British journal of psychology最新文献

Interpretations of physiological arousal may be a key pathway connecting stress-related physiological arousal intensity to physiological and affective consequences of stress. Expressive suppression is linked to increased perceptions of stressors as threatening, which may exacerbate associations between physiological arousal intensity and interpretations of physiological arousal as debilitative. However, the effect of expressive suppression on the association between perceptions of physiological arousal intensity and interpretation remains untested. A sample of 224 undergraduate students completed two psychological acute stress tasks and rated the intensity of their perceived physiological arousal and whether they believed this physiological arousal to be facilitative or debilitative. Before the second stress task, half of the participants were randomly assigned to be instructed to engage in expressive suppression during the task; the remaining participants were instructed to not suppress their emotional expressions. Experimental group assignment moderated associations between physiological arousal intensity and interpretation. In the suppression group, within-person increases in physiological arousal intensity were more strongly associated with more debilitative physiological interpretations. The present study suggests that engaging in expressive suppression during stress causes increases in the intensity of perceived physiological arousal to be interpreted as more debilitating, with implications for stress-related anxiety.

Psychology and AI have a long and interconnected history that dates from Turing's famous query: 'Can machines think?' Since that time, insights into human perception, cognition, language and intelligence have passed between these fields in both directions. Psychological phenomena have fuelled the development of AI, and in parallel, the failures/successes of AI have informed theoretical models of psychological phenomena. In the past decade, the pace of this exchange has quickened, along with AI's impressive gains in achieving human-like feats of intelligence. This Special Issue examines the use of artificial intelligence in psychological research and covers a wide range of topics including: Explainable AI, the development of computational models of psychological processes, the nature of human interactions with AI and the use of AI as a creative and powerful tool for psychological research. Studies of Explainable AI aim to understand the decisions and actions of an AI in human terms. AI-based models of human perception, cognition, and language can ground theories of these processes and can be manipulated and used in hypothesis testing. Studying human interactions with AI can provide a window into the mental models we form of other types of intelligent systems. At the level of social interaction, psychologists can ask whether and how AI is changing human behaviour, both in the near- and far-term. In this Special Issue, we see examples of research aimed at each of these questions. This guest editorial provides a brief history of how psychology and AI have evolved to arrive at this point in time. We also provide an overview of the diverse contents of this issue. These papers give a glimpse of the next chapter in the co-evolution of AI and psychology.

This study examined the relationships between generalized trust, climate change conspiracy beliefs and freecycling - a community-based free-item sharing pro-environmental behaviour. It also explored the role of societal factors in relation to participation in freecycling, as well as how they are associated with these relationships. Using a panel method, we conducted an online survey with 16,773 participants, stratified by age, gender and region across 34 countries/societies. Key findings indicate that generalized trust and, unexpectedly, climate change conspiracy beliefs are positively associated with freecycling participation. Our exploratory results show that freecycling is more prevalent in developing societies, characterized by stronger beliefs in reward for application and religiosity, a lesser emphasis on uncertainty avoidance and a preference for short-term over long-term orientation. Cross-level moderation analysis indicates that generalized trust is more strongly linked to freecycling in developing societies; its association with freecycle giving is also stronger in cultures with lower reward for application. Climate change conspiracy beliefs are more strongly linked to freecycling in societies with lower uncertainty avoidance. By addressing gaps in the existing literature, particularly the need for cross-cultural comparisons, our research offers valuable insights into the construct of freecycling. As we navigate the complexities of hyperconsumerism and climate change conspiracy beliefs, scepticism towards mainstream narratives may sometimes be associated with individuals seeking alternative, grassroots solutions. Promoting freecycling could encourage sustainability, strengthening community connections and empowering individuals to take direct action in response to their doubts, potentially contributing to a more resilient and environmentally aware society.

This paper presents two complementary studies on the impact of neurodivergent conditions such as autism, AD(H)D, dyslexia/dyscalculia and giftedness on well-being. In Study 1, survey data from 2157 participants in a true probabilistic sample of Dutch households show that respondents with autism and ADHD report significantly lower life satisfaction and higher levels of stress and maladjustment than neurotypical peers. Other conditions present more nuanced patterns. Study 2 builds on Self-Determination Theory and uses Large Language Models (LLMs) to analyse 2214 Reddit life stories, evaluating the mediating role of autonomy, competence and relatedness need fulfilment in the relationship between neurodivergence and well-being. Our results indicate that giftedness and dyslexia are positively related to psychological needs satisfaction, whereas other neurodivergent conditions are predominantly negatively associated with needs fulfilment. Indirect association analyses show that, except for ADD, the fulfilment of autonomy, competence and relatedness needs accounts for the association between neurodivergence on the one hand and life satisfaction and stress on the other hand. This study provides initial empirical evidence and contributes novel empirical insights by combining multimethod data sources and LLM-based narrative analysis, advancing our understanding of how different forms of neurodivergence affect well-being.

Emotions modulate spatial memory, yet their impact remains inconsistent across contexts. For example, fear may enhance attention to landmarks or induce spatial disorientation. Traditional emotion-memory models, mainly focused on episodic memory, fail to account for these mixed effects. We propose that emotional valence affects spatial memory as a function of both the memory phase (encoding, maintenance, retrieval) and the reference frame: egocentric (body-centred) or allocentric (environment-based). In three experiments, we manipulated the timing of emotional stimuli while participants performed spatial memory tasks. Negative emotion impaired egocentric encoding, whereas positive emotion reduced allocentric encoding. During maintenance, both valences broadly disrupted spatial performance, suggesting interference with cognitive control. At retrieval, only allocentric judgements were affected. Moreover, individual traits such as mood, interoception and alexithymia predicted egocentric more than allocentric performance. These findings support a stage-dependent model in which emotional stimuli interact dynamically with spatial representations. This framework offers a novel perspective to reconcile conflicting results in the literature and advances understanding of how affective states shape adaptive and maladaptive spatial behaviours.

This study examines the cyclical relationship between social norms, personal costs of action and pro-environmental behaviour, using a novel dynamic path model to analyse temporal and feedback effects. Recognizing that environmental action often involves a trade-off between individual costs and social expectations, we explore how perceptions of social norms influence environmental decisions and, conversely, how individual behaviours shape norm perceptions. We investigate the roles of social norm misperceptions, where individuals misjudge the environmental commitment of peers, and normative feedback, designed to correct these misestimations, in motivating or demotivating sustainable behaviours. Through a controlled experimental design involving sequential tasks and feedback interventions, we capture how normative feedback impacts pro-environmental choices over time. Results indicate that, when normative feedback reduces the perception of social isolation around sustainable actions, pro-environmental behaviour is sustained, albeit contingent on environmental attitudes. These findings advance our understanding of normative interventions and the complex dynamics underlying environmental decision-making.

Individuals with attachment insecurities, particularly attachment anxiety, often report subjective working memory deficits (SWMD). However, the psychological mechanisms underlying this relationship remain poorly understood. In this project, we propose that borderline personality disorder (BPD) features help explain this link. We tested this model across three studies, including one preregistered study, conducted with Russian, Turkish, and Polish samples. In Study 1, both attachment anxiety and avoidance predicted SWMD, with the former effect being stronger than the latter. The indirect effects of attachment anxiety and avoidance on SWMD via BPD were significant, with the former effect being stronger as the latter. Study 2 introduced gaze anxiety as an additional mediator, revealing that attachment avoidance had stronger indirect effects via gaze anxiety, a potential pre-emptive strategy, while attachment anxiety's effect was stronger via BPD, a potential post-emptive pathway. In preregistered Study 3, reflective functioning mediated the associations between attachment insecurities and SWMD, contrary to our moderation hypothesis. Importantly, relationships between attachment anxiety and SWMD remained robust after controlling for personality traits and personality disorders. Results are consistent with the role of different regulatory strategies in explaining how attachment insecurities contribute to subjective cognitive difficulties.

While irrational beliefs cluster together, their content differs widely, from beliefs about collective memories shaping biological properties (pseudoscientific) to those about premonition (extrasensory). This difference might extend further-they might reflect a similar information processing style but be differently embedded in worldviews; for example, pseudoscientific beliefs are typically endorsed by conservatives. Across three studies (two preregistered) in two post-conflict countries (total N = 1042), followed by an internal meta-analysis, we investigated whether pseudoscientific and extrasensory perception beliefs (1) are related to a less analytical but more intuitive thinking style, prone to contradictions and fatalistic thinking, but (2) are differentially linked to a conservative, authoritarian and ethnocentric worldview, and (3) are differentially related to past use of non-evidence-based practices, extrasensory perception experiences and civic activism. As expected, both beliefs were similarly predicted by information processing style. However, they were also similarly predicted by authoritarian and, to a lesser extent, ethnocentric views. Moreover, both beliefs were tied to similar behavioural patterns. We argue that the relationship among a conservative worldview, irrational beliefs and socially relevant behaviours is important for understanding how public policies get politicized.

Parenting styles are widely recognized as influencing academic achievement; however, the mechanisms underlying this relationship remain inadequately understood. Drawing on the dynamic systems theory and the family systems theory, the present study recruited 481 children (222 boys, Mage = 9.90 ± 0.69 years old) to investigate the longitudinal associations between positive/negative parenting styles and academic achievement and to further explore how learning anxiety and learning engagement may mediate these relationships. Results indicated that (1) negative parenting, but not positive parenting, had a negative direct effect on academic achievement; (2) both positive and negative parenting predicted higher academic achievement through increased learning engagement, but not through learning anxiety; and (3) learning anxiety and learning engagement acted as sequential mediators in the link between positive parenting styles and academic achievement. Overall, these findings highlight how parenting approaches shape children's learning and academic results by influencing their emotional and motivational characteristics from a developmental perspective.

With the advances in AI technology, comparison studies between humans and AI can not only enhance our understanding of information processing mechanisms underlying human cognition but also facilitate our understanding of AI systems' behaviour and interactions with humans. In particular, explainable AI (XAI) methods, including both computational and experimental methods, can be used to reveal the mechanisms underlying AI's behaviour and its interactions with humans. This information can be used (1) as computational models to study human behaviour, (2) for updating users' beliefs about AI during the interactions, and (3) for evaluation purposes to examine potential ethical issues associated with AI adoption. Different AI systems may require different XAI methods to accurately reveal their underlying mechanisms to facilitate the comparisons with humans. Thus, an important future research direction is to develop task-specific XAI methods through interdisciplinary approaches across psychology and AI to benefit both psychological research and the development of ethical AI.