During the COVID-19 pandemic, suicide rates in Japan declined by 14% during the initial wave (February to June 2020) but increased by 16% in the second wave (July to October 2020), with a larger increase (37%) among females.

Herle et al. provide evidence that common genetic variants associated with BMI are also associated with eating behaviour trajectories in childhood, supporting the behavioural susceptibility theory of obesity.

Stein and Peelen show that discrimination performance can be used to dissociate conscious and unconscious contributions to detection effects in face perception and attention tasks.

Ma et al. examine why and how crowd synchronization forms spontaneously under different density conditions and what functional benefit synchronization offers for the collective motion of humans.

Jones et al. examine the generalizability of the valence–dominance model of social judgements of faces in 41 countries across 11 world regions. They find evidence of both generalizability and variation, depending on the analytical method.

In this Registered Report, Isler et al. test whether religious cooperation is intuitively parochial. They find evidence of religious parochialism but not intuitive cooperation. Exploratory analyses suggest that deliberation tends to promote cooperation in general.

The pandemic is causing prolonged stress to our social connections, with major adverse consequences to individual and societal health. As a group-living, cooperative species, we need policies of communal care for a more equitable, resilient future, argues Robin Nelson.

Scientific research can have a positive impact on society, particularly in a health crisis. But to fully achieve this, scientists must engage with end-users from the very beginning of the research process, writes Lea Pare Toe.