{"title":"Act natural: a review of new methods for assessing dopamine’s role in natural behavior","authors":"Jeffrey E. Markowitz","doi":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101532","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101532","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD), loss of the key neurochemical dopamine (DA) in the basal ganglia leads to movements that are both more difficult to initiate and, once initiated, less vigorous. Yet, despite the robust link between basal ganglia DA loss and movement-related symptoms in PD, a mechanistic picture relating movement patterns with DA release has yet to emerge. We contend that one key hurdle in understanding this relationship is technical. Historically, the field has lacked the tools to easily resolve moment-to-moment changes in DA concentration across key brain structures while also capturing and quantifying fluid, naturalistic movements in freely behaving animals. In this review, we focus on recent technical advances that have fueled this type of experiment and how they have informed our understanding of DA’s role in natural behavior.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":56191,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences","volume":"64 ","pages":"Article 101532"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143912833","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":"Positivity and collective climate action","authors":"Claudia R Schneider","doi":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101527","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101527","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Climate change and environmental degradation are amongst the most pressing issues facing humankind of our time. Concerted collective action is needed to tackle them. This includes a range of domains and behaviours from the support of pro-environmental policies to climate activism. Much research has highlighted the important role that a positive approach to climate messaging and communication can have on individual behaviour. Taking this promising line of research forward, this review examines the role of positivity in collective climate action. I first delineate the terms collective action and positivity as used in this review. I then summarise recent empirical findings at the intersection of positivity and collective climate action, organised by the type of positivity-related concept investigated. These are, in particular, hope, efficacy, and positive future visions. Finally, I offer suggestions for future research to stimulate further investigation into the promising role of positivity for collective climate action in the years ahead.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":56191,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences","volume":"64 ","pages":"Article 101527"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143898380","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}
Yoon Ah Shin , Sara M. Constantino , Brian Beckage , Katherine Lacasse
{"title":"Climate change and opinion dynamics models: Linking individual, social, and institutional level changes","authors":"Yoon Ah Shin , Sara M. Constantino , Brian Beckage , Katherine Lacasse","doi":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101528","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101528","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Opinion dynamics models are increasingly used to understand changes in opinions, behaviors, and policy in the context of climate change. We review recent research that demonstrates how these models enable the linkages between individual, social, institutional, and biophysical factors to explain when and how social change emerges over time and what its impact might be on emissions and the climate system. We focus on applications of opinion dynamics models to climate change and describe how factors interact in those models to create feedback loops that reinforce or dampen change. We demonstrate how these models reveal the dynamics of consensus or polarization in climate opinions, the evolution of sustainability technologies and policies, and when and how interventions or negotiations related to climate change are likely to succeed or fail.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":56191,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences","volume":"64 ","pages":"Article 101528"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143874459","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":"Social norms and loneliness","authors":"Luzia C Heu","doi":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101508","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101508","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Social norms — as defining features of culture — seem to influence how lonely people feel and what they feel lonely for. For one, social norms can affect the <em>prevalence</em> of loneliness risks (i.e. how common certain risks are). The more common one-person households are, for example, the more prevalent the loneliness risk of social isolation becomes. Furthermore, social norms can influence the <em>predictive strength</em> of loneliness risks (i.e. how strongly they are associated with loneliness) — for instance, by determining which characteristics people are socially sanctioned for (e.g. homosexuality, shyness) or which relationship characteristics they feel dissatisfied with. The more common it is to be in a partnership, for example, the more strongly singlehood may predict relationship dissatisfaction and, thus, loneliness. This review summarizes theorizing and the scarce empirical evidence about the influence of social norms on loneliness, suggesting a need for context-specific rather than one-size-fits-all interventions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":56191,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences","volume":"63 ","pages":"Article 101508"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143859968","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}
Georg Northoff , Andrea Buccellato , Bianca Ventura
{"title":"The Default Mode Network and inner time consciousness","authors":"Georg Northoff , Andrea Buccellato , Bianca Ventura","doi":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101524","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101524","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The default mode network (DMN) exhibits distinct dynamic and topographic features relative to the brain’s other networks, yet their link to consciousness remains unclear. We review both neural (DMN-based topography and dynamics) and mental (experience of time speed, mental time travel, and self-non-self) findings across diverse nonordinary states of consciousness, including reduced (anesthesia, Unresponsive Wakefulness Syndrome), elevated (meditation and, to some degree, psychedelics), and abnormal (depression, mania) consciousness. Both reduced and elevated states are featured by topographic ‘flattening’ of the brain’s DMN-centric organization while they differ in their dynamics, that is, longer versus shorter timescales. A neural continuum emerges with different degrees of DMN-centric topography along its extremes: from heightened DMN-centric re-organization in depression, over flattened configurations in psychedelics and meditation, to heightened sensorimotor-centric re-organization in mania. This neural continuum parallels a mental continuum along different balances within inner time consciousness, including slow versus fast time speed, past–present–future (mental time travel) and self versus non-self/other. In conclusion, we propose novel neurophenomenological hypotheses about the intrinsic relationship (‘complex correspondence’) of the brain’s DMN-centred topography and dynamics with inner time consciousness.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":56191,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences","volume":"63 ","pages":"Article 101524"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143859969","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 adaptive value of behavioral inhibition","authors":"Rodrigo Sosa","doi":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101523","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101523","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>To effectively pursue goals, agents often must learn how approaching their goals feels to streamline their path. When finally reaching an actual goal, the sensory cues experienced immediately before become new targets for the agent’s future pursuits. Even if adaptively sound, this process has its drawbacks. Cues regularly paired with goals but occasionally leading to diverting paths can trap agents in systematic setbacks, ultimately undermining goal attainment — a phenomenon known as <em>proxy failure</em>. These misleading cues constitute an evolutionary pressure potentially driving the emergence of supporting mechanisms to disengage from counterproductive pursuits. <em>Behavioral inhibition</em> — the capacity to suppress an otherwise occurring action — is a suitable candidate for this role, and, importantly, it can be materialized through different execution pathways. The present paper explores a plausible environmental constraint leading to proxy failure through simulation and demonstrates how a simple implementation of behavioral inhibition can rescue effective goal pursuit.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":56191,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences","volume":"63 ","pages":"Article 101523"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143843105","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":"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}