The effectiveness of nudging: A meta-analysis of choice architecture interventions across behavioral domains

Over the past decade, choice architecture interventions or so-called nudges have received widespread attention from both researchers and policy makers. Built on insights from the behavioral sciences, this class of behavioral interventions focuses on the design of choice environments that facilitate personally and socially desirable decisions without restricting people in their freedom of choice. Drawing on more than 200 studies reporting over 450 effect sizes (n = 2,149,683), we present a comprehensive analysis of the effectiveness of choice architecture interventions across techniques, behavioral domains, and contextual study characteristics. Our results show that choice architecture interventions overall promote behavior change with a small to medium effect size of Cohen’s d = 0.45 (95% CI [0.39, 0.52]). In addition, we find that the effectiveness of choice architecture interventions varies significantly as a function of technique and domain. Across behavioral domains, interventions that target the organization and structure of choice alternatives (decision structure) consistently outperform interventions that focus on the description of alternatives (decision information) or the reinforcement of behavioral intentions (decision assistance). Food choices are particularly responsive to choice architecture interventions, with effect sizes up to 2.5 times larger than those in other behavioral domains. Overall, choice architecture interventions affect behavior relatively independently of contextual study characteristics such as the geographical location or the target population of the intervention. Our analysis further reveals a moderate publication bias toward positive results in the literature. We end with a discussion of the implications of our findings for theory and behaviorally informed policy making.

Cognitive, behavioral, and psychological manifestations of COVID-19 in post-acute rehabilitation setting: preliminary data of an observational study

Psychological, emotional, and behavioral domains could be altered in COVID-19 patients and measurement of variables within these domains seems to be mandatory. Neuropsychological assessment could detect possible cognitive impairment caused by COVID-19 and the choice of appropriate tools is an important question. Aim of this exploratory study was to verify the effectiveness of an assessment model for patients with COVID-19. Twelve patients were enrolled and tested with Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), Anxiety and Depression Short Scale (AD-R), and the Neuropsychiatry Inventory (NPI), at the time of their entrance (T0) and discharge (T1) from a rehabilitative unit. Moreover, a follow-up evaluation after 3 months (T2) has been conducted on eight patients. Results showed that at baseline (T0), 58.3% of the patients reported a score below cut-off at MMSE and 50% at MoCA. Although a significant amelioration was found only in NPI scores, a qualitative improvement has been detected at all tests, except for MoCA scores, in the T0-T1 trend analysis. A one-way repeated measures analysis of variance showed a significant variation in AD-R depression score, considering the three-assessment time (T0, T1, and T2). The evaluation and tracking over time of the impact of COVID-19 on cognitive, psychological, and behavioral domains has relevant implications for rehabilitation and long-term assistance needs planning. The choice of assessment tools should consider patients vulnerability and match the best compromise among briefness, sensitivity, and specificity.

A single mode of population covariation associates brain networks structure and behavior and predicts individual subjects’ age

Multiple human behaviors improve early in life, peaking in young adulthood, and declining thereafter. Several properties of brain structure and function progress similarly across the lifespan. Cognitive and neuroscience research has approached aging primarily using associations between a few behaviors, brain functions, and structures. Because of this, the multivariate, global factors relating brain and behavior across the lifespan are not well understood. We investigated the global patterns of associations between 334 behavioral and clinical measures and 376 brain structural connections in 594 individuals across the lifespan. A single-axis associated changes in multiple behavioral domains and brain structural connections (r = 0.5808). Individual variability within the single association axis well predicted the age of the subject (r = 0.6275). Representational similarity analysis evidenced global patterns of interactions across multiple brain network systems and behavioral domains. Results show that global processes of human aging can be well captured by a multivariate data fusion approach.

The Psychological Reach of Culture in Animals’ Lives

Culture—the totality of traditions acquired in a community by social learning from other individuals—has increasingly been found to be pervasive not only in humans’ but in many other animals’ lives. Compared with learning on one’s own initiative, learning from others can be very much safer and more efficient, as the wisdom already accumulated by other individuals is assimilated. This article offers an overview of often surprising recent discoveries charting the reach of culture across an ever-expanding diversity of species, as well as an extensive variety of behavioral domains, and throughout an animal’s life. The psychological reach of culture is reflected in the knowledge and skills an animal thus acquires, via an array of different social learning processes. Social learning is often further guided by a suite of adaptive psychological biases, such as conformity and learning from optimal models. In humans, cumulative cultural change over generations has generated the complex cultural phenomena observed today. Animal cultures have been thought to lack this cumulative power, but recent findings suggest that elementary versions of cumulative culture may be important in animals’ lives.

Behavioral and Cognitive Interventions With Digital Devices in Subjects With Intellectual Disability: A Systematic Review

In recent years, digital devices have been progressively introduced in rehabilitation programs and have affected skills training methods used with children and adolescents with intellectual disabilities (ID). The objective of this review is to assess the effects of the use of digital devices on the cognitive functions and behavioral skills in this population, and to acknowledge their potential as a therapeutic tool. Electronic databases were analyzed until February 2020 using search formulas with free terms related to ID and the use of digital systems with children or adolescents. The risk of bias in randomized controlled trials was assessed by means of the modified Cochrane Collaboration tool and the quality level of the non-randomized studies was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. Forty-four studies were analyzed, most of which were categorized as low quality. Of the executive function studies analyzed, 60% reported significant improvements, most commonly related to working memory. Within the cognitive skills, 47% of the studies analyzed reported significant improvements, 30% of them in language. Significant improvements in the social (50%) and behavioral domains (30%) were also reported. These results suggest that digital interventions are effective in improving working memory and academic skills, and positively affect both the social and behavioral domains. Little information has been published regarding the duration of the effects, which could be limited in time. Further research is necessary to assess long-term effectiveness, the influence of comorbidities, and the effects on subjects with severe ID. The inclusion of smartphones and special education centers is also necessary.

The burgeoning reach of animal culture

Culture can be defined as all that is learned from others and is repeatedly transmitted in this way, forming traditions that may be inherited by successive generations. This cultural form of inheritance was once thought specific to humans, but research over the past 70 years has instead revealed it to be widespread in nature, permeating the lives of a diversity of animals, including all major classes of vertebrates. Recent studies suggest that culture’s reach may extend also to invertebrates—notably, insects. In the present century, the reach of animal culture has been found to extend across many different behavioral domains and to rest on a suite of social learning processes facilitated by a variety of selective biases that enhance the efficiency and adaptiveness of learning. Far-reaching implications, for disciplines from evolutionary biology to anthropology and conservation policies, are increasingly being explored.

The Origins and Psychology of Human Cooperation

Humans are an ultrasocial species. This sociality, however, cannot be fully explained by the canonical approaches found in evolutionary biology, psychology, or economics. Understanding our unique social psychology requires accounting not only for the breadth and intensity of human cooperation but also for the variation found across societies, over history, and among behavioral domains. Here, we introduce an expanded evolutionary approach that considers how genetic and cultural evolution, and their interaction, may have shaped both the reliably developing features of our minds and the well-documented differences in cultural psychologies around the globe. We review the major evolutionary mechanisms that have been proposed to explain human cooperation, including kinship, reciprocity, reputation, signaling, and punishment; we discuss key culture–gene coevolutionary hypotheses, such as those surrounding self-domestication and norm psychology; and we consider the role of religions and marriage systems. Empirically, we synthesize experimental and observational evidence from studies of children and adults from diverse societies with research among nonhuman primates.

Evaluating Cognitive/Emotional and Behavioral Mediators of Oral Health Outcomes in Vulnerable Older Adults

Inconsistent outcomes of oral hygiene interventions require testable theories combining cognitive and behavioral domains to guide intervention and improve results. This article evaluates the integrated model as a cognitive-behavioral approach to improve oral health clinical outcomes in ethnically diverse low-income older adults. Baseline data from a clinical trial utilizing the integrative model (IM) model evaluated predictors of gingival index (GI) and plaque score (PS). Individual logistic regression was performed for all predictors in relation to GI and PS. Multiple logistic regression was performed with significant predictors of GI and PS only. Greater locus of control and more brushing predicted lower GI; greater locus of control predicted lower PS. Both cognitive and behavioral domains impact GI, requiring more prolonged effort for improvement while locus of control, a cognitive variable, predicts PS, immediately improved by daily brushing/flossing. A streamlined IM including locus of control and tooth brushing should improve oral hygiene of low-income older adults.

Psychosis in personality disorders

Psychotic presentations are discussed in context of ten personality disorders (PDs). The PDs were examined across the literature for associations with psychosis. Hallucinations and delusions are often symptoms of paranoid, schizoid, and schizotypal PDs. Patients with borderline PD present with both auditory and visual hallucinations, and range of delusional thinking. Hallucinations are generally absent among patients with antisocial, histrionic, and narcissistic PDs. Various delusions, however, are common symptoms of these disorders. Patients with avoidant, dependent, and obsessive-compulsive PDs present with delusional thinking, olfactory hallucinations (in cases of avoidant, obsessive-compulsive PDs), and possibly tactile hallucinations (in cases of avoidant PD). Approaching PDs from multiple disciplines across neurobiological and cognitive behavioral domains could further inform treatments of psychosis in PDs. Exploration of transdiagnostic domains of emotion, cognition, motivation, and social behavior could provide vital information for diagnostic and clinical purposes. More investigation is needed to draw further associations between psychosis, PDs, and co-occurring conditions.