Marco Colnaghi, Fernando P Santos, Paul A M Van Lange, Daniel Balliet
{"title":"The ecological origins of collectivism and individualism.","authors":"Marco Colnaghi, Fernando P Santos, Paul A M Van Lange, Daniel Balliet","doi":"10.1037/rev0000610","DOIUrl":"10.1037/rev0000610","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Interdependent subsistence styles, such as rice farming, are thought to underlie the evolution of collectivistic cultures, which emphasize collective welfare over individual gains. Rice farming can produce mutual dependence within communities but also create conflicting interests, as people cooperate to provide valuable public goods. However, current theories of the origins of collectivism fail to address the interplay between mutual dependence and conflict. As a consequence of these limitations, the evolutionary dynamics of collectivism and its association with cooperation are still unclear. We advance a theoretical model to study the evolution of cultural traits that enhance people's valuations of collective welfare, one of the key features of collectivistic cultures. Our model investigates the evolutionary dynamics of cooperation and cultural evolution in ecologies with distinct interdependence structures. We find evidence that higher degrees of mutual dependence facilitate the evolution and persistence of collectivism. However, the degree of conflicting interests also plays a crucial role in driving the diffusion and maintenance of collectivistic norms. In particular, the selective advantage of collectivism is strongest when people experience some degree of conflict of interests, an effect that is magnified by heightened mutual dependence. These results clarify how variation in interdependence could underlie the ecological origins of collectivism, lending support to and expanding the scope of current theories of the cultural evolution of cooperation. More broadly, the framework presented here elucidates how fitness interdependence can be influenced by different ecological factors, and, in turn, influence the evolution of social behaviors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":21016,"journal":{"name":"Psychological review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2026-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146166498","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":"Supplemental Material for The Ecological Origins of Collectivism and Individualism","authors":"","doi":"10.1037/rev0000610.supp","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000610.supp","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":21016,"journal":{"name":"Psychological review","volume":"331 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2026-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146169854","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":"A priority map is all you need: Exploring the roots of neural mechanisms underlying transformer-based large language models.","authors":"Koorosh Mirpour, James W. Bisley, Nader Pouratian","doi":"10.1037/rev0000616","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000616","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":21016,"journal":{"name":"Psychological review","volume":"145 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2026-02-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146101619","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":"Reconceptualizing co-rumination: A novel theoretical and multidisciplinary perspective.","authors":"Ana M DiGiovanni,Ashley Tudder,Brett J Peters","doi":"10.1037/rev0000601","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000601","url":null,"abstract":"Co-rumination is a social emotion regulation strategy characterized by extensive and exhaustive discussions of stressors, problems, and negative emotions with another person. While research establishing the costs and benefits associated with co-rumination has been formative, the focus on explaining heightened internalizing symptoms and increased relationship quality (i.e., the \"tradeoff hypothesis\") in mostly adolescent friendships needs to be expanded. Through a social psychological lens, we pave a way forward by offering a new theoretical conceptualization of co-rumination that emphasizes the need to (a) explicitly consider the dyadic or social nature of co-rumination, (b) examine the heterogeneous content of co-ruminative discussions that extends beyond individual-level stressors, (c) assess the goals of co-ruminative conversations, and (d) consider with whom people co-ruminate. We then connect this theory of co-rumination to influential theories and concepts across psychological subdisciplines to show how this conceptualization of co-rumination can be further advanced when studied through a multidisciplinary perspective. This novel theoretical reconceptualization and multidisciplinary application advances beyond the tradeoff hypothesis by calling on researchers to consider the nuances of co-rumination across diverse populations and contexts. Reorienting co-rumination as such may prove fruitful to better understand difficult and upsetting conversations with close others, ultimately improving recommendations for how individuals seek and provide support through challenging times. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).","PeriodicalId":21016,"journal":{"name":"Psychological review","volume":"58 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2026-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145986349","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":"Morbid curiosity as an adapted motivation to explore ambiguous but survival-relevant stimuli.","authors":"David S March","doi":"10.1037/rev0000613","DOIUrl":"10.1037/rev0000613","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Morbid curiosity, or the seemingly paradoxical drive to engage with aversive or grotesque stimuli, has long puzzled psychologists, who have traditionally framed it as either a form of sensation-seeking or a mechanism for unambiguous threat learning. The current article proposes a novel adaptationist model positioning morbid curiosity as an evolved cognitive mechanism specifically tuned to resolve ambiguity surrounding survival-relevant stimuli. Drawing on evolutionary theory, cognitive psychology, and neurobiological evidence, I argue that morbid curiosity functions primarily as an uncertainty-reduction strategy, motivating individuals to approach ambiguous stimuli to clarify their threat or benefit. Unlike basic emotions such as fear or disgust that typically trigger immediate avoidance, morbid curiosity fosters cautious approach behaviors aimed at gathering survival-critical information. The proposed model thereby reconceptualizes morbid curiosity as an adaptive, ambiguity-oriented cognitive system, offering novel insights into broader questions about human motivation, information-seeking, and adaptive cognition. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":21016,"journal":{"name":"Psychological review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145934953","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":"Reconsidering the role of imagery in perception.","authors":"Kevin J Lande, E J Green","doi":"10.1037/rev0000598","DOIUrl":"10.1037/rev0000598","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>How much of what we see is imagined? Perception is a constructive process, supplementing the information available in sensory inputs to build representations of the world, as when one perceives a cat behind a chain-link fence as a whole, intact object, though it produces only a fragmented image on the eye. A recent movement in cognitive science and the philosophy of mind argues that mental imagery supplies much of the material for constructing perceptual representations-filling in the missing parts of the cat, for instance. On this \"Constitutive View\" of imagery's role in perception, perceptual representations routinely contain elements of mental imagery. This view rests on an expansive conception of what mental imagery is: roughly, imagery consists in perceptual processing that is not directly connected to sensory inputs. We challenge the Constitutive View. First, we argue that the expansive conception of imagery on which the view relies is problematic, for it fails to capture a unified psychological kind. We then consider whether phenomena such as perceptual completion, in which the occluded parts of the cat are \"filled in,\" support the Constitutive View. We argue that there is little explanatory utility in construing perceptual completion as a form of imagery. The constructive character of perception, we suggest, is best understood on its own terms, rather than by reference to imagery. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":21016,"journal":{"name":"Psychological review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145934941","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}
Psychological reviewPub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2025-02-17DOI: 10.1037/rev0000542
Thom Scott-Phillips
{"title":"Communication and grammar: A synthesis.","authors":"Thom Scott-Phillips","doi":"10.1037/rev0000542","DOIUrl":"10.1037/rev0000542","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Communication is ubiquitous in human social life. There are many possible modes of human communication but language use is plainly of special interest: because it plays a critical role in culture and society; and because languages are important cultural products in their own right, with their own distinctive properties. These properties include in particular grammatical structure. However, we do not presently have any compelling synthesis of our understanding of communication and our understanding of grammar. This problem is important because synthesizing knowledge across neighboring domains can considerably deepen understanding in its own right, and bring new perspectives to bear on old issues. Mature syntheses are major scientific breakthroughs. Here, I argue that contextualist theories of communication, and constructionist approaches to the description of grammars, together provide a cohesive picture. Both bodies of work have proved enormously influential in their respective subfields, but their synthesis provides a unified picture of considerable clarity. Linguistic communication is a coordination problem on the speaker's informative intentions; and grammars are networks of microconventions (\"constructions\") that enable language users to resolve this coordination problem far more easily than they otherwise would. This synthesis in turn provides fresh perspectives on many classical issues in the language sciences. I sketch three examples: literal meaning and \"construction modulation\"; language learning; and the evolutionary emergence of language in our species. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":21016,"journal":{"name":"Psychological review","volume":" ","pages":"81-93"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143441956","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}
Psychological reviewPub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2024-12-12DOI: 10.1037/rev0000523
Barbu Revencu
{"title":"Object substitution pretense reflects a general capacity to interpret objects as symbols.","authors":"Barbu Revencu","doi":"10.1037/rev0000523","DOIUrl":"10.1037/rev0000523","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Nonlinguistic external representations, such as diagrams, animations, or puppet shows, involve local relations between a perceptually available object (a symbol) and an entity that is relevant in the current communicative context (a discourse referent). By analyzing the empirical evidence on early pretend play, I argue that object substitution pretense can be fully accounted for if it is conceived of as a subspecies of external representation. This implies that the capacity to interpret objects as symbols emerges early and reliably in human ontogeny. I discuss several accounts of pretend play and related phenomena and argue that the current proposal provides a better and more general account of early symbolic understanding than alternative views. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":21016,"journal":{"name":"Psychological review","volume":" ","pages":"66-80"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142818975","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}
Psychological reviewPub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2024-12-12DOI: 10.1037/rev0000527
Jenna Croteau, Erik Cheries, Fei Xu
{"title":"The development of kind concepts: Insights from object individuation.","authors":"Jenna Croteau, Erik Cheries, Fei Xu","doi":"10.1037/rev0000527","DOIUrl":"10.1037/rev0000527","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Object individuation studies have been a valuable tool in understanding the development of kind concepts. In this article, we review evidence from object individuation paradigms to argue that by their first birthday, infants represent at least three superordinate-level sortal kinds: OBJECT, ANIMATE, and AGENT (possibly also ARTIFACT). These superordinate sortal-kind concepts share key characteristics of adult kind concepts, such as prioritizing causal properties and having inductive potential. We then discuss the implications of this body of research. First, we discuss how the early development of these sortal-kind concepts (i.e., OBJECT, ANIMATE, and AGENT) relate to the two major theories of concepts: core knowledge and psychological essentialism. Second, we suggest that superordinate kind concepts set the stage for later development of basic-level kind concepts and present evidence that human communication, either in the form of language or pedagogical demonstration, plays a key role in constructing basic-level kinds. Third, we compare feature-based versus kind-based object individuation studies and put forth the hypothesis that they may reflect two modes of construal theory. Last, we discuss several open theoretical and empirical questions about sortal-kind concepts and suggest directions for future research. Overall, our review underscores the importance of object individuation methods as a powerful research tool for investigating the development of kind concepts, mechanisms of learning, and the relationship between language and thoughts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":21016,"journal":{"name":"Psychological review","volume":" ","pages":"134-155"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142818980","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}
Psychological reviewPub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2025-03-20DOI: 10.1037/rev0000551
Robert Plomin, Kaito Kawakami
{"title":"Nurture and nonshared environment in cognitive development.","authors":"Robert Plomin, Kaito Kawakami","doi":"10.1037/rev0000551","DOIUrl":"10.1037/rev0000551","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Behavioral genetic research has demonstrated that shared genetics, not shared environment, makes adults who grew up in the same family similar in personality and psychopathology. The same research affirms the importance of the environment but shows that salient environmental influences in adulthood are not shared by family members; they are unique to the individual. Cognitive traits such as cognitive abilities and educational achievement are thought to be an exception, with half of the environmental variance attributed to shared environmental influences. However, most of this cognitive research has involved children. Here, we show that shared environmental influence on cognitive abilities and educational achievement declines from accounting for 20%-30% of the variance in childhood to 10%-20% in adolescence and to near 0% by early adulthood. Educational attainment (years of schooling) shows lasting shared environmental influence (30%) carried over from decisions made in adolescence to go to university, which shows the greatest shared environmental influence (47%). We conclude that specific cognitive abilities as well as general cognitive ability show moderate shared environmental influence in childhood when children live at home, but this influence disappears as young people make their own way in the world. We propose that random endogenous processes are responsible for nonshared environmental influences on adult cognitive abilities. We discuss the far-reaching implications for understanding the environmental causes of individual differences in cognitive abilities in adulthood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":21016,"journal":{"name":"Psychological review","volume":" ","pages":"187-196"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143670742","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}