Current approaches to bilingualism and language learning ability obscure differences between capacity for learning (ability) and dominance (relative proficiency). Bilingual children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have persistent difficulties with complex syntax. The effects of language learning ability and relative proficiency on syntactic development in bilingual acquisition are not well described. This cross-sectional study examined the continuous effects of language ability and relative proficiency on the production of conditionals, subject/object relatives and passives in a sample of 34 five- to nine-year-old Spanish–English bilingual children, 12 of whom were identified as having DLD. Conditionals were significantly easier than other forms, and there were no differences between subject and object relatives. Higher language ability was associated with greater accuracy. Relative proficiency predicted higher English performance for balanced and English-dominant children. Further examination of language ability and relative proficiency in diverse language learners is warranted.

Language, emotion, and environment jointly shape how words are processed in real life. This study tested how valence and simulated weather influence bilingual lexical access in virtual reality (VR). Forty Spanish–English bilinguals completed a language-decision task with negative high-arousal and neutral low-arousal words under sunny and rainy conditions. Accuracy was high, with no reliable effects. Reaction times were faster for negative than for neutral words and slower under rain than sun, with no significant language effect. A Weather by Trial Order interaction reflected a practice-related speeding under sun under sunny weather. Valence and weather exerted additive influences, and weather did not modulate language or valence effects. These findings suggest that realistic perceptual load imposes general costs without altering emotional or language-related processing. The study underscores VR’s potential to integrate ecological validity into psycholinguistic paradigms, revealing how intrinsic and extrinsic factors jointly constrain bilingual emotional word processing.

The LSE Behavioural Public Policy Knowledge Exchange Group (hereafter the Group) was formed to bring together behavioural specialists across the public and private sectors, the international agencies and academia. The purpose of the Group was for its members to discuss the role that behavioural science ought to play in informing decisions that affect individuals and society. The hope was that, by having a Group of the various stakeholders in behavioural public policy meet regularly over an extended period, a shared understanding of the appropriate objectives of this subfield of public policy might be agreed upon. At the very first meeting of the Group, an attempt was thus made to identify some behavioural public policy principles that all members of the Group could accept. At that meeting, there was common consensus in supporting the use of behavioural public policy to strengthen individual agency in the decisions that people take that affect their own lives, to target externality concerns, and to protect and nurture the social instincts.

This article analyses how coinciding anniversaries of the Sonderkommando revolt (7 October 1944) and the 7 October 2023 Hamas terror attacks on Israel shaped digital Holocaust memory. It contributes to the study of social media users’ reactions to the online commemorative efforts of Holocaust memory institutions. Adapting Rothberg’s concept of ‘multidirectional memory’, we code a small, yet rich set of X posts, comments, and quote reposts, focusing on social media users’ engagement with the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum’s X account during the anniversaries. We ask how did X social media users react to Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum’s commemoration of the eightieth anniversary of the Sonderkommando revolt on the first anniversary of 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks on the platform? And how can the concept of multidirectional memory be used to understand the comparative instrumentalization of Holocaust memory on social media? Our results demonstrate the utility of the multidirectional memory concept and four types of comparative instrumentalization (empathising commemoration, empathising contestation, polarising commemoration, and polarising contestation). They show that many X users reacted by highlighting the moral capacity of Holocaust memory, but that others flattened Holocaust memory or competitively equated it with or distinguished it from contemporary violence in the Middle East. The article highlights how anniversaries intensify the online entanglement of commemoration and contestation, often forcing Holocaust memory institutions into contested digital terrains where empathy, solidarity, polarisation, and competition intersect and exacerbate the ‘Catch-22’ situation they face: critiqued for drawing parallels with contemporary events or chastised for not.

Parental differential treatment is associated with higher levels of psychopathology symptoms in children. Both higher overall levels of differential treatment (absolute/magnitude of differential treatment) and consistently favoring one child over another (relative differential treatment) are associated with risk in children. This study enhances understanding of parental differential treatment using a genetically informed twin design that clarifies child- and parent-driven effects. Participants included 632 twin pairs (Mage = 7.6 years, SD = 0.94; 96% White, 44% Rural) and parents. Parental differential treatment was assessed using an observed card game interaction and reports from mothers, fathers, and children. Twin modeling indicated heritable influences on parental hostility (h2 = .34 for females, .06 for males) and intrusiveness (h2 = .51 across the sample), suggesting that children’s heritable traits elicit parenting. Observed intrusiveness differences predicted ADHD. Absolute and relative differences in maternal discipline predicted externalizing, internalizing, and ADHD symptoms, with a similar but less strong pattern for paternal discipline. However, absolute differences in paternal affection and paternal partiality proved especially important for children’s psychopathology. Findings show children’s behavior can elicit maladaptive differences in parenting, informing interventions.

The objective of this study is to explore public sector clinicians’ perspectives on factors associated with relapse in schizophrenia within a South African context, focusing on structural, social and environmental contributors beyond treatment non-adherence. Three focus groups were conducted with 14 public-sector clinicians (psychiatrists, medical officers, psychiatric registrars and psychiatric nurses) with ≥5 years’ experience in schizophrenia care. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis to identify themes relating to relapse risk. Clinicians consistently described medication non-adherence, often the immediate trigger for relapse, as emerging from interrelated health system and socio-structural constraints, including poverty, unemployment, unsafe communities, fragmented services and stigma. Limited access to newer-generation antipsychotics, medication stockouts, early discharges due to bed shortages and scarce post-discharge rehabilitation compounded relapse risk. Family support was frequently undermined by financial strain and competing demands, while crime and gang violence discouraged clinic attendance. Stigma within both communities and healthcare settings reduced trust and engagement. In this lower-middle-income country context, relapse prevention depends on integrated strategies that combine clinical management with interventions addressing structural and social determinants. Policy priorities include strengthening primary-level mental healthcare, ensuring medication supply continuity, expanding supervised care and vocational programmes, implementing stigma-reduction initiatives and fostering intersectoral collaboration to address safety and spatial inequities in service provision.

This study explores whether the ability to process grammatical evidentiality is compromised in older adults speaking Turkish and Korean, two languages that grammatically encode evidentiality. Building on previous research that suggests cognitive demands associated with language structures may reduce processing capacity in older adults, we conducted self-paced reading experiments using sentence contexts involving grammatical evidentials. We tested adult groups of young (N = 44, ages 19–27) and older (N = 37, ages 48–70) speakers of Korean and young (N = 31, ages 18–31) and older (N = 42, ages 50–85) speakers of Turkish. The results indicate that both language groups rated mismatched evidential verb forms as unacceptable, with Turkish speakers more likely to interpret mismatches as acceptable than Korean speakers. Notably, older Korean adults exhibited longer reading times (RTs) for direct evidential mismatches, while older Turkish adults showed longer RTs for indirect evidential verbs, suggesting age-related disruptions in processing. The findings only partially support the hypothesis that predicts grammatical processing differences in older compared to younger adults.