Friends may influence prejudice toward outgroups, and more scientific findings

Social ties may have a small impact on prejudice over time, according to a longitudinal social network analysis of data from 2,484 adolescents in Germany. The findings, published in American Psychologist, indicate that the degree and direction of change depended on the level of prejudice the teens and their friends had at the beginning of the study. Using data from students in 10 German schools, researchers modeled the students’ friendship networks, simulating the influence of friendship ties on students’ attitudes toward people from ethnic and religious outgroups over 9 months. The results indicated that friends who started with similar levels of prejudice tended to show minimal attitude change over time; friends who began the study with opposing attitudes had the largest effect on each other, showing slight shifts toward each other over time. At most, students’ social ties were linked with a 3% change in prejudice, suggesting a small but noticeable effect. According to the researchers, these findings could inform real-world efforts that use socialization as a mechanism to reduce prejudice.
DOI: 10.1037/amp0001662opens in new window

Helping a loved one think about a stressful situation from a new perspective may have benefits for both the individual and the relationship, according to two new studies in Emotion. The findings suggest that strategies focused on helping a loved one commit to a new goal or perspective (e.g., “You can handle this”) may be more effective than strategies focused on helping them decommit from the old goal or perspective (e.g., “It’s not as bad as it seems”). An online study with 261 participants indicated that when participants encouraged their partners to manage pandemic-related stress by broadening their perspective to consider possible positive outcomes, the partners felt more supported; participants, in turn, reported better relationship quality. However, when participants encouraged their partners to detach from the old perspective by seeing the situation as less serious, the partners felt more judged, and participants, in turn, reported worse outcomes for both their partner and the relationship. Another study with 86 friend groups found similar benefits for friends and friendships.
DOI: 10.1037/emo0001648opens in new window

People may raise their level of effort in accordance with social norms, but they tend not to go below their typical level of effort even when it is acceptable to do so, according to 12 studies in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. In each study, participants chose whether to complete a harder or easier version of a task. Some were told that most participants tended to choose the harder task; others were told that the easier task was more popular; a third group was not told anything about task preference. The results were consistent across studies and task variations: Participants exposed to a high-effort norm were more likely to choose the harder task than those in the control group, while those exposed to the low-effort norm showed no difference. Even when participants read that choosing the easier task was more efficient and wiser, they were no more likely than the control group to choose it. The findings suggest that social norms may have a directional influence on effort, but further research is needed to determine whether these findings hold for more varied work in real-world settings.
DOI: 10.1037/xge0001904opens in new window

Job ads that specifically target non-White groups to boost recruitment from these groups may have unintended consequences, according to research in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Across five online studies, Black Americans who saw a job ad that explicitly mentioned race were more concerned about being tokenized and anticipated less belonging at the company than did Black participants who saw an ad that did not mention race. One study with 319 participants indicated that ads explaining why the company was interested in diversity and included multiple indicators of the company’s pro-diversity stance—such as policies addressing discrimination and pay inequity—decreased concerns about tokenism to some degree. Together, the findings suggest that the race-targeted ads may cause people from non-White groups to feel scrutinized as token representatives of their race and lead them to anticipate less trust, belonging, and comfort at the company.
DOI: 10.1037/xge0001882opens in new window

Findings in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggest that people’s beliefs about the end of the world shed light on how they perceive risk and the actions they would support to address pressing global threats such as climate change and geopolitical instability. In a preregistered online study, researchers examined end-of-world beliefs among 1,409 U.S. adults representing six different groups: Catholics, mainline Protestants, evangelical Protestants, Jews, Muslims, and nonreligious. Results showed that end-of-world beliefs were both common and varied, with religiosity and age accounting for some of the variation. In addition, different aspects of end-of-world beliefs were linked with attitudes about global risk. For example, participants who saw the end of the world as near, as subject to personal influence, or as generally positive tended to express more support for taking extreme societal action to address global threats. The researchers suggest that end-of-world beliefs may act as a lens that can help us understand both risk perception and collective decision-making in the face of real-world challenges.
DOI: 10.1037/pspi0000519opens in new window

Suicide attempts are more common among females than males, but a study in BMJ Mental Health suggests that the genetic factors associated with suicide attempts largely overlap between the sexes. Based on these findings, the author concludes that sex-specific nongenetic factors, such as environmental or social contributors, are likely to play a role in sex differences in suicide. Researchers examined national register data for 3.1 million people born in Sweden between 1963 and 1998. As expected, suicide attempts were more common among females (3.3%) than males (2.6%). Data from parent-child, full-sibling, and half-sibling pairs indicated that although risk generally aggregated within families, this aggregation was stronger for females and for same-sex relative pairs. Data from full-sibling and half-sibling pairs also indicated a high genetic correlation between female suicide attempt and male suicide attempt, suggesting significant genetic overlap. Future research can illuminate how nongenetic and genetic factors combine to influence sex differences in suicide risk.
DOI: 10.1136/bmjment-2025-302082opens in new window

After committing a faux pas, the most socially acceptable response may depend on how much harm it caused, according to research in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. In six online studies, participants read about a person recounting a faux pas they committed, such as walking into a glass door at a party. They also received information about how the person reacted as they told their story. In general, participants considered an amused reaction, such as laughing at oneself, as a signal of warmth, competence, and authenticity, whereas embarrassment was seen as overly self-conscious. However, a study with 809 participants indicated that this was not the case when the faux pas caused harm to someone else. When the scenario entailed accidentally breaking a colleague’s arm, participants saw an amused reaction as a sign of incompetence and moral disregard. The studies suggest that the reputational benefits of amusement and embarrassment depend on whether the responses seem appropriately calibrated to the situation. Further research can clarify whether these findings extend to real-world behavior and cultures outside the United States.
DOI: 10.1037/pspa0000477opens in new window

Adults of all ages may draw on their existing knowledge to assess their own curiosity, according to research in Psychology and Aging. The research adds nuance to previously reported findings that older adults tend to show more curiosity than younger adults in lab-based experiments. In two experiments, younger adults (ages 19 to 30) and older adults (ages 65 to 83) saw a series of 50 trivia questions. For each question, they reported how many possible answers they could think of and how curious they were to learn the actual answer. The researchers interpreted the number of possible answers, or search space, as an indicator of participants’ existing knowledge. While older adults were more likely than younger adults to report having only one possible answer, they also tended to report being more curious overall. However, both age groups showed a link between more possible answers and greater curiosity. The researchers conclude that older and younger adults may use the same information—the scope of their search space—when determining how curious they are, but older adults may be more curious overall.
DOI: 10.1037/pag0000980opens in new window

Children may follow a tit-for-tat model when it comes to selfish behavior, but they follow their parents’ example in reciprocating cooperative behavior, according to findings in Developmental Psychology. For the study, 179 Israeli parents and their 4-year-old children played a turn-based game involving rewards. In the first part of the experiment, the parents played the game with another adult who chose to either split the reward cooperatively (evenly) or selfishly (unevenly). On their own turn, the parents could choose whether to mirror their partner’s behavior; in some cases, the child was in the room while the parent played. In the second part of the experiment, the parent left the room, and their child played the game with a same-age peer. Although parents almost always reciprocated cooperative behavior, they were much more likely to reciprocate selfish behavior in front of sons rather than daughters. In contrast, children almost always reciprocated selfish behavior, while they tended to follow their parents’ example in responding to cooperative behavior. The research suggests that context and gender shape the modeling and development of reciprocity in parent-child relationships.
DOI: 10.1037/dev0002161opens in new window

While social ties can support well-being as we age, a study in PNAS suggests that the challenging people in our lives may act as chronic stressors that negatively affect well-being and health. Using social network data from 2,345 adults, researchers examined whether ties to so-called hasslers were associated with measures of biological aging and other health outcomes. About 29% of participants reported at least one hassler in their network; these ties were more common among women, daily smokers, people in poorer health, and those who had adverse childhood experiences. Overall, people who reported more hasslers reported worse mental and physical health and showed signs of advanced biological age and faster biological aging, as indicated by epigenetic biomarkers. Intriguingly, the type of relationship seemed to matter—while kin and nonkin hasslers were associated with biological aging, spouse hasslers were not. These associations held even after accounting for baseline health, suggesting they are not explained by reverse causation (i.e., biological aging leading to more ties with hasslers).
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2515331123opens in new window

Higher levels of cognitive enrichment across the life span are associated with cognitive resilience and delayed onset of Alzheimer’s-related dementia, according to a longitudinal study of 1,939 older adults in Neurology. At the beginning of the study, participants answered questions about cognitive enrichment at different life stages, including whether they had certain cognitive resources in the home and how often they engaged in cognitively stimulating activities. They also completed annual tests measuring global cognition, memory, perceptual speed, and visuospatial ability. Over the average course of the study (7.6 years), 551 participants met the criteria for Alzheimer’s-related dementia, as determined by a clinician. Increased lifetime enrichment was associated with a slower rate of cognitive decline and lower likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s-related dementia. The researchers estimated that the onset of Alzheimer’s-related dementia was delayed by about 5 years for participants with the highest levels of lifetime enrichment compared with those with the lowest levels. The researchers conclude that being exposed to and engaging with cognitive enrichment throughout life may support cognitive health as we age.
DOI: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000214677opens in new window

How much a person enjoys a sweetened beverage may depend on whether they expect it to have sugar regardless of whether it actually does, according to findings in the Journal of Neuroscience. For the study, the researchers screened 99 healthy adults to identify a sample of 27 participants who could not reliably distinguish a sugar-sweetened lemonade from lemonade made with sugar-free sweetener. The researchers did this to eliminate sensory differences as a potential confound. The participants then underwent neuroimaging while completing a beverage tasting task. In general, participants’ expectations largely influenced their experiences: They enjoyed a drink more when they believed it had real sugar and less when they believed it had an artificial sweetener, regardless of how the drink was sweetened. This correlated with greater responses to artificial sweetener in the reward-related midbrain when participants believed the drink had real sugar. Together, the findings suggest that expectations influence both behavioral and neural responses to sweetness, and a preference for sugar may reflect nutrient-based conditioning.
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1121-25.2026opens in new window

If you want to get away with pretending not to know something, you must convincingly behave like someone who is naive. How do people go about feigning this kind of naivete? Researchers conducted two online experiments with 1,001 participants who played several rounds of one of two popular games. On some rounds, they played a regular game; on other rounds, they saw the game’s solution but were incentivized to play as if they did not know the solution. The findings, published in Psychological Science, suggest that participants gave convincingly naive performances that went undetected by peers. On pretend games, they made an appropriate number of guesses and adjusted their decision-making time to account for uncertainty. However, computational modeling identified a tell: stereotyped gameplay. People used similar guess sequences across pretend games, suggesting that they relied on simplified cognitive schemas to simulate belief states and their effects on decision-making. Further studies can clarify the boundary conditions of this simulation ability, including whether some aspects of belief are harder to simulate than others.
DOI: 10.1177/09567976251409747opens in new window

Semantic priming—the idea that exposure to a particular word (e.g., dog) can activate related words (e.g., cat) and thereby influence response times—is one of the most studied phenomena in cognitive psychology. Yet, the degree to which semantic priming varies across languages and cultures remains unclear. For this large-scale collaborative study in Nature Human Behaviour, researchers across many labs used coordinated measures to examine the semantic priming effect in 25,163 participants and 19 languages. Across all 19 languages, participants tended to respond more quickly to related word pairs than to unrelated word pairs. However, analyses also indicated some variation across languages, with Brazilian Portuguese showing the smallest average priming effect and simplified Chinese showing the largest. The study lays a foundation for more detailed exploration of the semantic priming effect across languages and cultures; it also highlights the value of large-scale research collaborations in overcoming some of the methodological limitations that are common in smaller studies. 
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-025-02254-xopens in new window

How we look at a picture or a scene can reflect what we find interesting, relevant, or important. A study in Psychological Science suggests that gaze patterns may be idiosyncratic enough that they, like a fingerprint, can be used to identify an individual with relatively high accuracy. In one study, 105 adult participants completed an eye-tracking session in which they looked at 700 pictures featuring complex natural scenes; they completed another session about 1 week later. Using gaze heat maps, the researchers found that participants’ gaze patterns had repeatable and unique spatial distributions. These so-called gaze fingerprints distinguished participants with about 52%–63% accuracy, far above chance identification rates of 1%–2%. The researchers were also able to create unique identifiers, or barcodes, reflecting the types of images and image features that contributed to a participant’s gaze fingerprint. Further studies can illuminate whether these gaze fingerprints apply to dynamic real-world scenes and shed light on the individual-level factors, including genetics and neurodevelopmental influences, that contribute to these idiosyncratic patterns.
DOI: 10.1177/09567976251415352opens in new window

Researchers have developed a new transdiagnostic framework for understanding self-regulation in the context of neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and intellectual disability. The qualitative content analysis, published in Nature Human Behaviour, highlights elevated dysregulation as a common feature associated with neurodevelopmental conditions across narrative, scoping, systematic, and meta-analytic reviews. The researchers synthesized their findings into a transdiagnostic framework that integrates the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral facets of self-regulation within the individual developmental context and broader ecological context. The framework is intended to be adaptable, accounting for commonalities and variations within and across neurodevelopmental conditions. The researchers note that many empirical studies rely on measures that assess isolated aspects of self-regulation and rely heavily on parent self-report. Overcoming these methodological limitations is critical to advancing a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of self-regulation, they argue.
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02410-xopens in new window

The percentage of teens getting insufficient sleep increased in the time period from 2007 to 2023, with a sharp rise among those sleeping less than 5 hours a night, according to a study in JAMA. The data come from 120,950 high school students in the nationally representative Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Using established guidelines, the researchers defined insufficient sleep as 7 hours or fewer and very short sleep as 5 hours or fewer per night. The percentage of students reporting insufficient sleep rose from 68.9% to 76.8% between 2007 and 2023, driven primarily by a rise in very short sleep from 15.8% to 23.0%. The increase in insufficient sleep was greater for Black students than White students; it was also greater for students who reported depressive symptoms or suicidal thoughts. Insufficient sleep was consistent regardless of potential behavioral contributors, such as electronic media use, substance use, or sedentary activity. The findings suggest broad structural and environmental factors may play a role, highlighting the need for systemic interventions such as later school start times.
DOI: 10.1001/jama.2026.1417opens in new window

The expertise of skilled bird-watchers may be reflected in differences in both brain structure and function, according to a study in the Journal of Neuroscience. For the study, 29 skilled birders (ages 24 to 75) and 29 age-matched novices underwent structural and functional brain imaging. During functional imaging, they completed a challenging identification task that involved memorizing local and nonlocal birds and picking them out of lineups of similar-looking birds. Compared with novices, expert birders tended to have greater density in frontoparietal and posterior cortical areas associated with guided attention and perception, suggesting more compact and efficient organization in these areas. Experts’ greater density was linked with greater accuracy, and their frontoparietal regions were also selectively engaged when they completed the more difficult task of identifying nonlocal birds. Although the study does not show causation, the findings suggest that developing a skill over many years may lead to expertise-specific changes in both brain structure and function.
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1307-25.2026opens in new window