Impulsivity is considered a risk factor for many substance use disorders, but its specific role in opioid use disorder remains unclear. In this Review, Vassileva et al. detail how negative affect shapes impulsivity throughout the opioid addiction cycle and discuss avenues for focused interventions.

Nature Reviews Psychology invited six researchers from cognitive science, clinical psychology, social psychology, language science and public health to share their perspectives on current and future uses of generative artificial intelligence, including its impacts on research and humankind.

Transdiagnostic approaches to psychopathology are expected to overcome the assessment and treatment limitations of categorical diagnoses. In this Review, Moulds and McEvoy conceptualize repetitive negative thinking as a transdiagnostic process and advance a nuanced understanding of its diverse clinical presentations.

Aggregated opinions, such as election results and product ratings, are prevalent in the modern world. In this Review, Oktar and Lombrozo describe the properties of aggregated opinion and the mechanisms by which it drives individuals to change or maintain their beliefs.

Ostracism has specific psychosocial and behavioural consequences that might vary according to context. In this Review, Chen and colleagues elaborate on a multiple-processes framework of ostracism and propose intervention targets to reduce its detrimental consequences.

Natural language processing (NLP) methods are growing in popularity as they become cheaper to implement and easier to use. In this Review, Feuerriegel et al. describe NLP methods and provide recommendations for the use of NLP in behavioural science.

Expectations of negative social interactions or low interpersonal self-efficacy are common among people with depression. In this Review, Kirchner et al. integrate the cognitive, social and clinical aspects of expectation formation and describe how they inform the trajectory of depressive symptoms and can boost psychological treatment.

Aesthetic experience has traditionally been considered a unique kind of experience that occurs when people view specific objects such as artwork. In this Perspective, Nadal and Skov posit an account of aesthetic experience that emphasizes its similarities to other types of experience.

Optimism declines across early childhood, but there is no theoretical account for why such changes occur. In this Perspective, Leonard and Sommerville discuss and integrate three candidate causes for age-related declines in optimism: learning from experience, theory development and valenced learning biases.

The debate over cognitive penetrability of perception, which has been largely limited to vision, remains unsolved; in this Review, Vetter and colleagues detail cognitive influences on perception across vision, audition, somatosensation, vestibular perception and chemosensation to advance the debate.

Women remain underrepresented in some STEM fields throughout much of the world. In this Review, Cheryan and colleagues discuss four factors that might explain this underrepresentation — access to education and employment, masculine cultures, insufficient positive experiences, and men’s choices — and interventions that might help reduce these disparities.

Vaccination mandates can increase vaccine uptake, but might cause unintended psychological effects with social and political consequences. In this Review, Schmid et al. present a toolbox of complementary and alternative interventions informed by psychological science to tackle vaccine hesitancy.

Implicit measures are widely used because they are assumed to be superior to self-reports. In this Perspective, Corneille and Gawronski challenge this view and argue that claims about disadvantages of self-reports are unfounded and that self-reports have unmatched advantages over implicit measures.

Mindfulness meditation improves performance in some cognitive domains, but the mechanisms that underlie this change are unclear. In this Perspective, Cásedas and colleagues synthesize mindfulness meditation and cognitive training frameworks and suggest that mindfulness training improves cognitive efficiency by reducing mind-wandering and negative affect.

Early warning signals have been proposed to predict symptom changes and to provide timely warnings of mental health risk and recovery. In this Perspective, Helmich et al. question the clinical utility of such signals and discuss alternative avenues for early change prediction.

Memories often consist of interconnected events from daily life. In this Review, Bailey and Smith discuss how events are perceived, represented, and remembered and how these processes are impacted by ageing and certain clinical conditions.

Goal disengagement is typically conceptualized in terms of total abandonment. In this Review, Scholer and colleagues examine goal disengagement at multiple timescales and consider when and how goal disengagement is beneficial in the context of multiple goals.

Screening for adverse childhood experiences can improve mental health outcomes through personalized treatments in at-risk individuals or preventative strategies at the population level. In this Review, Danese et al. synthesize the challenges and opportunities of these screening measures and related analytical methods.

When successful, engaging in allyship can promote belonging and well-being in marginalized individuals. In this Review, Pietri et al. outline a framework for effective allyship that includes four crucial and related components: awareness, authentic motivation, action orientation and all-inclusivity.

Treatments for depression, anxiety and trauma primarily focus on alleviating negative emotions, but their effectiveness is limited. In this Review, Craske et al. describe evidence suggesting that a shift towards interventions that target positive affect and reward processing could enhance treatment outcomes.