Reviews & Analysis

The COVID-19 pandemic has provided a natural experiment capable of answering a vital question: have stay-at-home orders impacted global crime trends? A new study by Nivette and colleagues demonstrates that crime largely decreased around the globe during COVID-19 stay-at-home orders—a finding which likely carries international implications for crime policy.

Köbis et al. outline how artificial intelligence (AI) agents can negatively influence human ethical behaviour. They discuss how this capacity of AI agents can cause problems in the future and put forward a research agenda to gain behavioural insights for better AI oversight.

How do humans choose which information to pursue when solving a task? New research shows that choosing the most informative signals is cognitively demanding. The efficiency of this process is enhanced by time pressure but, remarkably, not by monetary incentives.

Risk-pooling systems have been developed as a way to collectively manage risk and can protect against loss in times of crisis. Cronk and Aktipis present seven design principles for risk-pooling systems and discuss how they are used by human communities worldwide.

Ansel Adams said, “There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.” Is it possible to predict our fickle and subjective appraisal of ‘aesthetically pleasing’ visual art? Iigaya et al. used an artificial intelligence approach to show how human aesthetic preference can be partially explained as an integration of hierarchical constituent image features.

Nielsen et al. argue for more involvement of behavioural scientists in addressing the challenge of globally increasing biodiversity loss, identifying important gaps in existing knowledge and outlining core components for a robust evidence base.

Genome-wide association studies of behavioural traits can generate predictive polygenic signals. Abdellaoui and Verweij review key developments in this field and explain how advances in methods and data can further our understanding of the relationship between genetic effects and human behaviour.

The Dunning–Kruger effect describes a tendency for incompetent individuals to overestimate their ability. The effect has both seeped into popular imagination and been the subject of scientific critique. Jansen et al. combine computational modelling with a large-scale replication of the original findings to shed new light on the drivers of the Dunning–Kruger effect.

Timely information for understanding the socioeconomic impact of COVID-19 in low-income countries is very limited. A recent paper by Josephson, Kilic, and Michler reveals large and disproportionate socioeconomic impacts of the pandemic and provides useful insights to inform an appropriate policy response.

Cognitive epidemiology studies prospective associations between cognitive abilities and health outcomes. Deary et al. review research in this field over the past decade, synthesizing evidence and outlining open questions.

Increasing the uptake of green energy use by households and businesses is a key step toward reducing environmental harm and combating climate change. In a new paper, Liebe et al.¹ show that a non-monetary intervention can have massive effects on green energy consumption, leading to substantial reductions in carbon emissions.

Obtaining accurate dates for rock art is important to both archaeologists and Aboriginal Traditional Owners, but a lack of organic material associated with rock art can make this challenging. Using radiocarbon dating of mud wasp nests, Finch et al. show that naturalistic depictions of animals in the Kimberley region of northern Australia date to between 13,000 and 17,000 years ago.

Psychologists have long known that people with depression often have unhelpful, negative patterns of thinking, known as cognitive distortions. Bathina et al. now show that these thought patterns can be detected in the everyday language of social media and that individuals who report a diagnosis of depression express more cognitive distortions.

To date, studies of gambling harms have been limited by reliance on small samples and self-reports of behaviour. Analysis of banking transactions provides unique insights into the scope and sequencing of gambling harms at the individual and population levels, with implications for gambling policy, regulation, and harm minimization.

To contain the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries around the world rushed to develop digital contact tracing apps. However, the low rates of app installation have undermined the efficacy of such tools. A study by Munzert et al. shines light on potential barriers to adoption, as well as levers that could be used to increase uptake.