PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints)

Central oxytocin has been widely implicated in modulating social behavior and cognitive functions, yet evidence in humans remains subtle, heterogeneous, and difficult to replicate. Interactions between oxytocin and sex hormones as a key biological moderator may partly account for the variability in findings. This review systematically synthesizes experimental and observational behavioral findings…

Understanding trends in how much, where, and how adventurously children play, and when they are granted independent mobility, is critical for supporting public health policy, urban planning, and health and wellbeing interventions. This study presents findings from the 2025 British Children’s Play Survey, a nationally representative survey of parents and caregivers of children aged 5–11 years livi…

Skilled reading relies on orthographic representations that compete during visual word recognition, and the establishment of these orthographic representations is assumed to depend on phonological recoding. This study investigated whether orthographic learning, both lexical configuration and lexical engagement, can occur in the absence of well-defined phonological representations. We compared dea…

Person perception, the rapid social judgments people make about others' traits, emotions, and intentions, is increasingly being automated through artificial intelligence. From algorithmic hiring tools that score facial expressions and vocal tone to call center software that monitors emotional cues in real time, AI systems are now being designed to replicate and scale human social judgment. This c…

Our study investigated whether perceptual sensitivity for affordant objects is modulated within the illusory spaces. This was done using a horizontal Ponzo illusion which creates the perception of illusory peripersonal and extrapersonal space while holding the retinal size constant. In two experiments, the participants completed a visual search task in which targets were presented in either of th…

Background: Siblings of adolescents with psychopathology are at elevated risk of developing psychopathology themselves, yet the role of sibling psychopathology on subsequent mental health and brain functional development has been largely overlooked. Adolescence may represent a particularly vulnerable period for such influences because it is characterized by heighted neural plasticity and peak ons…

Advancing equity in brain health research requires systematic attention to diversity and representativeness across the full research enterprise, from priority-setting and study design to knowledge translation. This paper, part of a series developing a cultural-ecosocial framework for brain health research, examines the conceptual foundations, current gaps, and practical strategies for integrating…

Microfinance institutions (MFIs) are commonly understood to succeed through structural mechanisms such as group lending, joint liability, peer monitoring, and repayment incentives. However, these explanations fail to account for the wide variation in outcomes among institutions employing similar contractual structures. We propose a new theoretical framework that reconceptualizes microfinance succ…

Background: The impact of smartphones and social media on adolescent mental health and wellbeing are key concerns for families and policy makers. Much previous research has focussed on screentime, which does not capture the multi-functional nature of these technologies, and the mechanisms of influence. This study aimed to explore adolescent, parent and teacher perspectives on how different types …

Street art has been increasingly recognized for its potential to communicate themes aligned with the United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This paper uses the StreetArt4Sustainability dataset, comprising 556 street art images, to examine perceptions of their alignment with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Across two studies, SDG attributions were evaluated in terms …

How do people perceive their selves across time? To shed light on the question of how continuity and growth relate to each other, we extend the inductive reasoning model (IRM; Krueger et al., 2024-a, 2024-b) from social perception to temporal self-perception. Based on the robust empirical patterns showing that people perceive their present selves to be (a) positive and (b) more similar to their f…

Background: Despite the rapid growth of psychedelic research, limited attention has been given to how psychedelics are used, experienced and integrated within highly conservative religious communities, and in Jewish contexts more broadly. This study addresses this gap by examining ayahuasca use among the ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) community, a highly religious, conservative, and collectivist Jewish …

Concerns that AI homogenizes human thinking appear at odds with findings that LLM writing is perceived as more creative than human writing. We propose that LLMs enhance surface-level diversity while simultaneously homogenizing underlying ideas. Four large-scale natural experiments tested this preregistered “semantic disjunction” hypothesis in the high-stakes context of college admissions. Compari…

The need for mental health services in Sub-Saharan Africa far exceeds the availability of support, creating long waitlists for the few services that are in place. To address this crisis, implementing evidence-based, single-session interventions for individuals seeking treatment may provide timely relief. StrongMinds—a mental health charity organization serving youth and adults in Uganda—piloted a…

This study examined the association between different conversation topic preferences with AI chatbots (self-disclosure, instrumental help-seeking) and adolescents’ prosocial behaviors and bullying via the mediating role of coping styles, as well as potential cultural differences. A total sample of 2023 adolescents from the United States (US) and Hong Kong (HK) were included in the analysis. A maj…

Objective: This study explored the lived experiences of adult children raised by narcissistic parents, aiming to illuminate the long-term psychological and relational effects of narcissistic parenting. Methods and Materials: A qualitative design based on Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was employed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 adult participants (aged 26–42) w…

The network approach to psychopathology conceptualizes mental disorders as systems of interacting symptoms rather than consequences of a latent factor. Recent developments have focused on modeling changes in symptom networks over time, where most approaches assume that these changes occur continuously. We propose an alternative by modelling discrete shifts between network states using hidden Mark…

Children referred to pediatric day hospital programs often present with complex, comorbid difficulties that are not fully captured by categorical diagnostic frameworks. Dimensional models, such as the general psychopathology (p) factor, offer a transdiagnostic approach to understanding overall symptom severity and treatment response. This study examined the structure and change of psychopathology…

Not all moments we experience carry equal weight. The boundaries between meaningful events (Event Boundaries; EBs) have been found to be important for comprehension and memory. Recently, it has been shown that people can reliably identify Key Moments (KMs) that are somewhat distinct from EBs and play a unique role in both comprehension and memory. Some but not all KMs are EBs, and vice versa. Bot…

Increasing evidence shows a co-occurrence of autism spectrum disorder and aphantasia (a lack of visual imagery) with both cohorts showing reductions in visual working memory (WM). Here we explored whether visual imagery ability (measured with the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire, VVIQ, and Spontaneous Use of Imagery Scale, SUIS) mediated the relationship between autistic traits (measured…