Zachary Tan, Xizhuo Zou, Daniel P. Skorich, Eliane Deschrijver
{"title":"Discrimination in autism as measured by minimal group and sheer difference experiments","authors":"Zachary Tan, Xizhuo Zou, Daniel P. Skorich, Eliane Deschrijver","doi":"10.1111/bjop.70074","DOIUrl":"10.1111/bjop.70074","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Autistic individuals often show fewer social biases than neurotypical people. Whether they show fewer discriminatory tendencies is however unclear. The present study examined discriminatory tendencies in autistic versus neurotypical individuals in the minimal group paradigm and the novel ‘sheer difference’ paradigm. Seventy-five autistic and neurotypical participants were recruited for each group, totalling 150 participants. In the ‘sheer difference’ paradigm, participants received a coin toss outcome in each trial, after which they were tasked to assign points to a single other participant who had received the same versus a different coin flip outcome. In the minimal group paradigm, participants were assigned to a group based on coin flips, and then, they assigned points to members of their own group versus the other group. The ‘sheer difference’ paradigm contributes to the study's aims by testing in autism whether discrimination can also follow from <i>individual</i> rather than group-based difference versus sameness. We found that discriminatory tendencies can come about on both individual and group levels. We did not find clear differences between autistic and neurotypical populations, with implications for the way in which we conceptualize discrimination and understand autism.</p>","PeriodicalId":9300,"journal":{"name":"British journal of psychology","volume":"117 4","pages":"1449-1468"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/bjop.70074","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147715769","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}
Zhifang Hu, Yue Lin, Zongyuan Wang, JingJing Shi, Qinxue Liu
{"title":"Problematic smartphone use in early adolescence: Developmental heterogeneity and bidirectional links with risk factors","authors":"Zhifang Hu, Yue Lin, Zongyuan Wang, JingJing Shi, Qinxue Liu","doi":"10.1111/bjop.70081","DOIUrl":"10.1111/bjop.70081","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Smartphones offer convenience but have raised concerns about problematic smartphone use (PSU), particularly among early adolescents whose cognitive control is still developing. Examining developmental heterogeneity in PSU and its associated risk factors during this period has important theoretical and practical implications. Participants were 1821 Chinese children transitioning into early adolescence (M<sub>age</sub> = 9.57 years; 48.5% female), followed annually for three years. Growth mixture modelling identified distinct PSU trajectories, and bidirectional associations with internal (e.g., shyness, depression, anxiety) and external factors (e.g., parental neglect, peer exclusion) were examined. Cross-lagged network analysis further assessed interval-specific variation in predictive associations. Two trajectories emerged: a low-decreasing group (intercept = 1.845, slope = −0.120) and a high-increasing group (intercept = 2.110, slope = 0.348). Early adolescents in the high-increasing group experienced more adverse environments and reported higher levels of risk factors. PSU was primarily predicted by external factors in early intervals, whereas both personal and environmental factors became influential in later intervals. These findings highlight the heterogeneous and dynamic nature of PSU and support early, targeted family-focused interventions.</p>","PeriodicalId":9300,"journal":{"name":"British journal of psychology","volume":"117 4","pages":"1570-1594"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147867001","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 effects of implicit emotion regulation on impulsive choice","authors":"Dawei Wang, Linrui Zhang, Jiahui Li, Wenxu Mao, Mengmeng Zhou, Ziying Lu, Xiuqing Qiao, Yixin Hu","doi":"10.1111/bjop.70067","DOIUrl":"10.1111/bjop.70067","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Impulsive choice is closely associated with heightened engagement in risk-related behaviours, and emotion regulation may play a critical role in how immediate emotions influence choice outcomes, with different strategies producing distinct effects. Grounded in the Affective Information Theory and the Appraisal-Tendency Framework, we investigated the effects of two widely adopted implicit emotion regulation strategies, cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression, on impulsive choice across specific emotional states through two experiments. Results revealed that individuals exhibited a stronger preference for larger-later (LL) rewards under happiness compared to anger, while no significant difference emerged in preference for delayed options between anger and fear conditions. Both implicit cognitive reappraisal and implicit expressive suppression strategies effectively reduced the selection proportion of smaller-sooner (SS) rewards with comparable efficacy. Furthermore, both strategies demonstrated significant regulatory effects on anger, happiness and fear, with implicit expressive suppression potentially exhibiting superior applicability for fear modulation. These findings enrich theories of emotion regulation and refine the theoretical framework linking emotional states to choice behaviour, offering novel directions for interventions aimed at reducing impulsive choice.</p>","PeriodicalId":9300,"journal":{"name":"British journal of psychology","volume":"117 4","pages":"1326-1344"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147430439","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":"A meta-analysis of perceived infectability, germ aversion, disgust and outgroup perceptions: Evaluating research on the behavioural immune system","authors":"Matt C. Howard, Maggie M. Davis, Emory Serviss","doi":"10.1111/bjop.70076","DOIUrl":"10.1111/bjop.70076","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Scholarship on the behavioural immune system suggests that people who perceive themselves as more susceptible to illnesses are more sensitive to disgust, providing an evolutionary advantage to avoid pathogenic stimuli. This sensitivity causes those with greater perceived susceptibility to be biased against outgroup members and avoid those with dissimilar immunological histories. However, the lack of a quantitative review forces researchers to derive arguments from specific empirical observations, rather than holistically drawing from averaged effects across studies. Researchers may over-rely on studies that produced atypical results, causing biases in research on perceived infectability, germ aversion, disgust and outgroup perceptions. To resolve this tension in the literature, we perform a meta-analysis of 74 sources. Our meta-analytic results demonstrate that perceived infectability produces small relations with disgust and non-significant relations with outgroup perceptions, whereas a construct commonly conflated with perceived infectability, germ aversion, produces larger relations with these two outcomes. A meta-analytic structural equation model demonstrates that the indirect effect of perceived infectability on outgroup perceptions via the mediator of disgust is not statistically significant. These findings indicate that, while perceived infectability relates to disgust, the construct does not relate to perceptions of outgroup members, counter to scholarship on the behavioural immune system.</p>","PeriodicalId":9300,"journal":{"name":"British journal of psychology","volume":"117 4","pages":"1495-1525"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147715786","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":"Mindful understanding of the interconnected world: The synergistic effects of mindfulness and interconnectedness in driving collective action and autonomous motivation","authors":"Floria H. N. Chio, Ben C. L. Yu, Winnie W. S. Mak","doi":"10.1111/bjop.70080","DOIUrl":"10.1111/bjop.70080","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The present study examined the roles of interconnectedness and mindfulness in collective action participation and the motivations underlying the participation. Two studies were conducted. In Study 1, 377 participants completed measures of mindfulness, interconnectedness, collective action intention and participation at baseline, with 308 and 279 participants completing follow-up assessments 1 and 2 months later, respectively. Results showed that after accounting for baseline mindfulness, baseline interconnectedness has an indirect effect on collective action participation at 2-month follow-up through collective action intention at 1-month follow-up. Mindfulness showed no significant interaction effect with interconnectedness in predicting collective action intention or participation. In Study 2, 308 participants completed measures of mindfulness, interconnectedness, autonomous motivations and collective action at baseline, with 268 participants completing the 2-month follow-up assessment. Results showed that the effect of baseline interconnectedness on subsequent levels of autonomous motivations was contingent on baseline mindfulness, with mindfulness amplifying the beneficial effects of interconnectedness on autonomous motivations at 2-month follow-up. In addition, identified motivation was significantly associated with collective action at 2-month follow-up. These findings suggest that interconnectedness may serve as the primary intentional driver of collective action, whereas mindfulness may help translate interconnectedness into more autonomous motivation for participation.</p>","PeriodicalId":9300,"journal":{"name":"British journal of psychology","volume":"117 4","pages":"1551-1569"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/bjop.70080","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147833985","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":"The shape of time: How temporal landmarks influence shape preference","authors":"Huijie Zhu, Shichang Liang, Wenrong Chen, Lixiao Geng, Yizheng Zhou, Xuanyu Chen","doi":"10.1111/bjop.70082","DOIUrl":"10.1111/bjop.70082","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This research investigates how temporal landmarks (such as the beginning or end of a period) influence individuals' preferences for shapes (angular vs. circular). In contrast to prior research that explored shape preferences without specific time reference points (e.g., nostalgia), we examine how temporal cues influence shape preference through explicit time reference points. We conducted three experiments manipulating temporal landmark (start vs. end) across three scenarios: the same time on different days, different times on the same day and the same time on the same day. These experiments also assessed individuals' preferences for angular versus circular shapes in both two- and three-dimensional formats. The results show that individuals at a start temporal landmark prefer angular shapes, whereas those at an end temporal landmark prefer circular shapes, which is mediated by ego depletion. We further found that temporal orientation (present vs. future) moderates the influences of temporal landmarks on individuals' shape preferences. While individuals with present temporal orientation are consistent with the main effect, individuals with future temporal orientation have an opposite behaviour (individuals at a start temporal landmark prefer circular shapes, whereas those at an end temporal landmark prefer angular shapes).</p>","PeriodicalId":9300,"journal":{"name":"British journal of psychology","volume":"117 4","pages":"1595-1617"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147867038","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}
Meghan E. Quinn, Mary E. Kleinman, John P. Standring, Qimin Liu
{"title":"Relations among daily symptoms of depression","authors":"Meghan E. Quinn, Mary E. Kleinman, John P. Standring, Qimin Liu","doi":"10.1111/bjop.70072","DOIUrl":"10.1111/bjop.70072","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Research has often treated depression as a unitary construct, relying on severity scores or diagnostic thresholds; however, recent studies emphasize that depression is a heterogeneous disorder characterized by dynamic symptom interactions. We aimed to identify unique relations among depressive symptoms when examined longitudinally. We used a 28-day daily diary design in young adults (<i>N</i> = 363). Three symptom networks, estimated from Bayesian structural equation modelling, identified key symptoms that (1) predicted other symptoms within individuals over time (within-subject temporal), (2) co-occurred within the same day (within-subject contemporaneous) and (3) clustered across individuals (between-subject). Results revealed that (1) at the within-subject level, higher levels of sleep disturbance, sad mood, and concentration difficulties predicted higher levels of multiple symptoms the following day, (2) at the within-subject level, sad mood, anhedonia, and fatigue tended to co-occur with many other symptoms and (3) at the between-subject level, individuals with higher levels of anhedonia, anxiety and concentration difficulties tended to experience a broader range of depressive symptoms. These findings underscore the complexity of depressive symptom interactions and highlight potential ways in which depression may manifest. Future research should explore the identified relations to clarify causal relations among symptoms as well as trait-level vulnerability to symptoms.</p>","PeriodicalId":9300,"journal":{"name":"British journal of psychology","volume":"117 4","pages":"1432-1448"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/bjop.70072","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147644209","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}
James D. Dunn, David White, Clare A. M. Sutherland, Elizabeth J. Miller, Ben A. Steward, Amy Dawel
{"title":"Too good to be true: Synthetic AI faces are more average than real faces and super-recognizers know it","authors":"James D. Dunn, David White, Clare A. M. Sutherland, Elizabeth J. Miller, Ben A. Steward, Amy Dawel","doi":"10.1111/bjop.70063","DOIUrl":"10.1111/bjop.70063","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The AI revolution has produced synthetic faces that often appear more human than photos of real people. We tested whether individual differences in human face recognition ability explain variation in discriminating AI from real faces. Super-recognizers – people with exceptional ability to recognize human faces (<i>N</i> = 36) – outperformed a typical sample by 15% and by 7% compared to a group of higher performing, motivated control participants (Cohen's <i>d</i> = 0.55; <i>N</i> = 89). Individual difference analysis revealed that this pattern reflected a positive association between human face recognition and AI face discrimination abilities. AI discrimination ability was also associated with individuals' sensitivity to the ‘hyper-average’ appearance of AI faces. Deep neural networks optimized for face identity processing confirmed a more central distribution of AI faces in face-space. Moreover, centrality was associated with a higher probability of super-recognizers judging the faces as AI, but this pattern was not observed for controls. Super-recognizers' correct interpretation of hyper-averageness as a cue to artificiality constitutes the first mechanistic link between evolved expertise in face processing and AI face detection and addresses a common misconception regarding the structure of human face space.</p>","PeriodicalId":9300,"journal":{"name":"British journal of psychology","volume":"117 4","pages":"1279-1294"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/bjop.70063","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146218722","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}
Anastasiya Lopukhina, Holly Cooper, Cheng-Yu Hsieh, Walter J. B. van Heuven, Kathleen Rastle
{"title":"No evidence that same-language subtitles improve children's reading fluency","authors":"Anastasiya Lopukhina, Holly Cooper, Cheng-Yu Hsieh, Walter J. B. van Heuven, Kathleen Rastle","doi":"10.1111/bjop.70066","DOIUrl":"10.1111/bjop.70066","url":null,"abstract":"<p>High-profile campaigns globally have argued that same-language television subtitles may help children improve their reading. In this intervention study, we tested the causal hypothesis that exposure to subtitles improves children's reading fluency. We tested 127 British children in Years 2 and 3 before and after a 6-week home-based intervention, in which children were randomly assigned to an experimental group that watched television with English subtitles or a control group that watched television without subtitles. Children's reading fluency was assessed via two standard tests of reading fluency and their engagement with subtitles while watching videos, measured with eye-tracking. Results showed that both groups improved their reading fluency over 6 weeks. Crucially, there was no evidence that subtitle exposure (of around 66 hr on average) drove an improvement in reading fluency, or that greater subtitle exposure provided any additional benefit. We conclude that same-language subtitles are unlikely to improve children's reading fluency. However, the primary school reading curriculum has a positive impact on reading fluency that can be observed over a relatively short time-scale.</p>","PeriodicalId":9300,"journal":{"name":"British journal of psychology","volume":"117 4","pages":"1308-1325"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/bjop.70066","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147376150","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":"The developmental trajectories of working memory updating from early childhood to adolescence: A meta-analysis","authors":"Ye Song, Chen Cheng","doi":"10.1111/bjop.70069","DOIUrl":"10.1111/bjop.70069","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Working memory updating is a crucial cognitive function for learning and academic achievement that develops significantly throughout childhood and adolescence. Despite the varieties of existing tasks to measure children's working memory updating, its overall developmental trajectory and task-specific developmental patterns remain inadequately understood. This meta-analysis examined 99 studies (<i>N</i> = 35,858 participants) on working memory updating performance in individuals aged 3 to 17 years, using a range of updating paradigms. Results revealed three key findings. Firstly, a significant positive developmental trend with the largest improvements was observed in early to middle childhood (ages 3–8) (<i>d</i> = 2.29). Secondly, meta-regression analyses revealed that while both linear and quadratic models adequately described the developmental trajectory, the quadratic model provides superior fit, indicating steeper improvements in early childhood that gradually level off in adolescence. Thirdly, task-specific analyses demonstrated distinct developmental patterns: backward recall tasks exhibited the strongest age-related improvement (<i>β</i> = .21), whereas n-back and selective updating tasks showed relatively flat trajectories. Together these findings suggest that working memory updating follows a curvilinear developmental progression with substantial task-specific variations. This comprehensive analysis provides valuable insights for understanding the development of working memory updating and practical implications for age-appropriate cognitive function measures.</p>","PeriodicalId":9300,"journal":{"name":"British journal of psychology","volume":"117 4","pages":"1367-1395"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/bjop.70069","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147622026","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}