Social anxiety is marked by a persistent fear of social scrutiny, yet its neurocognitive mechanisms remain incompletely understood. We tested whether social anxiety is associated with altered engagement of Theory of Mind (ToM) systems supporting inferences about others’ thoughts and emotions, or with broader interpretive tendencies biasing social information processing toward more internally guided responses. Functional MRI, heart rate, and pupil diameter were recorded from 43 individuals with elevated social anxiety and 43 low-anxiety controls during viewing of a nonverbal animated film. ToM engagement was assessed via scene-specific neural activation, while broader interpretive processing was indexed using dynamic intersubject correlation (ISC), quantifying the degree to which neural responses were shared versus idiosyncratic across viewers over time. Socially anxious participants showed reduced activation in the left posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) during ToM-relevant scenes, alongside preserved engagement of the broader ToM network. Dynamic ISC analyses revealed increased alignment in early sensory regions and reduced alignment in higher-order regions outside the ToM network, consistent with more individualized processing at higher levels. These effects occurred without group differences in autonomic arousal or pupil-linked attention, and an exploratory comparison with an autism cohort revealed opposite alignment patterns in overlapping higher-order regions. Social anxiety is associated with focal alterations in ToM-related processing and broader shifts in movie-driven neural alignment across the cortical hierarchy. Divergent alignment patterns in social anxiety and autism suggest that movie-driven neural alignment may serve as a transdiagnostic marker distinguishing mechanistically distinct forms of atypical social cognition.

Leader gratitude expressions are widely viewed as a powerful tool to build relationships with and foster the well-being of followers. The present research moves beyond the impact of that gratitude to address whether and how leader gratitude spreads beyond immediate subordinates to influence others throughout the organizational hierarchy. Existing perspectives suggest that leader behaviors may spread via behavioral imitation or emotional contagion, yet gratitude-an appraisal-dependent emotion-likely requires distinct cognitive processes to propagate. Integrating gratitude research with social information processing theory (Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978), we propose a novel pathway of gratitude trickle-down effects, grateful attention, defined as the allocation of attention toward gratitude-inducing stimuli in the workplace, including interpersonal and environmental cues. We argue that witnessing leader gratitude expressions shapes followers' attentional deployment, increasing followers' recognition of benefaction events and promoting their own gratitude expressions, which subsequently improves the quality of their relationships with coworkers. Across two preregistered field studies and a preregistered yoked experimental causal chain study, we competitively test grateful attention alongside social learning (leader emulation) and emotional contagion (felt gratitude). Results consistently demonstrate that grateful attention uniquely transmits the cascading effects of leader gratitude expressions beyond traditional behavioral and emotional explanations. These findings advance theory by identifying an information processing function of gratitude and clarify how leader gratitude expressions can catalyze the spread of gratitude throughout organizations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

This study investigates the socio-psycholinguistic impacts of emoji usage on interpersonal communication among Nigerian undergraduates in Ikenne Remo Local Government, Ogun State, on WhatsApp. The research integrates a mixed-method design and a quantitative survey data from 55 students with qualitative thematic analysis anchored in Vygotsky's Socio-Cultural Theory of Cognitive Development and Social Information Processing Theory. The findings in this paper reveal that emojis function as digital paralanguage and compensate for absent non-verbal cues by enhancing clarity and conveying emotional nuances efficiently. The results indicate that 65.4% of respondents associate emojis with laughter, while 52.7% report that they facilitate emotional expression, thereby underscoring their role in affective communication and emotional contagion. Furthermore, 58.2% agree that emojis foster shared understanding and in-group identity. This demonstrates their function as cultural tools for social bonding. However, only 41.8% perceive emojis as affective in reducing social anxiety. This suggests that their role is more expressive than therapeutic. The study concludes that emojis are multifunctional socio-psycholinguistic tools essential to interpersonal dynamics within Nigerian digital youth culture, and recommends their informed integration into digital communicative practices.

Managing boss, a proactive behavior in which employees align their actions with supervisors' priorities, has been widely recognized for its positive effects on employee performance and supervisor-subordinate relationships. However, little is known about its potential negative interpersonal consequences from the supervisor's perspective. Drawing on social information processing theory and status-based perspectives on hierarchical threat, this study examines the conditional process through which managing boss (MB) relates to supervisor ostracism (SO). Using a three-wave, time-lagged survey of 452 supervisor-subordinate dyads in Chinese organizational contexts, the results indicated that MB was positively associated with supervisors' perceived threat to hierarchy (PTH). However, the simple mediating effect of PTH was not supported. Instead, a second-stage moderated mediation effect emerged, such that the indirect effect of MB on SO via PTH was significant only when supervisors exhibited high power distance (PD). Specifically, PD moderated the relationship between PTH and SO, such that the positive association was stronger under high PD conditions. These findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the potential interpersonal costs of proactive employee behaviors by showing that managing boss is not uniformly interpreted as threatening, but may evoke defensive supervisory responses under hierarchy-sensitive conditions. The study also extends research on hierarchical dynamics, status threat, and supervisor-subordinate interactions, while offering practical implications for managing proactive employee behaviors in culturally and hierarchically sensitive organizational contexts.

Oxytocin modulates social information processing by altering excitatory-inhibitory balance at the microcircuit level, but how such local modulation gives rise to selective processing at the level of distributed brain systems remains unclear. Here, we investigated the effects of oxytocin on large-scale neurodynamics across cortico-limbic network in the mouse brain using multisite local field potential recordings. Oxytocin selectively enhanced neural responses to infant calls in the auditory cortex (AC) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). These enhancements occurred while baseline activity was reduced, indicating increased signal-to-noise ratio rather than a global increase in excitability. During auditory steady-state responses (ASSRs), oxytocin increased prefrontal phase coherence without altering ASSR power. During rest, oxytocin induced a transient, broadband reduction in spontaneous spectral power across regions. Despite this reduction in activity, analyses of interregional interactions revealed a selective increase in low-theta phase coupling and directional connectivity of AC→mPFC. Session-level analyses showed that stronger bottom-up AC→mPFC coupling was associated with lower prefrontal power, consistent with a gating or disinhibitory network regime favoring sensory-to-prefrontal information transfer. Multivariate analyses showed that oxytocin/saline conditions were reliably discriminable using supervised classification models, with specific contributions from spectral power, phase-locking, and Granger-causal connectivity features. Conversely, unsupervised dimensionality reduction did not identify a distinct low-dimensional manifold separating conditions, although a modest shift in the centroid of neural state space was observed. Together, these results indicate that oxytocin reduces background neural activity while selectively enhancing sensory-prefrontal network interactions, providing a systems-level account linking local inhibitory modulation to selective processing of socially salient infant cues.

ABSTRACT Although parenting research typically focuses on one target child, parents’ emotion-related parenting behaviours are predicted by the broader family context. The number of children in the home impacts parents’ emotional resources and may be particularly relevant to mothers’ beliefs about acceptable emotional displays from their young children. Participants included 226 Portuguese mothers of a 2- to 6-year-old target child (M = 3.89 years) with between 1 and 4 children. Mothers reported on their family makeup, tolerance of their child’s dominant and submissive negative emotion displays, parenting stress and mindful parenting. Covarying maternal age, family income and target child age, regressions revealed that mothers with more children were less likely to endorse beliefs that it was acceptable for their young child to display dominant negative emotions. Mothers were also more tolerant of displays of dominant negative emotions for younger children than older children within this early childhood period. These effects remained even after accounting for mothers’ parenting stress and mindfulness. Results are interpreted using social information processing, emotion socialisation and transactional stress and coping perspectives.

Social memory is essential for daily life, and its impairment is associated with psychiatric disorders. The dorsal CA2 (dCA2) region of the hippocampus is known to support social memory formation, yet how it processes social information remains unclear. Here we show that, in male mice, a specific group of dCA2 neurons-cholecystokinin-positive interneurons (CCK-INs)-acts as a hub that receives social cues and activates dCA2 pyramidal neurons (PyNs). Upon social encounters, CCK-INs are activated and suppress parvalbumin-positive interneurons (PV-INs) via GABAB receptors, thereby releasing PyNs from inhibition. The removal of Neuroligin 1, an autism-associated protein, from CCK-INs disrupts their function and leads to social memory deficits. Importantly, dCA2 CCK-INs receive direct glutamatergic inputs from the medial septum, and chemogenetic activation of these CCK-INs rescues memory deficits caused by septal inhibition. These findings delineate a important circuit mechanism for social memory and highlight potential therapeutic targets.

The amygdala serves as a critical neural hub for interpreting social cues, with its distinct subregions and diverse neuronal populations playing specialized roles in processing these signals. Here, we employ single-nucleus RNA sequencing (snRNA-seq) to characterize neuronal responses in the mouse amygdala to olfactory cues associated with social dominance, uncovering distinct activation patterns within glutamatergic and GABAergic populations. We find that a glutamatergic cluster closely aligned with Slc17a7 (VGLUT1) medial amygdala (MEA) neurons preferentially responds to dominant cues. In contrast, a larger glutamatergic Slc17a6 (VGLUT2) cluster associated with MEA, cortical, and basomedial amygdala neurons exhibits a heightened response to subordinate cues, underscoring the MEA's role in processing social olfactory information. Additionally, a glutamatergic cluster resembling dorsal endopiriform (EPd) neurons responds more strongly to dominant stimuli, supporting the EPd's role in olfactory perception. We also identify a GABAergic cluster with elevated dopamine receptor 2 (Drd2) expression that predominantly responds to dominant cues, consistent with this receptor's role in mediating threat responses. Finally, gene co-expression network analysis links cluster-specific gene expression to distinct biological processes. Together, these findings reveal neuronal and molecular mechanisms underlying social processing of dominance-related olfactory signals, enhancing our understanding of the neural substrates of social behavior.

How to initiate human-agent intervention for recovery when chatbots fail: A social information processing perspective

How to motivate employees to "tell all they know": Weaken their knowledge hiding.

Communication and sociality are intimately related, as many important social processes are mediated by communication between signal senders and receivers. Despite recent advances in social network analysis, animal communication networks remain difficult to characterize because the interactions that comprise the network structure depend on receiver sensory, perceptual, and cognitive processes. Collectively, these receiver psychological traits process social information and lead to decisions regarding whether and how to interact with signallers, generating variation in social interactions and the structure of communication networks. Here, we review the evidence that variation in receiver psychology affects both individuals' positions within the communication network and the structure of the communication network as a whole. These effects range from limits on signal active space imposed by receiver sensory acuity and sensitivity, to facilitation of social connections by learning and memory of signal characteristics. Although we identify numerous receiver psychological traits that likely affect connections between receivers and signallers, few studies have explicitly examined the role of receiver psychology on variation in communication network structure. We therefore review recent methodological advances that could facilitate such studies. We then show that the effects of receiver psychology on communication networks could have strong impacts on ecological and evolutionary processes. In particular, we discuss the reciprocal links between receiver psychology and social structure, and how these individual-group feedbacks are expected to generate coevolution between communication and sociality. Our review synthesizes diverse evidence that receiver psychology can affect communication interactions and provides a path forward for integrating sensory, perceptual, and cognitive mechanisms of signal processing with individual behavioural variation and ecological and evolutionary consequences of variation in animal social behaviour.

ABSTRACT The Social Information Processing (SIP) model has been widely applied to understand aggressive behavior in children and adolescents. Still, its full application in adult populations remains scarce, as does the distinction between the impact of SIP across different aggression functions. Therefore, this study examines how distinct steps of the SIP model are differentially associated with reactive and proactive aggression, while also considering the potential differences between women and men in an adult sample. To this end, 278 Portuguese (175 female and 103 male) individuals completed a self-report survey on reactive and proactive aggressive behavior and SIP. Results showed that the attribution of hostility was uniquely associated with reactive aggression, while the latter steps of SIP were associated with reactive and proactive aggression. Moreover, in the regression models, while self-efficacy emerged as the only significant independent variable associated with reactive aggression, result expectations were the only significant independent variable associated with proactive aggression. Sex differences also emerged, with different steps of SIP predicting uniquely reactive and proactive aggression for women and men. The results, implications, and limitations are discussed.

Many digital interventions rely on learning from social and contextual cues, yet it remains unclear how early life adversity influences responsiveness to these mechanisms. Early life adversity (ELA), commonly assessed using Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), is associated with long-lasting alterations in stress regulation and social information processing that may shape learning-based pain modulation. Using an observational learning paradigm implemented in immersive virtual reality (VR), we examined how ELA modulates socially learned analgesia and empathy-related processes. Adults with Low or High ACE exposure observed Human or Avatar demonstrators experiencing pain relief and subsequently underwent standardized pain testing in immersive and non-immersive contexts. Individuals with higher ACE exposure showed stronger socially learned analgesia, particularly in immersive VR, despite exhibiting reduced affective state empathy and preserved cognitive empathy. These findings indicate that ELA is associated with altered sensitivity to socially transmitted treatment cues, highlighting immersive VR as a platform for probing individual differences and informing the personalization of digital pain interventions.

This study examines how internal communication and perceived fairness are associated with the emergency decision-making competency (EDMC) of grassroots civil servants, a core capability in public performance and crisis governance. Integrating crisis sensemaking, high-reliability organizing, social information processing, and fairness heuristic theory, the study develops an individual-level framework in which leader–member communication effectiveness (LMCE) is linked to EDMC directly and indirectly through organizational peer communication support (OPCS), while organizational justice (OJ) conditions the strength of this relationship. Drawing on survey data from 1,966 grassroots civil servants across 136 counties in 16 prefecture-level cities in Shandong, China, the study finds that LMCE is positively associated with EDMC. OPCS accounts for a substantial share of this association, indicating that effective leader communication is linked to stronger emergency decision-making partly through a more supportive peer communication environment. OJ further strengthens the positive LMCE–EDMC relationship, and the association is more pronounced among non-leaders. By integrating communication quality, peer support, and perceptions of fairness into a single empirical model, this study extends public administration research on frontline crisis capability. It identifies concrete organizational levers to strengthen grassroots emergency governance in practice.

Autistic individuals experience challenges in social functioning and have demonstrated atypical patterns of social cognition. However, limitations exist regarding the ecological validity of measures used to assess social cognition in autism, and the relationships between socio-cognitive processes are unclear. The current study aimed to investigate social cognition in autistic children using a novel assessment tool, comparing their social interpretation, perspective-taking abilities (i.e. cognitive empathy) and moral reasoning to that of neurotypical controls. The relationships between these socio-cognitive processes were explored in the context of socio-moral processing. Thirty-six participants were included in the autism group (86% male, aged 8-17 years-old) and 36 participants formed an age- and sex-matched neurotypical control group (86% male, aged 8-15 years-old). The autism group scored significantly lower than the neurotypical group in cognitive empathy only, t(69.37) = 5.95, p < .001. Higher levels of cognitive empathy, but not social interpretation, were significantly positively associated with moral responding, only in the autism group, R2 = .11, F(1, 32) = 5.24, p = .029. Findings indicate the importance of perspective-taking abilities to social cognition difficulties in autism.

Traditional games are culturally embedded, rule-governed forms of play that invite children to coordinate actions, share attention, and negotiate meaning with peers. In many contexts, opportunities for face‑to‑face play have declined as children’s daily routines become increasingly shaped by screen-based entertainment; however, the strength and direction of screen–socioemotional associations vary with content, co-use, and family context. This theory-informed integrative synthesis develops a conceptual explanation of how traditional games can function as cultural tools for cultivating early childhood social intelligence. We reviewed empirical and conceptual sources on traditional play, social–emotional learning, self-regulation, and social information processing in early childhood and early primary years. Drawing on sociocultural theory, social cognitive theory, and social information processing models, we propose three complementary pathways through which repeated engagement in traditional games may support social intelligence: (1) rule-governed cooperation that strengthens turn‑taking, fairness reasoning, and inhibitory control; (2) emotion regulation and conflict repair that refine children’s interpretation of social cues and selection of prosocial responses; and (3) internalization of culturally shared values embedded in game narratives, roles, and community norms. The model yields testable propositions linking game affordances (e.g., rotating roles, transparent rules, embodied coordination) to measurable proximal processes (joint attention, perspective taking, cooperative problem solving) and to distal outcomes (peer acceptance, classroom adjustment). Practical implications are outlined for educators to select, adapt, and scaffold traditional games in inclusive classrooms, and for researchers to operationalize core constructs and moderators (e.g., facilitation quality, peer inclusion, and children’s balance of digital and in‑person play). By synthesizing cultural, developmental, and educational perspectives, the article offers a framework to guide intervention design and future empirical evaluation of traditional games in early childhood education.

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits in early childhood are risk markers for persistent antisocial behaviour, with marked adverse life outcomes. However, associations of CU traits with broader psychosocial characteristics are not well understood, particularly in early childhood. To examine developmental and psychosocial profiles of pre-school children according to their levels of CU traits and conduct problems (CPs) in a large, population-based cohort from southern Brazil. The 2015 Pelotas Birth Cohort includes 4,275 children followed from birth. At age 4 years, CU traits and CP were assessed via parent-report questionnaires, and 19 other psychosocial characteristics were examined mostly in task-based assessments regarding: neurodevelopment, language, executive functioning, emotion recognition, theory of mind, social information processing and empathy/prosocial behaviours. These 19 psychosocial characteristics were compared across four groups of children with varying levels of CU/CP, and regression models were used to test for independent associations with CU traits and CP, adjusting for sociodemographic factors at birth. At age 4 years, 14.8% of children had elevated CU traits only, 14.2% had CP only, and 16.3% had both high CU + CP. Compared to children without CU traits or CP, children with higher CU traits had poorer performance across multiple domains of development, including language, motor development, emotion recognition and prosocial behaviour. In contrast, children with CP-only showed more circumscribed deficits, mainly in self-control and emotional functioning. In regression analyses, CU traits were associated with broader neurodevelopmental impairments, whereas CP was more specifically linked to behaviour regulation. Elevated CU traits in early childhood are associated with broad developmental difficulties, whereas CPs relate more specifically to emotional and self-regulation challenges. These findings underscore the need for holistic approaches to understanding early manifestations of CU traits and interventions in the context of CP behaviours.

Acute stress impairs attentional control and emotional processing in social anxiety.

During early childhood, the foundation for social information processing skills is laid, enabling children to understand their social environment and interactions with peers and adapt to them. Although social interaction skills have generally been studied in young children, there are limited studies that directly address the relationship between social information processing and social interaction in gifted children. Therefore, the development of early interventions to support the social adaptation of gifted children is of critical importance. This study aims to examine the relationship between social information processing and social interaction skills in gifted children during the early developmental period. The study was designed as a cross-sectional analysis. This study relied on convenience sampling, a type of purposive sampling technique. Thirty gifted children were included in the investigation. The study employed the Social Information Processing Interview-Preschool Version and the Interaction Rating Scale between Children. The study found a significant and positive connection between the Benign Intent aspect of social information processing skills in gifted children and their cooperation and assertiveness abilities in relationships. A significant and positive correlation was found between the positive response structure of social information processing skills and the self-regulation dimension of interaction skills. Gifted children's advanced ability to interact positively in social situations plays a significant role in fostering unity within their peer groups and strengthening their confident communication abilities. Having strong self-regulation abilities affects one's capacity to create positive responses.

ABSTRACT In the dynamic and uncertain entrepreneurial environment, effective leadership and team dynamics are crucial for new venture success. This study investigates how and when a lead founder’s paradoxical leadership helps the new venture navigate the tensions in entrepreneurial processes by shaping key mechanisms within new venture teams (NVTs). By integrating social information processing theory with emotion-as-social-information theory, we argue that paradoxical leadership enhances NVT psychological safety, which in turn facilitates debate in strategic decision-making and improves long-term venture survival. These positive effects are more pronounced when the lead founder displays high levels of entrepreneurial passion. We test our model using multi-source, multi-wave survey data from 238 entrepreneurs nested within 85 NVTs. Our findings advance the scholarly understanding of paradoxical leadership in entrepreneurship, highlighting the joint impact of leadership behavior and affect in shaping entrepreneurial outcomes.