Intragroup empathy is vital for resilience. However, it is often impaired in advantaged-dominated environments when one adopts advantaged-group characteristics to climb the social ladder. The current work examines contextual factors that may affect intragroup empathy: the motivation behind adopting the advantaged-group characteristics, and negative encounters with members of the advantaged group. We hypothesized that coercively, versus willingly, adopting advantaged-group characteristics will increase intragroup empathy both when the outcomes are negative and positive. We further hypothesized that a negative encounter with an advantaged-group member would increase intragroup empathy, compared to no encounter. In three studies, Palestinian students in Israeli academia were assigned to read scripts depicting the academic experience of a Palestinian student adopting advantaged-group characteristics. We tested (a) the effects of motivation following a negative outcome (N = 182); (b) the effects following a positive outcome (N = 205); and (c) the interaction between a negative encounter with an advantaged-group member and motivation, and its effect on intragroup empathy (N = 282). Intragroup empathy was higher in the coerced condition compared to the free-willing condition both for negative and positive outcomes. A negative encounter with an advantaged-group member increased intragroup empathy in the willing condition. By illuminating contextual variables that shape intragroup empathy, this research shows that impairment in intragroup empathy is not inevitable. This work may serve as a foundation for future interventions.

Human visual perception in natural conditions involves multiple fixations within single objects. While traditional studies focus on transient neural responses to initial stimuli, this study investigates how object-category representations evolve across sequential fixations on an object. Using electroencephalography (EEG) and eye-tracking, we analyzed fixation-related potentials (FRPs) and applied multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) to decode neural representations of faces and watches during prolonged viewing. Results revealed robust category-selective responses, including the N170 component, at stimulus onset, with sustained representations persisting throughout object presentation. Temporal signal deconvolution showed that subsequent fixations did not re-evoke the N170 but elicited transient occipital responses, likely reflecting low-level category differences. These findings underscore the dynamic interplay between transient and sustained neural processes during naturalistic vision and highlight the importance of disentangling overlapping neural signals during free viewing.

How does the rise of ideologically extreme leaders affect attitudes and beliefs among their supporters? Previous research on paradoxical thinking suggests that when individuals are exposed to a radicalized version of their held beliefs, they moderate them in response. However, it is yet unknown whether, how, and among whom, such moderation occurs in response to radicalization of individuals' favored leaders. The proposed study examines how an unfolding real-world manifestation of a paradoxical thinking intervention—that is, the radical and extreme policies carried out by the newly elected Israeli government—affects the political attitudes of the government's supporters. Using a longitudinal design, we examined how pre-election attitudes (N = 589 government supporters) moderate, radicalize, or remain unchanged following the announcement and implementation of radical policies. Over four time points, we also examine the psychological mechanisms mediating the policies' moderating impact, to disentangle the reciprocal or paradoxical effects of radicalization among leaders on the public.

The ability to determine how much the environment can be controlled through our actions has long been viewed as fundamental to adaptive behavior. While traditional accounts treat controllability as a fixed property of the environment, in the real-world this property often depends on the effort, time, and money that we are willing and able to invest. In such cases, controllability can be said to be elastic to invested resources. Here we propose that inferring this elasticity is essential for efficient resource allocation, and thus, elasticity misestimations result in maladaptive behavior. To test these hypotheses, we developed a novel treasure hunt game where participants encountered environments with varying degrees of controllability and elasticity. Across two pre-registered studies (N=514), we first demonstrate that people infer elasticity and adapt their resource allocation accordingly. We then present a computational model that explains how people make this inference, and identify individual elasticity biases that lead to suboptimal resource allocation. Finally, we show that overestimation of elasticity is associated with elevated psychopathology involving an impaired sense of control. These findings establish the elasticity of control as a distinct cognitive construct guiding adaptive behavior, and a computational marker for control-related maladaptive behavior.

Background Emotion regulation is critical for psychological health. Adaptive emotion regulation, in particular, requires the ability to flexibly use different strategies to meet situational demands. Such flexibility is often reflected in greater variability in everyday emotion regulation strategy use. Research on strategy variability has, to date, been positively associated with some emotional and psychological outcomes, but such research has exclusively focused on healthy individuals. Our investigation examines whether variability in emotion regulation strategy use and its implications differ between individuals with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and healthy controls. Method Using ecological momentary assessments (EMA), we assessed variability in emotion regulation strategy use (i.e., between-strategy variability) and its implications in individuals with current MDD and healthy controls (Ns = 94 and 90). Participants completed six surveys per day for 10 days, rating their emotional experiences and emotion regulation strategy use. They also rated indices of psychological health daily. Results Individuals with MDD had higher emotion regulation strategy variability than healthy controls. In healthy controls, higher strategy variability was linked to greater emotion regulation success and was unrelated to daily depressive symptoms. However, in individuals with MDD, higher strategy variability was not only unrelated or even negatively linked to emotion regulation success, but it was also associated with higher daily depressive symptoms. Limitations We did not assess the fit between regulatory strategies and contexts, and only included self-report measures collected through smartphones. Conclusion Variability in emotion regulation strategy use may capture adaptive flexibility among healthy individuals, but maladaptive volatility among individuals with MDD.

Understanding the organizing principles of brain activity can advance neuro-technology and medical diagnosis and treatment. A prominent principle promoted over the last century is that brain activity consists of electrical field potentials that oscillate at different frequency bands. However, this principle has been challenged on several grounds. Specifically, increasing evidence suggests that in some cases brain oscillations are manifested as transient bursts rather than sustained rhythms. In this paper, we examine the hypothesis that rhythmicity (sustained vs. bursty) is an additional dimension in the organization of brain function. To test this hypothesis, we segmented the neurophysiological spectrum of 859 participants encompassing a dozen datasets across species, recording techniques, ages 18-88, brain regions, and cognitive states in both health and disease, according to a novel measure of rhythmicity. Together with computer simulations and brain stimulation, we found a universal spectral architecture divisible into two categories: high-rhythmicity bands associated with sustained oscillations and novel low-rhythmicity bands dominated by brief oscillatory bursts. This universal architecture reveals stable features of the brain’s mode of operation: sustained bands signify maintenance of ongoing activity, whereas transient bands signify the brain’s response to change. Rhythmicity specifies a powerful, replicable, and accessible feature-set for neuro-technology and diagnosis, as well as cross-species comparisons.

Research in psychology has long underscored the significance of contextual influence on social cognition processes and behavior. However, the exploration of sexual interactions as a unique context affecting these processes has largely been neglected by previous research, despite their prominent role in our daily lives and potentially consequential outcomes. We outline the relevance of various basic social cognition processes to sexual interactions and propose a line of research integrating theoretical insights and methodologies from social cognition research with those from sex and relationship research. We elaborate on theoretical and applied contributions to both fields.

Intonation units (IUs) are a universal building-block of human speech. They are found cross-linguistically and are tied to important language functions such as the pacing of information in discourse and swift turn-taking. We study the rate of IUs in 48 languages from every continent and from 27 distinct language families. Using a novel analytic method to annotate natural speech recordings, we identify a low-frequency rate of IUs across the sample, with a peak at 0.6 Hz, and little variation between sexes or across the life span. We find that IU rate is only weakly related to speech rate quantified at the syllable level (SR), and crucially, that cross-linguistic variation in IU rate is smaller than cross-linguistic variation in SR. Since SR was shown to be inversely related to information density quantified at the syllable level, we suggest that across languages, IUs are more balanced than syllables in their information content.

A fundamental question in the social sciences is how collectives of individuals form intelligent judgments. This article tests the hypothesis that genetically-diverse groups make better collective judgments than genetically more homogenous groups. Two studies were conducted (a total of N = 602 participants) in which sets of twins (both monozygotic and dizygotic) were required to perform the task of making numerical judgments. The accuracy of the judgments made by pairs of participants—who were either co-twins (i.e., genetically-related) or were not related—was then compared. The results indicate that the judgments made by unrelated pairs were more accurate than those of the genetically-related twins. Critically, however, this superior performance was found only among monozygotic twins, evidencing the role of genetic relatedness in collective judgment. This research provides the first empirical demonstration of the benefit of genetic diversity for collective judgments, shedding light on the origins of the ‘wisdom of crowds’ phenomenon.

The word-frequency distributions children hear during language learning are highly skewed (Zipfian). Previous studies suggest that such skewed environments confer a learnability advantage in tasks that require the learner to discover the units that have to be learned, as in word-segmentation or cross-situational learning. This facilitative effect has been attributed to contextual facilitation from high frequency items in learning lower frequency items, and to better learning under the increased predictability (lower entropy) of skewed distributions. Here, we ask whether Zipfian distributions facilitate learning beyond the discovery of units, as expected under the predictability account. We tested children's learning of novel word-referent mappings in a learning task where each mapping was presented in isolation during training, and did not need to be dicovered. We compared learning in a uniform environment to two skewed environments with different entropy levels. Children's learning was overall better in the two skewed environments, even for low frequency items. These results extend the facilitative effect of Zipfian distributions to additional learning tasks and show they can facilitate language learning beyond the discovery of units.