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Ideal partner preferences (i.e., ratings of the desirability of attributes like attractiveness or intelligence) are the source of numerous foundational findings in the interdisciplinary literature on human mating. Recently, research on the predictive validity of ideal partner preference matching (i.e., Do people positively evaluate partners who match vs. mismatch their ideals?) has become mired in several problems. First, articles exhibit discrepant analytic and reporting practices. Second, different findings emerge across laboratories worldwide, perhaps because they sample different relationship contexts and/or populations. This registered report-partnered with the Psychological Science Accelerator-uses a highly powered design ( N = 10,358) across 43 countries and 22 languages to estimate preference-matching effect sizes. The most rigorous tests revealed significant preference-matching effects in the whole sample and for partnered and single participants separately. The "corrected pattern metric" that collapses across 35 traits revealed a zero-order effect of β = .19 and an effect of β = .11 when included alongside a normative preference-matching metric. Specific traits in the "level metric" (interaction) tests revealed very small (average β = .04) effects. Effect sizes were similar for partnered participants who reported ideals before entering a relationship, and there was no consistent evidence that individual differences moderated any effects. Comparisons between stated and revealed preferences shed light on gender differences and similarities: For attractiveness, men's and (especially) women's stated preferences underestimated revealed preferences (i.e., they thought attractiveness was less important than it actually was). For earning potential, men's stated preferences underestimated-and women's stated preferences overestimated-revealed preferences. Implications for the literature on human mating are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Study preregistration has become increasingly popular in psychology, but its potential to restrict researcher degrees of freedom has not yet been empirically verified. We used an extensive protocol to assess the producibility (i.e., the degree to which a study can be properly conducted based on the available information) of preregistrations and the consistency between preregistrations and their corresponding papers for 300 psychology studies. We found that preregistrations often lack methodological details and that undisclosed deviations from preregistered plans are frequent. These results highlight that biases due to researcher degrees of freedom remain possible in many preregistered studies. More comprehensive registration templates typically yielded more producible preregistrations. We did not find that the producibility and consistency of preregistrations differed over time or between original and replication studies. Furthermore, we found that operationalizations of variables were generally preregistered more producible and consistently than other study parts. Inconsistencies between preregistrations and published studies were mainly encountered for data collection procedures, statistical models, and exclusion criteria. Our results indicate that, to unlock the full potential of preregistration, researchers in psychology should aim to write more producible preregistrations, adhere to these preregistrations more faithfully, and more transparently report any deviations from their preregistrations. This could be facilitated by training and education to improve preregistration skills, as well as the development of more comprehensive templates. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Openness and transparency in the research process are a prerequisite to the production of high quality research outputs. Efforts to maximise these features have substantially accelerated in recent years, placing open and transparent research practices at the forefront of funding and related priorities, and encouraging investment in resources and infrastructure to enable such practices. Despite these efforts, there has been no systematic documentation of current practices, infrastructure, or training and resources that support open and transparent research in the UK. To address this gap, we developed and conducted the Open and Transparent Research Practices survey, a large-scale audit study completed by research-active staff in UK research institutions to better understand existing practices, needs, support, and barriers faced when implementing open and transparent research. The data presented here capture responses from over 2,500 research-active staff based at 15 institutions affiliated with the UK Reproducibility Network. The data provide a snapshot of open research practices that can be used to identify barriers, training needs, and areas that require greater investments., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

In recent years, the scientific community has called for improvements in the credibility, robustness and reproducibility of research, characterized by increased interest and promotion of open and transparent research practices. While progress has been positive, there is a lack of consideration about how this approach can be embedded into undergraduate and postgraduate research training. Specifically, a critical overview of the literature which investigates how integrating open and reproducible science may influence student outcomes is needed. In this paper, we provide the first critical review of literature surrounding the integration of open and reproducible scholarship into teaching and learning and its associated outcomes in students. Our review highlighted how embedding open and reproducible scholarship appears to be associated with (i) students' scientific literacies (i.e. students' understanding of open research, consumption of science and the development of transferable skills); (ii) student engagement (i.e. motivation and engagement with learning, collaboration and engagement in open research) and (iii) students' attitudes towards science (i.e. trust in science and confidence in research findings). However, our review also identified a need for more robust and rigorous methods within pedagogical research, including more interventional and experimental evaluations of teaching practice. We discuss implications for teaching and learning scholarship., Competing Interests: We declare we have no competing interests., (© 2023 The Authors.)

The study of moral judgements often centres on moral dilemmas in which options consistent with deontological perspectives (that is, emphasizing rules, individual rights and duties) are in conflict with options consistent with utilitarian judgements (that is, following the greater good based on consequences). Greene et al. (2009) showed that psychological and situational factors (for example, the intent of the agent or the presence of physical contact between the agent and the victim) can play an important role in moral dilemma judgements (for example, the trolley problem). Our knowledge is limited concerning both the universality of these effects outside the United States and the impact of culture on the situational and psychological factors affecting moral judgements. Thus, we empirically tested the universality of the effects of intent and personal force on moral dilemma judgements by replicating the experiments of Greene et al. in 45 countries from all inhabited continents. We found that personal force and its interaction with intention exert influence on moral judgements in the US and Western cultural clusters, replicating and expanding the original findings. Moreover, the personal force effect was present in all cultural clusters, suggesting it is culturally universal. The evidence for the cultural universality of the interaction effect was inconclusive in the Eastern and Southern cultural clusters (depending on exclusion criteria). We found no strong association between collectivism/individualism and moral dilemma judgements., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)

Despite evidence that variation exists between individuals in high-stakes truth and deception detection accuracy rates, little work has investigated what differences in individuals' cognitive and emotional abilities contribute to this variation. Our study addressed this question by examining the role played by cognitive and affective theory of mind (ToM), emotional intelligence (EI), and various aspects of attention (alerting, orienting, executive control) in explaining variation in accuracy rates among 115 individuals (87 women; mean age = 27.04 years [ SD = 11.32]) who responded to video clips of truth-tellers and liars in real-world, high-stakes contexts. Faster attentional alerting supported truth detection, and better cognitive ToM and perception of emotion (an aspect of EI) supported deception detection. This evidence indicates that truth and deception detection are distinct constructs supported by different abilities. Future research may address whether interventions targeting these cognitive and emotional traits can also contribute to improving detection skill.

The recognition of emotional facial expressions is often subject to contextual influence, particularly when the face and the context convey similar emotions. We investigated whether spontaneous, incidental affective theory of mind inferences made while reading vignettes describing social situations would produce context effects on the identification of same-valenced emotions (Experiment 1) as well as differently-valenced emotions (Experiment 2) conveyed by subsequently presented faces. Crucially, we found an effect of context on reaction times in both experiments while, in line with previous work, we found evidence for a context effect on accuracy only in Experiment 1. This demonstrates that affective theory of mind inferences made at the pragmatic level of a text can automatically, contextually influence the perceptual processing of emotional facial expressions in a separate task even when those emotions are of a distinctive valence. Thus, our novel findings suggest that language acts as a contextual influence to the recognition of emotional facial expressions for both same and different valences.

Aim: The Metacognitions Questionnaire-30 (MCQ-30) has been used to assess metacognitive beliefs in a range of mental health problems. The aim of this study is to assess the validity of the MCQ-30 in people at risk for psychosis., Methods: One hundred eighty-five participants meeting criteria for an at risk mental state completed the MCQ-30 as part of their involvement in a randomized controlled trial. Confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses were conducted to assess factor structure and construct validity., Results: Confirmatory factor analyses confirmed the original five-factor structure of the MCQ-30. Examination of principal component analysis and parallel analysis outputs also suggested a five-factor structure. Correlation analyses including measures of depression, social anxiety, and beliefs about paranoia showed evidence of convergent validity. Discriminant validity was supported using the normalizing subscale of the beliefs about paranoia tool., Conclusions: The MCQ-30 demonstrated good fit using the original five-factor model, acceptable to very good internal consistency of items was evident and clinical usefulness in those at risk for psychosis was demonstrated., (© 2018 The Authors. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Poor social functioning has been found to be present in those at risk for psychosis. This study aimed to examine metacognitive beliefs as potential predictors of structured activity (measure of social functioning) in those with an At Risk Mental State (ARMS). Regression and correlation analyses were conducted. The sample included 109 young people. Age was found to be positively correlated to structured activity. Metacognitive beliefs concerning uncontrollability and danger of worry were found to negatively predict structured activity. This was after controlling for age, gender, treatment allocation, cognitive schemas, positive symptom severity, social anxiety, and depression. Metacognitive danger items were most important. Age was the only control variable found to be an independent predictor of structured activity in the regression model, despite negative bi-variate relationships with structured activity found across three cognitive schema subscales and social anxiety. This is the first study to find that higher negative metacognitive beliefs about uncontrollability and danger predict lower social functioning in an ARMS sample, and that the perception of thoughts being dangerous was of particular importance. Psychological interventions should consider targeting this metacognitive dimension to increase social functioning. Future longitudinal research is required to strengthen findings in this area., (Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: Research suggests that the way in which cognitive therapy is delivered is an important factor in determining outcomes. We test the hypotheses in which the development of a shared problem list, use of case formulation, homework tasks and active intervention strategies will act as process variables., Method: Presence of these components during therapy is taken from therapist notes. The direct and indirect effect of the intervention is estimated by an instrumental variable analysis., Results: A significant decrease in the symptom score for case formulation (coefficient = -23, 95% CI -44 to -1.7, P = 0.036) and homework (coefficient = -0.26, 95% CI -0.51 to -0.001, P = 0.049) is found. Improvement with the inclusion of active change strategies is of borderline significance (coefficient = -0.23, 95% CI -0.47 to 0.005, P = 0.056)., Conclusions: There is a greater treatment effect if formulation and homework are involved in therapy. However, high correlation between components means that these may be indicators of overall treatment fidelity., (© The Royal College of Psychiatrists 2015.)

Aims: To investigate the relationship between internalized stigma, depression, social anxiety and unusual experiences in young people considered to be at risk of developing psychosis., Methods: A total of 288 participants meeting criteria for an at-risk mental state were recruited as part of a multisite randomized controlled trial of cognitive behavioural therapy for people meeting criteria for an at risk mental state (ARMS). The sample was assessed at baseline and 6 months using measures of at risk mental states, internalized stigma, depression and social anxiety., Results: The Personal Beliefs about Experiences Questionnaire was validated for use with an ARMS sample. Correlational analyses at baseline indicated significant relationships between internalized stigma and: (i) depression; (ii) social anxiety; (iii) distress associated with unusual psychological experiences; and (iv) suicidal thinking. Regression analysis indicates negative appraisals of unusual experiences contributed significantly to depression scores at 6-month follow up when controlling for baseline depression and unusual psychological experiences., Conclusions: These findings suggest that internalized stigma may contribute to the development and maintenance of depression in young people at risk of psychosis., (© 2013 Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.)

Background: Research suggests that core schemas are important in both the development and maintenance of psychosis., Aims: The aim of the study was to investigate and compare core schemas in four groups along the continuum of psychosis and examine the relationships between schemas and positive psychotic symptomatology., Method: A measure of core schemas was distributed to 20 individuals experiencing first-episode psychosis (FEP), 113 individuals with "at risk mental states" (ARMS), 28 participants forming a help-seeking clinical group (HSC), and 30 non-help-seeking individuals who endorse some psychotic-like experiences (NH)., Results: The clinical groups scored significantly higher than the NH group for negative beliefs about self and about others. No significant effects of group on positive beliefs about others were found. For positive beliefs about the self, the NH group scored significantly higher than the clinical groups. Furthermore, negative beliefs about self and others were related to positive psychotic symptomatology and to distress related to those experiences., Conclusions: Negative evaluations of the self and others appear to be characteristic of the appraisals of people seeking help for psychosis and psychosis-like experiences. The results support the literature that suggests that self-esteem should be a target for intervention. Future research would benefit from including comparison groups of people experiencing chronic psychosis and people who do not have any psychotic-like experiences.

Aim: There is evidence that psychotic-like phenomena can be detected within the general population and that psychotic experiences lie on a continuum that also spans affective states. We aimed to investigate comparisons of a first-episode psychosis group, an 'at-risk mental state group' and a help-seeking control group with non-patients to explore whether affective states lie on a continuum of psychosis., Method: Measures of psychotic-like experiences, social anxiety and depression were administered to 20 patients experiencing first-episode psychosis (FEP), 113 patients experiencing an 'at-risk' mental state (ARMS), 28 patients who were help-seeking but not experiencing a FEP or ARMS (HSC) and 30 non-clinical participants (NC)., Results: For distress in relation to psychotic-like experiences, the FEP, ARMS and HSC groups scored significantly higher than the NC group for the perceptual abnormalities and non-bizarre ideas. In terms of severity of psychotic experiences, the FEP scored the highest, followed by the ARMS group, followed by the HSC and NC groups. The clinical groups scored significantly higher for depression than the non-clinical group. Interestingly, only the FEP and the ARMS groups scored significantly higher than non-patients for social anxiety., Conclusions: These findings suggest that a psychosis continuum exists; however, this does not suggest that both psychosis and affective symptoms lie on the same continuum, rather it would appear the presence of such affective states that may affect help-seeking behaviour and clinical status. The implications of these findings for clinical practice are discussed., (© 2013 Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.)

Background: Internalised stigma in young people meeting criteria for at-risk mental states (ARMS) has been highlighted as an important issue, and it has been suggested that provision of cognitive therapy may increase such stigma., Aims: To investigate the effects of cognitive therapy on internalised stigma using a secondary analysis of data from the EDIE-2 trial., Method: Participants meeting criteria for ARMS were recruited as part of a multisite randomised controlled trial of cognitive therapy for prevention and amelioration of psychosis. Participants were assessed at baseline and at 6, 12, 18 and 24 months using measures of psychotic experiences, symptoms and internalised stigma., Results: Negative appraisals of experiences were significantly reduced in the group assigned to cognitive therapy (estimated difference at 12 months was -1.36 (95% CI -2.69 to -0.02), P = 0.047). There was no difference in social acceptability of experiences (estimated difference at 12 months was 0.46, 95% CI -0.05 to 0.98, P = 0.079)., Conclusions: These findings suggest that, rather than increasing internalised stigma, cognitive therapy decreases negative appraisals of unusual experiences in young people at risk of psychosis; as such, it is a non-stigmatising intervention for this population.

Background: Little information is available to inform clinical assessments on risk of self-harm repetition in ethnic minority groups., Methods: In a prospective cohort study, using data collected from six hospitals in England for self-harm presentations occurring between 2000 and 2007, we investigated risk factors for repeat self-harm in South Asian and Black people in comparison to Whites., Results: During the study period, 751 South Asian, 468 Black and 15,705 White people presented with self-harm in the study centres. Repeat self-harm occurred in 4379 individuals, which included 229 suicides (with eight of these fatalities being in the ethnic minority groups). The risk ratios for repetition in the South Asian and Black groups compared to the White group were 0.6, 95% CI 0.5-0.7 and 0.7, 95% CI 0.5-0.8, respectively. Risk factors for repetition were similar across all three groups, although excess risk versus Whites was seen in Black people presenting with mental health symptoms, and South Asian people reporting alcohol use and not having a partner. Additional modelling of repeat self-harm count data showed that alcohol misuse was especially strongly linked with multiple repetitions in both BME groups., Limitations: Ethnicity was not recorded in a third of cases which may introduce selection bias. Differences may exist due to cultural diversity within the broad ethnic groups., Conclusion: Known social and psychological features that infer risk were present in South Asian and Black people who repeated self-harm. Clinical assessment in these ethnic groups should ensure recognition and treatment of mental illness and alcohol misuse., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Objective: To determine whether cognitive therapy is effective in preventing the worsening of emerging psychotic symptoms experienced by help seeking young people deemed to be at risk for serious conditions such as schizophrenia., Design: Multisite single blind randomised controlled trial., Setting: Diverse services at five UK sites., Participants: 288 participants aged 14-35 years (mean 20.74, SD 4.34 years) at high risk of psychosis: 144 were assigned to cognitive therapy plus monitoring of mental state and 144 to monitoring of mental state only. Participants were followed-up for a minimum of 12 months and a maximum of 24 months., Intervention: Cognitive therapy (up to 26 (mean 9.1) sessions over six months) plus monitoring of mental state compared with monitoring of mental state only., Main Outcome Measures: Primary outcome was scores on the comprehensive assessment of at risk mental states (CAARMS), which provides a dichotomous transition to psychosis score and ordinal scores for severity of psychotic symptoms and distress. Secondary outcomes included emotional dysfunction and quality of life., Results: Transition to psychosis based on intention to treat was analysed using discrete time survival models. Overall, the prevalence of transition was lower than expected (23/288; 8%), with no significant difference between the two groups (proportional odds ratio 0.73, 95% confidence interval 0.32 to 1.68). Changes in severity of symptoms and distress, as well as secondary outcomes, were analysed using random effects regression (analysis of covariance) adjusted for site and baseline symptoms. Distress from psychotic symptoms did not differ (estimated difference at 12 months -3.00, 95% confidence interval -6.95 to 0.94) but their severity was significantly reduced in the group assigned to cognitive therapy (estimated between group effect size at 12 months -3.67, -6.71 to -0.64, P=0.018)., Conclusions: Cognitive therapy plus monitoring did not significantly reduce transition to psychosis or symptom related distress but reduced the severity of psychotic symptoms in young people at high risk. Most participants in both groups improved over time. The results have important implications for the at risk mental state concept., Trial Registration: Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN56283883.

Aims: Much research has begun to focus on the identification of people who are at high risk of developing psychosis, and clinical services have been initiated for this population. However, only a small number of studies have reported on the efficacy of interventions for preventing or delaying the onset of psychosis. The results of prior work suggest that cognitive therapy (CT) may be an effective, well-tolerated treatment. We report on the rationale and design for a large-scale, multi-site randomized, controlled trial of CT for people who are assessed to be at high risk of psychosis because of either state or state-plus-trait risk factors., Methods: The study employs a single-blind design in which all participants receive frequent mental-state monitoring, which will efficiently detect transition to psychosis, and half are randomized to weekly sessions of CT for up to 6 months. Participants will be followed-up for a minimum of 12 months and to a maximum of 2 years., Results: We report the characteristics of the final sample at baseline (n=288)., Conclusions: Our study aimed to expand the currently limited evidence base for best practice in interventions for individuals at high risk of psychosis., (© 2011 Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.)

Introduction: Few studies of psychosis have examined dialogue-based implicit mentalising even though this is likely to reflect the skills required in everyday life better than more typical mentalising tasks. Using a semistructured dialogue task, we predicted that a psychosis sample would be impaired in "prompted" online mentalising (i.e., the frequency and variety of mental and emotional state words as well as references to own mental state) and that performance would relate to social functioning., Methods: Eighteen adults with psychosis and nine healthy adults were each recorded during four semistructured dialogues, which were transcribed, coded, scored, and quantitatively analysed. The patients also completed a measure of social functioning., Results: Compared to controls, the psychosis participants referred to others' mental and emotional states significantly less and with a lower variety of words. These findings were all large effects with sufficient observed power. There was no significant difference in references to own mental state. The relationships between mentalising and social functioning were mostly modest., Conclusions: Although prompted implicit mentalising is impoverished in psychosis, self-knowledge appears to be intact. Simulation-based mentalising may be spared in the context of impoverished theory-based mentalising. Also, implicit mentalising contributes to social functioning, corroborating the results of previous work.

Introduction: We predicted that participants with schizophrenia would be able to successfully "align" during conversation in the context of impaired theory of mind. Alignment is a process by which interlocutors' representations of the conversational situation converge; and it may, in part, explain how people with schizophrenia can often participate successfully in dialogue despite experiencing impaired mentalising., Methods: Fifty-nine people with schizophrenia and 38 healthy adults completed a standardised, empirical conversational alignment task with a mentalising component and a measure of current IQ. The patients also completed two independent theory of mind tests. We used ANCOVAs to compare the groups' performances., Results: The participants with schizophrenia and the healthy participants demonstrated equivalent alignment skills even though the schizophrenia participants displayed clear theory of mind difficulties. Symptom subtype analyses found no differences between subtype groups in alignment, but healthy controls and remitted patients performed significantly better on the mentalising component than the paranoia group., Conclusions: These results are consistent with the schizophrenia participants having intact alignment skills alongside mentalising impairments. We propose that this explains why people with schizophrenia can often participate successfully in conversation but have difficulties with more complex dialogues, with resolving misunderstandings, and with untangling ambiguities during conversation.