Communications Psychology promotes psychological research that reaches beyond its boundaries. Empirical Work can speak to psychological theory and constructs or explore psychological processes using any of a vast array of data and analysis methods. Whether a study belongs in Communications Psychology does not depend on the type of data that are used; but on whether the data are of high quality, appropriately analyzed, and can answer the psychological research question.

Programming is essential for modern research in neuroscience and psychology, but it can quickly become a source of frustration and error. This Primer introduces ten practical principles guiding researchers toward writing clear, adaptable, and easily shareable code, ultimately supporting reproducible science.

Third-party punishment of unfair sharing is a hallmark of a normative concern for fairness in adults. Here, children in Canada, India, Peru, Uganda, USA, and Vanuatu show this same normative concern by punishing peers—sometimes even at personal cost—who have shared unfairly.

The link between conspiracy beliefs and reactionary movements that promote intolerance and undermine democracy was investigated in 21 countries. Economic prosperity and democratic functioning moderated the positive link between anti-migration conspiracy beliefs and commitment to reactionary action.

This study shows that rising political polarization is linked to an increase in distorted language patterns—commonly associated with anxiety and depression—highlighting a link between political expression and cognitively distorted thinking

High social aloofness was linked to reduced exploration, lower decision noise, and high choice stickiness in a bandit task. These effects reflect habitual and outcome-driven behaviours, linking social disengagement to nonsocial decision flexibility.

Explicitly presenting a range (e.g. 0–60 km/h) instead of a single limit (e.g. 60 km/h)—the ‘Range Nudge’—acts as an additional anchor to enhance adherence. Seven experiments showed reduced speeding and increased handwashing time.

Misinformation is often framed as a cognitive failure, focusing on the vulnerabilities of those who believe it. But misinformation often stems from deliberate disinformation campaigns—which should be considered proactive intergroup aggression.

Dogs have worked and lived with humans for thousands of generations. Modern dogs’ looks and behaviour differ substantially from wolves’. A study inJournal of Neuroscience compares the behaviour and brains of modern and pre-modern dogs to understand the course of wolf-to-dog domestication.

Using longitudinal SHARE data, this study examines how cognitive aging relates to hearing impairment and distinct profiles of social isolation and loneliness, highlighting differences in memory and executive function trajectories.

Using a gamified punishment task, this study identifies specific learning and decision-making deficits that drive robust, consequential differences in choice within an international, general population sample across a 6-month interval.

This resource presents a tool to use multimodal transformers to generate reliable, context-sensitive concreteness ratings for single words and multi-word expressions across languages.

Emotional meaning should be studied through language. Language may capture emotional meaning by identifying the concerns that are put in focus within a given situation, the perspective from which the situation is viewed, and the dimensions by which the situation or event is evaluated.