Meeting statement: Call to action for step-change in health behaviours.

Background: Enabling, supporting and promoting positive health-related behaviours is critical in addressing the major public health challenges of our time, and the multifaceted nature of behaviours requires an evidence-based approach. This statement seeks to suggest how a much-needed enhanced use of behavioural and cultural science and insights for health could be advanced. Study design and methods: and methods: Public health authorities of Europe and Central Asia and international partner organizations in September 2023 met in Copenhagen, Denmark, to discuss the way forward. Drawing on 1) country reporting to WHO, 2) interview study with public health authorities and 3) the meeting deliberations, this meeting statement was developed. Results: The meeting statement presents a joint call for step-change accelerated use of evidence-based approaches for health behaviours. Actionable next steps for public health authorities and international and regional development partners in health are presented. Conclusions: The way forward involves increased resource allocation, integration of behavioural insights into health strategies, advocacy through case and cost-effectiveness examples and capacity building.

Social evaluations under conflict: negative judgments of conflicting information are easier than positive judgments.

In the current study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate how the brain facilitates social judgments despite evaluatively conflicting information. Participants learned consistent (positive or negative) and ambivalent (positive and negative) person information and were then asked to provide binary judgments of these targets in situations that either resolved conflict by prioritizing a subset of information or not. Self-report, decision time and brain data confirm that integrating contextual information into our evaluations of objects or people allows for nuanced (social) evaluations. The same mixed trait information elicited or failed to elicit evaluative conflict dependent on the situation. Crucially, we provide data suggesting that negative judgments are easier and may be considered the 'default' action when experiencing evaluative conflict: weaker activation in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during trials of evaluative conflict was related to a greater likelihood of unfavorable judgments, and greater activation was related to more favorable judgments. Since negative outcome consequences are arguably more detrimental and salient, this finding supports the idea that additional regulation and a more active selection process are necessary to override an initial negative response to evaluatively conflicting information.

In doubt and disorderly: Ambivalence promotes compensatory perceptions of order.

Ambivalence is a presumably unpleasant experience, and coming to terms with it is an intricate part of human existence. It is argued that ambivalent attitude holders cope with their ambivalence through compensatory perceptions of order. We first show that ambivalence leads to an increase in (visual) perceptions of order (Study 1). In Study 2 we conceptually replicate this finding by showing that ambivalence also increases belief in conspiracy theories, a cognitive form of order perception. Furthermore, this effect is mediated by the negative emotions that are elicited by ambivalence. In Study 3 we show that increased need for order is driving these effects: Affirmations of order cancel out the effect of ambivalence on perceptions of order. Theoretical as well as societal implications are discussed.

Evaluating ambivalence: social-cognitive and affective brain regions associated with ambivalent decision-making.

Ambivalence is a state of inconsistency that is often experienced as affectively aversive. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging study, we investigated the role of cognitive and social-affective processes in the experience of ambivalence and coping with its negative consequences. We examined participants' brain activity during the dichotomous evaluation (pro vs contra) of pretested ambivalent (e.g. alcohol), positive (e.g. happiness) and negative (e.g. genocide) word stimuli. We manipulated evaluation relevance by varying the probability of evaluation consequences, under the hypothesis that ambivalence is experienced as more negative when outcomes are relevant. When making ambivalent evaluations, more activity was found in the anterior cingulate cortex, the insula, the temporal parietal junction (TPJ) and the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC)/precuneus, for both high and low evaluation relevance. After statistically conservative corrections, activity in the TPJ and PCC/precuneus was negatively correlated with experienced ambivalence after scanning, as measured by Priester and Petty's felt ambivalence scale (1996). The findings show that cognitive and social-affective brain areas are involved in the experience of ambivalence. However, these networks are differently associated with subsequent reduction of ambivalence, thus highlighting the importance of understanding both cognitive and affective processes involved in ambivalent decision-making.