Hyejin J. Lee, Derek M. Smith, Clifford E. Hauenstein, Ally Dworetsky, Brian T. Kraus, Megan Dorn, Derek Evan Nee, Caterina Gratton
{"title":"Precise individual measures of inhibitory control","authors":"Hyejin J. Lee, Derek M. Smith, Clifford E. Hauenstein, Ally Dworetsky, Brian T. Kraus, Megan Dorn, Derek Evan Nee, Caterina Gratton","doi":"10.1038/s41562-025-02198-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02198-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Inhibitory control is essential to daily function and is a key factor in numerous psychiatric disorders. One popular measure of inhibitory control is the congruency effect, but recent research has highlighted its low reliability, limiting its use for clinical and basic research questions. Here we asked whether it is possible to obtain precise individual estimates of the congruency effect. We sampled more than 5,000 trials from nine participants across four inhibitory control tasks. This dataset, made public for the community, demonstrates that precise individual estimates are achievable but with higher numbers of trials than typically collected with common tools. Using a combination of datasets and simulations, we show that extensive sampling is necessary to reveal true individual differences and improve observations from alternative modelling approaches. We share our dataset as a resource to further understand sources of variation in inhibitory control, ultimately advancing research in this critical field.</p>","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":"64 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":29.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144153330","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}
Sanaz Nazari, Sara Ramos Cabo, Srinivasa Nalabolu, Cynthia Carter Barnes, Charlene Andreason, Javad Zahiri, Ahtziry Esquivel, Steven J. Arias, Andrea Grzybowski, Michael V. Lombardo, Linda Lopez, Eric Courchesne, Karen Pierce
{"title":"Large-scale examination of early-age sex differences in neurotypical toddlers and those with autism spectrum disorder or other developmental conditions","authors":"Sanaz Nazari, Sara Ramos Cabo, Srinivasa Nalabolu, Cynthia Carter Barnes, Charlene Andreason, Javad Zahiri, Ahtziry Esquivel, Steven J. Arias, Andrea Grzybowski, Michael V. Lombardo, Linda Lopez, Eric Courchesne, Karen Pierce","doi":"10.1038/s41562-025-02132-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02132-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is clinically heterogeneous, with ongoing debates about phenotypic differences between boys and girls. Understanding these differences, particularly at the age of first symptom onset, is critical for advancing early detection, uncovering aetiological mechanisms and improving interventions. Leveraging the Get SET Early programme, we analysed a cohort of 2,618 toddlers (mean age: ~27 months) through cross-sectional, longitudinal and clustering analyses, performed using statistical and machine learning approaches, to assess sex differences in groups with ASD, developmental delay and typical development across standardized and experimental measures, including eye tracking. The results revealed no significant sex differences in toddlers with ASD across 17 of 18 measures, including symptom severity based on the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, receptive and expressive language based on the Mullen Scales of Early Learning and social attention based on the GeoPref eye-tracking test. In contrast, girls with typical development outperformed boys on several measures. Subtyping analyses stratifying toddlers into low, medium and high clusters similarly showed virtually no sex differences in ASD. Overall, our findings suggest that phenotypic sex differences are minimal or non-existent in those with ASD at the time of first symptom onset.</p>","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":29.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144137121","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":"Why people follow rules","authors":"Simon Gächter, Lucas Molleman, Daniele Nosenzo","doi":"10.1038/s41562-025-02196-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02196-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Why people follow rules, especially laws and social norms, is debated across the human sciences. The importance of intrinsic respect for rules is particularly controversial. To reveal the behavioural principles of rule-following, we develop CRISP, an interdisciplinary framework that explains rule-conformity <i>C</i> as a function of intrinsic respect for rules <i>R</i>, extrinsic incentives <i>I</i>, social expectations <i>S</i> and social preferences <i>P</i>. We deploy CRISP in four series of online experiments with 14,034 English-speaking participants. In our baseline experiments, 55–70% of participants conform to an arbitrary costly rule, even though they act anonymously and alone, and violations hurt no one. We show that people expect rule-conformity and view it as socially appropriate. Rule-breaking is contagious but remains moderate. Pro-social motives and extrinsic incentives increase rule-conformity, but unconditional rule-following and social expectations explain most of it. Our results demonstrate that respect for rules and social expectations are basic elements of rule-conformity that can explain why people follow laws and social norms even without extrinsic incentives and social preferences.</p>","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":"33 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":29.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144136988","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}
Jiacheng Miao, Gefei Song, Yixuan Wu, Jiaxin Hu, Yuchang Wu, Shubhashrita Basu, James S. Andrews, Katherine Schaumberg, Jason M. Fletcher, Lauren L. Schmitz, Qiongshi Lu
{"title":"PIGEON: a statistical framework for estimating gene–environment interaction for polygenic traits","authors":"Jiacheng Miao, Gefei Song, Yixuan Wu, Jiaxin Hu, Yuchang Wu, Shubhashrita Basu, James S. Andrews, Katherine Schaumberg, Jason M. Fletcher, Lauren L. Schmitz, Qiongshi Lu","doi":"10.1038/s41562-025-02202-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02202-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Understanding gene–environment interaction (GxE) is crucial for deciphering the genetic architecture of human complex traits. However, current statistical methods for GxE inference face challenges in both scalability and interpretability. Here we introduce PIGEON—a unified statistical framework for quantifying polygenic GxE using a variance component analytical approach. Based on this framework, we outline the main objectives in GxE studies and introduce an estimation procedure that requires only summary statistics data as input. We demonstrate the effectiveness of PIGEON through theoretical and empirical analyses, including a quasi-experimental gene-by-education study of health outcomes and gene-by-sex interaction for 530 traits using UK Biobank. We also identify genetic interactors that explain the treatment effect heterogeneity in a clinical trial on smoking cessation. PIGEON suggests a path towards polygenic, summary statistics-based inference in future GxE studies.</p>","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":"47 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":29.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144122721","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":"Hygiene behaviours are critical for addressing neglected tropical diseases","authors":"Francisca Mutapi, Mark Woolhouse","doi":"10.1038/s41562-025-02192-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02192-8","url":null,"abstract":"Neglected tropical diseases affect more than a billion people worldwide, cause ill health and perpetuate cycles of poverty. Behavioural change can help, particularly through hygiene. But to achieve this we first need to understand the complex circumstances that mean hygiene is not always prioritized.","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":"33 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":29.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144122724","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}
Ying Tu, Bin Chen, Chuan Liao, Shengbiao Wu, Jiafu An, Chen Lin, Peng Gong, Bin Chen, Hong Wei, Bing Xu
{"title":"Inequality in infrastructure access and its association with health disparities","authors":"Ying Tu, Bin Chen, Chuan Liao, Shengbiao Wu, Jiafu An, Chen Lin, Peng Gong, Bin Chen, Hong Wei, Bing Xu","doi":"10.1038/s41562-025-02208-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02208-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Economic, social and environmental infrastructure forms a fundamental pillar of societal development. Ensuring equitable access to infrastructure for all residents is crucial for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, yet knowledge gaps remain in infrastructure accessibility and inequality and their associations with human health. Here we generate gridded maps of economic, social and environmental infrastructure distribution and apply population-weighted exposure models and mixed-effects regressions to investigate differences in population access to infrastructure and their health implications across 166 countries. The results reveal contrasting inequalities in infrastructure access across regions and infrastructure types. Global South countries experience only 50–80% of the infrastructure access of Global North countries, whereas their associated inequality levels are 9–44% higher. Both infrastructure access and inequality are linked to health outcomes, with this relationship being especially pronounced in economic infrastructure. These findings underscore the necessity of informed decision-making to rectify infrastructure disparities for promoting human well-being.</p>","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":"135 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":29.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144113681","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}
Jeremy N. Bailenson, Cyan DeVeaux, Eugy Han, David M. Markowitz, Monique Santoso, Portia Wang
{"title":"Five canonical findings from 30 years of psychological experimentation in virtual reality","authors":"Jeremy N. Bailenson, Cyan DeVeaux, Eugy Han, David M. Markowitz, Monique Santoso, Portia Wang","doi":"10.1038/s41562-025-02216-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02216-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Virtual reality (VR) is an emerging medium used in work, play and learning. We review experimental research in VR spanning three decades of scholarship. Instead of exhaustively representing the landscape, our unique contribution is providing in-depth reviews of canonical psychological findings balanced across various domains within psychology. We focus on five findings: the benefit of being there depends on the activity; self-avatars influence behaviour; procedural training works better than abstract learning; body tracking makes VR unique; and people underestimate distance in VR. These findings are particularly useful to social scientists who are new to VR as a medium, or those who have studied VR but have focused on specific psychological subfields (for example, social, cognitive or perceptual psychology). We discuss the relevance for researchers and media consumers and suggest future areas for human behaviour research.</p>","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":"136 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":29.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144113682","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":"Changes in the auditory cortex of children receiving gene therapy for deafness","authors":"","doi":"10.1038/s41562-025-02185-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02185-7","url":null,"abstract":"Children with DFNB9 deafness receiving gene therapy in either one ear or both ears exhibited enhanced activation in parts of the auditory speech cortex, which occurred as early as four weeks after surgery, as well as an improvement in measures of their mental development.","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":"41 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":29.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144104112","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}
Thole H. Hoppen, Rieke M. Cuno, Janna Nelson, Frederike Lemmel, Pascal Schlechter, Nexhmedin Morina
{"title":"Meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials examining social comparison as a behaviour change technique across the behavioural sciences","authors":"Thole H. Hoppen, Rieke M. Cuno, Janna Nelson, Frederike Lemmel, Pascal Schlechter, Nexhmedin Morina","doi":"10.1038/s41562-025-02209-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02209-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Research on social comparison as a behaviour change technique (SC-BCT) has increased substantially. We conducted a random-effects meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials investigating SC-BCTs across the behavioural sciences (PROSPERO: CRD42022343154). We searched MEDLINE, PsycINFO and Web of Science from inception to January 2024. Seventy-nine randomized controlled trials (<i>N</i> = 1,356,521) investigating effects on behaviours related to climate change mitigation, health, performance and service were included. In the short term (mean 3.7 months post-intervention), SC-BCTs produced small effects relative to both passive (Hedges’ <i>g</i> = 0.17; 95% confidence interval, 0.11–0.23; <i>k</i> = 37; <i>P</i> < 0.001) and active control conditions (<i>g</i> = 0.23; 95% confidence interval, 0.15–0.31; <i>k</i> = 42; <i>P</i> < 0.001). A greater number of SC-BCT sessions and emphasis on desired (versus undesired) behaviours were associated with larger effects. Moderation effects were observed in only a few analyses, highlighting the need for further testing. SC-BCTs also produced significant small effects in the long term (mean 6.2 months post-intervention). Small effects should be interpreted in the context of low cost and scalability (for example, sending one or two emails). Certainty of evidence, using GRADE criteria, ranged from low to moderate depending on the analysis. More high-quality research is needed.</p>","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":"55 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":29.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144088312","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}
Francesco Salvi, Manoel Horta Ribeiro, Riccardo Gallotti, Robert West
{"title":"On the conversational persuasiveness of GPT-4","authors":"Francesco Salvi, Manoel Horta Ribeiro, Riccardo Gallotti, Robert West","doi":"10.1038/s41562-025-02194-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02194-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Early work has found that large language models (LLMs) can generate persuasive content. However, evidence on whether they can also personalize arguments to individual attributes remains limited, despite being crucial for assessing misuse. This preregistered study examines AI-driven persuasion in a controlled setting, where participants engaged in short multiround debates. Participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 12 conditions in a 2 × 2 × 3 design: (1) human or GPT-4 debate opponent; (2) opponent with or without access to sociodemographic participant data; (3) debate topic of low, medium or high opinion strength. In debate pairs where AI and humans were not equally persuasive, GPT-4 with personalization was more persuasive 64.4% of the time (81.2% relative increase in odds of higher post-debate agreement; 95% confidence interval [+26.0%, +160.7%], <i>P</i> < 0.01; <i>N</i> = 900). Our findings highlight the power of LLM-based persuasion and have implications for the governance and design of online platforms.</p>","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":29.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144096914","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}