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Widening polarization about political, religious, and scientific issues threatens open societies, leading to entrenchment of beliefs, reduced mutual understanding, and a pervasive negativity surrounding the very idea of consensus [1, 2]. Such radicalization has been linked to systematic differences in the certainty with which people adhere to particular beliefs [3, 4, 5, 6]. However, the drivers of unjustified certainty in radicals are rarely considered from the perspective of models of metacognition, and it remains unknown whether radicals show alterations in confidence bias (a tendency to publicly espouse higher confidence), metacognitive sensitivity (insight into the correctness of one's beliefs), or both [7]. Within two independent general population samples (n = 381 and n = 417), here we show that individuals holding radical beliefs (as measured by questionnaires about political attitudes) display a specific impairment in metacognitive sensitivity about low-level perceptual discrimination judgments. Specifically, more radical participants displayed less insight into the correctness of their choices and reduced updating of their confidence when presented with post-decision evidence. Our use of a simple perceptual decision task enables us to rule out effects of previous knowledge, task performance, and motivational factors underpinning differences in metacognition. Instead, our findings highlight a generic resistance to recognizing and revising incorrect beliefs as a potential driver of radicalization.

Unrealistic optimism is a pervasive human trait influencing domains ranging from personal relationships to politics and finance. How people maintain unrealistic optimism, despite frequently encountering information that challenges those biased beliefs, is unknown. Here, we provide an explanation. Specifically, we show a striking asymmetry, whereby people updated their beliefs more in response to information that was better than expected compared to information that was worse. This selectivity was mediated by a relative failure to code for errors that should reduce optimism. Distinct regions of the prefrontal cortex tracked estimation errors when those called for positive update, both in highly optimistic and low optimistic individuals. However, highly optimistic individuals exhibited reduced tracking of estimation errors that called for negative update within right inferior prefrontal gyrus. These findings show that optimism is tied to a selective update failure, and diminished neural coding, of undesirable information regarding the future.

When knowledge is scarce, it is adaptive to seek further information to resolve uncertainty and obtain a more accurate worldview. Biases in such information-seeking behavior can contribute to the maintenance of inaccurate views. Here, we investigate whether predispositions for uncertainty-guided information seeking relate to individual differences in dogmatism, a phenomenon linked to entrenched beliefs in political, scientific, and religious discourse. We addressed this question in a perceptual decision-making task, allowing us to rule out motivational factors and isolate the role of uncertainty. In two independent general population samples (n = 370 and n = 364), we show that more dogmatic participants are less likely to seek out new information to refine an initial perceptual decision, leading to a reduction in overall belief accuracy despite similar initial decision performance. Trial-by-trial modeling revealed that dogmatic participants placed less reliance on internal signals of uncertainty (confidence) to guide information search, rendering them less likely to seek additional information to update beliefs derived from weak or uncertain initial evidence. Together, our results highlight a cognitive mechanism that may contribute to the formation of dogmatic worldviews.

Concern for the welfare of others is a key component of moral decision making and is disturbed in antisocial and criminal behavior. However, little is known about how people evaluate the costs of others' suffering. Past studies have examined people's judgments in hypothetical scenarios, but there is evidence that hypothetical judgments cannot accurately predict actual behavior. Here we addressed this issue by measuring how much money people will sacrifice to reduce the number of painful electric shocks delivered to either themselves or an anonymous stranger. Surprisingly, most people sacrifice more money to reduce a stranger's pain than their own pain. This finding may help us better understand how people resolve moral dilemmas that commonly arise in medical, legal, and political decision making.

Some people conform more than others. Across different contexts, this tendency is a fairly stable trait [1]. This stability suggests that the tendency to conform might have an anatomical correlate [2]. Values that one associates with available options, from foods to political candidates, help to guide choices and behaviour. These values can often be updated by the expressed preferences of other people as much as by independent experience. In this correspondence, we report a linear relationship between grey matter volume (GM) in a region of lateral orbitofrontal cortex (lOFCGM) and the tendency to shift reported desire for objects toward values expressed by other people. This effect was found in precisely the same region in each brain hemisphere. lOFCGM also predicted the functional hemodynamic response in the middle frontal gyrus to discovering that someone else's values contrast with one's own. These findings indicate that the tendency to conform one's values to those expressed by other people has an anatomical correlate in the human brain.

Available online: 22 November 2017 ; Assessing and analysing individual differences in change over time is of central scientific importance to developmental neuroscience. However, the literature is based largely on cross-sectional comparisons, which reflect a variety of influences and cannot directly represent change. We advocate using latent change score (LCS) models in longitudinal samples as a statistical framework to tease apart the complex processes underlying lifespan development in brain and behaviour using longitudinal data. LCS models provide a flexible framework that naturally accommodates key developmental questions as model parameters and can even be used, with some limitations, in cases with only two measurement occasions. We illustrate the use of LCS models with two empirical examples. In a lifespan cognitive training study (COGITO, N = 204 (N = 32 imaging) on two waves) we observe correlated change in brain and behaviour in the context of a high-intensity training intervention. In an adolescent development cohort (NSPN, N = 176, two waves) we find greater variability in cortical thinning in males than in females. To facilitate the adoption of LCS by the developmental community, we provide analysis code that can be adapted by other researchers and basic primers in two freely available SEM software packages (lavaan and Omega nyx). ; Sir Henry Wellcome Trust [107392/Z/15/Z] ; UK Medical Research Council Programme [MC-A060-5PR61] ; Wellcome Trust [095844/Z/11/Z] ; European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme [732592]