Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 06 February 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-025-02367-3Language barriers hinder technical knowledge diffusion. Higham and Nagaoka show that a US patent policy change reduced the lag in US citations of Japanese patents, particularly for firms with limited translation ability and for high-quality inventions.

Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 05 February 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02405-8Natural hazards claim thousands of lives annually, yet warnings often fail to compel action. This is not just a technological issue but also a communication failure. The next leap in disaster risk reduction must be psychological and social: transforming warnings into personalized, actionable messages that are tailored to individuals’ needs.

Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 05 February 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-025-02394-0This meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials indicates that social safety nets can improve women’s economic achievements and agency. Pooled treatment effects are largest for unconditional cash transfers, public work programmes, social care services and asset transfers.

Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 05 February 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-025-02324-0Using artificial neural networks applied to human data, Eckstein et al. show that good models of reinforcement learning require memory components that track representations of the past.

Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 02 February 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02401-yWhy single-item measures of wellbeing are best

Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 02 February 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02406-7Political action is now crucial for US scientists

Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 02 February 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-025-02397-xWe show that widely available large language models (LLMs) can — out of the box — accurately score people’s personality traits on the basis of their brief, open-ended narratives. LLM ratings converged with self-reports, predicted daily behaviour and mental health, and outperformed traditional language processing methods. Thus, use of LLM tools emerges as an accurate, scalable and efficient approach to assessing arbitrary psychological constructs.

Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 02 February 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02404-9Big team science promises to globalize the social behavioural sciences. However, without structural reform, it will reproduce a research model in which data are gathered globally but intellectual power stays centralized. Justice, rather than symbolic inclusion, must define the future of collaboration.

Generative large language models (for example, ChatGPT and Claude) were used to score Big-Five traits from open-ended thoughts and video diaries. Large language model scores aligned with self-reports and predicted behaviour, showing personality’s expression in everyday language.

Older adults face higher risks from climate change. We propose an age-sensitive climate adaptation framework, which emphasizes non-digital communication, financial assistance and community-based strategies for older populations.

Luppi et al. identify transcriptomic and connectomic controllers of information integration and its breakdown induced by anaesthesia in humans, macaques, marmosets and mice.

Navigating the academic job market is never easy. I-An ‘Amy’ Su reflects on her experience searching for a faculty position during the Trump-era hiring freeze and the lessons she learned on her path to a tenure-track role.

In this Stage 2 Registered Report, Tibon et al. showed using fMRI that neural activity associated with successful memory retrieval did not differ between semantic and episodic memory, using a task with features matched across these conditions.

Nicholas and Mattar found that people use episodic memory to make decisions when it is unclear what will be needed in the future. These findings reveal how the rich representational capacity of episodic memory enables flexible decision-making.

This research finds a strong recency bias in information gathering, attenuated in those on the OCD spectrum—a possible mechanism for indecisiveness. Behavioural and MEG data show reduced evidence updating in high-OC individuals.

Language is often thought to be represented through hierarchically structured units. Nielsen and Christiansen find that non-hierarchical structures are present across reaction-time tasks, eye-tracked reading and natural conversation.

In this study, a series of peripheral diseases were associated with increased dementia risk and collectively were related to about one-third of the global dementia burden, indicating the value of maintaining whole-body health for brain health.

This network meta-analysis of 183 trials of well-being interventions from across disciplines found that yoga, mindfulness, compassion, exercise and positive psychology improved adult well-being, with combined exercise and psychological approaches showing the largest effects.

This study shows that spatial contexts with more reliable brain representations better support memory for future experiences within them, revealing how stable neural maps help the brain organize and recall life events.

Changing research culture begins with the kind of engaged, collaborative, critical reflection that can spark collective action. This Comment outlines how to design participatory workshops as an effective tool for culture change in scientific communities.

Using ancient DNA, isotopes and proteomics, this work reveals social inequality and mobility in Eastern Zhou China, showing female sacrifices, dietary disparities across classes, kinship networks among elites, and rare evidence of social mobility.

Wang et al. compare human and large language model (LLM) creativity via Divergent Association Task, finding that humans perform slightly better on average. Efforts to enhance LLM performance, such as adopting genius personas or using strategic prompts, show mixed results.