Br J Psychol [JOURNAL]
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200 papers
Introducing the British Psychological Society Journal's landmark issue on co-produced research.
Sirois FM
Br J Psychol · 2026 Apr · PMID 42026945 · Publisher ↗
Abstract loading — click title to view on PubMed.
A meta-analysis of perceived infectability, germ aversion, disgust and outgroup perceptions: Evaluating research on the behavioural immune system.
Howard MC, Davis MM, Serviss E
Br J Psychol · 2026 Apr · PMID 41999167 · Publisher ↗
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. T...
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.
From barriers to benefits: A personalized sleep intervention enhances sleep duration and emotional health in chronic short sleepers.
Wang W, Ma HYD, Chiu MM … +9 more , Cheung SF, Hui CH, Wong ML, Hsiao JH, Sun RW, Lam YC, Okabe AB, Chan CH, Lau EYY
Br J Psychol · 2026 Apr · PMID 41999135 · Publisher ↗
This pilot study evaluated a personalized sleep intervention incorporating motivational interviewing techniques to address sleep barriers, along with tailored sleep hygiene and extension for chronic short sleepers. Eleve...
This pilot study evaluated a personalized sleep intervention incorporating motivational interviewing techniques to address sleep barriers, along with tailored sleep hygiene and extension for chronic short sleepers. Eleven university students completed a 14-day sequential intervention (baseline, sleep hygiene and a combined phase adding 90-min extension), assessed via actigraphy, daily diaries, ecological momentary assessments and qualitative interviews. The intervention was highly feasible. Total sleep time increased from 5.01 h (baseline) to 5.62 h (sleep hygiene) and 6.67 h (combined phase), alongside reduced bedtime procrastination and improved sleep hygiene practices. Multilevel modelling suggested that sleep hygiene increased time in bed (+0.72 h) and morning vitality, while sleep extension further extended time in bed (+1.49 h) and total sleep time (+0.55 h). Emotional benefits were linked to within-person increases in sleep duration. Qualitative findings highlighted heterogeneous barriers and the importance of context-based personalization. These preliminary results support the potential of personalized sleep interventions to improve sleep and emotional health in chronic short sleepers, warranting further controlled trials.
Discrimination in autism as measured by minimal group and sheer difference experiments.
Tan Z, Zou X, Skorich DP … +1 more , Deschrijver E
Br J Psychol · 2026 Apr · PMID 41996209 · Publisher ↗
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...
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 individual 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.
Habitus of doubt? The role of social class narcissism in shaping psychological help conspiracy beliefs.
Molenda Z, Marchlewska M, Michalski P … +7 more , Rogoza M, Bagrowska P, Adamczyk D, Grzeszczuk M, Gawęda Ł, Pochwatko G, Karakula A
Br J Psychol · 2026 Apr · PMID 41968958 · Publisher ↗
Collective narcissism is known to fuel anti-scientific attitudes. However, its role in shaping conspiracy beliefs portraying those who use psychology to help others as manipulative or controlling remains largely unexplor...
Collective narcissism is known to fuel anti-scientific attitudes. However, its role in shaping conspiracy beliefs portraying those who use psychology to help others as manipulative or controlling remains largely unexplored. We argue that social class narcissism (i.e., exaggerated belief in the superiority of one's social group, along with sensitivity to criticism and hostility towards other groups) would foster psychological help conspiracy beliefs. Across three cross-sectional studies (N = 1863) among Polish and American participants, social class narcissism correlated with stronger psychological help conspiracy beliefs. In an experimental Study 2 (N = 1371), primed social class narcissism increased such beliefs. The last two studies further showed that social class narcissism was linked to negative attitudes towards psychological help via higher psychological help conspiracy beliefs (Studies 3-4) and lower mental health literacy (Study 4). Our findings highlight the importance of incorporating social identities into interventions targeting anti-scientific attitudes in psychology.
Relations among daily symptoms of depression.
Quinn ME, Kleinman ME, Standring JP … +1 more , Liu Q
Br J Psychol · 2026 Apr · PMID 41960730 · Publisher ↗
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 sy...
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 (N = 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.
The developmental trajectories of working memory updating from early childhood to adolescence: A meta-analysis.
Song Y, Cheng C
Br J Psychol · 2026 Apr · PMID 41937397 · Publisher ↗
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'...
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 (N = 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) (d = 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 (β = .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.
Serial dependence in time perception requires consistent motor responses, not shared memory alone.
Wu J, Serçe HO, Shi Z
Br J Psychol · 2026 Apr · PMID 41933500 · Publisher ↗
Serial dependence-the bias from recent experience on present response-has been attributed to shared memory representations, yet previous studies yielded contradictory findings about whether consistent motor responses are...
Serial dependence-the bias from recent experience on present response-has been attributed to shared memory representations, yet previous studies yielded contradictory findings about whether consistent motor responses are required. To address this debate in time perception, we tested whether serial dependence emerges when tasks share identical stimulus features but differ only in response modes. We interleaved temporal reproduction and bisection tasks using a post-cue design that held duration encoding constant while varying motor output across trials. Grounded in binding and retrieval in action control (BRAC) theory, we hypothesized that response-feature binding retrieval drives serial dependence. Using structural equation modelling (SEM), we dissociated perceptual (stimulus-driven) and decisional (response-driven) components. With the same task, we replicated repulsive perceptual serial dependence and attractive decisional carryover. Critically, both effects vanished across tasks despite identical stimulus processing-demonstrating that response-mode consistency, not shared memory alone, drives sequential biases in temporal judgements. Our SEM approach uncovered repulsive perceptual influences that standard regression missed, highlighting its power to isolate overlapping effects. These findings reveal that response-specific reactivation of event files underpins serial dependence in temporal decision-making.
Attention and vigilance advantages related to formal musical training across childhood, adolescence and young adulthood.
Román-Caballero R, Trujillo L, Martín-Sánchez PDC … +2 more , Martín-Arévalo E, Lupiáñez J
Br J Psychol · 2026 Mar · PMID 41879010 · Publisher ↗
Attention and vigilance are fundamental cognitive abilities that develop throughout childhood and adolescence and have been associated with cognitively demanding activities such as formal musical training. This cross-sec...
Attention and vigilance are fundamental cognitive abilities that develop throughout childhood and adolescence and have been associated with cognitively demanding activities such as formal musical training. This cross-sectional study examined whether individuals engaged in long-term musical training show superior attention and vigilance compared with matched controls without such training. Participants (N = 268; ages 8-34 years) were drawn from two samples of children, adolescents and adults, with musicians and nonmusicians matched on a wide array of demographic and lifestyle variables using multivariate propensity-score matching. Attentional performance was assessed using the ANTI-Vea, a validated computerized task that measures two components of vigilance - executive and arousal vigilance. Moreover, we applied advanced behavioural modelling given their sensitivity to the complex developmental trajectories in vigilance. For many indices, musically trained participants outperformed nonmusicians at all ages, with overall faster responses, fewer attentional lapses, detecting more vigilance targets and lower variability in arousal vigilance trials. Other group differences became more pronounced with age, indicating a possible dosage effect. Crucially, these findings remained after extensive control for confounders. Although the advantages associated with musical training were modest and the correlational study design, they are consistent with the hypothesis that music practice may foster domain-general cognitive skills.
The effects of implicit emotion regulation on impulsive choice.
Wang D, Zhang L, Li J … +5 more , Mao W, Zhou M, Lu Z, Qiao X, Hu Y
Br J Psychol · 2026 Mar · PMID 41814479 · Publisher ↗
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...
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.
No evidence that same-language subtitles improve children's reading fluency.
Lopukhina A, Cooper H, Hsieh CY … +2 more , van Heuven WJB, Rastle K
Br J Psychol · 2026 Mar · PMID 41795601 · Publisher ↗
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...
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.
The effectiveness of implementation intentions in children: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
Breitwieser J, Reinelt T
Br J Psychol · 2026 Mar · PMID 41784001 · Publisher ↗
Self-regulation abilities in childhood are important for long-term academic achievement and healthy development. As self-regulatory abilities are still developing, 'simple' interventions are needed to foster self-regulat...
Self-regulation abilities in childhood are important for long-term academic achievement and healthy development. As self-regulatory abilities are still developing, 'simple' interventions are needed to foster self-regulation. Implementation intentions are simple plans that could promote goal achievement in children. However, little is known about their overall effectiveness and moderating factors in children. This registered report presents a systematic review of the literature and a meta-analysis of the effects of implementation intentions on children's goal achievement. The meta-analysis included a total of 52 effect sizes from 42 studies (N = 12,957, M = 10.67 years), published between 1975 and 2025. Overall, we found a small-to-medium effect of implementation intentions in children (Hedge's g = 0.31, 95% CI [0.21; 0.41]). Study heterogeneity was high (Q(51) = 146.47, p < .001, I = 65.2%). The effects were stronger in studies with younger children and (in some analyses) children with ADHD, suggesting that implementation intentions are particularly effective when self-regulation abilities are limited. Future research should increase conceptual and methodological rigour. In addition, research and practice should aim to support children in forming strong mental representations of plans, generating high-quality plans themselves and using implementation intentions as a meta-strategy.
Suppressing food-related memories via think/no-think: Effective retrieval inhibition across weight status.
Yang X, Chen L, Li J … +1 more , Gao X
Br J Psychol · 2026 Feb · PMID 41744466 · Publisher ↗
Inhibitory control plays a critical role in regulating eating behaviour. While previous research focused primarily on motor inhibition (e.g. go/no-go tasks), the role of memory suppression remains underexplored. This stu...
Inhibitory control plays a critical role in regulating eating behaviour. While previous research focused primarily on motor inhibition (e.g. go/no-go tasks), the role of memory suppression remains underexplored. This study employed a food-specific think/no-think (TNT) paradigm to investigate two questions: (1) whether individuals can intentionally suppress food-related memories, and whether suppression performance is associated with body mass index (BMI); and (2) whether memory suppression reduces subjective food valuation. Sixty-one young female participants completed a TNT task and subsequently rated food items for liking and wanting. Results showed that recall accuracy for suppressed (No-think) items was significantly lower than for both retrieved (Think) and Baseline items, indicating suppression-induced forgetting. However, food-related memory suppression performance was not associated with BMI. Moreover, memory suppression did not significantly alter subjective ratings of liking or wanting. These findings suggest that food-related memories can be deliberately suppressed regardless of BMI, but such suppression may not influence food valuation directly. Further studies are needed to determine whether such memory suppression has any downstream impact on eating behaviour and to identify mechanisms beyond mere changes in valuation.
Too good to be true: Synthetic AI faces are more average than real faces and super-recognizers know it.
Dunn JD, White D, Sutherland CAM … +3 more , Miller EJ, Steward BA, Dawel A
Br J Psychol · 2026 Feb · PMID 41705896 · Publisher ↗
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 fr...
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 (N = 36) - outperformed a typical sample by 15% and by 7% compared to a group of higher performing, motivated control participants (Cohen's d = 0.55; N = 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.
Expressive suppression strengthens coherence between arousal intensity and arousal interpretation.
Knauft K, Tyra AT, Fergus TA … +2 more , Williams SE, Ginty AT
Br J Psychol · 2026 Feb · PMID 41636096 · Publisher ↗
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...
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.
The use of AI in psychology: A historical perspective.
O'Toole AJ, Ludvig EA
Br J Psychol · 2026 May · PMID 41588571 · Publisher ↗
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 betw...
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.
How local social norms shape global environmental action: The role of norm misperceptions in environmental attitude-behaviour cycles.
Spatola N
Br J Psychol · 2026 Jan · PMID 41578676 · Publisher ↗
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 en...
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.
Exploring the associations of generalized trust, climate change conspiracy beliefs and freecycling: Empirical evidence from 34 cultures.
Au AKY, Ng JCK, Chen SX
Br J Psychol · 2026 Jan · PMID 41578620 · Publisher ↗
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...
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.
Spatial memory under emotion: Effects across encoding, maintenance and retrieval.
Ruotolo F, Sbordone FL, Iachini T … +1 more , Ruggiero G
Br J Psychol · 2026 Jan · PMID 41578615 · Publisher ↗
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 fo...
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.
Neurodivergence and well-being: The fulfilment of fundamental psychological needs, work-related stress and life satisfaction.
van Rijswijk J, Curșeu PL
Br J Psychol · 2026 Jan · PMID 41578606 · Publisher ↗
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...
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.
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