Br J Psychol [JOURNAL]
Sun
200 papers
Language about gender/sex should be used intentionally and flexibly.
Morgenroth T
Br J Psychol · 2025 May · PMID 39815684 · Full text
In their paper, 'Conceptualizing transgender experiences in psychology: Do we have a 'true' gender?' Jackson and Bussey (British Journal of Psychology, 115, 723) critique the idea of having a 'true' gender and propose th...
In their paper, 'Conceptualizing transgender experiences in psychology: Do we have a 'true' gender?' Jackson and Bussey (British Journal of Psychology, 115, 723) critique the idea of having a 'true' gender and propose that the term 'transgender experience' may be more appropriate than 'transgender identity'. In this commentary, I reflect on the usefulness of the terms transgender identity and transgender experience and argue that both hold value and can contribute to a more nuanced discussion of gender/sex. I use the discussion of these two terms as a springboard to make a broader point: As researchers, we should use language about gender/sex flexibly and intentionally. As psychologists, we are trained to use clear operationalizations for the constructs we study, yet it is often unclear whether authors refer to biological sex, gender identity, social perception, or socialization when they speak of 'women' and 'men'. I encourage researchers to be more mindful in their language use and to engage with the nuanced terms that gender scholars (including Jackson and Bussey) have put forward when discussing gender/sex - both in the context of transgender identities and experiences and when discussing cisgender identities and experiences.
The global prevalence of emotional eating in overweight and obese populations: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
Chew HSJ, Soong RY, Ang WHD … +4 more , Ngooi JW, Park J, Yong JQYO, Goh YSS
Br J Psychol · 2025 May · PMID 39815661 · Full text
This systematic review aims to investigate the current prevalence of emotional eating and its associated factors in overweight and obese populations. We included studies that (1) reported prevalence of emotional eating;...
This systematic review aims to investigate the current prevalence of emotional eating and its associated factors in overweight and obese populations. We included studies that (1) reported prevalence of emotional eating; (2) were in the context of weight gain or overweight and obesity; (3) used a validated psychometric tool to assess emotional eating; (4) were published as an internationally referred journal article and (5) were reported in the English language. Articles were searched on eight electronic databases (CINAHL, EMBASE, PsychINFO, ProQuest, PubMed, Scopus, The Cochrane Library and Web of Science) from the journals' inception to 11 April 2024. A total of 18 studies, representing a total of 21,237 people, were included in the review. Our study suggested that emotional eating is significantly prevalent at 44.9%. High heterogeneity observed (I: 98.7%) can be attributed to differences in measurement tools for emotional eating, but not differences in geographical regions. By providing insight to the current prevalence of emotional eating and its relevant factors, this study outlines the steps to take in future research and practice to tackle emotional eating and related health issues like obesity. There is a need to develop standardized measurement tools for emotional eating, and further investigate sociodemographic factors.
Nuance and specificity always matter-Especially for all the meanings of 'gender': A reply to Jackson and Bussey (2024).
Tate CC
Br J Psychol · 2025 May · PMID 39810399 · Publisher ↗
Jackson and Bussey (The British Journal of Psychology, 2024, 115, 723) present the provocative argument that the concept of a "true gender" is not a useful conceptual object for psychology. While the article does make 2...
Jackson and Bussey (The British Journal of Psychology, 2024, 115, 723) present the provocative argument that the concept of a "true gender" is not a useful conceptual object for psychology. While the article does make 2 valid and worthwhile points, the remainder of that article lacks necessary nuance in developing its general conclusion.
New evidence finds young people in Mainland China are now bicultural.
Wang YM, Wang FY, Talhelm T … +1 more , Chen YQ
Br J Psychol · 2025 May · PMID 39804441 · Full text
This study reports new evidence that young people in Mainland China are now bicultural. We followed the established method of testing biculturalism by priming participants with images from two different cultures and meas...
This study reports new evidence that young people in Mainland China are now bicultural. We followed the established method of testing biculturalism by priming participants with images from two different cultures and measuring whether those images activate different thought styles. First, we replicated findings from 25 years ago that college students in Hong Kong are bicultural (Study 1). Next, we found that priming Mainland Chinese college students with Chinese culture increased external attributions (which are more common in China), whereas priming American culture increased internal attributions (which are more common in the US; Study 2). Next, we tested a "negative control" group that we expected should not respond to bicultural primes. Older adults who were born before China's Reform and Opening policy in 1978 showed no evidence of biculturalism (Study 3). This new evidence extends biculturalism to Mainland China, and it provides a crucial negative control test for biculturalism research.
Leading by example: Experimental evidence that therapist lived experience disclosures can model the path to recovery for clients.
Robertson AM, Cruwys T, Stevens M … +1 more , Platow MJ
Br J Psychol · 2025 May · PMID 39797543 · Full text
A common guideline for self-disclosure is that therapists should only share recovered personal experiences with clients (i.e., no longer distressing). However, theoretical rationale and empirical support for this claim i...
A common guideline for self-disclosure is that therapists should only share recovered personal experiences with clients (i.e., no longer distressing). However, theoretical rationale and empirical support for this claim is limited. Drawing on identity leadership theorizing, we investigated whether recovery disclosures are beneficial to the extent that they signal a therapist's aspirational prototypicality (i.e., embodiment of an aspirational identity for clients). Across two experimental studies (N = 545), we recruited clients, therapists and general population adults. Participants read a group therapy for depression vignette in which the therapist disclosed: nothing, professional experience with depression, current depression, recovered depression or recovered anxiety. Participants rated the prototypicality of the therapist, the extent to which they perceived the therapist positively, the therapist's expertness and the expected prognosis for therapy. Contrary to our hypotheses, the type of disclosure did not significantly affect positive perceptions, expertness or expected prognosis ratings. However, the therapist disclosing a recovered and relevant condition (recovered depression) was rated as significantly more aspirationally prototypical than the other therapists. Given prior evidence that group therapists are more effective when viewed as aspirationally prototypical, our findings suggest that recovery disclosures may represent one way therapists can signal their prototypicality and enhance their effectiveness.
Beyond the screen: Dissecting the nexus of victimization and cyberhate among adolescents through excessive internet use, online interactions with strangers and parental restrictions.
Korol L, Blaya C
Br J Psychol · 2025 May · PMID 39754315 · Publisher ↗
Prior research has established that being a target of offline and online victimization might function as a significant risk factor that increases the likelihood of adolescents' involvement in cyberhate. Yet, relatively l...
Prior research has established that being a target of offline and online victimization might function as a significant risk factor that increases the likelihood of adolescents' involvement in cyberhate. Yet, relatively little is known about the mediating and moderating mechanisms underlying this relationship. To fill this important gap in knowledge, the present study aims to examine (1) whether excessive Internet use and contact with unknown people online act as sequential mediators in the relationship between overall victimization and youth's involvement in cyberhate; and (2) whether restrictive parental mediation has any role to play in moderating this relationship. The findings suggest that adolescents who experience victimization are more likely to turn to using the Internet excessively, and consequently interact with strangers online, which in turn makes them more prone to becoming victim to cyberhate or spreading hateful content online themselves. Moreover, restrictive parental mediation was shown to exacerbate the link between excessive Internet use and adolescents' contacts with unknown people online, thereby putting them at higher risk of cyberhate involvement. The current study emphasizes the need for a balanced approach to parental mediation - one that fosters open communication, trust and the development of digital literacy skills.
Artificial intelligence chatbots mimic human collective behaviour.
He JK, Wallis FPS, Gvirtz A … +1 more , Rathje S
Br J Psychol · 2026 May · PMID 39739553 · Full text
Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbots, such as ChatGPT, have been shown to mimic individual human behaviour in a wide range of psychological and economic tasks. Do groups of AI chatbots also mimic collective behaviour? I...
Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbots, such as ChatGPT, have been shown to mimic individual human behaviour in a wide range of psychological and economic tasks. Do groups of AI chatbots also mimic collective behaviour? If so, artificial societies of AI chatbots may aid social scientific research by simulating human collectives. To investigate this theoretical possibility, we focus on whether AI chatbots natively mimic one commonly observed collective behaviour: homophily, people's tendency to form communities with similar others. In a large simulated online society of AI chatbots powered by large language models (N = 33,299), we find that communities form over time around bots using a common language. In addition, among chatbots that predominantly use English (N = 17,746), communities emerge around bots that post similar content. These initial empirical findings suggest that AI chatbots mimic homophily, a key aspect of human collective behaviour. Thus, in addition to simulating individual human behaviour, AI-powered artificial societies may advance social science research by allowing researchers to simulate nuanced aspects of collective behaviour.
Bridging minds and machines: Unmasking the limits in text-based automatic personality recognition for enhanced psychology-AI synergy.
Bhandarkar A, Wilson R, Swarup A … +2 more , Webster GD, Woodard D
Br J Psychol · 2026 May · PMID 39692811 · Publisher ↗
Text-based automatic personality recognition (APR) operates at the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and psychology to determine the personality of an individual from their text sample. This covert form of per...
Text-based automatic personality recognition (APR) operates at the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and psychology to determine the personality of an individual from their text sample. This covert form of personality assessment is key for a variety of online applications that contribute to individual convenience and well-being such as that of chatbots and personal assistants. Despite the availability of good quality data utilizing state-of-the-art AI methods, the reported performance of these recognition systems remains below expectations in comparable areas. Consequently, this work investigates and identifies the source of this performance limit and attributes it to the flawed assumptions of text-based APR. These insights are obtained via a large-scale comprehensive benchmark and analysis of text data from five corpora with diverse characteristics and complementary personality models (Big Five and Dark Triad) applied to an assortment of AI methods ranging from hand-crafted linguistic features to data-driven transformers. Finally, the work concludes by identifying the open problems that can help navigate the limitations in text-based automatic personality recognition to a great extent.
Face and voice identity matching accuracy is not improved by multimodal identity information.
Smith HMJ, Ritchie KL, Baguley TS … +1 more , Lavan N
Br J Psychol · 2025 May · PMID 39690725 · Full text
Identity verification from both faces and voices can be error-prone. Previous research has shown that faces and voices signal concordant information and cross-modal unfamiliar face-to-voice matching is possible, albeit o...
Identity verification from both faces and voices can be error-prone. Previous research has shown that faces and voices signal concordant information and cross-modal unfamiliar face-to-voice matching is possible, albeit often with low accuracy. In the current study, we ask whether performance on a face or voice identity matching task can be improved by using multimodal stimuli which add a second modality (voice or face). We find that overall accuracy is higher for face matching than for voice matching. However, contrary to predictions, presenting one unimodal and one multimodal stimulus within a matching task did not improve face or voice matching compared to presenting two unimodal stimuli. Additionally, we find that presenting two multimodal stimuli does not improve accuracy compared to presenting two unimodal face stimuli. Thus, multimodal information does not improve accuracy. However, intriguingly, we find that cross-modal face-voice matching accuracy predicts voice matching accuracy but not face matching accuracy. This suggests cross-modal information can nonetheless play a role in identity matching, and face and voice information combine to inform matching decisions. We discuss our findings in light of current models of person perception, and consider the implications for identity verification in security and forensic settings.
The token undermining effect: When and why adding a small reward to a dated outcome makes it less preferred.
Jiang CM, Chen LN, Luo Q … +3 more , Wang W, Zhou J, Ma JT
Br J Psychol · 2025 May · PMID 39665797 · Publisher ↗
The mere token strategy, which adds a small reward (token) to an option to increase attractiveness, is widely used in the consumer field. However, we conducted six studies that seek to confirm the 'token undermining effe...
The mere token strategy, which adds a small reward (token) to an option to increase attractiveness, is widely used in the consumer field. However, we conducted six studies that seek to confirm the 'token undermining effect', where adding a small token to a sooner and smaller reward (SS) paired with a later and larger reward (LL) decreases the preference for the SS. The results showed that the effect persists across various choice sets, participant populations, reward amounts, delays, outcome properties and regardless of whether the scenarios are incentivized. However, an important boundary condition was that the token must share the same nature as the original option. Furthermore, we used mouse cursor tracking methods to examine the underlying process of attention allocation and demonstrated that adding a small token to the SS leads individuals to allocate more attention to the magnitude dimension than to the delay dimension, ultimately decreasing their preference for the SS. Therefore, managers and policymakers should use the mere token strategy with caution as it could backfire.
Mapping the maze: A network analysis of social-emotional skills among children and adolescents with social-emotional difficulties.
Huo M, Ning B
Br J Psychol · 2025 Feb · PMID 39655765 · Publisher ↗
Developing social-emotional skills is crucial for all children and adolescents, particularly those experiencing social and emotional difficulties. This study used network analysis to identify the central skills and netwo...
Developing social-emotional skills is crucial for all children and adolescents, particularly those experiencing social and emotional difficulties. This study used network analysis to identify the central skills and network association of different social-emotional skills and investigated how these networks differ between childhood and adolescence. Data were obtained from the 2019 Survey on Social and Emotional Skills by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Our study focused on the bottom quartile of participants aged 10 and 15 years, including 7737 and 7439 individuals from each age group. Optimism and cooperation consistently emerged as the central skills of social-emotional competence across both age groups. When comparing network structures, there was a significant difference between children and adolescents. The connectivity of social-emotional networks was stronger among adolescents, indicating closer skill associations. Understanding these developmental differences is important for educators and practitioners to more effectively support the social-emotional development of children and adolescents experiencing social-emotional difficulties.
Sounds of the future and past.
Sidhu DM, Peetz J
Br J Psychol · 2025 May · PMID 39652400 · Full text
We report evidence of sound symbolism for the abstract concept of time across seven experiments (total N = 825). Participants associated the future and past with distinct phonemes (Experiment 1). In particular, using nea...
We report evidence of sound symbolism for the abstract concept of time across seven experiments (total N = 825). Participants associated the future and past with distinct phonemes (Experiment 1). In particular, using nearly 8000 pseudowords, we found associations between the future and high front vowels and voiced fricatives/affricatives, and between the past and /θ/ and voiced stops (Experiment 2). This association was present not only among English speakers but also by speakers of a closely related language (German) and those of a more distantly related language (Hungarian; Experiment 3). This time-sound symbolism does not appear to be due to embodied articulation (Experiment 4). In sum, these studies identify a robust time sound symbolism effect, along with tests of underlying mechanisms.
A challenge to identity: Identity processing style and moral injury.
James KE, McKimmie BM, Maccallum F
Br J Psychol · 2025 May · PMID 39641773 · Publisher ↗
Moral injury is a potentially deleterious mental health outcome that can result from exposure to morally challenging events. Treatment of moral injury is currently hindered by incomplete understanding of its underlying m...
Moral injury is a potentially deleterious mental health outcome that can result from exposure to morally challenging events. Treatment of moral injury is currently hindered by incomplete understanding of its underlying mechanisms. Theories of adaptation posit that maintaining a coherent sense of self while realigning one's sense of self with reality aids in adaptation following a disruptive life event. Differences in identity processing style are thought to impact the extent to which an individual engages with the challenges of maintaining a coherent sense of self following identity-related challenges. However, little is known about how identity processing style relates to moral injury event-related distress. This study sought to investigate a hypothesized relationship between identity processing style and event-related distress as well as alternative outcomes including traumatic stress, depression and anxiety. Adults (N = 167) who had been exposed to a potentially morally injurious event were recruited online and completed validated measures of event-related distress, traumatic stress, depression, anxiety and identity processing style. There were significant positive associations between diffuse-avoidant processing and all mental health outcomes, no significant associations between informational processing and any mental health outcomes, and significant negative associations between normative processing and event-related distress and depression.
Individual differences in the evolution of causal illusions.
García-Arch J, Rodríguez-Ferreiro J, Barberia I
Br J Psychol · 2025 May · PMID 39641660 · Full text
In this research, we investigated individual differences in the formation and persistence of causal illusions. In a re-analysis of existing data, we identified two clusters of participants - persistent and adjusting - ba...
In this research, we investigated individual differences in the formation and persistence of causal illusions. In a re-analysis of existing data, we identified two clusters of participants - persistent and adjusting - based on their trajectories in learning from repeated exposure to null contingencies. The persistent cluster maintained stable causal illusions, while the adjusting cluster demonstrated a reduction over time. This re-analysis provided a nuanced understanding of individual differences in causal learning, emphasizing the differential role of probability estimations in predicting causal judgements. These findings were replicated in a subsequent study, highlighting the robustness of the identified effects. In a pre-registered study, we extended the paradigm to include a second phase (active phase) to assess how individual differences in causal illusion trajectories in the passive phase would manifest when participants had agency in the information gathering process. The results were consistent with those of the two previous studies and confirmed our primary hypothesis that the adjusting cluster would exhibit a lower tendency to introduce the candidate cause on learning trials, and would, therefore, observe a higher frequency of cause-absent trials. Together, these studies provide comprehensive insights into the underpinnings of causal illusion development and persistence, potentially informing de-biasing interventions.
Computers and chess masters: The role of AI in transforming elite human performance.
Bilalić M, Graf M, Vaci N
Br J Psychol · 2026 May · PMID 39635926 · Full text
Advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) have made significant strides in recent years, often supplementing rather than replacing human performance. The extent of their assistance at the highest levels of human performan...
Advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) have made significant strides in recent years, often supplementing rather than replacing human performance. The extent of their assistance at the highest levels of human performance remains unclear. We analyse over 11.6 million decisions of elite chess players, a domain commonly used as a testbed for AI and psychology due to its complexity and objective assessment. We investigated the impact of two AI chess revolutions: the first in the late 1990s with the rise of powerful PCs and internet access and the second in the late 2010s with deep learning-powered chess engines. The rate of human improvement mirrored AI advancements, but contrary to expectations, the quality of decisions mostly improved steadily over four decades, irrespective of age, with no distinct periods of rapid improvement. Only the youngest top players saw marked gains in the late 1990s, likely due to better access to knowledge and computers. Surprisingly, the recent wave of neural network-powered engines has not significantly impacted the best players - at least, not yet. Our research highlights AI's potential to enhance human capability in complex tasks, given the right conditions, even among the most elite performers.
Perceiving visual events uses optical information that reflects dynamics rather than resembles appearance.
Zhang H, Bingham GP, Pan JS
Br J Psychol · 2025 Feb · PMID 39614631 · Publisher ↗
This study investigates the optical information for visual event perception. Events are objects in motion, with properties like shape, weight and surface material influencing the dynamics that shape movements and optics....
This study investigates the optical information for visual event perception. Events are objects in motion, with properties like shape, weight and surface material influencing the dynamics that shape movements and optics. The progressive transformation of visible textures, known as visual kinaesthetic information, specifies movements and objects. Four experiments tested whether events could be perceived using only visual kinaesthetic information. Participants identified their own walking from point-light displays (Experiment 1), from simulated environmental texture transformations as a result of their walking (Experiment 2), and from videos shot by a head-mounted camera during outdoor walking (Experiment 3); and distinguishing strangers from footages captured by their head-mounted cameras (Experiment 4). In Experiments 2-4, the displays did not resemble the outline of a person or look like walking but revealed the physical relations between the walker and the environment as a result of their movement. Regardless, participants were able to recognize themselves and distinguish strangers. Thus, observers are able to perceive events using visual kinaesthetic information that stems from dynamics. The one-to-one correspondences between object property, dynamics, kinematics and optical information are governed by the laws of physics, and unaffected by the event's appearance or viewing perspectives.
Editorial Acknowledgement.
Br J Psychol · 2025 Feb · PMID 39576040 · Publisher ↗
Abstract loading — click title to view on PubMed.
Involuntary remembering and ADHD: Do individuals with ADHD symptoms experience high volumes of involuntary memories in everyday life?
Mace JH, HaileMariam A, Zhu J … +1 more , Howell N
Br J Psychol · 2025 Feb · PMID 39570145 · Publisher ↗
Spontaneous mind wandering has been implicated as a feature of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and researchers have wondered if spontaneous remembering is also a feature of ADHD. In this study, we compare...
Spontaneous mind wandering has been implicated as a feature of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and researchers have wondered if spontaneous remembering is also a feature of ADHD. In this study, we compared spontaneous cognition, principally involuntary autobiographical memories, in participants who scored inside the ADHD range on BAARS-IV to those who scored outside of the ADHD range. In Study 1, participants reported their involuntary memories and spontaneous thoughts on a laboratory measure of involuntary memory (the vigilance task), as well as estimated their daily involuntary memory frequencies on a separate questionnaire. The results showed that ADHD range participants did not differ from non-ADHD range participants in reports of involuntary memories and spontaneous thoughts on the vigilance task, but ADHD range participants estimated higher daily involuntary memory frequencies than non-ADHD range participants on the questionnaire. Additionally, on the questionnaire, ADHD participants reported that their involuntary memories were less positive and more repetitive than non-ADHD participants. In Study 2, participants recorded their naturally occurring involuntary memories in a structured diary for 48 hours. The results showed that ADHD range participants had more involuntary memories than non-ADHD range participants, and they also reported that they experienced them as less positive.
Automated face recognition assists with low-prevalence face identity mismatches but can bias users.
Mueller M, Hancock PJB, Cunningham EK … +3 more , Watt RJ, Carragher D, Bobak AK
Br J Psychol · 2026 May · PMID 39545786 · Full text
We present three experiments to study the effects of giving information about the decision of an automated face recognition (AFR) system to participants attempting to decide whether two face images show the same person....
We present three experiments to study the effects of giving information about the decision of an automated face recognition (AFR) system to participants attempting to decide whether two face images show the same person. We make three contributions designed to make our results applicable to real-word use: participants are given the true response of a highly accurate AFR system; the face set reflects the mixed ethnicity of the city of London from where participants are drawn; and there are only 10% of mismatches. Participants were equally accurate when given the similarity score of the AFR system or just the binary decision but shifted their bias towards match and were over-confident on difficult pairs when given only binary information. No participants achieved the 100% accuracy of the AFR system, and they had only weak insight about their own performance.
The role of surface and structural similarities in the retrieval of realistic perceptual events.
Raynal L, Clément E, Sander E
Br J Psychol · 2025 Feb · PMID 39535839 · Full text
This study investigated whether structural similarities (i.e. abstract frames, e.g. once bitten twice shy) can prevail over surface similarities (i.e. contexts, e.g. restaurant) in driving the retrieval of realistic even...
This study investigated whether structural similarities (i.e. abstract frames, e.g. once bitten twice shy) can prevail over surface similarities (i.e. contexts, e.g. restaurant) in driving the retrieval of realistic events involving dynamic, multimodal and perceptually crowded data. After watching an initial set of video clips, participants had to indicate whether a new video clip, that shared surface similarities with an initial event and structural similarities with another one, elicited a retrieval. The results of Experiment 1A showed that retrieval was more likely to be elicited by structural rather than by surface similarities. Experiment 1B confirmed that the surface similarities manipulated in this study were strong enough to elicit substantial retrievals when the competing structural match was neutralized. The pattern of results obtained in Experiment 1A remained unchanged when the number of unrelated video clips within the initial set was increased. The findings suggest that structurally based retrievals still prevail when familiar structures underlie realistic perceptual events. They open new perspectives regarding the settings that promote structurally based retrievals in educational contexts where unfamiliar principles are introduced.
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