reality, interventions that deliver modest positive effect sizes typically conceal a mix of no effects, negative effects, and only some benefits. This leaves teachers, mentors, and coaches without rigorous tools to evaluate what matters most: whether an intervention works here, now, for this pupil. This paper argues that single-subject designs (SSDs) offer a neglected but transformative solution. SSDs involve repeated measurement in which individuals serve as their own controls, allowing stronger causal inference at the individual level compared with RCT data. They democratise research by enabling practitioners to capture and publish the wisdom of context-sensitive practice without the machinery of large trials. Through worked examples drawn from moral and character education, this tutorial demonstrates why and how to design, measure, and analyse SSDs to rigorous standards. SSDs can reshape the field into a cumulative, personalised science that empowers practitioners and complements large-scale studies.
Seven questions on perceiving and understanding other minds
Hester van Beek; Dorka Boda; Fabiola Diana; Ronja Fiona Held; Ann Louise Pauline Marleen Hogenhuis; Aline Moore Lorusso; Ruud Hortensius
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In this paper we ask and try to answer seven questions, some bigger than others, on perceiving and understanding minds in others: 1) Do humans, animals, artificial agents have minds? Objectively and subjectively speaking? 2) How do we perceive and understand these other minds? 3) How are other minds represented in the brain? 4) Is the perception of minds in other species or artificial agents not just mere anthropomorphism? 5) Is it important how the other looks? Does it matter if the other is human-like (e.g., robots) or cute (e.g., animals)? 6) Does it matter at all if you think an agent has a mind on how you view yourself and others? And finally, 7) where does it all end? What methods and techniques, perspectives or approaches does the field need to answer these and future questions? Together, the answers to these questions suggest that minds are grounded in sociality and people judge minds on the capacity to feel and think, with a distinct neural network supporting this. There is emerging evidence on the flexibility thereof in terms of activity to diverse minds and presence of this network across species. Mind perception and anthropomorphism are distinct at the conceptual, psychological, and neural level, and beliefs and other top-down effects are more important than just the visual appearance of an agent. Reports on threat to human identity, intergroup effects, as well impact on group dynamics, show that there are clear inter- and intrapersonal consequences of mind perception. Future research should focus on an interdisciplinary approach embracing different disciplines from comparative psychology to linguistics, employing a multi-method assessment of mind perception in interactive, embodied, everyday situations, capturing the inter- and intrapersonal consequences thereof, to provide further answers on these and other questions.
Explanatory Item Response Models for Continuous Data: A Tutorial in R
Joshua Gilbert
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The explanatory item response model (EIRM) is a common tool in psychometrics to model person and item characteristics as functions of covariates. Existing tutorials demonstrate how to model dichotomous or polytomous item responses. In this tutorial, we show how to fit the extended two-parameter logistic (E2PL) item response model for continuous item responses using the brms package in R. Using two worked examples with visual analog scale data, we demonstrate data exploration, model building, and interpretation strategies. By following this tutorial, researchers will be able to fit and interpret the EIRM for continuous item response data.
The success of Neural Language Models on syntactic island effects is not universal: wh-island sensitivity in English but not in Dutch
Michelle Suijkerbuijk; Naomi Tachikawa Shapiro; Peter de Swart; Stefan L. Frank
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A much-debated question in linguistics is whether learning language, specifically grammar, requires a language-specific learning capacity or can be achieved from input alone. The current study adds to this debate by testing whether Neural language models (NLMs), which learn solely from input and their non-linguistic inductive biases, without any built-in linguistic representations, can model the wh-island constraint. We improve on previous research by testing both NLMs and human participants in the same experimental set-up and directly comparing their results, and doing this cross-linguistically in both English and Dutch. Our results show that the NLMs can successfully model the wh-island constraint in English but not in Dutch, opposing the arguments in favor of learning from input alone.
On Smallest Effect Size of Interest: Its Development and a Simplified Procedure
Tsz Keung Wong
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Methods for testing the smallest effect size of interest (SESOI)—such as good-enough hypothesis-testing and equivalence tests—have been developed and increasingly advocated in psychology. This article reviews these frequentist methods from philosophical and statistical perspectives, highlighting their conceptual foundations and procedural similarities. Although these approaches have gained popularity in the recent decade, the importance of SESOI was already emphasized by Neyman and Pearson within their original framework of hypothesis testing. When null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) is conducted following the Neyman–Pearson framework, these tests yield identical results as their underlying logic is fundamentally the same once simplified. Building on this observation, the article proposes a simplified procedure involving that defines the null hypothesis as a negligible effect, the alternative as a non-negligible effect, and sets error rates according to theoretical expectations. This simplification helps avoid unnecessary computational complexity and prevents inconsistent statistical decisions that may arise from conditional equivalence testing, where an equivalence test is conducted only after a nonsignificant result from NHST.
Publications in Psychiatry: Modern Historical Trends and Sociodemographic Drivers
Riccardo Cavallaro; Alessandro Carollo; Marc H. Bornstein; Gianluca Esposito
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Psychiatric research has grown significantly in recent years, with an increase in scientific publications worldwide. However, the factors driving these trends remain insufficiently explored. This study examines the determinants of psychiatric research output across countries, focusing on economic, demographic, and development-related variables. The analysis considers the annual number of publications, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), population size, and the Human Development Index (HDI). Data were retrieved from Web of Science and considered all publications categorized under "Psychiatry" from 2000 to 2025 (N = 1,071,338 documents). A linear mixed model was employed to investigate GDP, population density, and HDI as predictors of publications output. The findings revealed that GDP and HDI are significant positive predictors of absolute and relative publication frequency in psychiatry (ps < .001; R2 marginal absolute frequency = 50.53%, R2 marginal relative frequency = 52.32%). When analyzing data by continent, GDP emerged as a positive driver of publication frequency in Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania, and South America (all qs < .01). Additionally, HDI emerged as a key factor, particularly in Europe and Asia (all q < .001). In contrast, population density did not show a significant association with publication output in any of the continents analyzed (qs > .05). These findings indicate that greater economic resources, education levels, health care quality, and overall living standards are related to increased research production in psychiatry. This study provides a comprehensive overview of global trends in psychiatric research and their most influential factors. The results underscore the importance of economic growth and human development in fostering scientific productivity.
The Proposition Based Theory Specification Method (PBTS): A Verbal Approach to Formalizing and Analyzing Theories in Psychology
Andreas Glöckner; Tilmann Betsch; Daria Lisovoj; Jennifer Biehl; Jasper Zeno Siol; Fiona tho Pesch; Susann Fiedler
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a theory as a set of verbal propositions, (b) to connect these propositions via explicit implications (i.e., “IF propostion A, THEN proposition B” statements), (c) to define all concepts and operators contained in these propositions, and (d) to provide a broad range of valid operationalizations for each proposition. We provide step-by-step guidelines for applying PBTS to the specification and standardized analysis of existing theories, including indicators of theory reproducibility, and we describe how PBTS can be used to specify new theories. Results from two validation studies demonstrate that the methodology is feasible for specifying verbal narrative theories and yields reasonable inter-specifier agreement. By enabling to systematic analysis of verbal theories and establishing fundamental prerequisites for multiple forms of theory specification, PBTS offers a potential foundation for addressing the theory crisis in psychology.
Intergroup Conflict Drives Commitment Signalling: A Cross-Cultural Experimental Evidence
Radim Chvaja; Martin Lang
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Human evolutionary history has been shaped by recurrent intergroup conflict, in which cooperation with group members carries high stakes and defection entails severe consequences. Such pressures should trigger evolution of mechanisms reliably communicating group commitment. Here, we test whether sacrificing strategic resources to signal group commitment may have evolved as such a mechanism. Using a public goods game with a cross-cultural sample (N = 2,745 participants from eight countries), we manipulated intergroup conflict by allowing some groups to compete over collective resources and permitting individuals to defect to the opposing group. Participants could signal cooperative commitment by sacrificing a portion of their endowment. We find that intergroup conflict (compared to no conflict condition) increases signalling both when signalling is costly and when it is relatively symbolic, suggesting that in conflict contexts, individuals exploit any available signalling opportunity, regardless of cost. Sensitivity to intergroup conflict in signalling behaviour was stronger in countries with higher recent exposure to intergroup violence. Moreover, individuals who signalled contributed more to the public good despite reduced endowments and were less likely to defect. Simulations of 10,000 conflicts showed that signalling groups were almost four times more likely to win a conflict than non-signalling groups. These findings indicate that intergroup conflict may have been a key selective pressure in the evolution of commitment signalling, with implications for how past and present societies build trust, sustain cooperation, and deter defection in competitive settings.
Distinct rhythmic competencies identified via internet-based assessment
Anna Fiveash; Nicholas E. V. Foster; Reyna L Gordon; Simone Dalla Bella; Barbara Tillmann
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Rhythm is a fundamental element of music that recruits perception and production pathways in the brain, and occurs across different timescales. Research suggests that rhythmic processing is composed of several related, yet potentially distinct competencies, including perception, production, beat-based processing, and sequence memory-based processing. Based on a recent lab-based study (Fiveash et al., 2022), the current experiment investigated whether these distinctions could be replicated with more participants (n = 300) completing an internet-based protocol, with the potential to be scaled up to larger samples. Production tasks included unpaced tapping and paced tapping to music (from the Battery for the Assessment of Auditory Sensorimotor and Timing Abilities). Perception tasks included the beat alignment test, the Burgundy best musical aptitude test (synchronisation), and the beat-based advantage task. Principal component analyses revealed strong overlap across tests. However, separations were shown between perception and production tasks, and unpaced and paced tapping tasks. Cluster analyses revealed participants with different rhythmic profiles, for example, including (1) strong beat-based rhythm perception, weak sequence memory-based rhythm perception; and (2) strong production, weak perception. These results have implications for future research investigating individual differences in general and clinical populations, with the potential to guide clinical interventions.
Laboratory Stress Reactivity Diverges from Daily Life Stress Responses: Comparing the Trier Social Stress Test and Ambulatory Assessments
Joana Christine Thiel; Stephanie Zintel; Laura I. Schmidt; Martin Stoffel; Monika Sieverding; Beate Ditzen; Andreas B. Neubauer
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This work examines associations between physiological and subjective stress responses occurring in daily life and elicited by the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST). We analyzed data from 80 participants who underwent both a laboratory-based TSST for groups (TSST-G) and a five-day ambulatory assessment with three beeps per day. Using linear multilevel models, we examined how mood and cortisol reactivity and recovery experienced in the TSST-G correspond to stressor-related responses in everyday situations. Results revealed that mood and salivary cortisol responses elicited by the TSST-G were not significantly associated with corresponding measures obtained in daily life. However, better recovery of positive mood following the TSST-G was linked to a stronger association between positive mood and recent stressors in daily life, suggesting that these associations might reflect aspects of stress recovery rather than immediate reactivity. In our study, indicators of stress reactivity and recovery obtained in the TSST-G diverge from corresponding indicators obtained via ambulatory assessments. This might indicate that the TSST-G may not effectively capture the full complexity of stress reactivity and recovery processes experienced in everyday situations. The study underscores the need for caution when extrapolating laboratory-based results to real-life contexts and calls for future research to further investigate daily life and laboratory associations of stress responses.
Comparing Attitudes toward Online and Traditional Learning across Age Groups
Amotz Perlman
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Advances in information technologies are transforming not only work and lifestyle patterns but also learners’ expectations and perceptions of education and learning. In this era, online learning is becoming increasingly central, serving as either an alternative or a complement to traditional learning. The aim of this study is to examine the relationships and differences between learners’ attitudes toward online learning and their attitudes toward traditional classroom learning, as well as to investigate the effect of learners’ age on these attitudes. To this end, an attitude questionnaire was administered, including descriptions of various learning situations across different domains. Participants were asked to rate their attitudes toward each situation on a five-point Likert scale. The findings revealed that, in most cases, there was no significant correlation between attitudes toward online learning and learners’ age, except in one instance. However, a negative correlation was found between attitudes toward online learning and attitudes toward traditional learning. This finding may suggest that, for some learners, transitioning between digital and physical learning environments involves difficulty, and that these two settings are perceived as distinct or even opposing. It appears that online learning is experienced as a qualitatively different process from traditional learning, both in terms of the learning experience itself and the emotional and social feelings it evokes.
Innovations in leadership measurement: Developing contextualized forced-choice metrics for collective leadership capacities
Alvin Vista; Cynthia Boruchowicz; Agnes Tolescu
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Traditional leadership assessments often rely on individualistic traits and self-reported rating scales, which are susceptible to response biases that weaken the measurement and quantification of the relational nature of complex psycho-social constructs such as leadership. This study details the development and initial validation of a forced-choice instrument designed to measure collective leadership capacities within the Teach For All network and contextualized to its education-centric framing. The instrument targets five dimensions of collective leadership in this context: Learn About Self, Embrace Systems Thinking, Belief In Students, Embodying Collective Mindset, and Beliefs about the Purpose of Education. To address the ipsative limitations inherent in traditional forced-choice formats, the study employed a Thurstonian Item Response Theory (T-IRT) model. The instrument was validated using a sample of 982 respondents, consisting of 382 network participants from Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru, and 600 external respondents. Results indicated adequate model fit (RMSEA = .053) and significant factor loadings, providing evidence of structural validity. While internal dimensions were positively correlated, weak correlations with external leadership measures suggest the instrument is capturing a unique set of leadership capacities (specifically collective and educational in nature) that are not redundant with general social leadership metrics and thus differentiating what the instrument is capturing from broader social leadership or purpose-orientation metrics. Person-level scores also showed no evidence of the ceiling effects or negative skew often seen in Likert-based self-reports, suggesting the format successfully forced respondents to differentiate between equally desirable values and implying a more realistic profile of their leadership priorities.
PRISM: Profiles of AI Use, Creativity, and Authorship in High School Writing
Pranil Raichura; Nouchine Hadjikhani; Natalie Elkin
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Large language models (LLMs) and AI-assisted writing tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Grammarly are rapidly becoming part of everyday schoolwork. Public debate often assumes that these tools either boost students' creativity or undermine their sense of ownership, yet there is little quantitative evidence about how high school students themselves experience AI-assisted writing. This cross-sectional study used an anonymous online survey of N = 246 students at a large public high school in California to examine how frequency of AI use for school writing relates to two psychological outcomes: perceived general creativity in school writing and sense of authorship over AI-assisted work. Students reported how often they used AI tools for brainstorming, drafting, editing, and overcoming writer's block, and rated their creativity and authorship on 1-5 Likert-type scales. Correlational and regression analyses on brief composite scales showed that more frequent AI use was moderately associated with lower self-reported general creativity but higher perceived authorship, even after adjusting for demographic and contextual covariates. Creativity and authorship were weakly negatively correlated with each other. An exploratory k-means cluster analysis suggested three broad profiles of students combining different levels of AI use, creativity, and authorship. Overall, the findings complicate simple narratives about generative AI in schools: in this sample, heavier AI users feel less creative in their school writing overall yet are more likely to experience AI-assisted work as authentically "theirs."
Mouse-Tracking Substantiates the Contributions of Predispositions and Evaluations in Value-Based Choice
Nitisha Desai; Paul E. Stillman; Kentaro Fujita; Ian Krajbich
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Computational models like the drift diffusion model (DDM) have greatly enhanced our understanding of the mechanisms of decision making, such as predispositions (i.e., starting points) and evaluations (i.e., drift rates). However, a common criticism is that the model parameters are not directly observable and may not reflect the true choice process. Here, we address this concern with several value-based experiments designed to assess these mechanisms more directly with mouse-tracking. We find that people’s initial mouse movements are tied to their predispositions (i.e., starting points) and that their full mouse trajectories are tied to their evaluations (i.e., drift rates). We show that a base-rate manipulation changes people’s predispositions and thus their initial mouse angles. We also find that the speed of errors depends on predispositions. These results substantiate the influence of predispositions in value-based choice. Finally, we show that integrating these mouse-tracking measures into the DDM improves model fit. We find that mouse-tracking can capture the physical manifestations of DDM parameters, validate process-level assumptions, and improve the predictive power of computational models.
Natural language communication enables groups to overcome unrepresentative private evidence
Yuliya Zubak; Robert Hawkins
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Humans rely on social learning to aggregate knowledge that no single individual could acquire alone.Yet this process comes with significant epistemic risk. When each individual observes sparse and potentially unrepresentative samples of evidence, how do networks of learners overcome conflicting information to arrive at accurate collective beliefs? Formal models of this process typically assume that agents directly transmit their beliefs, but real human communication operates through natural language. Here we test the epistemic conditions under which language may help or hinder collective inference. In two experiments (N = 2,249), networks of four participants observed private samples from an underlying probability distribution and communicated over repeated rounds to estimate that distribution. We manipulated communication channel (natural language vs. numerical belief reports) and systematically varied the quality of private information: total sample size, representativeness of individual samples, and how evenly information was distributed across participants. All groups improved through social interaction, but groups restricted to numerical transmission performed systematically worse. Critically, the advantage of language emerged specifically when private samples were unrepresentative of the underlying truth, precisely when learners must appropriately weight others' evidence against their own. Analysis of message content revealed that this benefit arose from participants' ability to relay information across the network, extending the reach of evidence beyond direct dyadic exchange. These findings suggest that models of collective behavior must move beyond direct belief transmission to capture the epistemic work performed by natural language.
Autistic and Non-Autistic Undergraduates’ Responses to a Textbook Vignette on Autism
Kayden M Stockwell; Talyn Steinmann; Vikram K Jaswal
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Background. Autistic college students’ well-being may be negatively affected by deficit-focused portrayals of autism in assigned material. Objective. This study investigated how autistic and non-autistic undergraduates responded to an abnormal psychology textbook vignette about an autistic child. Method. Autistic (n = 86) and non-autistic (n = 86) college students read the vignette, rated how offensive, stigmatizing, and useful it was, and provided state self-esteem ratings. Results. Autistic students rated the vignette as more offensive and stigmatizing and as less useful than did non-autistic students. Additionally, more autistic than non-autistic students reported lower self-esteem after reading the vignette compared to before reading it. Conclusions. These findings highlight potential harms of deficit-focused portrayals of autism in educational materials and underscore the need for more respectful representations. Teaching Implications. Instructors should recognize that autistic students may interpret some textbook portrayals of autism negatively, and they should assign materials that highlight autistic strengths as well as challenges.
A large-scale analysis of metonymy across languages
Temuulen Khishigsuren
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Metonymy is regarded as a universally shared cognitive phenomenon; as such, humans are taken to effortlessly produce and comprehend metonymic senses. However, experimental studies on metonymy have been focused on Western societies, and the linguistic data backing up claims of universality has not been large enough to provide conclusive evidence. I introduce a large-scale analysis of metonymy based on a lexical corpus of 20 thousand metonymy instances from 189 languages and 69 genera. Drawing on corpus and statistical analysis, evidence of universality is found at three levels: systematic metonymy in general, particular metonymy patterns, and specific metonymy concepts.
Perceiving Uncertainty: how visual encoding, socially mediated doubt, and task complexity influence human decision-making
John R. Taylor; Stafford van Putten; Christopher J. Stanton
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Human decision-making during autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) operations is fundamentally influenced by uncertainty in environmental information. This exploratory pilot study investigates how during path planning, task dynamics can influence operator performance and risk tolerance, relative to a 2D visualisation of bathymetric data uncertainty. Using bathymetric data obtained from field trials of prototype AUVs, we visualise uncertainty in these data using Gaussian Processes (GP), manipulating the hyperparameters. Participants (n=18) completed 108 free-form path planning trials, overlayed on a 2D contour map of bathymetric uncertainty, while avoiding marine dangers. Additional uncertainty was introduced via an AI agent with one of three face realism conditions, designed to sow doubt in the participants perceived task performance. Bayesian modelling suggests Contour lowered redraw rates, with a modest U-curve relationship. Variance followed an inverted U-curve effect on redraw rates, with moderate values reducing ambiguity and improving performance. AI agent appearance shaped trust behaviour, while environmental complexity reduced risk tolerance. Results of our experimental pilot study show that visual uncertainty, social agent appearance, and task complexity systematically shape human trust, risk tolerance, and decision-making behaviour during path planning.
Throw Your Response Times in the Bin: Accounting for Measurement Noise in Response Time Modeling
Niek Stevenson; Nathan J. Evans; Michelle C. Donzallaz; Dora Matzke; Andrew Heathcote
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Response times (RTs) are crucial in experimental psychology, providing insights into affective and cognitive processes. Although the finite resolution of stimulus presentation and response recording introduce noise into measured RTs, methods used to fit RT-based cognitive models typically ignore this source of measurement uncertainty. We mathematically characterize the effects of different types of measurement error on RT distributions. We then investigate how a range of realistic levels of measurement noise affect the estimation of five prominent evidence-accumulation models of RT and choice. Although models differ in sensitivity, we find that in all cases the estimation of at least some parameters is distorted by realistic levels of measurement noise. We propose and evaluate a ``binning'' method that not only ameliorates the resulting biases, but can also substantially reduce the computational cost of model fitting.
Emotion Regulation as Action: How Reappraisal and Acceptance Shape Cognition
David Brian Rompilla; Takashi Yamauchi; Claudia M. Haase; Emily Villalobos; Giovanni Jabbour
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Emotion regulation strategies are typically studied for how they change emotional experience, yet their downstream effects on cognition and action remain less understood. We propose that reappraisal and acceptance diverge not only in their emotional consequences but also in how they orient the mind toward action. Across two studies, college students watched sad film clips and were instructed to regulate using reappraisal, acceptance, or no strategy before completing choice-reaching versions of Attention Network Task and Stroop. This design allowed us to capture movement-based indices of action readiness, including response time and idle time, alongside fine-grained trajectory measures. Consistent with predictions from actioncontrol theory, reappraisal reliably shortened responses and idle periods, reflecting a proactive, goal-directed state of cognitive–motor readiness, even after accounting for emotional change and regulation perceptions. Acceptance, in comparison, yielded slower responses and longer idle periods, consistent with a still, present-focused mode less oriented toward immediate goal pursuit. These patterns were strongest on the Attention Network Task and weaker, though still detectable, on a novel reaching-based Stroop paradigm. Together, the findings demonstrate that reappraisal and acceptance leave measurable imprints on movement during cognitive performance, reframing emotion regulation not only as managing feelings but also as shaping the momentum—or stillness—of action.
Stimulus familiarity shapes hierarchical structure learning and metacognitive dynamics
Rochelle Kaper; Megan A. K. Peters
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Humans learn multiple probabilistic regularities at once, yet it remains unclear how learning at different structural levels co-evolves with metacognition when feedback is unavailable. Here, participants (N=63; N=50 completed both sessions) learned a two-level probabilistic environment in which lower-order stimulus co-occurrences were embedded within a higher-order sequence, using unfamiliar fractals or familiar line drawings. We measured learning using a cover task during exposure periods, and using forced-choice questions followed by confidence judgments in repeated test blocks. Results revealed stimulus-dependent learning and metacognitive signatures. Learning dynamics differed across stimuli with fractal sequence test accuracy outpacing co-occurrence accuracy and vice versa for line drawings. Confidence increased across blocks, and was higher for line drawings and first but not second sequence selections. Metacognitive sensitivity increased alongside test accuracy for fractals but remained stagnant for line drawings. These results highlight stimulus-dependent effects on hierarchical structure learning that can dissociate from metacognitive dynamics.
Random forests in corpus research: A systematic review
Lukas Sönning
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The increasing popularity of random forests (RFs) in corpus-based work calls for a critical discussion of their utility and use in our field. To provide an empirical basis for this methodological discourse, the current paper conducts a systematic review of RFs in corpus research. This survey targets 6,972 papers published between 2012 and 2024 across 20 linguistic journals, yielding a total of 125 RF models spread across 69 studies. I examine various features including the purpose of the analysis, data structure and as well as model specification, evaluation and interpretation. There is a clear upward trend in the currency of RF models, which are routinely applied to data with a clustering structure, where observations are grouped by speaker/text or lexical item. Essential details about the analysis are frequently missing from the reports. This includes information on software and model specification, predictive performance, and the type of variable importance scores used. Motivated by these insights, the current study provides a checklist for the reporting of RF models as well as an R tutorial on how to obtain key indices. It closes with concrete suggestions for future methodological work on the use of RFs in corpus research.
Psilocybin for Treatment-Resistant OCD: A Randomized Controlled Trial
Benjamin Kelmendi; Thomas Adams; Terence Han Wei Ching; Rachael Grazioplene; Stephen Kichuk; Geena Fram; Prerana Patel; Jeffrey Eilbott; Elizabeth D’Amico; Sarah Shnayder
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Background: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) affects 2-3% of the population worldwide. 40-60% of patients do not respond to first-line interventions. We evaluated the efficacy and safety of a single dose of psilocybin in patients with treatment-resistant OCD. Methods: In this phase 2, randomized, double-blind trial, we randomly assigned 28 adults with treatment-resistant OCD to receive a single dose of psilocybin (0.25 mg/kg; n=14) or niacin (250 mg; n=14), in a supportive controlled setting. Primary outcomes were Acute Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (A-YBOCS) from baseline to 48 hours post-treatment and weekly Y-BOCS assessments through 12 weeks. Secondary outcomes included depression symptoms (MADRS) and functional disability (SDS). All participants initially assigned to niacin crossed over to open-label psilocybin after 1 week. Results: At 48 hours, A-YBOCS scores decreased from 24.07±6.02 to 14.31±8.83 in the psilocybin group versus no change (24.29±4.81 to 24.36±3.95) in the niacin group (between-group difference, 9.83 points; 95% CI, 5.19-14.91; P<0.001; Cohen's d=1.64). At one week, 69.2% (9/13) of psilocybin participants achieved response (≥35% Y-BOCS reduction) versus 0% (0/14) of niacin participants (P<0.001; number needed to treat, 1.4). Benefits persisted through 12 weeks in the psilocybin group. One serious adverse event occurred. In open-label treatment, A-YBOCS decreased by 6.14 points at 48 hours (95% CI, 2.56-9.72; P=0.003), with 35.7% achieving response at one week. Conclusions: A single dose of psilocybin with unstructured support produced rapid, clinically meaningful, and sustained reductions in OCD symptoms. This profile suggests a novel interventional paradigm for treatment-resistant OCD warranting larger confirmatory trials. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT03356483.
Ecospirituality Predicts Pro-Environmental Outcomes Across Cultures
Matthew Ira Billet; Adam Baimel
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The idea that nature has spiritual qualities is common across cultures. In North American samples, evidence supports a link between ecospirituality and pro-environmental outcomes. The generalizability of this claim, however, remains untested. A cross-cultural sample of religious individuals from 15 countries spanning 5 world religions (N=11,186) is used to (1) estimate the association between ecospirituality and three pro-environmental outcomes: pro-environmental behavioural intentions, policy support, and financial donations; and (2) assess the pathways by which ecospirituality translates to pro-environmentalism. The results of pre-registered analyses showed ecospirituality positively predicted each of the pro-environmental outcomes similarly across diverse cultural and religious populations. Moreover, the associations between ecospirituality and pro-environmental outcomes were mediated by the same variables across cultures: (1) moral responsibility for nature, (2) gratitude to nature, and (3) self-efficacy over environmental issues. Ecospirituality unites diverse cultural worldviews in motivating care for nature, making it a potentially powerful foundation for global environmental stewardship.
Differences in Evidence Representations Give Rise to the Illusion of Collapsing Choice Boundaries
Bingsong Zhao; Brandon Turner; Yiming Wang; Nicole King; Peter D. Kvam
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Collapsing choice boundaries, where the criterion a person applies to make a decision gets less strict over time, are a key mechanism thought to underpin decisions under time pressure. However, previous work on collapsing boundaries has taken for granted that decisions are driven by a balance of evidence between options, as in diffusion decision models (DDMs). In this paper, we demonstrate that the key empirical pattern used to justify collapsing boundaries -- where slower decisions are made based on a smaller difference in evidence between choice options -- can arise from accumulator models with fixed thresholds. Through mathematical analysis, simulations, and reanalyses of three behavioral datasets, we show that fitting DDMs to data generated by accumulator models systematically favors collapsing boundary models, even when the true boundary is static -— a phenomenon we refer to as the collapsing boundary illusion. We further reveal that model mismatch not only distorts inferences about time-dependent thresholds, but also confounds estimates of between-condition differences of psychologically distinct parameters such as drift rates and decision boundaries. Furthermore, our results suggest that models with and without collapsing boundaries may be difficult to distinguish under relatively common models and experimental designs. Taken together, our results call for caution when interpreting inferences about decision boundaries, and indicate that researchers should consider alternative assumptions about evidence representation rather than relying on a single framework.
How Does Model (Mis)Specification Impact Statistical Power, Type I Error Rate, and Parameter Bias in Moderated Mediation? A Registered Report
NA; Amanda Kay Montoya; Samantha F. Anderson
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Moderated mediation models are commonly used in psychological research and other academic fields to model when and how effects occur. Researchers must choose which paths in the mediation model are moderated when specifying this type of model. While the ultimate goal is to specify the model correctly, researchers may struggle to determine whether to err on the side of including too many moderated paths (maximalist approach) or including too few moderated paths (minimalist approach). This registered report examines how the specification of moderation impacts statistical power, type I error rate, and parameter bias for the index of moderated mediation. In a systematic review of papers published using moderated mediation over the course of one year, we found that six model specifications account for 85\% of published moderated mediation analyses and the median sample size was 285. We ran a Monte Carlo simulation study to examine the impacts of model specification on power and type I error rate, and results were analyzed using multilevel logistic regression. In reference to the data-generating process, the data analysis model can either be correctly specified, over-specified, under-specified, or completely misspecified. Over-specified models were hypothesized to have lower statistical power to detect a significant index of moderated mediation compared to correctly specified models and relatively low parameter bias. Under-specified models were hypothesized to have lower statistical power than correctly specified models but unacceptably high parameter bias. Completely misspecified models were hypothesized to have inflated type I error rates and unacceptable parameter bias. Based on these results we recommend researchers lean more toward maximalist approaches to avoid parameter bias, but acknowledge that this comes with a cost in statistical power.
What Race Means for Health among Black Americans: How Microaggressions Shape Self-Efficacy and Readiness for Behavior Change
Amanda Almond
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Abstract Objectives: Persistent racial disparities in cardiovascular health among Black Americans reflect not only structural inequities in the United States, but also the racialized meanings of cardiovascular disease reproduced through public and private health communication. Drawing on ecological systems theory, this research examines how beliefs linking race and cardiovascular disease are reinforced through routine clinical interactions and how these meanings shape health behavior change. Method: Across two experimental mixed-methods studies, a model integrating ecological, social–cognitive, and behavior-change frameworks was tested. In Study 1 (N = 374), health-message framing was experimentally manipulated to examine effects on self-efficacy and decisional balance while controlling for prior experiences of racial microaggression in medical contexts. Study 2 (N = 589) extended this work by testing whether conceptualizations of race as biological/genetic and social/political moderated these effects. A subset of participants (n = 57) voluntarily provided narratives of racially charged healthcare experiences, which were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis to contextualize quantitative findings. Results: Racial microaggressions from health professionals disrupted self-efficacy and decisional balance for cardiovascular health behaviors. Endorsement of biological versus social race beliefs moderated these effects, shaping both their magnitude and direction. Qualitative findings revealed how everyday clinical interactions reproduce racialized meanings of disease risk and personal control. Conclusions: These findings identify clinical communication as a consequential site where racial meanings of disease are constructed and psychologically internalized, influencing motivation for health behavior change. Addressing biologically essentialist framing in healthcare may therefore be critical for strengthening self-regulation and reducing cardiovascular disparities among Black Americans. Keywords: racial microaggressions; health communication; self-efficacy; decisional balance; Transtheoretical Model; ecological systems theory; racial essentialism; cardiovascular health disparities Public significance statement: How health professionals and public campaigns talk about race matters for behavior change. This research shows that subtle racialized cues in medicine can weaken Black patients’ sense of control and readiness to take preventive action. Training clinicians to avoid biological essentialist framing may improve patient engagement and help reduce cardiovascular health disparities.
Time Perception in Virtual Reality: Effects of Emotional Valence and Stress Level
Kyriaki Syrigou; Marina Stoforou; Panagiotis Kourtesis
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Immersive virtual reality (VR) enables controlled tests of how emotional context distorts subjective time, yet findings remain mixed. Fifty-seven adults explored three five-minute VR environments (tranquil garden, neutral room, threatening sewer) while eye tracking recorded pupil diameter. Baseline stress was assessed before VR exposure. After each environment, participants estimated elapsed time and rated mood, calmness, and arousal. Repeated-measures ANCOVA (baseline stress as covariate) and linear mixed-effects models converged on a valence gradient: garden intervals were overestimated, sewer intervals underestimated, and neutral estimates were intermediate. Pupil diameter showed the complementary pattern (sewer > garden > neutral) and covaried with the magnitude of temporal distortion. Baseline stress did not predict time estimates and did not moderate valence effects. Results indicate that affectively distinct VR contexts reliably shift perceived time and elicit convergent physiological and self-report responses. These findings inform emotion-aware design of immersive experiences and digital-wellbeing safeguards that support safe, sustained immersion.
State versus trait conceptualizations of parental monitoring: a formulation and review
William E. Pelham; Lara Leitz; Herry Patel
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We propose and evaluate two competing conceptualizations of parental monitoring of youths’ activities—a trait conceptualization and a state conceptualization. In a trait conceptualization, the level of monitoring is largely stable over time within families and youth behavior at any given moment is affected by the overall level of monitoring over a long period (e.g., past few months, past year). In a state conceptualization, the level of monitoring varies substantially from moment-to-moment and youth behavior at any given moment is affected by the current, acute level of monitoring. The trait and state conceptualizations have contrasting implications for designing research, identifying causal mechanisms, intervening with families to improve monitoring, and anticipating how youth will respond to temporary changes in the level of monitoring. Reviewing the literature, we find that most prior research has implicitly adopted the trait conceptualization despite there being little theoretical analysis or empirical evidence to justify the choice of one conceptualization over the other. No study has reported on the day-to-day stability of monitoring, though a handful have reported low day-to-day stability for closely related constructs (e.g., parental knowledge). Too few studies have tested shorter-term or acute effects of monitoring to make strong conclusions about the timescale of effects, though the extant evidence does not support the idea that monitoring measured today affects youth outcomes measured 6-12 months into the future. We conclude that the extent to which monitoring is best conceptualized as a trait or state remains an important open question.
The Ontogeny of the generalisation of avoidance behaviour
Courteney Tiegan Louise Fisher; José A. Alcalá; Gonzalo Pablo Urcelay
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The developmental trajectory of the generalisation of avoidance has received limited research attention, despite generalisation and avoidance being key features of anxiety disorders. This study used a gamified avoidance task to investigate generalisation in 96 children aged 5–11 years old. The task was an adaption of the classic “Space Invaders” videogame, in which participants have to shoot at spaceships to win points but also avoid being shot by a large spaceship (i.e., aversive outcome). The appearance of the large spaceship (the outcome; which resulted in loss of points) was signalled by coloured sensors at the top of the screen. One sensor predicted the outcome (CS+; an aqua coloured sensor), and a second did not (CS-; orange). Participants could avoid the loss of points by moving into the safe areas of the screen in anticipation of the large spaceship. Following avoidance training, we then presented six generalisation stimuli varying along the blue-green dimension of the CS+, to assess generalisation. Our findings revealed that age significantly influenced generalisation gradients, with younger children (5-8) exhibiting broader gradients compared to older children (9-11). Regression analyses indicated that age, but not anxiety, was a significant predictor of generalisation. These results underscore the impact of ontogenetic changes on the generalisation of avoidance behaviour and highlight the importance of including young children in research to better understand the mechanisms underlying generalization and factors leading to anxiety disorders.
When time matters: generalization gradients in delay and trace conditioning procedures
José A. Alcalá; Jessica C. Lee; Gonzalo Pablo Urcelay
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Previous studies have documented that overshadowing weakens when a CS-US trace is inserted, and we have interpreted such effect in terms of differential generalization in trace versus delay procedures, but direct evidence in humans is lacking. Two online experiments investigated whether the weakening of cue-outcome temporal contiguity impacts generalization gradients. Participants experienced strong temporal contiguity (the offset of a cue coincides with the onset an outcome) or weak temporal contiguity (there is a temporal gap between the offset of a cue and the onset of an outcome) in a continuous predictive learning task. Initial training involved a double negative discrimination, in which there was one reinforced cue (aqua-color rectangle) and two non-reinforced cues (one greener and one bluer than the reinforced cue), and participants had to make a response whenever they predicted the outcome. After training, in the generalization test phase, outcome expectancy in presence of several stimuli along the full green-blue dimension was tested. Outcome expectancy was assessed with discrete ratings in Experiment 1 (n=252) and a behavioral dependent measure (button presses, similar to the training phase) in Experiment 2 (n=250). Regardless the type of measure, when participants experienced weak cue-outcome temporal contiguity showed a broader generalization response, although differences were more prominent in the green side of the color dimension. Furthermore, no significant differences emerged between two groups experiencing strong temporal contiguity but differing in cue duration (controlling stimulus onset asynchrony, SOA), suggesting that cue-outcome temporal contiguity plays a more critical role than cue duration in shaping generalization. Overall, this result advances our understanding of the role of temporal contiguity at a basic level, while opening the possibility to study it as a critical factor in more applied settings.
Interleaved practice in physics benefits from collaboration
Maria Danzglock; Roland Berger; Martin Hänze
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Background: Interleaved practice is considered a desirable difficulty that fosters deeper conceptual understanding. However, its effectiveness appears to diminish when learning material becomes too complex, likely due to increased cognitive load. Aims: This study investigates whether collaborative learning can enhance the effectiveness of interleaved practice when students engage with complex physics content. Sample: A total of 376 upper secondary students (Grade 12/13) participated in the study. Methods: A 2×2 between-subjects field experiment was conducted with four conditions (interleaved vs. blocked practice × collaborative vs. individual learning). The instructional content focused on the motion of charged particles in electric and magnetic fields. Learning success was assessed through knowledge tests administered immediately after practice and after an 8-week delay. Results: The combination of interleaved practice and collaboration led to the highest learning gains, both immediately and after 8 weeks. There was no overall benefit of collaboration. Interleaving showed no main effect on immediate learning success and even a negative main effect on delayed learning success. Conclusions: The findings suggest that collaboration mitigates the cognitive demands of interleaved practice, enabling its benefits to unfold even in complex learning contexts. The results highlight that desirable difficulties are not universally effective but require appropriate instructional support. Combining interleaved practice with collaborative learning emerges as a powerful strategy to foster lasting conceptual understanding in science education.
Psychological Resilience in World Trade Center Responders is Associated with Effective Brain Network Connectivity
Ananya Iyer; Saren H. Seeley; Zoe Schreiber; Laurel S. Morris; Leah Cahn; James Murrough; Dennis S. Charney; Robert H. Pietrzak; M. Mercedes Perez-Rodriguez; Adriana Feder
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The majority of individuals experience potentially traumatic events in their lifetimes, yet most do not develop severe outcomes such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). To understand this discrepancy, a growing area of study is psychological resilience, defined as the ability to adapt in response to adversity. Altered connectivity among large-scale brain networks—default mode (DMN), central executive (CEN), and salience (SN)—is well-documented in PTSD. However, less established is these networks’ functioning in highly resilient, such as World Trade Center (WTC) responders who have never developed WTC-related psychopathology despite substantial trauma exposure. We used resting-state fMRI data from a parent study of WTC responders (N=89) to investigate effective network connectivity (i.e., influence of network X on network Y) via Granger causality analysis. Planned contrasts compared three groups: WTC-related PTSD (n=29), high WTC-exposed responders with no psychopathology (“Highly Resilient”, n=32), and lower WTC-exposed controls (n=28). We also examined whether self-report and cognitive measures were correlates of effective network connectivity. We identified a group difference in effective connectivity, with greater influence of CEN on SN in Highly Resilient responders versus Lower WTC-exposed responders. Higher CEN-to-SN connectivity was also associated with better cognitive function in the full sample and with higher estimated IQ in the Highly Resilient group. In conclusion, greater top-down control of SN by CEN may represent a compensatory adaptation after substantial trauma exposure in highly resilient individuals, associated with better cognitive function.
Stability and Change in Lower-Order Personality Traits in a Representative Swiss Sample
Peter Haehner; Michael Dominik Krämer; Bernd Schaefer; Christopher James Hopwood; Wiebke Bleidorn
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Personality development has become one of the most-widely studied topics in personality science. However, existing research has mostly focused on the Big Five domains, typically measured across long intervals between assessments using data from non-representative samples. Here, we examined personality trait changes at the domain level and at the level of lower-order aspects in a representative Swiss sample (N = 4’495). Participants in this sample rated their personality traits, life satisfaction, and self-esteem five times over 2 years. Using local structural equation models, we found high rank-order stabilities across age, with similar 1-year stabilities for Big Five domains and aspects (domains: raverage = .88, aspects: raverage = .87). Mean-level changes of aspects belonging to the same Big Five domain differed in timing and direction, and cumulative mean-level changes in personality traits were comparable to changes in self-esteem and life satisfaction. Finally, we found medium to strong correlated changes among Big Five domains (r = .33) and among aspects belonging to the same Big Five domain (r = .42), but confidence intervals of these correlated changes were broad. Our results contribute to a fine-grained picture of personality development and help to advance theoretical perspectives on personality trait changes.
Personality, Basic Psychological Needs, and Well-Being Across 22 Countries: Simulating Measurement Constraints in a Global Panel Study
Taylor G. Hill
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Personality–well-being associations are widely documented, yet evidence from longitudinal, cross-national samples remains limited and often relies on ultra-brief measures with uneven psychometric performance. Using longitudinal data from the Global Flourishing Study (GFS; N > 200,000 across 22 countries), we examined whether Big Five traits relate to well-being via half-longitudinal indirect pathways through basic psychological need satisfaction. Personality was assessed with the Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI), and well-being outcomes included life satisfaction, life worthwhileness, and happiness. Preregistered two-wave half-longitudinal mediation models, following recommendations for two-wave panel data, tested indirect pathways from conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness to well-being via competence, relatedness, and autonomy, respectively, controlling for prior levels of the mediator and outcome. Exploratory robustness analyses to evaluate cultural moderation and measurement sensitivity. Country-specific trait–life satisfaction slopes were estimated and meta-regressed on Hofstede’s Individualism–Collectivism index (IDV), with additional reliability-adjusted models incorporating country-level internal consistency estimates and sensitivity analyses using single-item (positively keyed) personality indicators. Across models, basic psychological needs robustly predicted subsequent well-being. In contrast, personality–well-being associations and apparent cultural moderation patterns were highly sensitive to measurement precision, particularly for conscientiousness and neuroticism. Results highlight both the value and inferential limits of ultra-brief personality assessment in global panel studies, highlighting the importance of routinely evaluating reliability variability, item functioning, and robustness when interpreting cross-national personality–well-being effects.
Deepfake/Real Harms: An online intervention to reduce deepfake abuse perpetration and myth acceptance.
John Twomey; Didier Ching; Emily Lavoie; Amy Louise Geary; Michael Quayle; Conor Linehan; Gillian Murphy
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Deepfake abuse involves the use of generative AI to create non-consensual synthetic intimate imagery (NSII) consisting of pornographic videos with someone’s identity swapped in without their consent. Originally deepfake videos were used as a way to harass and defame celebrity women and activists but there is a growing number of cases of deepfakes targeting ordinary people. While there are existing legal and technological efforts to mitigate perpetration, there are no evidence-based interventions aimed at preventing perpetration behaviour. We designed a short-form online intervention for deepfake NSII. The Deepfake/Real Harms intervention consists of three vignettes and takes approximately 10 minutes to complete, with the aim of increasing empathy towards victims, educating participants about deepfake myths and reducing perpetration intentions. Over three pre-registered experimental studies (N = 1628), we provide evidence of the efficacy and acceptability of the intervention, including tests in high-perpetrating populations. The intervention lowered belief in myths about deepfakes (e.g. that they are not harmful because they’re not real), and partly reduced intentions to perpetrate (e.g. to watch, share, or create deepfake NSII) with the effects on watching behavioural intention still evident at follow-ups ranging from one week to one month. We have made the current intervention freely available online and recommend follow-up work testing adapted versions of the resource with other vulnerable groups such as schoolchildren.
ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN LEVEL OF STRESS AND DEPRESSION AMONG STUDENTS
Jones Mark Ahiati
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This research study examined the level of stress and depression associated with students and how social support influences the stress and depression levels of students. There are several interactions between stress, depression, and social support towards the well-being of students at the tertiary level. One hundred students from Legon Hall of the University of Ghana participated in the research study, comprising 50 males and 50 females who voluntarily completed questionnaires related to the Perceived Stress Scale, Beck Depression Scale, and Appraisal Support Subscale. The study was conducted using a cross-sectional study to assess the participants’ level of stress, level of depression, and social support level. The result of the study showed that there was a significant difference in the level of stress among male and female students, in that males tend to have a higher level of stress than females. Also, depression accounted for a significant difference between males and females. Moreover, stress and depression accounted for a statistically significant difference, such that the high level of stress accounted for a high level of depression among participants. Also, social support and depression accounted for a statistically significant difference, but there was no statistically significant difference between social support and stress. The findings showed that students are easily associated with stress challenges, and the high level of stress was identified to cause health problems, such as high depression.
Forced or Desired Residential Relocation? Moving Voluntariness and Its Effects on Well-Being and Travel Behaviour
Dario Stolze; Felix Wilhelm Siebert; Sonja Haustein
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Residential relocations can affect well-being and travel behaviour in ambiguous ways. This study conceptualises moving voluntariness as an explanatory variable leading to favourable outcomes for voluntary movers and less favourable outcomes for involuntary movers. Specifically, we expect that voluntary movers will change or maintain travel behaviour in line with previous attitudes due to higher control and that involuntary movers will adapt more strongly to their new built environment due to lower control levels. We test this using longitudinal panel survey data of individuals expecting (n=1,234) and later realising a move (n=411). Using a novel, subjective voluntariness measure, we find that voluntary movers show improved well-being (i.e. mental health, life satisfaction, residential satisfaction, place attachment), while involuntary movers show similar but non-significant changes. Neither group shows changed travel attitude-behaviour consistencies, suggesting that subjective voluntariness does not directly translate into distinct travel behaviour change pathways. However, involuntary movers showed consistently weaker car orientations and lower mobility needs fulfilment, hinting at stable differences in travel characteristics of mover groups. Despite similar demographics, involuntary movers report lower perceived control, earlier moving stages, and higher future-location uncertainty. Our suggested subjective measure provides different well-being and travel insights than previous objective approaches. We suggest conceptual and methodological refinements, e.g. in terms of dimensionality, time-variability, reliability, and possible relations to personality/trait variables.
Lay definitions of rape: Categorisation of vignettes depicting sexual violence.
Tadgh Tobin; Craig Harper; Rebecca Lievesley; Jennifer Mackay
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Rape legislation has been broadening the scope of what counts as rape over time, with many countries now including male victims, female perpetrators and wider range of sexual activities. Research into victimisation acknowledgement and perceptions of sexual violence also show that individual-level concepts of rape are changing. No research to date has explored how the UK public define rape and how this relates to offence categorisation. In this study, participants provided a definition of rape before and after categorising sexual violence vignettes as either rape or not rape. In our sample (N = 312), ~3% defined rape accurately, with the most common definition of rape including most forms of genital stimulation and penetration. These definitions were also prone to change between pre-post questions. This supports a lay theories model of rape conceptualisation: individualised definitions that can change following heuristic evaluation of new information/evidence, with implications for research and legal practice.
Context reinstatement reveals preserved context memory specificity in normal aging
Jeremy Gardette; Agnes Szollosi; Dorottya Bencze; Mihály Racsmány; Christine Bastin
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Episodic memory specificity declines with healthy aging, as reflected in older adults’ impaired ability to discriminate between similar focal stimuli. Yet, little is known about how aging alters specificity of contextual memory features. Context reinstatement studies showed that young adults incidentally encode task-irrelevant contextual features with a high degree of specificity: focal objects are more frequently judged old when shown with studied backgrounds than with slightly altered lure backgrounds. In this registered report, we investigated the effect of context reinstatement with same, different, and visually similar lure background scenes on mnemonic discrimination for objects in younger and older adults. We found a gradual increase in old responses to both target and lure objects between different, lure, and same context conditions. Contrary to our hypothesis, this effect was present in both age groups, although older adults had a general bias towards old responses. These findings suggest that like younger adults, older adults integrate highly detailed contextual features into episodic memory traces, and that these features can influence mnemonic discrimination responses. Overall, this study highlights the value of indirect tests of context memory to study episodic memory in typical aging.
Symptom-specific Temporal Phenotyping of Anti-depressant Response to Citalopram in STAR*D Trial
Daniel P. Moriarity; Golkoo Hosseini; Manivel Rengasamy; Michael Thase
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Abstract Importance: Depression treatments do not have equal potency for all depression symptoms. To inform research design and improve clinical care, it is critical to determine if these symptom-specific effects occur at different rates. Objective: To determine the symptom-specific time-to-improvement of depression symptoms during citalopram treatment. Design: The study uses STAR*D data, which prescribed citalopram as the first stage of an open-label, multi-stage clinical trial of stepwise treatment strategies for depression. This first stage typically lasted 12 weeks and follow-up assessments were, on average, every-other-week. Setting: Multi-center Participants: Over 4,000 adults aged 18-75 years diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder without psychotic features participated in the STAR*D trial. Participants were prospectively enrolled patients in both primary and specialty care venues. Interventions: All participants started 20 mg/day of citalopram. If this dose was well tolerated, it could be increased to a maximum of 60 mg/day. Stage 1 typically lasted 12 weeks. Main Outcome(s) and Measure(s): This exploratory secondary data analysis focuses on change in the total score and each of the individual items, of the Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology-SR. Results: 3,248 depressed adults were available for the present analyses (Mean age = 41 year (SD=13 years), 62% female)). The number of observations differed for each model. The median time for 1 standard deviation improvement in depression symptoms was 28 days. Median time for 1 point improvement (all possible thresholds are reported in text) varied widely for individual symptoms. The quickest improving symptom had a median-time-to-improvement of 15 days (increased weight) and the longest took 41 days (mid-nocturnal insomnia). The rank-order of which symptoms improved the quickest was highly consistent across models with different improvement thresholds (Spearman’s ρ = .66-.91, all p <.005) and when stable improvement across multiple follow-ups was required (Spearman’s ρ=.97, p=.003). Conclusions and Relevance: Results indicate that different depression symptoms respond to citalopram at different speeds. In addition to implications for designing clinical trials, this information is essential for developing realistic treatment expectations and to facilitate shared decision-making between clinicians and their patients about how to select treatments. Trial Registration: STAR*D is registered on ClinicalTrials.gov under ID NCT00021528 (https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT00021528).
Exploring the eco-anxiety continuum: calibrating scales with item response theory
Taha Hannachi; Alain Somat
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Eco-anxiety, defined as the psychological distress related to awareness of climate change, has gained increasing attention but remains conceptually and empirically fragmented. Existing tools such as the Climate Change Anxiety Scale (CCAS) and the Hogg Eco-Anxiety Scale (HEAS) capture only partial aspects of the phenomenon. This study aimed to test the continuum hypothesis of eco-anxiety by jointly calibrating these two instruments within an item response theory (IRT) framework. A French sample of 534 participants completed a combined version of the CCAS and HEAS, analyzed using the Graded Response Model. Results showed a satisfactory unidimensional fit, with all items displaying acceptable discrimination. The HEAS predominantly assessed moderate manifestations, while the CCAS reflected more severe functional impairments. However, nearly a quarter of respondents with the lowest levels of eco-anxiety were not captured by either scale, indicating insufficient coverage of the mildest forms. External validity was supported through strong correlations with negative emotions and emotion-focused coping, but weaker associations with action-oriented strategies. These findings support the eco-anxiety continuum and highlight the need for refined tools capable of covering its entire spectrum, from adaptive concern to clinical manifestations.
When items become context: how retrieval questions shape memory
Jeremy Gardette; Christine Bastin
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In context-dependent memory research, focal objects are by default ascribed to item whereas backgrounds are considered the context. Questioning this assumption, it was recently proposed that context is not encoded but only reconstructed. Any aspect of an event could thus become either item or context depending on the question asked. Here we provide evidence consistent with this hypothesis across six pre-registered experiments employing a context reinstatement paradigm. When the recognition memory test focused on background scenes, reinstating the original objects increased the rates of old responses to targets and lures. We further showed that this effect remained when background scenes were task-irrelevant, and objects task-relevant, at encoding. Finally, Experiments 4-6 showed that this effect can be found when objects are task-irrelevant at encoding, but that this effect depends on the size of the objects. Overall, these results support context is reconstructed rather than encoded, but that the perceptual properties of the stimuli can limit the effect of context on memory retrieval.
The road not taken: Selective sampling and persisting inaccurate impressions
Emily Vanlooy; Chris Harris; Ruud Custers
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When individuals learn through experience, they tend to choose the options they believe will produce the most favorable outcomes. Research by Harris and colleagues (2020) indicated that this inclination to consistently engage with the perceived optimal choice can bias the resulting evidence, potentially perpetuating inaccurate beliefs under certain conditions. As it is unclear whether this effect is driven by people attempting to approach positive outcomes, or by their drive to avoid negative outcomes, the current study aims to distinguish between those two motives. Participants completed a two-armed bandit task with identical options, where initial evidence was manipulated to induce the belief that one option was better than the other. Experiment 1 was conducted in a rewarding context, where financial gains served as a reinforcer (as opposed to neutral outcomes), while Experiment 2 featured a negative context, with the omission of an expected aversive event as a reinforcer. Behavioral measures showed signs of a lasting bias in the aversive context of Experiment 2, corroborated by a bias in explicit contingency estimates. No such effects were observed in the positive context of Experiment 1. These findings suggest that lasting biases in experiential learning are driven more strongly by negative than positive outcomes. Implications for the acquisition of irrational aversive beliefs are discussed.
Ten simple rules for setting up a psychedelic study
Alice Caulfield; Matt Butler; Mitul Mehta
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This article provides guidance for researchers establishing psychedelic studies, with a particular focus on the UK research landscape.
Trial-wise awareness ratings do not capture the dynamics of masked priming
Alexander Berger; Michaela Rohr; Dirk Wentura; Markus Kiefer
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Trial-wise subjective awareness ratings, particularly the Perceptual Awareness Scale (PAS), have been widely recommended for assessing awareness in masked priming research. Central to this approach is the assumption that awareness may fluctuate across trials, and that such changes in awareness are accompanied by corresponding changes in priming. We put this assumption to a direct test by reanalyzing data from three masked priming experiments examining evaluative response priming and semantic priming, each including samples with and without trial-wise PAS ratings. Using effect course analysis, we traced the development of PAS-ratings and priming effects during the experimental session. Across experiments, PAS-ratings systematically increased with practice, including in catch trials in which no prime was presented, indicating a shift in response criterion rather than increased perceptual awareness. Critically, these changes in PAS-ratings were not accompanied by corresponding changes in priming effects, and individual changes in PAS-ratings and priming effects were uncorrelated. Moreover, priming exhibited qualitatively different time courses in samples with versus without PAS-ratings, suggesting that trial-wise awareness ratings alter priming dynamics. These findings challenge a key assumption underlying trial-wise subjective awareness ratings and raise methodological concerns about the use of PAS in masked priming research.
A Moral Turing Test to assess How Subjective Belief and Objective Source Affect Detection and Agreement with LLM Judgments
Basile Garcia; Crystal Qian; Stefano Palminteri
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As large language models (LLMs) are increasingly integrated into decision-making systems—such as autonomous vehicles and medical devices—understanding how humans perceive and evaluate AI-generated judgements is crucial. To investigate this, we conducted a series of experiments in which participants evaluated justifications for moral and non-moral choices, generated either by humans or LLMs. Participants attempted to identify the source of each justification (either human or LLM) and indicated their agreement with its content. We found that while detection accuracy was consistently above chance, it remained below 70%. In terms of agreement, there was no overall preference for human-generated responses, even though machine-generated justifications were favored in particularly challenging moral scenarios. Notably, we observed a systematic anti-AI bias: participants were less likely to agree with judgments they believed were AI-generated, regardless of the true source. Linguistic cues, such as response length, typos, first-person pronouns, and cost-benefit language markers (e.g., “lives,” “save”), influenced both detection and agreement. Participants tended to disagree with cost-benefit calculations, possibly due to an expectation that AI would favor such reasoning. These findings highlight the influence of motivated belief and ingroup/outgroup bias in shaping human evaluation of AI-generated content, particularly in morally sensitive contexts
Music shapes the content of spontaneous thought
Wei Wu; Hazel Aileen van der Walle; Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis; Kelly Jakubowski
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Spontaneous thought is often considered an unconstrained, internally generated mode of thinking that is independent of the present perceptual environment, making it difficult to study empirically. However, recent accounts have raised the possibility that the generation and content of spontaneous thought can be shaped by even weak perceptual constraints. We leveraged this new perspective to develop a novel approach using music, a ubiquitous stimulus that permeates our everyday environments, as a window into the mechanisms supporting spontaneous thought content. Adults spanning four age groups listened to music from ten different genres and completed the open-ended task of writing descriptions of any thoughts that arose. By applying natural language processing analysis to the spontaneous thought descriptions, we found that thoughts sustained while hearing music from the same genre shared greater semantic similarity than those sustained while hearing music from different genres, and participants from the same age group experienced more similar thoughts than those from different age groups. Properties that varied naturally with genre, including the music’s auditory features, expressed emotions, and contextual associations, all contributed significantly to explaining the greater semantic similarity of thoughts within genres. These results demonstrate that spontaneous thought is jointly shaped by perceptual and experiential constraints, opening new avenues for understanding when and why particular thoughts come to mind, with implications for creativity and mental health.
Psychopathy and hostile attributions in impulsive and premeditated homicide offenders
Anna Zajenkowska; Adrianna Jakubowska; Joanna Rajchert; Karolina Koszałkowska; Marta Bodecka-Zych; Nina A. Gehrer
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The study explored links between psychopathy facets (Disinhibition, Meanness, Boldness) and (a) hostile attributions in relational and physical harm situations (using vignettes and visual scenes), (b) hostile interpretations such as anger recognition in morphed faces, and (c) general preference for anger measured via eye-tracking. Data were collected in two waves from the same sample of homicide offenders (N = 65 in the first wave; 48 of these participated in the second wave). Psychopathy facets were assessed using the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure (TriPM). Higher disinhibition and meanness were linked to more hostile attributions in ambiguous relational harm scenarios. Also, they predicted greater intentionality attributed to both male and female authority figures, while increased blame was assigned only to female authority figures in physically harmful scenes. Contrary to expectations, higher levels of disinhibition, meanness, and boldness were associated with reduced recognition of anger in ambiguous facial expressions. Meanness was also related to delayed initial fixations on angry faces compared to other emotions and longer gaze durations on male fearful faces compared to female fearful faces. This study advances understanding of the cognitive and emotional aspects of hostility.
A model-based analysis of music-evoked nostalgia without prior listening experience
Yuna Sakakibara; Masaki Mori; Shinya Fujii
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Nostalgia is a complex emotional impression that involves autobiographical recall, with music serving as one of the key triggers. Previous studies have examined the factors of nostalgia evoked by music with prior listening experience from both personal and contextual perspectives using a psychological heuristic model. Although anecdotal evidence suggests that music-evoked nostalgia can occur even without prior listening experience, previous studies did not address the cognitive and emotional processing. Based on an existing model, this study quantitatively investigated the factors associated with nostalgic experience evoked by music without listening experience. Our results showed that music-evoked nostalgia without prior listening experience was associated with the same contextual features as nostalgia with prior listening experience, including familiarity, autobiographical salience, and mixed emotional responses. In contrast, low arousal and personality traits related to susceptibility to sadness were associated only with nostalgic experience, which differs from previous studies on nostalgic experience for music with listening experience. These results enhance our understanding of how music can evoke nostalgia not only through autobiographical memories but also through its comprehensive structural properties.
Burst-related potentials as a temporal anchor for cognition
Marie C. Schuma; Ayelet N. Landau; Ilka Diester; Michael Anderson; Golan Kavrat
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Traditional approaches probe cognition by aligning brain activity to external stimuli. Building on evidence that transient oscillatory activity marks neural responses, we articulate burst-related potentials (BRPs) as temporal anchors for studying cognitive processes poorly captured by stimulus-locked analyses.
The Distracted Participant? Experience Sampling Response Behavior and Participant Disturbance in Social Situations
Gudrun Eisele; Robin Achterhof; Aleksandra Monika Lachowicz; Joana De Calheiros Velozo; Thomas Vaessen; Lisa Peeters; Inez Myin-Germeys
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Research using self-reports hinges on the assumption that participants pay sufficient attention to questionnaires to provide valid data. This assumption is particularly tenuous in experience sampling method (ESM) studies, where participants complete questionnaires in daily life across a range of potentially distracting situations. Previous research suggests that participants may be particularly distracted when responding to ESM questionnaires in social situations, especially when engaging in social interactions. Yet, the effects of these environmental distractions on response behavior and, consequently, data quality remain poorly understood. We investigated the effects of distracting environments on disturbance and response behavior across various social and non-social situations. ESM data from three young adult samples (combined N = 293) and a general population youth sample (N = 1903) was analyzed with multilevel (logistic) regressions. In line with previous research, adults were significantly more disturbed by assessments when in company compared to when alone, especially when also interacting with their company. In addition, we found small but significant differences in response behavior between social settings in adults, with changes pointing towards lower data quality when in company. Interestingly, patterns were different–in some cases even reversed–in school-going adolescents. While our findings suggest that the distraction of social settings affects participant burden and response behavior, the influence on data quality was minor. Differences across samples suggest that the setting of the social experience (in vs outside school) needs to be considered. Preparing participants for sampling in distracting (social) environments may help safeguard data quality and reduce participant burden.
Affective well-being trajectories during the transition out of upper secondary education: A measurement burst study
Anne Grünert; Stacey Scott; Joshua M. Smyth; Andreas B. Neubauer
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The present work investigated changes in well-being during the transition out of upper secondary education (i.e., from shortly before graduating from upper secondary education to approximately one year later). The motivation for a post-school pathway (e.g., starting university or vocational training) was examined as a potential predictor of between-person differences in well-being trajectories. German-speaking high school graduates (N = 874 between ages 16 and 20; 69% female, 95% born in Germany) reported on their affective well-being in up to four surveys and indicated their motivation for their post-school pathway. At three measurement occasions, participants also participated in a three-week experience sampling phase, in which they reported on their daily well-being. Latent change models revealed an initial increase in well-being after graduation, but mixed evidence for subsequent trajectories, as both positive and negative affect decreased on average. Changes in well-being were more pronounced for global than for daily assessments of affective well-being. We did not find associations between the motivation for a post-school pathway and well-being trajectories. Overall, these findings highlight the complexity of well-being trajectories during the transition out of upper secondary education and the importance of using multiple time points and assessment methods to understand these dynamics.
Responses to social defeat in early- vs late-onset suicidal behavior: an experimental behavioral study
Anna Szücs; Elizabeth Campbell; Katalin Szanto; Alexandre Dombrovski
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Background Social defeat is often cited as a motive for suicide. The experience of defeat may arise from feeling dominated in a dyadic conflict or from losing status in a group. We hypothesize that sensitivity to dyadic defeat will be related to the onset of suicidal behavior in early or mid-life and sensitivity to loss of status, in late life. Methods The study’s sample of 245 adults aged 50 years and older (mean = 63.2 years, SD = 7.4) comprised 42 early-onset and 32 late-onset suicide attempters (aged < 50 vs ≥ 50 years at their first suicide attempt), 114 depressed non-attempter comparisons, and 57 non-psychiatric comparisons. Using a validated rigged video game tournament task, we operationalized compensatory responses to the two forms of social defeat as point stealing from individual opponents (one-on-one defeat) and rank buying in the league table (loss of status in a group). Results Early-onset attempters increased point stealing the most over time (χ2 3 = 22.37, p < .001), whereas late-onset attempters purchased more rank after losing trials than early-onset attempters and non-psychiatric comparisons (χ2 3 = 9.47, p = .024). Each effect was robust to adjusting for age and sex, other effects of interest, and to the exclusion of long-string responders. Conclusions Our behavioral findings suggest that socio-behavioral processes leading to suicide vary across the life cycle. While vulnerability to dyadic defeat could be suicidogenic for people of any age, loss of social status could play a role in suicidal crises specifically occurring in later life.
Do people sincerely believe conspiracy theories that they endorse?
Robert M Ross; Luke Ashton; Shaun Wilson; Kate Gleeson; Neil L Levy
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Survey data are widely used to estimate the prevalence of belief in conspiracy theories and to test hypotheses about the correlates, causes, and consequences of these beliefs. However, concerns have been raised about how often endorsement of conspiracy theories reflects sincere belief. We examined sincerity in a survey of 1,044 Australians and found that endorsement of six pre-existing conspiracy theories was not rare, ranging from 10% to 19%, and that 7% endorsed two that were clearly contradictory. However, 10% of participants endorsed a novel and highly bizarre raccoon army conspiracy theory that we invented, almost certainly insincerity, and endorsement of this conspiracy theory was a strong predictor of endorsing pre-existing conspiracy theories, including the two contradictory ones. Moreover, 13% of participants reported that they had responded insincerely during the study, which was also a strong predictor of endorsing pre-existing conspiracy theories. Overall, our results suggest that anonymous online surveys can produce inflated estimates of the prevalence of belief in conspiracy theories, which raises serious questions about how studies of “belief in” conspiracy theories – and misinformation more broadly – have been interpreted.
Following spoken instructions in school-aged children and young adults: Does giving more time or repeating instructions help?
Evie Vergauwe; Naomi Langerock
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Following instructions is essential for academic success but challenging, especially for children, as it relies on working memory. Here, we used insights from working memory research to design and test ways to improve short-term maintenance of instructions in young adults and school-aged children. Participants memorized and executed sequences of spoken instructions under a baseline and three experimental conditions: additional free time, active verbal repetition, and passive repetition. In young adults, free time substantially improved performance. Passive repetition also improved performance, but not beyond the effect of free time. Active repetition, on the other hand, slightly impaired it. In 9-year-olds, active repetition also impaired performance, but free time provided little benefit. These findings demonstrate that providing more free time during instruction delivery improves performance in young adults but is far less effective in children, suggesting important developmental differences in the short-term maintenance of instructions and the (strategic) use of free time.
Aquahenosis: A non-pharmacological altered state of consciousness induced by Floatation-REST
Theo Tobel; Aidan Cone; Emily Choquette; McKenna Garland; Micah Johnson; Keller Mink; Caitlin Lynch; Joel Frohlich; Justin Feinstein; Nicco Reggente
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Floatation-REST (Reduced Environmental Stimulation Therapy) systematically alters sensory and bodily input by combining neutral buoyancy, thermal and proprioceptive neutrality, attenuation of exteroceptive stimulation, and enhancement of cardiorespiratory signaling to the brain. Here we examined whether this non-pharmacological sensory perturbation induces altered states of consciousness and whether specific experiential dimensions are statistically related to changes in affect. In a secondary analysis of a randomized controlled feasibility trial, 75 treatment-seeking adults with anxiety and depression were assigned to six sessions of floatation-REST with prescribed scheduling, floatation-REST with preferred scheduling and duration, or a zero-gravity chair comparison condition. Altered states of consciousness were assessed using the 5-Dimensional Altered States of Consciousness questionnaire, alongside measures of interoceptive awareness and affect. Compared to the chair condition, Floatation-REST was associated with increased interoceptive awareness of cardiorespiratory sensations and an altered state of consciousness characterized by oceanic boundlessness, disembodiment, unity, and spiritual-type experiences—a pattern we refer to as “aquahenosis.” Effects were strongest among participants who selected longer and more flexible float sessions. Experiential profiles selectively overlapped with those reported for psilocybin and ketamine along boundary-dissolution dimensions. These findings identify Floatation-REST as a tractable, non-pharmacological method for inducing specific altered states of consciousness and highlight positively valenced boundary dissolution as a modality-invariant experiential dimension linking sensory context to affective change.
Rapid Auditory Feedback Control of Speech is Based on the Current Production, Not an Idealized Target
Alexander Jensen Acosta; Elaine Kearney; Alfonso Nieto-Castanon; Frank H H Guenther
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Purpose: The concept of an auditory target that is monitored by the sensory-motor system during speech is central to most models of speech production, yet little is known about the nature of these auditory targets. The goal of this study was to determine whether the auditory feedback controller for speech uses “idealized” acoustic targets or simply attempts to correct deviations from the motor commands to the speech articulators. Method: We investigated the stability over time of the auditory targets used for online auditory feedback control (AFC) of fundamental frequency (fo) and first formant frequency (F1) using a combination of auditory perturbation experiments and computational modeling. Twenty-three young adults participated in reflexive fo and F1 perturbation experiments across four different days: two mornings and two afternoons. Results: Analysis of unperturbed productions across participants indicated that baseline fo varied with session number, and baseline fo and F1 varied with time of day. The pattern of the participants’ compensatory responses to upward and downward fo and F1 perturbations across sessions with low and high baseline fo/F1 values strongly indicated that the auditory target used for AFC differed between low and high baseline sessions. Computer simulations of the SimpleDIVA model were used to quantitatively compare this variable-target model (in which AFC utilizes a different target in different sessions) to a single-target model; these simulations verified the superiority of the variable-target model. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that the auditory targets for AFC arise from predictions generated from the ongoing motor command, i.e. the efference copy, rather than an idealized and optimal auditory target, and they have important implications for models of speech motor control.
Learning from oneself: Function learning with self-generated samples
Hidehito Honda; Rina Kagawa
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Humans often learn functional relationships in environments shaped by their own prior actions rather than by repeated exposure to an objective ground truth. The present research investigated how people learn functions when learning is based on self-generated samples. Across three preregistered behavioral experiments (N ≈ 1,800), we introduced a novel experimental paradigm that occupies an intermediate position between experience-based learning and iterated learning. Participants repeatedly learned relationships between two variables across multiple rounds, where training data in later rounds were generated from their own prior predictions rather than from an externally defined function. The results revealed a characteristic combination of inductive bias, stability, and flexibility in human function learning. Learned relationships were systematically aligned with the true underlying functions, and the relative ordering of learned correlations in the final round preserved meaningful distinctions among functional forms. At the same time, learning trajectories exhibited strong path dependence: once formed, beliefs about functional structure tended to persist across rounds. Analyses of learning-phase behavior and cognitive modeling showed that differences across functions were primarily driven by initial error rather than learning rate. Together, these findings demonstrate that learning from self-generated samples does not inevitably lead to runaway bias. Instead, it supports adaptive knowledge acquisition while revealing how prior assumptions and feedback jointly shape learning over time. The present paradigm provides a new framework for studying learning in environments where experience is endogenously generated.
No evidence for the modulation of the readiness potential by respiratory phase
Lucas Jeay-Bizot; Raniyah Chishti; Uri Maoz; Aaron Schurger
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Correlations in science typically matter as indications of underlying causal structures. In two recent studies, a direct correlation between respiration and the cortical readiness potential (RP) is claimed, with support for causation suggested by the use of terms such as ‘impact’ and ‘modulate’. Following these papers, the notion of a causal relation between respiration and the RP has been repeated in the literature. However, to support the claim that respiratory phase is directly correlated with RP amplitude, all reasonable potential confounds must first be ruled out. We show that a simple confound suffices to explain the observed coupling between respiration phase and the RP: RP amplitude is also coupled with movement onset, which, as these studies rightly reveal, tends to coincide with breathing phase. To test for direct correlation, we must fix one of the variables and test its effect on the other. Grouping RP amplitudes according to respiratory phase (thereby fixing the respiration-behavior coupling), we show that evidence for an RP-respiration coupling disappears. We show this to be true in the original dataset, in a new independent dataset we collected, and in a simulated dataset expressly engineered to have no direct coupling.
Affective valence tracks value rather than value updates during classical conditioning
Daniel Parr; Jacqueline Bao; Seth Madlon-Kay; Gregory Russell Samanez-Larkin; Kevin S LaBar
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Value and affective valence are pivotal constructs in decision and emotion science that are commonly believed to be closely connected. However, there is no consensus on precisely how these constructs relate, with different researchers adopting substantially different views. Here, we sought to clarify this relationship by providing a critical test of two leading hypotheses: that affective valence tracks value, and that affective valence tracks value updates (i.e., changes in value). To accomplish this goal, we assessed the determinants of affective valence in a context where these hypotheses make clear and dissociable predictions – classical conditioning. Across three studies, we found consistent evidence that affective valence tracked value per se, rather than value updates. Additionally, we show that more optimistic expectations can lead to more positive affective responses to actual outcomes. These results provide insight into the relationship between value and affective valence, and thus inform the broad range of psychological research that depends on an understanding of the connection between these constructs.
L3 acquisition of Mandarin Chinese stop consonants by learners with L1 Spanish/Thai and L2 English
Jingyi Han; Ting Wang; Miao Zhang
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This study examines the source of cross-linguistic influence (CLI) in the L3 phonological acquisition of Mandarin Chinese stop consonants. We compared Voice Onset Time (VOT) production in two groups of multilinguals: L1 Spanish learners (a ``true voicing'' language) and L1 Thai learners (a three-way contrast language), both with English as an L2. Results indicate that the typological similarity between L1 and L3, rather than L2 status, determines L3 production outcomes. L1 Thai learners successfully mapped Mandarin stops to their native (un)aspirated categories, achieving near-native accuracy via facilitative transfer. In contrast, L1 Spanish learners showed non-facilitative CLI from their L1. We further identify regressive transfer (phonetic drift) exclusively in the Spanish group, where exposure to aspiration systems (English and Mandarin) shifted native Spanish voiceless stops away from the monolingual baseline. These findings challenge the L2 Status Factor, suggesting that in the absence of high L2 proficiency or dominant societal use, the L1 remains the primary source of CLI for L3 phonological acquisition.
What Does a Healthy Personality Do? Levels, Stability, and Change in Well-Being Across Time
Taylor G. Hill
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Healthy personality profiles, characterized by higher extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness alongside lower neuroticism, are often assumed to support broad flourishing across the life course. Yet it remains unclear whether healthy personality primarily predicts higher levels of well-being, greater stability over time, or systematic change. Across two studies, we examined what having a healthy personality does for well-being by distinguishing between levels, stability, and change. Study 1 used cross-sectional data from a community sample to test whether a profile-based Healthy Personality Index (HPI) was associated with broad mental well-being. Healthy personality was strongly associated with higher well-being and accounted for substantial variance relative to demographic factors, while providing a parsimonious summary of personality-related variance. Study 2 used a four-wave longitudinal panel to examine whether healthy personality predicted evaluative well-being across time, change in psychological richness, and stability in well-being. Healthy personality was associated with higher average life satisfaction and life worthwhileness across waves and with greater temporal stability in life satisfaction. In contrast, healthy personality did not predict increases in psychological richness and was associated with smaller gains over time. Together, these findings suggest that healthy personality primarily supports the maintenance and stability of well-being rather than transformation or growth.
Emerging Insights into Cognitive Control from Computational Models of Choice
Alexander Samuel Weigard; Andrew Heathcote; Chandra Sripada
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Research into cognitive control has flourished over the last three decades across many areas of the psychological and neural sciences, but problems have recently emerged that raise foundational questions about what cognitive control is, how individual differences should be measured, and the validity of cognitive control as an explanation for variation in behavioral traits and clinical conditions. Here, we outline a novel perspective that is rooted in evidence accumulation models, formal mathematical models that explain how individuals make choices across many contexts. We review model-based work that distinguishes conflict-specific processes, which are selectively engaged to address goal-conflicting information, from task-general processes that facilitate goal-congruent responding irrespective of the presence of conflict. We then highlight the computationally-derived measure we call efficiency of evidence accumulation (EEA) that reflects the task-general amplification of goal-congruent information. EEA forms a trait-like individual difference dimension, explains individual differences in performance in cognitive control tasks, and shows clear relevance to behavioral traits and clinical conditions in which control is thought to be impaired. These findings help address multiple theoretical, methodological, and empirical challenges in the study of cognitive control and provide a promising way forward for characterizing control processes that enhance goal-relevant responding across time and contexts.
Hippocampal connectivity predicting memory specificity and memory generalization abilities
Kyla Brannigan; Lea Frank; Dagmar Zeithamova
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Flexible use of memory involves both the ability to form detailed memories of individual experiences (specificity) and to generalize across related experiences (generalization). Memory specificity and generalization have been attributed to distinct neocortical regions, such as ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) and ventromedial PFC respectively. Hippocampus has been traditionally associated with memory specificity, but more recent work highlights additional role in generalization. Here, we tested the hypothesis that hippocampus supports both memory specificity and generalization, but through interactions with distinct cortical regions. Fifty-two adults learned to categorize blended face stimuli, enabling both extraction of category structure (generalization) and encoding of item-specific features (specificity). Background functional connectivity was measured using fMRI during passive viewing of the same faces before and after learning. Participants showed robust category learning, above-chance recognition of studied faces from similar lures, and successful category generalization to novel category members. Recognition and categorization performance were not highly correlated, suggesting distinct processes supporting each memory function. In the brain, we found distinct connectivity profiles of anterior hippocampus, presumed to preferentially support generalization, and posterior hippocampus, presumed to preferentially support specificity. Learning led to increased anterior hippocampal connectivity with default mode regions including ventromedial PFC, and posterior hippocampal connectivity with visual cortex. Increased anterior hippocampal connectivity with ventromedial PFC, somatomotor cortex, and visual cortex predicted better category generalization, whereas increased posterior hippocampal connectivity with ventrolateral PFC predicted more accurate face recognition. Whole-brain exploratory analyses revealed widespread learning-related changes in cortico-cortical interactions, with changes in connectivity among visual, somatomotor, and default mode networks predicting categorization. Together, these findings support the notion that hippocampus supports both memory specificity and generalization through interactions with distinct cortical regions. These results advance mechanistic accounts of how the hippocampus and cortex coordinate to balance competing memory demands.
Registered Report - Conversational Remembering about Personal Lived Experiences: Shared Reality and Autobiographical Reflection
Kristi Costabile; Abby Boytos; Grace M Wasinger; Emma Bognar
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Interpersonal communication often involves conversational remembering in which an individual describes their autobiographical experiences to a conversation partner. In two studies, we aimed to examine the role of conversational remembering on autobiographical reflection under experimentally-rigorous and ecologically-valid conditions. This registered report examined how the experience of a shared reality with a communication audience affects: (a) how rememberers attached the recalled event to their self-concept, (b) how connected rememberers felt with their communication audience, and (c) the role of the recalled event when projecting future experiences. Study 1 used an experimental design that manipulated both shared reality and event valence to examine effects on communicators’ perceptions of self, social, and future outcomes. Study 2 used a daily diary design to examine experiences related to conversational remembering in everyday life. Findings indicate that shared reality is a critical component of the communication process enhancing self, social, and directive memory outcomes, regardless of event valence. This work builds upon previous research to more fully understand the role of communication processes on autobiographical consciousness and the meaning individuals derive from their remembered life experiences.
A discretization model of measurement errors
Mathias Berggren; Jessica Kay Flake
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Classical (random) errors cause measurements to differ when they should truly be the same. Here we present a model of the inverse type of errors: that cause measurements to be the same when they should truly differ. We term these errors discretization errors, develop their mathematical model, and show how they can be corrected for when calculating slopes and correlations in linear models using a correction similar to the Spearman one for classical errors, and correction factors similar to classical reliabilities. This allows a general way to model and correct for these types of errors. Any situation where multiple true scores get collapsed can be understood with this model. We discuss how existing approaches fit into this general framework (e.g., scoring binary responses using Item Response Theory), and sketch the broader range of situations where the model can be applied. Discretization errors have the capacity of organizing, guide modelling, and furthering our understanding about an extensive class of errors beyond classical ones, that psychological researchers frequently encounter.
Against Frictionless AI
Emily Zohar; Paul Bloom; Michael Inzlicht
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AI's greatest strength—removing friction from work and relationships—is also a liability. Prioritizing outcome over process, it eliminates desirable difficulties that drive growth. By subtracting effort from life, AI risks removing the struggles that teach us, the loneliness that connects us, and the labor that makes life meaningful.
Episodic memory encoding fluctuates at a theta rhythm from 3-10 Hz
Thomas Matthew Biba; Alexandra Decker; Bjorn Herrmann; Keisuke Fukuda; Chaim Katz; Taufik Valiante; Katherine Duncan
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Why do some experiences endure in memory better than others? Here, we explore the possibility that learning fluctuates rhythmically several times per second, with fortuitously timed experiences being more memorable. Although such fleeting opportunities for encoding would evade our awareness, they are predicted by a prominent model describing how theta rhythms in the brain coordinate memory – the Separate Phases for Encoding and Retrieval (SPEAR) model. Here, in a pre-registered study, we adapted a dense sampling approach to reconstruct the millisecond time-course of memory encoding in n=125 participants. We found that memory encoding fluctuated at a theta rhythm (3-10 Hz), that these rhythms were not a byproduct of rhythmic attention, and that—like theta rhythms in the brain—memory rhythms were modulated by putative markers of acetylcholine. Our findings provide behavioral evidence consistent with the SPEAR model of episodic memory.
Body Dysmorphic Disorder in the Digital Age: Algorithmic Mechanisms and Clinical Implications for Adolescents
Syed Ali Bokhari; Muhanad Elnoor; Patol Mhd Husam Alsabagh; Reem Mudawi; Meshal A. Sultan
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Background: Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) affects approximately 1.8% of adolescent females and 0.3% of males, with onset typically between ages 12 and 16 years. Image-based social media platforms and algorithmic content curation have created digital environments that may influence appearance-related psychopathology in vulnerable youth, yet no synthesis has examined these mechanisms with attention to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) practice. Methods: This narrative review synthesised evidence on associations between social media use and BDD symptoms in adolescents through searches of PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar (January 2015 to December 2025), focusing on algorithmic mechanisms, emerging digital phenomena, gender-specific presentations, and clinical implications. Results: Cross-sectional evidence demonstrates platform-specific effects, with image-based platforms showing significant associations with BDD symptoms. Appearance-motivated social media use is more predictive than total screen time, and intolerance of uncertainty may moderate this relationship. Algorithmic personalisation may create filter bubbles increasing appearance-focused content exposure, while variable-ratio reinforcement maintains compulsive engagement. Gender differences are evident: females predominantly experience skin and weight concerns amplified by filtered imagery, while males increasingly present with muscularity preoccupations linked to "looksmaxxing" communities. Emerging phenomena include Zoom dysmorphia and AI-powered appearance tools. Conclusions: This review proposes the Algorithmic Amplification Model of Digital BDD and introduces the Digital BDD Screening Tool for Adolescents (DBST-A) for CAMHS assessment. Cognitive-behavioural therapy requires adaptation incorporating digital exposure hierarchies and algorithmic literacy psychoeducation. Clinicians should routinely enquire about platform-specific behaviours, editing practices, and engagement with AI tools and appearance communities.
Performance of Korean-English Bilinguals on an Adaptation of the Screening Bilingual Aphasia Test
Seongsil Lee; Yasmeen Faroqi-Shah
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Background: The use of standardized tests specifically designed for and normed on bilingual groups is crucial for accurate diagnosis and language profiling of bilingual speakers with aphasia. Currently, there is a dearth of norms and supporting psychometric data for the few available bilingual aphasia assessments. The only available aphasia test for Korean-English bilinguals is the Korean-English Bilingual Aphasia Test (KE-BAT). The absence of bilingual normative data for the KE-BAT limits its clinical and research utility. Aims: This study aimed to 1) revise the original screening KE-BAT to clarify ambiguities in instructions and stimuli, and 2) examine subtest and item performance across the two languages for the revised screening KE-BAT with a local sample of highly proficient Korean-English bilinguals. Methods & Procedures: The original screening KE-BAT was first revised to replace unrecognizable drawings, address ambiguities in instructions and stimuli, and increase the number of items on naming subtests. This revised test is henceforth referred to as the adapted screening KE-BAT (AS KE-BAT). Twenty-one neurologically healthy, highly proficient and college educated Korean-English bilinguals (19-34 years) were recruited from a large city in the United States. Participants completed three measures of language proficiency and the AS KE-BAT including the Korean-English translation test (Part C). Total and subtest scores were compared across the two languages, and individual item accuracy was calculated. Incorrect responses of low scoring items were examined. Outcomes & Results: Performance was comparable across Korean and English for all subtests, except for the spontaneous speech subtest. The item accuracy of 17 items (7% of total items) in the AS KE-BAT fell below 80%, and 4 items (1.6% of total items) had an accuracy lower than 60%. Incorrect responses of low scoring items were caused by phoneme mis-perception, lexical substitution, and morpho-syntactic L2 patterns. Conclusions & Implications: The results of the present study highlight the importance of empirically examining the performance of neurotypical bilinguals on bilingual aphasia assessments to establish their psychometric properties. Based on the small-sized local bilingual normative sample obtained in this study, appropriate cut-off criteria, recommendations for clinical interpretation, and further modifications of the AS KE-BAT are proposed.
Balancing precedent and mutual benefit in tacit coordination
Arthur Le Pargneux; Sydney Levine; Hossam Zeitoun; Nick Chater; Joshua Tenenbaum; Fiery Andrews Cushman
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Human coordination depends on two complementary mechanisms: forward-looking strategies that enable flexible adaptation to new circumstances, and backward-looking mechanisms that rely on precedent, convention, and rule-following. Most cognitive and computational models of coordination emphasize one mechanism or the other—either explaining how equilibria emerge and persist when agents adapt their behavior based on past experience, or how agents creatively generate novel solutions and strategies to achieve anticipated mutual benefit in the challenges of the moment—but not how the two interact. Here we introduce a cognitive model and experimental paradigm to capture the dynamics of both processes and, crucially, the arbitration between them. In two preregistered experiments (n = 510; 30,420 choices), participants repeatedly solve coordination problems that can be addressed either by generalizing past solutions or by adopting novel ones when precedent becomes inefficient. This design allows us to examine the conditions under which individuals or dyads decide to abandon entrenched equilibria and transition to novel coordination solutions by arbitrating between mutual benefit and precedent. By formally modeling both forward- and backward-looking mechanisms, and the process of arbitration between them, we provide a unified framework for understanding how human coordination can be both stable and adaptable—a property that underlies everyday cooperative behavior, social norms, and institutional evolution.
Evaluating biomarkers and prediction models with E2P Simulator
Povilas Karvelis; Daniel Felsky; Anissa Abi-Dargham; Guillermo Horga; Andreea Andreea
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Precision psychiatry aims to identify biomarkers and develop prediction models to improve diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment selection for mental illness. Despite extensive research, translating findings into clinically useful tools remains challenging. Here we argue that one key contributor to this translational gap is a pervasive misalignment between routine statistical analytic practices and the criteria for clinical utility. To address this, we introduce E2P (effect-to-prediction) Simulator, an interactive web tool for estimating the real-world predictive value and clinical utility of biomarkers and prediction models by accounting for real-world outcome base rates and measurement reliability – a procedure we term predictive utility analysis. Similar to how power analysis helps optimize research for statistical significance, predictive utility analysis can help optimize it for practical significance. The interactive nature of E2P Simulator makes this approach accessible to non-statistician researchers while also providing publication-ready figures to aid with transparency and standardization of reporting. We demonstrate its application in three key areas: diagnostic (depression, Alzheimer’s disease), treatment response (antidepressants), and risk (suicide attempts and psychosis onset) prediction, highlighting conditions under which we may expect clinically meaningful advances. While we focus on translational challenges in psychiatry, the framework and tools presented here address general statistical challenges and are broadly applicable across biomedical and behavioral sciences.
Training and Oversight of Algorithms in Social Decision-Making: Algorithms With Prescribed Selfish Defaults Breed Selfish Decisions
Terence Daniel Dores Cruz; Mateus Lucena
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Human social preferences serve as oversight or training data to shape how Artificial Intelligence (AI) makes decisions, which occurs increasingly across decision-making domains, including social decisions that influence human to human interactions. Here, we test how algorithms with and without prescribed social preferences, shape social decision-making and explore delegating further decisions. In an incentivized online experiment (n = 1290), participants provided social preferences for outcomes favoring oneself or an anonymous other, Social Value Orientation (SVO), as input to a decision-making algorithm. We manipulated whether for each SVO money division question, participants saw no default options (representing providing training data) or proself/prosocial default options (representing oversight of algorithms with prescribed selfish/prosocial preferences). Default options were either from an algorithm or not. Results showed that participants’ social preferences were not significantly impacted by providing input to an algorithm without prescribed preferences (vs no defaults) nor by an algorithm with prescribed prosocial preferences (vs the same defaults without an algorithm and vs the algorithm without prescribed preferences). Only providing input for an algorithm with prescribed proself preferences resulted in more selfish social preferences (vs the algorithm without prescribed preferences and vs the algorithm with prescribed prosocial preferences). Moreover, counter to this, participants perceived being less influenced by proself than prosocial defaults. Most people delegated a second social decision-making task to the algorithm they were exposed to. These findings suggest that human oversight could be insufficient to address algorithmic biases, as individuals act more selfishly when exposed to pre-existing selfish tendencies in algorithms.
Autistic and non-autistic children’s perceptual decision-making in visual orientation and motion tasks and the effect of task instructions
Louisa Thomas; Gaia Scerif; Hodo Yusuf; Mackenzie Laird; Grant John Taylor; Nathan J. Evans; Catherine Manning
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Diffusion decision models (DDMs) offer the potential to go beyond standard accuracy and response time indices to better understand perceptual decision-making in autism. One unanswered question is whether autistic participants can flexibly adjust the speed and accuracy of their decision-making according to task demands. Across two pre-registered studies, 50 autistic and 50 non-autistic children aged 6-14 years completed a visual orientation task with no explicit instructions to be fast or accurate, and a visual motion task under both speed-emphasis and accuracy-emphasis instructions. These studies allowed us to investigate the influence of task, task instruction and modelling approach on group differences. We fit Bayesian hierarchical DDMs using a rigorous blind modelling approach, and follow-up two-step non-hierarchical analyses. For the first time, we showed that autistic children can flexibly adjust their decision-making strategies according to speed-accuracy instructions. Irrespective of task, instructions and modelling approach, we found no conclusive evidence of group differences in any DDM parameters, highlighting that autistic and non-autistic children were both able to modulate task performance according to instruction. These results show that cognitive flexibility is not uniformly reduced in autism. To better understand within-participants variability, we investigated relationships between decision-making parameters and ADHD-related traits, reading ability, sensory processing and coordination skills. We found task-specific evidence for relationships between DDM parameters and sensory under-responsivity, sight-word reading and hyperactivity/impulsivity. Resolving inconsistent results when applying DDMs to autism will require contrasting modelling approaches, clear reporting of task instructions, and considering dimensions that co-occur with autism.
Golden Retrievers: Older adults solve single-digit arithmetic via fact retrieval
Katharina Sautter; Elise Klein; Christina Artemenko
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Arithmetic skills are crucial for mastering everyday life up to old age. However, it is unknown whether the interplay of different task characteristics affects arithmetic performance differently in older and younger adults. The aim of this study was to investigate whether older adults show deficits in arithmetic fact retrieval besides general slowing. Older (≥ 60 years) and younger adults (18 – 34 years) solved single-digit arithmetic problems in a verbal production paradigm. Arithmetic performance and strategy use were assessed for all four basic arithmetic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division), varying in problem size (small vs. large). Older adults were slower than younger adults in all operations except multiplication. Older adults were able to preserve a similar problem size effect, as they used fast retrieval strategies more often than younger adults to solve large single-digit problems (except for division). While older adults can retrieve arithmetic facts equally well as younger adults, they are slower when using procedural strategies. Overall, this study suggests that older adults do not show deficits in arithmetic fact retrieval but their arithmetic fact knowledge is even superior to that of younger adults and therefore can compensate for some of the age-related domain-general cognitive deficits.
Fighting fire with fire: The role of physiological arousal in media-induced recovery
Tamas Nagy; Anna Viola Sandor; Kinga Boróka Kopacz; Donát Jakus; Flora Janku
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Media use is often a means of recovering from stress and mental fatigue, and prior work suggests that emotionally intense media content may paradoxically support recovery. We examined whether physiological arousal contributes to this effect. In a preregistered, double-blind laboratory experiment, participants (N = 366) received caffeine or placebo, completed a cognitively demanding attention task, and then either watched an emotionally engaging video (positive stand-up comedy, negative horror, or a neutral documentary) or waited for four minutes. Caffeine increased skin conductance level and subjective arousal and reduced mental fatigue relative to placebo. All video conditions also facilitated recovery, with the horror video producing the largest improvement. However, we found no evidence that physiological arousal and media-induced emotion interacted to enhance recovery beyond their separate effects. In contrast to excitation transfer accounts, heightened arousal neither strengthened affective responding nor improved recovery beyond the effects of media exposure alone.
Thermal pain tolerance depends on stimulus duration and thermode type
Yi Wei; Julie S.P. Storkson; Kai Sherwood; Maya Joshi Delity; Titilola Akintola; Troy C. Dildine; Hayley Owens; Lauren Yvette Atlas
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Quantitative Sensory Testing (QST) allows researchers and clinicians to evaluate variations in acute pain and thermosensation within and across individuals. However, it is unclear how experimental factors, such as thermode type and stimulation duration, affect pain measurements. We compared three types of thermodes at two stimulus durations to assess potential impacts on QST outcomes. Across two experiments, a total of 83 (45 and 38 respectively) healthy volunteers each completed two QST tasks that varied in thermode type (ATS, CHEPS or T03) and/or stimulus duration (8s or 3s), with order counterbalanced across participants. In each task, heat was applied to 8 sites on the left volar forearm for three runs (24 trials in total) and temperatures were selected through an adaptive staircase calibration procedure. Pain threshold, tolerance, and the strength of the correlation between stimulus temperature and pain ratings (r²) were estimated using linear regression. Results indicate that briefer stimuli were associated with higher pain tolerance (t = -3.28, p = 0.018), while there was no effect of duration on threshold or temperature-rating correlation. Thermode type influenced pain tolerance in short (3s) (t = -3.10, p = 0.01) but not long (8s) durations, such that on 3s trials, tolerance was higher with the smaller surface thermode (T03) compared to the larger surface thermode (CHEPS), consistent with spatial summation. No sex differences were found. These results demonstrate that suprathreshold pain tolerance, but not threshold, is sensitive to stimulus duration and thermode type. These findings also indicate the importance of methodological standardization in QST and the careful selection of suprathreshold pain stimuli in experiment design.
Cloze, Frequency, Surprisal, or Plausibility? A Comparative Analysis of Predictors for Local Ambiguity Resolution
Markéta Ceháková; Jan Chromý
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This study investigated the cognitive mechanisms underlying the processing of gardenpath sentences by examining the influence of verb bias (frequency), contextual bias (cloze scores), surprisal, and plausibility. Using self-paced reading with yes/no comprehension questions, we analyzed a structurally diverse set of eleven types of ambiguous and unambiguous sentences. Our results revealed that contextual bias was the most robust predictor of processing difficulty, significantly influencing both reaction times and response accuracy. Specifically, the likelihood of a misanalysis, as indexed by cloze scores, predicted the persistence of incorrect interpretations and reanalysis difficulty. In contrast, verb bias, surprisal, and plausibility exerted weaker or inconsistent effects, with only plausibility showing a limited interaction in the accuracy data. These findings suggest that comprehenders rely heavily on contextual cues when interpreting syntactically ambiguous input, and that reanalysis success depends not solely on structural preferences or lexical predictability but on the overall likelihood of the initial misanalysis and of the intended interpretation.
The Interplay of Personality Functioning and Affect-Event Dynamics in Predicting Future Impairment and Depression – A Large Mobile Mental Health Ambulatory Assessment Study
André Kerber; Johannes Zimmermann; Johannes C. Ehrenthal; Annette Brose; Tobias Nolte; Sebastian Burchert; Sophia Heinzmann; Ina Beintner; Christine Knaevelsrud
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Since the introduction of the dimensional assessment of personality functioning (PF) in DSM-5 and ICD-11, impairments in PF have consistently been related to transdiagnostic risk-factors for mental health. However, ecological momentary assessment (EMA) investigating PF in relation to affect-event dynamics and other psychopathology are scarce. Leveraging EMA data from 16,038 mental health app users, this study examines how baseline impairments in PF, within-person affect-event dynamics, and depression predict longitudinal outcomes in PF impairment and depression severity. We hypothesized a central role of PF in these relationships. Within the first month of usage, on average, 69.3 (range 31-142) mood assessments and 63.3 (range 25 - 133) event assessments were available per user. Dynamic structural equation models (DSEM) showed that baseline depression was associated with weakened or even negative concurrent and cross-lagged links between mood and positive events, including lower inertia and reduced likelihood of positive events. In contrast, baseline PF impairment was associated with persistence, emotional impact and volatility of interpersonal conflict events as well as with greater mood instability. Over a one-year follow-up (N = 1,464; M = 1,236 assessments per user), DSEM identified different patterns: Future PF impairment and depression were both predicted by less concurrent mood-positive event associations, less positive event volatility, and baseline average mood/events. Among affect-event dynamics, cross-lagged effects of interpersonal conflicts on mood explained the highest unique variance of future PF impairment (ΔR2 5.9%). Notably, baseline PF exhibited the strongest overall predictive utility (ΔR2 = 19.5%), followed by baseline depression symptoms (ΔR2 = 11.9%) with PF showing higher variance explanation in future depression severity than vice versa. Results offer specific targets for interventions: assessment of PF could help to inform decisions regarding duration, goals, and intervention strategies beyond the treatment of personality disorders. We contextualize the results within the limitations of the study, notably the use of a single method.
Psychological Richness in Everyday Life: Personality, Novelty, and Emotional Engagement
Taylor G. Hill
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Objective: Psychological richness has been proposed as a distinct dimension of the good life, characterized by complexity, emotional engagement, and perspective-altering experiences. However, relatively little is known about the personality traits and everyday processes that give rise to psychologically rich lives. Method: In a four-week longitudinal study (N ≈ 300), we examined how personality, daily psychological need satisfaction, and week-to-week experiential qualities relate to psychological richness and other well-being outcomes. Results: At baseline, openness to experience emerged as the strongest personality correlate of psychological richness, alongside extraversion and agreeableness. Personality traits did not predict changes in psychological richness over the four-week period once baseline richness was accounted for. Satisfaction of competence, relatedness, and novelty needs was associated with higher life satisfaction and life worthwhileness, with novelty showing unique within-person associations above and beyond other needs. Weekly excitement predicted increases in psychological richness from Week 1 to Week 4, controlling for baseline richness. Conclusions: These findings highlight richness as an experiential pathway to the good life that is distinct from happiness and meaning.
The National Couples’ Health and Time Stress Biology Study (NCHAT-BIO): Wave 1 Methodology Report and Wave 3 Preview
Lisa Christian; Ethan Morgan; Rebecca Roberts Andridge; Juan Peng; Jenny Marlar; Wendy Manning; Steve Cole; Thomas McDade; Claire M Kamp Dush
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Objective. Sexual minority populations are growing, experience elevated physical and mental health risks, and have unique stressor exposures. However, biopsychosocial research on sexual minority individuals at the population level remains limited. Addressing this gap, we launched the National Couples’ Health and Time Stress Biology Study (NCHAT-BIO), the first US-based study focused on stress biology within a large, diverse sample of married/cohabiting sexual minority and heterosexual adults. NCHAT-BIO capitalized on the unique opportunity of NCHAT, a population-representative US sample which intentionally oversampled sexual minority respondents. Methods. NCHAT-BIO was approved by The Ohio State University and Gallup Institutional Review Boards. A total of 950 participants completed at-home dried blood spot (DBS) collection with return by mail. After exclusions, 787 respondent samples were assayed. Samples were analyzed for interleukin-6 (IL-6), C-reactive protein (CRP), and Epstein Barr Virus (EBV) antibodies. Final analytic samples were: IL-6 (n=452), CRP (n=663), EBV (n=647, including n=84 EBV negative). These biomarker data can be merged with rich NCHAT survey responses, time diaries with an embedded Experience Sampling Method (ESM) component, and contextual state- and county-level indicators. Dissemination. Wave 1 NCHAT-BIO data have been deposited at ICPSR for public release; the current report should be cited in future empirical manuscripts using these data. Wave 1 NCHAT survey data are also at ICPSR, and the two archives will be linked to facilitate integrated use. Future Directions. Whole blood data collection from Wave 3 NCHAT participants will begin in 2026. Planned assays, which will also become publicly available, include IL-6, CRP, and epigenetic aging (per DNA methylation).
Shared Principles, Selective Justice
Jonathan Jackson; Tasseli McKay; Aziz Huq
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Does political polarization over immigration enforcement reflect disagreement about civic ideals—due process, equal treatment, and limits on state power—or disagreement about who deserves them? Scope of justice theory posits that abstract ideals constrain concrete judgments primarily when targets fall inside one’s moral community. In a probability-based United States sample (N = 1,386, with oversamples of Hispanic and MAGA-identifying respondents), Democrats and Republicans endorsed civic ideals at similarly high levels yet applied them selectively. Among respondents who morally included undocumented immigrants, civic ideals were associated with more critical evaluations of ICE and greater anger toward enforcement. Among those with exclusive moral boundaries, civic ideals showed weak or null associations with enforcement judgments. Moral inclusion and perceived procedural justice were jointly associated with substantial attenuation of partisan gaps in legitimacy judgments of both ICE and local police. Polarization reflects selective application of shared principles rooted in disagreement over moral standing.
How Self-Reference Enhances Susceptibility to Misinformation: An Event-Related Potentials Study
Mingyao Sun; Jane Wang
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Self-reference can increase susceptibility to misinformation, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. In the current study, we introduced an explicit memory reactivation phase prior to misinformation exposure to investigate how self-referential encoding affects the formation of suggestive false memories. Twenty-eight participants encoded event scenarios either as protagonists directly involved in the events (i.e., self-reference) or as bystanders observing others (i.e., other-reference), and subsequently read narratives containing misleading information. Behavioral results showed that self-referential encoding led to higher misinformation acceptance. Event-related potential analyses revealed that self-reference enhanced late memory reactivation, indexed by the late positive component (LPC), but not early reactivation of the frontal N400 (FN400). During misinformation exposure, misleading information elicited greater late posterior negativity (LPN) than control information, specifically for self-referential memories, reflecting increased source monitoring demands. We also found that successfully rejected misinformation elicited more negative LPN than control information, again specifically for self-referential memories. Our findings imply that self-reference enhances susceptibility to misinformation through two potential mechanisms: stronger late-stage memory reactivation that increases memory instability, and enhanced integration of misinformation with self-representations, which triggers source monitoring without ensuring successful rejection.
Explaining Brain Computation Through Mechanistic Interpretability of Deep Neural Networks
Martina Gonzalez Vilas; Federico G Adolfi; Bhavin Choksi; Gabriele Merlin; Mathis Pink; Alan Sun; Gemma Roig; Mariya Toneva
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Deep neural networks (DNNs) are increasingly used to model brain computation, yet the principles linking their internal operations to neural mechanisms remain elusive. We propose a framework which leverages a recent advance in the interpretability of DNNs---mechanistic interpretability---to uncover shared algorithmic structure between DNNs and the brain via two parallel pathways. The Mechanism-to-Brain pathway uses interpretability to extract computational mechanisms from models that generate hypotheses about neural implementation. The Brain-to-Mechanism pathway begins from observed brain–model correspondences and applies interpretability to identify model components that could instantiate similar computations. These pathways interact through mutual constraints, ensuring that advances in one domain inform and delimit inquiry in the other, and through iterative refinement, where discrepancies between models and data drive the reciprocal revision of both mechanistic analyses and neuroscientific hypotheses. Together, they establish a principled route toward causal, mechanistic explanations of cognition, positioning DNNs as computational model organisms for probing the algorithms of the brain.
Data-Driven Hierarchical Digital Twins of Social Interactions
Manuel Brenner; Ismail Guennouni; Daniel Durstewitz; Stephanie Nicole Lyn Schmidt; Stefanie Lis; Peter Kirsch; Georgia Koppe
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Social interactions are inherently complex, shaped by dynamic trust building, biases, and adaptive strategies. Yet in laboratory settings, their study is often constrained by small datasets that nonetheless encode rich and sophisticated cognitive processes. This scarcity has historically limited modeling approaches to hand-tailored frameworks that embed strong priors about the underlying mechanisms. Recent advances in data-driven modeling of latent dynamical processes provide an alternative, extracting generative models directly from behavioral data without restrictive assumptions. Building on these methods, we derive hierarchical digital twins from sparse, non-Gaussian investment sequences in repeated trust games. Our approach proceeds in three stages. First, we demonstrate that, despite the limited data, the inferred twins can accurately predict future investments, establishing predictive validity and providing a solid baseline for subsequent mechanistic analyses. Second, we analyze the latent dynamics of these models and show that they capture mechanistic structure in how investments and choice uncertainty are organized in state space and how social versus non-social cues are represented, in a way that parallels patterns observed directly in the empirical behavior. Third, we exploit the generative nature of the hierarchical digital twins to run in-silico experiments beyond the original data, such as probing how specific cues steer participants into trusting or mistrusting states and simulating responses to novel, unobserved cue-outcome combinations and trustee strategies. Together, this work demonstrates how generative digital twins open a new path toward mechanistic, data-driven accounts of social interaction dynamics that both reproduce observed behavior and support hypothesis generation in virtual environments.
De la dysrégulation émotionnelle circadienne à la perte d’existence : la dynamique du Soi incarné comme modèle neuro-phénoménologique du trouble traumatique complexe
Benjamin PUTOIS
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Cet article présente le modèle de la dynamique du soin incarné (DSI), un modèle neuro-phénoménologique intégratif qui propose que le sentiment d’existence émerge de la coordination rythmique entre le corps, l’émotion et le récit au fil du cycle veille-sommeil de 24 heures. En se concentrant sur le trouble de stress post-traumatique complexe (PTSD-C), il avance que le traumatisme perturbe cette intégration rythmique, fragmentant la conscience et produisant la triade caractéristique du trouble : désorganisation du soi, dysrégulation émotionnelle et instabilité interpersonnelle. Les troubles du sommeil associés au PTSD-C ne sont donc pas des symptômes secondaires, mais les expressions nocturnes d’une même désynchronisation qui fracture le Soi incarné. Le modèle identifie trois pôles neurofonctionnels : le Soi-Soi, ancré dans les réseaux hémisphériques droits et vagaux qui assurent la sécurité corporelle et l’intéropception (dominant durant le sommeil lent profond) ; le Soi-Autrui, centré sur les circuits gauches amygdalo-hippocampo-préfrontaux et langagiers qui transforment l’affect en signification symbolique (liés au sommeil paradoxal) ; et le Soi-Monde, qui synchronise ces dimensions dans l’engagement relationnel et la vitalité (éveil). Lorsque le traumatisme désynchronise ces pôles, la conscience perd sa cohérence, donnant lieu aux manifestations typiques du PTSD-C : hyperactivation, dissociation, apathie. Ces pôles soutiennent quatre piliers expérientiels de l’existence : la Sécurité, la Présence, la Vitalité et l’Existence. Chacun reflète une dimension fondamentale du Soi vivant ; leur déséquilibre entraîne la fragmentation du sentiment d’être. La DSI reformule ainsi le PTSD-C non comme un trouble de la mémoire, mais comme une pathologie du rythme, une incapacité du temps à reprendre son cours après le traumatisme. Sur le plan thérapeutique, la DSI unifie les approches somatiques et psychologiques en proposant un modèle de guérison incarnée et rythmique. Il inspire la conception d’un protocole EMDR 2.0, intégrant la régulation des huit émotions primaires de Panksepp par des régulateurs naturels (tremblements, bâillement, marche, cris, vomissement, etc.), associés à la rescénarisation symbolique et au jeu de rôle incarné. L’objectif n’est pas seulement la réduction des symptômes, mais la restauration d’un rythme global entre sommeil, émotion et vitalité. Sur le plan éthique, la DSI envisage la thérapie comme une co-régulation rythmique entre deux systèmes vivants, le patient et le thérapeute, dont la synchronie restaure la continuité du Soi. À une époque marquée par la désynchronisation collective, il invite à repenser la santé mentale comme l’art de retrouver les co-rythmes qui soutiennent l’être.
Working with Circular Data: A Tutorial for Cognitive and Behavioral Research
Stella Wernicke; Julie de Falco; Zahara Gironés; Chris Jungerius; Ivan Tomic; Adam Triabhall; Xiaolu Wang; Paul Bays
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Introductory statistics courses and conventional methods in behavioral and cognitive science are typically restricted to Euclidean space without explicitly stating this, leaving many researchers unaware of how to handle data with circular or periodic properties (e.g., time of day or orientation on a screen). This tutorial provides an accessible yet rigorous introduction, designed to bridge the gap between statistical theory and practical application. After an overview of common applications, we discuss different ways of representing circular data mathematically and fundamental principles for working with them. We explain angular and vector representations and operations, including key considerations for implementing them in computer code. We then survey methods for visualizing circular data, including linear and polar plots and presentation of summary statistics. Next, we discuss circular measures of central tendency, dispersion, and shape: how they relate to their Euclidean counterparts, and why they differ. Finally, we turn to more advanced topics of the kind needed to construct models of circular data. We introduce the most common circular distribution families, including circular analogs of the Gaussian distribution and their properties, as well as flexible distribution families that can describe skewed and heavy-tailed data. The tutorial takes a method-oriented approach, not tied to specific software, but highlighting factors relevant to experimental design, data analysis, and statistical modeling. A consistent theme is the need to rigorously account for the inherent periodicity of circular data. We also provide a consistent notation for circular statistics and parameters, addressing the lack of established conventions in the field.
Are We Forgetting Something? Two of the Most Effective Learning Strategies Are Not Explained in Teacher-Education Materials
Magnus Ingebrigtsen; Vetle Lars Wisløff Sandring; Jarle Bastesen; Tove Irene Dahl; Rannveig Grøm Sæle
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Educational reforms often emphasize that students should learn to learn and use good learning strategies. Spaced repetition and retrieval practice are two effective and well-documented strategies that reliably improve both comprehension, retention, and knowledge transfer. They can also increase interest and reduce test anxiety, making them especially relevant for teachers. However, many learners misunderstand or underutilize these strategies, and research indicates they are underrepresented in teacher education curricula. To investigate this, we analyzed assigned readings in Norway’s largest postgraduate teacher training programs (PPU-A). Using zero-shot text classification, we identified 992 excerpts likely to address repetition or retrieval. Two coders then evaluated whether these excerpts contained accurate explanations or examples. We found no complete explanations of either strategy. Some excerpts provided clear examples, but most were incomplete or ambiguous. This suggests that two fundamental cognitive strategies with clear educational relevance are being overlooked or misconceived in teacher education curricula.
Modelling structured trial-by-trial variability in evidence accumulation
Steven Miletic; Niek Stevenson; Luke Joseph Gough Strickland; Andrew Heathcote
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This tutorial presents a comprehensive framework for modelling structured trial- by-trial variability in evidence accumulation models (EAMs). Traditional EAMs assume independent and identically distributed (IID) parameters across tri- als, which fails to capture the temporal dynamics and structured variability inherent in cognitive processes. We introduce Bayesian hierarchical methods to estimate EAMs that incorporate trial-level variability, offering both data- driven and theory-driven approaches. Data-driven methods describe how decision processes vary across trials using trend models, while theory-driven methods explain adaptations in response to specific factors. By moving beyond the IID assumption, our approach allows for a more precise characterisation of dynamic cognitive processes such as learning, adaptation, and fatigue. This tutorial pro- vides step-by-step guidance on implementing these methods using the EMC2 package, demonstrating their application to experimental paradigms involving choice and response time data.
The NOvel Virtual Exploration and Learning Task (NOVEL-T): An Easy to Administer Task to Capture Human Spatial Exploration Behavior
Luming Zheng; Ineke van der Ham; Judith Schomaker
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Exploration behavior is a multifaceted activity that is observed across species. Individuals, however, differ in their tendency to seek out and explore novelty. Understanding these differences is also relevant from a clinical perspective as exploration behavior is affected by several neurological and psychiatric disorders (including depression and anxiety disorders). Typically, individual differences in exploration are measured via self-report scales, that are potentially subject to bias. More objective behavioral measures have been developed, but these tests are difficult to administer (e.g., they require a designated room and ambulatory monitoring). Here, we introduce a novel behavioral paradigm – the NOvel Virtual Exploration & Learning Task (NOVEL-T) – that can be easily administered (even online), which captures three distinct aspects of exploration behavior (1. exploratory activity, 2. shape of exploration, 3. exploratory efficiency). In the NOVEL-T, participants freely explore a naturalistic, 3D virtual environment while exploration behavior is automatically tracked. Here, we describe the NOVEL-T methodology as well as a novel analytical approach. We tested its construct validity by investigating the relationship between the NOVEL-T exploration measures and the novelty seeking (NS) trait. The results suggest that participants who scored higher on NS, also exhibited more exploratory activity in the NOVEL-T, demonstrating its validity for assessing the NS behavioral phenotype. Interestingly, our other exploration measures were not related to NS, suggesting they offer distinct measures of exploration behavior not captured by the NS trait. Taken together, the NOVEL-T offers an objective and easy to administer method to measure exploration behavior, that could be used both in research and clinical applications.
Differences between males and females in long-term outcomes of adults diagnosed with ADHD in childhood
N.E. van der Plas; Anne Marije Kaag; Barbara Franke; Catharina Hartman; Pieter Hoekstra; Nanda Rommelse; Emma Sprooten; Jaap Oosterlaan; Marjolein Luman; Siri Noordermeer
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Background. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a prevalent neurodevelopmental disorder, with increased risk for negative adult long-term outcomes. These outcomes may differ between males and females with ADHD, but whether these differences are more pronounced in ADHD or similar to those in the general population remains unclear. Method. In an 18-year follow-up of 283 children (Mage = 28.48) we assessed if sex moderated 51 long-term outcomes across 7 domains: psychiatric status, behavioral/emotional problems, academic/professional functioning, adaptive functioning, neurocognition, physical health, and healthcare service use in those with ADHD (nfemales = 50, nmales = 104), and without ADHD (nfemales = 77, nmales = 52). Additionally, we aimed to explore the moderating role of gender-expression. Results. Sex interacted with group for social functioning: males with ADHD were more likely to show lower social functioning compared to females with ADHD and controls. There were no sex differences on the other outcomes. As sex and gender-expression were highly similar (r = .94), specific effects of gender-expression could not be studied. Conclusions. Generally, sex did not have a more pronounced effect on long-term outcomes of childhood ADHD in individuals with ADHD compared to the general population. Gender-expression could not be studied in our predominantly cisgendered sample.
A mindset-based intervention promotes academic adjustment during high-stakes examination preparation
Jianjie Xu; Fenghua Tang; XuNan; Xinru Ma; Yiguo Sun; Hui Wang; Yueqin Hu; Zhanjun Zhang; Mark Shuquan Chen; Rachel Han
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High-stakes examinations place sustained psychological and behavioral demands on students, yet scalable tools to support adjustment during prolonged preparation remain limited. We conducted a large-scale randomized field experiment (N = 2,189) to test a fully online 3-week mindset-based goal achievement intervention designed to strengthen both adaptive interpretations of stress and the behavioral capacities required to enact them in everyday learning activities. Compared with five active and passive control conditions, the intervention produced greater improvements in academic adjustment, reflected in higher academic effort and self-esteem immediately after completion, and the advantage in effort remained detectable at follow-up. Mediation analyses showed that increases in subjective vitality and value-aligned action, rather than changes in stress mindset alone, accounted for gains in adjustment, underscoring the role of behavioral and resource-based mechanisms in translating mindsets into adaptive academic adjustment. Among participants who reported official examination scores, the intervention also yielded higher Mathematics scores, but not Politics or English scores, suggesting that psychological support may be most consequential in disciplines where performance depends on sustained deliberate practice. These findings show that rigorously evaluated psychological interventions can support students during high-stakes academic preparation and may represent a scalable pathway toward greater educational equity.
Attitudes toward Technology and Technology-Free Environments: An Empirical and Theoretical Investigation of the User Experience
Amotz Perlman
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In recent decades, with the rapid advancement of technology, it has become an integral part of our daily lives. In efforts to understand the factors influencing people’s willingness to use technology, numerous variables have been proposed that may affect the motivation to adopt it. At the same time, various theoretical models have been developed to explain how the experience of using technology is formed. The aim of the present study is to examine the relationship between attitudes toward technology and attitudes toward technology-free situations. To this end, attitudes toward different types of environments were measured using questionnaires. The experiment examined the relationship between attitudes toward a new technological human resources system and attitudes toward the old, non-technological system. The study’s findings indicate a negative (statistically nonsignificant) relationship between attitudes toward the old system and attitudes toward the new system—a result consistent with previous findings. The discussion presents two possible explanatory approaches to the experience occurring during technology use. According to the first approach, the experience arises only when the particles composing the neurons assume finite and fixed values; prior to that, only the probability of their values can be estimated, and thus the experience is not yet conscious, although the information is stored in long-term memory. In contrast, the alternative approach holds that the experience is based on the retrieval of previous examples stored in memory — meaning that the experience is a reconstruction of one of those examples.
Thinking—Fast, Slow, and Artificial: How AI is Reshaping Human Reasoning and the Rise of Cognitive Surrender
Steven D Shaw; Gideon Nave
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People increasingly consult generative artificial intelligence (AI) while reasoning. As AI becomes embedded in daily thought, what becomes of human judgment? We introduce Tri-System Theory, extending dual-process accounts of reasoning by positing System 3: artificial cognition that operates outside the brain. System 3 can supplement or supplant internal processes, introducing novel cognitive pathways. A key prediction of the theory is “cognitive surrender”—adopting AI outputs with minimal scrutiny, overriding intuition (System 1) and deliberation (System 2). Across three preregistered experiments using an adapted Cognitive Reflection Test (N = 1,372; 9,593 trials), we randomized AI accuracy via hidden seed prompts. Participants chose to consult an AI assistant on a majority of trials (>50%). Relative to baseline (no System 3 access), accuracy significantly rose when AI was accurate and fell when it erred (+25/-15 percentage points; Study 1), the behavioral signature of cognitive surrender (AI-Accurate vs. AI-Faulty contrast; Cohen’s h = 0.81). Engaging System 3 also increased confidence, even following errors. Time pressure (Study 2) and per-item incentives and feedback (Study 3) shifted baseline performance but did not eliminate this pattern: when accurate, AI buffered time-pressure costs and amplified incentive gains; when faulty, it consistently reduced accuracy regardless of situational moderators. Across studies, participants with higher trust in AI and lower need for cognition and fluid intelligence showed greater surrender to System 3. Tri-System Theory thus characterizes a triadic cognitive ecology, revealing how System 3 reframes human reasoning and may reshape autonomy and accountability in the age of AI.
A discretization model of measurement errors
Mathias Berggren; Jessica Kay Flake
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Classical (random) errors cause measurements to differ when they should truly be the same. Here we present a model of the inverse type of errors: that cause measurements to be the same when they should truly differ. We term these errors discretization errors, develop their mathematical model, and show how they can be corrected for when calculating slopes and correlations in linear models using a correction similar to the Spearman one for classical errors, and correction factors similar to classical reliabilities. This allows a general way to model and correct for these types of errors. Any situation where multiple true scores get collapsed can be understood with this model. We discuss how existing approaches fit into this general framework (e.g., scoring binary responses using Item Response Theory), and sketch the broader range of situations where the model can be applied. Discretization errors have the capacity of organizing, guide modelling, and furthering our understanding about an extensive class of errors beyond classical ones, that psychological researchers frequently encounter.
Exploring Emotional Responses to Familiar Music in Healthy Adults: A Systematic Review
Samuel Raymond Butler
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Exploring Emotional Responses to Familiar Music in Healthy Adults: A Systematic Review. This systematic review investigates the emotional responses elicited by familiar music in healthy adults. Emotional responses were measured through subjective ratings of valence and arousal, while physiological responses included electrodermal activity (EDA) and heart rate (HR) as supportive indicators of subjective experiences. Searches across Google Scholar, PubMed, and PsycInfo yielded experimental studies focused on familiarity based on memory recognition of whole musical pieces as opposed to individual elements (e.g., tempo or timbre).
The Shift Toward Extremity Among Self-Identified Moderate Partisans
Federico Zimmerman; Mina Cikara; Yphtach Lelkes; Joaquin Navajas; Amit Goldenberg
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Empirical work shows that partisans are disproportionately attracted to extreme allies on their own political side compared to moderates, a phenomenon called political acrophily. We argue that this preference for extremes also shapes the beliefs they adopt: many citizens who describe themselves as moderate partisans increasingly endorse the most extreme positions on core policy issues. We call this pattern belief acrophily: the tendency to hold predominantly extreme positions on political issues in relation to one’s own political identity. Using American National Election Studies data from 1972–2024, we show that belief acrophily has risen sharply over time: by 2020 and 2024, moderate Democrats and Republicans were more likely to place themselves at the extreme ends of issue scales on social benefits, health care, and race than at the midpoint. Panel data reveal that moderate partisans with extreme views are substantially more likely to adopt stronger partisan identities in the future. This analysis suggests that polarization is deepening not only through increased issue position sorting according to party membership, but also through intensifying extremity of moderates’ positions on concrete issues.
University Students' Situational Motivation over a Statistics Course and Relations to Anxiety
Henriikka Juntunen; Heta Tuominen; Jaana Viljaranta; Lars-Erik Malmberg; Auli Toom; Markku Niemivirta; Kati Vasalampi; Eija Räikkönen
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We examined the intra- and interindividual variability of students’ motivation (i.e., expectancies, values, and costs) and statistics anxiety, how motivation relates to anxiety within situations, and whether there are differences in these relations between students. We applied an intensive longitudinal design and multilevel structural equation modelling approach in a sample of 154 Finnish university students enrolled in a statistics course. The results showed that anxiety was negatively predicted by expectancies and values, and positively by costs, but that there were significant individual differences in these associations. For example, some students experienced higher anxiety when they had low expectancies, whilst some when they had high expectancies. Furthermore, the results showed that expectancies and values negatively predicted relatively higher anxiety for a particular student. Overall, the findings highlight the particular role of expectancies, values, and costs on statistics anxiety and the variability between individuals across learning situations.
The Relationship Between Childhood Trauma and Adult Neuroticism: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Norma Rosenek; Shannon Wake; Rachel Runton; Amber Davies; Nur Albaroudi; Abigail Pollen; Lyn Ellett; Jayne Morriss
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Childhood trauma has been consistently associated with elevated levels of neuroticism in adulthood, a transdiagnostic trait marked by emotional instability, heightened negative affect, and stress sensitivity. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to synthesise evidence examining the association between childhood trauma and adult neuroticism, both overall and by specific trauma subtypes. A comprehensive search of four electronic databases identified 136 eligible studies, encompassing a total of 526,371 individuals. Using a random-effects meta-analysis, results revealed a significant positive association between childhood trauma and adult neuroticism (g = 0.46). The strength of the association between neuroticism and the different trauma subtype varied. The strongest association was observed for emotional neglect (g = 0.40), followed by emotional abuse (g = 0.33). In addition, there were associations between neuroticism and physical abuse (g = 0.18), physical neglect (g = 0.15), sexual abuse (g = 0.22), unspecified abuse (g = 0.13), and victimisation (g = 0.21), with the exception of unspecified neglect, which showed no significant association. These findings demonstrate a robust relationship between early adversity and neuroticism. Childhood trauma may lead to adaptions that give rise to neuroticism through several psychological mechanisms such as disruptions in attachment and the formation of negative self-beliefs, and neurobiological alterations in stress regulation systems. These results underscore the importance of systemic preventative measures and early intervention strategies that may alleviate the psychological and neurobiological consequences of trauma, with the potential to increase awareness of adaptions such as neuroticism in trauma-exposed populations.
Mind Wandering During Rest, Evoked by Preferred Music, Does Not Impede Short-Term Memory Consolidation
Juan Felipe Ariza; Juan David Leongómez
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Research has shown that rest is beneficial for memory consolidation. However, periods of rest are also prone to evoke mind wandering (MW) episodes, which have been observed to be an obstacle to learning. As such, an apparent paradox arises from these observations: individuals benefit from rest to consolidate memories, but those periods of rest are likely to elicit MW episodes, which are seen as impeding consolidation. Using the caught probe paradigm, we measured the effect of MW frequency over performance in two dot pattern classification tasks after two types of periods of rest: rest in silence and rest with preferred music. We found that MW and rest conditions interact to predict accuracy in a Novel or Old categorisation task, but not in a Category Classification task. Although rest with music was predictive of better post-rest task performance in the Novel or Old task, MW frequency was related with higher accuracy only when participants rested in silence. What is more, we found that participants’ attitudes towards music reliably moderated the effect of MW over the Novel or Old task accuracy. Together, these results show that MW during rest is potentially beneficial for short-term memory consolidation and does not necessarily interfere with it.
Modeling Self-Reference in Schizophrenia: General and Specific Mechanisms Underlying Decision-Making are Differentially Associated with Paranoia
Carly A Lasagna; Timothy Joseph Pleskac; Alexander Weigard; Ivy Fei Tso
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Background and Hypothesis: Individuals with schizophrenia (SZ) show difficulties deciding whether social cues are meant for them, which are implicated in paranoia and social functioning. Recent computational modeling findings suggest that such disruptions may stem from inefficient and biased “evidence accumulation”—the process of gathering information to make a decision. However, it is unclear whether these disruptions are specific to social information processing, particularly self-referential processing, or whether they reflect general processing deficits. Study Design: Mechanisms and clinical correlates of decision-making were examined in 39 SZ and 42 controls across three domains: self-referential social processing (eye contact detection task), non-self-referential social processing (facial gender identification task), and non-social general perceptual processing (visual integration task). Drift Diffusion Models characterized whether inefficient and biased evidence accumulation in SZ was specific to self-referential processing or reflected more general deficits. Study Results: Relative to controls, evidence accumulation in SZ was less sensitive to visual cues during eye contact detection and gender identification—not visual integration. Biased evidence accumulation occurred in SZ only during eye contact detection. In SZ, less sensitive evidence accumulation during eye contact detection and gender identification—not visual integration—was associated with worse paranoia, even after controlling for general processing difficulties. Conclusions: Aberrant self-referential social processing in SZ may be shaped by mechanisms supporting social and self-referential—but not basic visual—information processing. Paranoia was associated with disrupted processing of social—not non-social—information. Therefore, disrupted evidence accumulation in SZ may have differential symptom associations across social and non-social contexts.
Who values passion in education?
Jinli Wu; Courtney Brooks; Renjie Zhang; jingqiao yuan; Paige Amormino; Kibum Moon; Adam Green; Yulia Chentsova-Dutton
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Passion predicts student performance more effectively in individualistic than collectivistic contexts. Across three studies, this research examined cultural differences in the perceived value of passion through its signaling, evaluation, and regulation. While Euro- American college applicants referenced passion more frequently than East Asian counterparts in application essays, these references negatively predicted U.S. admission outcomes. Chinese and Japanese faculty prioritized passion as an evaluative criterion in student selection more than American faculty. Furthermore, country-level individualism negatively predicted teachers' upregulation of student passion across 24 societies. Building on the theory of cultural models of motivation, these findings suggest the cultural shaping of a dual motivational regulatory framework and highlight the need for a nuanced understanding of passion’s perceived value in education across societies.
Conceptualization of Spiritual Support as a Component of Psychological Assistance Under Conditions of War Stress in Ukraine
Kostiantyn Denysov
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This article examines the theoretical foundations and provides a conceptualization of spiritual support as a specialized component of psychological assistance within the specific socio-cultural and traumatic context of Ukraine. Under conditions of unprecedented war-induced stress, spirituality emerges as a critical resource for fostering psychological resilience and post-traumatic growth. The study analyzes modern crisis intervention strategies and substantiates the necessity of integrating spiritual and religious factors into comprehensive psychological care models. Drawing on the syncretism of Ukrainian spiritual traditions, the author identifies the mechanisms through which spiritual practices facilitate adaptation and meaning-making during active conflict. As a result, the article establishes evidence-based principles for the sustainable integration of spiritual support into the practice of psychological assistance for populations enduring prolonged war stress.
A Neuro-Cognitive Trigger Model of Fibromyalgia Flare-Ups: The Role of Cognitive Load, Emotional Background Stress, and Neural Recovery
HebatAlla Hassan Daban
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Fibromyalgia is a chronic pain condition characterized by widespread pain, fatigue, sleep disturbances, and cognitive complaints, with symptoms that commonly fluctuate over time and intensify during episodic flare-ups. While central sensitization is widely recognized as a core neurophysiological feature of fibromyalgia, existing models primarily emphasize baseline vulnerability and provide limited explanation for the dynamic mechanisms underlying symptom exacerbation. This paper proposes a neuro-cognitive trigger model that conceptualizes fibromyalgia flare-ups as emergent events arising from the interaction of sustained cognitive load, persistent emotional background stress, and insufficient neural recovery acting upon a neuro-sensitive baseline. Rather than advancing a causal etiology for fibromyalgia, the model focuses specifically on the conditions under which transient symptom exacerbations are more likely to occur, emphasizing temporally dynamic regulatory processes within the central nervous system. Grounded in established literature on central sensitization, cognitive load theory, stress neurobiology, and sleep-related recovery mechanisms, the proposed framework integrates these elements into a unified, trigger-based formulation. The model highlights recovery failure as an active modulatory factor in flare dynamics and explicitly distinguishes between baseline neuro-sensitivity and trigger-dependent symptom escalation. Importantly, the neuro-cognitive trigger model generates testable hypotheses suitable for prospective, within-subject research designs, including ecological momentary assessment and longitudinal symptom tracking. By offering a structured and operational conceptual framework for studying flare-up dynamics, this work aims to support future empirical investigation and contribute to a more precise understanding of fibromyalgia as a disorder of neural regulation rather than static pathology.
The network model of mentalization, social vulnerability and the self in autism: a comparison with neurotypical adults
Szilárd Holka; Dániel Sörnyei; Ágota Vass; Levente Rónai; Kinga Farkas
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Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by alterations in social understanding and self-related experience that overlap with broader dimensions of psychosocial vulnerability. These domains are tightly interconnected, motivating the use of analytic approaches that can capture their organization as complex associations rather than as isolated dimensions. We applied network analysis to individuals with autism (N = 156) and matched neurotypical controls (N = 454). Gaussian graphical models were estimated using sum scores of psychosocial constructs, and networks were compared using centrality metrics and the Network Comparison Test. Compared to neurotypical participants, individuals with ASD showed higher levels of psychosocial difficulties and lower global network strength. Mentalization emerged as a central node in both groups, while autistic traits were more central in the neurotypical network and trait anxiety showed relatively higher centrality in the ASD network. These findings suggest that psychosocial vulnerability in autism is characterized by a distinct and less integrated network organization, with mentalization playing a central organizing role across groups and anxiety exerting a relatively greater influence in ASD. Network-based approaches may therefore help identify mechanism-relevant targets for intervention and refine dimensional models of social and self-related functioning in autism.
Atypical Cross-Modal Contextual Calibration of Sensory Evidence in Autism
Inbar Leon; Hagit Hel-Or; Bat Sheva Hadad
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Sensory perception is often described as atypically calibrated in autism, yet the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. We tested whether temporal magnitude perception in autism relies on amodal or modality-specific processes using an adapted range-of-standards paradigm. Autistic and nonautistic adults judged auditory and visual durations in blocks that varied in contextual range and whether the contextual standards were presented in the same modality as the central standard. Non-autistic participants showed clear auditory specialization and larger context effects within than between modalities, consistent with modality-specific coding. Autistic adults, however, showed reduced auditory specialization and similar effects across modalities, suggesting broader and less differentiated temporal calibration. To determine whether these patterns could be explained by synesthetic cross-modal tendencies, we tested an additional group of adults with synesthesia. Synesthetes showed calibration patterns that resembled the non-autistic group, indicating that the unique cross-modal context effects observed in autism cannot be attributed to synesthetic mechanisms.
When Do Students Seek AI Help? Exploring Within-Person and Between-Person Differences
Richard Pak; Anne Collins McLaughlin; Ericka Rovira; Randall W Engle
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Most research on student AI use asks who adopts these tools, treating AI use as a stable personal characteristic. Yet each time students encounter a problem, they face a fresh decision about whether to seek AI help. We examined when students choose AI assistance by analyzing both stable individual differences and moment-to-moment decisions. Undergraduate students (N = 398) completed 30 quiz trials, freely choosing on each trial to answer independently, consult an AI chatbot, or rely entirely on AI. Before each decision, students rated their topic expertise. We also measured cognitive abilities, AI attitudes, and demographics. Multilevel modeling revealed that almost half the variance in AI use reflected stable individual differences; the other half varied within individuals across trials. Self-assessed expertise accounted for this within-person variation: students sought AI help primarily when they felt unknowledgeable about a topic. At the between-person level, fluid intelligence predicted more chatbot consultation but less full delegation, suggesting higher-ability students use AI strategically rather than as a substitute for thinking. Male students and those with favorable AI attitudes showed greater willingness to delegate entirely. These findings reframe AI use as adaptive help-seeking rather than a fixed trait. Educational interventions that target metacognitive calibration, helping students accurately judge when they need assistance, may prove more effective than blanket AI policies that assume uniform use patterns.
Retaining the Workforce: The Interplay of Ageism, Sexism, and Authenticity
Alessia Valmori; Claudia Manzi; Courtney von Hippel
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As workplaces become increasingly diverse in age and gender, understanding how discrimination affects employees' experiences and decisions to remain with their organisations is essential. This study examined how perceived ageism and sexism relate to employees' authenticity and work retention intentions, whether these associations vary by age and gender, and whether authenticity mediates the link between discrimination and retention. Using multilevel data (Nemployees = 263,696, Nfirms = 832), we tested predictions derived from the double jeopardy framework, whereby holding multiple stigmatized identities (e.g., being both older and female) increases exposure to discrimination. Results indicated that women aged 55 and over reported the highest levels of both perceived ageism and sexism, consistent with double jeopardy. Both forms of discrimination were negatively associated with authenticity and retention, with ageism showing stronger effects than sexism. However, contrary to expectations, men and younger employees exhibited stronger negative associations between perceived discrimination and both outcomes. Authenticity emerged as a significant mediator at both individual and organisational levels, with full mediation observed at the organisational level. These findings suggest that although older women perceive the most discrimination, the downstream consequences of bias do not necessarily mirror its prevalence. Men may be more negatively affected by discrimination due to less developed coping strategies or greater perceived labour market mobility. Practically, organisations should foster climates that support authentic self-expression to improve employee retention across demographic groups
A diffusion-based framework for modelling systematic, time-varying cognitive processes
Manikya Alister; Nathan J. Evans
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As people engage in tasks over extended periods, their psychological states change systematically due to factors such as practice, learning, and/or boredom. However, the dominant frameworks for modeling cognitive processes, such as evidence accumulation models, only consider a single estimate of a process across the duration of an experiment. Our study describes, develops, and assesses the ParAcT-DDM framework: the Parameters Across Time Diffusion Decision Model, which unifies previous modeling efforts from practice and decision-making research. Specifically, our framework models time-varying changes to diffusion decision model parameters by assuming that rather than being constant across time, their estimates follow theoretically informed time-varying (e.g., trial-varying or block-varying) functions. Focusing on two diffusion model parameters: drift rate (task efficiency) and threshold (caution), our empirical results show that ParAcT-DDM variants vastly outperform the standard diffusion model in four existing data sets, including one where participants completed a practice block before data recording began, suggesting that time-varying cognitive processes often occur in typical cognitive experiments, even when the experimental design explicitly tries to remove practice effects. Finally, we find that the existence of time-varying processes causes systematic biases in the parameter estimates of the standard diffusion model, suggesting that our ParAcT-DDM framework can be crucial to ensuring the robustness of inferences against time-varying changes, regardless of whether these changes are of direct interest.
“Greening” Education for Climate Resilience: Strategies, Implementation, and Curriculum Integration
Anastasia Gkargkavouzi; George Halkos
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The increasing urgency of the climate crisis has necessitated a transformative approach to education that prepares learners to act as agents of sustainable change. This working paper synthesizes UNESCO's Greening Curriculum Guidance with contemporary academic insights to propose a comprehensive framework for embedding climate change education into formal and non-formal learning environments. Drawing on theoretical models, empirical evidence, and international policy frameworks, the paper articulates strategies for greening the curriculum, outlines actionable steps for institutional implementation, and analyzes pedagogical methods that cultivate cognitive, socio-emotional, and behavioral competencies. The role of intersectionality, justice, and indigenous knowledge systems is emphasized to ensure an inclusive and context-sensitive transition toward climate-resilient education systems.
Why Should we Invest Epistemic Labor in a World of Generative AI?
Markus Langer; Sara Mann; Eva Schmidt
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As generative AI increasingly automates cognitive tasks, the temptation to outsource thinking grows. We argue that investing in epistemic labor – the effort to acquire, process, and evaluate knowledge – remains vital for sustaining the fulfillment of core human needs in a world shaped by generative AI.
Nested Ecological Affordances: A Relational Framework for Environmentally Significant Behavior
Mohammad Abdolvahab
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Understanding environmentally significant behavior requires moving beyond categorical distinctions that separate psychological, structural, and cultural determinants. This paper introduces the nested ecological affordances framework, a relational model grounded in ecological psychology that situates behavior within a multi-scalar ecology of opportunities for action. Affordances for sustainable action are defined as possibilities relative to actor capabilities and are understood here as hierarchical, dynamically evolving, and embedded within micro-level infrastructures, meso-level practices, and macro-level policies and cultural narratives. Illustrative cases demonstrate how nested affordances scaffold sustainable practices through reciprocal dynamics and coordinative structures. By integrating psychological determinants, choice architecture, and social practices within systemic contexts, the framework offers a heuristic for policy and design that expands sustainable opportunities across scales and supports resilient sustainability transitions.
‘They are vital cogs in the family system’: perspectives of Chinese parents and service providers on the role of grandparents and other extended relatives in caring for autistic children
Jia-Ling Li; chongying wang; Melissa Washington-Nortey; Jingwen Liang; Cho Wing Tiffany Kwan; Francesca Cotier; Rosa Hoekstra
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Studies exploring caring of autistic children often focus on the nuclear family, with little attention to extended relatives. This is especially important in countries like China, where extended households are common. We used semi-structured interviews with 16 Chinese parents of autistic children from diverse educational and income backgrounds and focus group discussions with 11 service providers, to explore their perspectives of the role of extended relatives in the care of autistic children. Using template thematic analysis, we developed three themes: (1) Unambiguous active support from extended relatives: “My siblings and parents always remind me to take good care of my child”; (2) Complex or ambivalent support: “when it comes to grandparents, things can get complicated”; (3) Disengagement in care or stigmatising attitudes: “I felt they didn’t see my son as worthy”. Each theme also considers individual and family characteristics shaping extended relatives’ willingness to support the family. Central influences included the relatives’ understanding and acceptance of autism, and socio-economic factors. More effort is needed to help extended relatives better understand autism. This may include building on supportive relatives, engaging limited supporters, and addressing negative attitudes to reduce stigma.

SocArxiv

Issues in Using News Accounts in Process Analysis of Protest Episodes
Pamela Elaine Oliver; Chaeyoon Lim; Anna Milewski
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We use examples from the widely-publicized Jena Six case to highlight several issues in using news accounts in process analysis. News stories offered different narratives that included and excluded different events and offered different causal connections that reflected the standpoints and interests of different actors. Media coverage itself and outreach to news reporters were significant events that were omitted from news accounts of event sequences. The media cascade was a probabilistic outcome that could not in general be repeated through the same sequence of prior event. Two seemingly irrelevant events may have affected the outcome, one that facilitated a connection between a journalist and bloggers and another that apparently competed for attention from national activists and media. NOTE: Preprint of a forthcoming chapter in Lorenzo Bosi and Stefan Malthaner, editors, Processes of Collective Action, Temple University Press.
From Kitchen Practice to the Public Sphere: The Social and Aesthetic Translation of Culinary Home Economics Capital
Yu-Yang Ambotter S. Chen
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This paper develops a theoretical account of how domestic cooking, historically understood as private and relational labor, can come to be translated into publicly visible and socially consequential forms of value. Building on the concept of Culinary Home Economics Capital (CHE Capital), domestic cooking is understood as a relationally embedded, value-generating practice. Through processes of visualization, narrativization, and platformization, CHE Capital becomes legible within contemporary regimes of visibility and evaluation, generating recognition, identity, and hierarchical effects. This paper situates CHE Capital in dialogue with Bourdieu's theory of cultural capital, care ethics, and affect theory, highlighting both its continuities with and distinctions from these frameworks. The analysis contributes to cultural sociology, everyday aesthetics, and feminist political economy by offering a framework for understanding how intimate, relational practices enter public circuits of evaluation and recognition.
Social Network Structure Rivals Smoking and Income as a Predictor of U.S. County Mortality
Chris Soria; Dennis Feehan
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Personal networks influence health and mortality at the individual level, but less is known about how population-scale social network structure relates to mortality. This study examines how US county-level social network structure relates to mortality disparities. Using measures from 21 billion Facebook friendships, we investigate how two structural features of population social networks – cohesiveness and diversity – are associated with age-standardized and age-specific mortality rates. Bivariate results show that measures of social network structure rival smoking rates, median income, and educational attainment in their association with mortality rates. Social network structure remains predictive of mortality even after controlling for traditional measures like socioeconomic status and rural/urban classification. Network diversity is associated with lower mortality in both bivariate and multivariate analyses. Network clustering is associated with higher mortality bivariately, but this association reverses after controlling for county-level demographic and socioeconomic factors, revealing a protective effect masked by confounding. Age-stratified analyses further complicate this picture, showing that clustering predicts lower mortality among adults aged 15-64 but higher mortality among those 70 and older. These findings highlight social network structure as an important dimension of place-based health disparities, one not fully captured by conventional measures of socioeconomic composition or spatial segregation.
Discipline as Method: Interdisciplinarity as Epistemic Intervention
Huabo LIU
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Interdisciplinary research is frequently conceptualized as an integrative endeavor that synthesizes disciplinary perspectives to yield more holistic explanations of complex phenomena. Although this integrative paradigm has yielded valuable outcomes, it often frames disciplinary differences principally as barriers to be surmounted. Drawing on insights from science and technology studies (STS), this article advances an alternative epistemological framework by reconceptualizing disciplines not as repositories of accumulated knowledge but as historically stabilized methodological apparatuses that actively constitute explanatory objects and practices. Building upon this reconceptualization, the article develops an interventionist epistemology that positions disciplinary differences as generative epistemic resources rather than impediments. The proposed framework delineates a three-stage mechanism—interpretive juxtaposition, cognitive friction, and methodological reflexivity—whereby the deliberate and sustained co-presence of incommensurable explanatory logics disrupts the naturalized authority of any single disciplinary method, thereby fostering reflexive scrutiny of underlying epistemic commitments and normative implications. Through illustrative cases from climate policy modeling, management research, and evidence-based medicine, the analysis demonstrates how interpretive juxtaposition manifests across diverse institutional contexts, generating cognitive friction that prompts methodological reflexivity without necessitating premature synthesis or resolution of differences. These examples illustrate that prolonged exposure to plural explanatory regimes can productively intervene in epistemic assumptions, thereby reshaping the conditions of legitimate judgment and knowledge production. The article concludes by elaborating the implications of reframing interdisciplinarity as epistemic intervention rather than integration, and by identifying promising directions for future empirical inquiry within STS, including investigations into the institutional conditions that enable or constrain such reflexive dynamics.
Spatial Changes in Kathmandu Valley: A review through political perspective
Apil K C
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Kathmandu valley’s spatial characters are constantly changing, and as such, its urban morphology can be observed as a frequently altered palimpsest. Developing on the trade route of Tibet and India, settlements of Kathmandu valley can be traced back to more than three thousand years. The foundation of the earliest settlements were laid out by Kirats in 300 BC or before that. The settlements expanded first under the succeeding Lichchhavi ruling house who applied Vedic town planning principles and later the Mallas expanded the settlements further with Astamatrika and Dashmahavidya concepts affiliated to Shakti- cult. After the unification of Nepal in 1769, Kathmandu Valley became the capital of politics, economy and administration, however the political centralization can be vividly observed only after the 1950's. After the dethroning of the autocratic Rana Regime in 1951, the monarchical government had the authoritative grip in government and development. The political turmoil did not stop until the 1990s, which brought two big changes in Nepal, when the re-establishment of Democracy and wave of globalization brought unprecedented change in the urban form of Kathmandu Valley. However, the democratization of Nepal did not go well; the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) declared a civil war that lasted for a decade till 2006 jeopardizing the baby local government (Decentralization) and causing massive migration to urban core from rural regions, especially to Kathmandu Valley. The mass movement of April 2006 changed the governing landscape, turning a democratic monarchical nation into a federal republic, with an expectation to loosen valley’s centripetal grip of economy and administration, if not politics. The era of federal republic of Nepal has witnessed the political chaos of more than a decade, in terms of urban policy and development strategy. The paper reviews the spatial changes of Kathmandu Valley from the perspective of the political economy of Nepal till date. It is observed that the political system and social structure have defined the changes in the urban landscape of Kathmandu valley. The paper takes into account the regime changes over the period and the planning strategies carried out in the period along with the political economics behind it. The spatial changes of Kathmandu valley inferential to its political economy is also significant to understand the growth pattern of other growing cities in Nepal, which are largely influenced by political decisions in Nepal.
Dinámicas de Narcisismo Patológico en Negociaciones Asimétricas: Análisis de Estrategias Efectivas e Inefectivas en Encuentros Diplomáticos de Alto Riesgo con Donald Trump. Recomendaciones Basadas en Evidencia para el Encuentro Trump-Petro.
Jesús Ignacio Rivera Cano
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La reunión programada entre el presidente colombiano Gustavo Petro y el presidente estadounidense Donald Trump (primera semana de febrero 2026) representa un encuentro diplomático de alto riesgo cuyo desenlace dependerá críticamente de la comprensión de las dinámicas psicológicas subyacentes. Mediante análisis comparativo de dos encuentros recientes con Trump – el caso fallido con el presidente ucraniano Volodímir Zelenski (febrero 2025) y el caso exitoso con el alcalde de Nueva York Zohran Mamdani (enero 2026) – este estudio identifica patrones psicológicos que determinan resultados en negociaciones con líderes narcisistas en contextos de asimetría de poder. Empleando metodología cualitativa de análisis de caso comparativo basada en el modelo de narcisismo patológico de Kernberg y Kohut, y marcos teóricos sobre toma de decisiones en contextos asimétricos, se analizan transcripciones de encuentros públicos, declaraciones oficiales, y reportes periodísticos detallados. Los hallazgos sugieren que el narcisismo patológico de Trump crea vulnerabilidades específicas que pueden ser navegadas exitosamente mediante estrategias que eviten activar rabia narcisista mientras permiten al líder narcisista "salvar face" y declararse ganador. Se argumenta que la estructura de personalidad de Petro – caracterizada por narcisismo ideológico más que patológico – puede constituir ventaja táctica si es adecuadamente movilizada mediante recontextualización del pragmatismo como coherente con identidad revolucionaria. Se identifican siete principios psicológicos generales para negociaciones asimétricas con narcisistas patológicos: (1) priorizar evitar activación de rabia narcisista, (2) permitir "salvar face" como necesidad estructural, (3) reconocer que la narrativa de "ganar" puede superar el contenido sustantivo, (4) validar selectivamente sin adulación, (5) reconocer diferencias sin insistir en ellas, (6) crear oportunidades para magnanimidad, y (7) reconocer asimetría de poder implícita pero no explícitamente. Se formulan recomendaciones estratégicas específicas organizadas en tres fases: preparación pre-encuentro (reencuadre mental, identificación de triggers, preparación de propuestas ganar-ganar), tácticas durante la reunión (apertura constructiva, manejo de provocaciones, uso estratégico de validación), y comunicación post-encuentro (narrativas para audiencias múltiples). El estudio tiene implicaciones para diplomacia en contextos de personalidades incompatibles, gestión de crisis con líderes autoritarios, y comprensión de cómo factores psicológicos individuales interactúan con asimetrías estructurales de poder en relaciones internacionales.
Inequality, not regulation, drives America's housing affordability crisis
Maximilian Buchholz; Tom Kemeny; Gregory Randolph; Michael Storper
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A popular view holds that declining housing affordability stems from regulations that restrict new supply, and that deregulation will spur sufficient market-rate construction to meaningfully improve affordability. We argue that this ‘deregulationist’ view rests upon flawed assumptions. Through empirical simulation, we show that even a dramatic, deregulation-driven supply expansion would take decades to generate widespread affordability in high-cost U.S. markets. We advance an alternative explanation of declining affordability grounded in demand structure and geography: uneven demand growth – driven by rising interpersonal and interregional inequality – is the primary driver of declining affordability in recent decades. For cost-burdened households, trickle-down benefits from deregulation will be insufficient and too slow.
‘Other’ gender in India: An Analysis of 2011 Census Data
Chaitali Mandal; Paramita Debnath
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In spite of human rights protection given to the “other-gender” population (transgender) worldwide, they still constitute a deserted community which faces a significant occupational challenges around the world. In India, the other-gender community encompasses individuals with a variety of gender identities forming a culturally unique gender group. Although they have always remained an integral part of the society from the very ancient time, unfortunately their existence is grappling with abject poverty, illiteracy, hatred and mockery. Such stigmatisation and segregation from society have left them to compromise with the employment opportunities available. This paper used the data on ‘other-gender’ released by Census of India for the first time. The 2011 Indian Census reported approximately 4,87,803 individuals belonging to the other-gender category in the country. This data demonstrate that the other-gender community exhibits lower level of literacy and labour force participation when compared with the general population. In this paper, we endeavour to conceptualize these findings and engage in a discussion of the inherent limitations of the data. Keywords: Census, other-gender, third-gender sexual rights, education, employment.
A Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) Manual Developed for Institutional Research Ethics Review Committee (IRERC) Wollo University, Ethiopia: Ubuntu Philosophy Integrated Framework for Multi-Disciplinary Research Ethics Review (WU-IRERC-SOPs-001-Version 2, Revised)
Andualem Yimer Desalegn
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This finalized Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) manual introduces an innovative framework for institutional research ethics review guidelines that integrates the Ubuntu philosophy with international research ethics standards. The SOPs cover research ethics in a variety of fields, including veterinary medicine, public health, social sciences, natural sciences, agriculture, environmental sciences, business and economics, education and humanities, engineering and informatics. Despite being created for Wollo University, the SOP frameworks are widely applicable to African academic and research institutions. A unique and strong strength of the manual is the combination of the Ubuntu philosophy with a multidisciplinary approach, which advances beyond a simple compliance checklist to create a genuine ethical framework deeply integrated with the local context. Key features of the SOPs manual include: • An ethical framework grounded in Ubuntu philosophy, which emphasizes community interconnectedness and collective benefit as foundational principles guiding ethical review processes. • Customized, discipline-specific evaluation checklists that address the unique methodological and ethical considerations inherent to various research fields. • Comprehensive protocols that extend beyond human subjects research to encompass studies involving animals, plants, environmental systems, and communities, applicable across all academic units, reflecting a sophisticated understanding of contemporary research ethics. • The introduction of innovative procedures and tools for community impact assessment that respect indigenous knowledge systems and actively involve stakeholders. • Full alignment with international standards, including the Declaration of Helsinki and World Health Organization guidelines, while ensuring compliance with Ethiopian national regulations as stipulated in Proclamation No. 1130/2019. • Recognition of interconnectedness through the incorporation of concepts such as environmental stewardship, community impact assessment, and benefit-sharing, which are essential for fostering sustainable and ethical research practices. • Detailed implementation guidelines and training protocols designed to facilitate effective adoption and operationalization of the SOPs. Innovation This manual constitutes the first comprehensive effort to integrate Ubuntu philosophy into institutional research ethics review procedures, offering a culturally grounded approach that upholds international standards while honoring African philosophical traditions. The framework serves as a practical model for the decolonization of research ethics within African universities and research institutions.
Does Work Experience Change Your Political Attitudes? Gender Gaps and Class in Panel Data
Jesse Magin
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Existing research has focused on women´s primary role in housework as an explanation for attitudinal gender gaps but stands at a crossroads as women´s labour force participation rates are catching up to men´s and the gender gaps remain. This article seeks to expand the idea of gender roles to the gendered nature of work experience as a result of gender-based occupational segregation. In doing so it synthesises an attempt to redraw the class map into a two-dimensional space divided by task structure and authority logic as a predictor of political attitudes with the literature on gender gaps. Is there a direct link between the attitudinal gender gaps and the gendered experience of work? Drawing on panel data and fixed effects estimation the causal nature of work experience is scrutinised. While previously noted differences in attitudes between different positions in the two-dimensional class scheme are (partly) observable, these differences largely cannot be attributed to a causal effect of work experience across different political attitudes. Rather, evidence points to the existence of personality-based selection into certain class positions and the stability of political attitudes irrespective of work experience. Although individuals in different occupations differ this is not because of their work. These findings contradict social role theory as an explanation for gender gaps by discounting the relevance of specific roles such as occupation in (gendered) attitude formation.
The Legal Consequences of Loss: Parental Bereavement and Youth Criminal Legal Outcomes
Kristin Turney; Emily Smith-Greenaway
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General strain theory posits that parental incarceration—and the corresponding parental absence—leads to youth delinquency and criminal legal contact. However, parental incarceration represents just one form of parental absence and comparatively little research considers how a common—and permanent—form of parental absence, parental death, may similarly precipitate youth criminal legal outcomes. We use data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a broadly representative cohort of youth born around the turn of the 21st century, to examine the relationship between parental death and youth criminal legal outcomes. We find that, net of observed characteristics associated with selection into this experience, parental death is associated with higher levels of youth delinquency and incarceration. Parental death is as relevant to youth criminal legal outcomes as parental incarceration. The associations are largest among boys who experienced parental death in middle childhood or adolescence relative to early childhood. These findings underscore the profound consequences of parental death on youth trajectories, highlighting the need to consider bereavement as a critical yet understudied dimension of social inequality and risk for criminal legal involvement.
From Virtuous Circle To Vicious Circle: How Venezuela lost itself on Plenty
Nerhum Sandambi
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The 1960s, 1970s and late 1980s were significant for Venezuela. However, this period of intense transition saw particularly strong growth, largely driven by unsustainable and impoverishing economic growth. On the other hand, this type of growth did not enrich the vast majority of Venezuelans. Thus, on the one hand, there was in fact the emergence of a virtuous circle and institutional plurality, which naturally lasted in the short term. Thus, the Chavista regime that later took hold in Venezuela largely promoted the significant emergence of vicious circles and a set of extractive institutions, strongly characterised by the very existence of economic destruction, promoted on the one hand by democratic stagnation. In this particular approach, I show some evidence that points to divergences regarding the plausible existence of abundant natural resources. Most countries that are rich in natural resources, for example, have similar characteristics, but are influenced, first by vicious circles, and secondly by the institutional extractivism existing in these countries. Examples such as Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Venezuela, Syria, Democratic Congo, and Congo Brazzaville reinforce the theory that abundance is primarily a promoter of political inconsistency, vicious cycles, and, above all, a large part of the multidimensional poverty that is significantly rooted in these countries in particular. Thus, during the vicious circle in Venezuela, on the one hand, the governmental incapacity promoted by the Chavista government consistently and continuously promoted the breakdown of social protection levels and, on the other hand, the significant increase of a significantly dual society, which is strongly persistent with non-inclusive and stagnant democracies. Democratic stagnation, however, was not economically and politically sustainable, and the marked differences consistently and plausibly led to the emergence of severe deprivation of freedoms, namely the deprivation of democratic freedoms and the deprivation of freedoms of access to basic needs. The lack of these freedoms led the country to institutional collapse and significant state collapse.
We Are Eternaly Stunked on Oil Economy: Evidences of Angola Economy
Nerhum Sandambi
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In this particular study, I analyse in detail the strong influence of dependence on natural resources. However, a large number of countries with significant natural resources have not managed to promote high standards of significant transformation. Angola, however, is following the same path where, from the outset, abundance of oil and diamonds providing impoverishing growth, strongly supported by short-term public policies that in fact sustain only a minority. Naturally, the abundance of natural resources, particularly for Angola, has nevertheless promoted vicious economic and political circles, which are in fact consistent with short-term objectives. Most of these cycles are in fact ongoing. On the other hand, another major feature highlighted in the study is that it shows, for example, an economy based on international market expectations, so it is international markets that largely control the Angolan economy. On the other hand, the increase in political inconsistencies and public policies aimed at a minority naturally contributed to the consistency of vicious circles and, on the other hand, to the continuity of economic destruction in particular.
Two Cultures of Walking: A Human-Scale Comparison of Pedestrian Behaviors in Hong Kong and San Francisco
Meiqing Li
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This study compares pedestrian behaviors in station areas of Hong Kong and San Francisco to explore how culture and urban design shape human-environment interactions. With field observation, multisensory and video data from 283 street intersections, I evaluate pedestrian utilization of dedicated space and signal timing, walking speeds, and rule violations. I find that despite the observed differences in infrastructure design and policy contexts, pedestrians exhibit similar behaviors under comparable conditions of perceived risk and right-of-way. The study contributes to a global discussion on context-sensitive street design and sustainable transportation planning across cultures.
Monitoring Recreation on Federally Managed Lands and Waters—Aspects of Visitor Use
Emily J. Wilkins; Dieta Hanson; Whitney Boone; Spencer A Wood; Christian Crowley; Rudy M. Schuster
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Federally managed public lands and waters receive about 1 billion recreational visits each year. Data on these visitors can aid in guiding policy decisions, managing resources effectively, and communicating the economic contributions of lands and waters. This report explores the methods used by agencies to collect data on aspects of recreational visitor use to Federal lands and waters (apart from visitation numbers, which are the focus of a companion publication). Aspects of recreational visitor use include visitor demographics, recreational activity participation, visitor satisfaction, visitor attitudes and experiences, trip characteristics, and economic contributions. We review practices used to understand aspects of visitor use across seven Federal agencies, revealing similarities such as the use of visitor intercept surveys and coverage of similar topic area, and differences in how survey programs are operationalized and how specific questions on visitor surveys are worded. We also evaluate emerging technologies, such as geolocated social media and mobile device location data, for their potential to aid in understanding aspects of visitor use. This report concludes with potential opportunities to enhance data collection and coordination, ensuring cost-effective data collection and informed decision-making.
Cognitive Expectations of Homophily in Village Social Networks
Eric Martin Feltham; Nicholas Christakis
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Homophily, the tendency for individuals to associate with similar others, has long been treated as a central principle of social organization. Yet people may overestimate its importance in reasoning about their social networks. Here, we investigate individuals’ cognitive expectations of homophily and compare these expectations to actual homophily among 10,072 adults in 82 isolated Honduras villages. We elicited subjects’ beliefs about whether pairs of people in their village social networks were socially tied. We show that people deploy cognitive heuristics that substantially overestimate homophily, including based on wealth, ethnicity, gender, and religion. We also find that people exploit network structure when predicting ties between others, independent of expectations about homophily. Understanding cognitive homophily has implications for models of network formation, interventions targeting social behavior and information diffusion, and the maintenance of social inequality.
Feasibility filtering in the funding arena: how techno-economic expectations shape research agendas at the chemistry/energy nexus.
Jorrit Smit
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Increasingly, funding programs in Europe seek to align scientific research agendas with societal challenges. A promissory regime results around emerging science and technology, in which researchers seek to present their work in line with the expectation of disruptive but feasible technological innovation. In the fields of energy, materials and chemistry research, many turn to (prospective) techno-economic assessments as to respond to this demand. Based on fieldwork and an interview study, I show how these quantitative anticipations can function as ‘feasibility filters’ in the process of agenda-setting that implicitly translate the interests, infrastructures and imaginaries of large-scale industries into technical targets for laboratory science. Non-economic considerations come second, after the rate-determining step of the feasibility filter. Finally, I argue that the resulting, paradoxical dynamics of techno-economic alignment is at odds with calls in STS to open up sustainable transformation and innovation pathways via socio-political and economic alternatives.
Simulating area-level population outcomes: Should we use Multilevel Regression and Poststratification over Spatial Microsimulation?
Roger Beecham; Stephen Clark
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Estimating unknown outcomes at small-area population level is a routine task in spatial analysis. We demonstrate how Multilevel Regression and Poststratification (MRP), now widely used in political polling, overcomes some deficiencies in Spatial Microsimulation (SPM), the de facto approach in quantitative geography. Using individual-level data from Health Survey for England and population-level data from 2021 UK Census, we evaluate MRP and SPM at estimating two known health outcomes that occur with high and low frequency in the population. With few constraints there are only slight differences in estimation between the two approaches. With more and especially area-level constraints extreme errors in the SPM estimates begin to accumulate, and these are particularly pronounced for the low-frequency outcome. Additionally, where uncertainty ranges from MRP posteriors begin to widen we find they map to groundtruthed errors, providing a useful validity check when the true population distribution is unknown. This is the first direct comparison of MRP and SPM for small-area estimation. Alongside metrics for evaluating estimates, we highlight the value of area-level variables that constrain outcomes or that may capture varying processes over spatial units, and of a principled approach to model specification and uncertainty quantification – both central to MRP practice.
Which competencies are the most important in government? Introduction of the Competency Explorer to investigate civil servants competencies
Rutger Blom; Peter Kruyen; Marieke van Genugten
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In this article, we present the Competency Explorer: a valid, user-friendly digital tool to assess civil servants’ views of the relative importance of competencies in their daily work. Through two studies of evaluation and modification in which 131 Dutch civil servants participated in a Q sorting procedure in combination with either a focus group or an individual interview, we developed a tool that is easy to use and enables its users to adequately reflect their views. A key finding from the development of the tool is the identification of 32 competencies that are demonstrated as meaningful and appropriate for civil servants in a large variety of positions and domains. This study provides insights into the competencies that matter for civil servants’ work and the tool can be used by researchers and practitioners for a wide array of learning and development purposes.
From Periphery to Core: A Four-Stage Evolutionary Model of Interdisciplinary Courses in Higher Education
Huabo LIU
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This paper addresses the theoretical lag behind the widespread practice of interdisciplinary courses (IDCs) in higher education by proposing a dynamic evolutionary framework to reveal their generative logic and structural dynamics. Drawing on a "core–periphery" curriculum model, the study conceptualizes disciplinary programs as open knowledge networks and advances a Four-Stage evolutionary pathway for IDCs: peripheral emergence, core penetration, knowledge differentiation, and re-contextualization. Through theoretical analysis and illustrative cases—such as Bioinformatics and Environmental Economics—the paper argues that IDCs are not static content categories, but relational, contextual, and dynamic structural entities. Their evolution reflects both the curricular embodiment of Mode 2 knowledge production and the dialectical rhythm of "differentiation–integration–re-differentiation" in disciplinary development. The study further offers practical recommendations for university administrators and curriculum designers on dynamic curriculum governance, the institutionalization of the periphery as an incubation zone, and reforms in faculty evaluation and resource allocation to support sustainable interdisciplinarity. This framework offers a new theoretical lens for understanding curriculum evolution and informs the design of innovative, adaptive higher education systems.
Hybrid Epistemic Authority: A Framework for Understanding Professional Credibility on Digital Platforms
Irina Valerie Gewinner
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Professional communication increasingly unfolds on digital platforms where traditional credentials no longer guarantee credibility. This working paper develops an integrated framework of hybrid epistemic authority to explain how organizational leaders construct professional credibility in environments driven by algorithms. Drawing on theories of epistemic authority, platform affordances, and professional self-branding, I conceptualize authority as simultaneously institutionally grounded and performatively achieved. The framework identifies eight interdependent dimensions: traditional competence, digital communication skills, strategic authenticity, contextual adaptivity, institutional embedding, strategic restraint, reactive authority, and emotional labor. Preliminary findings from interviews with eleven senior executives on their LinkedIn use reveal that authority construction requires continuous negotiation between competing necessities. These include authenticity versus optimization, visibility versus protection, and personal versus organizational identity. C-level leaders navigate these tensions through strategic practices that balance genuine expression with platform-specific performance demands. This framework contributes to scholarship on digital leadership, professional expertise, and platform governance by demonstrating that contemporary authority is no more solely possessed by credentials or defined by performance. Rather, it emerges out of a delicate interplay of communication and the sociotechnical constraints that we can’t control. The model provides an analytical means of dissecting how digital platforms alter professional credibility and the implications for equity, career sustainability and organizational communication.
A Confidence-Adjusted Consensus Mechanism for Scalable Deliberative Decision-Making
Tal Yaron
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As groups grow in size, the complexity of collective decision-making increases exponentially, leading societies to concentrate authority in small hierarchical subgroups. While this enables coordination at scale, it systematically underrepresents the interests of broader populations and limits collective learning. Traditional voting mechanisms exacerbate these problems: binary choices, fixed option sets, and winner-take-all outcomes incentivize polarization rather than consensus-seeking. This paper introduces a deliberative framework designed to support meaningful participation at scale. The framework combines three innovations: (1) open and continuous proposal generation, allowing participants to introduce new alternatives throughout the process; (2) continuous preference expression on a scale from strong opposition to strong support; and (3) real-time aggregation using the Consensus Algorithm, which calculates scores as Mean − SEM (standard error of the mean), yielding a confidence-adjusted estimate of collective agreement that penalizes uncertainty and protects minority positions. Two proof-of-concept applications demonstrate the framework's practical viability. In the first, 53 participants converged on a single name from 26 proposals within approximately five minutes. In the second, 40 participants representing secular and religious perspectives jointly developed a social charter on religion-state relations over two sessions totaling 5 hours, achieving consensus above 60% on key provisions. These results suggest that appropriately designed deliberative technologies can enable rapid, inclusive decision-making on both simple and normatively contested issues—offering a pathway toward scalable deliberative democracy.
Settler Colonialism and Financial Predation
Brieanna Watters; Robert Stewart
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In this essay, we extend an invitation to scholars to engage with settler colonialism as an ongoing condition of possibility for racial capitalism penology and a foundational element of the contemporary LFO regime. We argue that criminal justice debt should not be viewed merely as a symptom of neoliberal austerity or as collateral consequence of punitive excess, but as a structural feature of settler governance. We reconceptualize criminal legal debt not as a marker of the punitive turn in U.S. criminal justice policy nor even as the application of recent neoliberal austerity policies to the administration of carceral institutions. Instead, we contend that such forms of state financial extraction must be understood as an integral feature of settler colonialism. In doing so, we shift attention from recent policy frameworks such as neoliberalism toward the deeper and underlying historical trajectories of criminal legal extraction that are rooted in the long-standing pattern of settler-colonial financial predation.
Permutation-Based Testing of Topic Co-occurrence: A Network Analysis of Reddit Debates on DOGE, Tariffs, and the Big Beautiful Bill
Benjamin Forman-Barzilai; Ines Levin
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We study how policy arguments are structured in Reddit discussions of three initiatives from the early period of Trump's second presidency: the Department of Government Efficiency, the Liberation Day Tariffs, and the Big Beautiful Bill. We identify recurring policy considerations using a dictionary-based approach that is validated through manual coding and applied to full-text submissions. To distinguish meaningful associations from chance, we use a permutation-based test that compares observed co-occurrence counts for each pair of considerations to counts from randomly shuffled data with the same overall frequencies. From the pairs that pass this test, we build networks for each policy and describe their main features, including central topics, clusters of related considerations, and bridge topics that link clusters. The results show that the three debates have different argument structures and illustrate a simple way to add statistical testing to topic co-occurrence analysis.
Administering Australian housing policy: practitioner perspectives
Kathleen Flanagan; Stephen Glackin; Wendy Stone; Emma McDonald; Megan Robinson
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This research aims to deepen our understanding of the design and impact of the ‘machinery of government’ – the administrative, bureaucratic or institutional arrangements that deliver public policy – with respect to housing policy in Australia. Drawing on the insights of current and former senior housing policy officials, the study identifies a set of principles to guide the best feasible governance and policy outcomes. Machinery of government changes occur regularly in Australia’s public sector at the federal and state/territory levels. However, there has been little focus on the impact of such changes for the delivery of housing policy, or which arrangements are most suitable for effective delivery. Changes to the machinery of government may lead to a loss of institutional knowledge and key expertise, and impede efficiency, effectiveness and innovation. Identifying and settling on a feasible and effective governance and administrative structure will allow agencies – and the people working within them – the longevity and stability to deliver better policy outcomes.
Gender Wage Gap in India: A Descriptive Study with Reference to Education Level and Rural–Urban Residence Using PLFS Data
Shivangi Pathak
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This study presents analysis of gender wage differentials in India using data from Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2022-23. It shows comparison between the male and female laborers in case of the location of work i.e., rural-urban, earnings across employment categories with references to education on contextual basis. The analysis relies on published PLFS tables and applies percentage gap calculations and simple graphical comparisons. The findings reveal that there is a persistent gender wage gap across all segments of labour markets. The women are mostly engaged in self-employment and informal sectors, mainly in rural areas, leading to low-average earnings. The study also highlights that education alone fails to eliminate wage inequality and the market calls for a structural labour market and policy implementation to reduce the gender wage gap prevailing so far.
Public perception of health technologies: an exploratory spatial mapping of risks, benefits, and value attributions
Philipp Brauner; Julia Offermann; Martina Ziefle
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Purpose: The social acceptance of health technologies is crucial for the effectiveness and sustainability of healthcare systems amid the demographic change. However, patients’ acceptance, which shapes technology use and compliance, is still insufficiently understood. Methods: In this study, we explore how perceived risks and perceived benefits relate to attributed value as a proxy for social acceptance. Unlike most studies that focus on individual technologies, we measure public perception of 20 very different types of health technologies—ranging from plaster cast and x-Ray to insulin pumps, bionic limbs, and mRNA vaccines. Through an online survey utilizing a convenience sample of 193 participants from Germany and Bulgaria, we assessed perceived risks, benefits, and overall value attributed to these technologies. The study presents a visual mapping of the technologies and investigates the individual and technology-related factors shaping these perceptions. Results: The findings suggest that perceived benefit is the strongest predictor for overall value (β = +0.886), while perceived risk plays a significant, but much smaller role (β = −0.133). Together, both factors explain 95% of the variance in overall attributed value (95%, R2 = .959). Further, individual differences, such as prior care experience and trust in physicians, significantly influences the perceptions of health technologies. Conclusion: We conclude with recommendations for effectively communicating the benefits and risks of health technologies to the public, mitigating biases, and enhancing social acceptance and integration into healthcare systems.
Influence, Deviations, and Excesses in the Pharmaceutical Sector
João Henrique Santana Stacciarini
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Since Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin in 1928, the pharmaceutical sector has expanded rapidly, becoming one of the most powerful segments of the global economy today, with estimated annual revenues of approximately US$ 1.5 trillion and major corporations valued at hundreds of billions of dollars. Although scientific and technological advances and socioeconomic transformations have driven drug research and development, yielding substantial gains, critical scholarship has emphasized controversial practices of corporate influence - here synthesized as “Influence, Deviations, and Excesses” - that promote growth, profitability, and the consolidation of power, at times in conflict with the collective interest and public health. In this context, the present article adopts an exploratory-descriptive design and a mixed-methods approach, triangulating public datasets, institutional documents, and a critical review of the international literature to map and describe mechanisms of corporate influence in the pharmaceutical sector across eight axes: (i) lobbying and electoral financing; (ii) influence over regulatory and oversight bodies; (iii) influence on patient organizations; (iv) influence on the development of clinical guidelines; (v) manipulation, promotion, and concealment of pharmaceutical research and trials; (vi) ghostwriting; (vii) strategies of diagnostic expansion and disease promotion; and (viii) the funding and provision of benefits to prescribers and institutions, including psychosocial mechanisms and formative dimensions. The findings indicate that corporate influence is structured across multiple scales and operates in a manner that is simultaneously visible and diffuse. At the political level, lobbying and electoral financing emerge as central instruments for shaping the normative and regulatory environment, with a progressive expansion of investments. In the regulatory sphere, the recurrence of conflicts of interest in advisory committees and the circulation of personnel between agencies and companies suggest vulnerabilities to institutional capture, with implications for drug approval, oversight, and withdrawal processes. In the scientific domain, industry sponsorship is associated with biases that may affect everything from trial design and conduct to the selective publication of results, as well as practices such as ghostwriting and “market conditioning” strategies, undermining the credibility and circulation of evidence. In parallel, industry involvement is evident in diagnostic expansion and the medicalization of conditions of everyday life, enlarging markets and potentially obscuring social determinants and non-pharmacological approaches. In clinical practice, payments and transfers of value to prescribers and educational institutions are associated with shifts in prescribing patterns, increased costs, and preferential use of promoted drugs, including through low-value benefits mediated by cognitive biases.
A New Puzzle of Equality? Gender Gaps in Gen Z’s Gender Equality Attitudes in Europe
Richard Nennstiel; Christina Siegert
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Modernization theories predict increasing gender-egalitarian attitudes among younger cohorts. Yet, recent evidence points to substantial gender polarization within Generation Z. This short paper provides a systematic, cross-national and multidimensional analysis of gender differences in gender equality attitudes among Generation Z in Europe. Using microdata from six large-scale surveys, covering 82,187 individuals (born 1995–2009) across 24 European countries, we assess gender gaps across eight attitudinal dimensions of gender equality. We ask how attitudes differ by gender, how these gaps vary across countries, and how they relate to country-level gender equality. Our findings reveal widespread gender gaps, with young women consistently expressing more egalitarian views than young men. However, the magnitude of these gaps vary across countries and dimensions. Gender gaps are comparatively smaller for gender role norms, such as shared parenting, but larger for attitudes toward labor market fairness, perceptions of discrimination, and the salience of gender equality. Relating these patterns to the 2024 Gender Equality Index reveals that the relationship is not strictly linear across outcomes. Together, these findings challenge linear modernization narratives and underscore the importance of contextualized and multidimensional perspectives on gender equality attitudes among Generation Z.
Social Representation of Second-Hand Shopping: Cognitive Structure and Everyday Circular Economy Practice of the Scottish Population
Jianyu CHEN; Kathryn Colley; Tony Craig; Graciela Martínez Sánchez; Alice Hague; Fiona Bender
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Background Reuse behaviours such as buying second-hand objects are central to the transition towards a circular economy (CE). However, existing research has largely prioritised individual motivations, paying less attention to the shared meanings through which such behaviours are socially constructed. Drawing on Social Representations Theory (SRT), this study examines how collective understandings of second-hand shopping are organised and how they relate to broader circular-economy consumption behaviours. Methods We report findings from a pre-registered study based on a nationally representative survey of Scottish adults (N = 1,516), which included a free-association task eliciting spontaneous meanings related to “buying second-hand.” The data were analysed using a mixed-method approach. Results The results reveal a structured social representation of second-hand shopping that is predominantly practice-oriented and economically anchored, with strong emphasis on affordability and waste avoidance, with environmental concerns emerging in central elements. Five distinct cognitive clusters were identified, differing in their configurations of economic, moral, environmental, and pragmatic meaning constructions. CE-related behavioural engagement (particularly buying used, buying less, and zero-waste practices) was more strongly associated with cluster formation than sociodemographic characteristics. Conclusions Second-hand shopping is widely represented as an everyday, functional practice rather than an explicitly normative or policy-driven behaviour. While environmental meanings are increasingly integrated, collective representations remain grounded in resourcefulness and waste avoidance.
Revisiting displacements—exploring the potential of the biographical approach for object data enrichment
Mingshi Cui
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This research offers original insights and critical reflection on the digital data enrichment of displaced museum objects, grounded in robust theoretical foundations from various interdisciplinary fields and empirical data from case studies. Using a fragment of the Kizil Grottoes mural as a case study, the research explores the potential of object biography as a method for creating a more comprehensive and culturally inclusive dataset for museums’ curatorial and documentation practices and for future reference. It proposes the concept of digital object biography as a more culturally inclusive framework to reclaim a fuller narrative of the displaced objects' life stories, thereby extending debates on repatriation and virtual restoration.
Ceasing fire or fighting on? Insurgent violence, ideology and negotiations
Meri Dankenbring
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This article sheds light on dynamics of pacification and how they can be affected by insurgent extremity and violence against civilians. While previous research suggests that (civilian) deaths shape the probability of negotiations, it shows that the effect can take two directions. As increasing death tolls mean higher conflict costs, they can lower the probability of negotiations. At the same time, civilian killings may increase the conflict’s intractability and decrease trust between the parties, thus lowering the probability of negotiations. I argue that the direction of the effect of civilian targeting depends on insurgent ideology. When the insurgents’ extremity is low, they can use civilian targeting to exert power and pressure the government into negotiations. When their extremity is high, civilian targeting is more likely to have the opposite effect: Killing civilians can lower trust in the insurgents and entrench cleavages in society. Apart from this moderated effect via civilian killings, I also expect extremity to have a direct effect on the probability of conflict parties entering into meaningful negotiations. As high extremity increases both commitment and indivisibility problems, insurgents are less likely to meaningfully negotiate with increasing extremity. These expectations are supported by an analysis conducted using data on insurgent ideologies in civil wars between 1990 and 2020.
What do people want from opposition parties? A cross-national experimental study
Or Tuttnauer; Simone Wegmann; Felix Jäger; Roni Lehrer
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Opposition parties in modern democracies often find themselves having to balance their various functions and goals, such as representing their voters and influencing policy-making on the one hand, and criticising the government and presenting an alternative to it on the other hand. The emphasis on either of these functions leads to different strategies, measurable by confrontation or agreement with the government. Recent studies suggest that voters tend to reward opposition parties for confronting the government. However, these have relied on observational analyses and have not been able to investigate the underlying micro-mechanisms in detail. In this paper, we present the results of a novel survey experiment conducted among 12,824 respondents in nine European countries. The respondents were shown several hypothetical government-opposition interactions regarding government legislation and were asked to rate the opposition’s response. We manipulate the legislation initiative’s subject, direction, and magnitude, as well as the opposition’s response, distinguishing not only between agreement and confrontation but also between ideological and other justifications. Among other findings, we show that voters prefer compromise and agreement over refusal to compromise, but this preference is weaker the farther the proposed legislation is from the opposition’s ideal point.
The politics of badges: Reconceptualizing platform badges as verifiable identity credentials automating access to resources
Violeta Camarasa
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Despite their ubiquity, badges have received limited attention from critical platform researchers. Adopting a helicopter view, this conceptual paper argues that badging systems are not only motivational features, as generally understood, but critical information infrastructures producing social ordering on digital platforms. Drawing from STS and social theory, the paper reconceptualizes badges as verifiable identification credentials that shape how users are known, classified, predicted and treated, often through automated systems. Using examples from the early web to the present, the analysis demonstrates that platform badges comply with the definitional characteristics and functions of traditional credentials. This reframing positions platforms’ badging as a crucial phase in the history of credentialing that can help understand future identification and decision-making practices in datafied automated societies. The paper concludes by outlining potential implications of the changing materiality of credentials and opening new avenues for empirical research.
The politics of interwar chemistry Neutrality and nationalism in the rhetoric and actions of internationalist chemists
Jorrit Smit
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The First World War challenged internationalist ideals in chemistry, as nations mobilized researchers for military purposes. In different ways, chemists from various nations reconstructed international networks in the interwar period. A transnational comparison shows that German (Fritz Haber) and British (Frederick Donnan) chemistry coordinated their international efforts easily with state and industry, as the relations had intensified during the war. Chemists from Sweden (Svante Arrhenius) and the Netherlands (Ernst Cohen) turned to the cultural and epistemic meaning of neutrality to justify their internationalism at home and abroad. The comparative analysis emphasizes national histories in understanding the politics of international science.
Unequal labour market entry during COVID-19 in Finland: Stratification by type of degree and social origin
Aart-Jan Riekhoff; Satu Ojala
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Students who graduated in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic faced worsened conditions for labour market entry. Moreover, it is likely that the pandemic exacerbated existing inequalities in labour market entry between graduates. Using detailed Finnish administrative data and event study models, we estimate the effects of graduating during the pandemic on monthly employment statuses and earnings for a treatment group that graduated during COVID-19 compared with a control group that graduated exactly one year earlier. We differentiate between graduates of vocational education, universities of applied sciences and universities, as well as between having parents with a lower and higher educational degree. We find that the effects of the pandemic on employment and earnings were greater for graduates with a vocational degree than for those with a degree from a university (of applied sciences) but find little difference by social origin. By exploring the role of unemployment and student benefit take-up, we find that the negative employment effects of the pandemic on vocational graduates can be partly explained by a “discouraged worker effect”, in the form of graduates continuing or re-entering education. Jobless university graduates with highly educated parents were possibly holding out longer for better jobs using unemployment benefits.
Theorizing for Transformative Collective Action - A Process-Relational Approach
Tilman Hertz; Francois Bousquet; Mathilde Boucher; Catherine Lumalé; María Mancilla García; Maja Schlüter; Aurélie Sors
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This paper draws on process-relational perspectives to present an understanding of socio-environmental problems not as obstacles but as modes of existence. We argue that engaging with problems in this way unlocks their potential to be transformative, rather than merely resolving them. But how can those who set up and engage with processes of transformative change unlock this potential? This brings us to the topic of theorizing, as we argue that theorizing is an integral and fundamental part of engaging with problems. In this paper we develop an approach to theorizing for transformative collective action based on two key aspects: “Time”, building on Gilles Deleuze, and the “Complex We”, building on Marisol de La Cadena. As to the first, we explore how the past and future condition our understanding of problems, contrasting a linear, sequential view of time with a process-relational one where past and future are contracted in the present and are continuously reconfigured via processes of difference and repetition. As to the second, we introduce the "complex we", an emergent subjectivity as the agent of theorizing as that which supports reconfiguration of the past and the future. Together, these two aspects open up the transformative potential of socio-environmental problems beyond what could be conceptualized on the basis of linear time. We apply our approach to theorizing to a research project in Southern France, where problems such as tensions and conflicts over water availability are explored collaboratively. The paper concludes by discussing the strengths and limitations of our approach.
Insights into the relative efficiency of one- and two-stage research funding processes using an Agent Based Modelling approach
Alexander Hulkes
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All other things being equal, two-stage research funding processes that involve the initial submission of a relatively short proposal containing only minimal information (typically referred to as an outline proposal) followed by a preparation and submission of a full proposal will on average require less effort from their applicants than will single-stage processes. But it is likely that a funder operating a process which begins with a lower-effort outline stage will receive more applications than they might have expected to see had applicants been required initially to prepare a full proposal in a single-stage process. The net effect of these interacting and competing influences on the overall effort required in, and efficiency of, a funding process is not currently known and so is investigated in this work using an Agent-Based Modelling approach. The results of this model suggest that while the number of applications submitted will indeed increase, perhaps by as much as 40%, if two-stage processes are used, the level of applicant effort per unit output (that is, unit of funding awarded or number of awards made) may be reduced by around 15% to 20%. A weaker but more general interpretation, that does not rely so much on the specifics of the model, is that substantial increases in demand arising from use of outline processes might still come with an overall decrease in applicant effort. A reasonable conclusion is that more extensive use of two-stage research funding processes may lead to significant cost savings.
Artificial Intelligence Lives Among Us: Dialogues on Its Social and Regulatory Impacts
Juliano Maurício de Carvalho
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This study examines the social and regulatory implications of artificial intelligence (AI), focusing on its rapid popularization and disruptive potential. It adopts a qualitative, exploratory approach grounded in bibliographic and documentary research, with descriptive-analytical examination of international and national reports and regulatory frameworks. The paper contextualizes AI as a global debate topic present in multilateral organizations, educational environments, and corporate strategies, highlighting tensions between technological progress and social structures. It discusses the impact of generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT, on professional markets, education, and governance. International regulatory initiatives are analyzed, including the European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act, the United Kingdom’s National AI Strategy, and U.S. actions to consolidate leadership in research and development. In Brazil, the study reviews the legislative trajectory culminating in Bill No. 2,338/2023, which proposes principles, rights, risk classification, and governance mechanisms for AI systems. Ethical dimensions—such as transparency, accountability, bias mitigation, and fairness—are addressed, along with challenges in translating normative concepts into algorithmic frameworks. The paper also explores controversies surrounding copyright and remuneration for creators whose works train AI models, as well as risks related to disinformation, deepfakes, and national security. It concludes by advocating adaptive regulation, inclusive governance, and continuous social dialogue in light of emerging issues concerning authorship, authenticity, and equitable labor transitions in the era of generative AI.
Uncovering the Hidden Value of Unpaid Work: A Global History of Marginalized Metrics
Maylis Avaro; Johanna Gautier Morin
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Although economics derives its name from the Greek oikos nomos, or household management, the question of domestic labor, usually performed by women, has long been ignored in canonical conceptions of labor and value. But not by everyone. The canons of economic discipline have obscured the problem by systematically marginalizing the work of economists and activists who have sought to propose alternative methods of calculating the value of domestic work. This article proposes a comprehensive review of a century of research on the contribution of unpaid work to the global economy, and examines the mechanisms of exclusion of the value of unpaid work from GDP and national accounts. It highlights that the reluctance to reform these mainstream measures perpetuates well-known bias, despite generations of economists, especially women, consistently demonstrating the potential for improvement in accounting for diversity.
Structured Counterfactual Selection in Conservation Impact Evaluations
Tanya O'Garra; Diogo Veríssimo
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Counterfactuals fundamentally shape what impact evaluations estimate, yet documentation of how they are chosen is rare in conservation. We present a practical framework to make counterfactual choice systematic and transparent. First, we identify common evaluation goals and map these to four broad counterfactual types - no-intervention, program-level variation, attribute-level variation, and alternative implementation contexts. Second, we propose a four-step, iterative process for selecting counterfactuals that foregrounds decision context, conceptual counterfactuals, feasibility constraints (programme feasibility, ethical, observability of outcomes), and the final choice with limitations. We offer a concise minimum reporting set (the “counterfactual reporting standards” or CREST) to standardize documentation and illustrate the approach with a worked example comparing MPA expansion versus enhanced enforcement. Adopting structured counterfactual selection will increase the policy relevance and comparability of conservation evaluations, reduce misinterpretation of effect sizes across studies, and strengthen meta-analysis. We call on authors, reviewers, and journals to require transparent counterfactual reporting to accelerate accumulation of usable evidence and improve decision-making globally also.
The Personalist Penalty: Varieties of Autocracy and Economic Growth
Christopher Blattman; Scott Gehlbach; Zeyang Yu
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Studies of income and regime type typically contrast democracies and autocracies, ignoring heterogeneity in the character of authoritarian regimes. We focus on the consequences of personalist rule, where power is concentrated in an individual or small elite. Extending the dynamic panel strategy of Acemoglu, Naidu, Restrepo, and Robinson (2019), we estimate the differential growth performance of democracies, institutionalized autocracies, and personalist autocracies. Across eight GDP series, eight autocracy codings, and six measures of personalism, we observe a consistent pattern: Whenever an "autocratic penalty" emerges, it is concentrated in personalist regimes. The growth performance of institutionalized dictatorships, in contrast, is statistically indistinguishable from that of democracies. We document evidence that the "personalist penalty" is driven by some combination of low private investment, poor public-goods provision, and conflict. These findings emphasize the analytic payoff of unpacking autocracy and highlight the different incentives facing leaders with narrow and broad bases of power.
The Team Formation Problem in Education: A Systematic Review and Taxonomy of Its Variants and Optimisation Approaches
Yeray Barrios-Fleitas; Eduardo Lalla-Ruiz; Arend Rensink
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Deciding how to assign students to teams for effective teamwork, also known as the Team Formation Problem (TFP) in education, remains insufficiently understood despite decades of research across different disciplines offering fragmented guidance. In higher education, instructors must form short-lived teams using limited data while balancing pedagogical goals and logistical constraints, conditions that differ sharply from professional team settings. To address this fragmentation, this study develops an integrated taxonomy of educational TFP grounded in a systematic review of 35 peer-reviewed studies. Building upon perspectives from Operations Research, Organizational Psychology, and Educational Research, the taxonomy organizes TFP variants into three interrelated pillars: (1) Input attributes, which specify the student attributes used to form teams; (2) Problem formulation, which describes how attributes are manipulated and formalizes pedagogical objectives and constraints into optimization model; and (3) Solution methods, which describe the algorithms used to generate feasible team assignments. This structure clarifies the modeling decisions that underpin different TFP variants and provides a common vocabulary for describing them, enabling transparent reporting and meaningful comparison between studies that previously lacked a shared frame of reference. This structure makes explicit how pedagogical rationales, such as fairness, peer learning, or cohesion, translate into concrete modeling decisions, enabling transparent reporting and like-for-like comparison across studies that were previously not comparable. The review reveals substantial heterogeneity in how TFP variants are defined and reported, and shows that the proposed taxonomy can classify all identified formulations while exposing cross-disciplinary inconsistencies and gaps. The paper concludes with methodological guidelines that standardize how TFP variants should be specified and reported, supporting transparent communication, comparative analysis, and future benchmarking of team formation methods in educational contexts.
The mental health consequences of the 2023 genocide in Gaza, Palestine: A scoping review
Sameeha Atout; Andrew Kim
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Background: Israel’s genocide in the Gaza Strip has killed 7.9% of the population, and thousands of Palestinians have faced myriad forms of violence and imminent threats to life, including physical injuries from ballistics, home demolitions, and torture. These highly traumatic conditions pose severe psychological threats to Palestinians and may have reverberating effects in neighboring Arab countries. This scoping review aimed to examine the direct and indirect mental health consequences of Israel’s genocidal assault on Gazans, Palestinian citizens outside of Gaza, and populations in neighboring Arab countries and also investigated processes of coping and resilience among Palestinians. Methods: Following (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines, 42 articles, which were published after October 2023, were identified from five major search engines, including PubMed, Scopus, SpringerLink, Proquest, and Google Scholar. Studies investigated the psychological impacts of the 2023 genocide in Gaza, and their results were categorized into three groups: psychological impacts of wars, resilience, and coping strategies studies under war circumstances. Results: Findings revealed devastating mental health effects due to the genocide, with Gazans experiencing the most extreme outcomes. Gazan samples reported alarmingly high prevalence rates of mental health symptoms, including depression (72.7-99.5%), anxiety (65.0-99.7%), and PTSD (63.4-83.5%), which were the highest among all examined groups. Resilience and coping resources among Palestinians included cognitive strategies, family and social support, and religion. Conclusion: These findings highlight the large-scale psychological consequences of the 2023 Gazan genocide and underscores the urgent need for emergency mental health interventions in Palestine. Immediate action is necessary to prevent further psychological damage from the genocide and avert an irreversible humanitarian catastrophe.
When War Hits Home: The Middle East Conflict and the Polarized yet Contingent Nature of Prejudice
Claire Adida; Tamar Mitts
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In polarized societies, basic questions about what constitutes prejudice can become deeply contested. After Hamas’s October 7 attack and Israel’s subsequent invasion of Gaza, discourse about the conflict has been marked by disputes over antisemitism. We investigate what are and what shapes American beliefs about antisemitism. Analysis of over one million Google restaurant reviews shows that ratings of Israeli restaurants declined as Israel’s ground war intensified. We then use this finding to interrogate American perceptions of antisemitism. A nationally representative survey experiment (N = 3, 200) finds that perceptions of whether such behavior is antisemitic are deeply polarized along partisan lines—but largely unaffected by media framing of the conflict. A follow-up survey (N = 3, 000) conducted unexpectedly during Israel’s strike on Iran, shows that Americans surveyed after the attack were less likely to interpret controversial behavior and speech as antisemitic. Our findings reveal the polarized and contingent nature of antisemitic beliefs.
The Public Health Impact of GLP-1 Advertising Exposure in the U.S.
Matt Motta; Timothy Callaghan; Sarah K Lipson; Jennifer Ross; Kiersten Strombotne; Christopher Louis
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The recent discovery that a class of drugs collectively known as “GLP-1s” (Glucagon-Like Peptide-1) can promote weight loss has led to a surge in pharmaceutical production, demand, and advertising. While previous research has considered the impact that advertising exposure may have on public demand for using GLP-1s for weight management, few have considered the broader public health impacts (both positive and negative) of GLP-1 advertising. For example, increased GLP-1 advertisement exposure could make people more self-conscious about their own weight and physical appearance. It could also promote destigmatizing views toward those who use GLP-1 products for weight management. In a nationally representative survey of N = 1,000 US adults, we find that people exposed to higher levels of GLP-1 advertising tend to hold more negative views about their own weight and physical appearance. We find no evidence that ad exposure is associated with destigmatizing views about those who use GLP-1 products, although we find strong evidence that exposure can stimulate demand for GLP-1 products. These results hold across a wide range of measures and model specifications. We conclude by discussing the potential public health risks of GLP-1 advertising, in a changing regulatory landscape.
Modeling social networks with homophily via multi-dimensional social distance attachment
Ruben Rodriguez-Casañ; Javier Borge-Holthoefer; Alessio Cardillo
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The tendency of individuals to connect with similar others (i.e., homophily) is a cornerstone of social networks. Individuals are characterized by multiple attributes interacting in complex ways, challenging the unidimensional view on homophilic relationship formation. We introduce a multidimensional social distance attachment model integrating both exclusive (e.g., gender) and non-exclusive (e.g., language) features to capture homo- and hetero-philic behaviors. By embedding attributes as vectors within a metric space, we estimate the relative contribution of each attribute to the overall network features, and evaluate how their correlations shape inclusion dynamics. We test our model on two empirical networks of cultural production: the correspondence of the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation (IIIC) and contemporary global music collaborations. In both cases, heterophily enhances the centrality of minorities, albeit the enhancement depends on the attributes' internal composition and interdependence. Our findings demonstrate that inclusion policies must account for the multidimensional nature of social identities, and can open alternative and non-trivial pathways toward more equitable visibility in social systems.
The Mediating Role Of Global Export Mindset: Global Capabilities, Networks, And Global Export Mindset In Emerging Market Small And Medium Enterprises
Vicky Armando Ambate
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Research on export performance has extensively examined the roles of export orientation, global networks, and dynamic capabilities in enhancing firms’ export outcomes, particularly among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, existing studies largely rely on direct-effect approaches and provide limited explanation of the internal mechanisms through which external resources and organizational capabilities are transformed into export performance. Moreover, the literature tends to treat global mindset, strategic cognition, and export orientation as separate constructs, resulting in fragmented insights and inconsistent empirical findings. Addressing these gaps, this study proposes the development and empirical examination of Global Export Strategic Mindset (GESM) as a conceptually derived construct that functions as a strategic mechanism linking global network and global dynamic capability to export performance. GESM is conceptualized as a cross-level strategic capability that integrates managerial global perspective, strategic cognitive processing, and organizational commitment to exporting. Operationally, GESM is modeled as a higher-order construct comprising three dimensions: Global Strategic Cognition, Strategic Export Commitment, and Global–Local Strategic Integration. This study adopts a quantitative, explanatory research design. Data are planned to be collected through a survey of exporting SMEs in Indonesia and analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to examine the proposed structural relationships and the mediating role of GESM. The proposed research is expected to contribute to export performance and internationalization literature by providing a mechanism-based explanation of how global resources and capabilities are converted into effective export strategies, while offering practical insights for strengthening the strategic capacity of SMEs in emerging economies.
Hashtag activism and its enemies: A discursive analysis of suppressing #MahsaAmini on Persian Twitter
Hossein; Pardis Yarahmadi; Mohammad Makki; Zahra HosseiniKhoo
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This paper examines how the Iranian regime’s online supporters sought to manipulate and suppress the #MahsaAmini movement on Iranian Twitter. Whereas prior work emphasizes the emancipatory potential of hashtag activism, less is known about the discursive and rhetorical tactics authoritarian actors use to undermine such mobilization. Drawing on critical discourse and rhetorical studies, we analyze 6,170 tweets posted by 1,388 influential pro-regime accounts during the movement’s first two months (15 September–15 November 2022). We find that incivility was the dominant strategy for disrupting the movement, followed by disinformation and conspiracy narratives. These tactics were reinforced through stigmatizing metaphors (e.g., “whore,” “ISIS/Daesh”) and other delegitimizing labels aimed at discrediting dissidents. Pro-regime accounts also relied on emotional appeals, especially fear and pity, to naturalize false claims. We argue these moves enact coordinated boundary-work that delegitimizes protest narratives and reasserts regime authority online systematically. The study clarifies mechanisms of repression under theocracy.
Hyperdigimodernism: Asymmetrical Co-Authorship and the Reconfiguration of Selfhood, Agency, and Belonging under Platform Capitalism
Nicole Al Rais; Brigitte Elise de Boef
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This theoretical article introduces hyperdigimodernism as a conceptual framework for analyzing how artificial intelligence participates in contemporary digital culture. Existing approaches largely treat AI as infrastructural mediation that filters or organizes expression. This article argues that machine learning systems now operate as generative co-authors, participating directly in everyday meaning-making practices. Building on postmodern and digimodern accounts, it conceptualizes a historical shift toward asymmetrical co-production in which AI systems actively shape identity, agency, and collective belonging. Through theoretical genealogy and synthesis of empirical literature on influencer culture, three interrelated dimensions are elaborated: algorithmic co-authorship of selfhood, distributed agency between human intention and computational prediction, and algorithmically mediated retribalization. The framework specifies how AI’s generative role operates within platform-based political economies, offering new conceptual vocabulary for understanding how machine learning reconfigures authorship, decision-making, and community formation under contemporary digital conditions.
Examining Measurements of Fear of Crime Across Surveys: Content, Cognitive Processes, and Psychometric Properties
Jeanette Melin; Marika Wenemark; Magnus Johansson
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Purpose: To enhance the understanding of different survey questions and the opportunities they provide to measure fear of crime as a latent trait, examining both crime-type and consequence items. Methods: Items from five surveys used in the Stockholm Region were coded into content areas. Cognitive interviews (n = 19) were analysed for response processes. Rasch analyses were conducted on the Swedish Crime Survey (n = 4,264) and the City of Stockholm Crime Survey (n = 7,333). Results: The surveys covered overlapping topics but used distinct phrasings. Response comprehension was generally adequate, yet some terms were interpreted differently. Respondents found it difficult to isolate fear of crime from other motives in the consequence items. There was no clear advantage to either frequency- or consequence-framed items, whereas intensity stems imposed a lower response burden. Psychometrically, unidimensional solutions were hard to achieve for either crime type or consequence item sets. The evidence suggests heterogeneity across population groups. Conclusions: Current practice involves both strengths and weaknesses. This study suggests paths toward enhanced measurement of the fear of crime. Measuring fear of crime as a single, invariant latent trait is far from straightforward. The heterogeneity of responses across population groups indicates that different groups evaluate their fear of crime types and consequences differently, challenging the assumption of unidimensionality. However, the cognitive interviews suggest ways to clarify item wording and reduce respondent burden.
Daily 60-minute interval electricity use patterns and their association with household socio-demographics
Reza Serati; Bettina Grün; Anna Kristina Zinn; Sarah MacInnes; Oscar Yuheng Zhu; Danyelle; Marius Portmann; Siamak Layeghy; Joanne Hamer; Daniel Eghbal
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Australia leads the world in rooftop solar photovoltaic systems. We analyse 3,300,695 days of actual household electricity use in Queensland, Australia, available in 5-minute intervals to identify five distinctly different household electricity consumption patterns. We then assign 366,439,750 days of electricity use of 1,097,125 households in Queensland, Australia, to those prototypical patterns to identify household market segments with distinct electricity use patterns and household characteristics. Segment profiles show that the benefits of rooftop photovoltaics are currently asymmetrically accessible to the Australian population in Queensland. Households with photovoltaic systems typically live in their own house, report a high education and income level, whereas households without photovoltaics who have the most consistent electricity use pattern across the day and use most electricity from the grid are more likely to rent, live in an apartment and report lower income and education levels. Regulatory modifications can make cost cost-saving benefits of rooftop solar systems available to a much wider section of the Australian community in Queensland, while also contributing to carbon emissions reduction via an increase in renewable energy.
Unpacking the Hispanic Mortality Paradox: A Research Note on Country-of-Origin Variation
Andrea Miranda Gonzalez; Katerine Perez; Casey Breen
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Hispanic immigrants in the United States face persistent socioeconomic disadvantage but paradoxically experience lower mortality throughout the life course. We document this Hispanic mortality paradox across 22 national-origin groups using Social Security administrative mortality records from 1988--2005. The paradox extends to migrants from every country in South America, Central America, and the Hispanic Caribbean. Yet the magnitude of the mortality advantage varies substantially by country of origin, state of arrival, and period of arrival, demonstrating the importance of examining subgroup-specific outcomes rather than treating Hispanics as a monolithic population. Taken together, these findings highlight the need to move beyond the aggregated Hispanic category and recognize how diverse migration histories and incorporation contexts shape the health trajectories of Hispanic immigrants.
From the Platform Society to the AI Society: Towards Critical Studies of Generative AI
Petter Törnberg; Justus Uitermark
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The era of AI has begun. Generative AI is rapidly reshaping knowledge production, culture, and political authority, giving rise to an emerging AI society. Yet this transformation did not emerge ex nihilo. This paper argues that the AI society can only be understood in relation to the platform society from which it arises. Tracing the transition from platforms to AI, we identify interlinked economic, epistemic, and political shifts. Economically, AI emerges within platform-based rentier capitalism but reconfigures the monopoly mechanisms on which its accumulation depends. Epistemically, LLMs mark a shift from predictive to generative epistemics, entangling theory formation and knowledge production with private research-as-a-service infrastructures. Politically, governance shifts from data politics to alignment politics: from shaping visibility to shaping what can be said, thought, and imagined. Together, these transformations signal a qualitative shift in mediation—from governing interaction to governing cognition itself—and call for a Critical AI Studies.
The Impact of Vacancy Taxes on Housing Prices: A Synthetic Control Study
Zachary Esses Johnson
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Importance: Cities in North America are beginning to wield vacancy taxes (a property tax imposed on unoccupied homes) as a tool to reduce rapidly growing home prices. However, these taxes are being implemented with little to no empirical evidence backing their effectiveness. Objective: To determine whether Washington, D.C.’s 2003-imposed vacancy tax impacted home prices. Design: A panel data set for the years 1978-2013 was compiled for this analy- sis. Data was collected on 13 different variables related to the housing market for 31 metropolitan statistical areas, including Washington, D.C. The synthetic control method was applied to create a counterfactual Washington, D.C. using the available variables and donor cities. House price comparisons were then made over time to deter- mine what Washington, D.C.’s average house prices would have been absent their 2003 vacancy tax, as measured by the synthetic control unit. Robustness checks, placebo tests, and time series analyses were subsequently used to validate and investigate the primary results. Results: Contrary to expectations, there is a gap following the 2003 treatment that suggests Washington, D.C.’s tax may have increased house prices rather than decreased or limited them. An interrupted time series analysis also shows a statistically significant break in the house price trajectory starting in approximately 2005. However, a placebo in space test casts doubt on any significant results as Washington, D.C.’s outcomes are unremarkable when applying the potential treatment to other U.S. cities. Conclusions and Relevance: There is no evidence that the 2003 tax reduced house prices. Local governments in North America should be cautious about imple- menting vacancy taxes if the primary or sole purpose is to reduce or restrict house prices.
The Evolutionary Dynamics of Cultural Change (As Told Through the Birth and Brutal, Blackened Death of Metal Music)
Bernard Koch; Daniele Silvestro; Jacob G. Foster
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How does culture change? We unify disconnected explanations of change that focus either on individuals or on public culture under a theory of cultural evolution. By shifting our analytical lens from actors to public cultural ideas and object, our theory can explain change in cultural forms over large and long frames of analysis using formal evolutionary mechanisms. Complementing this theory, the paper introduces a suite of novel methods to explain change in the historical trajectories of populations of cultural ideas/objects (e.g., music groups, hashtags, laws, technologies, and organizations) through diversification rates. We deploy our theory and methods to study the history of Metal Music over more than three decades, using a complete dataset of all bands active between 1968 and 2000. Over the course of its history, we find strong evidence that the genre has been fundamentally shaped by competition between ideas for the cognitive resources actors can invest in learning about and reproducing this cultural form over time. Extensive tutorials for the methods are available at http://www.dysoc.org/cesmodules/diversification_module/tutorials.
Global Estimates of Opportunity and Mobility: A Database
Francisco H. G. Ferreira; Vito Peragine; Paolo Brunori; Pedro Salas-Rojo; Domenico Moramarco; Luis Barajas; Teresa Barbieri; Nancy Daza-Báez; Gaurav Datt; Vito de Sandi
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This paper describes a new public-access online database containing internationally comparable estimates of inequality of opportunity for seventy-two countries, covering two-thirds of the world’s population. The estimates were computed directly from the unit-record microdata for 196 household surveys, using a suite of machine-learning tools selected to minimize the omitted variable and overfitting biases discussed in the literature. Overall, differences in opportunities account for substantial shares of total income inequality (with the mean of our preferred estimate being 40.9%), but there is substantial variation across countries, with estimates ranging from 18.9% in Denmark (2011) to 76.7% in South Africa (2017). The latest US estimate of 41.6% places it among the most opportunity unequal high-income countries. We also find strong support for the existence of a positive association between income inequality and relative inequality of opportunity, analogous to the “Great Gatsby Curve” for mobility and inequality. Similarly, there is evidence of an inverted-U “Opportunity Kuznets curve.” The database is available at www.geom.ecineq.org. (Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality Working Paper)
Voices of Women in Medicine: Reflections on Structural Inequities, Resilience, and Pathways Forward
Ivy Ng; Rachel Yuan; Faraz Ghoddusi
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Despite growing representation in medicine, women physicians continue to face persistent inequities in pay, leadership, and recognition. To gain a deeper understanding of their lived experiences, we conducted interviews and surveys with 22 women physicians from across the United States and Canada. We analyzed 309 narrative excerpts using a mixed-methods thematic analysis. Seven key themes emerged: early influences and role models, family and life-course pressures, gendered dynamics in daily practice, structural inequities, wellness and burnout, leadership and mentorship, and visions for the future of medicine. Participants described how career demands often conflicted with family responsibilities, how bias and misidentification shaped legitimacy, and how systemic burdens intensified burnout. Yet they also emphasized the strength of resilience, mentorship, and optimism regarding technology, as well as collective advocacy. These narratives suggest that achieving gender equity in medicine is essential not only to ensure justice among clinicians but also to sustain compassionate, high-quality patient care.
Between merit and marriage: Gender differences in self-assessed wealth contributors
Theresa Nutz; Nicole Kapelle; Daria Tisch
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This study examines how women and men retrospectively self-assess the extent to which different factors have contributed to their current wealth. Studying gender differences in these self-assessments is crucial because they reflect the opportunity structures individuals have experienced and shape how wealth accumulation and inequalities are interpreted, legitimized, and potentially acted upon. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP; waves 2017 and 2019, N=18,574), we first analyse gender differences in retrospective assessments of how eight different factors have contributed to individuals’ current wealth and, second, how these gendered assessments vary across the wealth and age distribution. Our results show that men tend to assess higher contributions of dependent employment, self-employment/entrepreneurship, and financial business to their current wealth than women, who assess higher contributions of marriage and inheritance than men. These gender differences are particularly pronounced at the upper end of the wealth distribution and become more marked at older ages. Overall, women tend to emphasize relational and dependent contributors to their current wealth, while men emphasize self-generated and market-based pathways. Assessments of wealth contributors thus mirror persistent economic gender disparities, illustrating how the gender wealth gap may be legitimized and reproduced.
Public and public involvement, engagement, and participation in practice: Co-production of a creative health approach and theory of change through the ReCITE consortium-building project in Liverpool
Dawn Holford; Charlotte Hemingway; Kim Ozano; Amina Ismail; Ema Kelly; Vicki Doyle; Sarah Glover; Sarah Maclennan; David Lewis; Mike Morris
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Background Co-production with public stakeholders is increasingly recognised as an important approach to ensuring health research is relevant to communities and interventions and likely to generate sustainable change. Ideally, co-production needs to be sustained throughout different stages of research and allow stakeholders ownership of the research agenda. We explore a case study of iterative co-production conducted over a nine-month period with a wide range of disparate stakeholders that transformed into a research-ready consortium able to design and obtain funding for a creative health research programme. Main body The ReCITE consortium is comprised of academics, creatives, and specialists in capacity development and community engagement in Liverpool, UK. Its main focus is health equity and coming up with new ways of working to tackle entrenched, avoidable and unfair differences in health. ReCITE led a series of six workshops in 2023 to co-produce a research programme to investigate creative approaches for improving health equity. Fifty-six stakeholders from the academic, creative and arts, health, community and voluntary sectors participated across six workshops that sought broad engagement and consolidated stakeholder input to develop a research agenda and expand the consortium. Common emerging themes were: 1) understanding complexities in funding creative health; 2) investigating storytelling as a catalyst for change; 3) achieving change through collective action; 4) the role of creative advocacy to change societal and funding structures; 5) evidencing the impact of community-led creative health interventions on health equity. These formed multiple co-produced outputs, including five pillars of a theory of change for the research that underpinned the research questions and determined five interventions to take forward by the research-ready consortium to securing funding for future work. Conclusion The iterative process of gaining stakeholder input, consolidating it, and seeking further input, helped to incorporate the perspectives of different stakeholder groups into different project outputs. Equitable power-sharing guided decision-making over what to prioritise was important in building ownership of the research agenda and trust among stakeholders. However, this was a lengthy iterative process and sustaining time commitment was difficult for those stakeholders who were not fully funded to participate.
Disentangling Plausible and Implausible Straightlining: Effects of Question Format, Mode and Device
Çağla E. Yildiz; Henning Silber; Jessica Daikeler; Fabienne Kraemer; Evgenia Kapousouz
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Straightlining, (nearly) identical responses in multi-item batteries, is among the most widely used indicators of satisficing. However, straightlining does not necessarily reflect low-quality responses; it can also result from genuine similar attitudes or behaviors. We differentiate between plausible straightlining batteries, where uniform responses are reasonable given specific question characteristics and content, and implausible straightlining batteries, where uniform responding is not expected and most likely signals satisficing. Using data from the GESIS Panel.pop, a mixed-mode probability-based panel in Germany, we leverage a layout change that transitioned multi-item batteries from matrix to single-item formats to study plausible and implausible straightlining. Our findings, based on mixed-effects logistic regression models, indicate that respondents are significantly more likely to straightline on plausible than on implausible batteries. While question format does not affect straightlining overall, single-item formats are associated with less straightlining on implausible batteries but more on plausible batteries. Additional analyses show that web respondents are less likely to straightline than mail respondents, and this mode effect is more pronounced in single-item formats. Smartphone respondents are more likely to straightline than desktop or tablet respondents, particularly on implausible straightlining batteries. These results highlight the importance of considering question characteristics and content when using straightlining as an indicator of satisficing to avoid flagging genuine responses as low-quality data.
Does Phone Use Facilitate Coping? Exploring Impact of Phone Use on Coping Effort in Stressful Situations
Lara Wolfers; Heying Yang
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It was often argued that smartphones facilitate access to a large number of resources whenever and wherever needed. In stressful instances, smartphone-enabled easy access could be particularly relevant as they could reduce the effort needed to access resources and thereby increase efficient coping with stressful instances. However, while this is often argued for it has not been tested. This research report builds on a secondary analysis of two experience sampling studies on the use of phones for coping with stress in two samples of mothers (NStudy1 = 50; NStudy2 = 225). Both studies asked mothers to report on stressful situations that had happened in the last two hours several times a day. We tested whether phone use in a stressful situation was related to less perceived coping effort and whether decreased coping effort related to more perceived coping efficacy. We find no support for the relation between effort and coping efficacy and mixed support for the relation of phone use and effort. Especially the inconclusive relationship between effort and smartphone use is surprising and challenges often used arguments in the mobile communication literature. Exploratory analyses suggest that the relationship between coping effort and phone use might be different depending on which coping strategy is applied.
Examining public support for Ukraine’s defense against autocratic aggression
Lukas Rudolph; Fabian Haggerty; Paul Thurner
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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine challenges the liberal international order and tests the capacity of Western democracies to maintain long-term military and financial aid for Ukraine in a foreign war. Understanding whether governments’ pledges of resolve are backed by their citizens is crucial for the credibility of these commitments. Here we show, based on survey experiments with 10,011 respondents in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Italy, that these countries’ publics share a similar pattern of preferences. In all countries, citizens strongly endorse Ukraine’s sovereignty and self-determination while weighing human suffering and conflict escalation risk, but less so economic costs. However, within countries, attitudes are polarized: roughly one quarter of citizens with pro-Western orientations show firm resolve, whereas another quarter with anti-Western views remain largely indifferent to political outcomes for Ukraine. These divisions indicate that democratic party competition could constrain the unity and durability of Western resolve against autocratic aggression.
The Intergenerational Transmission of Majority-Group Ties and Their Political Consequences
Sakeef M. Karim
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In this study, I highlight an underappreciated catalyst for political socialisation in immigrant societies—the intergenerational transmission of majority ties. Drawing on nine waves of German panel data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey in Four European Countries (2011–2022), I demonstrate that the “Germanness” of parental networks shapes youth respondents’ majority- group ties in adolescence, and illustrate how these social inheritances influence the Germanness of adolescent networks during the transition to early adulthood. By Wave 9, when most respondents are in their late 20s, the Germanness of social networks is closely linked to political preferences: native majorities with more German-centric networks are less likely to support left-wing parties, while the inverse is true for most of their immigrant-origin peers. These patterns reflect distinct but complementary mechanisms: for immigrants and their descendants, majority ties signal structural assimilation into “mainstream” political culture and convergence with liberal-cosmopolitan norms; for natives, ethnically diverse social networks reinforce enculturation into progressive political communities. Overall, these findings show that political socialisation operates not only through the transmission of beliefs and cultural orientations, but through the concomitant reproduction of social environments.
The Gender Revolution Revisited: Couples’ Shared Gender Egalitarian Attitudes and Their Distinct Relationships with the Probability and Timing of Parenthood
Daniele Florean; Natalie Nitsche; Viktoria Oellers; Daniela Grunow
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Gender revolution theory posits that, in contexts with high female labor participation, couples sharing domestic work equally will (desire to) have more children. However, empirical findings at the micro level have been mixed. We propose three reasons why prior research has been inconclusive: (1) a tendency to treat gender attitudes or practices as a single continuum, rather than multidimensionally; (2) insufficient attention to partner’s shared attitudes; and (3) empirical approaches that conflate timing and quantum. We propose a refined approach that considers how shared gender egalitarian attitudes toward work divisions, female careers, and child-welfare are differentially related to the quantum versus timing of fertility. Using cure models and data from Germany, we show that couples’ shared gender egalitarian attitudes regarding domestic work, career support, and child welfare have distinct relationships with the occurrence and timing of first births. We find no evidence of higher probability of first births among couples who shared egalitarian attitudes regarding domestic work, career support, child welfare, or all three domains. However, egalitarian couples regarding domestic work and career support have later first births. Our results underscore the importance of (1) differentiated measurements of gender attitudes, and (2) considering quantum and timing as affected separately.
From Security to Sustainability: The BES Determinants of Italian Regional GDP
Massimo Arnone; Carlo Drago; Alberto Costantiello; Fabio Anobile; Angelo Leogrande
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This paper explores the link between economic performance and multidimensional well-being in the Italian context using a combination of the ISTAT BES approach (Benessere Equo e Sostenibile) and machine learning and clustering analysis. On the basis of a dataset of 19 Italian regions and the Autonomous Provinces of Trento and Bolzano from 2012 to 2023, it will be examined how the three BES components—Benessere (B), Equità (E), and Sostenibilità (S)—are intertwined with the Gross Domestic Product of the regions. Regarding the Benessere (B) component of well-being, the Gross Domestic Product will be analyzed using a regression approach of the K-Nearest Neighbors type to reveal the complex linkages between health outcomes, education outcomes, working conditions, social participation, and economic performance. The clustering of the B indicators and the Gross Domestic Product will be done using Hierarchical Clustering analysis to identify homogeneous territories characterized by different levels of quality of life and economic prosperity. Regarding the Equità (E) component of well-being, the regression analysis will be done using the Boosting algorithm to model the linkages between the Gross Domestic Product and the indicators of income distribution, poverty, material deprivation, and inclusion in the labor market. Boosting regression analysis will be particularly useful for this purpose since it models the complex interactions and thresholds of social and economic inequalities. Hierarchical Clustering analysis will be applied to identify the territories characterized by different levels of equity and economic growth. Regarding the Sostenibilità (S) component of well-being, the Gross Domestic Product will be modeled using Boosting regression analysis to reveal the very complex linkages between the economic performance of the territories and the indicators of environmental quality, risk of climate change, innovation outcomes, and the quality of public services. For this purpose, the analysis will use the Random Forest algorithm to identify the territories characterized by different levels of sustainability and economic performance. The analysis will show that the BES approach provides a very useful framework to identify the very different levels of linkages between the economic performance of the territories and the outcomes of the BES approach. The analysis will provide evidence that the BES approach is a very useful framework for the analysis of the linkages between the economic performance of the territories and the outcomes of the BES approach.
Co-habiting Couples, Economic Standing and Support of Right-wing Populism in the Netherlands: a Diagonal Reference Models Approach
Yoav Roll
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Over the past three decades, right-wing populism has steadily risen to prominence across the world. Yet a crucial socio-economic context for its development - the household and its underlying gender dynamics - remains under-explored in research on right-wing populism. This study investigates how the income, level of education, and class within cohabiting couples in the Netherlands, shape their support for right-wing populism through three diverse predictors, ranging from behavioural to attitudinal: voting for right-wing populist [RWP] parties, aim to vote for RWP parties, and sympathy towards RWP parties. Four models are tested to explain these relationships: male dominance, sharing, individual, and economic dominance models. Based on previous studies focusing on non-RWP parties, I expected the individual model for men and the sharing model for women to provide the best fit. Using data from the Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences, this paper utilises diagonal reference models [DRM], for men and women separately, to trace the relative influence of the respondent and their partner on their RWP support. As far as I know, DRM has never been used to predict support for RWP parties. As expected, gender differences are evident. However, the data show, contrary to expectation, that the sharing model provides the best fit for men, while the individual model provides the best fit for women when it comes to income and education. Regarding class, as expected, the sharing model provides the best fit for women. The implications of these findings are discussed in light of the diverse characteristics of the economic standing predictors and the different facets of RWP support tested. As women increasingly join the workforce and occupy diverse roles, the ways in which men and women perceive their economic circumstances - particularly within households - diverge significantly. These findings highlight the importance of accounting for household context and gender dynamics in understanding the rise of right-wing populism in developed democracies such as the Netherlands.
The Cultural Ecology of Social Media
Alberto Acerbi
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Most research on social media considers them as supports for transmission of information, explaining online success (and pathologies) by focusing on consumers’ biases and interests. This article takes a different perspective, applying ideas from an ecological approach to culture to social media informational dynamics. It argues that success online depends both on the intrinsic appeal of content to receivers and on how well content serves producers’ strategic goals within the constraints and affordances of specific platforms. These goals include reputation management, coalition building and identity management, and coordination or participation in shared activities. Transmission is often a by-product of these motivations, and replication fidelity plays a limited role compared with transformations that adapt content to local incentives. Finally, the article suggests that platforms and communities can be understood as distinct ecological niches, each characterised by different audience structures, affordances, metrics, and algorithmic pressures. This perspective offers novel insight to persistent debates on social media dynamics, such as misinformation, radicalisation and polarisation, and the reasons behind online success.
Lighthouse Construction and China's Foreign Trade in the late 19th Century
Khon Long Chia
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This paper explores the transformative role lighthouses played in shaping China’s 19th-century maritime trade. In the aftermath of the Opium War and the opening of international treaty ports, the Chinese Maritime Customs Service (CMC), under the leadership of Robert Hart, launched a concerted effort to illuminate the nation’s dark and hazardous coastline. By examining annual trade reports alongside the construction dates and locations of new lighthouses, I discovered that ports such as Shanghai, Chinkiang, and Kiukiang saw increases in commercial activity, often doubling or even tripling annual trade volume after the installation of navigational aids. To further support this correlation, this paper draws on qualitative sources, including commissioner reports, lighthouse keeper accounts, and decennial customs records, to provide firsthand insights into how lighthouses functioned not only as safety mechanisms but also as symbols of state authority. They deterred local resistance, reinforced imperial presence, and contributed to a more secure and predictable maritime environment. In doing so, lighthouses helped establish reliable channels for international commerce, reducing the risk of shipwreck or cargo loss and ultimately fostering trust in China’s coastal trade routes.
Celebrity messages reduce online hate and limit its spread
Eaman Jahani; Blas Kolic; Manuel Tonneau; Hause Lin; Daniel Barkoczi; Samuel P. Fraiberger
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Online hate spreads rapidly, yet little is known about whether preventive and scalable strategies can curb it. We conducted the largest randomized controlled trial of hate speech prevention to date: a 20-week messaging campaign on X in Nigeria targeting ethnic hate. 73,136 users who had previously engaged with hate speech were randomly assigned to receive prosocial video messages from Nigerian celebrities. The campaign reduced hate content by 2.5% to 5.5% during treatment, with about 75% of the reduction persisting over the following four months. Reaching a larger share of a user’s audience reduced amplification of that user’s hate posts among both treated and untreated users, cutting hate reposts by over 50% for the most exposed accounts. Scalable messaging can limit online hate without removing content.
No drain, no gain? The problems with unequal exchange
Niall Reddy; Virgilio Urbina Lazardi
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Recent empirical work (Hickel et al. 2021, 2022) appears to show that the Global South is being ``drained" of resources and value on a vast scale through unequal exchange (UE) and/or ecologically unequal exchange (EUE). Headline estimates of the aggregate value of this extraction have been widely taken to substantiate two politico-normative issues: that the South is systematically exploited through international price formation, and that this drain constitutes a binding constraint on Southern development and a precondition for Northern prosperity. This paper argues that neither claim is supported by the new measurement agenda. It shows that new drain estimates rely on untenable premises -- in particular, claims of North-South parity in productivity and export composition. Stipped of these assumptions, Hickel et al's method can't yield a counterfactual ``fair price" vector, meaning that their estimates are ungrounded and indeterminate. Moreover, even granting the estimates, they do not sustain an underdevelopment thesis. In standard growth regressions and long-run club-convergence tests, higher measured drain is non-negative and often positively associated with Southern growth once conventional fundamentals are controlled for. The paper suggests ways that research in ecological economics can be placed on a firmer conceptual footing.
“Love Hurts, Love Scars, Love Wounds” Narratives That Normalize and Legitimize Intimate Partner Violence Through Moral Disengagement Mechanisms
Kaja Glomb; Martyna Sekulak; Andrew M. Garcia
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This article undertakes a focused, thematic synthesis of interdisciplinary scientific literature to synthesize existing knowledge on how Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is legitimized and normalized across diverse sociocultural contexts. Our analysis comprehensively covers physical, psychological, sexual, and controlling behaviours. The effect of this review is a novel hierarchical typology of narratives that frame and justify abuse, which are then analysed through the lens of Bandura’s eight mechanisms of moral disengagement (MD). The core argument proposes that the widespread persistence of IPV is sustained by a system of social coherence, not solely individual pathology. Legitimization operates hierarchically: fundamental societal ideologies provide the foundational Moral Justification, enabling the subsequent activation of individual MD strategies (specifically Dehumanization, Attribution of Blame, and Diffusion of Responsibility) by perpetrators. Crucially, the MD framework is extended to show that these narratives are also mobilized by external observers and social institutions to manage moral discomfort and maintain a predictable social order through defensive attribution and the Belief in a Just World. This model demonstrates that effective prevention must target the underlying cultural narratives and the hierarchical moral architecture that actively license these moral exemptions.
The Price of Silence: Fiscal Capacity and Mass Anti-Regime Mobilization in Autocracies
Ruslan Guseinov
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Why do some autocracies experience violent anti-regime mobilization while others remain quiescent? The literature does not provide sufficient theoretical arguments and empirical evidence linking fiscal strength in autocracies to mass mobilization. In my paper, I suggest that fiscal capacity shapes authoritarian stability: autocracies with greater fiscal room can finance public goods, the military and security apparatus at high levels, solving the fundamental problem of authoritarian control and power-sharing. Moreover, higher fiscal capacity increases protest costs for citizens, which constitutes a "silence-buying" effect, a new term I coin in the context of authoritarian civil resistance. My argument stems from some comparative politics theories and theoretical statements of Jack Goldstone and Theda Skocpol. Using panel data on violent mass anti-regime mobilization from 2003 to 2022 and introducing a novel operationalization of fiscal capacity as central government debt, I employ logistic models for protest onset and negative binomial models for protest counts to estimate the effect of the central government debt on violent contention. Across specifications, robustness checks and zero-inflation corrections, the effect stays significantly positive, suggesting that fiscal constraints pose a destabilizing threat to autocracies. Findings show that fiscal capacity has been overlooked as a viable factor of contention and provide sufficient evidence in favor of a new operationalization of fiscal capacity.
Subjective Valuation Matrix: A New Geometric Framework for Asymmetric Value Perception
J. Vázquez
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The exchange of favors is one of the most common manifestations of social altruism and a common dynamic in human relationships. It involves a transfer of value that is not usually made explicit, which can lead to discrepant perceptual valuations between the giver and the receiver of the favor. Attempts to formally analyze these dynamics are hindered by the subjective and unexpressed nature of the value and debt expectations that arise, as well as by their not always monetary nature. This article introduces the theoretical proposal of a new conceptual analytical framework, the Subjective Valuation Matrix (SVM), based on a geometric-spatial representation designed to make these dynamics visible. The SVM builds the valuation of a favor on two fundamental dimensions: the sacrifice it entails for the giver and the benefit it provides to the receiver. On this basis, the model incorporates the formalization of known perceptual biases, being able to show a representation of the distorted subjective evaluative space of each actor. By overlaying both representations—giver and receiver—the perceptual distance between them becomes visible, and the areas of the evaluative space where latent conflict is most likely can be identified. The SVM offers a tool to visualize the effect of these perceptual biases and provides an analytical method with quantifying potential that allows the identification of the precursory causes of conflict in the context of favor exchange, but with capability to extend to any other dynamic of non-explicit value exchange.
A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Prevalence, Variation, and Cultural Context of Female Drug Use in the Ethnographic Record
Drake Rinks; Casey Roulette
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Male-biased drug use is a consistent finding in contemporary epidemiology, yet it remains unclear whether this pattern reflects universal features of human behavior or is primarily a product of industrialization, commercialization, and recent socio-political change. Because most “global” evidence derives from urban or industrialized populations, little is known about how gendered substance use unfolds across small-scale, rural, and Indigenous societies. To address this gap, we systematically examine ethnographic evidence of female psychoactive substance use across 171 societies in the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample. Using 1,397 drug-by-document cases identified in the Human Relations Area Files OCM category 276 (“Recreational and Non-Therapeutic Drugs”), we document (1) the prevalence of male and female drug use; (2) regional and subsistence variation; (3) substances most frequently associated with female use; and (4) the cultural contexts of women’s consumption, identified through text analysis and exploratory factor and cluster analyses. Findings reveal a robust cross-cultural pattern: women’s drug use is consistently less frequent and more culturally regulated than men’s. Gender disparities appear in every world region and subsistence system, though with varying magnitude in part due to the density of ethnographic reporting. Textual descriptions most often situate women’s use in low-dose, domestic, and socially embedded contexts. Exploratory factor and cluster analyses identify four latent domains structuring female drug-use contexts – prestige-regulated substances, ceremonial and social-sharing practices, medicinal and low-intensity uses, and high-risk entheogenic rites – highlighting the culturally patterned environments in which women’s drug use occurs. These findings provide the first global, ethnographically grounded test of whether low female drug use is a cross-cultural regularity and establish the empirical basis needed to evaluate biocultural, political-economic, and evolutionary explanations of gendered substance use.
The PIAAC Variable Finder: An interactive Shiny app for cleaning, interpreting and analyzing Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies data
Nate Breznau
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The release of an interactive app for searching through PIAAC documentation, variables and metadata. Details the process of building the app, using Gen AI and how the app can support researchers seeking to use PIAAC data more efficiently or build their own similar apps.
Quantifying the Importance of Change for Understanding Differences in Personal Culture
Achim Edelmann; Kevin Kiley; Turgut Keskintürk; Isabella Bouklas; Stephen Vaisey
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Studies in the sociology of culture have converged on a general conclusion that while people sometimes make substantial shifts in their personal culture over time, most elements of personal culture are characterized by low rates of persistent change during adulthood. Recent developments have begun to quantify change over time and initial differences, but it is unclear how to use these components to understand the relative importance of change, especially when change is modeled non-linearly. To advance this debate, we introduce a measure for quantifying the proportion of systematic variance in panel data attributable to intrapersonal change. Applying this measure to 610 items from seven surveys in five countries, we find that although intrapersonal change is common, it does not explain a large share of systematic variance.
Surveillance Inequality: Race, Poverty, and the Geography of Automated License Plate Reader Deployment
Steven Keener; John Finn; Andrew F. Baird
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In November 2025, a federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia unsealed a spreadsheet containing the locations of 614 automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras currently in use in Hampton Roads, Virginia. ALPR cameras are an emergent form of networked surveillance infrastructure that capture images of every vehicle that passes by, generate a “vehicle fingerprint,” and store those data in databases searchable by law enforcement, typically without warrants or court orders for access. The release of these locational data provides a rare opportunity to examine the opaque geography of contemporary surveillance and to assess whether ALPR camera deployment reproduces the same racialized and classed patterns long associated with policing and state surveillance in the United States. In this article, we use geographic information systems (GIS) and descriptive statistical analysis to map the distribution of 614 Flock Safety ALPR cameras in relation to racial and poverty profiles of the neighborhoods where the cameras are located. Our findings show that ALPR camera deployment is deeply and systematically racialized and economically stratified, with predominantly Black and high-poverty neighborhoods bearing a disproportionate share of ALPR surveillance infrastructure across Hampton Roads. We argue that these patterns do not reflect isolated siting decisions, but rather are the result of broader structural dynamics, including the privatization of surveillance infrastructure, weak democratic oversight, and the normalization of seemingly objective, tech-washed policing. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for public policy, civil liberties, democratic accountability, and Fourth Amendment protections.
Advanced energy transitions: from technology policy to systems planning
Leon Wansleben; Max Willems; Philipp Golka
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As renewables become the dominant source of electricity, insufficient adaptations of overall system designs to the demands of renewables produce costs and uncertainties. Sustainability transitions research has failed so far to foreground these issues due to its focus on early transition challenges and a theoretical emphasis on market diffusion, technology support, and mechanisms of weak coordination. In this paper, we argue that challenges and thus potential solutions in advanced transition phases differ fundamentally from those in early transition stages. Demands for strong forms of coordination between system elements and across institutional spheres increase. However, such systems planning raises distinct capacity and legitimacy demands. The availability of robust institutions for systems planning is therefore a key, hitherto neglected success factor for advanced energy transitions. To develop this argument empirically, we draw on an in-depth qualitative case study of the German energy transition as a paradigmatic case in which successful renewable expansion has led to a growing mismatch between legacy system features and transition affordances. Attempts to address this mismatch through enhanced, whole-of-system coordination oriented towards Germany’s net zero goal have been met with institutional barriers that increase the power of opponents. We argue that such problems are emblematic for advanced transitions.
Nature PRISM: an automated open-source tool to capture perceptions of nature risk materiality
Joss Wright; Cecilia Larrosa; Nataliya Tkachenko; Katia Sanchez Ortiz; Vidya Narayanan; Vian Sharif; Joseph W. Bull; E.J. Milner-Gulland
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There are growing expectations that financial institutions and companies could, and should, play their part in finding solutions to biodiversity loss, for example, by investing in strategies that fully mitigate negative impacts on biodiversity and support the transition towards nature- positive economies. A key element of nature-related risk for investors and businesses is the "materiality" of their impacts on biodiversity. This includes financial, physical and reputational elements. Despite a proliferation of experimental tools for quantifying, assessing, and monitoring impacts on biodiversity (physical materiality), there is a gap as regards reputational materiality. Nature PRISM aims to complement existing approaches, by quantifying reputational materiality for industry, regulators, and investors. It is an automated data-driven tool, that assesses the perceived impact of corporate activity on biodiversity through a large-scale machine-learning analysis of publicly-available information. The tool is based on a Directed Acyclic Graph structured around a DAPSIR (Driver, Action, Pressure, State, Impact, Response) framework, providing a novel holistic approach to monitoring and reporting perceptions of biodiversity impacts. Importantly it picks up not just negative impacts, but also positive impacts and responses to biodiversity loss. We demonstrate the potential of Nature PRISM to reveal the extent of perceived correlations between drivers and biodiversity indicators across a wide range of sectors, using a novel dataset of over three million long-form news articles, identified through a set of expert- derived and industry-standard keywords. We also demonstrate the tool's potential to become a robust and comparable sector-specific indicator using a case study of housing developments in Europe. The tool has the potential to be a new and complementary evidence-based resource for investors, policymakers, and other stakeholders to assess reputational materiality and guide business decisions, disaggregatable by sector, geography, or individual company.
Researching Russia with Digital Trace Data
Alexey Bessudnov
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The Russo-Ukrainian war and the deterioration of the relationship between Russia and the West made the application of traditional social science research methods, such as surveys and field work, difficult for researchers. It is likely that in the foreseeable future students of Russia will have to increasingly rely on the data that can be collected online. Using these data has defined the field of computational social science and has many analytical advantages. This paper provides a review of the sources of digital trace data for Russia and of the studies that used them for the analysis of political communication and behaviour, education, labour markets, discrimination, and the Russo-Ukrainian war.
Older parents’ contact and proximity with children across Europe: Updating evidence, integrating digital contact, and discussing measurement issues
Bruno Arpino; Marco Tosi; Valeria Bordone
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Objectives. We aim to provide updated, comparative evidence on the prevalence of frequent contact (including digital) and close proximity between older parents and their children, and to assess how measurement choices affect cross-national patterns in Europe. Methods. We use data on 23 European countries from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe wave 9 (2021–2022) and the European Social Survey round 10 (2020–2022) to estimate the prevalence of frequent contact and close proximity across different approaches: most-contacted versus random child, any versus mode-specific contact, distance versus travel-time thresholds. Cross-national coherence is assessed with Spearman rank correlations and Kendall’s W. Results. We find a pronounced regional gradient: Southern Europe shows the highest levels of frequent contact and close proximity, Nordic and Continental countries the lowest, and Eastern Europe are in-between with internal heterogeneity. Digital communication is part of the intergenerational repertoire, albeit not clearly geographically patterned. Face-to-face and phone contacts remain dominant; texting is less widespread, while video calls remain rare. Measurement choices substantially shift prevalence levels but much less the ranking of countries that remains consistent also when adjusting for socio-demographics. Discussion. We document persistent family-regime differences and highlight digital contact as a supplementary facet of associational solidarity. Results point to risks of a double exclusion for older adults who lack face-to-face contact and cannot exploit digital tools and underscore that survey design choices matter for levels but not ranking-based comparisons, supporting the use of random-child items in general surveys.
Sovereign Wealth Funds and Economic Growth in High Income Countries
Timothy Kessler
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Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) are increasingly used by diverse countries to support large-scale economic development. However, limited evidence exists regarding their national effects. I investigate SWF effects on GDP per capita ($ US 2024) and domestic savings share of GDP in Norway and Singapore, the two open economies with the largest SWFs, and Australia, a negative control unit with a much smaller SWF. The analysis estimates that Norway’s Government Pension Fund SWF added $816,089 per capita over the analysis period ($28,141/Year) to resource-rent pruned GDP per capita and 9.69% to domestic saving share of GDP (1995-2023). Singapore’s Temasek global SWF investments added $472,605 per capita over the analysis period ($22,505/Year) and 14.42% to domestic savings share of GDP (2003-2023). As expected, Australia’s smaller SWF had no significant effect on GDP. These synthetic control analysis estimates are robust to in-place and time placebos and negative control outcomes. The findings indicate that robust mandatory SWF-steered savings in open economies can accelerate economic growth beyond standard Solow model steady state equilibrium by adding a non-depreciating compound growth function to domestic investment.
Affinity voting in Europe: The impact of religion, migration background and gender on preferences for in-group politicians
Sanne van Oosten
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To what extent does sharing the same religion, migration background and gender versus policy positions impact voting? Most evidence comes from the US and majority populations, but European minorities may respond differently. In this study, respondents from France, Germany and the Netherlands choose between profiles of hypothetical politicians with randomised politician religion, migration background, gender and policy positions. Oversampling voters with a migration background (N=1,889/3,058), among which a portion identifies as Muslim (N=649/3,058), reveals that instead of minorities, majorities are just as, if not more, likely to engage in affinity voting. Shared religion is the most influential affinity impacting Muslim and non-religious voters. Sharing the same migration background or gender has no positive impact on voting likelihood; on the contrary, the findings suggest that voters with a migration background tend to prefer politicians without a migration background. Non-religious voters exhibit an in-group preference both when voter and politician agree but especially when voter and politician disagree about policy. These findings reveal the electoral challenges to achieving diversity in politics and minority representation, particularly concerning the political inclusion of Muslims.
The Table of Media Bias Elements: A sentence-level taxonomy of media bias types and propaganda techniques
Tim Menzner; Jochen L. Leidner
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Public debates about "left-" or "right-wing" news overlook the fact that bias is usually conveyed by concrete linguistic manoeuvres that transcend any single political spectrum. We therefore shift the focus from where an outlet allegedly stands to how partiality is expressed in individual sentences. Drawing on 26,464 sentences collected from newsroom corpora, user submissions and our own browsing, we iteratively combine close-reading, interdisciplinary theory and pilot annotation to derive a fine-grained, sentence-level taxonomy of media bias and propaganda. The result is a two-tier schema comprising 38 elementary bias types, arranged in six functional families and visualised as a "table of media-bias elements". For each type we supply a definition, real-world examples, cognitive and societal drivers, and guidance for recognition. A quantitative survey of a random 155-sentence sample illustrates prevalence differences, while a cross-walk to the best-known NLP and communication-science taxonomies reveals substantial coverage gains and reduced ambiguity.
Resilience by Design: Adhocracy, Collaborative Governance, and Public-Private-Nonprofit Partnerships in Bergamo’s COVID-19 Economic Recovery
Paolo Calter Caroli; Francesco Longo
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The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the vulnerabilities of traditional bureaucratic governance structures in responding effectively to rapid, large-scale crises. This paper presents a detailed case study of Rinascimento, an innovative urban recovery program launched in Bergamo, Italy—one of the epicenters of the early pandemic. It explores how an adhocratic governance model, characterized by :lexibility, decentralization, and cross-sector collaboration, was employed to mitigate the economic impact of the crisis. The program was implemented through a public-private-nonpro:it partnership involving the Municipality of Bergamo, Intesa Sanpaolo Bank, and CESVI, a local humanitarian NGO. Drawing on collaborative governance and network theories, the Rinascimento initiative combined emergency grants and impact investment loans to support nearly 4,500 small businesses and professionals. The paper analyzes the design and operational mechanisms of the adhocracy, its rapid decision-making capabilities, and its emphasis on real-time learning and adaptation. Empirical evaluation using key performance indicators demonstrates the program’s effectiveness in enhancing business resilience, reducing business mortality rates, and fostering economic regeneration. The :indings underscore the potential of adhocratic models in municipal crisis management and offer scalable insights for future governance frameworks addressing systemic shocks.
Worker Skills Associated with Outcomes in Suicidal-related Youth Chat Sessions
Gerard Chung; Lim Tse Min; Onno P. Kampman
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Introduction: Text-based chatlines have become preferred entry points for youth seeking mental health support, yet most research examines dedicated crisis services rather than general chatlines where suicide emerges alongside diverse concerns. This study compared suicidal-related and non-suicidal sessions within a general youth chatline to identify session characteristics and worker skills associated with positive outcomes. Methods: We analyzed 1,710 chat sessions (202,336 messages) from QuickChat, a Singapore youth chatline between 2016 and 2020. Large language models classified sessions as suicidal or self-harm related (n=406, 24%) or non-suicidal (n=1,304, 76%). User-reported outcomes measured service quality and coping ability. Twelve therapeutic skills were coded from 79,587 worker messages. Multilevel regression models examined skill-outcome associations. Results: Suicidal-related sessions were significantly longer, contained more messages, and yielded lower outcomes. Suicidal ideation was most prevalent (85%), followed by self-harm (43%). In suicidal sessions, normalization demonstrated the strongest associations with all outcomes, followed by teaching/psychoeducation and making strengths explicit. These patterns differed substantially from non-suicidal sessions. Conclusion: Suicidal-related sessions within general chatlines demand greater engagement and differentiated responses from workers. Normalization and psychoeducation emerge as effective techniques for improving outcomes in suicidal chats. These findings provide actionable guidance for training frontline workers in general youth services.
Mode effects in cognitive assessment: Analysis of an experiment using in-person, video and web data collection
Konstantinos G. Tsigaridis; Alessandra Gaia; Vanessa Moulton; Liam Wright; Matt Brown; Richard J. Silverwood
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With the rise of web-based data collection, researchers are increasingly exploring how to measure cognition online, including in web surveys and video interviews. This paper provides empirical evidence on mode effects (web, in-person, video interviewing) in the measurement of cognitive abilities using the TestMyBrain Backward Digit Span test (an immediate serial recall task) among adults age 20-40 years in England. Participants completed surveys including the same cognitive test at two time points two weeks apart and were randomly allocated to mode at each wave. The 1,692 wave 1 respondents and 1,510 wave 2 respondents were analysed using mixed effects models to estimate mode effects relating to several assessment outcomes. We found that participation by web was associated with a higher likelihood of an incomplete assessment relative to both in-person and video interviewing, suggesting that the presence of an interviewer – even if not physically present as in video interviewing – enhances the likelihood of a successfully completed test. For participants who completed the cognitive assessment, we found no evidence that the observed mean scores differed by mode, though this appeared to mask some heterogeneity. Although based on small numbers, there was a trend for both web and video respondents to be more likely to obtain the highest test scores than those participating in-person. This is consistent with prior suggestions that individuals in modes where there is limited or no interviewer presence are more likely to cheat. Mean test scores were consistently higher at wave 2 than at wave 1, with this ‘retest gain’ differing little by mode. These findings contribute to the limited literature on mode effects in cognitive assessment and offer valuable insights for researchers designing and analysing mixed-mode studies.
Extreme Weather Events Exposure and Fertility Outcomes: Insights from the UK Household Longitudinal Study
Irene Frageri; Ann Berrington; Raya Muttarak
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The implications of climate change are becoming increasingly visible through its multifaceted effects, including the rising frequency and intensity of extreme temperatures and weather events such as floods, droughts and sea level rise. This study integrates longitudinal survey data from Understanding Society (2009–2023) with high-resolution flood and temperature records across the United Kingdom to examine how exposure to heatwaves and floods relates to the likelihood of conception among childless individuals of reproductive age. Using monthly-level discrete-time event history models, the analysis accounts for demographic, socio-economic, and contextual confounders, and further investigates the moderating role of pre-existing climate change attitudes and behaviours. The results show that exposure to both types of natural hazards is associated with a temporary reduction in the monthly probability of conception. Heatwaves, in particular, show a strong and highly significant association, with conception probabilities declining sharply during months of exposure. Floods show a weaker yet still negative association, observed in the six months immediately following the event. Furthermore, environmental behaviours appear to play a moderating role in the case of floods: only individuals reporting environmentally friendly behaviours experience a temporary decline in conception probabilities after flood exposure, followed by a modest rebound thereafter. By uniquely combining individual-level panel data with localized climate information, this study goes beyond intention-based analyses to reveal how climate shocks relate to actual fertility behaviour. Overall, these findings demonstrate that climate change constitutes not only an environmental or economic challenge, but also a demographic one, with meaningful implications for fertility behaviours.
A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Toolmaking Skill Acquisition in Non-Industrial Societies
Cheng Liu
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Toolmaking is, by and large, a socially learned behavior that also requires individual practices. Although significant for understanding human evolution, the rise of industrialized mass production has reduced the need for handicraft practices and their inter-generational transmission in daily life. This study thus examines toolmaking skill acquisition in 170 non-industrial societies through a comprehensive compilation and coding of ethnographic text data using the eHRAF World Cultures. Grounded in the cultural evolution theory (CET), this descriptive analysis addresses six fundamental questions: what skills are most frequently learned, who transmits this knowledge, where skill acquisition takes place, when learning occurs developmentally, how skills are acquired, and why specific individuals are chosen as models. The most important finding addresses the “why” question of major transmission biases involved in the toolmaking skill acquisition, highlighting the dominant role of kin-based transmission bias. This provides an empirical recalibration to CET modeling studies, which have traditionally emphasized conformist and success/prestige-based biases. Moreover, this project creates a valuable foundation for exploring patterns in cultural learning and technological practices across societies featuring diverse subsistence strategies, while also providing a reference framework for archaeological interpretations of past learning dynamics.
“Take Personal Responsibility”: Individualization in Turkish Diabetes News and the Missing Public
Semiray Yücebas; Mesut Yücebas; Hande Topel
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Diabetes affects millions of people worldwide and receives significant public attention due to its complexity and association with multiple comorbidities. However, it is often framed in public discourse as a condition stemming primarily from individual behaviors and manageable through personal lifestyle changes. The media plays a pivotal role in shaping and reinforcing such perceptions, yet its role in constructing narratives around diabetes care and responsibility remains underexplored. In this study, we conducted a qualitative content analysis of reports published in two widely circulated national newspapers in Türkiye representing opposing political orientations to examine how diabetes is represented in the media. We analyzed the framing of disease causes, risks, and treatment approaches, as well as thematic orientations and sourcing practices in news production. Our findings indicate that diabetes is consistently presented through an individualized lens across both outlets. News coverage relies heavily on single-expert sourcing, while public health perspectives, social determinants of health, and structural prevention measures receive limited attention. Conceptual imprecision in reporting frequently blurs distinctions between causes, risks, symptoms, and complications, undermining health literacy and contributing to confusion about disease prevention and management. Treatment and prevention are commonly framed through lifestyle and dietary suggestions that are weakly connected to evidence-based care. In addition, attention-grabbing narratives rarely distinguish between diabetes subtypes, further reinforcing misinterpretations of risk and responsibility. Notably, these patterns persist despite the newspapers’ opposing political orientations. Overall, the findings underscore the need for more accurate, contextualized, and evidence-informed health communication on diabetes.
Family group conference provision across the lifespan of child welfare intervention: A mixed-method realist-informed evaluation, comparing three stages of welfare concern
Lee Sobo-Allen; Lois Liao; Jonathan Scourfield; Felicity Smith; Sophie Wood; Melissa Meindl; Kar Man Au; Abigail Palmer; Rhiannon Evans; Fiona Lugg-Widger
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Family Group Conferences (FGCs) in children’s services are convened meetings of family networks to make plans for a child who is in need or at risk. There remain gaps in evidence, including how variation in implementation context affects FGC experiences and outcomes. The Family Views and Context Study is part of a wider realist-informed evaluation (Family VOICE). It involved 380 individuals who had attended FGCs, from 155 families across the UK. Family members completed questionnaires at three time points, including standardised measures for self-efficacy, family functioning, adult well-being and child psychosocial health. FGC coordinators also completed questionnaires. This paper focuses on one key aspect of variation in implementation context, namely the stage of child welfare concern. Three categories are compared: (1) early help and child in need; (2) child protection and edge of care; and (3) children in state care. In addition to questionnaires, a sub-group of participants (n=25) took part in semi-structured interviews, purposively sampled for these three stages of concern. Quantitative comparisons found almost no significant differences between the three categories in family experiences or outcomes. Qualitative interviews suggested more similarities than differences in participant experiences, perceptions of FGC mechanisms, and intended outcomes, across the three categories.
Environmental Performance in Transition: An Empirical Examination of Greece through the EPI Framework
George Halkos; Argyro Zisiadou
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The Environmental Performance Index (EPI) is a widely recognized tool developed by Yale University and Columbia University, in partnership with the World Economic Forum, to assess countries' environmental performance using 58 performance indicators across 11 issue categories. The EPI provides a comprehensive benchmark for evaluating environmental health, ecosystem vitality and climate change. Greece, as a member of the European Union (EU), operates within a complex regulatory framework aimed at promoting sustainable development. Greece's performance in the EPI reflects both its environmental policy efforts and its exposure to regional challenges such as air pollution, biodiversity loss, and climate-related risks. In recent years, Greece has demonstrated progress in areas such as renewable energy development and climate change mitigation, although issues like waste management and air quality continue to require focused policy intervention. Analyzing Greece’s EPI score offers valuable insights into its environmental priorities and the effectiveness of national strategies aimed at promoting sustainability and resilience.
Getting the Timing Right: The Age of the Youngest Child as a Gatekeeper to Realising Fertility Intentions
Eva Waldaufová; Jitka Slabá
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Forming an understanding of the extent to which individuals realise their short-term fertility intentions is essential in terms of grasping the dynamics behind persistently low fertility in Europe. This study examines the realisation of fertility intentions within a three-year period across four Central European countries (Czechia, Poland, Austria and Germany) employing data from the two waves of the Generations and Gender Survey (2005–2015). The study focuses on men and women aged 18–39 and includes both childless individuals and parents aimed at capturing differences in terms of the realisation of fertility intentions at distinct stages of the family life course. Its main contribution lies in examining whether and how the age of the youngest child is associated with the realisation of the fertility intentions of parents. The results reveal that the odds of parents realising their fertility intentions decline substantially as the youngest child grows older, thus suggesting the existence of a relatively narrow time window following a birth for the realisation of intentions to have another child, a factor that has important implications for the design of (tempo-related) family policies. In addition, the study shows that while economic conditions influence the realisation of short-term fertility intentions to have a child for childless individuals, they lose their significance for parents. By uncovering the central role of the child’s age in terms of the realisation of fertility intentions, this study contributes to the demographic research on timing and parity-specific fertility behaviour and has important implications for the formation of family policies aimed at supporting higher-order (especially second) births.
Factores que influyen en la confianza en los medios: un análisis comparativo por edad y género en Perú
Edgar Pacheco
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La confianza en los medios de comunicación es fundamental para la democracia, la formación de opinión pública y las preferencias informativas de las audiencias. Pese a la extensa investigación sobre este tema en la literatura internacional, en Perú la evidencia académica sigue siendo escasa. Para ayudar a reducir esta brecha, este estudio cuantitativo analiza los factores que influyen en la confianza en los medios, centrándose en diferencias por edad y género. Mediante una encuesta en línea (n=2,005) y pruebas no paramétricas de Mann-Whitney y Kruskal-Wallis, se hallaron diferencias significativas por edad en siete de ocho factores analizados. Los grupos de mayor edad, especialmente aquellos entre 50 y 64 años, valoran más la trayectoria histórica de los medios, sus estándares periodísticos, la transparencia informativa y la alineación con sus valores personales al momento de decidir en qué medios confiar. En contraste, el género no fue una variable determinante, excepto en la valoración de la trayectoria histórica, donde las mujeres tienden a darle más importancia que los hombres. Estos hallazgos pueden informar el desarrollo de estrategias orientadas a incrementar los niveles de confianza en los medios de comunicación en el Perú, donde los índices de confianza son uno de los más bajos de América Latina.
Architectural Adaptation Strategy of Puri Agung Ubud, an Effort to Preserve Cultural Heritage
Nyoman Ratih Prajnyani Salain; Ni Made Mitha Mahastuti
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Puri Agung Ubud is one of the traditional Balinese palaces that functions as a living cultural heritage (living monument) as well as an important cultural tourism attraction in Ubud, Gianyar. The pressure of modern tourism has encouraged various forms of architectural adaptation, both in spatial function, physical form, materials, and socio-cultural utilization patterns within the palace. This study aims to identify architectural adaptation strategies that occur at Puri Agung Ubud, analyze their impact on cultural values and traditional architecture, and formulate conservation directions that are integrated with the development of sustainable cultural tourism. The research method used is descriptive qualitative through field observations, physical measurements, visual documentation, in-depth interviews with puri administrators and cultural figures, and analysis of relevant documents. The analysis is carried out by linking the concepts of Tri Mandala, Sanga Mandala, and Tri Hita Karana to the puri's spatial system, and applying Schmidt & Austin's typology of adaptation strategies (adjustable, versatile, refitable, convertible, scalable, movable) to four main palebahan: Ancak Saji, Semanggen, Rangki, and Saren Agung. The results of this study indicate that Puri Agung Ubud is able to maintain its traditional spatial macrostructure and sacred-cosmological orientation, while selectively adapting through changes in spatial functions, hybrid construction techniques, and transformation of architectural elements to accommodate tourism needs, without completely eliminating its authentic value. The main findings indicate that controlled adaptation based on critical conservation has the potential to strengthen the palace's sustainability as a cultural heritage, on the one hand by maintaining traditional practices and on the other hand by opening economic and educational opportunities through cultural tourism. This article offers a framework for architectural adaptation strategies for similar cultural heritage sites in Bali that face similar pressures from global tourism.
Trust Calibration Mismatch and Systematic Fraud Exploitation in Religious-Collectivist Communities: A Theoretical Framework with Indonesia Case Studies
Zaelani
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Indonesia and many other nations present a paradox: high levels of religiosity coexist with systematic patterns of fraud and financial exploitation targeting religious communities. This paper develops a theoretical framework to explain mechanisms of trust exploitation in religious-collectivist communities, with empirical focus on documented fraud cases in Indonesia and the Southeast Asian region. Drawing on synthesis of literature regarding particularized versus generalized trust in social psychology, affinity fraud documentation in fraud prevention research, victimization theory, and empirical case studies, this paper identifies three interacting mechanisms. First, trust calibration mismatch reveals how lived experience in high-trust environments develops trust heuristics optimal for in-group contexts but vulnerable when out-group actors adopt in-group signals. Second, religious rationalization encompasses assumptions about religious deterrence and delegation of justice to God, reducing urgency for verification or formal reporting. Third, temporal familiarity exploitation demonstrates how perpetrators systematically build long-term relationships before large financial extraction. These three mechanisms generate an opportunity structure aligned with Fraud Triangle theory, where detection probability and punishment probability remain low while payoffs are substantial. This paper maintains a critical distinction between religious teachings (which explicitly prohibit deception) and religious identity as social signal (which can be exploited). The vulnerability analyzed is contextual rather than inherent to religiosity itself, emerging from specific configuration of high collectivism, religiosity as dominant identity marker, weak formal institutions, and strong social harmony norms. The framework is exploratory, grounded in existing literature and documented cases, and invites future empirical validation while offering implications for financial literacy education, fraud prevention policy, and institutional strengthening in religious communities.
Under what institutional and incentive conditions do skill-development subsidies outperform direct wage support in improving long-term labour market outcomes in India?
Aishwarya Ravikumar
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Governments seeking to raise labour productivity face a persistent policy dilemma between providing direct wage support and subsidising skill development. While wage support can stabilise incomes and boost labour supply in the short term, skill-development subsidies are often promoted as a means of enhancing long-term employability and productivity, though their effectiveness varies widely across contexts. This paper asks: under what institutional and incentive conditions do skill-development subsidies outperform direct wage support in improving long-term labour market outcomes? Using a comparative policy analysis based on secondary data from OECD, World Bank, and ILO evaluations, the paper examines how labour market incentives, employer participation, and institutional capacity shape policy performance. The analysis finds that skill-development subsidies generate superior long-term outcomes when programs are closely aligned with labour market demand, supported by credible employer involvement, and implemented by institutions capable of enforcing targeting and quality standards. In the absence of these conditions, direct wage support often delivers more predictable short- to medium-term results. The paper contributes to the labour economics literature by emphasising the conditional nature of policy effectiveness and by identifying design principles for integrating income support with human capital investment.
Narcisismo, Agresión y el Malestar en la Civilización: Un Análisis Psicoanalítico de las Escaladas Trump-Maduro y Trump-Petro
Jesús Ignacio Rivera Cano
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El presente estudio integra el análisis de dos escaladas geopolíticas contemporáneas (Trump-Maduro 2025 y Trump-Petro 2025-2026) desde una perspectiva psicoanalítica freudiana, examinando cómo las dinámicas de narcisismo patológico, agresión y pulsión de muerte se manifiestan en el liderazgo político contemporáneo. Mediante un análisis cualitativo comparativo basado en los conceptos freudianos de narcisismo, agresión como pulsión fundamental, y el conflicto irresoluble entre Eros y Tánatos en la civilización, se exploran las continuidades entre la teoría psicoanalítica clásica y las crisis geopolíticas actuales. Los resultados sugieren que el narcisismo patológico en líderes con acceso a poder militar masivo representa una manifestación contemporánea del "malestar en la cultura" freudiano: la civilización tecnológica ha amplificado exponencialmente las capacidades destructivas humanas sin proporcionar mecanismos equivalentes para la regulación de impulsos agresivos narcisistas. El estudio examina cómo la asimetría de poder, la provocación calculada, y la imposibilidad psicológica de retroceso en líderes narcisistas crean dinámicas de escalada que trascienden la racionalidad estratégica. Se discuten las implicaciones de los planteamientos freudianos sobre la guerra, la agresión y las limitaciones de la razón civilizatoria para comprender y potencialmente mitigar crisis contemporáneas donde personalidades patológicas controlan arsenales destructivos. El análisis concluye que la pregunta freudiana "¿Por qué la guerra?" permanece vigente en el siglo XXI, requiriendo una integración de comprensión psicoanalítica con salvaguardas institucionales para proteger a la civilización de sus propios líderes.
Influência, Desvios e Excessos no Setor Farmacêutico
João Henrique Santana Stacciarini
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Desde a descoberta da penicilina por Alexander Fleming, em 1928, o setor farmacêutico expandiu-se de modo acelerado, tornando-se, na atualidade, um dos segmentos mais poderosos da economia global, com faturamento anual estimado em cerca de US$ 1,5 trilhão e grandes corporações avaliadas em centenas de bilhões de dólares. Embora avanços científico-tecnológicos e transformações socioeconômicas tenham impulsionado a pesquisa e o desenvolvimento de medicamentos, contribuindo para ganhos relevantes, a literatura crítica tem destacado práticas controversas de influência corporativa – aqui sintetizadas como “Influência, Desvios e Excessos” – que favorecem o crescimento, a rentabilidade e a consolidação de poder, por vezes em conflito com o interesse coletivo e a saúde pública. Nesse contexto, este artigo adota delineamento exploratório-descritivo e abordagem mista, com triangulação entre dados públicos, documentos institucionais e revisão crítica da literatura internacional, a fim de mapear e descrever mecanismos de influência corporativa no setor farmacêutico em oito eixos: (i) lobby e financiamento eleitoral; (ii) influência em órgãos de regulação e fiscalização; (iii) influência em organizações de pacientes; (iv) influência na elaboração de diretrizes clínicas; (v) manipulação, promoção e ocultação de pesquisas e testes de medicamentos; (vi) escrita fantasma; (vii) estratégias de ampliação diagnóstica e promoção de doenças; e (viii) financiamento e oferta de benefícios a prescritores e instituições, incluindo mecanismos psicossociais e dimensões formativas. Os achados indicam que a influência corporativa se estrutura em múltiplas escalas e opera de forma simultaneamente visível e difusa. No plano político, evidencia-se a centralidade do lobby e do financiamento eleitoral como instrumentos de conformação do ambiente normativo e regulatório, com expansão progressiva dos investimentos. Na esfera regulatória, a recorrência de conflitos de interesse em comitês consultivos e a circulação de quadros entre agências e empresas sugerem vulnerabilidades à captura institucional, com implicações para os processos de aprovação, fiscalização e retirada de medicamentos. No domínio científico, o patrocínio industrial associa-se a vieses que podem incidir desde o desenho e a condução de ensaios até a publicação seletiva de resultados, além de práticas como ghostwriting e estratégias de “preparação de mercado”, afetando a credibilidade e a circulação das evidências. Em paralelo, observa-se a atuação da indústria na expansão diagnóstica e na medicalização de condições da vida cotidiana, ampliando mercados e podendo invisibilizar determinantes sociais e abordagens não farmacológicas. Na prática clínica, pagamentos e transferências de valor a prescritores e instituições de ensino associam-se a mudanças nos padrões de prescrição, aumento de custos e favorecimento de medicamentos promovidos, inclusive por meio de benefícios de baixo valor, mediados por vieses cognitivos.