research topics about behavioral science

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• A Research Guide
• Research Paper Topics
• 35 Human Behavior Research Topics & Questions

35 Human Behavior Research Topics & Questions

Useful information: Does a research paper need a thesis ?

• When human behaviour became human?
• What traits we consider typically human we can meet in animals?
• Nature versus nurture. To what extentthe natural behaviour can be corrected?
• The phenomenon of “Mowgli kids” and their behavior
• The stages of human development and their impact on behaviour patterns
• The impact of the family or parental substitutes on behaviour
• Mating rituals or chivalrous romance? How do people court their love interests?
• Habits and their development
• How advertising uses our typical behaviour patterns?
• The importance of happiness
• Games and behaviour. Why do we like to play so much?
• Cults and sects. How do people get involved?
• The psychology of the crowd. What happens to person inside the crowd?
• Does natural morality exist or is it a social construct?
• Sex, gender and behaviour
• Is it good or bad?
• The typical responses to danger: run, fight, hide. Are they hardwired into us?
• Nonverbal communication: is it international?
• Depression and its impact on human behaviour
• Do LGBTQ+ people have typical behavioural patterns?
• The impact of social media and Internet on behaviour
• Porn and sexual attractions
• What is bipolar disorder in terms of behaviour?
• Social hierarchy and behaviour
• Are behavioural patterns connected to self-esteem?
• Elderly people and changes in their behaviour
• Drugs that change behaviour
• IQ and EQ and their impact on behaviour
• Religion and behavioural norms
• Culture clash and behaviour of people of mixed origins
• Correcting dysfunctional behaviour
• Propaganda and behaviour
• Artificially created social groups and their behaviour
• Trauma, PTSD and behaviour
• Defensive behaviour

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Behavioral Neuroscience

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Journal scope statement

The primary mission of Behavioral Neuroscience ® is to publish original research articles as well as reviews in the broad field of the neural bases of behavior.

We seek empirical papers reporting novel results that provide insight into the mechanisms by which nervous systems produce and are affected by behavior. Experimental subjects may include human and non-human animals and may address any phase of the lifespan, from early development to senescence.

Studies employing brain-imaging techniques in normal and pathological human populations are encouraged, as are studies using non-traditional species (including invertebrates) and employing comparative analyses. Studies using computational approaches to understand behavior and cognition are particularly encouraged.

In addition to behavior, it is expected that some aspect of nervous system function will be manipulated or observed, ranging across molecular, cellular, neuroanatomical, neuroendocrinological, neuropharmacological, and neurophysiological levels of analysis. Behavioral studies are welcome so long as their implications for our understanding of the nervous system are clearly described in the paper.

Behavioral Neuroscience primarily publishes original research articles reporting novel findings. However, the journal also publishes registered reports, negative findings, and replications of previously reported findings. Preregistration of replication studies is strongly recommended, but not required.

We offer the option to publish under either a subscription model at no charge or under an open access model for a modest fee .

Each of these article types may be full-length research papers or brief communications. Brief communications are limited to 3,250 words of text and two figures and/or tables. When appropriate, commentaries on research papers are invited by the editors.

We welcome reviews on any theoretical, empirical, or historical topic related to the role of the nervous system in the production of behavior.

Inquiries about potential review topics can be addressed to the editor.

Relevant information for each of these article types can be found under the Manuscript Submission tab.

Topic areas covered by the journal include:

• learning and memory, attention, decision making
• perception, spatial cognition, sensorimotor processing and integration
• human and non-human animal cognition and emotion
• molecular, cellular, and circuit level analyses of behavior and cognition
• motivation, reward, homeostasis and biorhythms
• animal models of psychopathology, addiction, and neurodegenerative disorders
• developmental and lifespan analyses

Disclaimer: APA and the editors of Behavioral Neuroscience ® assume no responsibility for statements and opinions advanced by the authors of its articles.

Equity, diversity, and inclusion

Behavioral Neuroscience supports equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in its practices. More information on these initiatives is available under EDI Efforts .

Open science

The APA Journals Program is committed to publishing transparent, rigorous research; improving reproducibility in science; and aiding research discovery. Open science practices vary per editor discretion. View the initiatives implemented by this journal .

Author and editor spotlights

Explore journal highlights : free article summaries, editor interviews and editorials, journal awards, mentorship opportunities, and more.

Prior to submission, please carefully read and follow the submission guidelines detailed below. Manuscripts that do not conform to the submission guidelines may be returned without review.

Behavioral Neuroscience ® is a bimonthly, peer-reviewed journal that publishes research articles in the broad field of the neural bases of behavior. A detailed description of the editorial coverage policy appears on the inside of the front cover of each issue.

Behavioral Neuroscience publishes direct replications. Submissions should include “A Replication of XX Study” in the subtitle of the manuscript as well as in the abstract.

Behavioral Neuroscience is a member of the Neuroscience Peer Review Consortium .

To submit to the editorial office of Geoffrey Schoenbaum , please submit manuscripts electronically through the Manuscript Submission Portal in Microsoft Word or Open Office format.

Prepare manuscripts according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association using the 7 th edition. Manuscripts may be copyedited for bias-free language (see Chapter 5 of the Publication Manual ). APA Style and Grammar Guidelines for the 7 th edition are available.

Submit Manuscript

General correspondence may be directed to the editorial office .

The manuscript file for new submissions or revisions should include the text, tables, and figures; should be in Word (.doc), Rich Text Format (.rtf) or PDF formats; and should not exceed 20MB.

In addition to addresses and phone numbers, please supply email addresses for potential use by the editorial office and later by the production office.

Behavioral Neuroscience is now using a software system to screen submitted content for similarity with other published content. The system compares the initial version of each submitted manuscript against a database of 40+ million scholarly documents, as well as content appearing on the open web. This allows APA to check submissions for potential overlap with material previously published in scholarly journals (e.g., lifted or republished material).

Registered reports

In addition to full-length research papers reporting novel findings, the journal publishes registered reports, negative findings, replications, commentaries and reviews. Preregistration of replication studies is strongly recommended, but not required.

Registered reports require a two-step review process.

The first step is the submission of the registration manuscript. This is a partial manuscript that includes hypotheses, rationale for the study, experimental design, and methods. The partial manuscript will be reviewed for significance and methodological approach.

If the partial manuscript is accepted this amounts to provisional acceptance of the full report regardless of the outcome of the study. The full manuscript will receive rapid editorial review, for adherence to the preregistered design, and expedited production for publication in the journal.

All articles can be published as full-length articles or as brief communications. Brief communications must not exceed 3,250 words of text, with no more than two figures and/or tables.

Submission letter

Include the following in your submission letter:

• A statement designating the type of article being submitted: report of novel findings, registered report (report registration or manuscript reporting completed study), negative finding, replication, commentary, or review.
• For brief communications, a statement that the article is 3,250 words of text and two figures and/or tables, or less.
• A statement of compliance with APA ethical standards in the treatment of your sample, human or animal, or a description of the details of the treatment.
• A statement that the manuscript or data have not been published previously and that they are not under consideration for publication elsewhere.
• A statement to reflect that all listed authors have contributed significantly to the manuscript and consent to their names on the manuscript.
• A statement to disclose any possible conflict of interest in the conduct and reporting of research (e.g., financial interests in a test or procedure, funding by pharmaceutical companies for drug research).
• The current date.
• If your manuscript is a follow-up to another manuscript previously published in Behavioral Neuroscience , please include the manuscript number and title of the previous manuscript in your submission letter, if you would like us to try to invite the reviewers of the previous manuscript.

Authors are encouraged to suggest five reviewers who are especially qualified to review their work and would not have a conflict of interest serving as a referee. The editors of Behavioral Neuroscience suggest that you include one or more of our consulting editors from the editorial board in your list of suggested reviewers .

Also please consider the gender and racial/ethnic diversity of the reviewers you propose, including members of underrepresented groups.

Review policy

Masked reviews are optional, and authors who wish masked reviews must specifically request them when submitting their manuscripts.

Each copy of a manuscript to be mask-reviewed should include a separate title page with authors' names and affiliations, and these should not appear anywhere else on the manuscript. Footnotes that identify the authors should be typed on a separate page.

Additionally, authors should make every effort to see that a manuscript intended for masked review itself contains no clues to their identities, including grant numbers, names of institutions providing IRB approval, self-citations, and links to online repositories for data, materials, code, or preregistrations (e.g., Create a View-only Link for a Project ).

If your manuscript was mask reviewed, please ensure that the final version for production includes a byline and full author note for typesetting.

Journal Article Reporting Standards

Authors should review the APA Style Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS) for quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods. The standards offer ways to improve transparency in reporting to ensure that readers have the information necessary to evaluate the quality of the research and to facilitate collaboration and replication.

• Recommend the division of hypotheses, analyses, and conclusions into primary, secondary, and exploratory groupings to allow for a full understanding of quantitative analyses presented in a manuscript and to enhance reproducibility;
• Offer modules for authors reporting on replications, clinical trials, longitudinal studies, and observational studies, as well as the analytic methods of structural equation modeling and Bayesian analysis;
• Include guidelines on reporting of study preregistration (including making protocols public); participant characteristics (including demographic characteristics); inclusion and exclusion criteria; psychometric characteristics of outcome measures and other variables; and planned data diagnostics and analytic strategy.

The guidelines focus on transparency in methods reporting, recommending descriptions of how the researcher’s own perspective affected the study, as well as the contexts in which the research and analysis took place.

Transparency and openness

APA endorses the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines by a community working group in conjunction with the Center for Open Science ( Nosek et al. 2015 ). Empirical research, including meta-analyses, submitted to Behavioral Neuroscience must meet the “disclosure” level for all eight aspects of research planning and reporting. Authors should include a subsection in the method section titled “Transparency and openness.” This subsection should detail the efforts the authors have made to comply with the TOP guidelines. For example:

• We report how we determined our sample size, all data exclusions (if any), all manipulations, and all measures in the study, and the study follows JARS (Appelbaum, et al., 2018). All data, analysis code, and research materials are available at [stable link to repository]. Data were analyzed using R, version 4.0.0 (R Core Team, 2020) and the package ggplot , version 3.2.1 (Wickham, 2016). This study’s design and its analysis were not pre-registered.

Data, materials, and code

Authors must state whether data and study materials are posted to a trusted repository and, if so, how to access them. Recommended repositories include APA’s repository on the Open Science Framework (OSF), or authors can access a full list of other recommended repositories . Trusted repositories adhere to policies that make data discoverable, accessible, usable, and preserved for the long term. Trusted repositories also assign unique and persistent identifiers.

In a subsection titled "Transparency and Openness" at the end of the method section, specify whether and where the data and material will be available or include a statement noting that they are not available. For submissions with quantitative or simulation analytic methods, state whether the study analysis code is posted to a trusted repository, and, if so, how to access it.

For example:

• All data have been made publicly available at the [repository name] and can be accessed at [persistent URL or DOI].
• Materials and analysis code for this study are available by emailing the corresponding author.
• Materials and analysis code for this study are not available.
• The code behind this analysis/simulation has been made publicly available at the [repository name] and can be accessed at [persistent URL or DOI].

Preregistration of studies and analysis plans

Preregistration of studies and specific hypotheses can be a useful tool for making strong theoretical claims. Likewise, preregistration of analysis plans can be useful for distinguishing confirmatory and exploratory analyses. Investigators may preregister prior to conducting the research via a publicly accessible registry system (e.g., OSF , ClinicalTrials.gov, or other trial registries in the WHO Registry Network).

There are many available templates; for example, APA, the British Psychological Society, and the German Psychological Society partnered with the Leibniz Institute for Psychology and Center for Open Science to create Preregistration Standards for Quantitative Research in Psychology (Bosnjak et al., 2022).

Articles must state whether or not any work was preregistered and, if so, where to access the preregistration. If any aspect of the study is preregistered, include the registry link in the method section.

• This study’s design was preregistered prospectively, before data were collected; see [STABLE LINK OR DOI].
• This study’s design and hypotheses were preregistered after data had been collected but before analyses were undertaken; see [STABLE LINK OR DOI].
• This study’s analysis plan was preregistered; see [STABLE LINK OR DOI].
• This study was not preregistered.

Author contributions statements using CRediT

The APA Publication Manual (7th ed.) stipulates that "authorship encompasses…not only persons who do the writing but also those who have made substantial scientific contributions to a study." In the spirit of transparency and openness, Behavioral Neuroscience has adopted the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) to describe each author's individual contributions to the work. CRediT offers authors the opportunity to share an accurate and detailed description of their diverse contributions to a manuscript.

Submitting authors will be asked to identify the contributions of all authors at initial submission according to this taxonomy. If the manuscript is accepted for publication, the CRediT designations will be published as an author contributions statement in the author note of the final article. All authors should have reviewed and agreed to their individual contribution(s) before submission.

CRediT includes 14 contributor roles, as described below:

• Conceptualization : Ideas; formulation or evolution of overarching research goals and aims.
• Data curation : Management activities to annotate (produce metadata), scrub data and maintain research data (including software code, where it is necessary for interpreting the data itself) for initial use and later re-use.
• Formal analysis : Application of statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal techniques to analyze or synthesize study data.
• Funding acquisition : Acquisition of the financial support for the project leading to this publication.
• Investigation : Conducting a research and investigation process, specifically performing the experiments, or data/evidence collection.
• Methodology : Development or design of methodology; creation of models.
• Project administration : Management and coordination responsibility for the research activity planning and execution.
• Resources : Provision of study materials, reagents, materials, patients, laboratory samples, animals, instrumentation, computing resources, or other analysis tools.
• Software : Programming, software development; designing computer programs; implementation of the computer code and supporting algorithms; testing of existing code components.
• Supervision : Oversight and leadership responsibility for the research activity planning and execution, including mentorship external to the core team.
• Validation : Verification, whether as a part of the activity or separate, of the overall replication/reproducibility of results/experiments and other research outputs.
• Visualization : Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically visualization/data presentation.
• Writing — original draft : Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically writing the initial draft (including substantive translation).
• Writing — review & editing : Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work by those from the original research group, specifically critical review, commentary or revision — including pre- or post-publication stages.

Authors can claim credit for more than one contributor role, and the same role can be attributed to more than one author.

All manuscripts must include a title page, typed on a separate page within the manuscript file, which includes the title of the manuscript, all author names and institutional affiliations, any funding received from one of the listed organizations in the author questionnaire, any disclosure of interests, and contact information for at least the corresponding author. For masked manuscripts, see review policy above.

Abbreviations and metrics

Nonstandard abbreviations should be introduced by placing the abbreviation in parentheses after the first occurrence of the term being abbreviated in both the abstract and the text. The metric system should be followed for all volumes, lengths, weights, and so on. Temperatures should be expressed in degrees Celsius (centigrade). Units should conform to the International System of Units (SI; see the Publication Manual ).

Revised manuscripts are processed electronically and should also be uploaded through the Manuscript Submission Portal. Manuscripts need not be accompanied by a copy of the original version. Revisions not returned within 2 months of the last action date will be treated as a new submission.

All proofs must be corrected and returned within 48 hours of receipt. Any extensive nonessential changes and extensive changes due to author error may incur charges. With the proofs will be a form providing the author with the opportunity to order reprints.

Direct inquiries to the APA Journals Office can be emailed ; sent to 800-374-2721; or faxed to 202-336-5549.

Manuscript preparation

Prepare manuscripts according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7 th edition). Manuscripts may be copyedited for bias-free language (see Chapter 5 of the 7 th edition).

Review APA's Journal Manuscript Preparation Guidelines before submitting your article.

Double-space all copy. Other formatting instructions, as well as instructions on preparing tables, figures, references, metrics, and abstracts, appear in the Manual . Additional guidance on APA Style is available on the APA Style website .

Below are additional instructions regarding the preparation of display equations, computer code, and tables.

Display equations

We strongly encourage you to use MathType (third-party software) or Equation Editor 3.0 (built into pre-2007 versions of Word) to construct your equations, rather than the equation support that is built into Word 2007 and Word 2010. Equations composed with the built-in Word 2007/Word 2010 equation support are converted to low-resolution graphics when they enter the production process and must be rekeyed by the typesetter, which may introduce errors.

To construct your equations with MathType or Equation Editor 3.0:

• Go to the Text section of the Insert tab and select Object.
• Select MathType or Equation Editor 3.0 in the drop-down menu.

If you have an equation that has already been produced using Microsoft Word 2007 or 2010 and you have access to the full version of MathType 6.5 or later, you can convert this equation to MathType by clicking on MathType Insert Equation. Copy the equation from Microsoft Word and paste it into the MathType box. Verify that your equation is correct, click File, and then click Update. Your equation has now been inserted into your Word file as a MathType Equation.

Use Equation Editor 3.0 or MathType only for equations or for formulas that cannot be produced as Word text using the Times or Symbol font.

Computer code

Because altering computer code in any way (e.g., indents, line spacing, line breaks, page breaks) during the typesetting process could alter its meaning, we treat computer code differently from the rest of your article in our production process. To that end, we request separate files for computer code.

In online supplemental material

We request that runnable source code be included as supplemental material to the article. For more information, visit Supplementing Your Article With Online Material .

In the text of the article

If you would like to include code in the text of your published manuscript, please submit a separate file with your code exactly as you want it to appear, using Courier New font with a type size of 8 points. We will make an image of each segment of code in your article that exceeds 40 characters in length. (Shorter snippets of code that appear in text will be typeset in Courier New and run in with the rest of the text.) If an appendix contains a mix of code and explanatory text, please submit a file that contains the entire appendix, with the code keyed in 8-point Courier New.

Use Word's Insert Table function when you create tables. Using spaces or tabs in your table will create problems when the table is typeset and may result in errors.

Academic writing and English language editing services

Authors who feel that their manuscript may benefit from additional academic writing or language editing support prior to submission are encouraged to seek out such services at their host institutions, engage with colleagues and subject matter experts, and/or consider several vendors that offer discounts to APA authors .

Please note that APA does not endorse or take responsibility for the service providers listed. It is strictly a referral service.

Use of such service is not mandatory for publication in an APA journal. Use of one or more of these services does not guarantee selection for peer review, manuscript acceptance, or preference for publication in any APA journal.

Submitting supplemental materials

APA can place supplemental materials online, available via the published article in the APA PsycArticles ® database. Please see Supplementing Your Article With Online Material for more details.

Abstract and keywords

All manuscripts must include an abstract containing a maximum of 250 words typed on a separate page. After the abstract, please supply up to five keywords or brief phrases.

List references in alphabetical order. Each listed reference should be cited in text, and each text citation should be listed in the references section.

Examples of basic reference formats:

Journal article

McCauley, S. M., & Christiansen, M. H. (2019). Language learning as language use: A cross-linguistic model of child language development. Psychological Review , 126 (1), 1–51. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000126

Authored book

Brown, L. S. (2018). Feminist therapy (2nd ed.). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000092-000

Chapter in an edited book

Balsam, K. F., Martell, C. R., Jones. K. P., & Safren, S. A. (2019). Affirmative cognitive behavior therapy with sexual and gender minority people. In G. Y. Iwamasa & P. A. Hays (Eds.), Culturally responsive cognitive behavior therapy: Practice and supervision (2nd ed., pp. 287–314). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000119-012

Data set citation

Alegria, M., Jackson, J. S., Kessler, R. C., & Takeuchi, D. (2016). Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiology Surveys (CPES), 2001–2003 [Data set]. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR20240.v8

Software/Code citation

Viechtbauer, W. (2010). Conducting meta-analyses in R with the metafor package.  Journal of Statistical Software , 36(3), 1–48. https://www.jstatsoft.org/v36/i03/

Wickham, H. et al., (2019). Welcome to the tidyverse. Journal of Open Source Software, 4 (43), 1686, https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.01686

All data, program code, and other methods must be cited in the text and listed in the references section.

Preferred formats for graphics files are TIFF and JPG, and preferred format for vector-based files is EPS. Graphics downloaded or saved from web pages are not acceptable for publication. Multipanel figures (i.e., figures with parts labeled a, b, c, d, etc.) should be assembled into one file. When possible, please place symbol legends below the figure instead of to the side.

• All color line art and halftones: 300 DPI
• Black and white line tone and gray halftone images: 600 DPI

Line weights

• Color (RGB, CMYK) images: 2 pixels
• Grayscale images: 4 pixels
• Stroke weight: 0.5 points

APA offers authors the option to publish their figures online in color without the costs associated with print publication of color figures.

The same caption will appear on both the online (color) and print (black and white) versions. To ensure that the figure can be understood in both formats, authors should add alternative wording (e.g., “the red (dark gray) bars represent”) as needed.

For authors who prefer their figures to be published in color both in print and online, original color figures can be printed in color at the editor's and publisher's discretion provided the author agrees to pay:

• $900 for one figure
• An additional $600 for the second figure
• An additional $450 for each subsequent figure

Permissions

Authors of accepted papers must obtain and provide to the editor on final acceptance all necessary permissions to reproduce in print and electronic form any copyrighted work, including test materials (or portions thereof), photographs, and other graphic images (including those used as stimuli in experiments).

On advice of counsel, APA may decline to publish any image whose copyright status is unknown.

• Download Permissions Alert Form (PDF, 13KB)

Publication policies

For full details on publication policies, including use of Artificial Intelligence tools, please see APA Publishing Policies .

APA policy prohibits an author from submitting the same manuscript for concurrent consideration by two or more publications.

See also APA Journals ® Internet Posting Guidelines .

APA requires authors to reveal any possible conflict of interest in the conduct and reporting of research (e.g., financial interests in a test or procedure, funding by pharmaceutical companies for drug research).

• Download Full Disclosure of Interests Form (PDF, 41KB)

In light of changing patterns of scientific knowledge dissemination, APA requires authors to provide information on prior dissemination of the data and narrative interpretations of the data/research appearing in the manuscript (e.g., if some or all were presented at a conference or meeting, posted on a listserv, shared on a website, including academic social networks like ResearchGate, etc.). This information (2–4 sentences) must be provided as part of the author note.

Ethical Principles

It is a violation of APA Ethical Principles to publish "as original data, data that have been previously published" (Standard 8.13).

In addition, APA Ethical Principles specify that "after research results are published, psychologists do not withhold the data on which their conclusions are based from other competent professionals who seek to verify the substantive claims through reanalysis and who intend to use such data only for that purpose, provided that the confidentiality of the participants can be protected and unless legal rights concerning proprietary data preclude their release" (Standard 8.14).

APA expects authors to adhere to these standards. Specifically, APA expects authors to have their data available throughout the editorial review process and for at least 5 years after the date of publication.

Authors are required to state in writing that they have complied with APA ethical standards in the treatment of their sample, human or animal, or to describe the details of treatment.

• Download Certification of Compliance With APA Ethical Principles Form (PDF, 26KB)

The APA Ethics Office provides the full Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct electronically on its website in HTML, PDF, and Word format. You may also request a copy by emailing or calling the APA Ethics Office (202-336-5930). You may also read "Ethical Principles," December 1992, American Psychologist , Vol. 47, pp. 1597–1611.

Other information

See APA’s Publishing Policies page for more information on publication policies, including information on author contributorship and responsibilities of authors, author name changes after publication, the use of generative artificial intelligence, funder information and conflict-of-interest disclosures, duplicate publication, data publication and reuse, and preprints.

Visit the Journals Publishing Resource Center for more resources for writing, reviewing, and editing articles for publishing in APA journals.

Geoffrey Schoenbaum, MD, PhD National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health, United States

Associate editors

Mihaela Iordanova, PhD Concordia University, Canada

Alicia Izquierdo, PhD UCLA, United States

Elisabeth Murray, PhD National Institute of Mental Health, United States

Yael Niv, PhD Princeton University, United States

Mark Walton, PhD University of Oxford, United Kingdom

Catharine Winstanley, PhD University of British Columbia, Canada

Consulting editors

Ted G. Abel, PhD University of Iowa, United States

Cristina M. Alberini, PhD New York University, Unites States

Jeffrey R. Alberts, PhD Indiana University, Unites States

Timothy A. Allen, PhD Florida International University, United States

Jocelyne Bachevalier, PhD Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, United States

Bernard W. Balleine, PhD University of New South Wales, Australia

Moshe Bar, PhD Bar-Ilan University, Israel

Carol A. Barnes, PhD University of Arizona, United States

Kevin G. Bath, PhD Columbia University, United States

Mark S. Blumberg, PhD University of Iowa, United States

Jennifer M. Bossert, PhD NIDA/NIH/IRP, United States

Mark E. Bouton, PhD University of Vermont, United States

Sara N. Burke, PhD University of Florida, United States

Michael D. Burton, PhD Neuroimmunology and Behavior Laboratory, University of Texas at Dallas, United States

Denise J. Cai, PhD Neuroscience Department, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, United States

Xinying Cai, PhD Neural and Cognitive Sciences, NYU Shanghai, China

Regina M. Carelli, PhD University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States

Andrea A. Chiba, PhD University of California - San Diego, United States

Uraina S. Clark, PhD Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, United States

Lique M. Coolen, PhD University of Mississippi Medical Center, United States

Roshan Cools, PhD Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry, the Netherlands

Alice Cronin-Golomb, PhD Boston University, United States

Nathaniel D. Daw, PhD Princeton University, United States

John F. Disterhoft, PhD Northwestern University, United States

Juan M. Dominguez, PhD University of Texas at Austin, United States

S. Tiffany Donaldson, PhD Honors College and Department of Psychology, Developmental and Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts Boston, United States

Sarah DuBrow, PhD University of Oregon, Department of Psychology and Institute of Neuroscience, United States

Amelia J. Eisch, PhD University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, United States

Michael S. Fanselow, PhD University of California – Los Angeles, United States

Marcelo Febo, PhD University of Florida, United States

Stan B. Floresco, PhD University of British Columbia, Canada

John H. Freeman, PhD University of Iowa, United States

Karyn M. Frick, PhD University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, United States

Stephen C. Gammie, PhD University of Wisconsin, United States

Erica R. Glasper, PhD The Ohio State Wexler Medical Center, United States

Paul E. Gold, PhD Syracuse University, United States

Katalin M. Gothard, MD, PhD University of Arizona, United States

Thomas J. Gould, PhD Pennsylvania State University, United States

James W. Grau, PhD Texas A&M University, United States

Amy L. Griffin, PhD University of Delaware, United States

Patricia Sue Grigson, PhD Pennsylvania State University, College of Medicine, United States

Stephanie M. Groman, PhD University of Minnesota, United States

Jung-Soo Han, PhD Konkuk University, Republic of Korea

Catherine A. Hartley, PhD Department of Psychology and Center for Neural Science, New York University, United States

Michael E. Hasselmo, PhD Boston University, United States

Fred J. Helmstetter, PhD University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, United States

J. David Jentsch, PhD Binghamton University, United States

Ni Ji, PhD Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Beijing

Theresa A. Jones, PhD University of Texas at Austin, United States

Janice M. Juraska, PhD University of Illinois—Champaign/Urbana, United States

Thorsten Kahnt, PhD NIDA-IRP, United States

Donald B. Katz, PhD Brandeis University, United States

Martin Kavaliers, PhD University of Western Ontario, Canada

Leslie M. Kay, PhD University of Chicago, United States

Brock Kirwan, PhD Brigham Young University, United States

Bryan E. Kolb, PhD University of Lethbridge, Canada

Kevin S. LaBar, PhD Duke University, United States

Matthew Lattal, PhD Oregon Health & Science University, United States

Mark Laubach, PhD American University, United States

Michael A. Leon, PhD University of California—Irvine, United States

Christiane Linster, PhD Cornell University, United States

Joseph S. Lonstein, PhD Michigan State University, United States

Carmen S. Maldonado-Vlaar, PhD University of Puerto Rico, United States

Ludise Malkova, PhD Georgetown University Medical Center, United States

Nathan J. Marchant, PhD VU University Medical Center, The Netherlands

Michael A. McDannald, PhD Boston College, United States

Jill A. McGaughy, PhD University of New Hampshire, United States

Gavin P. McNally, PhD University of New South Wales, Australia

Sheri J. Y. Mizumori, PhD University of Washington, United States

Lisa M. Monteggia, PhD Vanderbilt University, United States

Jonathan D. Morrow, MD, PhD University of Michigan, United States

Mark B. Moss, PhD Boston University School of Medicine, United States

T. Celeste Napier, PhD Rush University Medical Center, United States

Nandakumar S. Narayanan, MD, PhD University of Iowa, United States

Randy J. Nelson, PhD West Virginia University, United States

Sean B. Ostlund, PhD University of California, Irvine, United States

Jelena Radulovic, MD, PhD Northwestern University, United States

Michael E. Ragozzino, PhD University of Illinois at Chicago, United States

Steve Ramirez, PhD Boston University Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Center for Systems Neuroscience, Neurophotonics Center, United States

Catharine H. Rankin, PhD University of British Columbia, Canada

Peter R. Rapp, PhD National Institute on Aging, United States

Stephen Reilly, PhD University of Illinois at Chicago, United States

Rick Richardson, PhD University of New South Wales, Australia

Trevor W. Robbins, PhD University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

Angela C. Roberts, PhD Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

Mike J. F. Robinson, PhD Concordia University, Canada

Peter H. Rudebeck, DPhil Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, United States

Federico Sanabria, PhD Arizona State University, United States

Martin F. Sarter, PhD University of Michigan, United States

Bernard G. Schreurs, PhD West Virginia University, United States

Barry Setlow, PhD University of Florida, United States

Matthew L. Shapiro, PhD Albany Medical School, United States

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Sade Spencer, PhD University of Minnesota, United States

Mark E. Stanton, PhD University of Delaware, United States

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Jeffrey S. Taube, PhD Dartmouth College, United States

Victoria L. Templer, PhD Providence College, United States

Kate M. Wassum, PhD UCLA, United States

Mascha van ’t Wout, PhD Brown University, United States

Tara L. White, PhD Brown University, United States

Ingo Willuhn, PhD Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences & Department of Psychiatry, Amsterdam University Medical Centers, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Robert C. Wilson, PhD University of Arizona, United States

Tianming Yang, PhD Institute of Neuroscience, Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

Michael A. Yassa, PhD University of California, Irvine, United States

Jingfeng Zhou, PhD Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Beijing, China

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Special issue of the APA journal Behavioral Neuroscience, Vol. 133, No. 3, June 2019. The issue highlights advances in neuroethology based on research presented at the 13th International Congress of Neuroethology and associated satellite symposia in Brisbane, Australia, on July 15–20, 2018.

Special issue of the APA journal Behavioral Neuroscience, Vol. 132, No. 5, October 2018. The articles highlight progress made in understanding the anatomy and function of the retrosplenial cortex in both animals and humans.

Special issue of the APA journal Behavioral Neuroscience, Vol. 130, No. 3, June 2016. The articles advance knowledge about the relation of sleep to cognition, memory, emotional reactivity, and mood, with several of the articles emphasizing the relation between sleep and human clinical conditions.

Special issue of the APA journal Behavioral Neuroscience, Vol. 128, No. 3, June 2014. The papers range from the molecular biology of clock genes to the behavior of free-living animals, and cover a wide variety of species ranging from insects, to rodents, to humans.

Transparency and Openness Promotion

APA endorses the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines by a community working group in conjunction with the Center for Open Science ( Nosek et al. 2015 ). The TOP Guidelines cover eight fundamental aspects of research planning and reporting that can be followed by journals and authors at three levels of compliance.

• Level 1: Disclosure—The article must disclose whether or not the materials are posted to a trusted repository.
• Level 2: Requirement—The article must share materials via a trusted repository when legally and ethically permitted (or disclose the legal and/or ethical restriction when not permitted).
• Level 3: Verification—A third party must verify that the standard is met.

Empirical research, including meta-analyses, submitted to Behavioral Neuroscience must, at a minimum, meet Level 1 (Disclosure) for all eight aspects of research planning and reporting. Authors should include a subsection in their methods description titled “Transparency and openness.” This subsection should detail the efforts the authors have made to comply with the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) guidelines.

The list below summarizes the minimal TOP requirements of the journal. Please refer to the Center for Open Science TOP guidelines for details, and  contact the editor  (Geoffrey Schoenbaum, MD, PhD) with any further questions. APA recommends sharing data, materials, and code via  trusted repositories (e.g.,  APA’s repository  on the Open Science Framework (OSF)). Trusted repositories adhere to policies that make data discoverable, accessible, usable, and preserved for the long term. Trusted repositories also assign unique and persistent identifiers.

We encourage investigators to preregister their studies and to share protocols and analysis plans prior to conducting their research. There are many available preregistration forms (e.g., the APA Preregistration for Quantitative Research in Psychology template, ClininalTrials.gov , or other preregistration templates available via OSF ). Completed preregistration forms should be posted on a publicly accessible registry system (e.g., OSF , ClinicalTrials.gov, or other trial registries in the WHO Registry Network).

A list of participating journals is also available from APA.

The following list presents the eight fundamental aspects of research planning and reporting, the TOP level required by Behavioral Neuroscience , and a brief description of the journal's policy.

• Citation: Level 1, Disclosure—All data, program code, and other methods developed by others should be cited in the text and listed in the references section.
• Data Transparency: Level 1, Disclosure—Article states whether the raw and/or processed data on which study conclusions are based are posted to a trusted repository and, if so, how to access them.
• Analytic Methods (Code) Transparency: Level 1, Disclosure—Article states whether computer code or syntax needed to reproduce analyses in an article is available and, if so, where to access it.
• Research Materials Transparency: Level 1, Disclosure—Article states whether materials described in the method section are available and, if so, where to access them.
• Design and Analysis Transparency (Reporting Standards): Level 1, Disclosure—The journal encourages the use of APA Style Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS-Quant, JARS-Qual, and/or MARS).
• Study Preregistration: Level 1, Disclosure—Article states whether the study design and (if applicable) hypotheses of any of the work reported was preregistered and, if so, how to access it. Authors may submit a masked copy via stable link or supplemental material or may provide a link after acceptance.
• Analysis Plan Preregistration: Level 1, Disclosure—Article states whether any of the work reported preregistered an analysis plan and, if so, how to access it. Authors may submit a masked copy via stable link or supplemental material or may provide a link after acceptance.
• Replication: Level 3, Verification—The journal publishes replications and Registered Reports.

Other open science initiatives

• Open Science badges: Not offered
• Public significance statements: Not offered
• Author contribution statements using CRediT: Required
• Registered Reports: Published
• Replications: Published

Explore open science at APA .

Journal equity, diversity, and inclusion statement

As the editorial team of Behavioral Neuroscience , we are strongly committed to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in the operation of the journal. We hope to show this commitment in how we operate at all levels, and we are open to suggestions for improving this aspect of our management. The following are several concrete commitments we have made to address EDI issues at Behavioral Neuroscience :

• We are committed to recruiting a diverse team to handle manuscripts, in our board of consulting editors and in the reviewers we choose. Our intention is that these groups represent our field both scientifically as well as in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, orientation, disability status, geographical location, and career stage.
• We encourage our authors to consider diversity in suggesting reviewers and to include in their manuscripts an inclusive list of references that recognizes the scholarship of women, people of color, and those from different locations and institutions.
• We work to solicit papers that reflect the diversity in our field. To that end, we offer the option of registered reports and the authors’ choice of a double-blind peer review (where both the author and reviewer identities are masked) to help address concerns of bias in the reviewing process. To the extent possible, decisions to triage papers without review are made based on an initial reading of the abstract and paper, prior to consideration of any materials that include the authors and their affiliations.

Inclusive study designs

• Registered Reports

Definitions and further details on inclusive study designs are available on the Journals EDI homepage .

Inclusive reporting standards

• Bias-free language and community-driven language guidelines (required)
• Author contribution roles using CRediT (required)
• Data sharing and data availability statements (required)

More information on this journal’s reporting standards is listed under the submission guidelines tab .

Other EDI offerings

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Open Research and Contributor ID (ORCID) Reviewer Recognition provides a visible and verifiable way for journals to publicly credit reviewers without compromising the confidentiality of the peer-review process. This journal has implemented the ORCID Reviewer Recognition feature in Editorial Manager, meaning that reviewers can be recognized for their contributions to the peer-review process.

Masked peer review

This journal offers masked peer review (where both the authors’ and reviewers’ identities are not known to the other). Research has shown that masked peer review can help reduce implicit bias against traditionally female names or early-career scientists with smaller publication records (Budden et al., 2008; Darling, 2015).

Behavioral Neuroscience  is a member of the  Neuroscience Peer Review Consortium

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Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences is an invaluable resource for students, researchers, and curious readers. Its 465 essays by leading scholars highlight some of the most compelling topics in current scholarship, presented through an interdisciplinary lens. The essays are fully cross-referenced with hyperlinks that illuminate connections between seemingly disparate ideas, promoting interdisciplinary and multi-layered awareness on key topics.

Emerging Trends provides an opportunity for leading scholars to share their expertise, and for readers to understand how groundbreaking ideas will shape the trajectory of research in the coming decades. It focuses the five core social and behavioral science disciplines – Psychology, Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science – with select entries in Anthropology, Economics, and Education, as well as immigration, technology, and media.


By posting  Emerging Trends online alongside its own website, CASBS has made it openly accessible to any interested reader anywhere in the world. We hope it will be widely explored and used.

Bibliographic Information:

ISBN: 9781118900772

DOI: 10.1002/9781118900772

Publication Date: June 2022

Previous edition published by Wiley Online Library in 2016

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Nih matilda white riley behavioral and social science honors: now available on demand.

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The role of behavioral and social sciences research in nih’s covid-19 response.

It has been more than four years since the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a global pandemic. In her latest blog, Dr. Simoni discusses the SBE COVID-19 Initiative, a core part of NIH’s COVID-19 response.

Read the most recent information about behavioral and social sciences news and events, announcements, findings from recently published research, funding opportunities, and more.

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A New Model for Studying Social Isolation and Health in People with Serious Mental Illnesses 

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The Kahneman-Treisman Center for Behavioral Science and Public Policy explores the gaps between what individuals “should” be expected to do and what people do do — to determine how policy might be better designed and executed to improve outcomes.

Research Briefs

Research Topics is a collection of previously published articles, features, and news stories. They are meant to serve as an information clearinghouse and represent some of APS’s most requested and publicly relevant subjects. Note: this content may reflect the accepted style and terminology of the date the articles were first published.

Trending Topics

Disaster Response and Recovery

Disasters like Hurricane Florence and Typhoon Mangkhut draw massive media coverage, trauma interventions, and financial donations to victims. But psychological research shows the efforts don’t always yield the intended benefits.

Environment and Climate Change

Psychological scientists are studying how we’re all weathering a warming planet.

Myths and Misinformation

How does misinformation spread and how do we combat it? Psychological science sheds light on the mechanisms underlying misinformation and ‘fake news.’

Learn about the mechanisms underlying our generous motivations and behaviors.

For psychological scientists, exploring the less pleasant aspects of individual and social nature, like violence and aggression, is an occasional necessity.

Aggression and Violence

Research is showing that aging equals anything but cognitive decline and unhappiness.

Psychological scientists have done extensive research on the aging brain, Alzheimer's Disease, different types of dementias, and much more.

Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias

How do pets influence our well-being? Why does the face of a puppy or the purr of a cat soothe us? Psychological research provides some insights.

Animal Behavior

Developments in AI and machine learning herald unprecedented leaps in many applications, including human psychology itself. Algorithmic bias is just one issue of concern.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning

Whether you're driving, studying, or listening to a business presentation, keeping focused can be a challenge when boredom and distractions compete for your focus. Research findings have identified the factors that keep our minds on task -- or off track.

Attention and Distraction

Psychological science on the effects of prejudice, and how to counter these beliefs.

Bias and Stigma

Learn what researchers have discovered about the factors that lead to bullying and the long-term consequences it can have.

The World Health Organization has added "burnout" to its International Classification of Diseases. Learn what psychological scientists have discovered about the possible causes and symptoms of burnout.

Psychological research reveals the long-lasting cognitive, social, and neurobiological consequences of stress and trauma experienced in childhood.

Childhood Adversity

A growing body of research connects various aspects of children's environments and their emotional well-being.

Childhood and Adolescent Mental Health

Psychological scientists have designed cognitive tests that can help identify everything from memory deficits to cultural heritage.

Cognitive Testing

A collection of studies shows that compassion gets stronger with training and this training can even change brain function.

It's a big-time showdown for France and Croatia in the upcoming FIFA World Cup final. Science reveals how players and fans alike handle the pressure of climactic competition.

Competition

From international wars to political arguments at the dinner table, conflict is an integral part of the human experience. Psychological scientists have uncovered a wealth of knowledge about the ways cooperation and acceptance can overpower those clashes.

Conflict and Conflict Resolution

What drives people to believe in vast conspiracies and dismiss facts as hoaxes? Psychological research identifies some motivations.

Conspiracy Theories

The criminal justice system was designed to find and punish perpetrators guilty of the crimes of which they are accused. Psychological science helps repair and maintain the public’s trust in the system and eliminate threats to equal justice.

Criminal Justice

How do people respond to increasing cultural diversity in their communities, cities, and countries? Researchers investigate.

Cultural Diversity

Being curious about the world around us can have benefits at school, work, and other contexts, studies show.

Psychological scientists are exploring how we use digital media and the consequences, both positive and negative, it can have in everyday life.

Digital Media

Disasters like Hurricane Florence and Typhoon Mangkhut draw massive media coverage, trauma interventions, and financial donations to victims. But psychological research shows the efforts don't always yield the intended benefits.

How do motorists develop the higher-order cognitive processes required to navigate safely? Research explores this and more.

Driving and Cars

Read what psychological researchers have discovered about the effects of eating on mood, behavior, and cognition.

Eating and Food

Psychological scientists are studying how we're all weathering a warming planet.

The psychology and science behind how individuals and groups respond to epidemics.

Epidemics and Public Health Behavior

Psychological scientists identify factors that prompt people to lie, cheat, bribe, and steal and strategies for addressing such unethical behavior.

What motivates us to exercise? And what effects does exercise have on mental function? Psychological scientists are exploring the ins and outs of physical activity.

Understanding the science behind eyewitness memory can have important implications for criminal justice procedures.

Eyewitness Memory

APS offers some scientific insights into family dynamics.

Family Relationships

Why are we scared of some things and not others? Psychological scientists are exploring the many facets of fear and the mechanisms that drive it.

Friendships are unique relationships that offer researchers a window into many aspects of life, including personality, longevity, health, and well-being.

Researchers explore the factors that perpetuate gender inequality and the effects that such bias can have on women in the workplace and beyond.

Gender and Bias

Effort, stamina, and purpose drive our accomplishments — science shows us what to do to keep motivation going.

Goals and Motivation

In some of the most famous cases of money laundering, corporate fraud, and tax evasion lies a relentless appetite for big profits and personal wealth. How does greed affect our sense of morality?

Greed and Corruption

Psychological scientists are leading the way in addressing the mental health issues resulting from traumatic events.

Grief and Trauma

Psychological science sheds light on happiness, from a personal to an economic level.

Learn how the human brain influences what our ears register - and what they don't.

Psychological science offers a variety of reasons to be hopeful about progress in science and the well-being of individuals and societies worldwide. Read about the most promising discoveries and advances of the past few years.

Learn about the research on what makes you laugh, why something you find funny is offensive to someone else, and more.

We’re averse to hypocrites because their disavowal of bad behavior sends a false signal about their true nature.

Unconscious bias can lurk below the level of conscious awareness, but researchers are working to uncover more effective methods of reducing these prejudices.

Implicit Bias

Psychological and educational interventions can make a positive difference in a person's trajectory or even their life. What factors influence how interventions either persist over the long term or fade out?

Interventions

Psychological science has played a leading role in busting misconceptions about sexual orientation and gender identity, and in changing people's attitudes toward individuals who are part of the LGBTQIA+ community.

Psychology researchers are identifying how we build strong reading skills in early childhood and the factors that contribute to difficulty with reading comprehension.

Researchers explore the causes, impacts, and possible interventions for loneliness and social isolation.

Loneliness and Social Isolation

Frank Sinatra crooned that they go together like a horse and carriage, but in truth love and marital health can falter over time. Scientists have identified a number of factors that sustain love through better or worse.

Love and Attraction

Learn about the vast stores of memory research that psychological scientists have amassed in recent years.

Psychological scientists have amassed a vast amount of empirical knowledge on the causes of and best treatments for mental disorders.

Mental Health

Researchers explore how practices associated with mindfulness and meditation can affect decision-making and other cognitive processes.

Mindfulness and Meditation

Psychological scientists are identifying cognitive, developmental, and cultural aspects of music perception and the essential role that music plays in our everyday lives.

How does misinformation spread and how do we combat it? Psychological science sheds light on the mechanisms underlying misinformation and 'fake news.'

Scientists are increasingly busting some myths and making new discoveries about a dark personality trait.

Deal making at the international, business, and interpersonal levels involves a variety of emotional, social, and language factors that lead to a final agreement -- or a stalemate.

Negotiation

Read about the wealth of psychological studies on neurodiversity and the differences in learning, attention, and mood.

Neurodivergence

Psychological scientists are devoting an increasing amount of their research time examining the role of the brain in human behavior, emotion, and cognitive health.

Neuroscience

Recent news events have sparked a surge of interest in the Dunning-Kruger effect -- a distorted view of one's knowledge and ability. Learn how this cognitive bias can spark overconfidence among world leaders and corporate giants.

Overconfidence

Amid the epidemic of opioid addiction, psychological science has demonstrated that pain relief doesn't have to be pharmaceutical.

Pain Management

Personality tests are the center of countless psychological studies exploring targeted marketing, workplace dynamics, and different brain structures.

Personality Traits

Public trust in the police has remained flat for decades, a problem that has become especially salient due to recent events.

Policing and Law Enforcement

A scientific analysis upends the notion that people on the political right are more biased about their ideological views than are people on the left.

Political Differences

Why do we dawdle and delay, even on the most important tasks? Researchers explore the causes and consequences of procrastination.

Procrastination

Plenty of beliefs about human psychology are based on myth masquerading as facts. Psychological scientists have not only exposed the weak evidence for these notions, but can recommend strategies to help us to distinguish true science from bunk.

Pseudoscience

Psychological researchers are examining the complexities of racism and xenophobia at both the interpersonal and societal levels.

Racism and Discrimination

Psychological research explores how we evaluate, perceive, and choose whether to take risks.

Why does self-control fail, and how can we boost it? Researchers explore the mechanisms underlying this important ability and how it develops over time.

Self-Control

The #metoo movement has brought sexual harassment to the center of public consciousness, raising questions about the causes of predatory actions. Psychological research shows how feeling powerful relates to sexually coercive behavior.

Sexual Assault and Harassment

Insufficient sleep has been shown to have adverse effects at work, in driving, and even in court.

From the scent of flowers to the stench of hazardous chemicals, our sense of smell guides us through our environment and significantly influences our emotions, as scientists have discovered.

How does athletic engagement and competition affect our thoughts and behaviors? Learn what psychological science has uncovered.

New discoveries about the ill effects of psychological stress abound, but scientists are also learning about buffers to stress.

Psychological scientists delve into study strategies, math anxiety, reading comprehension, and more.

Studying and Learning

Research from APS on addiction and substance abuse.

Substance Abuse and Addiction

Scientists show how get-aways and enjoyable activities affect our work lives and relationships.

Taking a Break

Psychological research is fostering understanding of the important factors that contribute to effective teaching, from individual instruction to school climate.

The psychological mechanisms that lead us to have faith in certain people and be suspicious of others are vast. Learn what psychological researchers have discovered about interpersonal trust.

September 10 is World Suicide Prevention Day. Read about the steps that psychological scientists are taking to identify and help people at risk of taking their own lives.

Understanding and Preventing Suicide

Psychological science suggests that behavioral 'nudges' which aim to alter individuals' actions rather than their attitudes are essential to promoting vaccination against COVID-19 and other vaccine-preventable diseases.

Vaccination

The effects of playing video games on well-being seem to depend largely on why and how an individual chooses to partake.

Video Games

The way the brain and the human eye process visual stimuli, including illusions, is a thriving area of psychological science.

Researchers unravel the mystery of voting behavior, including why people vote in seemingly unpredictable or illogical ways.

How does weather, both ordinary and extreme, affect decision-making, behavior, and emotions?

Weather and Behavior

Research in psychological science reveals the causes and consequences of bullying behavior in the office.

Workplace Bullying

When done well, efforts to improve intergroup harmony at work can uplift individuals and lead entire organizations to perform at a higher level.

Workplace Diversity

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behavioral science

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• National Center for Biotechnology Information - PubMed Central - Some Behavioral Science Measurement Concerns and Proposals

behavioral science , any of various disciplines dealing with the subject of human actions, usually including the fields of sociology , social and cultural anthropology , psychology , and behavioral aspects of biology , economics , geography , law , psychiatry , and political science . The term gained currency in the 1950s in the United States; it is often used synonymously with “social sciences,” although some writers distinguish between them. The term behavioral sciences suggests an approach that is more experimental than that connoted by the older term social sciences.

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The 9 Major Research Areas in Social Psychology

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Mitchell Funk / Getty Images

Social Cognition

Violence and aggression, prosocial behavior, prejudice and discrimination.

• Social Identity

Group Behavior

Social influence, interpersonal relationships.

Social psychology is a branch of psychology that studies a wide range of subjects related to social behavior. This includes studying how people interact, factors that affect social perceptions, the formation of attitudes, and how groups influence individuals.

Research in social psychology is often focused on subjects that fall within three broad areas:

• Social influence : Social influence refers to the ways in which our opinions and behavior are affected by the presence of others. This includes studies on topics such as conformity, obedience, and social pressure.
• Social perception : Social perception refers to the ways in which we form impressions of other people. This includes research on topics including first impressions, stereotyping, and prejudice.
• Social interaction : Social interaction refers to the ways in which we interact with other people. This includes research on topics such as communication, aggression, and altruism.

This article discusses some of the major areas of research in social psychology. It also explores some examples of the types of research that social psychologists might conduct within these subject areas.

Social cognition is concerned with the processing, storage, and application of social information. For example, research in this area of social psychology may focus on the development and use of social schemas. 

Schemas are our general ideas about the world, how things are, and how things work. In the case of social schemas, these ideas relate to how we expect people to behave in different situations.

These mental categories allow us to function without constantly stopping to interpret everything around us. We also develop associations between related schemas, which play an important role in the thought process and social behavior.

One area of social cognition research concerns person perception , which is how people form impressions of others. 

First impressions are the judgments we form about someone based on limited information. Studies have shown that first impressions happen within mere milliseconds and are based on several cues, such as facial expressions, body language, voice, and the beliefs held by the observer.  

Understanding how people acquire and process social information allows researchers to better explain how it can affect social interactions and individual behavior.

Attitudes and Attitude Change

Another major research area in social psychology involves the study of attitudes . Social psychologists are interested in the components of attitudes, how attitudes develop, and how attitudes change.

Attitudes are evaluations of people, objects, or issues. They can be positive (e.g., "I like chocolate") or negative (e.g., "I dislike taxes"). Various factors contribute to the development of attitudes, including upbringing and experiences, although genetics also appears to play a role in shaping them.

Researchers have identified three core components of attitude: an affective component, a behavioral component, and a cognitive component. Often referred to as the "ABCs of attitude," these elements describe how we feel, behave, and understand.

Some other characteristics of attitudes that researchers may be interested in include:

• How they are best measured : Some attitudes can be measured through self-report questionnaires, but others might be better measured using tools like facial expression or arousal levels.
• Factors that affect their strength : Attitudes can vary considerably in terms of their intensity. The strength of these attitudes directly impacts the degree to which they will guide their actions. Direct experiences and frequent exposure to the attitude can impact its strength.
• How attitudes affect behavior : Researchers are also interested in understanding how and when these attitudes influence people's actions. For example, social psychologists might explore how attitudes develop through exposure to social media sources and how those attitudes relate to real-world actions.

Attitudes are an important research topic in social psychology because they impact how people view and interact with others.

What causes violence and aggression ? While many different factors play a role, social psychologists are interested in understanding the social influences that shape violent behavior.

Research in this area looks at numerous social factors that may cause aggression, including:

• Situational variables that might contribute to aggression
• Non-physical types of aggression such as name-calling or gossiping
• How aggression is learned via modeling, such as witnessing adults or children engage in aggressive or violent behaviors
• How violence in the media affects behavior in the real world
• Strategies that can be effective in the reduction of aggression and violence
• The role social learning plays in producing aggressive behaviors and actions
• How public policy can be used to curb violent behavior

Research into the epidemic of gun violence is an example of how social psychologists are trying to understand the variables that contribute to a problem, and then utilize that knowledge to come up with actionable solutions.

Prosocial behavior is another major research area in social psychology. Prosocial behaviors are those that involve helping and cooperating.

Researchers often look at why people help others, as well as why they sometimes refuse to help or cooperate. The bystander effect is an example of a social phenomenon in the subject area of prosocial behavior.

Much of the research in the area of bystander effect was prompted by the murder of a young woman named Kitty Genovese. This case captured national attention when reports suggested that neighbors had witnessed her attack and murder but failed to call the police for help.

Later reviews of the case indicate that few (if any) of the neighbors had a clear view of the scene and were unaware of what was happening. Nevertheless, the case became mythologized in psychology textbooks and prompted a surge of interest in prosocial behaviors.

Research inspired by the Genovese case produced a great deal of information on prosocial behavior and how and why people choose—or sometimes refuse—to help others.

Prejudice, discrimination, and stereotypes exist in any social group. Social psychologists are interested in the origins, causes, and effects of these attitudes and social categorizations.

Some questions that social psychologists explore include:

• How does prejudice develop?
• Why are stereotypes maintained in the face of contrary evidence?
• How can prejudice be measured?
• What factors contribute to the formation of prejudice and discrimination?
• Are there effective ways to reduce prejudice and discrimination?

For example, researchers have found that several factors contribute to the development of prejudice, including stereotypes, social categorization, and social influences. Another factor that plays a part is the outgroup homogeneity bias, or the tendency to view people outside of our social group as being more homogenous than members of our own group.

By learning more about the psychology of prejudice and discrimination, researchers can look for solutions to help help prevent it from happening.

Self and Social Identity

Our perceptions of social identities and ourselves are another important research area in social psychology. Some of the questions that researchers explore include:

• How do people come to know and understand themselves?
• How do these self-perceptions affect our social interactions?
• How does belonging to different social groups shape individual identity?
• How do intersecting group members influence self-perception and self-identity?

Social psychologists are interested in learning more about how this inner life influences our outer lives and social world. Self-awareness, self-esteem, self-concept , and self-expression are only a few factors that influence our social experience.

For example, social comparison is a process that can impact how people view themselves. Upward social comparison involves comparing the self to others who are perceived as higher in status and ability, while downward social comparison focuses on making comparisons to those who are lower in status or ability.

Upward comparisons can leave people feeling like they don't measure up, damaging self-esteem. Downward comparisons, on the other hand, can help enhance self-esteem.

By learning more about how social identities and self-perceptions interact, social psychologists are better able to understand how social factors can influence how individuals feel about themselves and their identities.

Group behavior is defined as the actions, feelings, or thoughts of a collective of people. Such groups involve two or more people who share something in common such as identity, purpose, and belief.

The behavior of groups is one of the largest research areas in social psychology. Most people realize that groups tend to behave differently than individuals. These group behaviors are sometimes beneficial but can also be detrimental.

Social psychologists often look at topics such as:

• Group dynamics
• Group decision making
• Cooperation
• Group influence

Norms are an example of an aspect of group behavior that can guide how group members think, behave, or act. Norms are standards that emerge and guide how another member judge one another.

Social psychologists are also interested in the role of social influence on behavior and decision-making. Topics such as the psychology of persuasion , peer pressure, conformity , and obedience are only a few of those studied in this area of social psychology.

One example of research in this area of social psychology was Milgram's obedience studies conducted during the 1960s. The experiments found that when ordered by an authority figure, participants were willing to deliver what they believed were dangerous and painful electrical shocks to another person. While the shocks were staged, the research suggested that many people were willing to go to great lengths to obey authority.

Research has helped reveal the power of social influence and has uncovered ways to help people resist influence.

Social relationships play a major role in shaping behavior, attitudes, feelings, and thoughts. Social psychologists study how these interpersonal relationships affect people by looking at attachment , liking , love , and attraction.

Some research questions that social psychologists might explore include:

• How important are interpersonal relationships to individual well-being?
• What factors play a role in attraction?
• How do interpersonal relationships influence helping behaviors in groups?
• How do close relationships affect individuals?

Close relationships are relationships in which we feel a strong sense of connection and intimacy with another person. Studies on close relationships have shown that they are associated with many benefits, such as increased happiness and satisfaction with life.

A Word From Verywell

Social psychology is a rich subject that explores how social perception, social interaction, and social influence affect both groups and individuals. Researchers in this field are interested in various topics, including attitudes, attraction, close relationships, and helping behavior. By learning more about these subjects, social psychologists can add to our understanding of social behavior and its effect on individual well-being.

Venta A, Hatkevich C, Mellick W, Vanwoerden S, Sharp C. Social cognition mediates the relation between attachment schemas and posttraumatic stress disorder . Psychol Trauma. 2017;9(1):88-95. doi:10.1037/tra0000165

Stolier RM, Hehman E, Keller MD, Walker M, Freeman JB. The conceptual structure of face impressions . Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A . 2018;115(37):9210-9215. doi:10.1073/pnas.1807222115

Markovitch N, Netzer L, Tamir M. Will you touch a dirty diaper? Attitudes towards disgust and behaviour [published correction appears in Cogn Emot . 2016;30(3):i].  Cogn Emot . 2016;30(3):592–602. doi:10.1080/02699931.2015.1020049

Olson JM, Vernon PA, Harris JA, Jang KL. The heritability of attitudes: A study of twins . J Pers Soc Psychol . 2001;80(6):845-60. PMID: 11414369.

Van Ryzin MJ, Dishion TJ. From antisocial behavior to violence: a model for the amplifying role of coercive joining in adolescent friendships .  J Child Psychol Psychiatry . 2013;54(6):661–669. doi:10.1111/jcpp.12017

Kassin SM. The killing of Kitty Genovese: What else does this case tell us?   Perspect Psychol Sci . 2017;12(3):374–381. doi:10.1177/1745691616679465

Rhodes M, Mandalaywala TM. The development and developmental consequences of social essentialism .  Wiley Interdiscip Rev Cogn Sci . 2017;8(4):10.1002/wcs.1437. doi:10.1002/wcs.1437

Hjerm M, Eger M, Danell R.  Peer attitudes and the development of prejudice in adolescence .  Socius Sociolog Res Dynamic World . 2018;4:1-11. doi:10.1177/2378023118763187

American Psychological Association.  Outgroup homogeneity bias .

Drury J, Carter H, Cocking C, Ntontis E, Tekin Guven S, Amlôt R. Facilitating collective psychosocial resilience in the public in emergencies: Twelve recommendations based on the social identity approach [published correction appears in Front Public Health . 2019 Jun 27;7:181].  Front Public Health . 2019;7:141. doi:10.3389/fpubh.2019.00141

Rahman T. Extreme Overvalued Beliefs: How Violent Extremist Beliefs Become "Normalized" .  Behav Sci (Basel) . 2018;8(1):10. doi:10.3390/bs8010010

Russell NJC.  Milgram's obedience to authority experiments: Origins and early evolution .  Br J Soc Psychol . 2011;50:140-162. doi:10.1348/014466610X492205

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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3 Behavioral and Social Sciences Research

The behavioral and social sciences cover a wide spectrum of health-relevant research areas. One end of the spectrum has a focus on the individual, including such areas as psychology, behavioral and cognitive neuroscience, and cognitive science. Here the focus is on the individual's behavior, with a direct relevance for mental health and mental disorders and a strong relevance for major health problems such as obesity; drug, alcohol, and tobacco abuse; and propensity for violent behavior and crime. The other end of the spectrum has a focus on interpersonal, group, and societal behavior, including sociology, economics, education, and political science. Research in these sciences has an equally important role in identifying key factors that underlie the complex health problems besetting our society.

The behavioral and social sciences are far more complex and variable than some of the natural sciences; not only is there an almost uncountable number of factors affecting individual and social behavior, but these factors combine and interact in extremely complex and mutable ways. Partly for this reason and partly for historical and cultural reasons, research support and research training in these areas lag well behind those in other sciences. While the behavioral and social sciences have addressed fundamental health care question for decades, methods and tools developed in recent years have provided useful and effective answers to some of the nation's most pressing health care problems.

At the same time that these sciences have been maturing, society has come to realize the absolute necessity of their research findings for the understanding, treatment, and prevention of its health problems. As a result, the behavioral and social sciences have been called on for advice to an ever-increasing degree by government agencies. This is evidenced by the number and range of government-commissioned committees, panels, and reports assigned to the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education (DBASSE) of the National Research Council. In the past 10 years, there have been over 300 publications resulting from DBASSE assignments that cover a wide range of areas directly or indirectly related to health concerns, including children and families; education, employment, and training; the environment; health and behavior; human performance; international studies; law and justice; national statistics; and population and urban studies. These studies range in scope from the level of the individual to the level of society and cover the entire range of social and behavioral sciences and extend to related fields (such as ecology and criminology). 1

The social and behavioral sciences deal with many of the most complex and least predictable phenomena that affect people's health. Mental health, for example, is an important concern at the National Institutes of Health (NIH; particularly the National Institute of Mental Health, NIMH) as well as in the government and private sector generally. Yet mental health is only one part of a much larger picture because many of the most important health problems are determined and strongly affected by behavioral, social, and economic factors. At the level of the behavior of the individual, the behavioral and social sciences produce knowledge about health issues such as drug and alcohol abuse, obesity, violent behavior, smoking, maintenance of drug treatment regimens, stress management, ability to cope with illness, and health decision making. Moreover, there are many critical health issues that emerge at a larger scale. The economics of health care and its delivery critically determines which diseases and problems are attacked, what research is carried out, and which treatments are given. The government has recognized these factors with multimillion dollar investments in surveys, such as the Health and Retirement Survey, the National Longitudinal Survey, and the National Survey of Families and Households. The behavioral and social sciences provide critical insights and knowledge. This knowledge covers a vast array of issues concerning our ability and willingness to deal with disability and our willingness to expend income and assets for health purposes, such as:

• promoting well-being;
• distributing health care geographically, sociologically, and economically;
• using and misusing health care institutions;
• monitoring health providers' behavior;
• studying the psychological and social effects of morbidity and mortality;
• tracking the social and psychological effects on treatment and recovery;
• transferring assets and beliefs across generations;
• documenting social support mechanisms;
• measuring the economics of alternative health care systems;
• verifying the effects of approaches to care and bereavement; and
• making health decisions.

Societal, behavioral, and economic factors work together to produce such problems as drug abuse, smoking, alcohol abuse, anorexia/bulimia, and obesity. Once-treatable diseases are making a comeback in more virulent forms because reliable methods cannot be found to ensure that curative drugs are taken as prescribed. Social and sexually transmitted diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, continue to be an increasing menace. Even crime and violence are rooted in elements that require the expertise of behavioral and social sciences research. It is now accepted that many diseases, historically considered mainly a matter for biomedical research, such as heart and lung disease, drug addiction, tuberculosis, and malaria, cannot be understood and treated without the benefit of behavioral and social research. When these far-reaching health implications of behavioral, social, and economic factors are added to the more direct implications of research for mental illnesses such as depression, schizophrenia, and various neurological illnesses, it is no surprise that the research demand in the behavioral and social sciences has grown rapidly in recent years.

Support for research in the behavioral and social sciences at NIH resides primarily in the NIMH, secondarily in the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHHD), and is scattered in other institutes (with the present exception of the National Institute of General Medicine. It should be noted that the primary mission of NIMH is research into the prevention and treatment of mental disorders, and the mission of NIA and NICHHD is research into the health problems of young and aging populations. Consequently, neither institute directly supports research into key factors underlying societal health problems, such as smoking, alcohol and drug abuse, obesity, and the like. A case could be made that research in the behavioral and social sciences needs to be augmented significantly by other NIH institutes and centers. Most NIH institutes would benefit from scientists knowledgeable in the techniques, methods, and findings of the behavioral and social sciences. In particular, empirical design and quantitative and statistical methodology that have been so effectively refined in the social and behavioral sciences would be useful. Thus at institutes and centers that do not presently have a direct focus on research in the behavioral and social sciences, at least some training needs to be directed toward researchers with this focus. In addition, some of the training given to researchers with other primary foci needs to be informed by appropriate training in the social and behavioral sciences, a point that is taken up directly in Chapter 8 .

• BEHAVIORAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES RESEARCH WORKFORCE

The behavioral and social sciences workforce is as difficult to identify as the biomedical workforce but for different reasons. In particular, it is difficult to identify scientists who are doing basic health-related research, as opposed to those who are involved in clinical practice. Past studies of research training needs in the behavioral sciences generally defined the target workforce as Ph.D.s trained in anthropology, sociology, speech and hearing sciences, and psychology, with the exception of clinical, family, and school psychology. However, since professional organizations in psychology indicate that nonresearch-oriented doctorates are now receiving doctor of psychology (Psy.D.) degrees, the category of clinical psychology is included but not the other practice-oriented fields. Appendix C lists the fields included in the behavioral and social sciences. This inclusion is also supported by an experiment in which NIH was asked to identify whether the research topics for the theses of a sample of the Ph.D. population in the above-listed fields, including clinical psychology, would be considered for NIH funding. The results of this analysis showed that about 90 percent of the thesis topics could be funded and therefore a large portion of the clinical psychology Ph.D.s could pursue research careers. This may be an overestimate of the workforce, but it might provide a more accurate assessment. Whenever possible, the identification of those who do not participate in research will be addressed in the following analysis of the workforce. In particular, attempts were made to identify institutions with professional programs in clinical psychology and to exclude their doctorates from the analysis.

The critical role played by the behavioral and social sciences workforce is increasingly recognized as a key element in both the maintenance of good health and the treatment of disease. The research workforce that addresses the types of diseases and health problems described earlier in this chapter is much broader than the behavioral and social sciences as defined for this study. For example, even in the treatment of what are often considered biologically based diseases, behavior is a factor in getting patients to take their medicine or to participate in physical activities that would help or prevent their condition. These research areas have an interdisciplinary component with the life sciences, behavioral and social sciences, and even the physical sciences. Interdisciplinarity further complicates analysis of the workforce because people trained outside the medical field are doing research important to the medical community (e.g., an economist studying the public health system). However, it would be impossible to factor these researchers into the current workforce assessment.

Another complication is how students identify their research area when they receive their doctorates. The increasing tendency for some research areas in the biomedical and behavioral sciences to converge (neuroscience is the most notable example) may lead to the classification of some doctorates in the behavioral sciences as biomedical. This factor may lead to an undercount of doctorates in the behavioral sciences and an overcount in the biomedical sciences. These difficulties notwithstanding, an attempt has been made to identify doctoral fields for analysis and potential problems in the analyses. The behavioral and social sciences workforce will consist of Ph.D. graduates from universities in the United States in the fields listed in Appendix C and of foreign graduates seeking careers in science and engineering in this country. This definition of the behavioral and social sciences workforce will provide a general estimate of the number of investigators and an indication of the major trends affecting this workforce, such as changes in size, age, and composition.

• EDUCATIONAL TRENDS

The pool of college graduates in the behavioral and social sciences from which graduate programs would normally draw increased from about 74,000 in 1987 to almost 132,000 in 2001. In 1987 about 11 percent or 7,894 of these graduates matriculated to graduate programs in doctoral-granting institutions and in 2001 to about 6 percent or 8,305. The number of first-year graduate students was fairly constant during the late 1990s at about 8,500 and increased to 8,996 in 2002. This first-year enrollment resulted in a total full-time graduate enrollment of about 31,500 in 1987 and almost 40,000 in 2002. A portrait of the gender makeup of the graduate students (see Figure 3-1 ) shows a significant change from the late 1970s, when there were only a few more males than females, to 2002 when females outnumbered males by 2.5 to 1.

Graduate students in the behavioral and social sciences by gender, 1979–2002. SOURCE: National Science Foundation Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering.

The picture of support for graduate education at doctoral-granting institutions in the behavioral and social sciences is very different from that in the biomedical sciences (see Figure 3-2 ). Traditionally, about half of the graduate students are supported by their own funds or other sources, because external funding from traineeships is small and declining and teaching assistantships are the major source of support.

Graduate support in the behavioral and social sciences, 1979–2002. SOURCE: National Science Foundation Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering.

The fairly constant size of the graduate student population seen in Figure 3-1 is reflected in the number of doctoral degrees through 2000 (see Figure 3-3 ). However, over the period from 2000 to 2003, the number of doctorates declined by 368 or about 8.2 percent. From just a few hundred in 1970 the number of doctoral degrees granted to women grew to 2,908 in 2000 but declined slightly to 2,724 in 2003. The number of degrees granted to males dropped from a high of about 2,700 in the mid-1970s to a low of 1,411 in 2003. The decline in doctorates is a reflection of the graduate enrollment declines of the late 1990s, or the problem cited earlier with the classification of doctorates into closely related biomedical fields. On the one hand, the small increase in doctorates in 2003 may reflect the enrollment increases in the early 2000s and may predict a return to the degree production of the late 1990s in a few years. On the other hand, any increase may be temporary, since it may be a result of the national economic situation and will not continue into the future. Time to degree has increased by 3 years in total time and 2 years in registered time (see Appendix E ). These increases have been greater than in the biomedical sciences by about a half a year. Similarly, the median age at time of degree has increased to almost 33 and is one of the highest in science and engineering.

Doctorates granted in the behavioral and social sciences, 1970–2003. SOURCE: National Science Foundation Survey of Earned Doctorates, 2001.

Historically, behavioral and social sciences doctorates did not tend to go on to postdoctoral training, but this trend is changing. This fact by itself would tend to suggest that such doctorates could begin research careers earlier than biomedical doctorates, but such a trend is largely offset by the longer graduate training period. Recently, however, the fraction of doctorates planning on a postdoctoral appointment increased from about one-tenth in 1970 to more than one-third in 2003. Females are more likely to have additional research training since in recent years 15 percent of the females and 9.3 percent of the male doctorates have planned to pursue postdoctoral training. Another interesting aspect of the behavioral and social sciences doctoral population is the increased participation in postdoctoral training by individuals with degrees in clinical psychology (see Figure 3-4 ). This characteristic of clinical psychology doctorates also supports their inclusion in this assessment of personnel needs. For many years postdoctoral training was not considered essential, as was the case for other behavioral and social sciences fields, but in the early 1990s this changed and in recent years almost half of the behavioral and social sciences doctorates have planned to pursue postdoctoral training.

Doctorates planning postdoctoral training, 1970–2003. SOURCE: National Science Foundation Survey of Earned Doctorates, 2001.

The large and increasing number of female doctorates seeking postdoctoral training suggests a special concern in the behavioral and social sciences. The traditional responsibilities of women to bear children and care for their families may lead to times when highly skilled researchers need to work in a less traditional format or even be absent from the workforce. Given the rapid pace of science, NIH might consider addressing this situation not only with retraining programs but also special postdoctoral research grants to keep trained researchers in the workforce during periods in which personal priorities make it impossible to carry a full workload.

The proportion of doctorates facing potential immigration and visa difficulties is presently under 10 percent. An increasing proportion of doctorates in the biomedical sciences with temporary resident status and the problems that might occur if their residency status is jeopardized are not strongly seen in the behavioral and social sciences. Another positive development is the increase in minorities with doctorates. In the 1970s only 1 or 2 percent of the behavioral and social sciences doctorates went to minorities, but that has changed. In recent years, almost 15 percent of the doctorates have gone to minorities.

• EMPLOYMENT TRENDS

The behavioral and social sciences workforce grew steadily from 27,356 in 1973 to 99,145 in 2001. Most of the growth can be attributed to the increasing number of female doctorates (see Figure 3-5 ); while they are not a majority of the workforce, their numbers have increased at an average annual rate of 11 percent since the late 1980s. In this same time period, the growth in the number of male workers was only 2 percent. If the postdoctoral population is included in the workforce, the rates of growth have not changed since they comprise only a small part of the workforce. Figure 3-6 shows the number of postdoctoral appointments by employment sector and the rapid growth in appointments in recent years. However, the number of appointments declined from its high of 2,583 in 1997 to 2,093. This decline is similar to that in the biomedical sciences and may be due to higher stipends imposed by NIH because interest on the part of new doctorates in postdoctoral training remains high, as seen by the data in Appendix E .

Behavioral and social sciences workforce (excluding postdoctorates) by gender, 1973–2001. SOURCE: National Science Foundation Survey of Doctorate Recipients.

Trends in postdoctoral appointments by sector, 1973–2001. SOURCE: National Science Foundation Survey of Doctorate Recipients.

While the academic sector accounts for three-quarters of the appointments, as was the case for the biomedical sciences, there is stronger participation in the industrial sector. The other notable difference in postdoctoral training is the citizen/permanent resident and temporary resident ratio in academic institutions. In the biomedical sciences it is 1.4 to 1 with more temporary residents, compared to the behavioral and social sciences with a ratio of 3.6 to 1 with more citizens and permanent residents. It is possible that this difference reflects a divergence in technical training at virtually all levels of education between the U.S. and foreign systems. For example, the need for researchers with technical training (including laboratory training, instrumentation abilities, computational expertise, and mathematical and modeling skills) may have led to a large infusion of foreign researchers in the biomedical fields. If so, the increasing need for such types of training in the social and behavioral sciences may produce a tendency for a movement of the pattern seen in the social and behavioral sciences to that seen in the biomedical sciences.

The distribution of the nonpostdoctoral workforce in the behavioral and social sciences is very different from that in the biomedical sciences (see Figure 3-7 ). While academic employment is still the largest sector, industrial employment is growing at a rapid rate and almost equals that in educational institutions. The nonprofit sector is comparatively larger than in the biomedical sciences. By comparison, the workforce in the behavioral and social sciences is almost as large as the biomedical sciences, with growth at about the same rate, 6.2 percent for the biomedical sciences and 5.4 percent for the behavioral and social sciences. The age distribution for the workforce, excluding postdoctoral appointees, for 1985 is similar for both the behavioral and the biomedical sciences but differs in that the median age in 2001 was 2.5 years older for the behavioral and social sciences workforce (see Table 3-1 ).

Behavioral and social sciences workforce by sector of employment, 1973–2001. SOURCE: National Science Foundation Survey of Doctorate Recipients.

Median Age Cohort for the Biomedical Sciences and the Behavioral and Social Sciences .

Another way to look at the aging of the behavioral and social sciences workforce is to compare the age distribution over time; note that there will be significant retirement in the next 10 years from the 55 to 65 age group (see Figure 3-8 ).

Age distribution of the behavioral and social sciences workforce, 1985, 1993, and 2001. SOURCE: National Science Foundation Survey of Doctorate Recipients.

Academic employment in the behavioral and social sciences more than doubled from 1975 to 2001. Much of that growth was in nontenured positions and other academic categories, which together represent about one-third of the total academic staff in 2001. The size of the tenured and tenure-track staff has been almost constant since the late 1990s and grew by only 11 percent from 1989 to 1999 (see Figure 3-9 ).

Academic employment in the behavioral and social sciences, 1973–2001. SOURCE: National Science Foundation Survey of Doctorate Recipients.

Over the past 10 years two-thirds of the doctorates have been awarded to women. This is reflected in academic appointments, with about 60 percent of nontenured positions held by women ( Figure 3-10 ). Those in tenured positions are far below their 47 percent representation in the workforce, but over time this should change as more women in tenure-track positions receive tenure.

FIGURE 3-10

Percentage of women in academic positions, 1975–2001. SOURCE: National Science Foundation Survey of Doctorate Recipients.

The number of minorities in the behavioral and social sciences workforce increased dramatically from 520 in 1975 to 8,534 in 2001 (see Appendix E ). While the number has grown in recent years by about 15 percent per year and is greater than the 5 percent growth of the total workforce, they still remain a small percentage of the overall workforce. In 2001, underrepresented minorities comprised 8.6 percent of behavioral and social scientists, compared to 1.9 percent in 1973. There are, however, twice as many in the behavioral and social sciences workforce compared to the biomedical sciences workforce, which is about the same size overall.

• RESEARCH TRAINING AND THE NATIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE AWARD PROGRAM

In general, the National Research Service Award (NRSA) program plays a smaller role in research training in the behavioral and social sciences than in the basic biomedical fields. Comparing the number of awards in Table 3-2 with a similar table in Chapter 2 , the awards in the behavioral sciences are about one-tenth of those in the biomedical sciences. In terms of the percentage of students supported, less than 1 percent of the 40,000 graduate students in the behavioral and social sciences in 2002 had NRSA support. By comparison, about 9.3 percent of the biomedical sciences graduate students had NRSA support. It has been argued that much of the research in the behavioral and social sciences is not health related and that therefore, training in these research areas is not supportable under the NRSA program. The sample dissertation review, referred to at the beginning of this chapter, contradicts that reasoning because 90 percent of the reviewed dissertation abstracts were considered to be in areas fundable by NIH personnel.

National Research Service Award Predoctoral Trainee and Fellowship Support in the Behavioral and Social Sciences .

NIH's basic mission is to support health-related research, and NIH has historically tended to consider such research to lie primarily in the physical structure of the body and hence in biochemistry, genetics, and similar fields. Behavioral and social sciences research has traditionally been considered less relevant to the NIH mission. This may also be seen in the fact that NIH does not house an institute devoted to basic and applied research in the behavioral and social sciences. What research training there is in this area has tended to reside in NIMH, but NIMH has a mission to focus on mental disorders. Consequently, training in research-relevant areas for many other health problems with a social and behavioral component (such as smoking, obesity, drug abuse, violence, alcoholism) has lagged far behind society's needs. There may be added concerns for research training in the behavioral and social sciences by NIMH due to a recent decision by this institute to shift research funding to areas deemed to have more relevance to public health issues, such as neurological diseases and major mental disorders. 2

Thus, research training in the behavioral and social sciences is not supported through a dedicated NIH institute or center but instead through the coordination of training and research by the Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research (OBSSR) in the Office of the Director. In recent years NIMH has supported a majority of the predoctoral trainees and fellows, followed by NICHHD, the NIA, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and the National Cancer Institute (NCI). A review of the 1,972 T32 3 training grants in 2002 showed that 98 were primarily in the behavioral and social sciences and about 150 others had some behavioral aspects to the training. Table 3-3 shows the distribution of the 98 awards across the NIH institutes and centers. Only 8 of the 21 institutes that could support T32 training made awards. NIMH far outnumbers the other institutes and centers for making these awards. If the institutes and centers with awards that contain behavioral aspects were included, this number would increase to 11 with the addition of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

T32 Training Grants in the Behavioral and Social Sciences, 2002 .

The institutes and centers listed in Table 3-3 are the principal supporters of behavioral and social sciences research and training, with combined expenditures of $1.7 billion in 2001. Another 14 institutes and centers also provided $295 million in support in 2001. While NCI is a major supporter of behavioral and social sciences research, it provides little NRSA program training support in this area. NCI has used the R25T training mechanism to support training programs focusing on behavioral, prevention, control, and population sciences. In 2004, NCI made six awards under this mechanism to support behavioral science training.

A particularly notable omission from the list of institutes that support training in the behavioral and social sciences is the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS). A few behavioral and social sciences doctoral students receive NIGMS training support, but only under institutional NRSA training grants that are focused on biomedical or clinical training. At one time NIGMS did support behavioral training but now claims that such training falls outside its mission. NIGMS has resisted calls from Congress to develop collaborations with other institutes and centers at NIH to support behavioral research. 4

Institutes and centers tend to support training in the behavioral and social sciences that is directed at particular subfields and often do not require interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary aspects generally found in training grants in the biomedical or clinical sciences. In order to encourage interdisciplinarity, it should not be forgotten that training support in the behavioral and social sciences promotes outreach and collaboration with other sciences.

The lack of support notwithstanding, efforts are being made by OBSSR to foster interdisciplinarity by highlighting research that joins the behavioral and social sciences with other health sciences. In July 2002, OBSSR held a workshop on interdisciplinary training in the behavioral, social, and biomedical sciences. It addressed a variety of issues, including the type and level of training, barriers that prevent investigators from doing interdisciplinary research, relevant fields for interdisciplinary training, and what fraction of the NIH training portfolio should support interdisciplinary training. More recently a working group for the NIH Advisory Council to the Director in a draft report recommended that OBSSR coordinate transinstitute basic research initiatives, and designate a home at NIH to foster basic behavioral and social sciences research that is not linked to the mission of the categorical institutes and centers. 5

The M.D./Ph.D. programs, particularly the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) at NIGMS, foster interdisciplinarity. The MSTP was recently expanded to include Ph.D. study in the computer sciences, social and behavioral sciences, economics, epidemiology, public health, bioengineering, biostatistics, and bioethics. However, only a few institutions have students pursuing dual degrees with a Ph.D. in the behavioral and social sciences. The areas of computer science, biostatistics, and bioinformatics seem to be more attractive. Some institutions with well-established programs have expressed difficulty in developing a unified M.D./Ph.D. program with their behavioral and social sciences departments. Generally, the MSTP programs are housed in a biomedical sciences department or a medical school, and as such students are more likely to pursue biomedical research paths.

As shown in Figure 3-2 , less than one-quarter of the graduate student population in doctoral-granting institutions in the behavioral and social sciences is supported by fellowships, traineeships, and research grants. While one of the missions of the National Science Foundation (NSF) is the support of the behavioral and social sciences, NSF support is only about one-tenth the total federal support and less than one-third of the support provided by NIH (see Figure 3-11 ).

FIGURE 3-11

Funding sources for graduate education in the behavioral and social sciences, 1979–2002. SOURCE: National Science Foundation Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering.

It should be noted that total graduate support has declined since the 1970s and early 1980s, mainly due to reductions by the non-NIH part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The current number of graduate students supported by NIH is about the same as in the 1970s. However, the proportion with NIH support has declined due to an increase in the total number of graduate students. In proportion to the total number of graduate students, NIH support has declined since the 1970s. The form of support has also changed over time. In the 1970s and early 1980s, NIH supported mainly graduate fellowships and traineeships, but by the 1990s its support shifted to research grants. Consequently, by 2001 over two-thirds of the support provided by NIH was in the form of research grants, and in 2002 it grew again by about 15 percent (see Figure 3-12 ).

FIGURE 3-12

Graduate student support by NIH, 1979–2002. SOURCE: National Science Foundation Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering.

As is the case at the predoctoral level, NRSA program support of postdoctoral training in the behavioral and social sciences is a fraction, between 10 and 15 percent, of that in the biomedical sciences (see Table 3-4 ). The decline in the number of postdoctoral positions supported by the NRSA program is similar to that in the biomedical sciences. This may be due to similar reasons: the higher stipend levels and the eligibility of individuals for NRSA support. There are no data on general postdoctoral support from NIH, but the picture for postdoctoral training support from all federal sources also shows growth in research grant support and the decline in trainee and fellowship support (see Figure 3-13 ). NIH's efforts to shift research training in the behavioral and social sciences from the predoctoral to the postdoctoral level in the late 1970s and 1980s can be seen by comparing predoctoral support level in Figure 3-12 and postdoctoral support in Figure 3-13 .

National Research Service Award Postdoctoral Trainee and Fellowship Support in the Behavioral and Social Sciences .

FIGURE 3-13

Academic postdoctoral support in the behavioral and social sciences, 1979–2002. SOURCE: National Science Foundation Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering.

The discussion in Chapter 2 of an outcomes analysis for NRSA- and non-NRSA-supported researchers at the predoctoral and postdoctoral levels presented a case for reversing the trend toward more training on research grants. For the behavioral and social sciences, the same conclusions cannot be drawn. The most recent assessment of the career outcomes of NRSA predoctoral trainees and fellows in the behavioral and social sciences did not yield results that were clear-cut evidence. NRSA trainees and fellows, particularly those who received support at the start of graduate school, completed their Ph.D.s faster than other students, but there was no clear difference with regard to employment or research productivity. These findings should be interpreted with caution though since the number of trainees supported under the NRSA program is smaller in the behavioral and social sciences, and the sample used to assess the outcomes is also smaller and more prone to error.

• RESEARCH LABOR FORCE PROJECTIONS

As mentioned earlier in this chapter, individuals with doctorates in clinical psychology are considered part of the research workforce and as such may tend to overestimate the size of the actual workforce. Another uncertain component of the workforce are foreign-trained researchers now in the United States. Characterizing this component has proven problematic for the other two broad fields but is less so in the behavioral and social sciences since they appear to make up a small fraction of the population. The 1990 U.S. Census data estimate this group at about 3 percent of the workforce, and data from the U.S. Department of Education Survey of Postsecondary Faculty place the faculty percentage a little lower, at about 2 percent. In either case the numbers are small and will not have a significant effect on the projections. Table 3-5 shows the change in this workforce for U.S.-educated Ph.D.s over the past decade. A comparison of this workforce with that in the other broad fields shows a similar unemployment rate for those seeking employment and a rate for those not seeking employment similar to the biomedical sciences. As expected, the proportion of postdoctoral positions is lower than in the biomedical sciences and similar to that in the clinical sciences.

Potential Workforce in the Behavioral and Social Sciences by Employment Status, 1991–2001 .

A life-table estimate of the science and engineering workforce in the behavioral and social sciences for the next 10 years is less problematic, since the variability introduced by the foreign doctorates is much less. The following is a short summary of the findings from the life-table analysis; full details can be found in the Appendix D .

Graduates from U.S. Ph.D. programs will be the major contributor to the future workforce in the behavioral and social sciences, but since that population has shown little or no growth in the past, the projected growth and that of the workforce will be small. Table 3-6 shows the results of the multistate life-table analysis for the period from 2001 to 2011 under the median scenarios.

Projected Workforce by Status for the Median Scenario, 2001–2011 .

The projected median growth scenario for Ph.D. graduates increases from 4,221 in 2001 to only 4,619 in 2011, or about 0.5 percent per year. The inflow of foreign-trained Ph.D.s is only about 100 per year. Given this and the slow growth in the number of doctorates for U.S. institutions, the employed workforce is projected to grow from 102,193 in 2001 to 119,840 in 2011. This translates into about a 17 percent growth in the workforce and an annual growth rate of about 1.5 percent. This is the lowest growth rate of the three broad fields. The other segments of the workforce, except for postdoctoral appointments, are projected to decline over the same 10-year period. Postdoctoral appointments in the behavioral and social sciences have increased over the past decade, and this is projected to continue, with about one-third more doctorates in postdoctoral positions in 2011 than in 2001. Unemployment is projected to remain low and even decline to about 0.4 percent of the potential workforce in 2011.

In assessing the overall picture for the behavioral and social sciences, the situation is similar to that for the biomedical sciences—namely, unemployment is low and the number of Ph.D.s entering the job market in the future is consonant with reasonable expectations about job availability. Appendix D discusses the uncertainties in the workforce model used to generate this conclusion. Based on this limited model, the status quo appears appropriate. However, all of these conclusions need to be placed in a broader context, which will be discussed in Chapter 10 .

Finally, the NRSA program plays a special role in setting standards and attracting people to specific fields. This is vital for the health of the training system. A marked difference in training in the behavioral and social sciences relative to the biomedical sciences is in the concentration of support in a single institute, the NIMH. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of the subject matter and its general importance to the health of the nation, this does not seem desirable. A better distribution of training support across all NIH institutes and centers (including NIGMS) would be preferable. A specific recommendation in this regard is made in Chapter 5 , but this issue also merits mention here.

• RECOMMENDATIONS

Recommendation 3-1: This committee recommends that the total number of NRSA program positions in the behavioral and social sciences should remain at least at the 2003 level. Furthermore, the committee recommends that training levels after 2003 be commensurate with the rise in the total extramural research funding in the biomedical, clinical, and behavioral and social sciences.

Data on the number of predoctoral and postdoctoral traineeships in the behavioral and social sciences are incomplete after 2000. 6 In 2000 there were 434 predoctoral trainees and 240 postdoctoral trainees. There was an 8.5 percent increase in the total number of predoctoral NRSA positions from 2000 to 2003 and an 8.4 percent increase in postdoctoral NRSA training positions. Assuming these increases also held for the behavioral and social sciences, approximately 471 predoctoral and 260 postdoctoral NRSA training slots would have been filled in the behavioral and social sciences in 2003. Fellowship data are probably more current, since these awards are made to individuals in specific training areas, and the predoctoral and postdoctoral awards in 2002 were 194 and 111, respectively. This level of predoctoral support was probably also true for 2003, since there was little change in the total number of NRSA fellowships from 2002 to 2003. Therefore, the total number of individuals in the behavioral and social sciences supported by the NRSA mechanism in 2003 is about 665 at the predoctoral level. This is only a small fraction of the total support for graduate students. Much more comes from institutional support through teaching assistantships and self-support. Similarly, postdoctoral support is more likely to come from research grants and other forms of institutional support (see Figure 3-13 ).

The recommendation links the training level in the behavioral and social sciences to extramural research support across NIH, since all of the three broad fields for which NRSA training is available are becoming more interdisciplinary and training is needed to meet this trend. While NIH currently classifies research grants into a single area of research, it is also quick to recognize that the research may involve many fields and that expertise is needed in these fields to carry out the research.

The relatively low unemployment among Ph.D.s in the behavioral and social sciences suggests that having 2003 serve as a baseline for NRSA program support and having increases based on increases in extramural research support are both justified.

The discussion following Recommendation 2-1 with regard to the quality of the NRSA program and the relative balance of biomedical training to the workforce also applies to the behavioral and social sciences.

Recommendation 3-2: This committee recommends that each NIH institute and center incorporate the behavioral and social sciences into its training portfolio, including institutes and centers that have not emphasized these disciplines in the past.

The behavioral and social sciences are critical for the understanding, prevention, and treatment of most major health problems. For historical rather than rational reasons, most training has been centered in just a few NIH institutes and centers. In the case of NIGMS, Congress specifically instructed that the behavioral and social sciences be included, but this has not been done as of 2004. The result is that health decisions that arise in many institutes and centers are made without sufficient input from scientists and decision makers who have knowledge of and training in the techniques of the behavioral and social sciences.

A sample of reports directly relevant to health concerns include: Educating Children with Autism ( National Research Council, 2001a ); Informing America's Policy on Illegal Drugs: What We Don't Know Keeps Hurting Us ( National Research Council, 2001b ); Preventing HIV Transmission: The Role of Sterile Needles and Bleach ( National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, 1995 ). Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children ( National Research Council, 1998a ); Protecting Youth at Work: Health, Safety, and Development of Working Children and Adolescents in the United States ( National Research Council, 1998b ); Reducing Underage Drinking: A Collective Responsibility ( National Research Council, 2004b ); Understanding Risk: Informing Decisions in a Democratic Society ( National Research Council, 1996a ); Understanding Violence Against Women ( National Research Council, 1996b ); Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders: A Review of the Evidence ( National Research Council, 1999 ).

Agres, T. 2002 .

See Appendix B for a complete explanation of awards.

Statement from the NIGMS justifying its 2003 budget request: “The Institute's research training programs mirror the areas of science that fall within the mission of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. Except for a few fields of inquiry, behavioral studies largely fall outside of the Institute's research mission, and are instead deemed to be within the missions of other institutes at the National Institutes of Health.” Also see http://www.psychologicalscience.org/advocacy/issues/nigms_observer.cfm .

Draft Report of the Working Group of the NIH Advisory Committee to the Director on Research Opportunities in the Basic Behavioral and Social Sciences, http://obssr.od.nih.gov/Activities/Basic%20Beh%20Report_complete.pdf , December 2, 2004.

Data on the number of NRSA trainees in the behavioral and social sciences are incomplete after 2000 since educational institutions report on the number of students trained in a field. The information is returned to NIH as much as 2 years after training, and the information was last processed in February 2003.

• Cite this Page National Research Council (US) Committee for Monitoring the Nation's Changing Needs for Biomedical, Behavioral, and Clinical Personnel. Advancing the Nation's Health Needs: NIH Research Training Programs. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2005. 3, Behavioral and Social Sciences Research.
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• Literature Review Search
• Annotated Bibliography
• Writing a Literature Review
• Writing a Research Proposal

Finding a Topic

Choosing your  topic  is the first step in ensuring your research goes as smoothly as possible. When choosing a topic, it’s important to consider the following:

• Your institution and department’s requirements
• Your areas of knowledge and interest
• The scientific, social, or practical relevance
• The availability of data and resources
• The timeframe of your paper
• The relevance of your topic

Start by thinking about your areas of interest within the subject you’re studying. Examples of broad ideas include:

• College Students
• Social Media
• Health Issue

To get a more specific sense of the current state of research on your potential topic, skim through a few recent issues of the top journals in your field and encyclopedias. Be sure to check out their most-cited articles in particular. You can also search Google Scholar, subject-specific databases, and your university library’s resources.

As you read, note down any specific ideas that interest you and make a shortlist of possible topics. If you’ve written other papers, such as a 3rd-year paper or a conference paper, consider how those topics can be broadened into a research proposal.

After some initial reading, it’s time to start narrowing down options for your potential topic. This can be a gradual process and should get more and more specific as you go. For example, from the ideas above, you might narrow it down like this:

• College Students-Deaf College Students--Deaf College Students Perceptions of Online Courses
• Social Media-Generation Z and Social Media---Generation Z, Self-Image, and Social Media
• Health issue--Reproductive health----Deaf population---Deaf Women and Unintended Pregnancies (you may be thinking:  deaf women tend to have unintended pregnancies more often… because deaf young women don’t have access to sex education because of language barriers).

These topics are still broad enough to find many books and articles about them. Try to find a specific niche where you can make your mark, such as something not many people have researched yet, a question that’s still being debated, or a very current practical issue. If there’s already a lot of research and a strong consensus on your topic, it will be more difficult to justify the relevance of your work. However, you should also ensure enough literature to provide a strong basis for your research.

Your topic must be interesting to you, but you’ll also have to make sure it’s academically, socially, or practically relevant to your field.

• Academic relevance  means that the research can fill a knowledge gap or contribute to a scholarly debate in your field.
• Social relevance  means that the research can advance our understanding of society and inform social change.
• Practical relevance  means that the research can be applied to solve concrete problems or improve real-life processes.

The easiest way to make sure your research is relevant is to choose a topic that is connected to current issues or debates, either in society at large or in your academic discipline. The relevance must be clearly stated when you define your research problem.

Encyclopedias and Books

• The Concise Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology and Behavioral Science
• Gale Social Science Books

Check journals in the discipline you are interested in for some topic ideas. For example, Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education. 

Check Google Scholar for ideas. Adjust your settings so your results link to our database articles if we have them. 

• Google Scholar Settings - Library links

Databases for Ideas

• CREDO Reference This link opens in a new window Ebook collection of reference works including encyclopedias, dictionaries, biographies and quotations.
• CQ Researcher Online This link opens in a new window Reporting & analysis of political & social issues, with topics in health, international affairs, education, the environment, technology & the U.S. economy.
• Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints This link opens in a new window Full text viewpoint essays and articles on current social and political issues.
• Proquest Dissertations & Theses Global This link opens in a new window Identifies Ph.D. dissertations from U.S. & Canadian universities since 1861. Abstracts from 1980. Master's theses from 1988. Many with full-text.
• Social Sciences Databases more... less... View more Social Sciences databases.

Need More Databases? Try These

• APA PsycArticles This link opens in a new window Full text articles in psychology, many published by the American Psychological Association.
• APA PsycINFO This link opens in a new window Identifies articles, books and dissertations in psychology and related subjects, many with links to full text.
• PubMed This link opens in a new window A service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine that includes over 16 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for biomedical articles back to the 1950s.
• MEDLINE (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window Identifies articles in medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, pre-clinical sciences.
• << Previous: Anatomy of a Scholarly Article
• Next: Identifying a Research Problem >>

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Collection  07 April 2023

Top 25 Social Science & Human Behaviour Articles of 2022

We are pleased to share with you the 25 most downloaded Nature Communications articles* in social science and human behaviour published in 2022. Featuring authors from around the world, these papers highlight valuable research from an international community.

Browse all Top 25 subject area collections .

*Data obtained from SN Insights (based on Digital Science's Dimensions) and have been normalised to account for articles published later in the year.

Top 25 Articles

Americans experience a false social reality by underestimating popular climate policy support by nearly half

A new study finds that Americans underestimate how many are concerned about climate change as well as support for major climate policies by nearly half, with climate policy supporters significantly outnumbering non-supporters.

• Gregg Sparkman
• Nathan Geiger
• Elke U. Weber

Drought-Induced Civil Conflict Among the Ancient Maya

The influence of climate on premodern civil conflict and societal instability is debated. Here, the authors combine archeological, historical, and paleoclimatic datasets to show that drought between 1400-1450 cal. CE escalated civil conflict at Mayapan, the largest Postclassic Maya capital of the Yucatán Peninsula.

• Douglas J. Kennett
• Marilyn Masson
• David A. Hodell

Windows of developmental sensitivity to social media

The relationship between social media use and well-being might change across adolescent development. Here, the authors use cross sectional and longitudinal data to show that distinct developmental windows of sensitivity to social media emerge in adolescence, dependent on age and sex.

• Andrew K. Przybylski
• Rogier A. Kievit

Generalizable spelling using a speech neuroprosthesis in an individual with severe limb and vocal paralysis

Previous work has described a neuroprosthesis to directly decode full words in real time during attempts to speak. Here the authors demonstrate that a patient with anarthria can control this neuroprosthesis to spell out intended messages in real time using attempts to silently speak.

• Sean L. Metzger
• Jessie R. Liu
• Edward F. Chang

National identity predicts public health support during a global pandemic

Understanding collective behaviour is an important aspect of managing the pandemic response. Here the authors show in a large global study that participants that reported identifying more strongly with their nation reported greater engagement in public health behaviours and support for public health policies in the context of the pandemic.

• Jay J. Van Bavel
• Aleksandra Cichocka
• Paulo S. Boggio

Brain-wide mapping reveals that engrams for a single memory are distributed across multiple brain regions

Where memories are located in our brains is not well understood. In this paper, the authors demonstrate that memories are spread out throughout multiple brain regions.

• Dheeraj S. Roy
• Young-Gyun Park
• Susumu Tonegawa

Inequality can double the energy required to secure universal decent living

In exploring the energy required to provide decent living for all, the authors find the costs of inequality to be far greater than that of population growth. Nonetheless, population growth remains important for other reasons.

• Joel Millward-Hopkins

A neuro-computational account of procrastination behavior

Most humans procrastinate to some extent, despite adverse consequences. Here, the authors show that how much an individual procrastinates, both in the lab and at home, relates to brain signals that reflect temporal discounting of effort cost.

• Raphaël Le Bouc
• Mathias Pessiglione

Nationwide geospatial analysis of county racial and ethnic composition and public drinking water arsenic and uranium

Environmental justice and drinking water in the US: Higher proportions of Hispanic/Latino, American Indian/Alaskan Native, and non-Hispanic Black residents were associated with higher public water arsenic and uranium at the county-level, findings differed by region.

• Irene Martinez-Morata
• Benjamin C. Bostick
• Anne E. Nigra

Towards artificial general intelligence via a multimodal foundation model

Artificial intelligence approaches inspired by human cognitive function have usually single learned ability. The authors propose a multimodal foundation model that demonstrates the cross-domain learning and adaptation for broad range of downstream cognitive tasks.

• Ji-Rong Wen

Optimal deep brain stimulation sites and networks for stimulation of the fornix in Alzheimer’s disease

Deep brain stimulation has been investigated as a potential treatment for cognitive impairments in Alzheimer’s disease. Here the authors carry out post hoc analysis of multi-center cohorts to investigate the anatomical and functional correlates of effective deep brain stimulation, and find that stimulating circuit of Papez, fornix and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, and a multi-region functional network, were associated with clinical improvement.

• Ana Sofía Ríos
• Simón Oxenford
• Andreas Horn

Flood exposure and poverty in 188 countries

Floods are most devastating for those who can least afford to be hit. Globally, 1.8 billion people face high flood risks; 89% of them live in developing countries; 170 million of them live in extreme poverty making them most vulnerable.

• Jun Rentschler
• Melda Salhab
• Bramka Arga Jafino

Neural dynamics of phoneme sequences reveal position-invariant code for content and order

Speech unfolds faster than the brain completes processing of speech sounds. Here, the authors show that brain activity moves systematically within neural populations of auditory cortex, allowing accurate representation of a speech sound’s identity and its position in the sound sequence.

• Laura Gwilliams
• Jean-Remi King
• David Poeppel

Decarbonization, population disruption and resource inventories in the global energy transition

As coal is phased out, this will have an effect on mining towns. Here the authors find that in these locations ramping up energy transition metals will be more disruptive to demographic systems than ramping down coal.

• Kamila Svobodova
• John R. Owen
• Benjamin K. Sovacool

Human visual consciousness involves large scale cortical and subcortical networks independent of task report and eye movement activity

Isolating the neural mechanisms of consciousness is complicated by task report and other irrelevant signals. Here, the authors removed report and eye movement confounds to uncover large scale cortical-subcortical networks specific for human visual consciousness.

• Sharif I. Kronemer
• Hal Blumenfeld

Untangling the network effects of productivity and prominence among scientists

While inequalities in science are common, most efforts to understand them treat scientists as isolated individuals, ignoring the network effects of collaboration. Here, the authors develop models that untangle the network effects of productivity and prominence of individual scientists from their collaboration networks.

• Aaron Clauset

Synthesizing theories of human language with Bayesian program induction

Humans can infer rules for building words in a new language from a handful of examples, and linguists also can infer language patterns across related languages. Here, the authors provide an algorithm which models these grammatical abilities by synthesizing human-understandable programs for building words.

• Kevin Ellis
• Adam Albright
• Timothy J. O’Donnell

A consensus statement on detection of hippocampal sharp wave ripples and differentiation from other fast oscillations

While the contribution of sharp wave ripples in memory consolidation and decision-making is established in rodent models, our understanding of their role in human memory is incomplete. Here, the authors discuss common methodological challenges in detecting, analyzing, and reporting sharp wave ripples, then they suggest practical solutions to distinguish them from other high-frequency events

• Anli A. Liu
• Simon Henin
• György Buzsáki

Coordinated cortical thickness alterations across six neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders

Neuropsychiatric disorders may have shared features. Here the authors identified hubs of transdiagnostic co-alteration networks using meta-analytical maps of ENIGMA neuroimaging data for six neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders.

• M. D. Hettwer
• S. Larivière

Green gentrification in European and North American cities

The relationship between new greenspaces and gentrification is an important one for urbanization. Here the authors show a positive relationship for at least one decade between greening in the 1990s–2000s and gentrification that occurred between 2000–2016 in 17 of 28 studied cities in North America and Europe.

• Isabelle Anguelovski
• James J. T. Connolly
• Joaquin Martinez Minaya

Contrasting inequality in human exposure to greenspace between cities of Global North and Global South

Through an analysis of global differences in human exposure to greenspace, a new study identifies a contrasting pattern of greenspace exposure between Global South and North cities and finds seasonal variations in greenspace exposure inequality.

• Shengbiao Wu

Inducing forgetting of unwanted memories through subliminal reactivation

Classical forgetting methods typically re-expose people to reminders of their unwanted memories. Here, the authors disrupt unpleasant memories by subliminally reactivating them as participants suppress retrieval of unrelated neutral memories, avoiding the need for conscious exposure.

• Michael C. Anderson
• Yingying Wang

Ancient genomes from the Himalayas illuminate the genetic history of Tibetans and their Tibeto-Burman speaking neighbors

Liu et al. report genome-wide data of 33 ancient individuals from the Himalayas, illuminating the deep genetic history of Tibetans and other Tibeto-Burman-speaking populations around the Tibetan Plateau in fine resolution.

• Chi-Chun Liu
• David Witonsky
• Choongwon Jeong

Perception and memory have distinct spatial tuning properties in human visual cortex

Neural activity from perception is thought to be reactivated during memory recall. Here, the authors show that memory reactivation in visual cortex exhibits different tuning properties from those observed during perception.

• Serra E. Favila
• Brice A. Kuhl
• Jonathan Winawer

Balancing national economic policy outcomes for sustainable development

Selecting economic policies to achieve sustainable development is challenging due to the many sectors involved and the trade-offs implied. Artificial intelligence combined with economy-wide computer simulations can help.

• Mohammed Basheer
• Victor Nechifor
• Julien J. Harou

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Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

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Public Trust in Government: 1958-2024

Public trust in the federal government, which has been low for decades, has increased modestly since 2023 . As of April 2024, 22% of Americans say they trust the government in Washington to do what is right “just about always” (2%) or “most of the time” (21%). Last year, 16% said they trusted the government just about always or most of the time, which was among the lowest measures in nearly seven decades of polling.

When the National Election Study began asking about trust in government in 1958, about three-quarters of Americans trusted the federal government to do the right thing almost always or most of the time.

Trust in government began eroding during the 1960s, amid the escalation of the Vietnam War, and the decline continued in the 1970s with the Watergate scandal and worsening economic struggles.

Confidence in government recovered in the mid-1980s before falling again in the mid-’90s. But as the economy grew in the late 1990s, so too did trust in government. Public trust reached a three-decade high shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks but declined quickly after. Since 2007, the shares saying they can trust the government always or most of the time have not been higher than 30%.

Today, 35% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say they trust the federal government just about always or most of the time, compared with 11% of Republicans and Republican leaners.

Democrats report slightly more trust in the federal government today than a year ago. Republicans’ views have been relatively unchanged over this period.

Since the 1970s, trust in government has been consistently higher among members of the party that controls the White House than among the opposition party.

Republicans have often been more reactive than Democrats to changes in political leadership, with Republicans expressing much lower levels of trust during Democratic presidencies. Democrats’ attitudes have tended to be somewhat more consistent, regardless of which party controls the White House.

However, Republican and Democratic shifts in attitudes from the end of Donald Trump’s presidency to the start of Joe Biden’s were roughly the same magnitude.

Among Asian, Hispanic and Black adults, 36%, 30% and 27% respectively say they trust the federal government “most of the time” or “just about always” – higher levels of trust than among White adults (19%).

During the last Democratic administration, Black and Hispanic adults similarly expressed more trust in government than White adults. Throughout most recent Republican administrations, White Americans were substantially more likely than Black Americans to express trust in the federal government to do the right thing.

Note: For full question wording, refer to the topline . White, Black and Asian American adults include those who report being one race and are not Hispanic. Hispanics are of any race. Estimates for Asian adults are representative of English speakers only.

Sources: Pew Research Center, National Election Studies, Gallup, ABC/Washington Post, CBS/New York Times, and CNN Polls. Data from 2020 and later comes from Pew Research Center’s online American Trends Panel; prior data is from telephone surveys. Details about changes in survey mode can be found in this 2020 report . Read more about the Center’s polling methodology . For analysis by party and race/ethnicity, selected datasets were obtained from searches of the iPOLL Databank provided by the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research .

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