Nature Human Behaviour

Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 04 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02462-z Ancient DNA indicates that Albanians largely descend from Bronze and Iron Age Balkan populations, with genetic profiles established by 800 CE and limited later Medieval East European admixture.

Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 07 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02464-x This analysis of 1.2 million policy documents from 185 countries identifies global inequalities in whose knowledge is cited in policymaking. Governments in the Global South rely more on foreign sources, and most cited evidence originates in the Global North.

Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 05 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02452-1 When learning complex tasks, people often ‘divide and conquer’. Mi and Summerfield propose a computational theory explaining why breaking problems into simpler components enhances learning and show how this insight can be used to design curricula that accelerate learning.

Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 07 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02454-z A brief digital CBT self-help programme paired with screening improved mental health and service use among college students, offering a scalable way to support diverse populations and reduce symptoms across multiple conditions.

Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 05 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02443-2 Adults show a shared bias in confidence across memory and perception, but sensitivity and efficiency differ by domain. Children under six struggle to compare confidence across domains, whereas older children can, marking a developmental shift towards domain-general metacognition.

Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 06 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02427-2 In this individual participant data meta-analysis, and across 321,345 smartphone-ratings of affective well-being and nearly 1 million hours of physical activity measurement, Rehder et al. clarify the nature and extent of activity–well-being relations and document their relevance in humans’ everyday life.

Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 04 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02449-w Children aged 5–8 years can reach unanimous consensus in small networks using only local information. This ability increases sharply after kindergarten, with children converging reliably by following local majorities and adopting roles such as leaders, debaters or closers by grades 1–2.

Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 30 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02459-8 Liu et al. analysed 316,742 organ transplants and found that, when surgeons switched between different organ types in consecutive surgeries, 1-year mortality rates in patients increased by 14.8%, providing evidence of real-world task-switching costs.

Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 01 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02466-9 Scientific figures strongly influence how research findings are interpreted, yet guidance on figure design has largely focused on technical aspects of visualization. In this ‘How to’ Comment, I outline a practical strategy for creating figures that communicate clearly across audiences and scientific contexts.

Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 01 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02463-y A retrospective meta-analysis is a post hoc methodology with substantial probability of bias and is appropriately viewed as exploratory. Well-powered confirmatory studies, prospective meta-analysis and best-evidence synthesis are alternative approaches that emphasize confirmatory research and can provide more re…

Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 20 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02453-0 A randomized controlled trial in rural Burkina Faso found no evidence that providing small labelled cash transfers to support healthcare visits for individuals with chronic non-communicable diseases improved their care linkage or treatment uptake.

Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 20 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02451-2 Using a health-augmented macroeconomic model, Li et al. estimate the global economic burden of falls and reveal substantial, unevenly distributed output losses.

Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 24 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02465-w Human behavioural research conducted online is rapidly growing. Although powerful, this approach can suffer from reduced experimental control. Here we outline ten principles for designing and executing rigorous, reliable online experiments.

Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 15 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02429-0 A systematic review and meta-analysis compares the effects of individual and group-based approaches on physical activity, functional, psychosocial and health outcomes.

Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 15 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02447-y Across more than 12,000 MRI scans, the authors show that features discarded during feature selection can rival top-ranked ones in predicting behaviour yet imply different brain circuits, warning that focusing only on top features can mislead neurobiology.

Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 16 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02439-y Using racing diffusion models to analyse 115,601 implicit association tests across 39 topics, LaFollette et al. found that response caution explained more variance in D-scores than decision ease.

Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 02 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02440-5 Researchers from authoritarian academic backgrounds often exhibit self-censoring microbehaviours, which cause difficulties when transitioning to nonauthoritarian environments, explains Myint Thu.

Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 02 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02431-6 Park et al. show that discontinuing pandemic unemployment insurance in 2021 tripled rates of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the USA. Expanded unemployment insurance served as a non-pharmaceutical intervention by incentivizing physical distancing during a severe pandemic.

Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 06 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02441-4 Population ageing is too often framed as decline. Drawing on neuroscience and behavioural science, this Comment calls for a shift from brain ageing to brain longevity and argues that brain capital should be treated as a policy and governance priority to support resilient institutions and sustainable economies.

Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 06 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02435-2 Appel et al. found that deceptive networks reached over 37 million Facebook and 3 million Instagram users during the 2020 US elections, with the majority of this exposure driven by 3 networks and amplified by ordinary users resharing the content.