The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into everyday life is accelerating, yet research on how individuals view different AIs remains limited. This online, preregistered study (N = 123) investigated such perceptions through three conceptual frameworks: the Stereotype Content Model, the Mind Perception Dimensions, and a novel framework synthesised from the other two. Results indicated that AI is not perceived homogeneously; rather, distinct clusters emerged in each framework. Perceptions of different AIs seem to be primarily organised along two dimensions: competence (people’s perception of an AI’s capacity to perform intended functions) and subjectivity (people’s perception of an AI’s ability to simulate having subjective experiences). We highlight the implications of these findings for Human–AI interaction (HAI) research and AI ethics and outline avenues for future research.

The ability to process facial displays of emotion is a crucial aspect of everyday interpersonal interactions, yet the use of emotions as communicative tools for situational context information remains underexplored. This study, conducted in 2024, addresses this gap by using a novel dynamic display of targets’ reactions to a poker game to assess perceivers ' ability to detect contextual information from facial displays of emotion. We categorised targets’ dynamic facial displays of emotional reactions to game outcomes using MorphCast Emotion AI HTML5 SDK, an online machine-learning tool that detects emotions in recorded videos. Additionally, we investigated the role of perceivers ' covert facial mimicry during the categorisation task using facial electromyography (fEMG). Results indicate that while perceivers achieved above-chance accuracy in guessing targets’ outcomes (win, loss,or draw) from facial displays of emotion, they struggled to distinguish between losses and draws. Further, although emotions (positive vs. negative)appear to act as cues for outcome detection, fEMG data reveal no significant pattern of activation linked to outcome accuracy. These findings highlight facial display of emotion as a communicative tool for contextual information and the role of experience, societal and cultural norms in constructing subjective yet socially expected reactions across individuals. Most participants identified as white or Asian, limiting the sample variability and generalisability, particularly due to the underrepresentation of racial and ethnic minority participants. Future research should include a more diverse sample to understand the cultural influences on expression and interpretation of facial displays of emotion.

Mind perception - the inference of mind in others - is foundational for social cognition and interaction, but previous research on its underlying dimensions has so far only produced mixed findings. In a prominent study, H.M. Gray et al. (2007) identified two dimensions of mind perception - Agency and Experience -, while more recent work instead suggests three dimensions similar to Body, Heart, and Mind (Malle, 2019; Weisman et al., 2017). Here, we provide a comprehensive account that can accommodate both dimensional structures by distinguishing target- from perceiver-specific dimensions of mind perception. These dimensions explain target- and perceiver-specific differences in mind perception that were differentially focused on by previous studies ascribing to the competing dimensional structures. To test our account empirically and compare target- vs. perceiver-specific dimensions, we gathered online survey data from two samples (N = 157, and N = 150). In both samples, exploratory factor analyses yielded two target-specific dimensions in line with Agency-Experience, and three perceiver-specific dimensions in line with Body-Heart-Mind, thereby validating our explanatory account. Further analyses showed that perceiver-specific dimensions are meaningfully associated with perceivers' demographics, personality, and spiritual belief; and that they depend on target context. Together, our results resolve inconsistencies in mind perception research and work toward a novel unifying mind perception framework.

Dehumanization is typically considered as an intergroup phenomenon, whereby people are reduced to less-than-human status on the basis of group affiliations. However, in everyday life, people often disregard the emotional states of others, which could be considered a more subtle form of dehumanization. In this Review, we examine interpersonal dehumanization, which we define as a failure to infer another person’s mental state. First, we describe the functions of interpersonal dehumanization at three temporal scales: as retrospective justification for past moral violations, as a facilitator of present behaviours and as a proactive empathy-regulation strategy. Next, we consider the brain networks that facilitate and influence daily dehumanization: specifically, networks associated with social cognition, empathy and moral decision making. We conclude by suggesting future research directions for the study of interpersonal dehumanization and its implications that could inform the development of concrete solutions to foster more humane and ethical interactions in everyday life. Dehumanization is typically considered as an intergroup phenomenon, but failures to infer another person’s mental state also occur in everyday interpersonal contexts. In this Review, Harris and Delgado describe the functions of interpersonal dehumanization at three temporal scales and discuss their supporting brain networks.

Dehumanization, characterized as a subtle yet harmful manifestation of hate speech, involves denying individuals of their human qualities and often results in violence against marginalized groups. Despite significant progress in Natural Language Processing across various domains, its application in detecting dehumanizing language is limited, largely due to the scarcity of publicly available annotated data for this domain. This paper evaluates the performance of cutting-edge NLP models, including GPT-4, GPT-3.5, and LLAMA-2, in identifying dehumanizing language. Our findings reveal that while these models demonstrate potential, achieving a 70\% accuracy rate in distinguishing dehumanizing language from broader hate speech, they also display biases. They are over-sensitive in classifying other forms of hate speech as dehumanization for a specific subset of target groups, while more frequently failing to identify clear cases of dehumanization for other target groups. Moreover, leveraging one of the best-performing models, we automatically annotated a larger dataset for training more accessible models. However, our findings indicate that these models currently do not meet the high-quality data generation threshold necessary for this task.

Elevated rates of psychosis are consistently identified in people from racialised backgrounds, with growing evidence from the systematic review literature that suggests a role for racial/ethnic discrimination. We synthesised current systematic review evidence on the association between racial/ethnic discrimination and psychosis. We conducted an umbrella review, systematically searching Medline, Embase, PsycINFO, ProQuest Central and Google Scholar (up to 19 July 2024) for systematic reviews and meta-analyses published in peer-reviewed journals exploring the effect of racial/ethnic discrimination on psychosis. 2898 citations were de-duplicated and screened, included reviews were assessed for risk of bias using AMSTAR-2 and extracted data analysed narratively following a pre-registered protocol (CRD42023400656). Seven reviews (reporting 23 primary studies representing 40,300 participants) met inclusion criteria, five of which explicitly reported on the association between racial/ethnic discrimination and psychosis. All observed evidence of a positive relationship between the two, including meta-analyses for psychotic symptoms (adjusted OR=1.77, 95%CI 1.26, 2.49) and psychotic experiences (pooled OR=1.94, 95%CI 1.42, 2.67). We observed more robust evidence for psychotic outcomes in non-clinical populations. Despite this, results were driven by cross-sectional studies (87%) and were hindered by high heterogeneity and low (n = 2) or critically low (n = 5) AMSTAR-2 review quality scores. The available systematic review evidence supports a role for racial/ethnic discrimination in developing psychosis, but high-quality studies are needed to determine the temporal and mechanistic causal pathways through which this occurs. The current findings add to knowledge on the widespread presence and deleterious impacts of racism on health and inform potential public health interventions that reduce exposure to, and the impact of, racial/ethnic discrimination.

Abstract Background When collecting data from human participants, it is often important to minimise the length of questionnaire-based measures. This makes it possible to ensure that the data collection is as engaging as possible, while it also reduces response burden, which may protect data quality. Brevity is especially important when assessing eating disorders and related phenomena, as minimising questions pertaining to shame-ridden, unpleasant experiences may in turn minimise any negative affect experienced whilst responding. Methods We relied on item response theory to shorten three eating disorder and body dysmorphia measures, while aiming to ensure that the information assessed by the scales remained as close to that assessed by the original scales as possible. We further tested measurement invariance, correlations among different versions of the same scales as well as different measures, and explored additional properties of each scale, including their internal consistency. Additionally, we explored the performance of the 3-item version of the modified Weight Bias Internalisation Scale and compared it to that of the 11-item version of the scale. Results We introduce a 5-item version of the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire, a 3-item version of the SCOFF questionnaire, and a 3-item version of the Dysmorphic Concern Questionnaire. The results revealed that, across a sample of UK adults (N = 987, ages 18–86, M = 45.21), the short scales had a reasonably good fit. Significant positive correlations between the longer and shorter versions of the scales and their significant positive, albeit somewhat weaker correlations to other, related measures support their convergent and discriminant validity. The results followed a similar pattern across the young adult subsample (N = 375, ages 18–39, M = 28.56). Conclusions These results indicate that the short forms of the tested scales may perform similarly to the full versions.

Stereotyping others in a creative process may negatively affect creative output, yet there is currently scant empirical evidence of a link between stereotyping and creativity; here, we explore this link in marketing communications. In a quasi-experiment, we introduced a novel intervention to disrupt marketeers’ dependency on stereotypes and boost their creativity. The intervention decreased marketeers’ use of stereotypes when selecting consumer labels—descriptive labels of a typical consumer based on consumer information—while enhancing the creativity of ideas. In another set of online experiments, we asked British residents to rate the creativity of advertisements and purchase intentions toward advertising products with different levels of stereotypical depictions of people. We found a linear relationship between the stereotypical depictions of people in advertisements and perceived creativity. We also observed a potential U-shaped relationship between stereotypical representations of people in advertisements and purchase intention, such that advertisements with low and high stereotypical representations induced greater purchase intention than did those with medium stereotypical representations. Finally, we discuss the psychological mechanisms that potentially link stereotyping and creativity and the implications for marketing communications.

Natural language contains and communicates social biases, often reflecting attitudes, prejudices and stereotypes. Here we provide evidence for a novel psychological pathway for the expression of such biases, in which they arise as a consequence of the automatized mechanisms by which humans retrieve words to produce sentences. Four experiments show that, when describing events, speakers tend to mention people who are more like them first and, thus, tend to highlight the perspectives of their own social groups. This 'like me' effect was seen in speakers from multiple demographic groups, in both English and Chinese speakers and in both first- and second-language English speakers. Psycholinguistic manipulations pinpoint that the bias is caused by greater accessibility in memory of words that refer to in-group than out-group members. These data provide a new cognitive explanation for why people produce biased language and highlight how detailed cognitive theories can have social implications. Brough et al. find that speakers exhibit a 'like me' bias, mentioning people who are more like them first and thus highlighting the perspectives of their own social groups.

Healthcare professionals play a vital role in conveying sensitive information as patients undergo stressful, demanding situations. However, the underlying neurocognitive dynamics in routine clinical tasks remain underexplored, creating gaps in healthcare research and social cognition models. Here, we examined whether the type of clinical task may differentially affect the emotional processing of nursing students in response to the emotional reactions of patients. In a within-subjects design, 40 nursing students read clinical cases prompting them to make procedural decisions or to respond to a patient with a proper communicative decision. Afterward, participants read sentences about patients' emotional states; some semantically consistent and others inconsistent along with filler sentences. EEG recordings toward critical words (emotional stimuli) were used to capture ERP indices of emotional salience (EPN), attentional engagement (LPP) and semantic integration (N400). Results showed that the procedural decision task elicited larger EPN amplitudes, reflecting pre-attentive categorization of emotional stimuli. The communicative decision task elicited larger LPP components associated with later elaborative processing. Additionally, the classical N400 effect elicited by semantically inconsistent sentences was found. The psychophysiological measures were tied by self-report measures indexing the difficulty of the task. These results suggest that the requirements of clinical tasks modulate emotional-related EEG responses.

BACKGROUND:Empathizing with patients is an essential component of effective clinical care. Yet, a debate persists regarding how healthcare professionals' emotions and performance are impacted when they engage in empathetic behaviors and attempt to discern patients' mental states during clinical interactions. To approach this issue, this study explores the psychometric properties of the Mental State Inferences in Healthcare Professionals Scale (MSIHPS), a novel eight-item scale to evaluate healthcare professionals' perceptions of their own disposition to infer patients' mental states during clinical interactions. METHOD:The study was conducted across various units within a regional hospital and primary care units affiliated with the Canarian Public Health Service in Spain. Data collection took place over the course of 2022, spanning from February to November. The psychometric properties of the scale were analyzed, including an exploratory and a confirmatory factor analysis, to test reliability and validity. Additionally, an item response model was run to test potentially biased items. The study collected data from a sample of 585 healthcare professionals. RESULTS:Overall, the results indicate that the psychometric properties of the tool are adequate. Furthermore, the unidimensionality of the scale was confirmed using the item response model, wherein the eight-items significantly contribute to predicting the latent construct. CONCLUSION:The MSIHPS offers the opportunity to explore the role of mentalizing in a diversity of healthcare settings. This measure can be useful to explore the relationship between healthcare professionals' disposition to infer patients' mental states and other relevant variables in clinical interactions, such as empathy and clinical performance.

Researchers have empirically studied dehumanisation as a psychological construct for the past two decades, revealing a diverse construct with far-reaching societal implications. This special issue presents a series of review articles covering this diversity, discussing dehumanisation in perceptual, meta-cognitive, attributional, interpersonal, intergroup and human atrocity contexts. It incorporates philosophical, developmental, social, cognitive, and comparative psychology, and neuroscience perspectives, describing evidence for the neural, behavioural and societal impacts of dehumanisation. As such, it provides a snapshot of research and perspectives on this topic, and future directions and gaps yet to be addressed.

Social targets' eyes are a rich source of information: partners with dilated and constricted pupils are perceived positively and negatively, respectively. Here, we tested whether observed pupil size influences the ascription of humanity. In Study 1 (n = 198) participants were asked to attribute positive uniquely human and non-uniquely human traits to ingroup (i.e., university students), derogated (i.e., homeless people) and non-derogated (i.e., Dutch) targets whose pupils varied in size. Results showed higher attribution of uniquely human traits to targets with dilated (vs. constricted) pupils, whereas no difference based on pupil size emerged on the attribution of non-uniquely human traits. The effect was stronger for non-derogated (vs. derogated and ingroup) targets. In Study 2 (n = 117) participants were asked to attribute positive uniquely human and non-uniquely human traits and emotions. Results replicated the effect of pupil size on trait attribution, especially for outgroup (vs. ingroup) members. The effect of pupil size was not qualified by emotions type (uniquely human vs. non uniquely human). Taken together, our findings show that pupil size is interpreted as a cue to attribute humanity to social targets.

Research on healthcare shows that the relationship between empathy and burnout is complex.The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis is to clarify the link between different empathic components and burnout components in healthcare professionals.A systematic review was conducted in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidance.The search strategy was applied in PubMed, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Scopus, and Medline, from January 1990 to January 2021.Population included nurses and doctors.Key inclusion criteria were articles addressing the relationship between different components of empathy and professional performance and wellbeing or burn out, or studies using burnout and empathy measures with validity support from commonly accepted sources of evidence.Risk of bias was assessed using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool.From 1159 references identified, 22 studies were included in the systematic review, and 5 studies in the meta-analysis.Empathic Concern was significantly correlated with Depersonalization and Personal Accomplishment.Moreover, the links between Perspective Taking, Depersonalization and Personal Accomplishment were statistically significant.In conclusion, exploring and understanding the complex links between empathy and burnout could help healthcare professionals as well as institutions to reduce the risk of suffering burnout.

Recent movements to decolonise the university have challenged the ideological and political position of authority, reflecting the power relations between different societal groups. Framed by postcolonial and decolonial perspectives, this paper attempts to represent the experiences, values and viewpoints of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) students at an elite British university who speak for themselves about their lived realities at the institution. Semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with seven undergraduate and two postgraduate students explored their university experience, academic success, sense of belonging, discrimination and racism. The findings revealed that the students lacked a sense of belonging at the university. Among the factors that undermined this are the predominantly White faculty bodies, exclusive curriculum representation and inter-group interactions divided by racial groups. Cultivating an inclusive university experience will allow BME students to feel a sense of belonging and integrate the racial and ethnic cultural diversity that they represent.

What psychological mechanisms facilitate moral anchoring, and behaviour that deviates from moral anchors? Here, we report data collected at two timepoints—a few weeks and a year following an act of terrorism—just a few miles from the location of the attack. Across two repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) studies, we disrupted the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)—a brain region implicated in executive function—before participants searched for the correct intensity of physical and psychological harm to inflict on a hypothetical suspect to prevent a subsequent terrorist attack across a variety of torture techniques. We explore moral anchoring—the influence of initial estimates of morally appropriate behaviour on subsequent estimates—by considering search strategies that vary in their moral anchoring across these hypothetical harming scenarios at these two time points. We find that disrupting DLPFC increased moral anchoring for psychological harms when attacks had recently occurred, but when attacks were more distant, it increased moral anchoring for physical harms. These results suggest that the extent to which people morally anchor differs based on the type of harm, the salience of threat, and involvement of DLPFC.

It is often important to minimise the time participants in social science studies spend on completing questionnaire-based measures, reducing response burden, and increasing data quality. Here, we investigated the performance of the short versions of some widely used depression, anxiety, and psychological distress scales and compared them to the performance of longer versions of these scales (PHQ-2 vs PHQ-9, GAD-2 vs GAD-7, Malaise-3 vs Malaise-9, K6 vs K10). Across a sample of UK adults (N = 987, ages 18-86), we tested the existing factor structure and accuracy of the scales through confirmatory factor analyses and exploration of the total information functions, observing adequate model fit indices across the measures. Measurement invariance was tested across birth sex and age groups to explore whether any differences in measurement properties or measurement bias may exist, finding support for the invariance of most measures. We conducted bivariate correlations across the measures as a way of obtaining evidence of the equivalence in the rank-ordering of short vs long scales. The results followed a similar pattern across the young adult subsample (N = 375, ages 18-39) as in the overall sample. Overall, these results indicate that the short forms of the tested scales may perform similarly to the full versions. Where brevity is important, researchers may opt to use the shorter versions of the scales based on these data.