Editorials

Humans are a social species, and one expression of this is prosocial behaviour: we often behave in ways that do not directly benefit ourselves, but others. On International Volunteer Day, we are launching a Collection on prosocial behaviour to celebrate its importance as a core human behaviour.

Waste is not only a material issue but also a social one. Our Focus on waste highlights the crucial role of the human perspective, and calls for the recentring of human experience, equity and local knowledge in waste management. A people-centred approach is essential for creating strategies that are both effective and equitable, and promote environmental, health and social justice for all.

The Global Flourishing Study is a longitudinal panel study that is collecting nationally representative, multidimensional well-being data from more than 200,000 people in 22 geographically and culturally diverse countries. The first wave of results highlights the value of tracking a rich set of flourishing indicators for both science and policy.

Menstruation is a natural part of life that has important health and societal implications, yet it remains rarely spoken about and stigmatized. Our November issue discusses why talking openly about menstruation matters and what to include in the conversation. A stigma-free and inclusive environment for discussion will help to address period poverty and gender inequity, and ensure health and dignity for all.

As digital technologies become ever more pervasive and sophisticated, understanding the nuances of the relationship between humans and machines becomes increasingly important. Spanning a range of disciplines, from computer science and psychology to medicine and education, this issue’s Focus includes a diverse array of voices and perspectives on the many ways in which humans and digital machines interact and communicate with each other, as well as the societal implications and ethical considerations of emerging technologies.

Plagiarism is never acceptable, but when is it appropriate for scholars to reuse their own words in published papers?

Our understanding of the human past is changing rapidly, and this does not come from new evidence alone. We are seeing an increasing diversity of perspectives among archaeologists, and they are asking new and important questions. But the field still has a long way to go.

Nature Human Behaviour is partnering with the Institute for Replication for the large-scale reproduction and replication of our published research.

Fewer than one in ten research articles are posted as preprints. Yet sharing research on public repositories comes with many advantages and few caveats. At Nature Human Behaviour, we encourage researchers to embrace preprints to jumpstart the communication of research findings.

Although artificial intelligence (AI) was already ubiquitous, the recent arrival of generative AI has ushered in a new era of possibilities as well as risks. This Focus explores the wide-ranging impacts of AI tools on science and society, examining both their potential and their pitfalls.

We spend a lot of time on the manuscripts we publish, from pre-review evaluation and finding reviewers to post-review decisions and revision evaluations. However, we reserve the closest level of scrutiny for manuscripts that have successfully passed the peer review process and are in preparation for acceptance.

Science is international, but scientific publishing is dominated by English-language publications. This disproportionately benefits native or fluent English speakers. We want to take steps to address the imbalance this creates, and new technology may help.

On 5 May, the World Health Organization lifted its designation of COVID-19 as a public health emergency of international concern. The abatement of the pandemic represents an extraordinary scientific achievement. However, COVID-19 remains a threat and its effects will continue to be felt for years.

We are updating our guidance on how to write titles and abstracts for papers in Nature Human Behaviour to ensure that readers are provided with more information about the scope and strength of evidence presented.

The majority of empirical articles that we publish use null-hypothesis significance testing. In most cases, researchers rely on P values to establish the scientific or practical significance of their findings. However, statistical significance alone provides very little information that is useful for making inferences about scientific or policy significance. For this reason, we require authors to provide much more information than just P values — in this Editorial, we explain our requirements.

The freedom to research and publish without fear of state retribution is one that many academics take as a given. Unfortunately, this basic freedom is not universal.

Climate change is an immense challenge. Human behaviour is crucial in climate change mitigation, and in tackling the arising consequences. In this joint Focus issue between Nature Climate Change and Nature Human Behaviour, we take a closer look at the role of human behaviour in the climate crisis.

In a recent editorial, we announced the adoption of new ethics guidance for research about human groups. In this follow-up editorial, we provide background and examples to clarify why we developed this guidance and how we will be using it.

New ethics guidance addresses potential harms for human population groups who do not participate in research but may be harmed by its publication.

For years, researchers have interrogated scientists’ own research practices. A computational research stream, often termed ‘science of science’, studies the signatures these practices leave in big data. As the field matures, it is looking for ways to use its data-driven insights to make a tangible mark in science policy.