Psychology Research Digest
Social Psychological Bulletin
This is an open-access no-APC journal (free for both reader and authors), that publishes original empirical research, theoretical review papers, scientific debates, and methodological contributions in the field of basic and applied social psychology. SPB actively promotes standards of open-science, supports an integrative approach to all aspects of social psychological science and is committed to discussing timely social issues of high importance.
Handedness in mental and neurodevelopmental disorders: A systematic review and second-order meta-analysis
Several meta-analyses on hand preference in mental and neurodevelopmental disorders have been published in the last decade. Some disorders, like schizophrenia, have been associated with increased rates of atypical hand preference (i.e., non-right-, left-, or mixed-hand preference)-but others, like depression, have not. To identify overarching patterns between hand preference and psychopathology and estimate the influence of potential moderators independent of diagnosis, we need to leverage rich...
Publication date: Thu, 01 May 2025 06:00:00 -0400 Access the article >>The predictive power of autobiographical memory in shaping the mental health of young people: An individual participant data meta-analysis
Reduced autobiographical memory (AM) specificity, characterized by difficulty recalling specific past events, is a feature of multiple psychiatric disorders. While meta-analyses indicate that reduced AM specificity can predict future symptom severity, its role as a premorbid risk factor for mental illness onset in young people remains unclear. Our preregistered individual participant data meta-analysis (PROSPERO; CRD42022287786) synthesized longitudinal data from 14 community-based studies of...
Publication date: Thu, 01 May 2025 06:00:00 -0400 Access the article >>Structuring hierarchy concepts: Evaluating measures of power, status, dominance, and prestige on the basis of an integrative model and systematic literature review
Research on social hierarchy is flourishing. Often, researchers employ self- or peer-report measures to assess variables such as power or dominance. One drawback of studies in this line of research is that researchers use different scales to measure the same constructs and different researchers use the same scale but aim to measure different constructs. Moreover, hierarchy concepts have been used interchangeably and terms have been used for a specific variable but operationalized with a measure...
Publication date: Tue, 01 Apr 2025 06:00:00 -0400 Access the article >>Social class and prosociality: A meta-analytic review
Two theoretical perspectives (i.e., the risk management perspective and the resource perspective) offer competing predictions that higher class individuals-relative to lower class individuals-tend to be less versus more prosocial, respectively. Different predictions can also be drawn from each perspective about how the class-prosociality association varies across sociocultural contexts. To date, each perspective has received mixed empirical support. To test these competing perspectives, we...
Publication date: Tue, 01 Apr 2025 06:00:00 -0400 Access the article >>Does confronting prejudice reduce intergroup bias? A meta-analytic review
Confronting prejudice is a promising strategy for reducing intergroup bias. The current meta-analysis estimated the effects of confronting prejudice on intergroup bias in the confronted person and examined the impact of potential moderators. Eligible studies measured intergroup bias in participants confronted versus not confronted for intergroup bias. A three-level mixed-effects analysis on 91 effect sizes found a significant, medium-sized effect of confronting prejudice on reducing intergroup...
Publication date: Thu, 27 Feb 2025 06:00:00 -0500 Access the article >>The gender convergence effect in older age: A meta-analytic review comparing modern attitudes toward younger, middle-aged, and older women and men
As older women drive aging population trends, it is crucial to understand how target age and gender jointly influence perceiver attitudes. Although the prevailing "double jeopardy" perspective portrays older women as the most derogated age-gender group due to facing both age and sex bias, some evidence suggests gender attitudes converge with target age (i.e., a "convergence" perspective). Investigating these competing hypotheses, we meta-analyzed 55 reports (k = 92 samples, N = 37,235) comparing...
Publication date: Tue, 18 Feb 2025 06:00:00 -0500 Access the article >>Teacher-student relationships and student outcomes: A systematic second-order meta-analytic review
Teacher-student relationships (TSRs) play a vital role in establishing a positive classroom climate and promoting positive student outcomes. Several meta-analyses have suggested significant correlations between positive TSRs and, for example, academic achievement, motivation, executive functions, and well-being, as well as between negative TSRs that result in behavior problems or bullying. These meta-analyses have differed substantially in TSR-outcome relationships, moderators, and...
Publication date: Mon, 10 Feb 2025 06:00:00 -0500 Access the article >>Reasons to believe: A systematic review and meta-analytic synthesis of the motives associated with conspiracy beliefs
Belief in conspiracy theories has been linked to harmful consequences for individuals and societies. In an effort to understand and mitigate these effects, researchers have sought to explain the psychological appeal of conspiracy theories. This article presents a wide-ranging systematic review and meta-analysis of the literature on conspiracy beliefs. We analyzed 971 effect sizes from 279 independent studies (N(participants) = 137,406) to examine the relationships between psychological motives...
Publication date: Thu, 06 Feb 2025 06:00:00 -0500 Access the article >>Effects of acute exercise on cognitive function: A meta-review of 30 systematic reviews with meta-analyses
This meta-review provides the first meta-analytic evidence from published meta-analyses examining the effectiveness of acute exercise interventions on cognitive function. A multilevel meta-analysis with a random-effects model and tests of moderators were performed in R. Thirty systematic reviews with meta-analyses (383 unique studies with 18,347 participants) were identified. Acute exercise significantly improved cognitive function with a small-to-medium effect (N of standardized mean difference...
Publication date: Thu, 30 Jan 2025 06:00:00 -0500 Access the article >>Parents favor daughters: A meta-analysis of gender and other predictors of parental differential treatment
Decades of research highlight that differential treatment can have negative developmental consequences, particularly for less favored siblings. Despite this robust body of research, less is known about which children in the family tend to be favored or less favored by parents. The present study examined favored treatment as predicted by birth order, gender, temperament, and personality. We also examined whether links were moderated by multiple factors (i.e., parent gender, age, reporter, domain...
Publication date: Fri, 17 Jan 2025 06:00:00 -0500 Access the article >>Cultural diversity climate in school: A meta-analytic review of its relationships with intergroup, academic, and socioemotional outcomes
This first-of-its-kind meta-analysis (N = 79 studies; 56,552 students; k = 640 effects) provides a comprehensive assessment of five cultural diversity climate approaches that capture different ways of addressing cultural diversity in K-12 schools. We examined how intergroup contact theory's optimal contact conditions, multiculturalism climate, colorblind climate, critical consciousness climate, and polyculturalism climate were associated with children's and adolescents' intergroup outcomes...
Publication date: Mon, 09 Dec 2024 06:00:00 -0500 Access the article >>The development of children's gender stereotypes about STEM and verbal abilities: A preregistered meta-analytic review of 98 studies
This meta-analysis studied the development of ability stereotypes that could limit girls' and women's participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, as well as contribute to boys' underachievement in reading and writing. We integrated findings from 98 studies measuring children's gender stereotypes about STEM and verbal abilities. The data comprised 145,204 children (ages 4-17) from 33 nations across more than 40 years (1977-2020). Preregistered analyses showed...
Publication date: Mon, 09 Dec 2024 06:00:00 -0500 Access the article >>Supporting the status quo is weakly associated with subjective well-being: A comparison of the palliative function of ideology across social status groups using a meta-analytic approach
Research has suggested that the endorsement of ideologies supporting the status quo leads to higher subjective psychological well-being-an idea labeled as the palliative function of ideology within system justification theory. Furthermore, this approach has suggested that this association should be moderated by social status. Specifically, the association between the endorsement of ideologies supporting the status quo and well-being should be positive among high-status groups and negative among...
Publication date: Thu, 31 Oct 2024 06:00:00 -0400 Access the article >>Defining social reward: A systematic review of human and animal studies
Social rewards are strong drivers of behavior and fundamental to well-being, yet there is a lack of consensus regarding what actually defines a reward as "social." Because a systematic overview of existing social reward operationalizations is currently absent, a review of the literature seems necessary to advance toward a unified framework and to better guide research and theory. To bridge this gap, we preregistered and conducted the first comprehensive systematic review of human and animal...
Publication date: Mon, 21 Oct 2024 06:00:00 -0400 Access the article >>Categories of training to improve empathy: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Due to the vital role of empathy in promoting prosocial behaviors and nurturing social bonds, there is a growing interest in cultivating empathy. Yet, the effectiveness of existing training methods on empathy, especially on different dimensions of empathy (i.e., affective, cognitive, motivational, and behavioral empathy), varies tremendously, and the underlying causes for this heterogeneity remain insufficiently explored. To address this issue, we categorized various training methods into three...
Publication date: Thu, 17 Oct 2024 06:00:00 -0400 Access the article >>Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.
- Plato, The Republic (380 BC)
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