Moral foundations theory posits that there are five or six universal groups of moral intuitions (that is, ‘foundations’), each of which is served by functionally specialized, dissociable cognitive mechanisms. Hopp et al. probe the neural (dis)unity of moral foundations theory and report that each moral foundation recruits domain-general mechanisms of social cognition, but also has a dissociable neural signature that is malleable by sociomoral experience.

See Hopp et al.

The rapid development of generative AI has brought about a paradigm shift in content creation, knowledge representation and communication. This hot generative AI summer has created a lot of excitement, as well as disruption and concern. This issue features a Focus on the new opportunities that AI tools offer for science and society. Our authors also confront the numerous challenges that intelligent machines pose and explore strategies to tackle them.

See Focus

Improving happiness is a key priority for many people and strategies on how to achieve this feature widely in popular media. Folk and Dunn carried out a systematic review of the evidence supporting the five most widely recommended strategies for increasing happiness. The authors found that the scientific evidence in support of these strategies is weak and call for more rigorous research.

See Folk and Dunn

Reasoning by analogy is a hallmark of human intelligence. Webb et al. now show that large language models such as GPT-3 are able to solve analogical reasoning problems at a human-like level of performance.

See Webb et al See also Research Briefing

Past research has identified an association between higher socio-economic status and lower mortality risk or longer lifespan. However, causal evidence has been lacking. In this issue, Ye et al. used Mendalian randomization to investigate how various dimensions of socio-economic status causally affect longevity. They found a positive independent causal effect of education on longevity, but no evidence for independent effects of income or occupation. This work suggests that education should be prioritized when developing health strategies to improve longevity.

See Ye et al.

The world’s plant collections — known as herbaria — form the basis of botanical research and understanding of the world’s flora diversity. These collections, accumulated over the past four centuries, were shaped within their colonial sociopolitical contexts. Park et al. throw light onto the colonial legacy of herbaria, using digital data from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, direct surveys and analyses of physical and digital collections. They demonstrate a substantial disparity between where plant diversity naturally exists and where it is housed and catalogued, with most specimens being housed outside of their own borders.

See Park et al. See also News & Views by Knapp

How do rituals affect judicial decision-making? Using data on roughly half a million cases and 10,000 judges from Pakistan and India, Mehmood et al. estimate the impact of the Ramadan fasting ritual on criminal sentencing decisions. They find that Muslim judges, unlike non-Muslim ones, are more likely to acquit the accused while fasting. These acquittals are also less likely to be appealed and reversed in higher courts. Moreover, Muslim judges’ more-frequent acquittals during Ramadan do not lead to greater recidivism or outgroup bias for non-Muslim litigants.

See Mehmood et al.

Humans use supernatural beliefs as tools for explaining the world around them. Jackson and colleagues provide a quantitative analysis of ethnographic texts from 114 culturally and geographically diverse societies, showing that people invoke the supernatural more often to explain natural phenomena (such as droughts and storms) than social phenomena (such as warfare and murder).

See Jackson et al. See also News & Views by Billet and Norenzayan

There is a commonly held notion in the field of education that racial inequities are a result of Black, Latinx and Indigenous (BLI) students putting in less effort or being uninterested in their education. However, past studies have found that BLI students are as motivated as white, Asian or Asian-American students, if not more so. An Article by Silverman and colleagues reports the results of three studies conducted in the USA that found that BLI students receive lower grades than non-BLI students with similar patterns of motivation. One factor that contributes to this inequitable motivational payoff is teachers’ racially biased beliefs about students, representing the powerful influence of a variety of social forces to shape educational inequities.

See Silverman et al.

During the last ice age, Neanderthals used a small cave in the Iberian peninsula to accumulate the skulls of ancient bison and other large mammals, some of which were associated with small hearths. Baquedano and colleagues suggest that this was a symbolic practice, with the skulls possibly being kept as hunting trophies.

See Baquedano et al.

The spread of new technologies has been a driving force for cultural evolution. Until recently, relatively little was known about the spread of innovation among ancient hunter-gatherers. Analysis of pottery made and used by hunter-gatherers in northeastern Europe in the sixth millennium BC supports the existence of super-regional networks that enabled cultural transmission long before the arrival of farming.

See Dolbunova et al. See also News & Views by Shennan

The killing of Mahsa Amini in police custody triggered widespread protests in Iran that have been met with extreme, violent suppression by the Iranian regime. Ms Constitution, a female Iranian scientist whose identity is protected by publishing pseudonymously, provides a first-hand account of the harsh, dehumanizing realities behind the slogan that is most chanted by protesting Iranians: ‘Woman, life, liberty’. The international academic community cannot — and should not — be a mere observer of what is happening in Iran. Ms Constitution explains we can support Iranian academics and Iranian people’s ongoing fight for human rights.

See Ms Constitution See also Editorial