Volume 5 Issue 5, May 2021

Oliver Rollins is a sociologist interested in how neuroscience research deals with and is informed by racialisation, racism, and other social processes of inequality. Here, he discusses how (neuro)scientists can engage in antiracist research practices and contribute to an antiracist science.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused rushed digitalization of primary and secondary (K12) student education, and cyber-risks such as bullying, technology addiction, and misinformation must be addressed. There is an urgent need to coordinate global efforts for digital skills education and training, which can help students succeed in the digital age while curbing risks and inequality.

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.

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.

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.

Recent phone survey data from Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria and Uganda reveals the breadth of the socioeconomic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on individuals and households.

Using data from a large UK police force, Vomfell and Stewart examine ethnic bias in decisions to stop and search individuals. They find that both officer bias and biased patrolling decisions contribute to the over-searching of ethnic minorities.

Based on data from two large-scale field studies in Switzerland, Liebe, Gewinner and Diekmann examine the acceptance of green energy defaults in the household and business sectors. They find large and temporally stable default effects in both sectors.

Alvarez-Rodriguez et al. examine group interactions by means of higher-order social networks. They propose a theoretical framework for studying real-world interactions and provide a case study of collaboration in science and technology.

Models indicate that reciprocity cannot evolve when errors lead to frequent misunderstanding between cooperators. Boyd and Mathew show that third-party arbitration allows reciprocity to thrive even when errors are common and arbitration is imperfect.

Zhang et al. build a cultural phylogeny of historical Islamic sects and schools from the seventh to twentieth centuries and use phylogenetic comparative methods to show that apocalyptic and reincarnation beliefs display distinct relationships with intergroup violence.

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.

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.

This meta-analysis of 419 randomized controlled trials found that various types of psychological interventions could improve mental wellbeing in clinical and non-clinical populations. Effect sizes tended to be small to moderate and were influenced by various moderators.

In a Registered Report, Eldar et al. measure pupillary responses in six different tasks to adjudicate between two accounts of biases in decision-making: do biases reflect a lack of effort and deliberation or do they arise from gradual information integration?