See what supports each activity.

This review examined laboratory and classroom research on the testing effect. Recalling material from memory generally produced better later retention than spending the same time restudying it, including in many studies where the practice test itself had no feedback.

Across five experiments, the researchers studied how people learn the knowledge needed to solve algebra problems. Worked examples helped early learners acquire useful problem-solving structures more efficiently than relying only on conventional problem-solving practice.

In a randomized high-school field experiment, students wrote about how science material connected with their own lives. The activity increased interest and course grades most clearly among students who began with lower expectations of succeeding.

This meta-analysis combined 94 independent tests of if-then plans that specify when, where, and how someone will act. On average, these plans had a medium-to-large positive effect on goal attainment and helped people begin and protect goal-directed action.

This experiment compared active listening, unsolicited advice, and simple acknowledgments in initial conversations. Active-listening responses made speakers feel more understood, although they were not uniformly better than advice on every conversation outcome.

Two studies compared how people evaluated different components of apologies after imagined trust violations. Acknowledging responsibility and offering to repair the harm were especially important, while apologies containing more relevant components were generally rated as more effective.

One hundred college students were randomly assigned to an eight-session program or a comparison group. The program included assertiveness, mindfulness, and problem-solving practice and produced improvements in assertiveness and psychological distress, so its effects cannot be credited to assertiveness alone.

In an fMRI experiment, labeling the emotion shown in a negative image was associated with lower activity in the amygdala and other emotion-related regions than other labeling tasks. The study suggests a possible immediate brain mechanism for affect labeling, but it did not test lasting symptom improvement.

In a 14-day online trial with 186 participants, worry postponement paired with a specific implementation plan reduced daily worry duration compared with standard worry postponement alone. The intervention groups did not clearly outperform the active control overall, and sleep outcomes did not improve.

The researchers combined 104 randomized trials involving 9,617 participants. Music interventions had small-to-medium average effects on physiological stress measures and medium average effects on psychological stress measures, although the studies and interventions varied widely.

This review examined nine recent studies containing 13 single-session exercise conditions in healthy adults. Seven conditions reduced anxiety, but only four clearly outperformed a control, and no consistent best activity, duration, or intensity emerged.

This foundational theoretical paper proposed that beliefs about personal capability influence whether people begin an action, how much effort they use, and how long they persist. It identified successful performance, observing others, encouragement, and physiological information as important sources of self-efficacy beliefs.

This meta-analysis synthesized 138 studies testing interventions that increased progress monitoring. Monitoring produced a small-to-medium improvement in goal attainment, with larger effects when progress was physically recorded or made public.

Ninety-five undergraduates were assigned to three weeks of daily self-care reflection or a control condition. Repeated reflection helped prevent stress and negative affect from accumulating across the study, but the small sample and repeated format limit what can be inferred about a single reflection.

Three experience-sampling studies followed everyday Big Five-related behavior for two to three weeks. People showed substantial variation from one situation to another while still maintaining stable individual averages, supporting a view of traits as tendencies rather than fixed behavior.

This observational study examined 391 people ages 14 to 20. Social and physical activities predicted some aspects of well-being alongside personality, but the cross-sectional design cannot show that the activities caused those outcomes.

Using 11 annual waves from 12,703 participants, the researchers examined activity, personality, and well-being over time. Personality did not reliably identify who experienced greater within-person well-being benefits from particular leisure activities; the interaction effects were generally very small.

This foundational review describes how social conditions can support or undermine motivation and healthy development. It proposes autonomy, competence, and relatedness as three basic psychological needs connected with self-motivation and well-being across settings.