Laboratoire de Psychologie des Pays de la Loire

The preservation of peace is a key concern of the Cameroonian people and the subject of debate within the political class. The public’s marked interest in this issue prompted us to look at social representations of peace in Cameroon through the prism of religious commitment. Adopting a structural approach to social representations, we conducted a study among respondents with different levels of religious commitment ( N = 156). Data collected via free association and characterization questionnaires were submitted to hierarchical and Q-sort analyses. Results indicated that unity is the factor that best characterizes peace. A comparative analysis of the organization of representations between groups with different levels of religious commitment failed to reveal any major differences. Based on the elements identified by participants, we argue that proximity to the object is the main factor underlying the construction of social representations of peace in Cameroon.

The proliferation of gambling advertising has raised concerns about its effects on gambling behavior, particularly among vulnerable populations such as highest risk gamblers. This study examines the influence of gambling advertising on attitudes and intentions to gamble on a large sample of gamblers in France. We used an online questionnaire in a cross-sectional design, with data collected between February 15 and April 30, 2021. Participants were recruited through a single recruitment channel, namely the client mailing list of the Française des Jeux, resulting in a final sample consisting of 1,334 participants (62% male, 38% female, < 1% other) with a mean age of 41.37 years (SD = 15.07). Participants completed validated questionnaires, including the Canadian Problem Gambling Index, advertisement recall, measures of impulsivity, and cognitive distortions. Exposure to responsible-gambling messages was recorded descriptively and not manipulated. Results indicate that exposure to gambling advertising was significantly associated with more positive participants' attitudes toward gambling and their intentions to engage in gambling activities. Highest risk gamblers were more susceptible to the influence of advertising, showing higher recall of advertisements and greater likelihood of gambling after exposure. The study highlights the urgent need for regulatory action to limit exposure of vulnerable populations to gambling advertising and formulate strategies to mitigate gambling-related harm. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Social adaptation difficulties in Alzheimer's disease (AD) are frequently associated with impairments in social cognition, including theory of mind and emotion recognition. However, social problem-solving (SPS) may also be a crucial yet understudied component of these deficits. This study aimed to develop and conduct an exploratory evaluation of the Interactive Social Problem-Solving Assessment for Alzheimer's Disease (ISPA-AD), an experimental tool addressing the lack of instruments to evaluate SPS in AD. ISPA-AD presents interactive scenarios designed to evaluate verbal and non-verbal components of SPS. Forty-one participants (19 AD patients and 22 healthy controls) completed the task. Psychometric analyses examined internal consistency, construct validity and discriminative ability. ISPA-AD showed good internal consistency (α = .811), strong construct validity and excellent accuracy in distinguishing AD participants from controls (AUC = .906). AD patients exhibited significantly lower SPS performance, revealing a specific pattern of deficits across the task dimensions. ISPA-AD provides a novel, ecologically grounded approach to assessing SPS in AD. These preliminary findings support its clinical relevance and suggest that the tool may offer valuable insights into the social cognitive mechanisms underlying adaptive behaviour in AD. Further validation in larger and more diverse samples, including reliability studies, is warranted.

BackgroundEmotion dysregulation, alexithymia and attentional biases toward food or emotional stimuli have been reported in patients with obesity and food addiction (FA), but the relative contribution of obesity or FA to these characteristics remains unclear. Our objectives were to compare patients with obesity and FA, patients with obesity without FA and patients without obesity regarding cognitive emotion regulation strategies, alexithymia, emotion regulation difficulties, and attentional biases.MethodsWe included 37 bariatric seeking patients (18 FA, 19 without FA) and 37 controls in a cross-sectional, unmatched nested case–control design. We assessed food addiction (YFAS 2.0), emotional regulation strategies (CERQ), emotion regulation difficulties (DERS), alexithymia (TAS-20), and attentional biases (Stroop and Emotional Stroop tasks).ResultsAmong patients with obesity, those with FA differed from non-FA only in terms of cognitive emotion regulation strategies: less refocus on planning (p = .04), more catastrophizing (p = .02), and more positive refocusing (p < .001). Patients with obesity (with or without FA) presented higher scores regarding emotion regulation strategies (p < .05), alexithymia (p < .001) and emotion regulation difficulties (p < .001). Neither obesity nor FA were associated with attentional bias toward food or negative emotional stimuli and cognitive inhibition.ConclusionsAmong patients with obesity, having a FA was related to cognitive avoidance toward negative events, but not to change in the saliency of emotional or food stimuli. Alexithymia was more related to obesity than to FA.Graphical abstractSupplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40337-025-01424-6.

This systematic review aimed to identify preserved and impaired memory processes in Huntington's disease (HD), with consideration of disease stage and the specific memory subsystems assessed. A systematic search was conducted in PubMed, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar up to March 11, 2025. Eligible studies had to be peer-reviewed, had to involve participants aged 18 or older, had to include patients with genetically or clinically confirmed HD, and had to be published in English or French. Risk of bias was assessed using the ROBINS-I tool. A structured narrative synthesis was performed across seven memory subsystems and clinical stages (pre-manifest vs. manifest), and findings were summarized using tables and figures. A total of 136 studies were included. Verbal episodic memory impairments were consistently observed from early stages, particularly in free recall, while recognition was initially preserved. Visual episodic memory showed progressive deficits. Olfactory memory, though rarely examined, appeared to be impaired early. Autobiographical memory was underinvestigated but showed signs of disruption, seemingly independent of executive dysfunction. Semantic memory was generally preserved but showed reduced access without cues. Early-stage impairments were also reported in working memory. Priming was preserved, while complex procedural learning tasks showed variable deficits. Many studies presented methodological limitations, including confounding and lack of blinding. Memory profiles in HD appear heterogeneous and subsystem-specific. Autobiographical memory may constitute a distinct cognitive marker. Improved characterization of memory deficits is crucial to guide the development of targeted cognitive interventions.

Adult patients with the genetic disease neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) frequently report social difficulties. To date, however, only two studies have explored whether these difficulties are caused by social cognition deficits, and these yielded contradictory data. The aim of the present study was to exhaustively assess social cognition abilities (emotion, theory of mind, moral reasoning, and social information processing) in adults with NF1, compared with a control group, and to explore links between social cognition and disease characteristics (mode of inheritance, severity, and visibility). We administered a social cognition battery to 20 adults with NF1 (mean age = 26.5 years, SD = 7.4) and 20 healthy adults matched for sociodemographic variables. Patients scored significantly lower than controls on emotion, theory of mind, moral reasoning, and social information processing tasks. No effects of disease characteristics were found. These results appear to confirm that adults with NF1 have a social cognition weaknesses that could explain, at least in part, their social difficulties, although social abilities are not all impaired to the same extent. Regarding the impact of the disease characteristics, the patient sample seemed slightly insufficient for the power analyses performed. Thus, this exploratory study should form the basis of further research, with the objective of replicating these results with larger and more appropriately matched samples.

Objective Self-esteem may be adversely affected in adults with overweight or obesity, particularly women and those showing higher BMIs, although there is no consensus in the literature. The objective of the current study, based on reported cross-sectional associations, was to clarify the relationship between global self-esteem and overweight/obesity in adults. Methods Four databases were searched to identify eligible literature published prior to June 2024, and a systematic review was conducted of the 120 articles identified. Meta-analytic processing of 38 eligible articles at the study level and of the participant data obtained from 16 studies (n = 2,972) was conducted for quantitative synthesis. Potential moderators, such as gender, age, BMI, type of assessment, and treatment-seeking status, were tested. Results The summary correlation between BMI and self-esteem across studies was r = −0.11, 95% CI [−0.17, −0.05], z = −3.70, p < .001. None of the tested moderators affected this association, although the meta-analysis of the individual participant data provided by the authors revealed a small effect of gender and a non-linear evolution of self-esteem linked to BMI. Conclusion The present study found a negative relationship between global self-esteem and overweight/obesity in adults, which suggests a negative, although weak, effect of excess weight on self-perception.