Children can consider social relationships when evaluating liars.

The institutional importance of human capital as the main asset of Ukraine is shown, its modern structural elements are revealed. The role assigned to national human capital within the framework of the work of the thematic block “Human Dimension” of the High-Level Ukraine Recovery Conference, held in Rome in July 2025, is highlighted, as well as the adoption of the Human Capital Resilience Charter based on its results. It is emphasized that the losses of Ukraine’s human capital, incurred as a result of the prolonged full-scale military confrontation with the Russian Federation, have a significant impact on the national labor market and the dynamics of the post-war reconstruction of the Ukrainian state. The authors give various examples of the implementation of significant practical measures to preserve Ukraine’s human capital, carried out by tripartite social partners throughout the entire period of martial law in the country. Attention is drawn to the scale and potential socio-economic consequences of educational losses of human capital, in particular, in the domestic spheres of higher and vocational education. Taking into account the relevance of the World Bank conclusion on the conditionality of a rather low level of labor productivity in Ukraine by the mismatch of workers' skills with the needs of the national labor market and the requirements of employers, the article substantiates the dependence of filling the losses of human capital of Ukraine on the improvement of professional, digital and other skills of the workforce necessary in the information and network society. Taking into account the specified dependence, as well as the tasks of post-war reconstruction of Ukraine’s economy and its obligations to integrate into the common educational space of the European Union, the authors prove the urgency to strengthen the connection between educational and employment. It is revealed that a necessary institutional basis for meeting the specified need is created in the course of Ukraine's implementation of educational reforms, which began in the pre-war period. It is noted that at the moment, the reform of higher education is being carried out within the framework of the Strategy for the Development of Higher Education in Ukraine for 2022–2032, which corresponds to the obligations of Ukraine as a member of the European Higher Education Area. At the same time, the reform of the domestic system of vocational education is based on the norms of the Osnabrück Declaration (2020) and the Herning Declaration (2025). Characterized the novelties of the Law of Ukraine “On Vocational Education”, which entered into force in September 2025. Attention is focused on the need for urgent resolution of problems caused by the Law’s imperfection. Its primary problems include: first, the lack of proper financial support for the planned transformation of the vocational education system, which creates a threat of increasing the burden on local budgets, a significant part of which are already in deficit; and secondly, the lack of legislative and normative regulation of the mechanism for the reorganization of vocational education institutions.

ABSTRACT Although welfare state developments are often researched as long‐term processes, crises such as the pandemic may induce short‐term reactions with long‐term effects. This article delves into the changes made to the income security of self‐employed workers in Denmark, Norway and Sweden during the pandemic and throughout 2023. The social partners in Scandinavia could be expected to be involved in the development of new income security institutions or in the adjustments of existing institutions targeting self‐employed individuals. Hence, we further study the role, if any, social partners played in the changes that were made during the pandemic. The article draws on path‐dependence and institutional change theories and employs key informant interviews with social partners, members of government, and government agency representatives, complemented by document analysis. Its findings show that the social partners were highly involved in decisions on national changes made to unemployment benefit arrangements for self‐employed individuals, and the changes were mostly path‐dependent. To make swift policy adjustments, the actors in Denmark and Norway explicitly agreed that the new income security schemes developed were to be temporary measures. In Sweden, the existing scheme was temporarily adjusted, and some of these changes are now permanent.

The rapid evolution of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and algorithmic management (ARM) systems is transforming the workplace, raising significant debates about net employment, work organisation and working conditions. This article critically reviews key European policy aimed at regulating AI and ARM at work, as well as identifies gaps in the current policy framework. The European Union (EU) has adopted a distinct human-centric approach to AI, prioritising ethical and trustworthy design and use, rooted in its fundamental values. Though generally welcomed, the risk-based approach of the EU AI Act is insufficient, on its own, to protect workers from the potential harms of AI. Hence, specific additional employment legislation, either at the EU- or national levels, combined with collective bargaining at the sectoral and company levels, is needed to address the regulatory gap. Upskilling of social partners, including trade union officials, work council members and employers, is required so they obtain insights into the ‘black box’ of algorithms, and so they can have meaningful input into the design and deployment of AI systems.

BackgroundMalaria is one of the deadliest transmissible diseases in Sub-Saharan Africa. The control of malaria is hindered by socio-economic and environmental factors and its growth is also associated with climate change, particularly temperature increases combined with precipitations and humidity.ObjectivesThis study aims to analyse the trends of malaria in the last two decades and assess the influences of climate change on the transmission of malaria in Africa.MethodsMalaria incidence and evolution trends were used to evaluate the current burden of malaria in Africa. The Pearson correlation coefficient, joinpoint regression and linear regression models were applied to identify significant temporal shifts in malaria incidence trends across the selected countries and determine the impact of climate change on the transmission of malaria.ResultsOur findings reveal that mean temperature is the main climatic factor affecting the transmission of malaria in many countries, including Angola, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Mozambique, and Uganda. Warmer temperatures generally increase the risk of malaria transmission, except in Ghana, where higher temperatures are associated with a decreased risk. Precipitation has a significant negative association with malaria incidence in Burkina Faso and Uganda, indicating that increased rainfall reduces transmission.ConclusionsThe study results provide useful insights on how climate change influences malaria in African countries, and reiterates the need for a greater engagement of policymakers and social partners, in intensifying the action needed to fight the transmission of malaria in Sub-Sahara Africa.

Research on dementia care partners often emphasizes the dyadic relationship, overlooking broader social networks that shape care partners' well-being and resilience. This study examines how social network composition and quality influence care partner outcomes. We conducted ego-centric social network structured interviews with 179 unpaid care partners of individuals living with dementia. We used regression models to test our hypothesis, with hierarchical models incorporating covariates followed by network features.Findings indicate participants who reported greater network quality also reported larger social networks and greater network demographic similarity, with older participants also reporting greater similarity. Those who showed greater network quality and perceptual affinity reported enhanced well-being and resilience and lower burden, with care partner tenure also positively related to resilience.As such,higher-quality networks are associated with larger and more demographic similarity. Further research should explore which dimensions of perceptual affinity most strongly influence care partner outcomes.

Despite the potential to significantly increase the impact of donations, people often fail to prioritize the cost-effectiveness of charities. This paper examines an explanation for why people may donate less effectively due to reputational concerns that favor empathizing with donation recipients rather than deliberating about the cost-effectiveness of charities. Across seven studies, we find that "deliberators" are perceived as less moral and less desirable as social partners than "empathizers." Moreover, people accurately anticipate the reputational costs of deliberation and are more likely to donate to causes that evoke more empathy but are less cost-effective when reputational concerns are highlighted. Our findings suggest that there are disincentives for selecting charities by deliberating about their cost-effectiveness, as people are more rewarded for signaling socially valued moral traits than for prioritizing charitable impact.

This article connects crisis corporatism with welfare regime and labour market segmentation theories to examine the responsiveness of social dialogue during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using data from the Eurofound EU PolicyWatch database, covering policy measures (N = 1139 measures) implemented across the EU from 2020 to 2022, it analyses the extent to which tripartite alliances, namely between trade unions, employer organisations and government, were associated with the implementation of policies that targeted the situation of (employment-related, and family- and health-related) vulnerable groups during the COVID-19 crisis in Europe. The findings show that the role of social partners – and in particular tripartite alliances for the vulnerable – was limited in implementing policies for the vulnerable. Regime-specific variations indicate that although social dialogue structures exist across countries, their operational significance and capacity to shape policies vary. Crisis corporatism, rather than reworking systems to foster inclusion, risks reproducing established boundaries.

Corticotropin-releasing hormone signaling from piriform cortex to amygdala mediates social homophily in opioid addiction.

ABSTRACT In responding to the 2008 financial crisis, EU crisis management evolved through successive diagnostic reframings that shifted the root causes from credit crunch to sovereign debt crisis to competitiveness deficit. The competitiveness reframing enabled a politics of internal devaluation, embedding unit labour cost metrics as benchmarks for “cost” competitiveness in the Memoranda of Understanding, the Euro Plus Pact, the Six Pack, and the European Semester. This article traces the institutionalization of unit labour cost indicators, and demonstrates how the supranational new economic governance framework was extended to the national level through National Productivity Boards from 2018 onwards. These ostensibly independent intermediary institutions were tasked with monitoring labour competitiveness against Eurozone averages and major trading partners, and issuing policy recommendations when cost competitiveness deteriorated. This nested governance architecture enabled what Broome and Quirk ([2015]. “Governing the World at a Distance: The Practice of Global Benchmarking.” Review of International Studies 41 (5): 819–841.) identified as governing “at a distance”, permitting EU executives to influence wage-setting and labour market policies – domains traditionally reserved for member states and social partners. While internal devaluation was suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic, and competitiveness benchmarking appeared to lose momentum, unit labour cost scoreboards remain firmly embedded institutionally and can readily be reactivated, revealing the persistence of competitiveness logics even as their political legitimacy weakens.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the limitations of social dialogue structures in Central and Eastern Europe, where traditionally corporatism has been weak. The crisis prompted many Central and Eastern European governments to set up ad hoc advisory bodies to address economic and public health issues, often bypassing or minimising the role of established tripartite social dialogue. These ad hoc bodies sought to involve different stakeholders in crisis management, but lacked consistent social partner involvement. This article examines the impact of such bodies on social dialogue, focusing on representation of the interests of vulnerable workers in Czechia, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia. The findings suggest that, while these bodies allowed for a rapid response, they failed to take into account different interests and thus reinforced ‘illusionary corporatism’ in the aftermath of the pandemic. Despite the potential of ad hoc bodies to increase inclusivity, traditional corporatist structures in Central and Eastern Europe largely reasserted themselves after the crisis.

This article examines crisis corporatism during the COVID-19 pandemic in Türkiye and Serbia. It focuses on how institutional power relations shaped policy responses for vulnerable groups in the labour market. These countries are semi-peripheral economies with weak corporatist traditions and centralised administration, but they diverge significantly with regard to labour relations. Türkiye’s crisis management was top-down with limited social partner input, and social policy measures tended to exacerbate existing inequalities. Serbia combined executive dominance with selective post hoc consultation, resulting in broader social protection through universal cash transfers and job subsidies. Our findings indicate that institutionalised social dialogue is crucial for inclusive crisis policy-making. Serbia’s modest engagement with social partners led to more effective support for vulnerable workers. The article underscores the centrality of institutionalised power relations in shaping corporatist responses during crises and calls for structurally embedded social dialogue to ensure equitable policy outcomes in future systemic shocks.

In social interactions, the coordination of biobehavioural rhythms – interpersonal synchrony (IS) – fosters cooperation, enhances prosocial behaviours, and moulds lifelong social attitudes. At the core of synchronous interactions is the ability to detect and respond contingently to communicative signals. Atypicalities in these processes may emerge along diverse developmental trajectories and contribute to socio-communicative difficulties commonly observed in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), where social disconnection is often reported. Our exploratory research simulates interactions to delve into factors influencing IS in ASD and typically developing (TD) peers, examining the impact of time contingency and social engagement on preferences for social partners across the lifespan. Using a tablet-based task, 116 participants (n = 58 ASD, n = 58 TD; age range: 3.8–33 years) repeatedly interacted with faces that transitioned from side to front upon selection. Stimuli responses varied in time contingency (immediate or delayed response) and social engagement (smiley direct gaze vs. neutral averted gaze). Our results show that TD participants consistently prioritized social engagement, even in the absence of time contingency. In contrast, ASD participants prioritized contingency as a cue but only when this was paired with social engagement. We argue that the combination of time contingency and social engagement enhances social agency, which is particularly relevant for ASD. We discuss how creating predictable and engaging social environments could help autistic individuals feel more connected in social settings.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1038/s41598-025-20738-8.

Interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) involves seeking out others to modify one's own emotions and is theorized to benefit health and well-being. While there is evidence of the association between IER and subjective well-being, it is unclear how IER processes are associated with psychological well-being and whether the associations between IER and well-being are similar at different levels of psychopathology, such as depression and anxiety symptoms. Participants (N = 147) completed measures of psychological well-being, depression, anxiety, and IER within their social networks (i.e., how frequently they seek IER from social network partners and the efficacy of these IER attempts). We found that perceived efficacy of IER, but not frequency of IER, was positively associated with psychological well-being, above and beyond overall social network quality and size. Additionally, symptoms of depression and anxiety each moderated the relationship between IER-efficacy and psychological well-being, such that the relationship between IER-efficacy and psychological well-being was weaker at higher levels of symptoms. These findings are consistent with the possibility that IER is less beneficial for those experiencing greater psychological distress. These findings highlight the importance of understanding for whom and under what circumstances IER is most strongly associated with well-being.

ABSTRACT Dance teaching in formal education in Sweden follows a curriculum, yet dance teaching in commercial dance schools is less regulated. In the later, dance teachers join the dance teaching practice without preparation, and they learn how to be teachers while working as such. This study explores the regime of competence for dance teachers in commercial schools, meaning the set of principles and abilities that would allow them to be seen as professional dance teachers. The research material derives from semi-structured interviews with 12 dance teachers, employed in commercial dance schools for Latin dances and it was analysed thematically. Findings showed that teachers focus primarily on preparing their students for social partner dancing and, hence, their competence is directed towards this aim. The regime of competence for the interviewed dance teachers included passion for dance, communication competence, instructional competence (incl. co-teaching competence), formal dance teacher training and dance competence. The study contributes with knowledge about what teaching-related competence teachers favour and develop in the absence of pedagogical preparation and formal teaching setting.

Abstract This study examined the integration of an AI-powered social robot into a Chinese language learning classroom for second-grade students in a public elementary school in Southern China. Over an 8-week period, an AI-empowered social robot was incorporated into the curriculum, with sessions conducted weekly for 35 minutes. Data were systematically collected through classroom recordings and interviews with the teacher and children. The research aimed to address three key questions: how to effectively integrate an AI social robot into the practical curriculum, the roles the robot plays within the classroom, and the challenges and future opportunities for both teachers and students. Participants were 44 typically developing, native-Chinese-speaking second graders. The findings underscored the importance of collaborative planning and adopting a suitable theoretical framework to guide the integration of an AI social robot. Classroom recordings revealed specific roles played by the robot: teacher assistants, social partners, and learning companions. The teacher’s interview responses provided challenges faced during their AI social robot-assisted lessons, categorizing (1) teaching-related, (2) ethical and security-related, and (3) technical or functional challenges. The children also reported challenges they encountered: (1) functional defects, (2) teaching errors, and (3) technical failures. Overall, the present study’s findings suggested how to integrate social robots into the practical curriculum and paved the way for more effective incorporation of AI technologies into the primary school curriculum.

Abstract Pet keeping is a uniquely human behavior among primates that may hold important clues about how we develop and express social abilities like empathy, attachment, and emotion recognition. In this commentary, we argue that close, emotionally invested relationships with pets should be more fully integrated into models of human social cognition. While foundational work in the field clearly recognized the relevance of both conspecific and heterospecific agents, most empirical studies have focused on interactions between humans. We suggest that sustained human–pet relationships offer an ecologically valid and biologically grounded context in which social-cognitive capacities are expressed, refined, and potentially shaped. We introduce the concept of the extended social cognition phenotype, proposing that social abilities are not limited to human–human interactions but also extend to emotionally charged, long-term bonds with non-human social partners. These bonds exhibit six core features, which each mirror aspects of human kinship: care-taking, naming, baby-talk, play, attachment, and exclusion from consumption. While similar in structure, pet bonds may differ in their conditionality, involving investment decisions shaped by perceived emotional reciprocity and cost. We explore how such relationships engage neurocognitive systems involved in human bonding, including oxytocin signalling and limbic network plasticity. Importantly, we highlight clinical evidence from neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders, such as autism spectrum disorder and frontotemporal dementia, where relationships with pets may serve as compensatory scaffolds for disrupted social cognition. In these populations, pets often provide stable, predictable, and emotionally salient interaction partners that may enhance motivation for social engagement and foster residual or alternative pathways for empathic and affiliative behaviour. These findings invite a reversal of the conventional framing: rather than viewing pet-keeping solely as a product of human cognition, we propose that it actively participates in shaping the human social mind across development and pathology.

This study investigated the relationship between extensive community participation and prenatal mental health, focusing specifically on the mediating roles of peer support and partner communication. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in Jiangsu, China, involving 1,705 pregnant participants. Structural Equation Modeling was employed to examine how offline peer support, online peer support, and partner communication mediate the association between community participation and prenatal mental health. Among the 1,705 participants (Mean age = 29.57, SD age = 3.70, Max age = 43, Min age = 16), 1,000 (58.7%) were giving birth for the first time, and 975 (57.3%) were local residents. The mean score for community participation was 4.43, while that for prenatal mental health was 4.21. These findings indicate that extensive community participation does not directly affect prenatal mental health. Instead, peer support and partner communication serve as parallel mediators, while social media and partner communication function as sequential (chain) mediators. These results underscore the critical need to enhance both the quantity and quality of partner-centered maternal support networks by leveraging peer groups and digital platforms. Strengthening these relational pathways can facilitate more effective communication between partners and ultimately contribute to improved maternal mental health during pregnancy.

This study investigated the relationship between extensive community participation and prenatal mental health, focusing specifically on the mediating roles of peer support and partner communication. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in Jiangsu, China, involving 1,705 pregnant participants. Structural Equation Modeling was employed to examine how offline peer support, online peer support, and partner communication mediate the association between community participation and prenatal mental health. Among the 1,705 participants (Mean age = 29.57, SD age = 3.70, Max age = 43, Min age = 16), 1,000 (58.7%) were giving birth for the first time, and 975 (57.3%) were local residents. The mean score for community participation was 4.43, while that for prenatal mental health was 4.21. These findings indicate that extensive community participation does not directly affect prenatal mental health. Instead, peer support and partner communication serve as parallel mediators, while social media and partner communication function as sequential (chain) mediators. These results underscore the critical need to enhance both the quantity and quality of partner-centered maternal support networks by leveraging peer groups and digital platforms. Strengthening these relational pathways can facilitate more effective communication between partners and ultimately contribute to improved maternal mental health during pregnancy.

We examined children's patterns of sharing behavior with a peer across repeated social interactions. Children aged 9-12 years old (N = 186; M = 10.72 years, SD = 1.09; 108 females; 75.7% White) were matched with a same-age, same-sex, unfamiliar peer, and the dyad completed structured and unstructured tasks during three online sessions across 1 month. At the end of each session, children independently and anonymously participated in a task to assess sharing behavior with their interaction partner. We found evidence for three patterns of sharing behavior across the sessions: fair sharers (45.2%), minimal sharers (44.6%), and increasing sharers (10.2%). We examined how children's own traits and social perceptions of their peer's traits predicted sharing behavior. Children who were rated by their parents as lower in temperamental affiliation and children who perceived their social partner as higher in negative traits were likely to share minimally with their peer across sessions. Further, children who were rated by their parents as higher in temperamental shyness and children who perceived their social partner as higher in shy/nervous traits were likely to increase the number of tickets they shared with their peer across sessions. These findings illustrate that children's sharing behavior with an initially unfamiliar peer is related to their own traits and their perception of the recipient and may change over the course of repeated social interactions. These patterns may be driven by differences in social-affiliative goals based on temperament and unfolding social dynamics. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).