{"title":"Embryo screening and the new reproductive divide","authors":"Gaia Ghirardi, Arno Van Hootegem, K. Paige Harden","doi":"10.1038/s41562-026-02561-x","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41562-026-02561-x","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":"10 9","pages":"1613-1614"},"PeriodicalIF":17.5,"publicationDate":"2026-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149011648","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Meritocracy and inequality acceptance","authors":"Alexander W. Cappelen, Bertil Tungodden","doi":"10.1038/s41562-026-02567-5","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41562-026-02567-5","url":null,"abstract":"The idea of meritocracy — that income differences should reflect performance rather than luck or inherited privilege — can be used to justify inequality. Yet people who consider meritocracy to be fair may disagree about redistribution. Understanding these disagreements can help to reduce polarization.","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":"10 9","pages":"1615-1617"},"PeriodicalIF":17.5,"publicationDate":"2026-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149011646","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
David Holtz, Iavor Bojinov, Ramesh Johari, Nathan Kallus, Apoorva Lal, Sathya Anand, Kyle Carlson, Brent Cohn, Tom Cunningham, Alex Deng, Maria Dimakopoulou, Amit Gandhi, Victor Kostyuk, Madhav Kumar, Shyue-Ming Loh, Widad Machmouchi, Jialiang Mao, James McQueen, John Meakin, Konrad Miziolek, Dominique Perrault-Joncas, Vladimir Petrovic, Sven Schmit, James Sorenson, Matthew Wardrop, Michael Zhao, Wenjing Zheng, Martin Tingley
{"title":"The future of large-scale experiments and their challenges in the digital era.","authors":"David Holtz, Iavor Bojinov, Ramesh Johari, Nathan Kallus, Apoorva Lal, Sathya Anand, Kyle Carlson, Brent Cohn, Tom Cunningham, Alex Deng, Maria Dimakopoulou, Amit Gandhi, Victor Kostyuk, Madhav Kumar, Shyue-Ming Loh, Widad Machmouchi, Jialiang Mao, James McQueen, John Meakin, Konrad Miziolek, Dominique Perrault-Joncas, Vladimir Petrovic, Sven Schmit, James Sorenson, Matthew Wardrop, Michael Zhao, Wenjing Zheng, Martin Tingley","doi":"10.1038/s41562-026-02582-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-026-02582-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Large-scale randomized experiments involving millions of observations have transformed social science across academic and applied domains. These methods are now widely used in fields ranging from economics and political science to public health, education and digital product development. Drawing on the experience of industry practitioners and academic collaborators, this Perspective outlines six areas where the expanding scale and scope of experimental studies have introduced new challenges. We describe open problems related to organizational incentives and experimental governance; privacy, fairness and ethics; long-term impact estimation; time-adaptive experimental studies; heterogeneous treatment effects; and generative artificial intelligence. For each area, we summarize recent methodological advances, highlight ongoing limitations and suggest directions for future work. Our goal is to surface practical challenges that merit greater attention from the research community and to encourage sustained collaboration between academics and practitioners in shaping the future of experimental studies.</p>","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":17.5,"publicationDate":"2026-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148990692","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Max Spohn, Amira Boland, Jessica Lasky-Fink, Elizabeth Linos, Weston Merrick, Pedro Rey-Biel, Theodore Svoronos
{"title":"A research agenda for making evidence useful, usable and used in policymaking.","authors":"Max Spohn, Amira Boland, Jessica Lasky-Fink, Elizabeth Linos, Weston Merrick, Pedro Rey-Biel, Theodore Svoronos","doi":"10.1038/s41562-026-02593-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-026-02593-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Despite growing investments in evidence-based policymaking, a substantial gap remains between the production of policy-relevant research and the use of evidence to impact policy. This Perspective argues that overcoming this production-adoption gap requires reconceptualizing evidence adoption as a series of behavioural and organizational hurdles that determine whether evidence is useful, usable and, ultimately, used. Drawing on a large interdisciplinary literature, we develop a unified framework and highlight key gaps in our understanding of each of these critical stages for bringing evidence to scale. We conclude by outlining a research agenda for advancing our understanding of why a production-adoption gap persists and knowledge of what works to increase evidence adoption-which, together, are essential for ensuring that the evidence-based policymaking movement meets its promise of improving societal outcomes.</p>","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":17.5,"publicationDate":"2026-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148990735","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Thomas Talhelm, Liuqing Wei, Rui Sun, Danila Medvedev, Álvaro San Martin, May Helmy, Adil Samekin, Alejandra Zaragoza Scherman, Alexander S English
{"title":"Defining collectivism as duties in relationships rather than generalized warmth improves predictive validity in 100 cultures.","authors":"Thomas Talhelm, Liuqing Wei, Rui Sun, Danila Medvedev, Álvaro San Martin, May Helmy, Adil Samekin, Alejandra Zaragoza Scherman, Alexander S English","doi":"10.1038/s41562-026-02525-1","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41562-026-02525-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Experts widely agree that East Asian cultures are more collectivistic than Western cultures. Yet 76 survey studies found no reliable difference. Our explanation is that the most-used surveys are contaminated with 'warm fuzzy' items, which describe warmth and prosociality towards everyone near and far. We argue that collectivism is better understood as 'responsibilism', which emphasizes responsibilities in close relationships. A survey found that many cultural psychologists expect collectivistic cultures to agree with warm fuzzy items. Then we developed a responsibilism scale and tested 12,247 people in 100 cultures. Results showed large cultural differences (d = 3.98 [2.50, 5.43]) that were previously obscured by flawed measurement. Responsibilism predicted differences across societies (such as family ties and corruption) and individuals (social class and politics) that most earlier scales missed. This study offers a solution to previous puzzling findings by distinguishing warm fuzzy prosociality from responsibilism and introducing a scale with stronger predictive validity.</p>","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":17.5,"publicationDate":"2026-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148977559","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Staying in academia after extended leave","authors":"Theresa Mercer","doi":"10.1038/s41562-026-02594-2","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41562-026-02594-2","url":null,"abstract":"Returning to academia after extended leave often depends on luck and goodwill. We need better and formalized systems to facilitate returns and retention, argues Theresa Mercer.","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":"10 10","pages":"1860-1860"},"PeriodicalIF":17.5,"publicationDate":"2026-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148977606","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Complexity is a unified cognitive kind.","authors":"Tal Boger, Chaz Firestone","doi":"10.1038/s41562-026-02502-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-026-02502-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Any information-processing system must deal with the complexity of its input. Yet, complexity arises in many forms: an image may be complex, a melody may be complex, and so too for linguistic or mathematical expressions. Are these disparate forms of complexity 'unified' in the mind, such that cognition represents a common quantity shared across qualitatively different types of information? Here we present 11 experiments (N = 1,500) that reveal domain-general representation of complexity. First, a reward-transfer task revealed that outcomes associated with complexity generalize across diverse stimulus classes, including shapes, dot arrays, melodies, letter strings, mathematical expressions and tactile forms. Subsequent experiments demonstrated that such transfer occurs automatically (intruding on task-irrelevant judgements) and underwrites individual differences in higher-level judgements across domains; for example, participants who find simple shapes aesthetically pleasing also find simple melodies pleasing. These results implicate a capacity for type-independent representation of information density, consistent with a shared representational language across cognitive domains.</p>","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":17.5,"publicationDate":"2026-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148977614","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Michael V Reiss, Susanne J Adler, Christopher Barrie, Jana B Berkessel, Johannes Breuer, Abel Brodeur, Garret Christensen, Tobias Dienlin, Jeremy Freese, Ben Greiner, Mario Haim, Tom E Hardwicke, Magnus Johannesson, Gary King, Frauke Kreuter, Christopher Lucas, Ana Martinovici, Christophe Pérignon, Marko Sarstedt, Felix D Schönbrodt, Oleg Urminsky, Wouter van Atteveldt, Simine Vazire, Lars Vilhuber, Florian von Wangenheim, Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, Nicolas Pröllochs, Claire Robertson, Felix Holzmeister, Stefan Feuerriegel, Hauke Roggenkamp
{"title":"Author Correction: Improving computational reproducibility in the social sciences.","authors":"Michael V Reiss, Susanne J Adler, Christopher Barrie, Jana B Berkessel, Johannes Breuer, Abel Brodeur, Garret Christensen, Tobias Dienlin, Jeremy Freese, Ben Greiner, Mario Haim, Tom E Hardwicke, Magnus Johannesson, Gary King, Frauke Kreuter, Christopher Lucas, Ana Martinovici, Christophe Pérignon, Marko Sarstedt, Felix D Schönbrodt, Oleg Urminsky, Wouter van Atteveldt, Simine Vazire, Lars Vilhuber, Florian von Wangenheim, Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, Nicolas Pröllochs, Claire Robertson, Felix Holzmeister, Stefan Feuerriegel, Hauke Roggenkamp","doi":"10.1038/s41562-026-02609-y","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41562-026-02609-y","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":17.5,"publicationDate":"2026-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148977585","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Building health-literate artificial intelligence.","authors":"Rebecca K Ivic, Scott C Ratzan, Ruth M Parker","doi":"10.1038/s41562-026-02595-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-026-02595-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This Perspective asks whether systems mediated by artificial intelligence (AI) can support health communication and health literacy rather than shifting interpretive burden onto users. We define health-literate AI as AI designed to align information, guidance and responsibility with users' abilities, contexts and needs. We propose four interrelated components: comprehension, agency, accountability and proportionality. These components help distinguish systems that are merely accurate or explainable from systems designed to support users in understanding what matters, what uncertainties remain and what to do next. We argue that the principles of health-literate AI should inform design, evaluation, research and governance across health-relevant AI ecosystems, so that innovation supports understanding, informed action and institutional responsibility.</p>","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":17.5,"publicationDate":"2026-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148977554","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Loneliness and desire for thinness explain sex differences in adolescent internalizing problems.","authors":"Zui C Narita, Gemma Knowles, Susan M Sawyer, Syudo Yamasaki, Darío Moreno-Agostino, Jordan DeVylder, Junko Niimura, Naomi Nakajima, Satoshi Yamaguchi, Mariko Hosozawa, Miharu Nakanishi, Yutaka Sawai, Daiki Nagaoka, Ryo Sasaki, Rui Zhou, Naho Yamane, Jacqueline Cosse, Daniel Stanyon, Haruka Goto, Riki Tanaka, Akito Uno, Satoshi Usami, Shuntaro Ando, Mariko Hiraiwa-Hasegawa, Toshi A Furukawa, Tomohiro Shinozaki, Kiyoto Kasai, Vikram Patel, Atsushi Nishida","doi":"10.1038/s41562-026-02578-2","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41562-026-02578-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Girls are at higher risk of internalizing problems than boys. This disparity has widened in recent decades, but the underlying mechanisms remain understudied. Here we analysed data from 3,171 adolescents (46.9% girls) within the Tokyo Teen Cohort, assessed at ages 12, 14 and 16 years. At age 16, girls showed higher prevalence of internalizing problems than boys: depressive symptoms (15.9% versus 8.2%) and suicidal ideation (29.8% versus 18.1%). Coproduction with young people suggested loneliness and desire for thinness as candidate pathways. Using the mediational g-formula, we estimated that the effect through these factors at age 14 relative to the total effect of female sex was 34.7% for depressive symptoms and 46.3% for suicidal ideation at age 16. These findings suggest that social intermediates may contribute to the higher prevalence of internalizing problems among girls in this cohort, highlighting potential targets for interventions and policies informed by young people.</p>","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":17.5,"publicationDate":"2026-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7619547/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148977587","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}