Psychology Research Digest
British Journal of Psychology
The British Journal of Psychology is the flagship journal of the British Psychological Society, publishing cutting-edge, multidisciplinary psychological research with major theoretical or methodological contributions across different sections of psychology. With a commitment to open science, the journal enjoys a wide international readership. It features empirical studies and critical reviews that address contemporary or modern topics or issues by integrating different specialisms of psychology or interdisciplinary work with contributions from or to psychology theory or practice.
Of eyes and hands: Assessing the evolutionarily stable strategy of human handedness by means of eye‐tracking
An evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) suggests that the 1:9 ratio of left- to right-handers in humans could reflect a frequency-dependent equilibrium: the minority of left-handers and the majority of right-handers may have an advantage in competitive and cooperative circumstances, respectively. To evaluate this account, we recorded eye movements during a ‘friend or foe’ variation of a Go/NoGo task in 24 left- and 24 right-handed participants. Stimuli were silhouettes carrying either a food item (cooperation with a ‘friend’) or a weapon (competition against an ‘enemy’) in one hand, and participants were asked to save the friend or to hit the enemy. A better performance emerged in competitive than cooperative trials, confirming the ‘weapon effect’ (highest efficiency in detecting threatening stimuli), and for right- than left-handed stimuli, confirming an advantage in responding to the most frequent handedness phenotype. Left/right-handed stimuli were better categorized in the competition/cooperation trials and first saccades were faster towards left- than right-handed stimuli, particularly when these were males. We interpret this pattern as an attentional bias favouring earlier orienting to potentially more threatening targets, left-handed males. Results are discussed as partially supporting the ESS and other evolutionary biases, which might be associated with the handedness distribution of humans.
Publication date: Sun, 06 Sep 2026 22:35:56 -0700 Access the article >>Psychological understanding of misinformation and disinformation in the face of environmental crises: Introduction to the special issue
Exposure to and belief in misinformation and disinformation can foster misunderstandings and misperceptions about climate change and other environmental issues, ultimately delaying essential progress and action. Against this backdrop, this special issue presents a collection of nine papers that deepen and broaden psychological insights into the content of environment-related misinformation and how people respond to it. In this introduction, we provide a brief overview of the concepts of misinformation and disinformation, followed by a discussion of the scope and contributions of the nine papers. Collectively, these papers address the heterogeneity and complexity of climate and environmental misinformation, explain how people process such misinformation, develop intervention and communication strategies, and explore the influence of social and cultural contexts. We conclude by outlining significant future research directions, emphasizing the need to understand environment-related misinformation with content- and context-sensitive approaches.
Publication date: Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0700 Access the article >>Issue Information
British Journal of Psychology, Volume 117, Issue S1, Page S1-S4, September 2026.
Publication date: Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0700 Access the article >>Advice‐taking in carbon footprint assessments: How psychological and cultural factors shape reliance on experts' advice
In this pre-registered experiment conducted in the Netherlands and Türkiye (N total = 550), we investigated how the source of advice (peer vs. expert) influences people's decision-making when assessing the carbon footprint of a flight between two cities. We also examined whether this effect was influenced by their conspiracy mentality, collective narcissism, epistemic individualism, and climate change scepticism. Our findings suggest that people overall rely more on experts' advice than peers', especially in the Netherlands compared with Türkiye. Moreover, individuals high in conspiracy beliefs, epistemic individualism, and collective narcissism reduced the weight advantage typically given to expert advice over peer advice. Only a specific form of climate change scepticism (i.e., trend scepticism) showed similar effects. Overall, our results indicate that individuals who value their own opinion and harbour distrust towards experts or science tend to discount expert advice.
Publication date: Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0700 Access the article >>Exploring the associations of generalized trust, climate change conspiracy beliefs and freecycling: Empirical evidence from 34 cultures
This study examined the relationships between generalized trust, climate change conspiracy beliefs and freecycling – a community-based free-item sharing pro-environmental behaviour. It also explored the role of societal factors in relation to participation in freecycling, as well as how they are associated with these relationships. Using a panel method, we conducted an online survey with 16,773 participants, stratified by age, gender and region across 34 countries/societies. Key findings indicate that generalized trust and, unexpectedly, climate change conspiracy beliefs are positively associated with freecycling participation. Our exploratory results show that freecycling is more prevalent in developing societies, characterized by stronger beliefs in reward for application and religiosity, a lesser emphasis on uncertainty avoidance and a preference for short-term over long-term orientation. Cross-level moderation analysis indicates that generalized trust is more strongly linked to freecycling in developing societies; its association with freecycle giving is also stronger in cultures with lower reward for application. Climate change conspiracy beliefs are more strongly linked to freecycling in societies with lower uncertainty avoidance. By addressing gaps in the existing literature, particularly the need for cross-cultural comparisons, our research offers valuable insights into the construct of freecycling. As we navigate the complexities of hyperconsumerism and climate change conspiracy beliefs, scepticism towards mainstream narratives may sometimes be associated with individuals seeking alternative, grassroots solutions. Promoting freecycling could encourage sustainability, strengthening community connections and empowering individuals to take direct action in response to their doubts, potentially contributing to a more resilient and environmentally aware society.
Publication date: Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0700 Access the article >>Blueprint of a smokescreen: Introducing the validated climate disinformation corpus for behavioural research on combating climate disinformation
Behavioural science research has the potential to develop evidence-based strategies to fight disinformation about climate science and climate mitigation action; however, this research has yet to be conducted systematically with validated sets of climate disinformation stimuli. Here, we present the Climate Disinformation Corpus, a collection of climate disinformation statements designed to systematize experimental research testing future disinformation interventions. Using computational social science techniques, we gathered climate disinformation stimuli from the social media platform Twitter/X. We identified 78 statements containing disinformation about the existence, the causes, the consequences of climate change, the reliability and objectivity of climate scientists, and arguing for the delay of climate policies. The Climate Disinformation Corpus showed good heterogeneity across 15 validation measures (e.g., perceived persuasiveness, perceived trustworthiness, and sharing intentions) in a validation study involving a representative sample of N = 503 British participants. Furthermore, the climate disinformation statements were correlated with four individual differences measures related to belief in climate science and support for climate actions, congruently with theoretical expectations. We conclude with practical suggestions on implementing the Climate Disinformation Corpus in disinformation research according to different research questions.
Publication date: Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0700 Access the article >>The gateway (mis)belief model: How misinformation impacts perceptions of scientific consensus and attitudes towards climate change
Climate change is one of the greatest threats to humanity, necessitating immediate action to combat its consequences. Although there is a nearly unanimous scientific consensus that climate change is human-caused, misinformation doubting its causes continues to circulate widely. In this study, we test the Gateway (mis)Belief Model (GmBM) which assumes that misinformation affects perceived scientific consensus negatively, which then cascades down to lower support for public action to mitigate climate change via changes in key beliefs about the issue. We present a reanalysis of data from two online studies in which U.S. participants (N 1 = 207, N 2 = 755) were exposed to misinformation using a pre-post mixed design manipulating assessments of the scientific consensus on climate change. Results showed that misinformation indeed leads to lower estimations of scientific consensus, which cascade down to lower support for public action via corresponding beliefs. However, the pattern of significance of direct effects did not exactly replicate those in the original GBM, though misinformation still had negative direct (Experiments 1–2) and indirect effects (Experiment 2) on several downstream climate outcomes. These findings are further affirmed by an internal meta-analysis. Overall, this study highlights the negative impact of misinformation on climate attitudes and policy support.
Publication date: Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0700 Access the article >>Fighting fire with fire: Prebunking with the use of a plausible meta‐conspiracy framing
Prebunking can be used to pre-emptively refute conspiracy narratives. We developed a new approach to prebunking – fighting fire with fire – which introduces a plausible ‘meta-conspiracy’ suggesting that conspiracy theories are deliberately spread as part of a wider conspiracy. In two preregistered intervention studies, prebunking specific COVID-19 vaccine (Study 1, N = 720) and climate change (Study 2, N = 1077) conspiracy theories (e.g. that climate change is a hoax), with or without this meta-conspiracy framing, did not reduce beliefs in these specific conspiracy theories. However, some notable findings emerged. First, both fighting fire with fire and standard prebunking (Study 2) increased belief in plausible meta-conspiracies that questioned the original specific conspiracy theories. Second, across both studies, specific conspiracy beliefs negatively predicted behavioural intentions, while beliefs in meta-conspiracies positively predicted them. Third, specific conspiracy beliefs were negatively related to belief in plausible meta-conspiracies in both intervention studies (cf: Pilot Study). While this approach did not reduce specific conspiracy beliefs, it increased beliefs that were negatively associated with them and which were positively linked to behavioural intentions. We discuss these null effects and their implications for effective prebunking among conspiracy believers.
Publication date: Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0700 Access the article >>Sampling and processing of climate change information and disinformation across three diverse countries
In the media, accurate climate information and climate disinformation often coexist and present competing narratives about climate change. Whereas previous research documented detrimental effects of disinformation on climate beliefs, little is known about how people seek climate-related content and how this varies between cross-cultural contexts. In a preregistered experiment, we studied how individuals sequentially sample and process Pro- and Anti-climate statements across 15 rounds. Participants from the United States, China, and Germany (N total = 2226) freely sampled real-world climate-related statements, retrieved from Twitter and validated in previous studies. Overall, reading both Pro- and Anti-climate statements influenced climate concern in all countries. Participants preferred statements that were better aligned with their initial climate beliefs, and this confirmatory tendency intensified the more information had been sampled. Moreover, participants' confirmatory evaluation (i.e., accepting aligned and rejecting opposing messages) increased over time. While climate concern was mostly stable, in the United States, climate concern levels and box choices mutually reinforced each other, leading to greater polarization within the sample over the course of the experiment. The paradigm offers new perspectives on how people process and navigate conflicting narratives about climate change.
Publication date: Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0700 Access the article >>Not that different after all: Pro‐environmental social norms predict pro‐environmental behaviour (also) among those believing in conspiracy theories
Social norms are powerful predictors of pro-environmental behaviour. At the same time, conspiracy beliefs are prevalent that can reduce individuals' efforts to act pro-environmentally and might impede the influence of social norms. Across three cross-sectional studies in three countries (Germany, UK, US; total N = 1037), we investigated the interplay between different types of social norm perceptions and conspiracy beliefs in predicting everyday pro-environmental behaviour. Against two out of three hypotheses, we found no evidence that conspiracy beliefs moderated the relationship between perceived social norms and self-reported pro-environmental behaviour. Rather, perceiving higher pro-environmental social (especially subjective and injunctive) norms was associated with more frequent pro-environmental behaviour – also among those with stronger conspiracy beliefs. Conspiracy beliefs (especially those related to climate change) were, in turn, related to less pro-environmental behaviour. These findings shed light on the social factors that might influence individuals believing in conspiracy theories and give reason for optimism regarding the possibility to overcome their climate inaction via normative influence.
Publication date: Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0700 Access the article >>Denialist vs. warmist climate change conspiracy beliefs: Ideological roots, psychological correlates and environmental implications
In the current research, we use network analysis to examine the structure, ideological foundations and correlates of climate change conspiracy theories, distinguishing between denialist and warmist beliefs. Denialist beliefs, typically endorsed on the political right, claim that climate change is exaggerated, whereas warmist beliefs, more prevalent on the left, allege the suppression of climate science and the downplaying of climate change. Across four studies, these beliefs showed a weak and unstable positive correlation but were reliably connected via indirect associations with general conspiracy beliefs and negatively through opposing relationships with denial of anthropogenic climate change (ACC) and conservatism. General conspiracy beliefs and denial of ACC were not directly connected but were instead related indirectly through climate-specific conspiracy beliefs: positively via denialist and negatively via warmist. We found no evidence across studies for an association between climate change conspiracy beliefs and indices of non-rational thinking. Finally, denialist beliefs were negatively associated with pro-environmental intentions, environmental concern, policy support and collective guilt, whereas warmist beliefs were positively related to these outcomes, except for environmental concern, where no significant relationship emerged. These findings highlight the importance of distinguishing ideological variants of climate change conspiracy beliefs to contextualize their psychological significance and potential impacts.
Publication date: Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0700 Access the article >>Testing the impact of fallacies and contrarian claims in climate change misinformation
Climate misinformation reduces public acceptance of climate change and undermines support for mitigation policies. This study explored the impact of different types of climate misinformation, examining through content-based and logic-based frameworks. The content-based framework was based on a taxonomy of contrarian claims consisting of five categories—it's not real, it's not us, it's not bad, climate solutions won't work and scientists are not reliable. The logic-based framework examined six rhetorical techniques used in science denial arguments—misrepresentation, false equivalence, oversimplification, red herring, cherry picking and slothful induction. We experimentally tested 30 misinformation examples, crossing five content categories with six fallacies. Participants rated the perceived veracity of misinformation as well as the likelihood of interacting with it. We found no main effect of fallacy on perceived veracity or likelihood to interact but did find a main effect of content category, with the fourth category (climate solutions won't work) perceived as most veracious. We also found that content categories interacted with political ideology, replicating past research into the polarizing effect of climate misinformation. Specifically, the most polarizing categories of misinformation were those targeting climate solutions or attacking climate scientists. Our results highlight the need to prioritize combatting misinformation that targets solutions and scientists.
Publication date: Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0700 Access the article >>Embodied attention shapes temporal cognition
Humans rely on spatial representations to process both temporal duration and mentally project themselves across time. Yet, it remains unclear whether this spatial–temporal mapping depends on embodied mechanisms or on abstract attentional codes. We investigated whether embodied cues (gaze direction) versus abstract cues optokinetic stimulation (OKS) modulate Mental Time Travel (MTT) and age judgement. Gaze direction induced direction-specific effects in both tasks: in MTT leftward gaze enhanced the perceived likelihood of past events, while rightward gaze enhanced judgements for future events; in the Age Judgement task leftward cues yielded younger estimates and rightward cues older estimates. Conversely, non-embodied OKS biased Age Judgements but induced no direction-specific effects in the MTT task. Overall, these dissociations suggest that embodied cues play a specific role in modulating temporal projection in MTT, whereas non-embodied attentional cues are sufficient to bias age-related temporal estimates. These findings suggest that temporal projection during MTT relies more strongly on embodied perceptual mechanisms, whereas judgements of longer temporal durations can be shaped by domain-general attentional processes.
Publication date: Sun, 30 Aug 2026 23:20:27 -0700 Access the article >>Social mobility belief enhances fertility intention among childless individuals by bolstering fertility efficacy
Low fertility intentions among childless individuals constitute a critical factor underlying the low-fertility crisis. Drawing on an integrated theoretical framework, this study employs four studies to examine the mechanisms through which beliefs about social mobility influence fertility intentions. Results indicate that social mobility beliefs positively predict fertility intentions, though age-stratified analyses reveal that this direct association is driven by post-reproductive adults, consistent with the view that prospective fertility intentions among younger adults require a mediating mechanism (Study 1); experimental evidence confirms the causal effects of social mobility belief on fertility intention and fertility efficacy among reproductive-age childless adults (Studies 2 and 3); fertility efficacy mediates this relationship (Study 3); and a quasi-experimental design provides support for the proposed mediator's role (Study 4). These findings elucidate a ‘social mobility beliefs, fertility efficacy, fertility intentions’ mechanism, offering a novel perspective for understanding fertility intentions and important implications for enhancing them by fostering positive societal beliefs and strengthening individual efficacy.
Publication date: Fri, 28 Aug 2026 22:42:51 -0700 Access the article >>The world is an unjust place: The impact of lifetime adversity on belief in conspiracy theories
Conspiracy mentality - the tendency to view important events as the product of secret plots by powerful groups - is known to arise from collective victimization and discrimination. Yet less is understood about how adversities such as illness, financial loss, or trauma, unrelated to social identity, foster such beliefs. Drawing on social and clinical perspectives, we conducted three preregistered studies (total n = 1284) to test whether lifetime adversity contributes to conspiracy mentality via perceived injustice. Study 1 (n = 275) supported this hypothesis, showing an indirect link between lifetime adversity and conspiracy mentality through injustice perceptions. Study 2 (n = 471) employed a controlled comparison group design, showing that victims of violence (vs. non-victims) reported stronger perceptions of injustice, which were positively associated with conspiracy mentality. Study 3 (n = 538) experimentally manipulated perceptions of justice, demonstrating that perceived injustice (vs. justice) increased conspiracy beliefs. While the effect was not significantly moderated by lifetime adversity, exploratory analyses replicated Study 1's mediation pattern. Additional analyses revealed that adversity predicted institutional distrust via injustice and political conspiracy beliefs. These findings advance interdisciplinary understanding and identify the psychological mechanisms linking adversity to conspiracy beliefs, with relevance for understanding social trust and resilience.
Publication date: Tue, 04 Aug 2026 17:01:00 -0700 Access the article >>Culture and conceptual influences on first impressions from body shape
Prior work shows that body shape contributes to first impressions in a Western population; here, we test whether these impressions generalize to an East Asian culture and whether any observed differences are affected by nonperceptual factors. Across two studies, we examined how body shape is mapped onto personality traits among American and Chinese participants. In Study 1, participants rated 3D body models on a shared set of Big Five-derived trait descriptors to map trait spaces within a common measurement framework. Although the primary dimension linking Conscientiousness with valence was shared by both groups, the groups differed more clearly on the secondary dimension. Americans emphasized agency and mapped Extraversion onto thinner bodies, whereas Chinese participants emphasized sociability and linked Extraversion to average/sturdier bodies. Study 2 tested whether these differences were driven by trait associations or weight stereotypes. Results aligned with Dynamic Interactive Theory, finding that culturally and linguistically embedded trait associations mirrored body impressions more closely than weight stereotypes alone. These findings reveal how shared perceptual heuristics and nonperceptual knowledge jointly shape impressions from bodies. This extends classic face-based models of person perception to bodies and underscores the role of sociocultural context in the architecture of first impressions.
Publication date: Sun, 02 Aug 2026 23:10:14 -0700 Access the article >>The holistic view of compassion: A meta‐analysis on the association of self‐compassion, other‐compassion, well‐being and psychological distress
While ample evidence has demonstrated the beneficial effects of self-compassion and other-compassion on the promotion of well-being and reduction of psychological distress independently, the effects of their co-occurrence have been less examined. By employing a three-level meta-analysis, the present study synthesized 193 studies across 31 cultural contexts. Results showed that the effect size of the association between self-compassion and other-compassion was small (r = .19), and that the cultural values of collectivism–individualism moderated the association, with stronger effects shown in cultures with higher collectivistic orientation. Additionally, self-compassion and other-compassion showed a stronger effect size on mental well-being when there was a higher congruence (higher correlation) between self-compassion and other-compassion. Other-compassion also showed a stronger effect size on psychological distress when congruence between self-compassion and other-compassion was high. These findings underscore the dual importance of cultivating both self- and other-compassion to maximize their effects on the enhancement of mental well-being and the alleviation of psychological distress.
Publication date: Fri, 31 Jul 2026 05:29:47 -0700 Access the article >>How do visual and conceptual factors predict the object content in typical scene drawings?
Imagine you draw a typical bedroom, your choice of objects is likely to depend on visual occurrence statistics (i.e. the objects present in previously encountered bedrooms) and semantic relations between objects and scenes (i.e. the semantic relationship between the bedroom and its constituent objects). To investigate how these two factors contribute to the composition of typical scene drawings, we analysed 1192 drawings of six indoor scene categories, obtained from 303 participants. For each object featured in the drawings, we estimated its visual occurrence frequency from the ADE20K dataset, and its semantic relatedness to the scene concept from a word2vec model. Across all scenes of a given category, generalized linear models revealed that visual and conceptual factors both predicted the likelihood of an object featuring in the scene drawings, with a combined model outperforming both single-factor models. We further computed the visual and semantic specificity of objects for a given scene, that is, how diagnostic an object is for the scene. Object specificity offered only weak predictive power when predicting the selection of objects, yet even infrequently drawn objects remained diagnostic of their scenes. Taken together, we show that visual and conceptual factors jointly shape the composition of typical scene drawings.
Publication date: Fri, 31 Jul 2026 05:27:48 -0700 Access the article >>Intrinsic potency of biological motion in guiding attention: A conflict‐based assessment across autistic traits
Biological motion (BM) is a potent social signal capable of guiding human attention, a phenomenon termed social attention that underpins adaptive behaviour and interpersonal interaction. Although extensively studied in laboratory settings, social attention is typically examined using simplified, isolated cues, leaving unresolved whether it possesses reflexive properties distinct from nonsocial attention. This study developed a dual-cue paradigm that embedded oppositely oriented arrow cues within BM sequences, directly assessing the reflexive nature of BM-induced attention using a conflict-resilience criterion. Results confirmed that BM cues, despite being reduced to kinematic information within incongruent directional signals, robustly directed attention. Furthermore, this potency persisted even for local BM signals lacking global configuration but disappeared upon removal of essential biological characteristics, highlighting the crucial role of local motion cues in guiding attention under perceptual conflict. Crucially, BM-driven reflexive attention was negatively correlated with autistic traits. Individuals with higher autistic traits failed to utilize BM cues to direct attention, yet showed intact arrow-driven attention, manifesting specific deficits in social rather than nonsocial attention. These findings uncover an intrinsic processing advantage for social signals in complex contexts that appears compromised with increasing autism-like characteristics, providing a novel paradigm with promising implications for precisely assessing social attention ability in autism.
Publication date: Tue, 28 Jul 2026 21:47:37 -0700 Access the article >>Happy me: Asymmetric bidirectional links between the self and positivity underpin biased processing
Understanding how the self relates to emotional valence is fundamental to theories of self-concept and cognitive bias. While separate literatures have documented advantages for information associated with the self and information of positive valence, the mechanisms and directionality of their interaction remain poorly understood. Across three experiments combining evaluative priming and shape-label matching tasks, the current research examined whether self-positivity and self-negativity reflect bidirectional expectations between self and emotional information. Results revealed an asymmetric bidirectional relationship: positive emotion primes enhanced self-stranger bias magnitudes by inhibiting processing of stranger-related targets rather than facilitating self-associated targets (Experiment 1a), while self-primes facilitated positivity-bias magnitudes by enhancing processing of positive emotional targets (Experiment 2). Critically, no analogous effects emerged for negative valence (Experiment 1b). These findings suggest that the dominant mechanism linking self and positivity depends on the direction in which the association is activated: emotional context shapes self-prioritization through inhibition of distal-other representations, while self-context shapes emotional processing through direct facilitation of positive information. The theoretical implications for self-concept maintenance and predictive processing accounts of social cognition are discussed.
Publication date: Thu, 23 Jul 2026 00:37:07 -0700 Access the article >>The model effect: How the facial attractiveness of a model shapes clothing evaluation
Clothing plays an integral role in the formation of first impressions and has been studied within social perception. However, little attention has been paid to the reverse process: whether evaluations of clothing are influenced by the attractiveness of the person wearing it. Across four studies, results consistently revealed a “model effect,” whereby attractive faces increased positive ratings of the clothing. This effect was found to be robust, emerging whether participants were explicitly instructed to assess the clothing (Studies 2, 3 and 4) or the whole image (Study 1), and across experimental (Studies 1, 2 and 4) and naturalistic (Study 3) settings. The “model effect” emerged when considering dresses worn by female models (Studies 1, 2 and 3), as well as models varying in ethnicity, age, and gender wearing everyday clothing other than dresses (Study 4). This effect was not moderated by one's experience and attitudes towards the target garment (Study 2) nor general interest and engagement towards fashion (Study 4), suggesting that the effect is a general bias. These findings extend prior work on the “attractiveness halo effect,” where the appeal of a model can be transferred to fashion items, highlighting how attractiveness-based biases operate in everyday aesthetic judgements.
Publication date: Tue, 14 Jul 2026 21:45:33 -0700 Access the article >>Big size with big heart: The effect of body size cue on perceived forgivingness
Forgivingness, a traditionally moral trait, has been extensively studied from a first-person perspective. However, there is little empirical research that discusses it from a third-person perspective. In the current study, we examined whether body size serves as a cue from which Chinese participants infer others' forgivingness. Across five experiments, we examined the body-size–forgivingness association and, drawing on the Stereotype Content Model and Implicit Personality Theory, tested whether perceived warmth accounted for this association. Results showed that participants perceived higher weight (vs. lower weight) targets as more forgiving in an implicit association test (Experiment 1) and a slider rating task (Experiment 2). In a simulation where participants committed many errors, they preferred to invite higher weight targets rather than lower weight targets for cooperation because they thought that higher weight targets were more forgiving (Experiment 3). Additionally, compared to gluteal higher weight, abdominal higher weight was particularly linked to forgivingness (Experiment 4). Mediation analysis revealed that perceived warmth but not perceived competence mediated the effect of body size on perceived forgivingness (Experiment 5). These findings suggest that, among Chinese participants, body size can shape perceived forgivingness as a specific warmth-related moral inference.
Publication date: Fri, 03 Jul 2026 22:50:13 -0700 Access the article >>Time poverty increases self‐dehumanization through undermining belief in free will
The chronic experience of time poverty is a widespread global phenomenon with detrimental effects on cognition and well-being. However, its impact on individuals' perceptions of their own humanity remains unexplored. We hypothesized that time poverty exacerbates self-dehumanization by undermining belief in free will. Across four studies (N = 994), we tested this hypothesis. Study 1 demonstrated a positive correlation between time poverty and self-dehumanization. Study 2 found that recalling a rushed experience heightened self-dehumanization compared with both the low and the control conditions. Study 3 employed a measurement-of-mediation approach to examine the mediating role of belief in free will, with Study 4 further establishing the causal mediation effect of belief in free will through a manipulation-of-mediator design. Notably, these effects persisted after controlling for potential confounds, including scarcity-related factors (financial poverty, perceived socioeconomic status, objective time poverty and low social connectedness), an individual-difference factor (money prioritization) and an affective factor (general mood). These findings illuminate the unforeseen psychological costs of an accelerated lifestyle, emphasizing the profound impact of time poverty on self-perceptions.
Publication date: Sun, 28 Jun 2026 22:08:03 -0700 Access the article >>Temporal dynamics of induced mood and its relationship with modality and individual trait
Mood induction serves as a critical experimental framework for investigating affective neural mechanisms. While neurobiological evidence suggests that affective states are inherently dynamic, research on mood induction has paid little attention to the evolving trajectories of induced moods. This study examined how the effect of mood induction unfolds over time in visual and auditory modalities, using both implicit and explicit measures. The results revealed temporal dynamics of affective states following the mood induction in a manner mainly dependent on the induced mood and the measurement type. Specifically, fear induction persistently elevated explicit negative affective states, with this persistence linked to individual depression trait. In contrast, happy induction produced comparable effects on both implicit and explicit positive states, but these effects diminished rapidly within 10 min. These observations demonstrate modality-independent patterns of mood induction across visual and auditory domains and highlight the dissociation between implicit and explicit measures in tracking affective changes over time. The study underscores the importance of analysing these temporal trajectories to better understand the functional output of neural affective regulation circuits, likely contributing to the development of more nuanced frameworks for affective research and of more personalized coping strategies to enhance affective well-being.
Publication date: Tue, 23 Jun 2026 22:01:52 -0700 Access the article >>Less is more when time is scarce: How time poverty enhances minimalistic consumption through increased need for order
Time poverty – the chronic feeling of having insufficient time – has become pervasive in modern life, yet its influence on minimalistic consumption remains unexplored. Drawing on compensatory control theory, we propose that time poverty promotes minimalistic consumption through heightened need for order. Three experimental studies (N = 660) provide evidence. Studies 1 and 2 suggest that time poverty causally increases preference for minimalistic consumption, particularly sparse aesthetics and limited possessions, mediated by need for order (Study 1 and 2) rather than alternative mechanisms such as need for relaxation (Study 2). Study 3 shows that exposure to minimalist environments attenuates the heightened need for order among time-poor consumers, consistent with minimalism's compensatory function. These findings challenge the assumption that resource scarcity uniformly drives acquisition, revealing that temporal scarcity can promote consumption reduction through compensatory control. Our research advances understanding of time poverty's consequences, identifies a novel driver of minimalistic consumption, and reveals need for order as the key mechanism, offering insights for designing products that address the psychological needs of time-poor consumers.
Publication date: Wed, 17 Jun 2026 23:05:29 -0700 Access the article >>Time poverty and access‐based consumption: Convenience gains and risk blindness
Time poverty – the subjective experience of insufficient time – has become a pervasive phenomenon in contemporary societies, yet its psychological consequences for consumer decision-making remain underexplored. Drawing on scarcity theory, we examine how time poverty shapes preferences for access-based consumption (ABC) – temporary use without ownership – a market-mediated model transforming consumer societies worldwide. Across four studies (N = 831), we show that time poverty significantly increases ABC preferences through dual mechanisms: amplified convenience orientation while attenuated risk perception. Study 1 established the causal effect of experimentally induced time poverty on ABC preference. Study 2 demonstrated that both mediators independently explain this relationship. Studies 3a and 3b provided convergent causal evidence: experimentally enhancing each mediator significantly attenuated the time-poverty effect on ABC preference while controlling for financial scarcity, general sense of scarcity, and construal level. Together, these dual pathways – heightened convenience-seeking coupled with diminished risk sensitivity – indicate that time-poor consumers may systematically trade risk evaluation for efficiency in ABC decisions. These findings illuminate the psychological forces driving major shifts in contemporary consumption practice and carry implications for consumer welfare and public policy in increasingly time-constrained societies.
Publication date: Tue, 16 Jun 2026 22:07:16 -0700 Access the article >>Contextual cues do not facilitate spontaneous face recognition
Most studies examining face recognition have used explicit recognition tasks, ignoring our ability to spontaneously recognize familiar faces when they are unexpected. The current study examined spontaneous recognition of a minor and major actor from the TV show Friends, and the extent to which spontaneous recognition is facilitated by contextual cues. In Experiment 1, we presented images of the minor actor in the context of an ongoing face-rating task. The background scene became increasingly informative across blocks. Only half of the participants spontaneously recognized the minor actor, with no influence of context. In Experiment 2, we primed the minor actor with images of a major actor from the same show. Participants were more likely to recognize the major actor than the minor actor, both spontaneously and when explicitly asked to do so. Neither the major actor prime nor the background context increased spontaneous recognition of the minor actor. We discuss constraints on spontaneous recognition and the implications of our findings for theoretical models.
Publication date: Wed, 10 Jun 2026 04:35:59 -0700 Access the article >>Coping by deceiving: Developing LYin self‐perceived self‐deception scales and exploring their links to interpersonal deception
Self-deception is complex and poses significant challenges for its measurement. The present study developed two measurement tools and explored the associations between self-perceived self-deception and various forms of other-deception. Study 1 (N = 2018) developed and validated the LYin Self-Perceived Self-Deception Tendency Questionnaire (LYin SDT) and LYin Self-Deception Awareness Scale (LYin SDA) to capture accessible self-deceptive responding tendency and subjectively experienced self-deception. The new scales were found to be related to denial coping and showed incremental validity in predicting the avoidance of threatening information and post-threat reflection, respectively. Studies 2–4 investigated how the two scales relate to interpersonal deceptive tendencies. Findings from Studies 2 (N = 301) and 3 (N = 305) showed that participants with higher LYin SDT exhibited greater self-serving dishonesty, including both explicit lies and omissions of truth. Study 4 (N = 300) applied self-relevant and interpersonal scenarios, where participants either processed information privately or decided what to disclose to others. Higher LYin SDT was related to more self-deceptive responses in self-relevant scenarios, as well as maintenance and disengagement coping tendencies in both scenarios. Together, these findings validate the two scales as effective tools for assessing self-perceived self-deception and elucidate the distinct deceiving and coping correlates.
Publication date: Tue, 09 Jun 2026 04:17:40 -0700 Access the article >>Between solitude and self‐harm: A mixed‐methods study on loneliness, emotional regulation and the buffering role of social interaction in university students
This study aims to explore the self-harming behaviours and emotional regulation mechanisms among university students within the context of their experiences of loneliness. A mixed-methods design was employed. In the first phase, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 university students with a self-harm history or high loneliness levels to investigate their subjective loneliness experiences. In the second phase, an ecological momentary assessment approach was applied over seven consecutive days to collect quantitative data from 120 university students on loneliness, emotional regulation difficulties and self-harm urges, capturing their dynamic interrelations. Findings indicated that loneliness not only directly increased the tendency toward self-harm but also exerted an indirect effect through emotional regulation difficulties. Moreover, active social interactions were found to partially buffer this negative effect. The study deepens the understanding of psychological distress among university students by revealing the complex emotional processes underlying self-harm. The findings of this study can provide a theoretical basis for the screening and management of self-harm risk in university students' psychological outpatient clinics, thereby contributing to the optimisation of mental health service models for university students.
Publication date: Mon, 08 Jun 2026 03:31:18 -0700 Access the article >>Dynamics of collectivistic language and emotional expression in China's early pandemic: A social media analysis
Crises can produce contradictory responses in collectivistic cultures, yielding both solidarity and fragmentation. We propose these paradoxes can be understood by noting multiple ecological levels in collectivistic cultures that reconfigure differentially under stress. Analysing 32,042 Sina Weibo posts from China's early COVID-19 outbreak, we examined collectivistic language and emotional expression across three geographical zones and temporal periods. Results revealed ‘proximal concentration’ at the epicentre of the outbreak, characterized by heightened family/community expressions and reduced abstract rhetoric. In contrast, ‘distal amplification’ was found in peripheral regions. Furthermore, we found a psychological typhoon eye effect in people's cultural expressions such that responses in the epicentre showed increasing positive emotion despite the greatest threat. Critically, ecological levels displayed opposing emotional associations such that microsystem pronouns and macrosystem values were positively associated with positive emotions, while exosystem national identity and mesosystem family/community were negatively associated. These findings suggest collectivism reconfigures through level-specific activation with divergent emotional consequences, highlighting potential limitations of unidimensional cultural frameworks, as aggregated collectivism can mask observing these heterogeneous responses.
Publication date: Sun, 07 Jun 2026 22:12:01 -0700 Access the article >>Processing visual contour contributes to the association between numerosity processing and arithmetic performance
Studies have shown that non-symbolic numerosity processing can consistently predict arithmetic performance. Visual form perception has been assumed to be fundamental for both processing, but little empirical evidence has been found for the involvement of visual form perception in numerosity processing and arithmetic performance. The current investigation will examine whether individual dependence on visual properties in numerosity processing can account for substantial variation in arithmetic performance. A total of 6329 participants aged 6 to 87 years old were recruited and divided into nine age groups. The results showed that the total contour/perimeter dominates the numerosity processing for participants in each of the nine age groups. At the individual level, the dependence of total contour/perimeter in numerosity processing indexed by the regression coefficient was larger than the dependence of other visual properties. Importantly, the dependence of total contour/perimeter consistently contributed to the arithmetic performance in each age group. The score for figure matching fully accounted for the contribution of the dependence of total contour/perimeter to arithmetic performance. The findings convergently suggest that the extraction of contour information in dot arrays is fundamental for both numerosity processing and arithmetic performance, which may stem from the shared visual form processing.
Publication date: Sat, 06 Jun 2026 00:51:35 -0700 Access the article >>Social voice judgement is dyadic: Acoustic typicality and interpersonal similarity interact
The formation of social first impressions from voices is a central component of everyday social interactions. While past research has primarily investigated the effect of bottom-up voice acoustic on social voice judgements, here we widen the perspective and investigate how bottom-up acoustic and top-down interpersonal similarity interactively influence social voice judgements. We quantified acoustic distance to an average voice as a measure of acoustic typicality and combined this with interpersonal similarity between each listener-speaker pair derived from Big Five personality traits. 110 listeners rated 30 words spoken by female speakers on attractiveness, likability, trustworthiness, and dominance, and data were analysed using Generalised Additive Mixed Models to capture nonlinear and interactive effects. Across social dimensions, acoustic typicality emerged as the strongest predictor of social judgements, with more typical voices receiving the most positive ratings. However, social judgements were not determined by acoustic cues alone. For attractiveness, likability and trustworthiness, similar personalities between speaker and listener enhanced social evaluations, particularly for acoustically atypical voices. In contrast, dominance judgements were exclusively explained by acoustic typicality without significant modulation by interpersonal similarity. Together, these results show that most social voice judgements arises from a dyadic, context-sensitive integration of acoustic information and interpersonal similarity.
Publication date: Wed, 03 Jun 2026 21:53:39 -0700 Access the article >>Manipulating posture implicitly through environmental constraints influences mood and risk‐taking behaviour
Adopting physical expressions of emotion has feedback effects on individuals' mood and behaviour; for example, adopting the expansive and contractive body language of dominance and submission can affect individuals' feelings of power. However, postural feedback paradigms almost exclusively use deliberate, active posture manipulations, which raise concerns about experimental demand effects and limit the ecological validity of the research. Here, we addressed this issue by creating an incidental manipulation of posture in which the experimental environment encouraged participants to take on either an expansive or contractive posture, and measured the effect of our manipulation on self-report and behavioural outcomes. We find that our manipulation reliably increases risk-taking behaviours (as measured by the balloon analogue risk task), an effect which is robust to confounding variables such as discomfort with the posture or awareness of the manipulation. Furthermore, posture effects on self-reported pride are partially mediated by a measure of participants' posture during the experiment (the angle of their neck), while risk-taking effects are moderated by posture and self-reported mood during the experiment. Our results suggest that aside from deliberate ‘power posing’, incidental factors which affect posture in the real world (e.g., standing desks or ergonomic setups) may have impacts on individuals' behaviour.
Publication date: Tue, 02 Jun 2026 03:35:00 -0700 Access the article >>A nonlinear association between chronic stress and instrumental reward learning under Pavlovian conflict: Behavioural and computational evidence
Chronic stress, arising from prolonged exposure to unpredictable challenges, is common in everyday life and may alter cognitive processes. However, few human studies have empirically examined the association between chronic stress and reward learning, which is critical for navigating uncertain environments. This study addressed this gap by examining whether chronic stress is associated with the influence of Pavlovian bias on instrumental reward learning. A total of 111 healthy young adults participated in the study, completing an orthogonalised go/no-go task and a self-reported measure of chronic stress. Participants' chronic stress levels exhibited an inverted-U-shaped relationship with learning accuracy in the Pavlovian-conflict condition, particularly in the reward domain. Between-group analyses supported this pattern, with the moderate-stress group performing best in the Pavlovian-conflict condition of the reward domain. Computational modelling results further revealed that, compared to the moderate-stress group, the low- and high-stress groups exhibited greater reward-related Pavlovian bias and the high-stress group exhibited blunted reward sensitivity. Together, these findings suggest that the association between chronic stress and reward learning may be nonlinear. Moderate levels of chronic stress may be associated with relatively better performance in specific reward-learning contexts.
Publication date: Sun, 31 May 2026 22:16:08 -0700 Access the article >>Understanding considerations and priorities in health behaviours: A multi‐dimensional risk–benefit perspective
Health behaviours and decisions are complex and involve different dimensions of individuals' lives. The current study aimed to investigate considerations and their priorities in health decision and behaviour adoption via a risk–benefit framework unifying elements of mainstream models of health behaviour. We aimed to explore the core dimensions of the outcomes being considered by people and individual differences in perceived importance across dimensions. Two studies were conducted among U.S. adult residents. Study 1 (N = 295) involved eliciting qualitative responses of the health decisions or behaviours that participants encounter in their everyday life, and ratings of the associated dimensions. Study 2 (N = 400) assessed participants' ratings of the importance of outcomes and dimensions across various health decisions and behaviours. Both studies revealed that people considered dimensions beyond health risk and benefit. The dimensions varied their priorities, with health and emotional outcomes being the top considerations. Participants also showed asymmetric considerations of benefit and risk within each dimension. The latent profile analyses in Study 2 also revealed two distinct groups of individuals in risk and benefit considerations across dimensions. The findings highlight that acknowledging individual differences in the weighting and evaluation of outcomes across domains is essential for more tailored health communication and interventions.
Publication date: Sun, 24 May 2026 23:59:50 -0700 Access the article >>Task‐specific associations between holistic processing and individual differences in face memory
Whether individual differences in face identification can be predicted by holistic processing, and whether both share a common underlying mechanism, remain open questions. Past studies exploring this association have produced mixed findings, but they have typically examined only a subset of holistic processing measures, focused largely on identification tasks relying heavily on face perception rather than memory, and/or failed to examine whether the relationship between holistic processing and face identification is face-specific. The present study is the first to examine how all three traditional measures of holistic face processing—the face inversion, part-whole, and composite face tasks—relate to individual differences in memory-based face identification, while also exploring whether these relationships are independent of non-face object identification. We found that face memory was associated with the face inversion and part-whole effects, but not the composite face effect. Exploratory factor analyses revealed two mechanisms of holistic face processing. The first component was loaded moderately by face memory, inversion, and part-whole effects, while the second was loaded strongly by the composite face effect. The findings suggest that face recognition is not facilitated by a single, unitary holistic processing mechanism and highlight the need to reconsider how holistic processing is conceptualized and measured.
Publication date: Wed, 13 May 2026 22:55:55 -0700 Access the article >>Problematic smartphone use in early adolescence: Developmental heterogeneity and bidirectional links with risk factors
Smartphones offer convenience but have raised concerns about problematic smartphone use (PSU), particularly among early adolescents whose cognitive control is still developing. Examining developmental heterogeneity in PSU and its associated risk factors during this period has important theoretical and practical implications. Participants were 1821 Chinese children transitioning into early adolescence (Mage = 9.57 years; 48.5% female), followed annually for three years. Growth mixture modelling identified distinct PSU trajectories, and bidirectional associations with internal (e.g., shyness, depression, anxiety) and external factors (e.g., parental neglect, peer exclusion) were examined. Cross-lagged network analysis further assessed interval-specific variation in predictive associations. Two trajectories emerged: a low-decreasing group (intercept = 1.845, slope = −0.120) and a high-increasing group (intercept = 2.110, slope = 0.348). Early adolescents in the high-increasing group experienced more adverse environments and reported higher levels of risk factors. PSU was primarily predicted by external factors in early intervals, whereas both personal and environmental factors became influential in later intervals. These findings highlight the heterogeneous and dynamic nature of PSU and support early, targeted family-focused interventions.
Publication date: Mon, 11 May 2026 03:10:30 -0700 Access the article >>The shape of time: How temporal landmarks influence shape preference
This research investigates how temporal landmarks (such as the beginning or end of a period) influence individuals' preferences for shapes (angular vs. circular). In contrast to prior research that explored shape preferences without specific time reference points (e.g., nostalgia), we examine how temporal cues influence shape preference through explicit time reference points. We conducted three experiments manipulating temporal landmark (start vs. end) across three scenarios: the same time on different days, different times on the same day and the same time on the same day. These experiments also assessed individuals' preferences for angular versus circular shapes in both two- and three-dimensional formats. The results show that individuals at a start temporal landmark prefer angular shapes, whereas those at an end temporal landmark prefer circular shapes, which is mediated by ego depletion. We further found that temporal orientation (present vs. future) moderates the influences of temporal landmarks on individuals' shape preferences. While individuals with present temporal orientation are consistent with the main effect, individuals with future temporal orientation have an opposite behaviour (individuals at a start temporal landmark prefer circular shapes, whereas those at an end temporal landmark prefer angular shapes).
Publication date: Sun, 10 May 2026 23:26:45 -0700 Access the article >>Mindful understanding of the interconnected world: The synergistic effects of mindfulness and interconnectedness in driving collective action and autonomous motivation
The present study examined the roles of interconnectedness and mindfulness in collective action participation and the motivations underlying the participation. Two studies were conducted. In Study 1, 377 participants completed measures of mindfulness, interconnectedness, collective action intention and participation at baseline, with 308 and 279 participants completing follow-up assessments 1 and 2 months later, respectively. Results showed that after accounting for baseline mindfulness, baseline interconnectedness has an indirect effect on collective action participation at 2-month follow-up through collective action intention at 1-month follow-up. Mindfulness showed no significant interaction effect with interconnectedness in predicting collective action intention or participation. In Study 2, 308 participants completed measures of mindfulness, interconnectedness, autonomous motivations and collective action at baseline, with 268 participants completing the 2-month follow-up assessment. Results showed that the effect of baseline interconnectedness on subsequent levels of autonomous motivations was contingent on baseline mindfulness, with mindfulness amplifying the beneficial effects of interconnectedness on autonomous motivations at 2-month follow-up. In addition, identified motivation was significantly associated with collective action at 2-month follow-up. These findings suggest that interconnectedness may serve as the primary intentional driver of collective action, whereas mindfulness may help translate interconnectedness into more autonomous motivation for participation.
Publication date: Fri, 08 May 2026 06:48:06 -0700 Access the article >>Shame as a mediator of the association of childhood emotional abuse with aversive cognitive perseveration in adults
Childhood emotional abuse (CEA) has been linked to response-focused emotion regulation in adulthood. However, the underlying mechanisms remain unexplored. This pre-registered study examined whether shame mediates the association between CEA history and aversive cognitive perseveration (ACP), including brooding rumination, experiential avoidance and emotional non-acceptance, in adulthood. Ninety-three undergraduates (66.6% female; age: 21.62 [7.63]) completed self-report measures of maltreatment history, trait shame and trait ACP and underwent a piloted shame induction task using a within-subject design. The assessment involved baseline and post-induction reactive-state shame and negative affect, subsequent use of reactive-state ACP and engagement strategies, followed by childhood maltreatment and trait measures. Two sets of state and trait mediation models were tested using Bayesian estimation, adjusting for reactive-state negative affect, reactive-state engagement strategies and the sum of physical abuse, emotional neglect and physical neglect histories. The models primarily supported the association of shame with ACP across state and trait models. CEA history was associated with reactive-state and trait ACP through the indirect effect of trait (but not reactive-state) shame. A post-hoc moderation analysis suggested reduced post-induction shame and ACP use for moderate-to-severe CEA history, which was tentatively attributed to the involvement of aberrant stress reactivity associated with higher CEA history.
Publication date: Tue, 28 Apr 2026 21:00:15 -0700 Access the article >>Correction to ‘Explainability increases trust resilience in intelligent agents’
British Journal of Psychology, EarlyView.
Publication date: Sat, 25 Apr 2026 01:50:15 -0700 Access the article >>A meta‐analysis of perceived infectability, germ aversion, disgust and outgroup perceptions: Evaluating research on the behavioural immune system
Scholarship on the behavioural immune system suggests that people who perceive themselves as more susceptible to illnesses are more sensitive to disgust, providing an evolutionary advantage to avoid pathogenic stimuli. This sensitivity causes those with greater perceived susceptibility to be biased against outgroup members and avoid those with dissimilar immunological histories. However, the lack of a quantitative review forces researchers to derive arguments from specific empirical observations, rather than holistically drawing from averaged effects across studies. Researchers may over-rely on studies that produced atypical results, causing biases in research on perceived infectability, germ aversion, disgust and outgroup perceptions. To resolve this tension in the literature, we perform a meta-analysis of 74 sources. Our meta-analytic results demonstrate that perceived infectability produces small relations with disgust and non-significant relations with outgroup perceptions, whereas a construct commonly conflated with perceived infectability, germ aversion, produces larger relations with these two outcomes. A meta-analytic structural equation model demonstrates that the indirect effect of perceived infectability on outgroup perceptions via the mediator of disgust is not statistically significant. These findings indicate that, while perceived infectability relates to disgust, the construct does not relate to perceptions of outgroup members, counter to scholarship on the behavioural immune system.
Publication date: Sat, 18 Apr 2026 01:16:06 -0700 Access the article >>From barriers to benefits: A personalized sleep intervention enhances sleep duration and emotional health in chronic short sleepers
This pilot study evaluated a personalized sleep intervention incorporating motivational interviewing techniques to address sleep barriers, along with tailored sleep hygiene and extension for chronic short sleepers. Eleven university students completed a 14-day sequential intervention (baseline, sleep hygiene and a combined phase adding 90-min extension), assessed via actigraphy, daily diaries, ecological momentary assessments and qualitative interviews. The intervention was highly feasible. Total sleep time increased from 5.01 h (baseline) to 5.62 h (sleep hygiene) and 6.67 h (combined phase), alongside reduced bedtime procrastination and improved sleep hygiene practices. Multilevel modelling suggested that sleep hygiene increased time in bed (+0.72 h) and morning vitality, while sleep extension further extended time in bed (+1.49 h) and total sleep time (+0.55 h). Emotional benefits were linked to within-person increases in sleep duration. Qualitative findings highlighted heterogeneous barriers and the importance of context-based personalization. These preliminary results support the potential of personalized sleep interventions to improve sleep and emotional health in chronic short sleepers, warranting further controlled trials.
Publication date: Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:16:17 -0700 Access the article >>Discrimination in autism as measured by minimal group and sheer difference experiments
Autistic individuals often show fewer social biases than neurotypical people. Whether they show fewer discriminatory tendencies is however unclear. The present study examined discriminatory tendencies in autistic versus neurotypical individuals in the minimal group paradigm and the novel ‘sheer difference’ paradigm. Seventy-five autistic and neurotypical participants were recruited for each group, totalling 150 participants. In the ‘sheer difference’ paradigm, participants received a coin toss outcome in each trial, after which they were tasked to assign points to a single other participant who had received the same versus a different coin flip outcome. In the minimal group paradigm, participants were assigned to a group based on coin flips, and then, they assigned points to members of their own group versus the other group. The ‘sheer difference’ paradigm contributes to the study's aims by testing in autism whether discrimination can also follow from individual rather than group-based difference versus sameness. We found that discriminatory tendencies can come about on both individual and group levels. We did not find clear differences between autistic and neurotypical populations, with implications for the way in which we conceptualize discrimination and understand autism.
Publication date: Fri, 17 Apr 2026 09:29:16 -0700 Access the article >>Habitus of doubt? The role of social class narcissism in shaping psychological help conspiracy beliefs
Collective narcissism is known to fuel anti-scientific attitudes. However, its role in shaping conspiracy beliefs portraying those who use psychology to help others as manipulative or controlling remains largely unexplored. We argue that social class narcissism (i.e., exaggerated belief in the superiority of one's social group, along with sensitivity to criticism and hostility towards other groups) would foster psychological help conspiracy beliefs. Across three cross-sectional studies (N = 1863) among Polish and American participants, social class narcissism correlated with stronger psychological help conspiracy beliefs. In an experimental Study 2 (N = 1371), primed social class narcissism increased such beliefs. The last two studies further showed that social class narcissism was linked to negative attitudes towards psychological help via higher psychological help conspiracy beliefs (Studies 3–4) and lower mental health literacy (Study 4). Our findings highlight the importance of incorporating social identities into interventions targeting anti-scientific attitudes in psychology.
Publication date: Mon, 13 Apr 2026 00:53:19 -0700 Access the article >>Relations among daily symptoms of depression
Research has often treated depression as a unitary construct, relying on severity scores or diagnostic thresholds; however, recent studies emphasize that depression is a heterogeneous disorder characterized by dynamic symptom interactions. We aimed to identify unique relations among depressive symptoms when examined longitudinally. We used a 28-day daily diary design in young adults (N = 363). Three symptom networks, estimated from Bayesian structural equation modelling, identified key symptoms that (1) predicted other symptoms within individuals over time (within-subject temporal), (2) co-occurred within the same day (within-subject contemporaneous) and (3) clustered across individuals (between-subject). Results revealed that (1) at the within-subject level, higher levels of sleep disturbance, sad mood, and concentration difficulties predicted higher levels of multiple symptoms the following day, (2) at the within-subject level, sad mood, anhedonia, and fatigue tended to co-occur with many other symptoms and (3) at the between-subject level, individuals with higher levels of anhedonia, anxiety and concentration difficulties tended to experience a broader range of depressive symptoms. These findings underscore the complexity of depressive symptom interactions and highlight potential ways in which depression may manifest. Future research should explore the identified relations to clarify causal relations among symptoms as well as trait-level vulnerability to symptoms.
Publication date: Fri, 10 Apr 2026 03:50:28 -0700 Access the article >>The developmental trajectories of working memory updating from early childhood to adolescence: A meta‐analysis
Working memory updating is a crucial cognitive function for learning and academic achievement that develops significantly throughout childhood and adolescence. Despite the varieties of existing tasks to measure children's working memory updating, its overall developmental trajectory and task-specific developmental patterns remain inadequately understood. This meta-analysis examined 99 studies (N = 35,858 participants) on working memory updating performance in individuals aged 3 to 17 years, using a range of updating paradigms. Results revealed three key findings. Firstly, a significant positive developmental trend with the largest improvements was observed in early to middle childhood (ages 3–8) (d = 2.29). Secondly, meta-regression analyses revealed that while both linear and quadratic models adequately described the developmental trajectory, the quadratic model provides superior fit, indicating steeper improvements in early childhood that gradually level off in adolescence. Thirdly, task-specific analyses demonstrated distinct developmental patterns: backward recall tasks exhibited the strongest age-related improvement (β = .21), whereas n-back and selective updating tasks showed relatively flat trajectories. Together these findings suggest that working memory updating follows a curvilinear developmental progression with substantial task-specific variations. This comprehensive analysis provides valuable insights for understanding the development of working memory updating and practical implications for age-appropriate cognitive function measures.
Publication date: Sun, 05 Apr 2026 22:52:12 -0700 Access the article >>Serial dependence in time perception requires consistent motor responses, not shared memory alone
Serial dependence—the bias from recent experience on present response—has been attributed to shared memory representations, yet previous studies yielded contradictory findings about whether consistent motor responses are required. To address this debate in time perception, we tested whether serial dependence emerges when tasks share identical stimulus features but differ only in response modes. We interleaved temporal reproduction and bisection tasks using a post-cue design that held duration encoding constant while varying motor output across trials. Grounded in binding and retrieval in action control (BRAC) theory, we hypothesized that response-feature binding retrieval drives serial dependence. Using structural equation modelling (SEM), we dissociated perceptual (stimulus-driven) and decisional (response-driven) components. With the same task, we replicated repulsive perceptual serial dependence and attractive decisional carryover. Critically, both effects vanished across tasks despite identical stimulus processing—demonstrating that response-mode consistency, not shared memory alone, drives sequential biases in temporal judgements. Our SEM approach uncovered repulsive perceptual influences that standard regression missed, highlighting its power to isolate overlapping effects. These findings reveal that response-specific reactivation of event files underpins serial dependence in temporal decision-making.
Publication date: Fri, 03 Apr 2026 21:51:08 -0700 Access the article >>Attention and vigilance advantages related to formal musical training across childhood, adolescence and young adulthood
Attention and vigilance are fundamental cognitive abilities that develop throughout childhood and adolescence and have been associated with cognitively demanding activities such as formal musical training. This cross-sectional study examined whether individuals engaged in long-term musical training show superior attention and vigilance compared with matched controls without such training. Participants (N = 268; ages 8–34 years) were drawn from two samples of children, adolescents and adults, with musicians and nonmusicians matched on a wide array of demographic and lifestyle variables using multivariate propensity-score matching. Attentional performance was assessed using the ANTI-Vea, a validated computerized task that measures two components of vigilance – executive and arousal vigilance. Moreover, we applied advanced behavioural modelling given their sensitivity to the complex developmental trajectories in vigilance. For many indices, musically trained participants outperformed nonmusicians at all ages, with overall faster responses, fewer attentional lapses, detecting more vigilance targets and lower variability in arousal vigilance trials. Other group differences became more pronounced with age, indicating a possible dosage effect. Crucially, these findings remained after extensive control for confounders. Although the advantages associated with musical training were modest and the correlational study design, they are consistent with the hypothesis that music practice may foster domain-general cognitive skills.
Publication date: Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 -0700 Access the article >>The effects of implicit emotion regulation on impulsive choice
Impulsive choice is closely associated with heightened engagement in risk-related behaviours, and emotion regulation may play a critical role in how immediate emotions influence choice outcomes, with different strategies producing distinct effects. Grounded in the Affective Information Theory and the Appraisal-Tendency Framework, we investigated the effects of two widely adopted implicit emotion regulation strategies, cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression, on impulsive choice across specific emotional states through two experiments. Results revealed that individuals exhibited a stronger preference for larger-later (LL) rewards under happiness compared to anger, while no significant difference emerged in preference for delayed options between anger and fear conditions. Both implicit cognitive reappraisal and implicit expressive suppression strategies effectively reduced the selection proportion of smaller-sooner (SS) rewards with comparable efficacy. Furthermore, both strategies demonstrated significant regulatory effects on anger, happiness and fear, with implicit expressive suppression potentially exhibiting superior applicability for fear modulation. These findings enrich theories of emotion regulation and refine the theoretical framework linking emotional states to choice behaviour, offering novel directions for interventions aimed at reducing impulsive choice.
Publication date: Wed, 11 Mar 2026 21:44:48 -0700 Access the article >>No evidence that same‐language subtitles improve children's reading fluency
High-profile campaigns globally have argued that same-language television subtitles may help children improve their reading. In this intervention study, we tested the causal hypothesis that exposure to subtitles improves children's reading fluency. We tested 127 British children in Years 2 and 3 before and after a 6-week home-based intervention, in which children were randomly assigned to an experimental group that watched television with English subtitles or a control group that watched television without subtitles. Children's reading fluency was assessed via two standard tests of reading fluency and their engagement with subtitles while watching videos, measured with eye-tracking. Results showed that both groups improved their reading fluency over 6 weeks. Crucially, there was no evidence that subtitle exposure (of around 66 hr on average) drove an improvement in reading fluency, or that greater subtitle exposure provided any additional benefit. We conclude that same-language subtitles are unlikely to improve children's reading fluency. However, the primary school reading curriculum has a positive impact on reading fluency that can be observed over a relatively short time-scale.
Publication date: Sun, 08 Mar 2026 04:00:48 -0700 Access the article >>The effectiveness of implementation intentions in children: A systematic review and meta‐analysis
Self-regulation abilities in childhood are important for long-term academic achievement and healthy development. As self-regulatory abilities are still developing, ‘simple’ interventions are needed to foster self-regulation. Implementation intentions are simple plans that could promote goal achievement in children. However, little is known about their overall effectiveness and moderating factors in children. This registered report presents a systematic review of the literature and a meta-analysis of the effects of implementation intentions on children's goal achievement. The meta-analysis included a total of 52 effect sizes from 42 studies (N = 12,957, M age = 10.67 years), published between 1975 and 2025. Overall, we found a small-to-medium effect of implementation intentions in children (Hedge's g = 0.31, 95% CI [0.21; 0.41]). Study heterogeneity was high (Q(51) = 146.47, p < .001, I 2 = 65.2%). The effects were stronger in studies with younger children and (in some analyses) children with ADHD, suggesting that implementation intentions are particularly effective when self-regulation abilities are limited. Future research should increase conceptual and methodological rigour. In addition, research and practice should aim to support children in forming strong mental representations of plans, generating high-quality plans themselves and using implementation intentions as a meta-strategy.
Publication date: Thu, 05 Mar 2026 02:40:28 -0800 Access the article >>Suppressing food‐related memories via think/no‐think: Effective retrieval inhibition across weight status
Inhibitory control plays a critical role in regulating eating behaviour. While previous research focused primarily on motor inhibition (e.g. go/no-go tasks), the role of memory suppression remains underexplored. This study employed a food-specific think/no-think (TNT) paradigm to investigate two questions: (1) whether individuals can intentionally suppress food-related memories, and whether suppression performance is associated with body mass index (BMI); and (2) whether memory suppression reduces subjective food valuation. Sixty-one young female participants completed a TNT task and subsequently rated food items for liking and wanting. Results showed that recall accuracy for suppressed (No-think) items was significantly lower than for both retrieved (Think) and Baseline items, indicating suppression-induced forgetting. However, food-related memory suppression performance was not associated with BMI. Moreover, memory suppression did not significantly alter subjective ratings of liking or wanting. These findings suggest that food-related memories can be deliberately suppressed regardless of BMI, but such suppression may not influence food valuation directly. Further studies are needed to determine whether such memory suppression has any downstream impact on eating behaviour and to identify mechanisms beyond mere changes in valuation.
Publication date: Thu, 26 Feb 2026 05:23:53 -0800 Access the article >>Too good to be true: Synthetic AI faces are more average than real faces and super‐recognizers know it
The AI revolution has produced synthetic faces that often appear more human than photos of real people. We tested whether individual differences in human face recognition ability explain variation in discriminating AI from real faces. Super-recognizers – people with exceptional ability to recognize human faces (N = 36) – outperformed a typical sample by 15% and by 7% compared to a group of higher performing, motivated control participants (Cohen's d = 0.55; N = 89). Individual difference analysis revealed that this pattern reflected a positive association between human face recognition and AI face discrimination abilities. AI discrimination ability was also associated with individuals' sensitivity to the ‘hyper-average’ appearance of AI faces. Deep neural networks optimized for face identity processing confirmed a more central distribution of AI faces in face-space. Moreover, centrality was associated with a higher probability of super-recognizers judging the faces as AI, but this pattern was not observed for controls. Super-recognizers' correct interpretation of hyper-averageness as a cue to artificiality constitutes the first mechanistic link between evolved expertise in face processing and AI face detection and addresses a common misconception regarding the structure of human face space.
Publication date: Wed, 18 Feb 2026 00:00:00 -0800 Access the article >>Expressive suppression strengthens coherence between arousal intensity and arousal interpretation
Interpretations of physiological arousal may be a key pathway connecting stress-related physiological arousal intensity to physiological and affective consequences of stress. Expressive suppression is linked to increased perceptions of stressors as threatening, which may exacerbate associations between physiological arousal intensity and interpretations of physiological arousal as debilitative. However, the effect of expressive suppression on the association between perceptions of physiological arousal intensity and interpretation remains untested. A sample of 224 undergraduate students completed two psychological acute stress tasks and rated the intensity of their perceived physiological arousal and whether they believed this physiological arousal to be facilitative or debilitative. Before the second stress task, half of the participants were randomly assigned to be instructed to engage in expressive suppression during the task; the remaining participants were instructed to not suppress their emotional expressions. Experimental group assignment moderated associations between physiological arousal intensity and interpretation. In the suppression group, within-person increases in physiological arousal intensity were more strongly associated with more debilitative physiological interpretations. The present study suggests that engaging in expressive suppression during stress causes increases in the intensity of perceived physiological arousal to be interpreted as more debilitating, with implications for stress-related anxiety.
Publication date: Wed, 04 Feb 2026 02:20:13 -0800 Access the article >>Borderline personality mediates the link between attachment insecurities and subjective working memory deficits: The role of pre‐emptive and post‐emptive strategies
Individuals with attachment insecurities, particularly attachment anxiety, often report subjective working memory deficits (SWMD). However, the psychological mechanisms underlying this relationship remain poorly understood. In this project, we propose that borderline personality disorder (BPD) features help explain this link. We tested this model across three studies, including one preregistered study, conducted with Russian, Turkish, and Polish samples. In Study 1, both attachment anxiety and avoidance predicted SWMD, with the former effect being stronger than the latter. The indirect effects of attachment anxiety and avoidance on SWMD via BPD were significant, with the former effect being stronger as the latter. Study 2 introduced gaze anxiety as an additional mediator, revealing that attachment avoidance had stronger indirect effects via gaze anxiety, a potential pre-emptive strategy, while attachment anxiety's effect was stronger via BPD, a potential post-emptive pathway. In preregistered Study 3, reflective functioning mediated the associations between attachment insecurities and SWMD, contrary to our moderation hypothesis. Importantly, relationships between attachment anxiety and SWMD remained robust after controlling for personality traits and personality disorders. Results are consistent with the role of different regulatory strategies in explaining how attachment insecurities contribute to subjective cognitive difficulties.
Publication date: Tue, 20 Jan 2026 03:09:11 -0800 Access the article >>