The relationship between sensory experiences and social functioning in children with autism spectrum disorder.

Objective: This study was undertaken to substantiate the connection between sensory experiences and social functioning among 142 children ages 4-10 years with autism spectrum disorder. Methods: Using an online cross-sectional survey, mothers' perceptions of sensory and social characteristics of their children on parent-reported measures of sensory experiences and social functioning were collected. Findings: Using SPSS software to follow the related descriptive statistics and correlational analysis, the results indicated that children had different levels of challenging sensory experiences and social interaction difficulties. It was revealed that higher intensities of sensory issues were associated with lower levels of functioning and greater social interaction difficulties. Further analysis revealed that less awkward, unpleasant experiences in the auditory and tactile sensory functioning correlated with less social difficulties. Conclusions: Given that no causal relationship could be drawn in this study, the findings complemented those of earlier studies, which suggest engagement in social interactions may be correlated with sensory response patterns.

The core tendencies underlying prosocial behavior: Testing a person-situation framework.

OBJECTIVE AND BACKGROUND: According to a recently proposed theoretical framework, different personality traits should explain pro-social behavior in different situations. We empirically tested the key proposition of this framework that each of four "core tendencies" (i.e., the shared variance of related traits) specifically predicts pro-social behavior in the presence of a different situational affordance. METHODS: We used a large-scale dataset (N = 2479) including measures of various personality traits and six incentivized economic games assessing pro-social behavior in different social situations. Using bifactor modeling, we extracted four latent core tendencies and tested their predictive validity for pro-social behavior. RESULTS: We found mixed support for the theoretically derived, preregistered hypotheses. The core tendency of beliefs about others' pro-sociality predicted pro-social behavior in both games involving dependence under uncertainty, as expected. Unconditional concern for others' welfare predicted pro-social behavior in only one of two games providing a possibility for exploitation. For conditional concern for others' welfare and self-regulation, in turn, evidence relating them to pro-social behavior in the presence of a possibility for reciprocity and temporal conflict was relatively weak. CONCLUSION: Different features of social situations may activate different personality traits to influence pro-social behavior, but more research is needed to fully understand these person-situation interactions.

miRNA-mediated inhibition of an actomyosin network in hippocampal pyramidal neurons restricts sociability in adult male mice.

Social deficits are frequently observed in patients suffering from neurodevelopmental disorders, but the molecular mechanisms regulating sociability are still poorly understood. We recently reported that the loss of the microRNA (miRNA) cluster miR-379-410 leads to hypersocial behavior and anxiety in mice. Here, we show that ablating miR-379-410 in excitatory neurons of the postnatal mouse hippocampus recapitulates hypersociability, but not anxiety. At the cellular level, miR-379-410 loss in excitatory neurons leads to larger dendritic spines, increased excitatory synaptic transmission, and upregulation of an actomyosin gene network. Re-expression of three cluster miRNAs, as well as pharmacological inhibition of the actomyosin activator ROCK, is sufficient to reinstate normal sociability in miR-379-410 knockout mice. Several actomyosin genes and miR-379-410 family members are reciprocally dysregulated in isogenic human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived neurons harboring a deletion present in patients with Williams-Beuren syndrome, characterized by hypersocial behavior. Together, our results show an miRNA-actomyosin pathway involved in social behavior regulation.

Peptides and primate personality: Central and peripheral oxytocin and vasopressin levels and social behavior in two baboon species (Papio hamadryas and Papio anubis).

The neurohormones oxytocin (OT) and arginine vasopressin (AVP) are involved in social behaviors and psychiatric conditions. However, more research on nonhuman primates with complex social behaviors is needed. We studied two closely-related primate species with divergent social and mating systems; hamadryas baboons (Papio hamadryas, n=38 individuals) and anubis baboons (Papio anubis, n=46). We measured OT in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF, n=75), plasma (n=81) and urine (n=77), and AVP in CSF (n=45), and we collected over 250hours of focal behavioral observations. Using Bayesian multivariate models, we found no clear species difference in hormone levels; the strongest support was for hamadryas having higher CSF OT levels than anubis (posterior probability [PP] for females = 0.75, males = 0.84). Looking at nine specific behaviors, OT was associated with affiliative behaviors (approach, proximity, grooming, PP ~ 0.85 - 1.00), albeit inconsistently across sources of measurement (CSF, plasma, and urine, which were uncorrelated with each other). Most behaviors had low repeatability (R ~ 0 - 0.2), i.e. they did not exhibit stable between-individual differences (or "personality"), and different behaviors did not neatly coalesce into higher-order factors (or "behavioral syndromes"), which cautions against the use of aggregate behavioral measures and highlights the need to establish stable behavioral profiles when testing associations with baseline hormone levels. In sum, we found some associations between peptides and social behavior, but also many null results, OT levels from different sources were uncorrelated, and our behavioral measures did not indicate clear individual differences in sociability.

Investigating the role of adversity and benevolence beliefs in predicting prosociality.

BACKGROUND: Does experiencing adversity engender kindness, and if so, for whom? Two studies tested the hypothesis that adversity predicts increased pro-social outcomes, and that this relationship is strongest for individuals who view others as good and trustworthy, or benevolent. METHOD: In Study 1, a cross-sectional survey design was utilized, and in Study 2 a longitudinal survey was conducted. RESULTS: In Study 1 (N = 359), the number of lifetime adverse life events was associated with increased volunteering, empathic concern, and self-reported altruism. The association of adversity and altruism was stronger for those with greater benevolence beliefs. In Study 2 (N = 1157), benevolence beliefs were assessed, and in subsequent years, adverse life events were reported. The number of past-year adverse life events predicted more volunteering and charitable involvement, but only among people with high benevolence beliefs. CONCLUSION: Exposure to adversity may be associated with increased pro-social behavior among those with higher benevolence beliefs. In part, this could be due to benevolence beliefs increasing the expectation that one's efforts will be appreciated and reciprocated.

Gender-based violence and harassment at work and health and occupational outcomes. A systematic review of prospective studies.

BACKGROUND: Many people experience forms of gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH) in the context of their work. This includes a wide range of experiences, from subtle expressions of hostility to physical assault, that can also be of a sexual nature (e.g., sexual harassment or assault). This systematic review aimed to summarize findings about the prospective associations of work-related GBVH with people's health and occupational situation. METHODS: We followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. Scopus, Web of Science, MEDLINE and PsycINFO were searched for prospective studies in English from 1990 to May 24, 2023. Studies were included if they concerned a working population, exposure to any form of GBVH in the work context, and a health outcome or manifest occupational outcome. Quality was assessed with a modified version of the Cochrane 'Tool to Assess Risk of Bias in Cohort Studies', and studies assessed as low quality were excluded from the narrative synthesis. For the narrative synthesis, we grouped the results by similar exposures and outcomes and reported the strength and statistical significance of the associations. RESULTS: Of the 1 937 screened records, 29 studies were included in the narrative synthesis. Studies were mainly conducted in the USA and northern Europe and investigated exposure to sexual violence or harassment (SVH). Only two included studies investigated non-sexual kinds of GBVH. Consistently, studies showed associations of work-related SVH with poor mental health and there were indications of an association with hazardous substance use. There was no consistent evidence for an association of SVH with subsequent sickness absence, and there were too few studies concerning physical health and occupational outcomes to synthesize the results. CONCLUSIONS: There is consistent evidence of work-related SVH as a risk factor for subsequent poor mental health. There is no indication that the health consequences of SVH differ between women and men, although women are more often affected. There is a need for conceptual consistency, the consideration of non-sexual behaviors and prospective studies that test clear hypotheses about the temporal sequence of events.

Variation in season length and development time is sufficient to drive the emergence and coexistence of social and solitary behavioral strategies.

Season length and its associated variables can influence the expression of social behaviors, including the occurrence of eusociality in insects. Eusociality can vary widely across environmental gradients, both within and between different species. Numerous theoretical models have been developed to examine the life history traits that underlie the emergence and maintenance of eusociality, yet the impact of seasonality on this process is largely uncharacterized. Here, we present a theoretical model that incorporates season length and offspring development time into a single, individual-focused model to examine how these factors can shape the costs and benefits of social living. We find that longer season lengths and faster brood development times are sufficient to favor the emergence and maintenance of a social strategy, while shorter seasons favor a solitary one. We also identify a range of season lengths where social and solitary strategies can coexist. Moreover, our theoretical predictions are well-matched to the natural history and behavior of two flexibly-eusocial bee species, suggesting our model can make realistic predictions about the evolution of different social strategies. Broadly, this work reveals the crucial role that environmental conditions can have in shaping social behavior and its evolution and underscores the need for further models that explicitly incorporate such variation to study evolutionary trajectories of eusociality.

Wound-dependent leg amputations to combat infections in an ant society.

Open wounds pose major infection and mortality risks in animals.1,2 To reduce these risks, many animal species apply antimicrobial compounds on their wounds.1,2,3,4 Ant societies use antimicrobial secretions from the metapleural gland to combat pathogens,5,6,7,8,9,10 but this gland has been lost over evolutionary time in several genera, including Camponotus.11 To understand how infected wounds are handled without the use of antimicrobial secretions from the metapleural gland, we conducted behavioral and microbiological experiments in Camponotus floridanus. When we experimentally injured a worker's leg at the femur, nestmates amputated the injured limb by biting the base (trochanter) of the leg until it was severed, thereby significantly increasing survival compared to ants that did not receive amputations. However, when the experimental injury was more distal (at the tibia), nestmates did not amputate the leg and instead directed more wound care to the injury site. Experimental amputations also failed to improve survival in ants with infected tibia injuries unless the leg was amputated immediately after pathogen exposure. Micro-CT scans revealed that the muscles likely responsible for leg hemolymph circulation are predominantly in the femur. Thus, it is likely that femur injuries, by attenuating hemolymph flow, provide sufficient time for workers to perform amputations before pathogen spread. Overall, this study provides the first example of the use of amputations to treat infected individuals in a non-human animal and demonstrates that ants can adapt their type of treatment depending on the location of wounds.

Aberration of social behavior and gut microbiota induced by cross-fostering implicating the gut-brain axis.

The gut microbiota and neurological development of neonatal mice are susceptible to environmental factors that may lead to altered behavior into adulthood. However, the role that changed gut microbiota and neurodevelopment early in life play in this needs to be clarified. In this study, by modeling early-life environmental changes by cross-fostering BALB/c mice, we revealed the effects of the environment during the critical period of postnatal development on adult social behavior and their relationship with the gut microbiota and the nervous system. The neural projections exist between the ascending colon and oxytocin neurons in the paraventricular nuclei (PVN), peripheral oxytocin levels and PVN neuron numbers decreased after cross-fostering, and sex-specific alteration in gut microbiota and its metabolites may be involved in social impairments and immune imbalances brought by cross-fostering via the gut-brain axis. Our findings also suggest that social cognitive impairment may result from a combination of PVN oxytocinergic neurons, gut microbiota, and metabolites.

Dissecting shared pain representations to understand their behavioral and clinical relevance.

Accounts of shared representations posit that the experience of pain and pain empathy rely on similar neural mechanisms. Experimental research employing novel analytical and methodological approaches has made significant advances in both the identification and targeted manipulation of such shared experiences and their neural underpinnings. This revealed that painful experiences can be shared on different representational levels, from pain-specific to domain-general features, such as negative affect and its regulation. In view of direct links between such representations and social behaviors such as prosocial behavior, conditions characterized by aberrant pain processing may come along with heavy impairments in the social domain, depending on the affected representational level. This has wide potential implications in light of the high prevalence of pain-related clinical conditions, their management, and the overuse of pain medication. In this review and opinion paper, we aim to chart the path toward a better understanding of the link between shared affect and prosocial behavior.

NARP-related alterations in the excitatory and inhibitory circuitry of socially isolated mice: developmental insights and implications for autism spectrum disorder.

Background: Social isolation during critical periods of development is associated with alterations in behavior and neuronal circuitry. This study aimed to investigate the immediate and developmental effects of social isolation on firing properties, neuronal activity-regulated pentraxin (NARP) and parvalbumin (PV) expression in the prefrontal cortex (PFC), social behavior in juvenile socially isolated mice, and the biological relevance of NARP expression in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Methods: Mice were subjected to social isolation during postnatal days 21-35 (P21-P35) and were compared with group-housed control mice. Firing properties in the PFC pyramidal neurons were altered in P35 socially isolated mice, which might be associated with alterations in NARP and PV expression. Results: In adulthood, mice that underwent juvenile social isolation exhibited difficulty distinguishing between novel and familiar mice during a social memory task, while maintaining similar levels of social interaction as the control mice. Furthermore, a marked decrease in NARP expression in lymphoblastoid cell lines derived from adolescent humans with ASD as compared to typically developing (TD) humans was found. Conclusion: Our study highlights the role of electrophysiological properties, as well as NARP and PV expression in the PFC in mediating the developmental consequences of social isolation on behavior.

Developmental exposure to the Fox River PCB mixture modulates behavior in juvenile mice.

Developmental exposures to PCBs are implicated in the etiology of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs). This observation is concerning given the continued presence of PCBs in the human environment and the increasing incidence of NDDs. Previous studies reported that developmental exposure to legacy commercial PCB mixtures (Aroclors) or single PCB congeners found in Aroclors caused NDD-relevant behavioral phenotypes in animal models. However, the PCB congener profile in contemporary human samples is dissimilar to that of the legacy Aroclors, raising the question of whether human-relevant PCB mixtures similarly interfere with normal brain development. To address this question, we assessed the developmental neurotoxicity of the Fox River Mixture (FRM), which was designed to mimic the congener profile identified in fish from the PCB-contaminated Fox River that constitute a primary protein source in the diet of surrounding communities. Adult female C57BL/6 J mouse dams (8-10 weeks old) were exposed to vehicle (peanut oil) or FRM at 0.1, 1.0, or 6.0 mg/kg/d in their diet throughout gestation and lactation, and neurodevelopmental outcomes were assessed in their pups. Ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) and measures of general development were quantified at postnatal day (P) 7, while performance in the spontaneous alternation task and the 3-chambered social approach/social novelty task was assessed on P35. Triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxine (T4) were quantified in serum collected from the dams when pups were weaned and from pups on P28 and P35. Developmental exposure to FRM did not alter pup weight or body temperature on P7, but USVs were significantly decreased in litters exposed to FRM at 0.1 or 6.0 mg/kg/d in the maternal diet. FRM also impaired male and female pups' performance in the social novelty task. Compared to sex-matched vehicles, significantly decreased social novelty was observed in male and female pups in the 0.1 and 6.0 mg/kg/d dose groups. FRM did not alter performance in the spontaneous alternation or social approach tasks. FRM increased serum T3 levels but decreased serum T4 levels in P28 male pups in the 1.0 and 6.0 mg/kg/d dose groups. In P35 female pups and dams, serum T3 levels decreased in the 6.0 mg/kg/d dose group while T4 levels were not altered. Collectively, these findings suggest that FRM interferes with the development of social communication and social novelty, but not memory, supporting the hypothesis that contemporary PCB exposures pose a risk to the developing brain. FRM had sex, age, and dose-dependent effects on serum thyroid hormone levels that overlapped but did not perfectly align with the FRM effects on behavioral outcomes. These observations suggest that changes in thyroid hormone levels are not likely the major factor underlying the behavioral deficits observed in FRM-exposed animals.

Adaptive and maladaptive pathways of COVID-19 worry on well-being: A cross-national study.

OBJECTIVE: In a preregistered study, we examined whether worries about COVID-19 are simultaneously linked with enhanced well-being through social interaction and with reduced well-being through depression symptoms. METHOD: In August 2020, census-matched participants from high- and low-prevalence regions in the United States and Italy (N = 857) completed assessments of COVID-19 worry, social interaction, depression symptoms, and well-being. RESULTS: Worries about COVID-19 predicted both more social interaction and more depression (ps < 0.001). In multiple mediational analyses, an adaptive pathway of COVID-19 worry through social interaction was associated with higher well-being, whereas a maladaptive pathway through depression symptoms was associated with lower well-being. Further, a comparison of high and low COVID-19 prevalence regions replicated the mediational findings for social interaction, providing evidence against reverse causation and common method variance. CONCLUSION: Findings suggest that normative worries about acute stressors may both benefit and undermine well-being, depending on their impact on social behavior or depression symptoms.

Prenatal stress alters transcription of NMDA-type glutamate receptors in the hippocampus.

Prenatal stress increases the risk of neurodevelopmental disorders. NMDA-type glutamate receptor (NMDAR) activity plays an important pathophysiological role in the cortico-hippocampal circuit in these disorders. We tested the hypothesis that transcription of NMDAR subunits is modified in the frontal cortex (FCx) and hippocampus after exposure to prenatal restraint stress (PRS) in mice. At 10 weeks of age, male PRS offspring (n = 20) and non-stressed controls (NS, n = 20) were treated with haloperidol (1 mg/kg), clozapine (5 mg/kg) or saline twice daily for 5 days, before measuring social approach (SOC). Saline-treated and haloperidol-treated PRS mice had reduced SOC relative to NS (P < 0.01), but clozapine-treated PRS mice had similar SOC to NS mice. These effects of PRS were associated with increased transcription of NMDAR subunits encoded by GRIN2A and GRIN2B genes in the hippocampus but not FCx. GRIN transcription in FCx correlated positively with SOC, but hippocampal GRIN transcription had negative correlation with SOC. The ratio of GRIN2A/GRIN2B transcription is known to increase during development but was lower in PRS mice. These results suggest that GRIN2A and GRIN2B transcript levels are modified in the hippocampus by PRS, leading to life-long deficits in social behavior. These data have some overlap with the molecular pathophysiology of schizophrenia. Similar to PRS in mice, schizophrenia, has been associated with social withdrawal, with increased GRIN2 expression in the hippocampus, and reduced GRIN2A/GRIN2B expression ratios in the hippocampus. These findings suggest that PRS in mice may have construct validity as a preclinical model for antipsychotic drug development.

Identifying behavioral links to neural dynamics of multifiber photometry recordings in a mouse social behavior network.

Objective.Distributed hypothalamic-midbrain neural circuits help orchestrate complex behavioral responses during social interactions. Given rapid advances in optical imaging, it is a fundamental question how population-averaged neural activity measured by multi-fiber photometry (MFP) for calcium fluorescence signals correlates with social behaviors is a fundamental question. This paper aims to investigate the correspondence between MFP data and social behaviors.Approach:We propose a state-space analysis framework to characterize mouse MFP data based on dynamic latent variable models, which include a continuous-state linear dynamical system and a discrete-state hidden semi-Markov model. We validate these models on extensive MFP recordings during aggressive and mating behaviors in male-male and male-female interactions, respectively.Main results:Our results show that these models are capable of capturing both temporal behavioral structure and associated neural states, and produce interpretable latent states. Our approach is also validated in computer simulations in the presence of known ground truth.Significance:Overall, these analysis approaches provide a state-space framework to examine neural dynamics underlying social behaviors and reveals mechanistic insights into the relevant networks.

Contextual expectations shape the motor coding of movement kinematics during the prediction of observed actions: A TMS study.

Contextual information may shape motor resonance and support intention understanding during observation of incomplete, ambiguous actions. It is unclear, however, whether this effect is contingent upon kinematics ambiguity or contextual information is continuously integrated with kinematics to predict the overarching action intention. Moreover, a differentiation between the motor mapping of the intention suggested by context or kinematics has not been clearly demonstrated. In a first action execution phase, 29 participants were asked to perform reaching-to-grasp movements towards big or small food objects with the intention to eat or to move; electromyography from the First Dorsal Interosseous (FDI) and Abductor Digiti Minimi (ADM) was recorded. Depending on object size, the intentions to eat or to move were differently implemented by a whole-hand or a precision grip kinematics, thus qualifying an action-muscle dissociation. Then, in a following action prediction task, the same participants were asked to observe an actor performing the same actions and to predict his/her intention while motor resonance was assessed for the same muscles. Of note, videos were interrupted at early or late action phases, and actions were embedded in contexts pointing toward an eating or a moving intention, congruently or incongruently with kinematics. We found greater involvement of the FDI or ADM in the execution of precision or whole-hand grips, respectively. Crucially, this pattern of activation was mirrored during observation of the same actions in congruent contexts, but it was cancelled out or reversed in the incongruent ones, either when videos were interrupted at either early or long phases of action deployment. Our results extend previous evidence by showing that contextual information shapes motor resonance not only under conditions of perceptual uncertainty but also when more informative kinematics is available.

Patterns of neuronal activation following ethanol-induced social facilitation and social inhibition in adolescent cFos-LacZ male and female rats.

Alcohol-associated social facilitation together with attenuated sensitivity to adverse alcohol effects play a substantial role in adolescent alcohol use and misuse, with adolescent females being more susceptible to adverse consequences of binge drinking than adolescent males. Adolescent rodents also demonstrate individual and sex differences in sensitivity to ethanol-induced social facilitation and social inhibition, therefore the current study was designed to identify neuronal activation patterns associated with ethanol-induced social facilitation and ethanol-induced social inhibition in male and female adolescent cFos-LacZ rats. Experimental subjects were given social interaction tests on postnatal day (P) 34, 36, and 38 after an acute challenge with 0, 0.5 and 0.75 g/kg ethanol, respectively, and ß-galactosidase (ß-gal) expression was assessed in brain tissue of subjects socially facilitated and socially inhibited by 0.75 g/kg ethanol. In females, positive correlations were evident between overall social activity and neuronal activation of seven out of 13 ROIs, including the prefrontal cortex and nucleus accumbens, with negative correlations evident in males. Assessments of neuronal activation patterns revealed drastic sex differences between ethanol responding phenotypes. In socially inhibited males, strong correlations were evident among almost all ROIs (90 %), with markedly fewer correlations among ROIs (38 %) seen in socially facilitated males. In contrast, interconnectivity in females inhibited by ethanol was only 10 % compared to nearly 60 % in facilitated subjects. However, hub analyses revealed convergence of brain regions in males and females, with the nucleus accumbens being a hub region in socially inhibited subjects. Taken together, these findings demonstrate individual and sex-related differences in responsiveness to acute ethanol in adolescent rats, with sex differences more evident in socially inhibited by ethanol adolescents than their socially facilitated counterparts.

Closed-loop microstimulations of the orbitofrontal cortex during real-life gaze interaction enhance dynamic social attention.

Neurons from multiple prefrontal areas encode several key variables of social gaze interaction. To explore the causal roles of the primate prefrontal cortex in real-life gaze interaction, we applied weak closed-loop microstimulations that were precisely triggered by specific social gaze events. Microstimulations of the orbitofrontal cortex, but not the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex or the anterior cingulate cortex, enhanced momentary dynamic social attention in the spatial dimension by decreasing the distance of fixations relative to a partner's eyes and in the temporal dimension by reducing the inter-looking interval and the latency to reciprocate the other's directed gaze. By contrast, on a longer timescale, microstimulations of the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex modulated inter-individual gaze dynamics relative to one's own gaze positions. These findings demonstrate that multiple regions in the primate prefrontal cortex may serve as functionally accessible nodes in controlling different aspects of dynamic social attention and suggest their potential for a therapeutic brain interface.

Comparative Analysis Between Directly Measured and Parent-Evaluated Executive Function: Predicting Children's Academic Achievement and Social Development in a One-Year Longitudinal Study.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine differences between directly measured and parent-evaluated executive function in predicting children's academic achievement and social development, and to explore the mediating roles of peer status and social competence in the effects of executive function on social behavior. Patients and Methods: The study followed 106 first-grade children in an elementary school in China for one year. Regression and mediation analyses were conducted using SPSS 26.0 and AMOS 21.0 to test the hypotheses. Results: First, in a comparison of the predictive role of directly measured and parent-evaluated executive function, directly measured executive function played a more important role in predicting academic achievement, while parent-evaluated executive function played a greater role in predicting social development. Second, parent-evaluated executive function influenced social behavior primarily through social competence and peer status, with social competence playing a more significant mediating role than peer status. Conclusion: Compared with previous studies, the results of the present study provide more direct evidence for the relationship and differences between directly measured and parent-evaluated executive function, further suggesting that they have different efficacy and predictive goals, while the present study also describes the pathways through which executive function influences social behavior: the mediating role of peer status and social competence. This suggests that, on the one hand, educators or researchers need to choose appropriate measures of executive function for their own purposes and, on the other hand, in order to promote the development of children's social behavior, they need to focus on the development of children's executive function, social competence and peer relationships.

[Development of the Hospital Nurses' Silence Behavior Scale].

PURPOSE: This study aimed to develop a scale to measure hospital nurses' silence behavior and examine its validity and reliability. METHODS: A total of 52 preliminary items on hospital nurses' silence behavior were selected using a content validity test by seven experts on 53 candidate items derived from a literature review and in-depth interviews with 14 nurses. A total of 405 hospital nurses participated in a psychometric testing. Data analysis comprised item analysis, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, and convergent and discriminant validity tests. Pearson's correlation coefficient was used for assessing concurrent validity, and Cronbach's alpha was used for the reliability test. RESULTS: The final scale consisted of nine factors with 31 items, exhibiting acceptable model fit indices, convergent validity, and discriminant validity. The score of the entire scale was positively correlated with the 'Organizational Silence Scale (OSS)-the issues on which nurses remain silent' (r = .60, p < .001) and 'OSS-the reasons why nurses remain silent' (r = .68, p < .001). Cronbach's α of the scale was .92, and α of each subscale ranged from .71 to .90. CONCLUSION: The Hospital Nurses' Silence Behavior Scale is a useful tool for assessing multifaceted silence behavior among nurses. It can provide basic data for developing better communication strategies among nurses and other hospital staff.