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Research assessing personality traits and religiosity across cultures has typically neglected variation across religious affiliations and has been limited to a small number of personality traits. This study examines the relationship between the Big Five personality traits and their facets, two theoretically distinct measures of religiosity, and twelve other personality traits across seven religious affiliations and 61 countries/regions. The proportion of participants following a religion varied substantially across countries (e.g., Indonesia = 99%; Estonia = 7%). Both measures of religiosity were related to agreeableness, conscientiousness, happiness, and fairness; however; relations with religiosity as a social axiom were stronger and less variable across religious affiliations. Additionally, personality-religiosity links were more robust in low-development, high-conflict, and collectivist nations.

Fundamental frequency (fo) is the most perceptually salient vocal acoustic parameter, yet little is known about how its perceptual influence varies across societies. We examined how fo affects key social perceptions and how socioecological variables modulate these effects in 2,647 adult listeners sampled from 44 locations across 22 nations. Low male fo increased men’s perceptions of formidability and prestige, especially in societies with higher homicide rates and greater relational mobility in which male intrasexual competition may be more intense and rapid identification of high- status competitors may be exigent. High female fo increased women’s perceptions of flirtatiousness where relational mobility was lower and threats to mating relationships may be greater. These results indicate that the influence of fo on social perceptions depends on socioecological variables, including those related to competition for status and mates.

The current study addresses the open question whether ideal partner preferences are linked to relationship decisions and relationship outcomes. Using a longitudinal design across 13 years, we investigated whether partner preferences are associated with perceived characteristics of actual partners (i.e. ideal-trait correlation) and whether a closer match between ideals and perceptions of a partner’s traits is associated with better relationship outcomes (i.e. ideal partner preference-matching effects). A community sample of 178 participants (90 women) reported their ideal partner preferences in 2006 (mean age at T2 M = 45.7 years, SD = 7.2). In 2019, they reported their relationship histories since then, providing ratings of 322 relationships. We found a positive association between participants’ initial ideals and partner trait perceptions. This ideal-trait correlation was stronger with current ideals, consistent with the possibility of preference adjustment towards the partner. The match between ideals and perceived partner traits was operationalised using different metrics. A closer match was associated with higher relationship commitment across all metrics, while for relationship quality, the link was not apparent for the corrected pattern metric. Evidence of matching effects for relationship length was mixed and largely absent for break-up initiation. Implications for the ideal partner preference literature are discussed.

People spontaneously judge others’ personality based on their facial appearance and these impressions guide many important decisions. Although the consequences of personality impressions are well documented, studies on the accuracy of personality impressions have yielded mixed results. Moreover, relatively little is known about people’s accuracy awareness (i.e., whether they are aware of their judgment accuracy). Even if accuracy is generally low, awareness of accuracy would allow people to rely on their impressions in the right situations. In two studies (one preregistered), we estimated perceivers’ accuracy and accuracy awareness when forming personality impressions based on facial photographs. Our studies have three crucial advantages as compared to previous studies (a) by incentivizing accuracy and accuracy awareness, (b) by relying on substantially larger samples of raters (n Study 1 = 223, n Study 2 = 423) and targets (k Study 1 = 140, k Study 2 = 1,260 unique pairs with 280 unique targets), and (c) by conducting Bayesian analyses to also quantify evidence for the null hypothesis. Our findings suggest that face-based personality impressions are not accurate, that perceivers lack insight into their (in)accuracy, and that most people overestimate their accuracy.

Although men’s attraction to women’s body odour has been suggested to vary over the ovulatory cycle, peaking around the fertile window, we still lack methodologically robust evidence corroborating this effect. Further, the chemical underpinnings of male preference for the odour of ovulating women remain unknown. Here, we combined perceptual and chemical analyses to investigate the axillary odour of naturally cycling women over 10 days, covering the gradual change in fertility across the ovulatory cycle with a focus on fertile days. The fertile state was confirmed by urinary ovulation tests as well as salivary oestradiol and progesterone levels. Men rated the scent of unfamiliar women, resembling a first encounter. We used multivariate analyses to relate variation in both odour ratings and chemical composition to female conception probability, temporal distance to ovulation and ovarian hormone levels. Our results provide no evidence that males prefer the odour of fertile women. Furthermore, the volatile analysis indicated no link between axillary odour composition and current fertility status. Together, our results showed no convincing support for a chemical fertility cue in women’s axillary odour, questioning the presence of olfactory fertility information that is recognizable during first encounters in modern humans.

Previous research on the endogenous effects of ovarian hormones on motivational states in women has focused on sexual motivation. The Motivational Priority Shifts Hypothesis has a broader scope. It predicts a shift from somatic to reproductive motivation when fertile. In a highly powered preregistered online diary study across 40 days, we tested whether 390 women report such an ovulatory shift in sexual and eating motivation and behaviour. We compared 209 naturally cycling women to 181 women taking hormonal contraceptives (HC) to rule out non-ovulatory changes across the cycle as confounders. We found robust ovulatory decreases in food intake and increases in general sexual desire, in-pair sexual desire and initiation of dyadic sexual behaviour. Extra-pair sexual desire increased mid-cycle, but the effect did not differ significantly in HC women, questioning an ovulatory effect. Descriptively, solitary sexual desire and behaviour, dyadic sexual behaviour, appetite, and satiety showed expected mid-cycle changes that were diminished in HC women, but these failed to reach our strict preregistered significance level. Our results provide insight into current theoretical debates about ovulatory cycle shifts while calling for future research to determine motivational mechanisms behind ovulatory changes in food intake and considering romantic partners’ motivational states to explain the occurrence of dyadic sexual behaviour.

In contrast to some non-human primate species, human females do not show overt cues to fertility. Previous research argued that women still show systematic changes in their appearance across their ovulatory cycle to enhance their mating success when fertile. We report five studies investigating whether women's clothing style and grooming behaviour change across the ovulatory cycle. All studies were large (with N = 157 in Study 1, N = 109 in Study 2, N = 257 in Studies 3–5), longitudinal studies with four testing sessions per participant. They involved salivary hormone samples and luteinizing hormone tests to validate conception risk estimates. Across all studies, our results suggest no compelling evidence for cycle shifts in clothing style and grooming. Rather, two studies suggest effects in the opposite direction as hypothesized, as women wore more skin-revealing clothes when non-fertile. One study suggests small effects of wearing necklaces more and eyeglasses less often when fertile. However, these effects were not robust across all studies. Our results are in line with other recent null replications and suggest that, if existent, cues to fertility might be even more subtle than previously assumed. We discuss the need for testing competing theories that explain the evolution of concealed ovulation.

Introduction: Intrusive memories occur frequently after potentially traumatic events and form a core symptom of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) if they persist. The translational approach of visuospatial interventions tries to target those intrusive memories in order to reduce their frequency predominantly using an intervention including as one component the computer game Tetris. Despite promising results, the application of Tetris has critical drawbacks, e.g., potential commercial or copyright issues. Furthermore, it remains unclear whether it is this specific game or, as predicted by theory, a visuospatial task per se that leads to the effect. This study hence aims to compare the effect of Tetris with an alternative, bespoke visuospatial task:Mobilum developed for the current purpose.Methods: N=120 healthy participants watched a trauma film and recorded their intrusive memories in a diary for 6 days. Three days after watching the film, they were randomized to 3 groups and after memory reactivation cue received either Tetris or Mobilum or Control (no task). Prior to intervention 8 participants reported zero intrusive memories to the film and were excluded from further analyses, therefore 112 participants were included in the analysis.Results: A mixed Poisson regression model revealed that the Mobilum group had significantly less frequent intrusive memories after the intervention compared to the control condition (approximately 43%, p=0.0013). There was no significant difference for the Tetris group compared to Control (17 % less frequent, p=0.3798). Discussion: Our results suggest that visuospatial tasks other than Tetrisin this case, Mobilum can also lead to a reduction in intrusive memories when administered 3 days after a trauma film. This strengthens the assumption that it is not specifically the game Tetris, but rather the visuospatial nature of the task, that is responsible for the reduction. Aspects of further investigating the potential of Mobilum as well as clinical implications are discussed.