This article summarizes the American Psychological Association's (2024) clinical practice guideline to provide recommendations for the nonpharmacological treatment of chronic musculoskeletal pain in adults. Three systematic reviews and meta-analyses, along with other literature and observations from practitioners and patients, served as the basis for the guideline. The guideline development panel consisted of health professionals from psychology, occupational medicine, nursing, social work, and physical therapy, as well as community members who self-identified as having chronic musculoskeletal pain. The panel examined the efficacy of noninvasive, nonpharmacological treatments and complementary and integrative medicine treatments. The panel also considered the comparative effectiveness among noninvasive, nonpharmacological treatments and noninvasive, nonpharmacological treatments in relation to complementary and integrative medicine treatments or select nonopioid, pharmacologic treatments. First-line and second-line recommendations for the treatment of chronic musculoskeletal pain, presented in detail in the guideline, are summarized here. The target audience includes clinicians, researchers, patients, and policymakers. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
The dominance of the Western medical model in mental health care has been increasingly questioned for its illness-focused orientation and limited effectiveness in promoting holistic well-being. This qualitative study explores how traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) offers a comprehensive, theoretically grounded, and clinically meaningful paradigm through the perspectives of 17 TCM practitioners in China. Using consensual qualitative research methodology, we conducted semistructured interviews to understand how TCM conceptualizes mental health, mental illness, prevention, and treatment. The results show that TCM practitioners conceptualize mental health through concepts such as shen (, spirit), jingshen (, essence-spirit), and qingzhi (, emotions-will), viewing wellness as dynamic balance rather than absence of pathology. Mental illness is interpreted as a state of imbalance arising from interactions among internal and external conditions. Treatment philosophy and principles emphasize prevention, pattern differentiation, holistic root treatment, and multimodal interventions. These findings highlight TCM's potential as a health-promoting paradigm that reorients psychotherapy toward a holistic, person-centered, and preventive population health-oriented framework, offering valuable insights for advancing mental health care beyond symptom reduction. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
What can we learn from gun owners by asking them about how their guns make them feel? We take a person-centered approach in analyzing a sample of over 4,000 gun owners drawn from a nationally representative survey frame to model the ways in which owners differ in the esteem they feel their guns provide. We find evidence for four distinct subpopulations of ownership, one which generally disagrees that guns help them to feel esteem (11.4% of the sample); two that generally agree that guns provide esteem, albeit to different degrees (39.8% and 30.2%, respectively); and one subpopulation that strongly agrees that guns help them to feel responsible, safe, respected, patriotic, valuable, confident, and in control (18.6%). These subpopulations differ meaningfully in perceptions of the likelihood of needing to use one's gun, in how they think about the nature of responsible firearm ownership, in their actual storage behavior, and they differ in terms of the threats that they believe their guns are able to protect against. These various psychological subpopulations of owners differ far more strongly in their attitudes and behaviors than in their underlying demographics (such as age, gender, ethnicity, education, or urbanicity), reinforcing the importance of understanding gun ownership from the inside out. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Children and youth seeking asylum encounter a range of unique experiences and obstacles in their efforts to secure protected immigration status. This study used a consensual qualitative research approach to analyze data that centered lived experience voice gathered from first-person interviews with 12 adults, six men, and six women aged 18-29 years, who entered the United States as minor asylum seekers. Results indicated that they experienced premigratory exposure to violence or harm, psychological distress, financial instability, and obstacles to health care. Participants also reported fear, adversity, and time spent in immigration detention centers as they sought asylum in the United States. Further, they disclosed current mental health concerns, as well as barriers to education, employment, and legal representation. Participants identified a series of effective internal and external supports they leveraged to adaptively respond to systemic challenges, described their aspirations for the future, and provided recommendations for guiding clinicians in service provision. The results of the study can inform psychologists and allied professionals about the impact of exposure to harm that asylum-seeking minors face, this population's resilience, and possible strengths-based strategies for responding to the needs of young people experiencing forced displacement and areas of potential advocacy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Taking photos is a ubiquitous everyday activity, woven into social life from classrooms and meetings to travel and social gatherings. Photography is known to impair memory for photographed experiences, a phenomenon termed the photo-taking impairment effect (PTIE), but prior work has focused solely on the photographer. The present research introduces and tests a social extension of this phenomenon: One person's photo-taking activity can impair a nearby companion's memory for the same event, which we term the companion-PTIE. Across four experiments spanning controlled laboratory tasks and a simulated art exhibition, we show that photo-taking reduces a nonphotographing companion's subsequent memory to a degree comparable to taking photos oneself. Mechanistically, we dissociate cognitive offloading from attentional disengagement. Instructing photographers to delete each photo immediately, thereby removing any expectation of later access, left both the self- and companion-PTIE unchanged, arguing against cognitive offloading as a primary driver. By contrast, preventing a nonphotographing companion from seeing the act of photo-taking with an opaque barrier abolished the companion-PTIE, implicating attentional disengagement as the causal pathway. Robust Bayesian meta-analyses estimated a reliable companion-PTIE with no meaningful difference in magnitude from the self-PTIE. These findings reframe the PTIE as a social phenomenon: The memory costs of ubiquitous photography extend beyond photographers to copresent others, revealing how everyday technologies reshape collective memory for shared experiences. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
White children in the United States begin developing racial biases in early childhood that threaten the well-being of children of color and serve as the developmental roots for racial prejudices that persist into adulthood. The present study examined the role of children's media consumption in their developing racial biases by combining data from a 1-year longitudinal study assessing 593 White, U.S. children's racial biases and a novel, scene-by-scene content analysis of the racial representation within 29 children's TV shows and movies that were popular among our participants. Results revealed a consistent pattern across three standard measures of racial biases: With age, children whose favorite media portrayed fewer Black characters-and especially in high-status contexts and roles-were less likely to choose to play with a Black child, held less positive attitudes toward Black children, and were more likely to attribute Black-White racial inequalities to intrinsic racial differences. These results highlight the role media play in the development of racial biases during childhood, the need for diverse children's media that portray characters of color in high-status contexts and roles, and the importance of monitoring the messages young children receive when consuming media. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Allergic diseases are common chronic conditions in childhood, yet the role of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in their development remains incompletely understood at the population level. Using pooled data from the 2016-2023 National Survey of Children's Health, a nationally representative survey of U.S. children aged 0-17 years, we examined associations between ACEs and parent-reported allergic conditions and asthma, including parent-reported disease severity (moderate-to-severe). ACEs were assessed across nine parent-reported domains and summarized as a cumulative score. Weighted logistic regression and restricted cubic spline models were performed to estimate associations between ACEs and allergic outcomes, with subgroup analyses by age and sociodemographic characteristics. A total of 290,599 children were included (M [SD] age = 8.62 [5.16] years; 51.17% male), representing 61.5 million children. The weighted prevalence was 20.09% for allergic conditions and 7.18% for asthma. Compared with no ACEs, exposure to ≥4 ACEs was associated with higher odds of parent-reported allergic conditions (OR = 1.85; 95% CI [1.68, 2.04]) and asthma (OR = 2.08; 95% CI [1.79, 2.41]). Associations were strongest in early childhood. Among children aged 0-2 years, those exposed to ≥4 ACEs had 2.6-fold higher odds of allergic conditions (OR = 2.64; 95% CI [1.65, 4.23]) and nearly fivefold increased odds of asthma (OR = 4.71; 95% CI [2.24, 9.91]), compared to those with no ACEs. In item-level analyses, caregiver mental illness and experiences of racial discrimination showed the strongest associations with allergic outcomes. These findings highlight early-life adversity as an important social determinant of allergic disease and the need for early identification and prevention strategies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Although natural disaster often stimulates prosocial behavior, it is unclear whether more severe forms of disaster enhance or detract from these effects. We investigated the impact of flooding on prosociality, its moderation by social cohesion, and stress appraisal as a key mediator. Participants were drawn from a natural experiment of Hurricane Sandy (n = 1,182 flooded participants; n = 3,162 nonflooded controls). Flooded participants reported greater volunteering time and more varied volunteering tasks (ps < .0001), but not a greater likelihood of any volunteering, relative to controls. An instrumental variable analysis supported a causal effect of flood on greater volunteering time and more varied volunteering. Flooding also interacted with social cohesion so that greater volunteering time occurred only among individuals who reported moderate to high levels of cohesion. In addition, prior experience with rescue and recovery after the 9/11 terror attacks robustly predicted prosocial outcomes. Finally, stressful hurricane appraisals fully mediated the effect of flooding on greater volunteering time and more varied helping behavior, suggesting a key positive role for stress appraisals. Plausible confounds, such as residing in the inundation zone, evacuating, and demographic factors, did not account for the flood-prosocial behavior link. Findings indicate that severe disasters can promote more sustained and varied volunteering behavior, that a moderate degree of social cohesion may be necessary for sustained prosociality, and that stress appraisals are potential mechanisms of persistent prosocial responses to severe disaster. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
This article provides an executive summary of the American Psychological Association's revised Practice Guidelines Regarding Psychologists' Involvement in Pharmacological Issues. The revision was requested by the American Psychological Association Society for Prescribing Psychology (Division 55) and was approved by the American Psychological Association Council of Representatives in August 2025. The task force updated and expanded the guidelines' empirical, theoretical, and practical bases, which reflect the substantial growth in psychologists' roles in pharmacotherapy, including expanded prescriptive authority and collaboration with medical providers. The revision integrates new research, ethical standards, and practical considerations to support safe, evidence-based, and patient-centered pharmacological practice. In this executive summary, we include key points from each of the 14 guidelines. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
The International Collaboration on Undergraduate Psychology Outcomes project developed the International Competences for Undergraduate Psychology model to offer a globally relevant framework to provide a reference point for reflection on and development of foundational undergraduate psychology programs across diverse international settings. The project, guided by the International Collaboration on Undergraduate Psychology Outcomes Committee and advisory group members (120 across 47 nations), was inspired by the concepts of psychological literacy and global citizenship and informed by reviews of both overarching and specific competence frameworks. The model emerged through systematic, inclusive processes of scholarship, collaboration, consultation, analysis, and synthesis. It comprises 24 foundational competences across two core categories, psychological knowledge and psychological research methodologies and methods, and five psychology-relevant categories: values and ethics, cultural responsiveness and diversity, critical thinking and problem solving, communication and interpersonal skills, and personal and professional development. The International Competences for Undergraduate Psychology model, the first of its kind, addresses the need of stakeholders to understand how graduates of foundational psychology programs can contribute meaningfully to personal, work, and community contexts. It responds to epistemic imbalances, geographic biases, and the urgent need for culturally inclusive and contextually relevant educational frameworks at a critical time for psychology. Moreover, the model provides a foundation for a shift in the discipline of psychology toward more globally inclusive and impactful processes and outcomes. Rather than prescribing uniform standards, the International Competences for Undergraduate Psychology model offers an adaptable framework that can complement existing national or regional competence models. This approach ensures foundational psychology education aligns with current and future societal needs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Antisemitism-defined as prejudice and hostility toward Jews-is traditionally studied by examining explicit negative stereotypes and historical discriminatory actions against Jewish communities. However, this article explores an often overlooked and understudied dimension: how positive stereotypes about Jewish people paradoxically reinforce antisemitism and contribute to their marginalization. While negative stereotypes about Jews are widely recognized as harmful and unwelcomed, positive stereotypes-such as perception of high intelligence and financial achievements-are frequently misunderstood as benign. We investigate how these seemingly positive traits could facilitate and reinforce negative outcomes for Jewish people. We propose, analogous to the framework built on the model minority myth literature in Asian American Studies literature, that positive stereotypes also perpetuate antisemitism through three psychological mechanisms: (a) othering, social alienation, and eroded social solidarity; (b) fostering resentment and neglecting diversity of ingroup experiences; and (c) enabling scapegoating and conspiracy narratives. We explore their consequences at the individual, group, and societal levels. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Antisemitism has surged in the United States since the onset of the Israel-Hamas War. Yet, responses from liberals-who generally vigorously defend marginalized groups against prejudice and discrimination-have been tepid, leading some to suggest that liberals tolerate antisemitism. In three preregistered experiments (N = 979), we investigate how Americans-liberals and conservatives-perceive antisemitism and whether their perceptions depend on how the antisemitism is justified. We find that, absent justifications, individuals expressing antisemitism (and other prejudices) are generally disliked and more so by liberals than by conservatives. However, when these individuals justify their antisemitism by disapproval of Israel and the war in Gaza or violations by Israel of the human rights of Palestinians, they are liked more by liberals (but not conservatives). We find support for two group-based explanations for this "licensing" effect of justifications: Liberals evaluate individuals who express antisemitism and other prejudices more positively to the extent that the justifications they express (a) identify them as liberals (ingroup favoritism) and (b) suggest that they are not generally bigoted and are therefore less of a threat to their political alliances (alliance politics). A fuller understanding of why antisemitism is presently not more broadly condemned requires considering how it is expressed, the social information contained in the expression, and the implications of this information for perceivers. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Antisemitism and hostility toward Israel reliably co-occur, causing some to regard opposition to Israel as the "new antisemitism," a socially acceptable way to express an ancient prejudice. Others dismiss new antisemitism as a specious rhetorical tactic used to shame and silence earnest critics of Israel. Three preregistered studies addressed this issue. Study 1 (N = 373) found that Time 1 antisemitism predicted Time 2 anti-Israel attitudes via conspiracy beliefs about Israel and Zionists. We named this pattern the "Conspiracies Mediated Model of New Antisemitism." Study 2 (N = 243) cross-sectionally assessed the distinct mediational roles of anti-Israel conspiracies (Israel conspiring for itself), Zionist conspiracies (Jews conspiring for Israel), and Jewish-related conspiracies (Jews conspiring in ways unrelated to Israel). Conspiracies implicating Israel and Zionists again mediated the association between antisemitism and anti-Israel attitudes, but those related to Jews qua Jews did not. Study 3 (N = 493), using a three-time-point longitudinal design, showed that conspiracies related to Israel and Zionists, but not to Jews qua Jews, positively mediate the predictive relationship between antisemitism and anti-Israel beliefs. Across studies, the Conspiracies Mediated Model of New Antisemitism accounted for over 55% of the variance in anti-Israel attitudes-a substantial effect. Results were not due to a general conspiratorial mindset. Democrats, compared to Republicans, expressed less antisemitism but stronger anti-Israel attitudes and greater endorsement of anti-Israel and anti-Zionist conspiracies. These studies confirm that the relationship between antisemitism and anti-Israel hostility is reliable, predictive, and substantial, and that it is mediated by anti-Israel and anti-Zionist conspiracy beliefs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Does the perception of Jewish financial success trigger antisemitism? In three studies using both qualitative and quantitative methods, we found that the answer in China was no. In Study 1, we examined Chinese popular discourse on Jewish businesses and found that Jewish managers were seen as models to emulate for both instrumental success and ethical conduct. In Study 2, a survey of Chinese white-collar workers showed a similar pattern: Managerial behaviors perceived as Jewish were rated as more profitable and ethical than those perceived as more Chinese. In Study 3, through an investment-scenario experiment, Chinese participants rated businesses with managers described as adhering to Chinese views of Jewish managerial behavior as more profitable and ethical, and these evaluations were mediated by the extent to which participants perceived the behavior as "Jewish." These results offer insights into how cultural context shapes perceptions of Jewish financial success as either a source of envy or of emulation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
While perpetrators of anti-Jewish harassment and violence are a small minority in democratic societies, they rely on a larger number of people who justify such aggression or silently condone it. Using data from nationally representative surveys of the Norwegian population, I report two studies investigating whether endorsement of Holocaust inversion-the belief that Israel treats Palestinians as badly as Jews were treated during World War II-is associated with (a) justification of harassment and violence against Jews and (b) refusal to take a stance against such aggression. Study 1 (N = 1,575) found support for both hypotheses. In a preregistered replication, Study 2 (N = 1,653) confirmed these results. Follow-up analyses found that endorsement of Holocaust inversion was also associated with refusal to answer questions measuring blatant antisemitic prejudice. The findings support theorizing that sees Holocaust inversion as a socially more acceptable vehicle for expressing and legitimizing antisemitic hostility. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Holocaust distortions are central to contemporary antisemitic rhetoric, appearing across political ideologies and geographic contexts. Such distortions, often closely linked to collective memory processes, raise critical questions about the causal relationship between antisemitism and Holocaust narratives. Theoretical and conceptual work on secondary antisemitism suggests that modern antisemitism stems from ingroup-serving Holocaust distortions, motivated by collective guilt. However, social psychological research suggests that contemporary attitudes may shape historical representations, indicating that antisemitism could be a cause, rather than a consequence, of these distortions. In a longitudinal analysis of a quota-representative sample of the German and Polish populations, two countries with distinct Holocaust histories, we examined the bidirectional relationship between antisemitic prejudice and ingroup-serving Holocaust distortion. Using structural equation modeling, we assessed the reciprocal influence of antisemitism and Holocaust reinterpretation, with both national models showing good fit (comparative fit index > .98, root-mean-square error of approximation < .065, standardized root-mean-square residual < .04). By assessing participants' perceptions of their ingroup's emotions and behaviors during the Holocaust alongside contemporary antisemitic attitudes, our findings show that antisemitism actively influences biased Holocaust representations. These results challenge the premise of secondary antisemitism, highlighting that historical distortions often reflect current prejudices rather than driving them. Our findings underscore how collective memory can be adapted to justify present-day biases, emphasizing the dynamic interplay between historical narratives and contemporary intergroup attitudes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
This article reviews the historical contributions of psychological scholarship on antisemitism, identifies theoretical traditions that emerged directly from this work, and analyzes the social, methodological, and conceptual factors that contributed to its temporary marginalization. We then synthesize contemporary research that has revitalized the field, including work on memory-defensive antisemitism, conspiracy mentality, intergroup threat, and the psychological dynamics underlying anti-Zionist expressions of antisemitism. By integrating classical and contemporary perspectives, the article argues that antisemitism constitutes a theoretically distinctive form of prejudice that challenges standard models of stereotyping, power, and minority status. The introduction concludes by outlining the aims of the present special issue and highlighting key directions for future psychological research on antisemitism in an era of democratic fragility, digital misinformation, and renewed intergroup violence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
John P. Campbell (1937-2025) was a pioneering scholar in industrial and organizational psychology whose work reshaped the study of job performance. At the University of Minnesota, he built a world-class graduate program and mentored generations of students. His multidimensional model of performance and emphasis on behavior clarified a central problem in the field, while his leadership of Project A influenced modern personnel selection practices. Renowned for both scientific rigor and generous mentorship, Campbell's legacy endures through his scholarship, students, and honors established in his name. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Value learning is often studied at the individual object level, yet in natural environments, values are learned within structured contexts. A dominant account-value normalization-proposes that item values are encoded relative to their local context, producing contrastive biases that suppress below-average values and amplify above-average ones. However, empirical support for value normalization has been limited to proximity-based grouping (i.e., grouping by spatial or temporal co-occurrence), leaving open how value learning operates in more structured environments. Here, we focus on structure-based grouping, in which items are related by conceptual or relational structure and test value generalization as a competing account of context-dependent value learning. Across five experiments using modified multiarmed bandit tasks, participants learned item values through trial and error, while group structure had to be inferred from experience. Contrary to the predictions of value normalization, participants systematically overestimated the value of below-average items in high-mean groups and preferred them over objectively superior items from lower mean groups. This assimilative bias was robust across groupings defined by visual features, task-defined categories, and abstract cognitive map structure and persisted even when explicit monetary reward framing was removed. Computational modeling showed that behavior was best captured by value generalization mechanisms, implemented either as feedback-driven value propagation within groups or as Bayesian integration of group-level and item-level information at decision time. Across experiments, these models consistently outperformed normalization and standard item-level learning models. Together, these findings challenge the dominance of value normalization and identify value generalization as a cognitively efficient-though imperfect-strategy for value learning in structured environments. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
