{"title":"Linking social deprivation and loneliness to right-extreme radicalization and extremist antifeminism","authors":"Alexander Langenkamp","doi":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101525","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101525","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>A small yet increasing number of studies explored the association between loneliness and other indicators of social deprivation and radicalization of political attitudes. This paper reviews the related empirical evidence, provides a brief overview of the suspected mechanisms linking deprivation to radicalization, and discusses new developments in two related research areas: electoral support for radical right-extreme parties and radicalization of individuals with a special focus on extremist antifeminist radicalization.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":56191,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences","volume":"63 ","pages":"Article 101525"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143828516","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":"Control at the heart of life: a philosophical review of perceptual control theory","authors":"Tom Cochrane , Matthew J Nestor","doi":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101526","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101526","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Perceptual-control theory offers a physically reductive way to account for teleology or goal-directedness, ranging from the initial emergence of life to creatures capable of regulating their own consciousness. This broad framework motivates key aspects of the perceptual-control model including the flexibility of behaviour, the hierarchy of aims or values, and the links between control and affective states. In this way, perceptual control theory integrates the psychological constants of representation, evaluation, and action.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":56191,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences","volume":"63 ","pages":"Article 101526"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143808143","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}
Boryana Todorova , Maximilian O Steininger , Claus Lamm , Kimberly C Doell
{"title":"Neuroscience and climate action: intersecting pathways for brain and planetary health","authors":"Boryana Todorova , Maximilian O Steininger , Claus Lamm , Kimberly C Doell","doi":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101522","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101522","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The climate crisis and the human brain are intricately connected. Climate change impacts neurocognitive health, while climate actions both shape and are shaped by the brain. However, research examining these connections remains scarce. This review highlights how neuroscience can deepen the understanding of the reciprocal relationship between climate action and the brain. First, we discuss how both individual and collective climate action can, directly and indirectly, benefit our brain health, mental health and cognitive functioning and how emphasising this holds the potential of harvesting self-interest as a driving force for change. Second, we explore the role of the brain’s emotional and decision-making systems in motivating climate action. We also discuss neuroscience’s potential to predict population-level behaviours and aid in the systematic development of interventions. By addressing current knowledge gaps, we identify the next steps for deepening our understanding of the interwoven connections between climate action and the brain.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":56191,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences","volume":"63 ","pages":"Article 101522"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143799813","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jacob B Rode , Miriam Remshard , Lennert J Groot , Sander van der Linden
{"title":"A meta-analytic structural equation analysis of the Gateway Belief Model: highlighting scientific consensus increases support for public action on climate change","authors":"Jacob B Rode , Miriam Remshard , Lennert J Groot , Sander van der Linden","doi":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101521","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101521","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The Gateway Belief Model (GBM) posits that correcting influential misperceptions about the scientific consensus on climate change acts as a ‘gateway’ to subsequent smaller changes in private cognitions and emotions that people hold about the issue, which, in turn, jointly predict support for public action. To date, there has been no meta-analytical assessment of the full GBM as theorized. Accordingly, we systematically reviewed the literature and leveraged advances in meta-analytic structural equation modeling (MASEM) to estimate the downstream impact of consensus messaging on public support for climate action. Based on nine studies that met the inclusion criteria (<em>N</em> = 12 975), we find that the GBM fits the data well and that communicating the scientific consensus has significant meta-analytic downstream effects, including increases in the belief that climate change is happening, human-caused, how much people worry about the issue, and, crucially, support for public action. We discuss implications for future research.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":56191,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences","volume":"63 ","pages":"Article 101521"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143791906","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Marta Russo , Antonella Maselli , Dagmar Sternad , Giovanni Pezzulo
{"title":"Predictive strategies for the control of complex motor skills: recent insights into individual and joint actions","authors":"Marta Russo , Antonella Maselli , Dagmar Sternad , Giovanni Pezzulo","doi":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101519","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101519","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Humans perform exquisite sensorimotor skills, both individually and in teams, from athletes performing rhythmic gymnastics to everyday tasks like carrying a cup of coffee. The ‘predictive brain’ framework suggests that mastering these skills relies on predictive mechanisms, raising the question of how we deploy predictions for real-time control and coordination. This review highlights two research lines, showing that during the control of complex objects, people make the interaction with ‘tools’ predictable, and that, during dyadic coordination, people make their behavior predictable and legible for their partners. These studies demonstrate that to achieve sophisticated motor skills, we play ‘prediction tricks’: we select subspaces of predictable solutions and make sensorimotor interactions more predictable and legible by and for others. This synthesis underscores the critical role of predictability in optimizing control strategies across contexts. Furthermore, it emphasizes the need for novel studies on the scope and limits of predictive mechanisms in motor control.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":56191,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences","volume":"63 ","pages":"Article 101519"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143760926","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Evolution of neural circuits in the origin of behavioral novelty","authors":"Yun Ding","doi":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101520","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101520","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The origin of phenotypic novelty is a central topic in evolutionary biology. In this review, I will discuss the neural circuit basis that underlies the emergence of behavioral novelties, emphasizing novel behaviors as evolutionary additions to existing behavioral repertoires and the circuit mechanisms crucial to their initial emergence, rather than their later refinement. I will describe two nonmutually exclusive mechanisms as possible common neural routes to behavioral novelty. First, existing motor modules can be redeployed for use in novel sensory-social contexts through transitions at circuit nodes linking decision-making and motor programs. Second, novel behavioral patterns can be encoded by the actualization of latent potentials in ancestral circuits. Together, these mechanisms suggest that nervous systems develop with remarkable potential to readily evolve new behaviors.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":56191,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences","volume":"63 ","pages":"Article 101520"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143760925","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":"Behavioral illusions as obstacles to a science of purpose and how to get around them","authors":"Richard S Marken","doi":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101507","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101507","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This review describes what a behavioral illusion is, why it has been an obstacle to research aimed at determining the purposes of behavior and suggests a way to get around these obstacles in order to start doing research aimed at understanding the purposes rather than the causes of behavior. A behavioral illusion happens when the behavior of a purposeful (closed loop, negative feedback) system is seen as that of a nonpurposeful (open loop) one. It is an obstacle to studying purposeful behavior because the results of research using conventional methods look like they were produced by a nonpurposeful system even if they were produced by a purposeful one. This obstacle can be overcome by using the results of conventional research as hints about the variables controlled by the systems under study.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":56191,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences","volume":"63 ","pages":"Article 101507"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143726081","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Measurement approaches in climate action research","authors":"Florian Lange","doi":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101510","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101510","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Behavioral scientists across disciplines study the determinants of climate actions. They aim to describe, predict, explain, and change the behavioral properties (e.g. frequency, intensity, duration) of everyday resource consumption, climate-relevant investment decisions, or environmental activism behaviors. Accurate measurement of such properties is a critical prerequisite for a reliable science of climate actions. The present article reviews current measurement approaches while pointing to potential accuracy issues and ways to mitigate them. It illustrates the usefulness of observation-based measurement and argues that when relying on self-reports, researchers should take measures to ensure that participants’ self-observations can be accurate. In addition, behavioral paradigms are discussed as a means to study general principles underlying climate actions under experimentally controlled conditions. The review further distinguishes between the observation-based measurement of behavioral properties and the psychometric measurement of person properties and provides recommendations for the selection of measurement approaches contingent on researchers’ goals and interests.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":56191,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences","volume":"63 ","pages":"Article 101510"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143697889","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":"The social foundations of collective climate action","authors":"Nathaniel Geiger , John Fraser","doi":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101506","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101506","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This interdisciplinary review explores intragroup and interpersonal precursors to collective climate action. First, we highlight structural perspectives into collective action, noting that efforts are moving beyond individual-level scientific literacy and instead situating climate literacy at the community level (i.e. community-based climate literacy). We highlight perspectives in community-based scientific literacy that conceptualize literacy as distributed throughout a group rather than solely held within individuals, and, grounded in theory on community-based climate literacy, we examine structural perspectives into how collective action can diffuse through social networks and into new communities. Next, we explore the social psychological literature on motivators of collective climate action, highlighting four interrelated intergroup and intrapersonal factors that recent research increasingly suggests are key to fostering collective action: (a) group identification, (b) empowerment to act, (c) social norms and influence, and (d) conversations. Collectively, this synthesis of recent research insights suggests promise for understanding and promoting collective climate action.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":56191,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences","volume":"63 ","pages":"Article 101506"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143682052","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":"Optimizing self-motion perception: a control theory perspective on vestibular–visual integration and adaptive mechanisms","authors":"Fu Zeng , Rong Wang , Aihua Chen","doi":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101511","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101511","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Self-motion perception, the ability to sense and interpret one’s own movement through space, plays a critical role in navigation, balance, and spatial orientation. This review examines how control theory offers a structured framework to analyze and optimize this perceptual process, focusing on the interactions between the vestibular and visual systems. By applying control theory concepts such as feedback loops, adaptive mechanisms, and sensory integration, we gain a deeper understanding of how the brain resolves conflicts between sensory inputs and recalibrates them to maintain stability. Recent findings highlight cortical processing areas that optimize sensory integration and recalibration, allowing for robust and accurate motion perception. This review synthesizes contemporary research from neuroscience, psychology, and engineering to present a cohesive perspective on enhancing self-motion perception, with implications for both theoretical understanding and practical applications in fields such as virtual reality and robotics.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":56191,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences","volume":"63 ","pages":"Article 101511"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143681608","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}