{"title":"Doing things intentionally: Probability raising and control","authors":"Tiffany Doan, Stephanie Denison, Ori Friedman","doi":"10.1016/j.newideapsych.2025.101164","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.newideapsych.2025.101164","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Intentionality judgments can depend on probability raising—people are more likely to see a desired outcome as intentional if the agent who produced it did something to increase its odds. However, intentionality also depends on related factors such as the agent's skill, ability, and control over the outcome. In three experiments (total N = 1074), we investigated how probability raising relates to these factors, and whether it makes distinct contributions to judgments of intentionality. Participants saw vignettes where an agent got a winning ball from a lottery machine. In all experiments, participants gave higher ratings of both intentionality and control in conditions where the agent increased her odds of success than in conditions where she did not. This pattern suggests that probability raising and control are closely linked. The findings of our third experiment, though, also suggest that probability raising may uniquely contribute to attributions of intentionality. In this experiment, the agent received a winning ball after taking an action that unpredictably either increased or decreased her odds of success. Participants gave higher intentionality ratings when this action happened to increase the odds. But participants also showed this pattern when rating control, even though the agent's control did not vary across conditions. These results suggest that probability raising contributes to intentionality even when control does not, and moreover suggest that people may use probability raising to inform attributions of control. However, we also discuss the possibility that control and probability raising are not distinct, and amount to the same thing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51556,"journal":{"name":"New Ideas in Psychology","volume":"78 ","pages":"Article 101164"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-04-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143850299","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Environmental resource theory: An integrative perspective on human habitat preferences and emotional responses to the environment","authors":"Svein Åge Kjøs Johnsen","doi":"10.1016/j.newideapsych.2025.101162","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.newideapsych.2025.101162","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Although modern humans occupy many habitats, human habitat preferences are relatively specific. We tend to prefer environments containing resources and avoid barren environments. Much research has focused on comparing emotional, motivational, and cognitive responses to urban and natural environments, which may be a false dichotomy. Considering environmental resources explicitly, the present article argues that resource content and resource exploitability are evolutionary relevant aspects of any environment. Findings from studies on environmental preferences and responses to urban and natural environments are reinterpreted in terms of environmental resource theory. The dynamics of moving from low to high resource environments can explain most findings within this area of research and environmental resource theory offers a different perspective on affective and cognitive restoration in nature. The relevance for climate change and environmental degradation is discussed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51556,"journal":{"name":"New Ideas in Psychology","volume":"78 ","pages":"Article 101162"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-04-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143833685","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Examining the root of intergroup sensitivity: What is the norm underlying defensive reactions to criticism?","authors":"C.J. Erion, Sean M. McCrea","doi":"10.1016/j.newideapsych.2025.101161","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.newideapsych.2025.101161","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Criticism is important for change and growth and is a common component of group-level interactions. One variable that influences how people react to criticism is the group membership of the person delivering it. Both targets and bystanders of critical comments respond with more sensitivity and defensiveness to intergroup criticism (i.e., criticism between groups) relative to intragroup criticism (i.e., criticism within a group), termed the Intergroup Sensitivity Effect (ISE). In this paper, we seek to explain why the ISE occurs, refining previous arguments that intergroup criticizers violate a norm. Research on prejudice, intergroup trust, intergroup cooperation, and the pragmatics of politeness and cooperation are referenced to inform a novel Norm Perspective explanation of the ISE. This perspective suggests that there is a general prescriptive cooperation norm that is violated when outgroup members criticize other groups. Namely, the combination of intergroup criticism that does not follow cooperation and politeness pragmatic principles as well as suspicion toward outgroup member motives leads to a perception of uncooperative behavior. We then review previously used strategies for decreasing the ISE in the context of this proposed cooperative norm. Future directions for testing this theory and implications for ISE reduction strategies are discussed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51556,"journal":{"name":"New Ideas in Psychology","volume":"78 ","pages":"Article 101161"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-03-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143734572","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Examining the impact of reinforcement sensitivity theory on compulsive internet use through difficulty in emotion regulation","authors":"Ali Khoshfetrat , Gretta Mohan","doi":"10.1016/j.newideapsych.2025.101160","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.newideapsych.2025.101160","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory, encompassing Behavioural Inhibition and Activation Systems (BIS/BAS), may help us understand the modern-day phenomenon of compulsive Internet use. BAS, a neurologically appetitive system is sensitive to positive cues (e.g., rewards), and traditionally linked with addictive behaviours, whereas BIS is sensitive to negative cues (e.g., punishment), and inhibits behaviour. Analysing data on a sample of 209 young people attending university, BIS is found to be related to compulsive Internet use, not BAS. Furthermore, BIS is revealed to have a significant indirect effect on compulsive Internet use through difficulties in emotion regulation. The findings can be employed by practitioners, who work with compulsive Internet users, to try to weaken the patients’ inhibitory behaviours that may improve their emotion regulation skills, which in turn could help individuals reduce their need to be online. Longitudinal research is required to provide more reliable results and confirm the directionality of the effects.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51556,"journal":{"name":"New Ideas in Psychology","volume":"78 ","pages":"Article 101160"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143734571","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Understanding the potential impact of ostracism on LGBTQ health disparities","authors":"Ellen D.B. Riggle","doi":"10.1016/j.newideapsych.2025.101159","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.newideapsych.2025.101159","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Research finds harmful impacts of ostracism on the health and well-being of the ostracized individual (as well as the ostracizer and members of the community). While often conceptualized as social (interpersonal), ostracism may originate at multiple levels of the socio-ecological system, including forms of political and institutional ostracism. The ostracism of LGBTQ people originates in cultural stigma and is reproduced and reinforced at all levels, from discriminatory laws and institutional policies (e.g., workplace, educational), to the actions of community or family members, to interactions with strangers. Ostracism, acute and chronic, creates increased risk for psychological and physical harm to LGBTQ individuals, including depression, suicidality, resignation, and physical pain. This paper presents an argument for the importance of recognizing the different types and potential harms of ostracism at multiple, concurrent levels of the environment for LGBTQ people, and understanding the activation of physical pain sensations in the brain, especially as part of chronic negative health impacts. Studying ostracism directly may lead to new conceptualizations for coping with minority stress involving ostracism, and for treatment protocols and interventions responding to the specific harms of ostracism for LGBTQ people.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51556,"journal":{"name":"New Ideas in Psychology","volume":"78 ","pages":"Article 101159"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-03-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143696833","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Validating the concept of immediacy of strategy use for the regulation of collaborative learning: Results from an expert study","authors":"Laura Spang, Martin Greisel, Ingo Kollar","doi":"10.1016/j.newideapsych.2025.101155","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.newideapsych.2025.101155","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>During collaborative learning, different types of regulation problems such as cognitive, metacognitive, motivational, and emotional problems between group members may hinder the learning process. Once groups have noticed a problem, they need to apply a regulation strategy for the problem to alleviate it. Yet, so far, it is unclear which regulation strategies to use in the light of what problem. Therefore, we propose the concept of <em>immediacy of strategy use</em>: A regulation strategy is considered immediate for a problem if it can solve this problem without further strategies necessary. In this study, we tested the content validity of this immediacy concept by using an expert study methodology. We explored (a) which regulation strategies experts regard as immediate for which problems, (b) to what extent they agree in their immediacy ratings, and (c) whether they distinctly categorize regulation strategies into immediate and non-immediate strategies for specific problems. <em>N</em> = 59 experts rated the immediacy of 27 regulation strategies for eight social regulation problems. Our results indicate that experts can concordantly identify an immediate regulation strategy for regulation problems. The only exceptions were the regulation problems “Incompatible Working Methods” and “Unfair Distribution of Work Load”. Additionally, for each problem, we could clearly differentiate between various immediate and non-immediate regulation strategies. In summary, our findings strongly support the content validity of the immediacy concept. Future research could implement and investigate the immediacy concept in educational practice to support immediate strategy use for problem regulation during collaborative learning.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51556,"journal":{"name":"New Ideas in Psychology","volume":"78 ","pages":"Article 101155"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143644880","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sabrina Trapp , Karl Friston , Erich Schröger , Thomas Parr
{"title":"Towards a theory of biological intelligence","authors":"Sabrina Trapp , Karl Friston , Erich Schröger , Thomas Parr","doi":"10.1016/j.newideapsych.2025.101156","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.newideapsych.2025.101156","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>There exists an underexplored correlation between intelligence and perceptual discrimination. Perceptual discrimination can be understood through the concept of precision in predictive processing. Precision governs the weighting of sensory inputs and prediction errors, shaping how effectively an individual can extract meaningful information from their environment. We here propose a link between intelligence and precision, arguing that the ability to dynamically regulate precision is a key determinant of intelligent behavior. This perspective bridges individual cognitive differences with broader theoretical models of human brain functioning, offering a more comprehensive understanding of how intelligence manifests in biological systems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51556,"journal":{"name":"New Ideas in Psychology","volume":"78 ","pages":"Article 101156"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143601303","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Psychiatrization in Czech lexical data: Everyday adjectives are acquiring clinical connotations","authors":"Vojtech Pisl","doi":"10.1016/j.newideapsych.2025.101148","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.newideapsych.2025.101148","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Interpreting ordinary experiences as symptoms of psychopathology may bias epidemiological numbers and undermine public mental health. Several studies document linguistic shifts underlying psychiatrization in English, but data from other languages are lacking. The current study hypothesizes that psychiatric terminology is increasingly used in everyday, non-clinical contexts while everyday adjectives describing normative mental states and traits are acquiring clinical connotations.</div><div>In an exploratory study utilizing computational linguistics, fragments of texts containing diagnostic (e.g. “ADHD” or “anorexia”), everyday psychological (e.g. “shy” or “sad”), or control keywords (e.g. “large” or “loud”) were retrieved from a large (>4bn words) corpus of Czech journalistic texts published offline between 1990 and 2022. A linguistic marker of the cultural aspects of psychiatrization was developed: <em>clinicalness,</em> calculated as lexical proximity to the clinical discourse using the <em>wordscores</em> algorithm. The expected correlation between time and clinicalness was measured by Kendall's coefficient for each of 46 keywords.</div><div>The frequency of use of diagnostic terms has been increasing in the Czech press between 1990 and 2022 (for the median keyword: τ = 0.74). The clinicaliness was increasing for everyday adjectives describing human emotions and behaviors (median τ = 0.07) and less so control adjectives (median τ = 0.03), but not in diagnostic terms (median τ = 0.01).</div><div>Our exploratory linguistic data are consistent with the notion of increasing psychiatrization of ordinary experiences but not with normalization of mental disorders. Confirmatory research is needed to verify the observed increase in pathologization of everyday adjectives describing emotions and behaviors.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51556,"journal":{"name":"New Ideas in Psychology","volume":"78 ","pages":"Article 101148"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-03-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143561990","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What happens to representatives during family constellations? Attempts at explanation and comparison with other difficult-to-explain phenomena","authors":"Yolanda Alonso , Gonzalo-Andrés Jiménez","doi":"10.1016/j.newideapsych.2025.101147","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.newideapsych.2025.101147","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Despite the considerable controversy surrounding family constellations, this psychotherapeutic method has experienced significant growth over the past thirty years. Traditionally, family constellations are conducted in a group format in sessions called “constellations”, wherein certain individuals act as representatives for the family members of other participants. During these sessions, a phenomenon known in some literature as “surrogate perceptions” normally occurs, in which the representatives experience internal states that align with significant attitudes or life situations of the individuals they represent. Although there is substantial anecdotal evidence for this phenomenon, it has not been empirically studied, lacks a logical explanation, and appears to contravene the principle of locality in physics. This paper draws comparisons between surrogate perceptions and other exceptional phenomena documented in scientific literature, such as extended states of consciousness, telepathy, and synchronicity. It also critically reviews various attempts to explain the phenomenon, including theories involving mirror neurons, quantum physics, embodied memory, the collective unconscious, and formative causation. The paper provides a description of surrogate perceptions as changes triggered in an interpersonal process in which the explicit request to put oneself in the place of another specific person plays an essential role. Finally, potential avenues for future research are outlined.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51556,"journal":{"name":"New Ideas in Psychology","volume":"77 ","pages":"Article 101147"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143372395","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Re-enchanting mirror neurons through lexical changes","authors":"Da Dong , Tongwei Liu , Wei Chen","doi":"10.1016/j.newideapsych.2025.101145","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.newideapsych.2025.101145","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Recent statistical data seem to indicate that mirror neurons have not maintained their early illustrious image in the scientific community. We start our discussion by looking back at the conceptual history of “mirror neuron,” paying special attention to the shifting meanings of highly related words in the current scientific landscape. These semantic changes demonstrate that, even if not entirely sufficient on their own, the study of mirror neurons remains central to the scientific revolution unfolding within cognitive sciences, as revealed through the analysis in this paper. Thus, in the later part of this paper, we find that the meanings of three fundamental words related to mirror neurons, “mirror,” “action,” and “understanding,” have begun to shift.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51556,"journal":{"name":"New Ideas in Psychology","volume":"77 ","pages":"Article 101145"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143175726","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}