{"title":"Personality and sexuality","authors":"Kristopher J. Brazil","doi":"10.1016/j.copsyc.2025.102124","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.copsyc.2025.102124","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Research on personality and sexuality has increased over the last few decades, especially using basic trait models—Five Factor Model and HEXACO—and clinical personality constructs—particularly borderline, narcissism, and psychopathy. Spanning five broad aspects of sexuality, research shows that basic and clinical personality traits are associated with sexual motivation, sexual behavior, sexual affect and cognition, sexual orientation, and clinical sexual problems. Different personality trait dimensions are reliably associated with specific aspects of sexuality, which points to theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, personality characteristics can be used to help explain, at least in part, variation in sexuality. Practically, links between sexuality and personality can help inform assessment and tailor intervention to promote general and sexual health.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48279,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Psychology","volume":"66 ","pages":"Article 102124"},"PeriodicalIF":6.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144770689","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Therapists’ beliefs about traumatic memory: Possible effects on therapy proceedings and contributions to false memory formation","authors":"Jonas Schemmel , Renate Volbert","doi":"10.1016/j.copsyc.2025.102121","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.copsyc.2025.102121","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>How psychotherapists understand and approach trauma-related memory remains clinically and ethically significant, particularly given the risk of false memory formation through attempts to recover unremembered trauma. This review synthesizes recent findings on therapists' beliefs about traumatic memory, memory recovery, and self-reported therapy practices. Despite limited data, many therapists demonstrate awareness of memory's malleability while also believing in memory blocking or repression. These beliefs do not necessarily imply problematic assumptions or practices, but they should be regarded as risk factors, given their association with suggestive techniques. Few studies on therapist behavior exist. They imply that some therapists still attempt to recover unremembered trauma memories, despite there being a consensus that this should be avoided. Overall, the findings highlight the need for conceptual clarity in research, further research into suggestive therapist behavior, and integration of memory science in therapist training.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48279,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Psychology","volume":"66 ","pages":"Article 102121"},"PeriodicalIF":6.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144770691","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Collective memory and social representations","authors":"Valérie Haas , Renan Harmes Eskinazi , Denise Jodelet","doi":"10.1016/j.copsyc.2025.102123","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.copsyc.2025.102123","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article examines the relationship between collective memory and social representations, drawing on key theoretical perspectives and research trends. Initiated by Moscovici in the 1960s, the study of social knowledge explores how individuals make sense of everyday life through socially and culturally situated thinking. Within this framework, memory and social representations are understood as forms of social thought that shape communication, guide practices, and construct a shared reality among group members. Memory is viewed as dynamic and central to shaping collective identity. Foundational theories by Halbwachs and Bartlett continue to inform current studies, integrating social representations as knowledge grounded in shared experiences. Recent research highlights collective narratives, showing how identity and cultural factors influence the transmission and transformation of memories. The article underscores the importance of inter- and intradisciplinary dialogue to better understand how groups remember, forget, and interpret their past to confront present and future societal challenges.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48279,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Psychology","volume":"66 ","pages":"Article 102123"},"PeriodicalIF":6.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144739483","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Between collective pasts and futures: The case of climate change","authors":"Piotr M. Szpunar , Karl K. Szpunar","doi":"10.1016/j.copsyc.2025.102120","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.copsyc.2025.102120","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Recent psychological scholarship shows that the way people think about the collective future can have important implications on the attitudes, intentions, and behaviors that they adopt in relation to climate change. In this article, we argue that a more complete understanding of these phenomena requires a deeper consideration of the intertwined psychological, social, and political lives of collective pasts and futures. Drawing on work across disciplines, we highlight not only how collective memory can alter how we interpret the collective future, but also how the collective future can alter how we (re)interpret the collective past. We conclude by discussing how the psychological sciences might go about advancing the experimental study of interactions between collective memory and future thinking.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48279,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Psychology","volume":"66 ","pages":"Article 102120"},"PeriodicalIF":6.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144769138","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Collective memory and autobiographical memory: The same evolutionary basis serving group cohesion and cooperation","authors":"Dorthe Berntsen , David C. Rubin","doi":"10.1016/j.copsyc.2025.102119","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.copsyc.2025.102119","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Autobiographical memory allows us to remember events in the personal past, while collective memory is memories of events shared by a group. An autobiographical recollection is contextualized in subjective time, while a collective memory is contextualized in historical (non-personal) time. Despite these differences, we argue that these two types of memory share the same evolutionary roots and that they both evolved to support group cohesion necessary for widespread cooperation central to human existence. Both are constrained by shared collective values for which they serve as symbolic vehicles, and both are constructive. We provide examples of collective constraints on autobiographical memory in terms of cultural life scripts, moral beliefs, and social identity affecting the salience and retrieval of autobiographical events.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48279,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Psychology","volume":"66 ","pages":"Article 102119"},"PeriodicalIF":6.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144771188","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Failures in cognitive behavior therapy: The state of the art","authors":"Paul M.G. Emmelkamp","doi":"10.1016/j.copsyc.2025.102122","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.copsyc.2025.102122","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The aim of this review is to evaluate the state of the art of studies investigating failures in cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). The last couple of years relatively few studies have specifically focused on failures in CBT. Generally, clinicians underestimate the number of therapies that fail and therapists are no better than chance at predicting effectiveness classification. In patients treated in outpatient clinics, effects of therapy were lower than effects of therapy in disorder-specific CBT efficacy randomized controlled trials.</div><div>In eating disorders, results of CBT are moderate with high remission rates. In severe eating disorders compassion focused therapy was more effective than CBT at one year follow-up among patients with a history of childhood trauma. Co-morbid personality disorders and depression were significant negative predictors of treatment response in CBT. Few studies have investigated which processes are associated with failure of CBT in patients with PTSD. Drop-out rates for treatments for adult PTSD are rather high. One study reported significantly more drop-outs in cognitive processing therapy compared with exposure therapy.</div><div>There is only limited evidence that CBT including dialectical behavior therapy and schema therapy are more effective than treatment as usual especially with patients with borderline personality disorder.</div><div>To prevent failures in CBT, a good working alliance is of high importance. Engagement in measurement-based care may help to prevent treatment failures as well.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48279,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Psychology","volume":"66 ","pages":"Article 102122"},"PeriodicalIF":6.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144770692","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Zachary Wojtowicz , Andras Molnar , Russell Golman , George Loewenstein
{"title":"Willful inattention: Keeping aversive information out of mind","authors":"Zachary Wojtowicz , Andras Molnar , Russell Golman , George Loewenstein","doi":"10.1016/j.copsyc.2025.102116","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.copsyc.2025.102116","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article introduces the concept of <em>willful inattention</em> and argues that it accounts for many behaviors that have previously been attributed to willful ignorance. Willful inattention arises when an individual avoids paying attention to an external stimulus or internal thought because they expect that focusing on it will evoke negative emotions or diminish positive ones. Willful ignorance, in contrast, is motivated by a desire to remain uninformed so as to avoid an unwanted change in beliefs. We show that willful inattention plays a key role in several important policy problems, and we discuss strategies for mitigating its negative effects.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48279,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Psychology","volume":"66 ","pages":"Article 102116"},"PeriodicalIF":6.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144739486","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Does leader personality predict abusive supervision?","authors":"Kimberley Breevaart , Birgit Schyns","doi":"10.1016/j.copsyc.2025.102118","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.copsyc.2025.102118","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As the negative consequences of abusive supervision become increasingly evident, the investigation of its antecedents is an important topic. Our review shows that leader personality as a predictor of abusive supervision has mainly been studied using the Dark Triad traits. The Big Five and HEXACO personality frameworks have been used to a lesser extent. Taken together, Agreeableness, Machiavellianism, Psychopathy, and Narcissism are most convincingly related to abusive supervision. Additionally, Narcissism split into its facets clarifies some of the previously mixed results. Finally, we also identify several areas for future research. Notably, we recommend investigating facet-level personality dimensions and profiles and changes in personality. More recent research has shown that leader personality interacts with context and follower behavior in predicting leader rated abusive supervision (intentions). Finally, research could benefit from a triangulation of different methods, including self- and other-ratings of personality and observational data.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48279,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Psychology","volume":"66 ","pages":"Article 102118"},"PeriodicalIF":6.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144781146","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Personality in personnel recruitment","authors":"Eva Derous , Delphine Van Muylem","doi":"10.1016/j.copsyc.2025.102117","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.copsyc.2025.102117","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Over the past decades, personality has emerged as a central construct in recruitment and there is a growing interest in how established models, namely the Big Five and HEXACO, inform recruitment practices. This scoping review synthesizes findings from 46 peer-reviewed studies published between 2020 and 2025, offering a thematic overview of contemporary research in this domain. The review is structured around five focal areas: (a) the predictive validity of personality traits, (b) the inference of personality during recruitment, (c) personality signaling in job advertisements, (d) the role of personality in impression management, and (e) technological innovations, including the integration of artificial intelligence in personality assessment.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48279,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Psychology","volume":"66 ","pages":"Article 102117"},"PeriodicalIF":6.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144781058","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Integrating research on interpersonal and organizational attraction via personality traits and value congruence","authors":"Bo Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.copsyc.2025.102114","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.copsyc.2025.102114","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Attraction is a psychological tendency characterized by positive affect, a positive evaluative response, and an approach motivation toward a target (e.g., person, group, or organization). Both interpersonal attraction and organizational attraction fall under this broad construct and serve as antecedents to behaviors aimed at forming formal social bonds with the target (e.g., initiating a close relationship with a person or submitting a job application to an organization). Although these two literatures have developed largely independently over the past few decades, they share substantial conceptual similarities, convergent empirical findings, and a strong emphasis on the role of personality traits in attraction processes. In this paper, I review the conceptual overlap and empirical convergence between the two literatures. The review indicates that people are more attracted to others or organization that share similar personality traits—particularly honesty-humility and openness to experience, which are central value-related personality traits. This suggest that value congruence is a plausible common mechanism. I also outline future research directions to support the development of a broader and programmatic theory of attraction.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48279,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Psychology","volume":"66 ","pages":"Article 102114"},"PeriodicalIF":6.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144721494","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}