Blumenstock et al. find that high-frequency mobile phone data can be used to precisely measure the impact of violence on internal displacement. Using data from Afghanistan, they show how patterns of displacement depend on the nature of violence.

Across five studies, Johnston and Madson find no support for the hypothesis that people with right-wing political views are more sensitive to negative and threatening stimuli than people with left-wing political views.

Singh and Garfield studied 444 transgressions among the Mentawai (Indonesia) and find evidence of third-party mediation but not punishment. They suggest that, for the Mentawai, penalties serve to restore cooperation more than enforce norms.

Maheu et al. show that human probabilistic and deterministic sequence processing can be modelled under a hierarchical Bayesian inference model, with distinct hypothesis spaces for statistics and rules, linked by a single probabilistic currency.

In an individual-participant meta-analysis, including intensive longitudinal studies, Kuehn et al. find support for the hypothesis that self-injurious thoughts and behaviours are negatively reinforced by relief from negative affect.

In a series of mouse-tracking experiments, Callaway et al. show that people use planning strategies that strike a near-optimal balance between reward and computational cost.

Being the first in her family to graduate from university, Charisma Hehakaya discusses how academic institutions can help first-generation students to thrive.

Bullying and harassment are systemic, pervasive problems in academia. We reflect on our role as editors and commit to taking steps that we hope will contribute to ongoing efforts to make academia safer for all.

A number of US cities and states have introduced regulations on government use of facial recognition and surveillance technologies. These efforts are vital to prevent these methods from becoming tools of oppression, argues Kade Crockford.

Financial, informational and other constraints lower the adoption of welfare-improving technologies amongst people living in poverty. Field trials have identified effective strategies to facilitate behaviour change. Researchers and policymakers need to apply this knowledge, and form institutional partnerships to implement solutions at scale.

Although large-scale data are increasingly used to study human behaviour, researchers now recognize their limits for producing sound social science. Qualitative research can prevent some of these problems. Such methods can help to understand data quality, inform design and analysis decisions and guide interpretation of results.