🗣 Communication Paper Picnic 🧺: Psychology

I checked 15 psychology journals on Wednesday, July 08, 2026 using the Crossref API. For the period July 01 to July 07, I found 112 new paper(s) in 12 journal(s).

Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science

Mapping Methodological Variation in Experience-Sampling Research From Design to Data Analysis: A Systematic Review

Lisa Peeters, Wim Van Den Noortgate, Marie Annelise Blanchard, Marie Suenaert, Gudrun Eisele, Olivia J. Kirtley, Richard Artner, Ginette Lafit

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The experience-sampling method (ESM) has become a widespread tool to study time-varying constructs across many subfields of psychological and psychiatric research. Variety in subfields of research and constructs of interest has contributed to considerable methodological variation. Therefore, in this systematic review, we aimed to (a) describe the methodological variation in ESM-study designs and (b) assess the transparency (i.e., reporting and open-science practices) of ESM studies. We developed an extensive list of data-extraction items covering the entire workflow of an ESM study, from conception of the research question to reporting the results. These data were extracted from 150 recently published articles describing 162 studies applying ESM in the field of psychology and psychiatry. As expected, variation was observed for every methodological decision. Some findings aligned with previous syntheses of the literature (e.g., a median study duration of 10 days, a majority of studies including convenience samples of the general population, the high prevalence of multilevel modeling). Regarding other decisions, this review was able to provide new insights (e.g., questionnaire length and content often varied between and/or within participants, average sample sizes have increased over time). Transparency in reporting and open-science practices seem to have improved in recent years, but there is room for further development of awareness and guidance. This broad overview of ESM research serves as a first step toward a broader goal to improve the methodological quality of ESM research in psychology, contributing to a more rigorous, credible science of daily life.

Simulation Intervention for Cross-Sectional Network Models: Based on the R Packages NodeIdentifyR and NIRApost

Fei Wang, Yiming Wu, Yibo Wu, Tingshao Zhu

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Traditional cross-sectional network-centrality metrics fail to distinguish causal directions between symptoms, leading to biases in selecting potential intervention targets. The nodeIdentifyR algorithm (NIRA) addresses this issue by using simulation-based interventions to identify projected optimal intervention target in cross-sectional networks. However, existing applications of NIRA typically overlook several recommended validation steps, which may reduce the robustness of its results. Specifically, a critical prerequisite for applying NIRA, testing for moderation effects to ensure the invariance of edge weights during simulated intervention, is consistently ignored. Moreover, they lack statistical significance testing for simulated intervention effects through permutation tests and stability assessment of NIRA outcomes via repeated simulations. In this article, we introduce the extended R package NIRApost , which supplements NIRA with these three recommended complementary procedures. We provide a comprehensive R tutorial demonstrating the implementation of both NIRA and these validation steps. Researchers applying NIRA are advised to conduct moderation-effect testing as a prerequisite, followed by permutation tests and stability analyses to ensure robust and interpretable findings. Upon completing this tutorial, readers are capable of properly applying NIRA and its validation procedures in their own data analyses.

Behavior Research Methods

Relations of social cognition with affective states: Insights from an expanded 2650-word database on warmth and competence

Dawid Żuk, Michał Chęciński, Adrianna Wielgopolan, Kamil K. Imbir

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We expanded an existing database of affectively charged words by adding ratings of warmth and competence. We also examined the relationships between these two dimensions and previously established ones – positivity, negativity, automaticity, reflectiveness, arousal, and subjective significance. In this study, 948 participants evaluated 2650 words on warmth and competence using a modified version of the Self-Assessment Manikin scale. This allowed us to obtain ratings of perceived warmth and competence for each word. We also identified the type, direction, and strength of the relationships between warmth and competence and each affective dimension. The results provide a detailed mapping of these associations, and the database may serve as a valuable resource for future research. The findings, possible usage of our database, and limitations are discussed.

Generative psychometrics via AI-GENIE: Automatic item generation and validation with network-integrated evaluation

Lara L. Russell-Lasalandra, Alexander P. Christensen, Hudson Golino

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The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly large language models (LLMs), has introduced powerful tools for various research domains, including psychological scale development. This study presents a methodology for efficiently generating and selecting high-quality, non-redundant items for psychological assessments using LLMs and network psychometrics. Our approach, termed Automatic Item Generation and Validation with Network-Integrated Evaluation (AI-GENIE), reduces reliance on expert intervention by integrating generative AI with the latest network psychometric techniques. The efficacy of AI-GENIE was evaluated through Monte Carlo simulations using the Mixtral, Gemma 2, Llama 3, GPT-3.5, and GPT-4o models to generate item pools that mimic Big Five personality assessments. Additionally, items from AI-GENIE were empirically tested with five nationally representative U.S. samples ( $$N = 4{,}964$$ N = 4 , 964 total), demonstrating that AI-GENIE-generated scales achieve structural validity—that is, evidence based on internal structure (dimensionality and item stability)—comparable to traditional expert-developed measures. The results demonstrated improvements in item selection efficiency, with overall average increases of 8.68–20.03 in normalized mutual information in the final item pool across all models. We also present a simulation study on the emerging construct of AI anxiety to demonstrate AI-GENIE’s utility for underrepresented constructs. Results from newly released models (DeepSeek, GPT-OSS 20B, GPT-OSS 120B) are presented in the Appendix. The findings suggest that AI-GENIE can streamline the scale development and structural validation process.

Planned missingness in intensive longitudinal studies: Extensions and comparisons of multiform designs

Yilan Chen, Hongyun Liu

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Author Correction: TCBLex - A lexical database of Finnish literary texts for children

Tapio Nojonen, Kiia Korsu, Filip Ginter, Veronika Laippala, Jenna Kanerva

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Exploring psychological tradeoffs: Developing and demonstrating an R Shiny app for Pareto optimization

Yixiao Dong, Deodatta Baral, Kushmakar Baral, Denis Dumas

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While some are neutral, many psychological constructs (e.g., depression, learning motivation, or antisocial behavior) carry clear directional expectations that align with social or ethical principles and values. When a construct is framed with the goal of moving toward its socially desirable direction, it becomes a meaningful psychological objective to pursue. People pursue different objectives in their daily lives, sometimes simultaneously. During this process, tradeoffs occur when objectives are in tension or conflict (e.g., speed and accuracy in problem-solving), meaning they cannot be consistently improved without compromising one another. While certain psychological tradeoffs have been well studied, others remain underexplored or possibly even unidentified. One critical reason is that mainstream analytic methods used in psychological research are not designed to investigate such tradeoffs. Fortunately, a suitable method has long existed in other disciplines. Pareto optimization (PO) is an effective analytic framework widely applied in fields such as biology, economics, and engineering to investigate tradeoffs among multiple competing objectives. In this tutorial, we review the core conceptual and methodological foundations of PO and aim to bring this classic method to a psychological audience. Moreover, we develop a user-friendly R Shiny application (named PO-Run) for conducting PO analyses and adapt the Marginal Rate of Substitution Index from econometrics to quantify psychological tradeoffs. The application can be accessed via https://paretooptimization.shinyapps.io/Pareto/ , and its utility is further illustrated through a real-world psychological example. Methodological considerations, guidance for using results, and future directions for advancing the PO method are discussed.

The evaluation of devaluation: Deficient outcome devaluation leads to wrongly considering goal-directed actions as habits

Antonio Vázquez-Millán, Pablo Martínez-López, María Rueda, José J. León, David Luque

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Habits are stimulus-driven responses that are produced independently of the current outcome value. They enable efficient actions in familiar contexts while freeing up cognitive resources. Habits are expected to influence behavior after substantial experience, whereas limited training leaves behavior under goal-directed control. This transition from goal-directed to habitual control has been documented in animal research but remains challenging to replicate in humans. Using a free-operant task, recent studies have suggested that human habits can be fully learned even after short training. This would produce a ceiling effect, explaining null results when the amount of training is manipulated. Here, we propose an alternative explanation: the devaluation protocol was ineffective for a subset of participants who appeared “habitual”. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a preregistered conceptual replication of the free-operant task with improved devaluation. As in previous research, we found no difference in habitual responses between short and extended training. In contrast to prior reports, most participants were sensitive to outcome devaluation. Habitual responding was strongly correlated with the effectiveness of the outcome devaluation protocol; habit-like responses were mostly produced by the few participants for whom the devaluation did not work. We further supported our hypothesis by reanalyzing previous datasets, finding that, across all studies, participants who showed more habit-like responses were those for whom the devaluation was less effective. Taken together, our findings suggest that suboptimal outcome devaluation protocols may have biased previous results, leading to habit-like goal-directed responses regardless of the amount of previous instrumental training.

The Rhythm Reproduction Task for children: A psychometric examination

Katharina Schaaf, Klaus Frieler, Franziska Degé

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Rhythmic ability includes various subskills, such as rhythm production and perception of beat, meter, and pattern. Among these, reproducing rhythmic patterns is a key measure of productive rhythmic skills. This study examined the psychometric properties of the Rhythm Reproduction Task for children (Jungbluth & Hafen, 2005) and an extended version including permuted item variants. A total of 151 children aged 5 to 8 completed the task across five response modalities (drumming after the experimenter, clapping, tapping, drumming after a loudspeaker, and vocal reproduction). Analyses showed appropriate item difficulty and variance, good internal consistency ( α = .86, ω = .77), and strong correlations between original and permuted items ( r = .84–.89). Structural equation modeling indicated partial metric invariance across item versions and response modalities. Results support the Rhythm Reproduction Task as a reliable measure of rhythmic pattern reproduction in children, with permuted items expanding its applicability.

Are 7-point Likert scales preferable to 5-point scales in language research?

Marc Brysbaert

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QualGames: A Qualtrics implementation and a database of behavioral game theory tasks

Shengchuang Feng, Nadhilla Melia, Akshay Abraham, Yuan Ni Chan, Li Ling Lee, Jia Ying Pei, Hui Shan Yap, David Hung, John Suckling, Chew Lee Teo, Trevor Robbins, Barbara Sahakian, Zoe Kourtzi, Victoria Leong, Annabel Chen, Henriette Hendriks, Georgios Christopoulos, character(0)

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A validity-guided workflow for robust large language model research in psychology

Zhicheng Lin

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“It makes sense to me”: Examining data file column names in the visual cognitive literature

Giovanna C. Del Sordo, Haden Dewis, Peter T. Darch, Michael C. Hout, Hayward J. Godwin

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Subjective norms of paintings: Integrating perceptual, cognitive, and emotional dimensions

Khaoula Ennahli, Cristiane Souza, Margarida Vaz Garrido

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Artworks, such as paintings, are frequently utilized as stimuli in research and interventions. However, the complexity of their perceptual, emotional, and cognitive properties necessitates rigorous validation to ensure the reliability of research outcomes and the efficacy of their application in real-world contexts. A few studies have already established norms for paintings. Still, the type of stimuli (e.g., artificial intelligence [AI]-generated) and the comprehensiveness of the assessed dimensions may not entirely capture the complexity of human-made ecological artworks. The current study establishes norms for a diverse set of 144 human-made paintings retrieved from the publicly accessible WikiArt database and thematically clustered into four categories: objects ( n = 36), places ( n = 36), people ( n = 36), and abstract ( n = 36) works. European Portuguese native speakers ( N = 361) rated the paintings in 11 perceptual, cognitive, and emotional dimensions. Participants also provided qualitative descriptions of the paintings, detailing their content and recognized elements. Descriptive data for each painting are provided by dimension and category. Correlations among the dimensions and between individual variables (e.g., personality traits, prior experience with the arts) and the evaluative ratings are also reported. The results indicate that this painting set is diverse, allowing for the selection of artworks that represent different levels of the evaluated dimensions across stimulus categories. These norms fill a critical gap in the standardized evaluation of paintings, facilitating a more precise and controlled use of these stimuli in experimental, clinical, and creative expression applications.

PyLossless: A non-destructive EEG processing pipeline

Scott Huberty, James Desjardins, Tyler Collins, Mayada Elsabbagh, Christian O’Reilly

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EEG recordings are typically long and contain large amounts of data, making manual cleaning a time-consuming and error-prone task. Automated preprocessing pipelines can facilitate the efficient and objective extraction of artifacts, enabling standardized and reproducible analyses. However, automated preprocessing pipelines typically remove data considered artifacts and return a subset of irreversibly transformed signals. This approach obfuscates preprocessing decisions and often makes it impossible to recover the original data or modify the preprocessing steps. Further, it complicates collaboration among research teams working on a common dataset, as different analyses may require specific preprocessing steps. Given the large amount of resources devoted to collecting EEG, tools that can efficiently and transparently preprocess data are greatly needed. PyLossless addresses this need by creating a non-destructive, automated preprocessing pipeline that maintains the continuous EEG structure. It offers a user-friendly API, is well documented, tested through continuous integration, easily deployable, and integrates with the popular MNE-Python environment. The pipeline also provides a browser-based quality control review (QCR) dashboard that allows researchers to visualize and edit automated artifact flags for sensors, time periods, and independent components. The end product of PyLossless is a lossless annotated data state that can be shared and used with analysis-specific artifact rejection policies, allowing for an optimal balance between flexibility and standardization.

Computers in Human Behavior

Watch before you Play: The effect of connection to streamer in gaming videos on the viewers’ subsequent Game-playing satisfaction

Soyeon Lee, Andrew Weaver, John Velez

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Mindfulness Training in Virtual Reality for Borderline Personality Disorder symptoms: An Analogue Study

Yaren Chakmak, Crescent Jicol, Karin Petrini

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Is faking it the new making it?: Exploring virtual influencers’ effectiveness in depression awareness campaign

Rachel X. Peng

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Multimodal imaging and transcriptomics reveal the pathway of mindfulness-mediated recovery in internet gaming disorder

Xuefeng Xu, Huabin Wang, Shaoyu Cui, Haosen Ni, Guang-Heng Dong

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The work-related consequences of employees’ media-based political information consumption: A nine-wave weekly study during the 2024 U.S. presidential primary season

Ian M. Hughes, Nathan A. Bowling, Melissa G. Keith, Rebecca M. Brossoit, Andrea Bazzoli

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The impact of affordances for emotional human–chatbot interaction on users’ willingness to self-disclose

Xu Zengzhan, Lei Mingpeng

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Uncanny Valley: Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory and Vulnerability to Influence by Artificial Intelligence-Generated Images Online

Neil Shortland, Katelyn Smith

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Substratism: Conceptualizing and Measuring Moral Bias Against AI

Ali Ladak, Janet V.T. Pauketat, Jacy Reese Anthis, Steve Loughnan, Matti Wilks

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Digital Exploitation and Vulnerability: A Study of Online Exploited Personalities

Dylan Hamza

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Offline friendship conflict and adolescent Internet addiction: Indirect associations via self-esteem and the moderating role of clique-level norms

Yanli Hou, Ruonan Guo, Shengcheng Song, Caina Li

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Virtual peers reduce gambling symptoms and related problems of moderate-risk gamblers: A randomized controlled trial

Kenji Yokotani, Yosuke Seki, Nobuhito Abe, Masahiro Takamura, Tetsuya Yamamoto, Hideyuki Takahashi

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AI chatbots in mental Health: How emojis, prompt type, and interactivity shape user perceptions in the United States and China

Jihye Lee, Zinan Darren Yang, Weijia Shi, Yan Liu

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Evaluating user performance with RAG-based generative AI: A scenario-based experiment on AI-assisted information retrieval

Aktilek Sagynbayeva, Ajin Pyo, Sang-Hyeak Yoon, Sung-Byung Yang

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Interdisciplinary perspectives and current findings on the role of trust as a psychological mediator in human interaction with artificial intelligence: Editorial overview

Irene Valori, Johannes Kraus, Merle T. Fairhurst

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Blissful (A)Ignorance: Despite the widespread adoption of AI in communication, people do not suspect AI use in realistic contexts

Jiaqi Zhu, Andras Molnar

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Mental health during war: Social media use and protective factors among adolescents and young adults

Yael Malin, Yaeli Gardyn, Christa S.C. Asterhan

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Brain responses to deepfakes and real videos of emotional facial expressions reveal detection without awareness

Casey Becker, Russell Conduit, Philippe A. Chouinard, Robin Laycock

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Group Processes & Intergroup Relations

Shifting Demographics, Shifting Perceptions: How Race and Politics Shape Reactions to the Majority-Minority Future

Deborah J. Wu, Stylianos Syropoulos, Andrea Y. J. Mah, Kyle F. Law, Katherine L. Dixon-Gordon, Ezra M. Markowitz, Tatishe M. Nteta, Allecia E. Reid, Joel C. Ginn, Se Min Suh, Liane Young, Brian Lickel

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Racial minorities are expected to be a majority of the U.S. population by 2044. We examined predictors of Americans’ perceptions towards this racial demographic shift (RDS), how accurately they estimate others’ perceptions, and whether an intervention corrects people’s misperceptions. In Study 1, in a nationally representative sample ( N = 1,600), most Republicans, Independents, and Democrats viewed the RDS as neutral or good. Being White, conservative, a 2020 Donald Trump voter, endorsing minimization of racism, and endorsing competitive and dangerous worldviews predicted more negative perceptions. Meanwhile, having racially diverse social networks and positive feelings for racial minorities predicted more positive perceptions. In Study 2, a preregistered Prolific experiment ( N = 819), Republicans underestimated other Republicans’ and Democrats’ perceptions of this shift. An information-based intervention corrected this, with this effect persisting 1 week later, albeit weaker. Our research suggests that emphasizing more positive ingroup perceptions of the RDS may help correct misperceptions and increase support for racial diversity.

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

Replication and extension of Carlson and Zaki (2018): Do lay theories of altruism apply equally to all actors?

Ashley Harrell, Margaret L. Traeger

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Incentivization very weakly improves theory of mind: A multi-sample investigation and meta-analysis

Tomer Paz-Fitussy, Eldad Yechiam

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Gossip or confrontation? Sanctioning environmental norm violations and the reputation of punishers

Xiyan Song, Catherine Molho, Paul A.M. Van Lange

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Playing it safe: Negotiators avoid uncertainty and reach safer, but less integrative agreements

Marco Schauer, Johann M. Majer, Caroline Heydenbluth, Roman Trötschel

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Learning to distrust: One trust experience changes the expected value of trust

Annabelle R. Roberts, Emma E. Levine, Jane L. Risen

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Two wrongs is what makes it more right: How retaliatory incivility receives social leniency

Merrick R. Osborne, Suhaib Abdurahman, Ali Omrani, Jackson P. Trager, Morteza Dehghani

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Holiday greeting inclusivity in organizations: The more the merrier

Erica L. Granz Nack, Kimberly Rios

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Registered report stage I: Defending or defying democracy? Investigating the relationship between conspiracy beliefs and support for democratic principles [registered report - stage I]

Tisa Bertlich, Felicitas Flade, Roland Imhoff

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Managing threatened identities across everyday situations

N. Derek Brown, Drew S. Jacoby-Senghor, Allyson P. Mackey, Michael L. Slepian

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Just a means to an end? Individuals support direct democracy instrumentally, irrespective of conspiracy mentality

Tisa Bertlich, Fiona Kazarovytska, Roland Imhoff

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Tracking connections, not content: How working memory shapes content and social learning in online networks

Esther Kang, Arun Lakshmanan

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Minority report: How minorities' awareness of power asymmetry drives strategic preparation in opinion debates

Alain Quiamzade, Fanny Lalot, Dominic Abrams

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Not all stimuli are conditioned equal – Larger evaluative conditioning effects for fluent stimuli

Claudine Pulm, Anne Gast

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Smiling your way to happiness or misery? Experimental tests of competing perspectives

Nicholas A. Coles, Annabel Dang, Joao Francisco Goes Braga Takayanagi

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When rightness is wrong: Chronic prevention orientation predicts cardiovascular threat responses under regulatory fit

Deborah E. Ward, Mark D. Seery, Thomas L. Saltsman, Cheryl L. Kondrak

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Beyond morality primacy: Inference of competence takes the lead in spontaneous impressions

Irmak Olcaysoy Okten, Xi Shen, Ayanna Brewton

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Unequal participation: How low socioeconomic status hinders political engagement

Rodrigo Furst, Yan Vieites, Bernardo Andretti

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The effect of frameswitching on perceptions of decisiveness, creativity, and job fit

Sabrina Piccolo, Analía Albuja

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The spread of fear: Perceptual deindividuation drives racial bias in threat generalization

Arshiya Aggarwal, Julia R. Hopkins, Dana E. Diaz, Kalina J. Michalska, Nicholas P. Camp, Brent L. Hughes

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Does ignorance love company? The social dynamics of information avoidance

Katharina Reher, Martin Götz, Filippo Toscano, Jörg Gross

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Decision strategy and perceived humanness: The roles of decision context and decision outcome

Hong Zhang, Huan Zhu, Jingyan Wang, Yima Jin

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Strategically prosocial: Using acts of kindness to secure more valuable interaction partners

Luuk L. Snijder, Mirre Stallen, Jörg Gross, Carsten K.W. De Dreu

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Trust under watch: Relational models and the context-dependent nature of monitoring

Anna O. Kuzminska, Maryam Khan, Pelin Kesebir, Tomasz Zaleskiewicz, Agata Gasiorowska

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The effects of anonymity in volunteer's dilemmas

Yukari Jessica Tham, Yohsuke Ohtsubo, Kaori Karasawa

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Why do people dislike gender role violators? A test of three models

Alan J. Lambert, Fade R. Eadeh, Svyatoslav Prokhorets, Giselle Gisser, Keralyn Siebrass

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Is a random human peer better than a highly supportive chatbot in reducing loneliness over time?

Ruo-Ning Li, Dunigan Folk, Abhay Singh, Lyle Ungar, Elizabeth Dunn

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Emotional cues to group hierarchy: Inferences about dominance- versus prestige-based hierarchies from members' emotional expressions

Marc W. Heerdink, Svenja A. Wolf, Jens Lange, Florian Wanders, Xia Fang, Eftychia Stamkou, Gerben A. van Kleef

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Beyond confronting: Cultivating inclusion through proactive Allyship

Lucy De Souza, Toni Schmader

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Common = ineffective? A replication attempt of the normative dilution effect in the context of political apologies

Vlada Trofimchuk, Rebecca Littman

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Using intersectional implicit association measures does not consistently improve the predictive validity of the implicit association test

Jeffrey To, Jordan Axt

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Beliefs versus reality: People overestimate the actual dishonesty of others

Jareef Martuza, Helge Thorbjørnsen, Hallgeir Sjåstad

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Multiculturalism shapes moral judgments of sexist men across religious groups

Alexandra Vázquez, Beatriz Alba

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Interpersonal synchrony modulates explicit and implicit self-other blurring: Evidence from an IAT

Manisha Biswas, Marcel Brass

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More is more, or is there more to it? Frequency moderations in evaluative conditioning depend on variation in the unconditioned stimuli

Mandy Hütter, Kathrin Reichmann, Dana Höffler, Marco Denin

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When society feels broken: How perceptions of anomie shape donation tendencies across cultures

Fei Gao, Lan Xia

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Approach-avoidance action tendencies: A replicable approach/avoidance compatibility effect can be found when valence is task irrelevant

Yoann Julliard, Cédric Batailler, François Ric, Marine Rougier, Maude Tagand, Mae Braud, Dominique Muller

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Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Belief in a diversity–meritocracy trade-off.

Evan P. Apfelbaum, Eileen Y. Suh, Yue Wu

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Trust and trust funds: How others’ childhood and current social class context influence trust behavior and expectations.

Kristin Laurin, Holly R. Engstrom, Toni Schmader, Khai Qing Chua, Nadav Klein, Stéphane Côté

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Finding agreement: Functional magnetic resonance imaging hyperscanning reveals that mental state space exploration facilitates opinion alignment.

Sebastian P. H. Speer, Haran Sened, Laetitia Mwilambwe-Tshilobo, Lily Tsoi, Shannon M. Burns, Emily B. Falk, Diana I. Tamir

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Do people across the world want to remember positive ingroup histories?

Fiona Kazarovytska, Katrín Árnadóttir, Silvana D'Ottone, Slieman Halabi, Edward Clarke, Suryodaya Sharma, Verena Heidrich, Roland Imhoff

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The unexpected importance of expectations in self-conscious emotions.

Jessica L. Tracy, Gabrielle C. Ibasco

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Dynamic networks of social contact, social desire, and affect across time scales.

Michael D. Krämer, Bernd Schaefer, Yannick Roos, David Richter, Cornelia Wrzus

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Patterns and sources of life satisfaction stability and change at different developmental stages.

Marco Deppe, Charlotte K. L. Dißelkamp, Andreas J. Forstner, Christian Kandler

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Exploring the socioeconomic pattern of humans’ future orientation: A multimethod multistudy approach.

Alejandro Díaz-Guerra, Mirko Antino, Rafael Caballero, Alfredo Rodríguez-Muñoz, Alejandro Vásquez-Echeverría

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The dispositional basis of selective prosociality.

Büsra Elif Yelbuz, Isabel Thielmann

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Organizational Research Methods

Argument Mining for Organizational Research: A Computer-Aided Analysis of Organizational Talk

Cornelia Fedtke, Gregor Wiedemann, Cristina Besio

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Argument mining—the automatic identification, classification, and linking of argumentative text—has been studied in natural language processing (NLP) for more than a decade. Despite its claimed potential for applications in legal, political, and social contexts, it remained largely unexplored in organizational research. This article introduces aspect-based argument mining (ABAM) as a methodical innovation for studying how organizations justify decisions, construct legitimacy, and relate to their environments through communicative acts. By scaling up the analysis of argumentative structures beyond the limits of small-scale, qualitative studies, ABAM enables the recognition and systematic analysis of argumentation patterns in large text corpora that were hardly detectable with previous (computational) approaches. The potential is demonstrated by a longitudinal case study of Twitter debates on nuclear energy in Germany, revealing how shifting societal values—particularly the reframing of nuclear energy from a safety to a climate issue—produced growing misalignments between organizational talk of a political party organization and its social media environment.

A Multimodal Item Response Modeling for Personality Assessment in Organizational Research

Dongbo Tu, Fumei Zhang, Siwei Peng, Daxun Wang, Yan Cai

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Recent advances in process data collection have made it possible to efficiently collect multimodal behavioral indicators, such as response times and eye-tracking measures. These multimodal data have been widely applied in cognitive and achievement assessments, where they have improved the accuracy of latent construct estimation. However, the use of informative multimodal process data in noncognitive assessments, such as personality measures widely used in organizational research, has received considerably less attention. To address this gap, we integrate response time and eye-tracking data into a conventional item response model to capture respondents’ response processes, thereby improving differentiation across trait levels and enhancing noncognitive assessment. Simulation studies were conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed model and compare it with a conventional IRT model. Results indicate that model parameters can be accurately recovered and that incorporating multimodal data significantly improves the accuracy of person latent trait estimates. Finally, an empirical analysis was conducted to demonstrate the applicability and advantages of the proposed model in personality assessment.

Psychological Bulletin

Does the variance of personality traits change across the lifespan? A meta-analytic review of longitudinal studies.

Peter Haehner, Susanne Buecker, Marco J. Altorfer, Vera V. Bocklet, Wiebke Bleidorn

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Psychological Methods

Addressing selective reporting bias in meta-analysis of dependent effect sizes: A tutorial in R.

Man Chen, James E. Pustejovsky

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Heterogeneous variance models with Gaussian processes.

Yvette Baurne, Frédéric Delmar, Jonas Wallin

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Psychological Science

No Evidence for Self-Esteem Effects on Aggression: Findings From a Multi-Year, Multi-Informant Longitudinal Study of Mexican-Origin Families

Ulrich Orth, Jasmin A. Aebi, Richard W. Robins

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Researchers have long debated whether self-esteem is associated with aggression. In this preregistered research, we tested the effects of self-esteem on aggression by using statistical models that control for unmeasured time-invariant confounders. Data came from a multi-wave longitudinal study of 674 Mexican-origin families, including multi-informant assessments of children, mothers, and fathers at 1- or 2-year intervals. There was no evidence of systematic self-esteem effects on aggression, and the results held when we controlled for narcissism and when the influence of shared-method variance could be ruled out. Also, there was little evidence for effects in the reverse direction, that is, from engaging in aggression on self-esteem. One limitation was that in most cases it was not possible to test whether the self-esteem effects were curvilinear because of the nonconvergence of these models. Overall, the findings do not support either low or high self-esteem as a risk factor for aggression.

Does Testosterone Affect Cognitive Reflection? Evidence From a Double-Blind, Randomized Controlled Study of 1,000 Participants

Erik L. Knight, Gideon Nave, Steven D. Shaw, Coren Apicella, Pierre L. Bonin, Anna Dreber, Shawn N. Geniole, Magnus Johannesson, Dylan Manfredi, Pranjal Mehta, Valentina Proietti, Steven J. Stanton, Francesca R. Luberti, Triana Ortiz, Justin M. Carré

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The cognitive reflection test (CRT) measures reliance on intuitive thinking versus deliberate reasoning and predicts important real-world outcomes. Prior research has suggested that testosterone administration impaired CRT performance, but follow-up studies produced null results. To provide a rigorous test, we conducted a large, preregistered, double-blind, placebo-controlled experiment, unprecedented in size, with 1,000 adult men, as part of an adversarial collaboration. Participants received a single dose of intranasal testosterone or placebo, completed the CRT, and rated their confidence level. We found an insignificant treatment effect on the CRT, with the point estimate in the opposite direction of the original hypothesis (β LOGIT = 0.118, 95% confidence interval (CI) = [−0.099, 0.335]). In a second primary test, we found a significant negative treatment effect on confidence (β LOGIT = −0.329, 95% CI = [−0.558, −0.100]), which is also the opposite of our prediction. Our findings challenge earlier claims about testosterone’s cognitive effects and highlight the importance of high-powered replications. Long-term or developmental testosterone effects remain potentially important but difficult to study.

Boosting Media Literacy Using Lateral Reading and Online Search Interventions

Lisa Oswald, Anastasia Kozyreva, Stefan M. Herzog, Pietro Leonardo Nickl, Ralph Hertwig

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Empowering people to navigate online information competently is essential to complement systemic content moderation and platform regulation. A nationally representative randomized controlled study among adults in Germany ( N = 2,666) compared two media-literacy interventions: a source-focused lateral-reading strategy to help participants distinguish trustworthy from untrustworthy news outlets, and a claim-focused search strategy to help them assess the credibility of specific claims. Both interventions showed small improvements in discernment, but not all effects were statistically distinguishable from zero. At a 2-week follow-up, discernment improved in all groups, and differences between the intervention and control groups were no longer statistically distinguishable. We found no evidence of backfire effects. An exploratory analysis of discernment pretreatment indicated the lowest performance for supporters of populist radical-right parties. Behavioral measures suggested increases in information search in both intervention groups. On average, lateral reading reduced trust in untrustworthy sources, and online search increased trust in trustworthy sources.

A Field Experiment Testing Whether Accountability Reduces Racial Gaps in Performance Evaluations

Edward H. Chang, Erika L. Kirgios, Cansin Arslan

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Accountability is a commonly recommended intervention to reduce discrimination. However, there have been no field experiments testing whether it reduces discrimination in workplaces. Here we present preregistered analyses of a field experiment conducted at a company ( n = 3,266 managers rating 17,149 employees) testing whether an accountability intervention reduces performance-evaluation gaps between White and racial-minority employees. We did not find evidence that the accountability intervention closes evaluation gaps. These null effects are likely not driven by a lack of statistical power or by inattentive managers, nor is the manipulation ineffective in all contexts—a supplemental online experiment shows that similar treatment language does change decision-making, underscoring a disconnect between findings in hypothetical settings versus real organizations. These results highlight the need for additional field experiments and theorizing to better understand when and why accountability interventions, as they may typically be implemented in organizations, improve diversity-related outcomes.

Does Overconfidence Really Confer Adaptive Benefits to Children’s Learning?

Mengqi Hu, Wenbo Zhao, Meiyuan Cao, David R. Shanks, Xiao Hu, Liang Luo, Chunliang Yang

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Does overconfidence really confer adaptive benefits to children’s learning? Through a tripartite investigation involving a preregistered replication (Study 1; N = 30, children aged 6–8 years), computational simulation (Study 2), and an experimental intervention (Study 3; N = 64, children aged 6–8 years), we first replicated previous findings that highly overconfident (HO) children exhibited less negative performance change across a memory task than their low-overconfidence (LO) counterparts. However, this pattern was driven by participant-selection bias and regression-to-the-mean effects rather than by adaptive benefits of childhood overconfidence. When experimentally manipulating children’s overconfidence levels to eliminate these methodological drawbacks, the difference in performance changes between HO and LO children disappeared. These findings challenge an influential hypothesis about the adaptive nature of childhood overconfidence, underscore the risks of median-split designs with difference scores, highlight the necessity of causal experimental approaches in developmental research, and raise concerns about educational practices promoting positive illusions in children.

Psychology of Popular Media

The “ideal” body according to artificial intelligence: Body image implications for athletes and nonathletes.

Delaney E. Thibodeau, Sasha M. Gollish, Jessica E. Boyes, Edina Bijvoet, Catherine M. Sabiston

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Who stans celebrities on social media? The role of gender, sexual orientation, and political ideology.

Tara C. Marshall, Vania Wu, Zoya Pal

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Keep your head in the game: Retrospective imaginative involvement with video game narratives.

Koji Yoshimura, Philippe de Villemor Chauveau

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Children’s vocabulary, math, and social-emotional learning from interactive media: The role of choice, agency, and repetition in app design.

Allyson L. Snyder, Drew P. Cingel, Sofia V. Rhea, Jane Shawcroft, Samantha L. Vigil, Katherine Ong

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The effects of memes on perceptions and decision making: Insights from fuzzy-trace theory.

Wylie Brace, Christopher R. Wolfe

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Judging characters by their cover? Surface-level similarities, deep-level similarities, and parasocial relationships.

Bartosz G. Żerebecki, Sizhe Dang, Nalini Jhinkoe-Rai, Bridget Schuiling, Julia Kneer

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Uses of media representation in LGBTQ adults’ relationship with their parent: Individual, relational, and sociocultural contexts.

Y. Anthony Chen, Marie-Louise Mares

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The “ideal versus real” social media posts increase female adults’ body appreciation.

Zhiying Liu, Ewa Miedzobrodzka, Jolanda Veldhuis

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Exploring the impact of work from home on the effects of social media: A moderated mediation analysis of psychological well-being.

Biying Wu-Ouyang

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Mental health disorders on Netflix: Analyzing stereotypes across 13 countries using the stereotype content model and machine learning.

Katharina Angermayr, Sebastian Scherr

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Audiences on the dark side: Do antisocial personality traits predict motives for true crime listening?

Sofia V. Rhea, Laramie D. Taylor

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Who will spend money uncontrollably in video games? The association between video game playing motivations and compulsive gaming buying among players of different genders.

Fang Xu, Ran Zhou, Gengfeng Niu, Min Cao, Xuan Xu, Huifen Shi, Zhen Zeng, Zongkui Zhou

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Writing and reading fan fiction: The roles of self and social media.

Clara B. Rebello, Sonia Ghir, Kiana Reddock, Angelie Ignacio, Gerald C. Cupchik

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Interrelational dynamics in problematic video game use: A network analysis.

Chloé Nguyen, Valentin Flaudias, Quentin Hallez

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Association between gaming disorder and internalizing symptoms among children and adolescents: A child–parent dyadic study.

Toshitaka Hamamura, Kyosuke Kaneko, Masaya Ito

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Double-tap or scroll away? The social costs of humblebragging on Instagram.

Ramzi Fatfouta, Michael Dufner

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Developing and testing an explanatory model of complete mental health in tabletop role-playing games.

Patrick J. McLaren, Gavin R. Slemp, Ben Deery, Lindsay G. Oades

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Video games are awesome: Understanding awe experiences in video games.

Ursula Thomson, Kongmeng Liew

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The relationships between video games and cognitive, motor, emotional, and social development across the lifespan: An umbrella review.

Kevin Rebecchi, Chloé Nguyen, Quentin Hallez, Anna Rita Galiano

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Can we separate the character from the creator? An exploratory study on parasocial relationships.

Kristina L. Howell, Meisam Vahedi, R. Chris Fraley

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Do the traits of fictional crushes and real-life ideals align? An investigation into ideal standards based on fictional fandoms.

Nicole Zhi Min Wang, Ai Ni Teoh

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The impact of acute and cumulative exposure to violent film on social cognition in university students.

Mary B. Ritchie, Carly T. Smith, Shannon A. H. Compton, Nathan Hostetler, Lindsay Oliver, Derek G. V. Mitchell

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