Reviews & Analysis

Theoretical models of resilience have shifted from a focus on factors to a focus on mechanisms. In this Review, Schäfer et al. discuss concrete pathways for updating resilience interventions to reflect current theories and to enhance their effectiveness.

The dynamics of identity formation and consolidation are particularly salient in adolescence, and identity processes later in life are strongly rooted in the choices made in adolescence. In this Review, Crocetti describes the theoretical models and processes that underlie the development of adolescent identity, their implications for personal and collective outcomes, and potential interventions.

Perception unfolds within richly structured spatiotemporal environments but is often studied in simplified contexts. In this Perspective, Pascucci and Kristjánsson describe how spatial and temporal context guide perception and behaviour through spatiotemporal routines.

The growing prevalence of artificial intelligence raises questions about when, why and how people trust machines — and whether they should do so in the first place. In this Review, Everett et al. identify six principles that can structure an understanding of trust in AI and consider the ethical implications of studying trust in AI.

Decreased sound tolerance refers to alterations in a person’s ability to cope with everyday sounds that do not bother most people. In this Review, Scheerer et al. synthesize evidence supporting that two frequent subtypes of these alterations, hyperacusis and misophonia, are transdiagnostic to psychopathology.

The framework of individualism versus collectivism has encouraged conceptions of culture as dichotomous, bounded, monolithic and stable. In this Review, Uskul and Mesquita describe research that moves beyond these conceptualizations of culture and considers research on a wider range of cultural variety in psychological tendencies, within-nation variation and cultural dynamics.

In laboratory extinction learning with non-human animals, later relapses or amplifications of the extinguished behaviour are difficult to explain. In this Perspective, Anselme and Güntürkün argue that behaviours that seem paradoxical in the laboratory are functionally meaningful for animals in the wild.

Self-knowledge plays a central role in contemporary psychological science. However, unresolved conceptual and methodological issues have hindered theoretical integration and cumulative scientific progress. In this Consensus Statement, Thielmann et al. identify gaps in four key areas of self-knowledge research: its conceptualization, measurement, outcomes and changeability.

A scientific consensus about what the term ‘trauma’ means has so far proven elusive. In this Review, Engelhard et al. revisit clinical psychology theories and findings to advance a common understanding of the emotional, contextual and cognitive aspects of psychological trauma.

Healthy ageing involves cognitive and functional declines, many of which intensify in Alzheimer’s dementia. In this Review, Garcia outlines key age-related changes in speech and language abilities and how these typical changes differ from changes observed in Alzheimer’s dementia.

Engaging in the arts can have mental health benefits among clinical and non-clinical groups. In this Review, Fancourt et al. identify 50 causal processes by which arts engagement influences mental health outcomes and integrate them into a theoretical model, the ‘arts exposome’.

There is substantial variation across people in navigation ability, which is shaped by multiple factors. In this Review, Yavuz and Spiers organize these factors into lifetime, lifestyle and personal attributes, and discuss the cognitive and neural mechanisms of their influences on navigation.

Consciousness-raising interventions aimed at addressing social inequities often generate intense polarization and backlash. In this Review, Bettache demonstrates that such interventions are a psychologically necessary response to harmful cultural schemas and that resistance to these interventions is a predictable reaction to schema disruption.

Language production and comprehension are often studied as separate processes, but they are intertwined in naturalistic conversation. In this Review, Holler and Kuhlen summarize how visual signals, feedback and multi-party interactions contribute to language processing and require further study.

Despite decades of work on interpersonal physiological synchrony, its psychological function and meaning remains ambiguous. In this Review, Gordon and Bartsch identify social-oriented, performance-oriented and self-oriented correlates of interpersonal physiological synchrony and sources of empirical heterogeneity across the literature.

Understanding the link between anhedonia and reward processing in adolescence can enhance mental health interventions specifically for young people. In this Review, Ma et al. examine the evidence on consummatory pleasure, anticipation, motivation and learning, and discuss real-time assessment of anhedonia and the reward cycle.

Mental health awareness campaigns aim to decrease stigma, increase help-seeking and improve mental health literacy. However, they might also negatively impact how individuals interpret, label and respond to mental health problems. In this Review, Foulkes et al. summarize evidence for the positive and negative psychological impacts of mental health awareness efforts.

The literature assumes that intergroup contact is naturally occurring, positive and consistently associated with positive outcomes, but these premises are inconsistent with everyday intergroup contact experiences. In this Perspective, Paolini et al. propose that variations in contact valence and environmental affordances for self-selection influence segregation dynamics, leading to stable trajectories of contact and intergroup bias.

How numerical information is expressed in language shapes the mental processes that underlie numerical reasoning. In this Review, Berteletti and colleagues compare the impacts of spoken and signed languages on numerical cognition and detail how future work with signed languages can enrich understanding of these impacts.

Behavioural and psychosocial interventions can effectively reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. In this Perspective, Burg et al. identify the elements and actions needed for a broad implementation of these interventions in standard cardiovascular care.