IF 4.8

PNAS nexus Pub Date : 2026-10-13 eCollection Date: 2026-10-01 DOI: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag316

Clotilde Napp

{"title":"Gender differences in attitudes toward academic effort and boys' underachievement: A large-scale international study.","authors":"Clotilde Napp","doi":"10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag316","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag316","url":null,"abstract":"In most developed countries, boys underperform academically compared with girls. One possible explanation lies in boys' more negative attitudes toward school and learning. Using data from 750,000 15-year olds across 61 countries, we investigate gender gaps in attitudes toward academic effort, including students' beliefs about the importance of trying hard in school. Boys consistently report less positive attitudes than girls, regardless of socioeconomic status, family structure, or grade repetition. These gender gaps are observed in nearly all countries and are larger in more developed societies. At the individual level, attitudes toward effort are linked to academic achievement, particularly in reading. At the national level, countries with larger gender gaps in effort-related attitudes tend to have more boys among low performers and fewer boys in tertiary education, especially in the arts and humanities, but not in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields. Finally, across countries, these gaps are associated with gender differences in ability beliefs and parental support and with the strength of gender stereotypes, pointing to the role of gender norms in shaping educational attitudes. These findings suggest that cultural and psychological factors may play a key role in shaping gender disparities in education.","PeriodicalId":74468,"journal":{"name":"PNAS nexus","volume":"5 10","pages":"pgag316"},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2026-10-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13659772/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149186960","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Devaluation underlies gendered US faculty departures across disciplines and institutions. 贬值是美国各个学科和机构的教师按性别离职的根本原因。

IF 4.8

PNAS nexus Pub Date : 2026-10-13 eCollection Date: 2026-10-01 DOI: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag306

Katie Spoon, Joanna Mendy, Maria Martinez, Mirta Galesic, Daniel B Larremore, Aaron Clauset, Lauren A Rivera

{"title":"Devaluation underlies gendered US faculty departures across disciplines and institutions.","authors":"Katie Spoon, Joanna Mendy, Maria Martinez, Mirta Galesic, Daniel B Larremore, Aaron Clauset, Lauren A Rivera","doi":"10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag306","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag306","url":null,"abstract":"Women faculty experience academia differently from men in many ways, which can lead them to consider leaving their positions. Using a large-scale survey of both current and former tenure-line faculty across nearly all US PhD-granting institutions and 29 disciplines, we investigate which aspects of the academic workplace are (i) most gendered and (ii) most relevant to faculty retention patterns among respondents. Analyzing 6,615 free-text responses reveals that feeling devalued at work, both in formal evaluations and informal interactions, is the topic where women and men's reported experiences diverge the most when given the opportunity to discuss anything that needed to be different about their jobs-a pattern that holds for nearly 300 institutions and across both STEM and non-STEM fields, and was particularly strong for women of color and tenured women in our sample. This is in contrast to most existing gender-based interventions in academia that target work-life balance. Further, devaluation is the topic most strongly associated with gendered departures among respondents, accounting for the majority of the gender gap in both considering leaving (current faculty) and leaving (former faculty). Finally, illustrative quotations contextualize gender-based devaluation in academia. These results provide new evidence for the long-known gender gap in faculty retention, illuminating how gendered dynamics in the workplace cross disciplines and institutions and relate to gendered decisions to leave academia.","PeriodicalId":74468,"journal":{"name":"PNAS nexus","volume":"5 10","pages":"pgag306"},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2026-10-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13659778/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149186990","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Discovery as public infrastructure: Renewing the social contract for science. 发现作为公共基础设施：更新科学的社会契约。

IF 4.8

PNAS nexus Pub Date : 2026-10-13 eCollection Date: 2026-10-01 DOI: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag312

Sergio Carbajo, Asad Madni, Julia Powles

{"title":"Discovery as public infrastructure: Renewing the social contract for science.","authors":"Sergio Carbajo, Asad Madni, Julia Powles","doi":"10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag312","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag312","url":null,"abstract":"Scientific capacity built over generations is being weakened by abrupt political disruption just as discovery is becoming faster, more convergent, globally networked, and more socially consequential. Restoring funding and protecting scientific institutions are urgent, but not sufficient: the postwar compact that sustained discovery before its uses were known must be renewed for 21st-century conditions and made resilient to arbitrary disruption. We propose the Discovery Compact, a renewed social contract among government, science, industry, and the public that treats discovery as shared public infrastructure-capacity a plural society builds, tends, and holds in common across generations. It is organized around five criteria: (i) sustaining discovery as national infrastructure; (ii) enabling institutions to move at speed without sacrificing rigor; (iii) building scientific capacity through people, openness, and mobility; (iv) translating discovery without depleting its source; and (v) securing democratic legitimacy and institutional resilience. Together, these criteria direct policy toward durable scientific capacity and insulate against indiscriminate deregulation, compulsory commercialization, arbitrary institutional disruption, and political control of scientific judgment. This Perspective is not a legislative template but an invitation to a national and international process of protecting and renewing the institutions and infrastructure through which societies discover, generate, protect, and prepare.","PeriodicalId":74468,"journal":{"name":"PNAS nexus","volume":"5 10","pages":"pgag312"},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2026-10-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13659774/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149186940","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Perceived political bias in large language models reduces persuasive abilities. 在大型语言模型中，感知到的政治偏见会降低说服能力。

IF 4.8

PNAS nexus Pub Date : 2026-10-09 eCollection Date: 2026-10-01 DOI: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag324

Matthew DiGiuseppe, Joshua Robison

{"title":"Perceived political bias in large language models reduces persuasive abilities.","authors":"Matthew DiGiuseppe, Joshua Robison","doi":"10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag324","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag324","url":null,"abstract":"Conversational AI has been proposed as a scalable way to correct public misconceptions, yet its effectiveness may depend on perceptions of political neutrality. As large language models become objects of partisan conflict, political elites increasingly portray them as ideologically aligned. We test whether such credibility attacks reduce persuasion by conversational AI. In a preregistered US survey experiment (N = 2,144), participants completed a three-round conversation with ChatGPT (GPT-4.1) about an economic policy misconception they personally held. The conversation corrected misconceptions across all conditions, but a short message indicating that the model was biased against the respondent's political party attenuated this correction by 28% relative to a neutral control and reduced trust in and willingness to use AI. Even under this adversarial framing, the majority of the persuasion effect survived. Pairwise transcript comparisons suggest a behavioral mechanism: treated respondents pushed back more and engaged less receptively rather than disengaging. These findings identify perceived partisan alignment as a user-side lever that conditions, but does not eliminate, the persuasive power of conversational AI.","PeriodicalId":74468,"journal":{"name":"PNAS nexus","volume":"5 10","pages":"pgag324"},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2026-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13650708/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149169304","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Spatial patterning and selection: How the environment shapes molecular complexity. 空间模式和选择：环境如何塑造分子复杂性。

IF 4.8

PNAS nexus Pub Date : 2026-10-06 eCollection Date: 2026-10-01 DOI: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag304

Alexandre Champagne-Ruel, Christopher P Kempes, Cole Mathis

{"title":"Spatial patterning and selection: How the environment shapes molecular complexity.","authors":"Alexandre Champagne-Ruel, Christopher P Kempes, Cole Mathis","doi":"10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag304","DOIUrl":"10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag304","url":null,"abstract":"Assembly theory predicts that a distinguishing signature of life is its ability to produce complex molecules in abundance, opening new possibilities for life detection. Experimental validation of this approach has so far relied on abiotic controls like meteoritic material, or simple, well-mixed chemical systems. However, decades of research in self-organization have shown that spatial patterning can foster dynamical complexity. This raises the possibility that systems with spatial patterns might promote abiotic formation of molecules with higher-than-expected assembly indices-a measure defined within assembly theory to assess structural complexity-potentially leading to false positives in life detection approaches based on this framework. To probe this possibility, we compare how assembly indices in a simplified in silico chemistry scale relative to those in molecular space, and then ask how spatial organization shapes their distribution in our model. Our findings reveal that transport factors, such as diffusion, significantly affect the distribution of chemical species within a system. Additionally, spatial topology markedly shapes the distribution of assembly indices: while it does not enable arbitrary complexity, ordered lattices in particular can shift the assembly indices of abiotic chemistry upward. Moreover, we demonstrate that diffusion can impede the formation and detectable upper limit of these high assembly index molecules, bearing important implications for life detection experiments and astrobiological missions.","PeriodicalId":74468,"journal":{"name":"PNAS nexus","volume":"5 10","pages":"pgag304"},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2026-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13639899/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149119877","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Conversational AI increases political knowledge as effectively as self-directed internet search. 对话式人工智能增加政治知识的效果与自我导向的互联网搜索一样有效。

IF 4.8

PNAS nexus Pub Date : 2026-10-06 eCollection Date: 2026-10-01 DOI: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag305

Lennart Luettgau, Hannah Rose Kirk, Kobi Hackenburg, Jessica Bergs, Henry Davidson, Henry Ogden, Divya Siddarth, Saffron Huang, Christopher Summerfield

{"title":"Conversational AI increases political knowledge as effectively as self-directed internet search.","authors":"Lennart Luettgau, Hannah Rose Kirk, Kobi Hackenburg, Jessica Bergs, Henry Davidson, Henry Ogden, Divya Siddarth, Saffron Huang, Christopher Summerfield","doi":"10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag305","DOIUrl":"10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag305","url":null,"abstract":"Conversational AI systems are increasingly being used in place of traditional search engines to help users complete information-seeking tasks. This has raised concerns in the political domain, where biased or hallucinated outputs could misinform voters or distort public opinion. However, in spite of these concerns, the extent to which conversational AI is used for political information-seeking, as well as the potential impact of this use on users' political knowledge, remains uncertain. Here, we address these questions: First, in a representative national survey of the UK public (n = 2,499), we find that in the week before the 2024 election, as many as 32% of chatbot users-and 13% of eligible UK voters-have used conversational AI to seek political information relevant to their electoral choice. Second, in a series of randomized controlled trials (n = 2,858 total), we find that across issues, models, and prompting strategies, task-directed conversations with AI to research-specific political topics increase political knowledge (increase belief in true information and decrease belief in misinformation) to the same extent as self-directed Google search. Taken together, our results suggest that people in the United Kingdom are increasingly turning to conversational AI for information about politics. These findings substantially extend prior work by demonstrating that conversational AI's effects on political knowledge generalize across multiple topics, political perspectives, and model families, suggesting that the shift toward AI-assisted political information-seeking may not lead to increased public belief in political misinformation.","PeriodicalId":74468,"journal":{"name":"PNAS nexus","volume":"5 10","pages":"pgag305"},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2026-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13639898/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149119803","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Correction to: Sequence-encoded conformational biases correlate with self-assembly modes of intrinsically disordered proteins. 更正：序列编码的构象偏差与内在无序蛋白质的自组装模式相关。

IF 4.8

PNAS nexus Pub Date : 2026-10-06 eCollection Date: 2026-10-01 DOI: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag331

引用次数: 0

Correction to: Extrapolating rock physicochemical properties from discrete sample data using computer vision. 修正：使用计算机视觉从离散样本数据推断岩石物理化学性质。

IF 4.8

PNAS nexus Pub Date : 2026-09-29 eCollection Date: 2026-09-01 DOI: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag325

引用次数: 0

Universal scaling laws in freeway traffic. 高速公路交通的普遍尺度规律。

IF 4.8

PNAS nexus Pub Date : 2026-09-29 eCollection Date: 2026-09-01 DOI: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag302

Garyoung Lee, Aryaman Jha, Kurt Wiesenfeld, Jorge Laval

引用次数: 0

How large language models judge and influence human cooperation. 语言模型如何判断和影响人类的合作。

IF 4.8

PNAS nexus Pub Date : 2026-09-29 eCollection Date: 2026-09-01 DOI: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag297

Alexandre S Pires, Laurens Samson, Sennay Ghebreab, Fernando P Santos

{"title":"How large language models judge and influence human cooperation.","authors":"Alexandre S Pires, Laurens Samson, Sennay Ghebreab, Fernando P Santos","doi":"10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag297","DOIUrl":"10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag297","url":null,"abstract":"Humans increasingly rely on large language models (LLMs) to support decisions in social settings. Previous work suggests that such tools can shape people's moral judgments. However, how LLMs evaluate decisions in social dilemmas, and the long-term implications of LLM-based assessments on human cooperation-driven by indirect reciprocity, reputations, and the capacity to judge interactions of others-remain unclear. We evaluate the social norms of 21 state-of-the-art LLMs when judging more than 40,000 fictitious decisions in social dilemmas. Through an evolutionary game-theoretical model, we study prosociality in populations adhering to these norms, theoretically studying their potential impact on long-term human cooperation. We observe a remarkable agreement in LLMs when evaluating actions against opponents perceived as good. Yet, there is large within- and between-model variance when assessing actions toward ill-reputed individuals. Our theoretical analysis reveals that these differences can significantly impact the prevalence of cooperation within our model. Finally, we show that prompt-based interventions can steer LLM norms, particularly when these define objective goals. Our theoretical model links LLM-based advice to long-term social dynamics, highlighting the importance of designing LLM norms considering their potential effects on human cooperation.","PeriodicalId":74468,"journal":{"name":"PNAS nexus","volume":"5 9","pages":"pgag297"},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2026-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13621558/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149083146","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

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