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(https://www.psypost.org/childhood-adversity-may-blunt-brain-development-rather-than-speed-it-up/) Childhood adversity may blunt brain development rather than speed it up
Nov 25th 2024, 08:00

A new study published in (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878929324001233) Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience sheds light on how early exposure to family-related stressors, such as harsh parenting, family conflict, and unsafe neighborhoods, impacts brain development. Researchers found that children exposed to these threats showed distinct patterns of brain development between late childhood and adolescence. While prior theories suggested these changes might reflect accelerated brain development, this study indicates they may instead represent a blunting or slowing of specific developmental processes.
Childhood is a critical period for brain development, with the family environment playing a foundational role in shaping emotional and cognitive growth. Adverse experiences can have lasting impacts on mental health and well-being. However, the exact mechanisms by which these experiences influence brain development remain unclear.
“In recent years, a shift in thinking about adversity has taken place. Where the consequences of adversity were initially interpreted as damage, more recently, these consequences are seen as adaptations to the adverse environment,” said study author Sandra Thijssen, an assistant professor at the Behavioural Science Institute at Radboud University.
“These adaptations help the individual cope with the adversity but may seem unhelpful from the perspective of someone experiencing a safe and stress-free environment. For example, aggressive behavior may be helpful in a dangerous environment but is generally perceived as bad behavior and a negative consequence of early hardship.”
“Besides behavioral adaptations, there is research suggesting that children may adapt to early adversity by speeding up their development,” Thijssen explained. “A large body of literature exists on the acceleration of pubertal development, but there is also some work suggesting that the brain may mature faster in children experiencing early threat.”
“I am fascinated by the possibility that our bodies can flexibly adjust to our early environment to help us survive or cope with adversity. With this project, we wanted to find out if some earlier findings, interpreted as potential evidence for accelerated brain development and thus adaptation, really are examples of adaptation and not just evidence of neural damage.”
“Specifically, the outer layer of the brain, the cortex, has been shown to thin over development,” Thijssen continued. “Accelerated thinning can be interpreted as accelerated development, but could also be the consequence of neural damage. We wanted to tease apart these different interpretations by simultaneously examining cortical thickness and gray-white contrast, a proxy for myelination, which is one of the main causes of cortical thinning over development.”
The study was embedded in the Generation R project, a large-scale longitudinal cohort study based in Rotterdam, Netherlands. This extensive dataset allowed researchers to track brain development in 4,200 children through three waves of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans at ages 8, 10, and 14. These children were assessed for exposure to family-related threats during early childhood.
The researchers focused on the amygdala-medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) circuit, comprising the amygdala and specific regions of the medial prefrontal cortex, including the anterior cingulate cortex and the medial orbitofrontal cortex. This circuit plays a key role in emotion regulation and decision-making.
Thijssen and her colleagues observed that children exposed to harsh parenting or unsafe neighborhoods had smaller amygdala volumes across development. This finding was consistent at all time points (ages 8, 10, and 14), suggesting an early and lasting impact. Importantly, the smaller amygdala size was not linked to accelerated growth or structural changes over time, countering the theory that childhood stress speeds up amygdala development.
The anterior cingulate cortex, divided into caudal and rostral regions, displayed different patterns of development based on exposure to early stressors. Children from unsafe neighborhoods showed less developmental change in gray-white matter contrast in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex, which suggests a deceleration or blunting of normal maturation in this region.
On the other hand, high levels of family conflict were associated with faster cortical thinning in the caudal anterior cingulate cortex. However, this thinning was accompanied by less developmental change in gray-white matter contrast, a pattern inconsistent with the idea of accelerated maturation. Instead, these results suggest that early conflict may disrupt normal processes like myelination, which is essential for efficient communication between brain regions.
“Accelerated neurodevelopment has mostly been studied in the context of brain activation, specifically of the amygdala-mPFC circuit involved in emotion regulation,” Thijssen told PsyPost. “However, there is also evidence suggesting that the structure of the brain may develop faster in response to early stress or adversity. We indeed found evidence that specific forms of early threat were associated with increased cortical thinning in the anterior cingulate cortex from ages 8 to 14. However, for gray-white contrast, we found greater developmental change for individuals in safer rather than more threatening environments.”
“Our study, therefore, provides limited evidence for accelerated structural development of the amygdala-mPFC circuit in response to early threat. Further, it suggests that accelerated cortical thinning may not necessarily be evidence for accelerated development, as it does not go hand in hand with greater changes in gray-white contrast.”
Unlike the amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex, the medial orbitofrontal cortex did not show significant associations with family-related stressors. This region appeared unaffected by early-life threats within the scope of this study. This absence of findings may indicate that the medial orbitofrontal cortex is less sensitive to these types of early stressors, or that its developmental changes occur later or in response to different types of adversity.
The researchers also noted differences in how various stressors affected brain development. For instance, harsh parenting was more consistently associated with smaller amygdala volumes, while unsafe neighborhoods had a more pronounced effect on gray-white matter contrast in the anterior cingulate cortex. These variations suggest that the nature and proximity of the stressor—whether it is immediate, like parenting, or more distal, like neighborhood safety—may influence its impact on brain development.
“I was mostly surprised to find opposing results for thickness and gray-white contrast (more developmental change in thickness for unsafe environments vs. more developmental change in gray-white contrast for safer environments),” Thijssen said. “We are unsure what those results mean. These findings could suggest that accelerated cortical thinning in response to early threat does not represent accelerated cortical development, or could imply that in different environments, different developmental processes are favored (e.g., pruning in threatening environments, myelination in safer environments).”
To ensure robust results, the researchers controlled for various factors that might confound the relationship between adversity and brain development. These included socioeconomic status, maternal education, prenatal exposures, and family income. They also corrected for potential biases related to MRI quality and participant movement during scans. However, as with all research, there are some caveats.
“There hasn’t been much research on the association between cortical thickness and gray-white contrast,” Thijssen noted. “We therefore do not know for certain if greater changes in cortical thickness should go hand in hand with greater changes in gray-white contrast.”
“Moreover, the effect sizes of our findings are small. Because this study was conducted in a large sample, even small effects can become significant. Some of the associations were only significant when stricter adjustment for motion was applied, which was not part of the original analysis plan. Further, we did not associate the neural findings to behavior, and therefore do not know if these associations with brain development translate to, for example, emotion regulation.”
The study, “(https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2024.101462) Early childhood family threat and longitudinal amygdala-mPFC circuit development: Examining cortical thickness and gray matter-white matter contrast,” was authored by Sandra Thijssen, Yllza Xerxa, Linn B. Norbom, Maaike Cima, Henning Tiemeier, Christian K. Tamnes, and Ryan L. Muetzel.

(https://www.psypost.org/secondary-psychopathic-traits-linked-to-faster-expansion-of-visual-attention/) Secondary psychopathic traits linked to faster expansion of visual attention
Nov 25th 2024, 06:00

A recent study published in Personality and Individual Differences sheds light on the relationship between psychopathic traits and how individuals adjust their visual attention. Specifically, the research found that individuals with higher levels of antisocial tendencies, a key secondary psychopathic trait, tend to expand their attentional focus more quickly. This rapid shift suggests poorer attentional control or executive functioning.
Psychopathy is a personality construct characterized by distinct interpersonal, emotional, and behavioral traits. It is commonly divided into two subtypes: primary and secondary psychopathy, each associated with different patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving.
Primary psychopathy involves traits such as emotional detachment, a lack of empathy, and egocentricity. Individuals high in primary psychopathic traits tend to be manipulative, callous, and focused on achieving their goals with little regard for others’ emotions. Secondary psychopathy, on the other hand, is characterized by impulsivity, poor self-regulation, and antisocial behaviors such as rule-breaking or aggression. These traits are often linked to difficulties in controlling attention and other executive functions.
Visual attentional breadth refers to how narrowly or broadly a person focuses their attention at a given moment. A narrow attentional breadth concentrates on small details within a scene, while a broad attentional breadth takes in a wider view, integrating information from a larger area. These attentional states are flexible and can shift depending on task demands or cognitive control. Since visual attention influences how people perceive and interact with their environment, examining its relationship with psychopathy could shed light on how individuals with psychopathic traits process the world around them.
“There are multiple dimensions of psychopathic personality traits, including egocentricity, callousness, impulsivity, and antisocial behavior. There is substantial diversity in the degree to which people exhibit these traits. We are interested in understanding the psychological mechanisms and processes that underpin these individual differences,” explained study authors Stephanie Goodhew and Mark Edwards, both associate professors at The Australian National University who co-direct the (https://x.com/lab_anu?lang=en) Visual Cognition Lab.
The researchers hypothesized that primary psychopathic traits might be associated with a narrowed attentional focus, aligning with the intense goal-directed behavior often seen in individuals with these traits. In contrast, secondary psychopathic traits might correlate with broader and less stable attentional control. To examine these relationships, the researchers conducted two experiments.
The first experiment aimed to determine whether psychopathic traits are linked to a preference for narrow or broad attentional breadth. The researchers recruited 118 participants from a community sample through an online platform known as Testable Minds. Participants completed a psychopathy assessment using the Expanded Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale. This scale measures three facets of psychopathy: egocentricity (a focus on self-interest), callousness (emotional detachment and lack of empathy), and antisociality (impulsivity and rule-breaking).
To measure attentional breadth, the participants completed a visual task using Navon stimuli—images where a larger “global” letter is composed of smaller “local” letters. In each trial, participants had to identify a target letter, which could appear at either the global or local level. Since participants were not directed to focus on a specific level, their responses were used to infer whether they naturally preferred a narrower attentional focus (favoring local details) or a broader one (favoring global shapes). Performance was measured by recording response times and accuracy for both levels.
The results showed no significant relationship between egocentricity or callousness (traits associated with primary psychopathy) and attentional breadth preference. However, those high in antisociality showed evidence of a weak preference for a broader attentional focus. These findings suggest that primary psychopathic traits are not strongly linked to attentional breadth, but secondary psychopathic traits might be.
In the second experiment, the researchers investigated how quickly individuals with different psychopathic traits could resize their attentional breadth. Resizing involves shifting attention between narrow and broad focus to meet changing demands, such as focusing on fine details in one moment and taking in a wider scene the next. This experiment used an adapted Navon task designed to measure how efficiently participants could contract or expand their attentional breadth.
A new group of 118 participants was recruited, and the same psychopathy assessment from Experiment 1 was used. Participants completed two blocks of trials with biased target probabilities. In one block, the majority of targets appeared at the global level (requiring broad focus), but a small proportion required participants to shift to a narrow focus to identify local targets. In another block, this setup was reversed, with the majority of targets at the local level and occasional global targets. The researchers recorded response times for the infrequent shifts, defining these as “contraction time” (broad to narrow) and “expansion time” (narrow to broad).
The results showed that individuals with higher levels of antisociality had faster expansion times, meaning they shifted from a narrow to broad attentional focus more quickly. This relationship was unique to antisociality and did not apply to egocentricity or callousness.
Interestingly, there was no significant link between antisociality and contraction time (broad to narrow). These findings suggest that antisociality, a secondary psychopathic trait, is associated with reduced attentional control, as quicker resizing may reflect less optimization of attentional focus for task demands.
“Our results indicate that people who demonstrate higher levels of impulsivity and antisocial behavior have difficulty regulating their focus of attention,” Goodhew and Edwards said.
Importantly, the finding that primary psychopathic traits, such as egocentricity and callousness, are not associated with a preference for a narrowed attentional breadth challenges the idea that attentional anomalies in individuals with these traits result from a naturally narrow focus of attention. Instead, this suggests that their difficulties with processing peripheral stimuli are more likely due to a bottleneck in cognitive processing capacity.
“Previous research has shown that people who demonstrate higher levels of egocentricity and callousness are more likely to process information that is relevant to their goals and not process goal-irrelevant information,” Goodhew and Edwards told PsyPost. “Initially, scientists thought that this might be because these people are particularly good at controlling their attention to focus on goals without succumbing to distraction.”
“But our research suggests that this is not the case, and instead our results are consistent with the alternative idea that higher egocentricity and callousness are associated with a reduced processing bandwidth. That is, these people are not processing distracting information because they do not have the capacity to do so, rather than because they are strategically filtering this out. In other words, all their capacity is consumed by processing the goal-relevant information.”
The study, like all research, has limitations. For example, the research relied on community samples rather than forensic populations, where extreme levels of psychopathy are more common. While this approach avoids potential biases linked to incarceration, it limits the range of psychopathic traits measured. Future studies could include participants from diverse populations to test whether these findings generalize to individuals with higher levels of primary psychopathic traits.
“As is common in psychological studies, these results describe patterns that emerge for the group as a whole,” the researchers noted. “This means that not every individual who scores high on the personality dimensions will exhibit these effects.”
Nevertheless, the findings contribute to a growing body of research exploring how cognitive mechanisms, such as attention, underpin psychopathic traits. Understanding the links between attention and psychopathy could inform interventions aimed at mitigating the negative consequences of these traits.
“Our lab’s research focus is on attentional control—how people can regulate their cognitive resources in goal-directed ways,” Goodhew and Edwards said. “We think that attentional control plays a pivotal role in people’s social and emotional dynamics. By elucidating this role, our aim is to find new ways to make people happier, healthier, and kinder.”
“We anticipate that improving our understanding of how attentional control is implicated in these psychopathic personality traits can inform interventions to reduce some of the negative consequences of these traits.”
The study, “(https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2024.112903) On the relationship between psychopathic traits and visual attentional breadth,” was published online on October 2, 2024.

(https://www.psypost.org/are-women-better-at-forecasting-relationship-outcomes-new-study-provides-intriguing-insights/) Are women better at forecasting relationship outcomes? New study provides intriguing insights
Nov 24th 2024, 10:00

Do women have a better sense of when a relationship will end? A new study suggests it’s not so simple. While women’s commitment levels are a stronger predictor of relationship dissolution in mixed-gender couples, men’s and women’s evaluations of love and satisfaction are equally important. The new findings have been published in the (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/02654075241265063) Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.
Women are often thought to notice problems earlier, initiate relationship-focused discussions, and take concrete steps toward separation or therapy when issues arise. This belief is supported by evidence showing that women are more likely to end relationships and initiate divorce.
>From a theoretical standpoint, both social and evolutionary perspectives suggest why women’s relationship views might carry more predictive power. Social psychological theories propose that societal norms assign women greater responsibility for maintaining relationships, making them more attuned to recognizing when a relationship is failing. Evolutionary theories argue that women, due to their greater biological investment in reproduction, are more motivated to ensure their relationships align with long-term goals, which could make them more sensitive to relational challenges.
Despite these theories, recent research highlights similarities between men and women in many psychological domains, including relationship functioning. Some studies have found no significant gender differences in predicting outcomes like satisfaction or stability, raising the question of whether women’s role as “relationship experts” has been overstated.
“There is a common belief in the scholarly community and more broadly in the culture that women are the experts or ‘barometers’ of relationships, such that their views about the relationship are more diagnostic of what will happen in the future for the relationship than men’s views,” said study author (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=3AJzUnEAAAAJ&hl=en) Matthew D. Johnson, a professor of family science in the Department of Human Ecology at the University of Alberta.
“Despite widespread belief, the evidence supporting this notion was surprisingly weak and inconsistent. I wanted to dig in with really great data and rigorous methods to tease out the extent to which women’s direct forecasts about whether the relationship will end or not, commitment, relationship satisfaction, and love for their partner would be more predictive of whether the couple broke up or not up to four years later than men’s reports on these same constructs.”
To investigate this question, the researchers used data from the Relationship Development Study, a longitudinal project examining the dynamics of mixed-gender, unmarried couples in the United States. The sample included 314 couples who had been together for an average of 3.2 years at the study’s start. Approximately 42% of the couples were cohabiting, and 30% were raising children, reflecting a mix of serious, long-term partnerships that had not yet transitioned to marriage.
Participants completed surveys assessing four key aspects of their relationships: perceived likelihood of breaking up, commitment, satisfaction, and love. For instance, participants rated how likely they thought it was that they would break up in the next year, how committed they were to their relationship, their overall happiness in the relationship, and the strength of their love for their partner. These measures captured participants’ thoughts about their relationship functioning and its potential future.
The study followed couples over four years, with participants completing follow-up surveys at regular intervals. During each wave, participants reported whether they were still in the same relationship, allowing the researchers to track relationship dissolution and link it back to earlier perceptions and evaluations reported by each partner.
The findings revealed that women’s reports of certain relationship factors were more predictive of breakups than men’s, particularly over longer timeframes. Women’s commitment emerged as a stronger predictor of breakup across two, three, and four years, though not at one year. This suggests that women’s lower commitment is especially indicative of future breakups as relationships progress.
Women’s perceived likelihood of breaking up was a stronger predictor of relationship dissolution at the two-year mark than men’s perceptions, but this difference disappeared at one-, three-, and four-year intervals. For relationship satisfaction and love, both men’s and women’s reports predicted breakup risk, but there were no significant gender differences in their predictive strength across any time intervals.
“Women’s commitment was a consistently stronger predictor of future breakup than men’s commitment, but there were no robust differences when it came to women’s and men’s direct predictions about whether the relationship would last, how satisfied they were with the relationship, or how much they loved their partner,” Johnson told PsyPost. “These findings suggest women’s commitment, which reflects the motivation to continue a partnership, may be uniquely predictive of future dissolution, but men and women may be equally diagnostic on other relationship perceptions, including direct predictions about breaking up.”
Summarizing the key takeaway, Johnson advised: “Pay particular attention to women’s commitment, but men’s and women’s views about other aspects of the relationship are equally important predictors of whether the partnership will last or not.”
“There really is something unique about commitment in this context, which is unique because many scholars conceptualize commitment as one facet of relationship quality along with satisfaction and love. I think these data provide empirical evidence that commitment is different in important ways, particularly for women: it is a potent indicator of relationship continuance or dissolution, at least among unmarried couples.”
Although the study provides valuable insights, there are limitations to consider. It focused exclusively on mixed-gender, unmarried couples in the United States, so the findings may not generalize to married couples, same-gender relationships, or couples in other cultural contexts.
Additionally, the data were collected between 2008 and 2012, and societal norms around relationships may have shifted since then. “Examining this question with more recent data is important,” Johnson said.
Future research could explore whether these patterns hold in more diverse samples. Investigating how modern relationship dynamics, such as “ghosting,” influence the role of gender in relationship dissolution could provide further insight.
“This is really part two of a broader interest I had in scientifically testing the idea that women are unique relationship barometers,” Johnson explained. “The (https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2209460119) first study examined whether women’s satisfaction was a stronger predictor of their own and their partner’s future satisfaction compared to men’s satisfaction (spoiler – it wasn’t; equal effects between men and women). The two main outcomes relationship science aims to predict is relationship satisfaction and stability.”
“So I wanted to follow up the first study with one predicting dissolution. Now that I’ve done that, I’m pretty satisfied that I’ve addressed this broader question (are women unique relationship experts) in the best way I can, and I’m happy for others to build on this work—replicating or disconfirming the findings.”
“I found it really interesting in this line of research to trace the development of ‘accepted wisdom,'” Johnson added. “By digging out the first occurrence of the barometer metaphor, I saw the very narrow way in which it was originally invoked and then the gradual widening of it to this vague notion of women as all-encompassing relationship sages. Fortunately, science is self-correcting; it’s baked into the recipe. There will always be someone who comes along and says: ‘I wonder about that…'”
The study, “(https://doi.org/10.1177/02654075241265063) Gender differences—or the lack thereof—in the prediction of relationship dissolution among unmarried mixed-gender couples from the United States,” was authored by Matthew D. Johnson, Justin A. Lavner, Scott M. Stanley, and Galena K. Rhoades.

Forwarded by:
Michael Reeder LCPC
Baltimore, MD

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