The 10 most-cited articles in Annual Review of Psychology, 2024

The incentive-sensitization theory (IST) of addiction was first published in 1993, proposing that ( a ) brain mesolimbic dopamine systems mediate incentive motivation (“wanting”) for addictive drugs and other rewards, but not their hedonic impact (liking) when consumed; and ( b ) some individuals are vulnerable to drug-induced long-lasting sensitization of mesolimbic systems, which selectively amplifies their “wanting” for drugs without increasing their liking of the same drugs. Here we describe the origins of IST and evaluate its status 30 years on. We compare IST to other theories of addiction, including opponent-process theories, habit theories of addiction, and prefrontal cortical dysfunction theories of impaired impulse control. We also address critiques of IST that have been raised over the years, such as whether craving is important in addiction and whether addiction can ever be characterized as compulsive. Finally, we discuss several contemporary phenomena, including the potential role of incentive sensitization in behavioral addictions, the emergence of addiction-like…

Humans and other primates have a remarkable ability to perform a wide range of tasks and behaviors, even novel ones, in order to achieve their goals. Further, they are able to shift flexibly among these behaviors as the contexts demand. Cognitive control is the function at the base of this remarkable behavioral generativity and flexibility. The present review provides a survey of current research on cognitive control focusing on two of its primary features within a control systems framework: ( a ) the ability to select new behaviors based on context and ( b ) the ability to monitor ongoing behavior and adjust accordingly. Throughout, the review places an emphasis on how differences in the content and structure of task representations affect these core features of cognitive control.

This review provides a critical overview of current evidence on psychological health behavior determinants and its value in informing intervention and future determinants research. The review begins with work labeling and classifying the myriad of determinants available in the extant research to arrive at core groups of determinants. Next, the conceptual bases of these determinant groups are identified, and the weight of the evidence for their purported effects on health behavior, including belief-based determinants (e.g., outcome expectancies, capacity beliefs), determinants representing self-regulatory capacity (e.g., planning, action control) and nonconscious processes (e.g., habit, implicit cognition), and dispositional determinants (e.g., personality, regulatory control), is critically evaluated. The review also focuses on the theory-based mechanisms underpinning determinant effects and moderating conditions that magnify or diminish them. Finally, the review recommends a shift away from research on determinants as correlates, outlines how determinants can inform intervention…

Alexithymia is a multi-dimensional personality trait involving difficulty identifying feelings, difficulty describing feelings, and an externally oriented thinking style. Poor fantasy life is debated as another facet. For over 50 years, the alexithymia literature has examined how alexithymia-related disturbances in perceiving and expressing feelings contribute to mental and physical disorders. We review the current understanding of alexithymia—including its definition, etiology, measurement, and vulnerabilities for both mental and physical illness—and its treatment. We emphasize the importance of further experimental and processual affective science research that ( a ) emphasizes facet-level analysis toward an understanding of the nuanced bases of alexithymia effects on neural, cognitive, and behavioral processes; ( b ) distinguishes between emotion deficits and emotion over-responding, including when over-responding is functional; and ( c ) clarifies when and how impairments occur for neutral and positively valenced information or contexts. Taken as a whole, a clarification of…

Second-person neuroscience focuses on studying the behavioral and neuronal mechanisms of real-time social interactions within single and across interacting brains. In this review article, we describe the developments that have been undertaken to study socially interactive phenomena and the behavioral and neurobiological processes that extend across interaction partners. More specifically, we focus on the role that synchrony across brains plays in enabling and facilitating social interaction and communication and in shaping social coordination and learning, and we consider how reduced synchrony across brains may constitute a core feature of psychopathology.

Interoception, the sensing of internal bodily signals, is intricately linked with the experience of emotions. Various theoretical models of emotion incorporate aspects of interoception as a fundamental component alongside higher-order processes such as the appraisal of internal signals guided by external context. Interoception can be delineated into different dimensions, which include the nature of afferent signals, the accuracy with which they can be sensed, their neural processing, and the higher-order interpretation of these signals. This review methodically evaluates these interoceptive dimensions through empirical research to illustrate their role in shaping emotions. Clinical and neurodevelopmental conditions characterized by altered emotional profiles, such as anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, posttraumatic stress disorder, emotionally unstable personality disorder, and autism, exhibit distinct changes in interoception. Various therapeutic approaches, including behavioral, pharmacological, and psychological strategies, may be efficacious for treating conditions associated…

Behavioral public policy came to the fore with the introduction of nudging, which aims to steer behavior while maintaining freedom of choice. Responding to critiques of nudging (e.g., that it does not promote agency and relies on benevolent choice architects), other behavioral policy approaches focus on empowering citizens. Here we review boosting, a behavioral policy approach that aims to foster people's agency, self-control, and ability to make informed decisions. It is grounded in evidence from behavioral science showing that human decision making is not as notoriously flawed as the nudging approach assumes. We argue that addressing the challenges of our time-such as climate change, pandemics, and the threats to liberal democracies and human autonomy posed by digital technologies and choice architectures-calls for fostering capable and engaged citizens as a first line of response to complement slower, systemic approaches.

In this review we examine two classes of interventions designed to achieve workplace gender equality: ( a) those designed to boost motivations and ambition, such as those that aim to attract more women into roles where they are underrepresented; and ( b) those that try to provide women with needed abilities to achieve these positions. While such initiatives are generally well meaning, they tend to be based upon (and reinforce) stereotypes of what women lack. Such a deficit model leads to interventions that attempt to “fix” women rather than address the structural factors that are the root of gender inequalities. We provide a critical appraisal of the literature to establish an evidence base for why fixing women is unlikely to be successful. As an alternative, we focus on understanding how organizational context and culture maintain these inequalities by looking at how they shape and constrain ( a) women's motivations and ambitions, and ( b) the expression and interpretation of their skills and attributes. In doing so, we seek to shift the interventional focus from women themselves…

The current review presents an integrated tripartite framework for understanding attentional control, emphasizing the interaction and competition among top-down, bottom-up, and selection-history influences. It focuses on attentional capture, which refers to conditions in which salient objects or events receive attentional priority even when they are inconsistent with the goals, tasks, and intentions of the observer. The review describes which components of the tripartite framework are in play when distraction by salient objects is prevented and the conditions in which there is no control over the occurrence of attentional capture. It then concludes that attentional capture can be controlled in a proactive way mainly by implicit statistical learning mechanisms associated with selection history. Current and lingering controversies regarding the control of attentional capture are also discussed.

Circadian rhythms are inherent to living organisms from single cells to humans and operate on a genetically determined cycle of approximately 24 hours. These endogenous rhythms are aligned with the external light/dark cycle of the Earth's rotation and offer the advantage of anticipating environmental changes. Circadian rhythms act directly on human cognition and indirectly through their fundamental influence on sleep/wake cycles. The strength of the circadian regulation of performance depends on the accumulated sleep debt and the cognitive domain, and it has been suggested to involve the activation of ascending arousal systems and their interaction with attention and other cognitive processes. In addition, attention-related cortical responses show extensive circadian rhythms, the phases of which vary across brain regions. This review discusses the impact of the circadian system on sleep/wake regulation and cognitive performance. It further addresses the health implications of circadian disruption, particularly in relation to mental and neurological disorders.