New Content From Current Directions in Psychological Science

Hierarchical-Model Insights for Planning and Interpreting Individual-Difference Studies of Cognitive Abilities
Jeffrey N. Rouder, Mahbod Mehrvarz

Although individual-difference studies have been invaluable in several domains of psychology, there has been less success in cognitive domains using experimental tasks. The problem is often called one of reliability: Individual differences in cognitive tasks, especially cognitive-control tasks, seem too unreliable. In this article, we use the language of hierarchical models to define a novel reliability measure—a signal-to-noise ratio—that reflects the nature of tasks alone without recourse to sample sizes. Signal-to-noise reliability may be used to plan appropriately powered studies as well as understand the cause of low correlations across tasks should they occur. Although signal-to-noise reliability is motivated by hierarchical models, it may be estimated from a simple calculation using straightforward summary statistics.   

Fostering Executive-Function Skills and Promoting Far Transfer to Real-World Outcomes: The Importance of Life Skills and Civic Science
Philip David Zelazo, Destany Calma-Birling, Ellen Galinsky 

Executive-function (EF) skills are a set of attention-regulation skills that provide a neurocognitive foundation for adapting to changing circumstances across the life span; EF skills measured in childhood are associated with important real-world outcomes (e.g., school and job success). Although training can improve EF skills, the benefits of training frequently fail to transfer to these outcomes. We argue that EF skills are associated with outcomes such as school success only to the extent that they first contribute to intermediate-level EF-based life skills that are more directly instrumental in achieving key outcomes. These intentional intermediate-level skills are configurations of specific EF skills and non-EF skills that are used when reasoning and solving problems in a variety of domains. We further argue that an effective way to bridge the gap between specific EF skills and real-world outcomes is by training these EF-based life skills that people need to function effectively in society. We propose that this can best be achieved using a civic-scientific approach, engaging citizens (e.g., children, youth, parents, teachers) in the design process from the beginning so that interventions are responsive to perceived needs and address perceived obstacles to success and sustainability.   

The New Psychology of Secrecy
Michael L. Slepian 

Nearly everyone keeps secrets, but only recently have we begun to learn about the secrets people keep in their everyday lives and the experiences people have with their secrets. Early experimental research into secrecy sought to create secrecy situations in the laboratory, but in trying to observe secrecy in real time, these studies conflated secrecy with the act of concealment. In contrast, a new psychology of secrecy recognizes that secrecy is far more than biting our tongues and dodging others’ questions. Our secrets can consume mental space before and after concealment situations, and even the secrets that require no active upkeep can burden the secret keeper. The current article reviews recent insights into the many ways in which our secrets relate to personal and relational well-being and what follows from revealing our secrets.   

Motivated Counterfactual Thinking and Moral Inconsistency: How We Use Our Imaginations to Selectively Condemn and Condone
Daniel A. Effron, Kai Epstude, Neal J. Roese 

People selectively enforce their moral principles, excusing wrongdoing when it suits them. We identify an underappreciated source of this moral inconsistency: the ability to imagine counterfactuals, or alternatives to reality. Counterfactual thinking offers three sources of flexibility that people exploit to justify preferred moral conclusions: People can (a) generate counterfactuals with different content (e.g., consider how things could have been better or worse), (b) think about this content using different comparison processes (i.e., focus on how it is similar to or different than reality), and (c) give the result of these processes different weights (i.e., allow counterfactuals more or less influence on moral judgments). These sources of flexibility help people license unethical behavior and can fuel political conflict. Motivated reasoning may be less constrained by facts than previously assumed; people’s capacity to condemn and condone whom they wish may be limited only by their imaginations.   

See related Teaching column.

The Power of Numeric Evidence in Science Communication
Ellen Peters, Jon Benedik Bunquin 

Advantages and disadvantages exist for presenting numeric information in science communication. On the one hand, public innumeracy and experts’ concerns about providing numbers suggest not always showing them. On the other hand, people often prefer getting them, and their provision can increase comprehension, trust, and healthy behaviors while reducing risk overestimates and supporting decision-making autonomy. Presenting numeric facts without considering their comprehensibility and usability, however, is like throwing good money after bad. We summarize research concerning three theory-based strategies that improve the understanding and use of numbers by decreasing cognitive effort (e.g., doing the math for the audience), being consistent with principles of numeric cognition, and providing affective meaning.   

The Representation of Giving Actions: Event Construction in the Service of Monitoring Social Relationships
Denis Tatone, Gergely Csibra 

Giving is a unique attribute of human sharing. In this review, we discuss evidence attesting to our species’ preparedness to recognize interactions based on this behavior. We show that infants and adults require minimal cues of resource transfer to relate the participants of a giving event in an interactive unit (A gives X to B) and that such an interpretation does not systematically generalize to superficially similar taking events, which may be interpreted in nonsocial terms (A takes X). We argue that this asymmetry, echoed in language, reveals the operations of a mechanism of event construction where participant roles are encoded only when they are crucial to rendering an action teleologically well-formed. We show that such a representation of giving allows people to monitor the direction (who gave to whom) and kind (what was given) of resource transfer within a dyad, suggesting that giving may be interpreted as indicative of a relationship based on long-term balance. As this research suggests, advancing the study of the prelinguistic representation of giving has implications for cognitive linguistics, by clarifying the relation between event participants and syntactic arguments, as well as social cognition, by identifying which kinds of relational inferences people draw from attending to acts of sharing.   

Intraindividual Conflicts Reduce the Polarization of Attitudes
Kai Sassenberg, Kevin Winter 

Societies are increasingly divided about political issues such as migration or counteracting climate change. This attitudinal polarization is the basis for intergroup conflict and prevents societal progress in addressing pressing challenges. Research on attitude change should provide an answer regarding how people might be persuaded to move away from the extremes to take a moderate stance. However, persuasive communication often most strongly affects those who hold a moderate attitude or are undecided. More importantly, barely any research has explicitly aimed at mitigating extreme attitudes and behavioral tendencies. Addressing this gap, this article summarizes research demonstrating that (different types of) intraindividual conflicts might be a means to mitigate polarized attitudes. Goal conflicts, cognitive conflicts, counterfactual thinking, and paradoxical thinking facilitate cognitive flexibility. This, in turn, seems to initiate the consideration of alternative stances and mitigate the polarization of attitudes. We discuss the limitations of the existing research and the potential of this approach for interventions.   

There Are Multiple Paths to Personalized Education, and They Should Be Combined
Garvin Brod

The ubiquity of digital devices has made it feasible to assign different tasks and levels of support to different learners, also in the classroom. Ideally, this is done with the help of formative assessment software or intelligent tutoring systems. However, personalized assignment of tasks and support levels by a teacher or teaching agent has limitations and is only one path to successful personalization. Self-regulated learning and adaptable learning activities, such as generative learning strategies and differentiating tasks, are promising paths to personalization, too, and combine well with personalized assignment. Initial examples of such combinations are presented. I argue that, in order to be maximally effective, different paths to personalized education need to be combined. This combination promises to boost both immediate learning outcomes and successful learning in the long term, and it is facilitated by recent advances in artificial intelligence.    

Blood Pressure and Social Algesia: The Unexpected Relationship Between the Cardiovascular System and Sensitivity to Social Pain
Tristen K. Inagaki, Peter J. Gianaros

Threats to social connectedness in the form of social and societal rejection, and the permanent loss of social bonds, are inevitable and common sources of social pain. However, sensitivity to social pain, also known as algesia, differs across individuals and contexts. Such sensitivity has implications for health, well-being, and the maintenance of social connection over time. What biological factors predict differences in sensitivity to social pain? Based on long-standing translational perspectives and emerging findings, the current review highlights blood pressure as a novel predictor of sensitivity to social pain: Higher resting blood pressure appears to relate to lower sensitivity to social pain. Despite evidence for this association, possible psychobiological bases and moderating influences are not yet established. Moreover, although higher blood pressure may afford tolerance for life’s many pains, the health-related implications and trade-offs of such an effect are unknown.   

What Can Language Models Tell Us About Human Cognition?
Louise Connell, Dermot Lynott 

Language models are a rapidly developing field of artificial intelligence with enormous potential to improve our understanding of human cognition. However, many popular language models are cognitively implausible on multiple fronts. For language models to offer plausible insights into human cognitive processing, they should implement a transparent and cognitively plausible learning mechanism, train on a quantity of text that is achievable in a human’s lifetime of language exposure, and not assume to represent all of word meaning. When care is taken to create plausible language models within these constraints, they can be a powerful tool in uncovering the nature and scope of how language shapes semantic knowledge. The distributional relationships between words, which humans represent in memory as linguistic distributional knowledge, allow people to represent and process semantic information flexibly, robustly, and efficiently.   

A Multidisciplinary Perspective on Person-Environment Fit: Relevance, Measurement, and Future Directions
Christian Kandler, Simone Kühn, Bastian Mönkediek, Andreas J. Forstner, Wiebke Bleidorn 

Environments shape people, and at the same time, people are attracted to environments that fit their characteristics because fit facilitates the achievement of people’s desired life outcomes, such as relationship satisfaction, work success, and well-being. In this article, we outline how persons and environments can fit, the relevance of fit and misfit for different life outcomes, and the benefits and pitfalls of different (mis)fit measures. We propose three directions for future research: (a) the use of both subjective and objective (mis)fit measures; (b) the consideration of complex dynamics between person and environment characteristics via pathways through multiple biological, experiential, behavioral, and social layers across the life span; and (c) the integration of insights from different disciplines, including psychology, sociology, neuroscience, and genetics, to move the field forward.   

Intuitive Theories and the Cultural Evolution of Morality
M. J. Crockett, Judy S. Kim, Yeon Soon Shin

We explore the role of intuitive theories in the cultural evolution of moral cognition, integrating recent work across subfields of psychology and suggesting directions for future research. Focusing on intuitive theories in the moral domain concerning how people judge the moral value of actions and make inferences about moral character, we review evidence that the specific forms these theories take vary across individuals and can change via social learning. We propose that cultural selection can operate over the intuitive theories people apply in the moral domain, in which particular variants of intuitive moral theories can be more “successful” to the extent that they are cognitively efficient or provide reputational benefits. Finally, we explore some implications of considering moral cognition as a kind of cultural technology that can be innovated, considering whether intuitive moral theories help or hinder our ability to improve our collective moral norms or practices.    

Names Matter: Implications of Name “Whitening” for Ethnic Minority Discrimination and Well-Being
Monica Biernat, Xian Zhao, Emily C. Watkins 

Names are important signifiers of identity, but for many ethnic minority–group members, names trigger discriminatory responses. Name anglicization (or name whitening) is one proactive response to ward off anticipated discrimination and to signal assimilation. We review evidence suggesting that name anglicization may reduce discrimination (compared with using an original ethnic name), but it burdens minority-group members and is linked to lower well-being. We suggest a solution to this dilemma: training proper pronunciation of ethnic names. We provide a model of how this simple intervention may improve interethnic interactions, signal inclusion, and reduce prejudice in both ethnic majority- and minority-group members.   

See related Teaching column.

The Inequality Cycle: How Psychology Helps Keep Economic Inequality in Place
Manuel J. Galvan, B. Keith Payne 

Inequality is perpetuated, in part, by the psychological and behavioral tendencies that arise from the social context of inequality. Cognitive biases lead most people to see themselves as middle class, even when that perception does not align with economic reality. Those who perceive themselves as economically advantaged tend to view inequality as fair and legitimate, often dismissing proponents of redistributive solutions as ill-informed. And unequal contexts increase risky behaviors that can be profitable to some but are more likely to be costly for most. This research program suggests an inequality cycle, in which inequality experienced today tends to reproduce itself.   

Toward the Science of Engagement With Digital Interventions
Inbal Nahum-Shani, Carolyn Yoon

Digital technologies, such as mobile devices and wearable sensors, are ingrained in daily life, making them a promising vehicle for delivering health behavior interventions. However, a critical challenge that undermines the utility of digital interventions is the suboptimal engagement of participants, where participant engagement is defined as the investment of physical, cognitive, and affective energies in a focal stimulus or task. Research aiming to understand how to increase engagement with digital interventions has grown substantially in recent years. This article highlights several limitations of the existing evidence that restrict its scientific and practical utility and discusses opportunities for advancing the science of engagement with digital interventions. Synthesizing the current body of evidence, we call for conceptualizing digital interventions as a collection of stimuli (e.g., notifications, reminders) and tasks (e.g., open the mobile app, practice a relaxation technique) and considering engagement with digital interventions as a process rather than a state (i.e., momentary conditions/experiences) or trait (i.e., a relatively stable disposition). This approach has the potential to enhance scientific rigor and transparency in measuring, reporting, and interpreting engagement with digital interventions that would ultimately serve to bolster progress toward developing strategies for optimizing engagement.    

Habits, Goals, and Effective Behavior Change
Wendy Wood   

Why do we act on habit even when we intend to do something else? The answer lies in habit memories, or context-response associations, that form when people repeat rewarding actions in stable contexts. Although habits can form as people pursue goals, once habits develop, the perception of the context directly activates the response in mind. Because habit activation does not depend strongly on motivation, changing intentions has limited impact on habit memory. Instead, successful habit-change interventions directly impact the behavior itself: Along with classic behavior therapy interventions, habits change with (a) reward systems that form new habits, (b) disruption of context cues to forestall activation of the habit in mind, and (c) friction that makes the habitual response difficult and alternatives easier. Despite the strong evidence that habits are activated by contexts, people tend to believe that their own habits are a product of goal pursuit. This subjective reality might also explain why some researchers continue to maintain that habit performance depends on goals.   

See Wendy Wood’s Presidential Columns. 

The Need for Social Embeddedness: Human Belonging Goes Beyond Dyadic Bonds
Shira Gabriel, Veronica Schneider

We propose that much of modern human behavior can be understood as the outcome of a primitive and implicit desire for social embeddedness (i.e., a desire to belong to a larger, societal-level collective). Research from our lab suggests that people watch television, follow celebrities, and go to concerts and sporting events, at least in part, to fill this need. Connections to other research and implications for understanding human behavior are discussed.   

See related Teaching column.

Does Science Erode Meaning?
Jessica L. Tracy, Ian Hohm, Ari Makridakis

Humans need to experience meaning in their lives yet often find it difficult to do so. We argue that, for nonreligious individuals in many Western cultures, the materialist and reductionist ideology that surrounds scientific practice and data may be an impediment to attaining a robust sense of meaning in life. Furthermore, scientific materialism and reductionism may be especially problematic for existential mattering—the form of meaning entailing a belief that one’s life matters in the context of the universe as a whole. We review new research supporting this account, along with implications for those immersed in the materialist worldview. We conclude by suggesting possible means of finding meaning, including a sense of existential mattering, without abandoning science, and highlight research directions to further examine these possibilities. 

Metajudgment: Metatheories and Beliefs About Good Judgment Across Societies
Igor Grossmann, Richard E. Eibach

We introduce the concept of “metajudgment” to provide a framework for understanding folk standards people use to navigate everyday decisions. Defined as a set of metatheories and beliefs about different types of judgment, metajudgment serves as the guiding principle behind the selection and application of reasoning strategies in various contexts. We review emerging studies on metajudgment to identify common dimensions, such as intuition versus deliberative reasoning and rationality versus reasonableness. These dimensions are examined across multiple societies. The reviewed findings illuminate an apparent paradox: Universal adaptive challenges produce largely consistent folk standards of judgment across cultures, whereas situational demands drive systematic within-person variability. Metajudgment offers a comprehensive framework for understanding diverse reasoning patterns in individual and cross-cultural contexts, calling for greater attention to the ecologically sensitive study of within-person judgmental variability. 

The Privilege of Well-Being in an Increasingly Unequal Society
Carol D. Ryff 

This article provides an overview of a model of psychological well-being put forth over 30 years ago. The intent was to advance new dimensions of positive functioning based on integration of clinical, developmental, existential, and humanistic thinking along with Aristotle’s writings about eudaimonia. The operationalization and validation of the model are briefly described, followed by an overview of scientific findings organized around (a) demographic and experiential predictors of well-being, (b) well-being as predictors of health and biomedical outcomes, (c) pathway studies that examine intervening processes (moderators, mediators), and (d) underlying mechanistic processes (neuroscience, genomics). Much prior work underscores the benefits of well-being, including for longevity. Widening socioeconomic inequality is, however, increasingly compromising the well-being of disadvantaged segments of the population. These problems have been exacerbated by recent historical stressors (Great Recession, COVID-19 pandemic). Cumulative hardships from these events and their implications for health are critical targets for future science and practice. 

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