{"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}
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}