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Online communication has become integral to modern political behaviour — to the extent that events online both reflect and influence actions offline. A study uses geolocated Twitter data to argue that moralization of protests leads to violent protests and increased support for violence.

Polling problems in recent elections have called into question whether sample surveys can still produce valid data. A new study provides reassurance.

Growing evidence links adverse childhood experiences to health problems decades later. A study of adults followed in midlife finds that perceived social support predicts lower subsequent mortality, particularly for adults reporting child abuse, suggesting that supportive relationships buffer long-term health in the context of early maltreatment.

Asymmetric social boundaries allow a minority culture to reap the benefits of outside interaction while maintaining its distinctiveness. This opens questions about the nature of intergroup interactions and whether such boundaries are the only way to preserve valued cultural norms.

With just a handful of modifications to their social networks, individuals and groups can reduce the likelihood that they will be detected by others using standard social network analysis algorithms.

How social norms evolve over time and what affects their evolution are central questions in the literature about norms. A study suggests that over time, hygiene and violence norms have become stricter, because those who prefer strict norms sanction those who prefer loose norms more than sanctioning in the other direction.

The social function of witchcraft accusations remains opaque. An empirical study of Chinese villagers shows that the label ‘z hu’influences who interacts across a social network, but appears not to tag defectors in service of promoting cooperation. An open question thus remains: from witchcraft to gossip, which accusations stick?

Multiple guesses from one individual, like guesses from a crowd, yield a better estimate when averaged. How far can such solipsistic polling take us in real, high-stakes settings? Now 1.2 million incentivized, real-world guesses show just how much people can improve their judgements by reconsidering their own estimates.

New research suggests links between disliking visual patterns that contain irregularities and disliking people who are different in some way. Now we need to understand better the parameters of this effect, the mechanisms behind it and its developmental origins.

No plant, animal or human is impervious to the problems posed by bitter winters and scorching summers. Two large studies suggest that many Chinese and US inhabitants have adapted their personality to the temperatures at the place where they grew up.

The brain circuitry underlying our love of music is illuminated by a new study that uses brain stimulation to alter emotional reactions to favourite songs.

Functional brain-imaging methods provide rich datasets that can be exploited by machine-learning techniques to help assess psychiatric disorders. A recent study uses this approach to identify patients with suicidal thoughts, and to distinguish those who have attempted suicide from those who have not.

In the United States, direct-to-consumer advertisements for medications must disclose each specific side-effect risk. A new study demonstrates a counterintuitive dilution effect: people perceive drug descriptions that include both serious and trivial side effects as less risky than descriptions that only list serious side effects.

A new study shows that brain responses to unfairness during economic decision-making can predict current and future depression indices. Neural response patterns in the amygdala related to inequity tracked indices of depression, particularly for prosocial individuals who tend to be most self-sacrificing.

A quasi-experimental study of the generalized enforcement of low-level violations in New York City finds that proactive policing increases crime. This finding suggests the importance of taking a careful look at aggressive enforcement approaches used by police to reduce crime as they may be causing harm in urban communities.

It is easier to make sense of the visual environment if we know where to look. Eye movement measurements show just how quickly we can find the informative parts of a scene, even when we do not know what to expect.

What would motivate someone to willingly enter frontline combat against the Islamic State? New research finds three compelling reasons: commitment to some sacred values, forsaking commitment to their own kin for those same values, and belief in the spiritual strength of one’s own group compared to that of the enemy.

Social norms are the dominant behavioural patterns in a group that affect how people follow rules and regulations. A new modelling study shows, for different localities around the world, how the combination of biophysical context and social norms affects cooperation in water conservation.

Many studies have shown that human cooperation is fostered by altruistic cooperation and the altruistic punishment of freeriders. A study now shows significant asymmetries between cooperation in the initial provision of a social good and cooperation in the maintenance of an established social good.

Modelling and experiments have shown that strategic information can undermine ‘altruistic’ cooperation. Using a model that varies the distribution of costs for finding out, it is now shown that information can also promote self-interested ‘strategic’ cooperation.