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(https://www.psypost.org/neuroscience-sheds-light-on-brain-mechanisms-underlying-exceptional-creativity/) Neuroscience sheds light on brain mechanisms underlying exceptional creativity
Sep 12th 2024, 10:00

A new study sheds light on how highly creative individuals, such as visual artists and scientists, may have brains that function differently compared to others. The research, published in (https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000463) Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, reveals that people who exhibit exceptional creativity—referred to as “Big C” creative individuals—demonstrate more random patterns of connectivity in their brains. By using functional MRI (fMRI) technology, the researchers observed that highly creative brains bypass typical neural hubs, making distant connections between different regions of the brain more quickly and efficiently.
The purpose of the study was to explore the biological foundations of exceptional creativity. Despite over seventy years of research on creative achievement, there has been limited data to support the biological mechanisms that differentiate highly creative individuals from others. Most studies of brain function in creativity have focused on everyday or professional-level creativity.
However, few have investigated what happens in the brains of those who make transformative, world-changing contributions in the arts and sciences—people often referred to as “Big C” creative types. These individuals are not only distinguished by their high levels of creative achievement but also by their ability to think in novel and non-linear ways.
The new study sought to fill the gap in understanding how the brains of these exceptional individuals work differently from both typical people and those who are merely highly intelligent. The researchers were specifically interested in how brain regions responsible for creativity, problem-solving, and artistic or scientific invention interact during tasks that demand creative thinking.
“I became interested in the topic of creativity because creativity is elusive,” said study author Ariana Anderson, an assistant research professor at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. “People can be highly creative without being highly educated, yet most studies of creativity have compared highly intelligent and creative individuals with ‘garden variety’ average people.”
“This confound suggests that the studies might be identifying what makes some individuals more clever than others, but not necessarily more creative. Our study compared creative people, who tend to be smarter than average, with garden variety smart people with equal intelligence.”
To investigate the neural basis of exceptional creativity, the research team recruited highly creative visual artists and scientists, as well as a comparison group of individuals matched for intelligence but not necessarily known for creative accomplishments. The study’s sample consisted of 66 participants: 21 Big C visual artists, 21 Big C scientists, and 24 “smart” individuals from the general population who served as a control group.
Each participant underwent brain scanning using fMRI technology, which measures brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow. The researchers captured brain connectivity both while participants were at rest and while they completed tasks designed to test their creative thinking. These tasks included:

The Alternative Uses Test, which required participants to think of as many different uses as possible for a common object (for example, an umbrella).
The Remote Associates Test, which presented three seemingly unrelated words and asked participants to find a fourth word that connected them (for example, the word “horse” connects the words “sea,” “rocking,” and “shoe”).

The researchers used a mathematical approach called graph theory to analyze the brain’s connectivity patterns. In this context, the brain’s regions were treated as “nodes,” and the connections between them as “edges.” The goal was to see how efficiently information flowed through these networks and whether Big C individuals exhibited distinct connectivity patterns compared to the control group.
During the resting-state scans, when participants were not engaged in any specific task, the Big C individuals showed more random patterns of brain connectivity compared to the control group. Specifically, they exhibited less “small-worldness”, a feature of brain networks that indicates an efficient balance between local and global connections. Instead of maintaining a highly organized structure, their brains displayed less clustering of connections between nearby regions, with more randomness overall.
However, locally, the creative individuals had increased clustering and efficiency, meaning certain brain areas were more specialized or active at rest. This suggests that while their overall brain network was more random, specific regions were more densely connected, potentially preparing them for creative thinking.
During the Alternative Uses Test, the Big C individuals had lower local efficiency and clustering compared to the control group. In other words, their brain activity was less organized and efficient while performing the task, which aligns with the idea that their brains may function in a more exploratory and less constrained manner during creative tasks. This reduced local connectivity suggests that, instead of focusing on specific brain regions, the creative individuals’ brains may adopt a more flexible approach, allowing for the generation of diverse and novel ideas.
“Our study found that creative individuals exhibited more random connectivity in their brains,” Anderson told PsyPost. “This suggests that to be creative, we need to focus less and relax more. However, relaxing doesn’t mean watching TikTok—it means resting our brains so they can generate their own internal content, rather than being influenced by external sources. In fact, our study showed the greatest differences in brain activity when creative individuals were doing nothing—not when they were actively trying to be creative or clever. Mind-wandering can be the optimal time for our creative brains to shine.”
Interestingly, no significant differences in brain connectivity were found during the Remote Associates Test. The lack of differences during this task suggests that while the Big C individuals excel in making broad, random connections during divergent thinking, their brain connectivity during tasks that require finding one correct solution may be similar to that of non-creative individuals.
“The creative group did not show significant differences in verbal word-play tasks compared to the IQ-matched group,” Anderson explained. “For example, if given the words ‘house, horse, dragon,’ both a creative and non-creative person would display similar brain activity when identifying the common word that links them (‘fly’).”
Despite these intriguing findings, the study has some limitations. One challenge in studying exceptional creativity is that it is difficult to recruit large samples of individuals who have achieved such high levels of success in their fields. As a result, the sample size in this study was relatively small, which limits the ability to detect more subtle differences between groups.
“Major caveats of our study include that we compared individuals already well-known for their creativity,” Anderson noted. “It doesn’t address the question of what makes some people highly creative, nor whether creativity is an inherent trait, or something that can be acquired or diminished. Many studies have shown that creativity rapidly diminishes in early childhood, so it’s crucial to explore how cultural shifts in parenting and screen time may be stifling the creative potential of children.”
“My long-term goals for this research are to determine how we can foster creativity in children. Do we become more creative through exposure to the arts or nature, or do we merely learn to mimic others’ styles, thus limiting originality? How does screen time affect children’s ability to generate new ideas, given that they are constantly exposed to repetitive content?”
“A 2019 study showed that (https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/12/09/should-we-worry-that-american-children-are-becoming-less-creative/) today’s children are much less creative than previous generations of children,” Anderson added. “With post-COVID education being highly dependent on screens, it’s likely this trend is worsening. This will inevitably result in decreased innovation from future generations, which could have economic consequences.”
The study, “(https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2022-45679-001) Big-C Creativity in Artists and Scientists is Associated With More Random Global but Less Random Local fMRI Functional Connectivity,” was authored by Ariana Anderson, Kevin Japardi, Kendra S. Knudsen, Susan Y. Bookheimer, Dara G. Ghahremani, and Robert M. Bilder.

(https://www.psypost.org/students-tend-to-rely-on-ai-rather-than-learn-from-it-study-finds/) Students tend to rely on AI rather than learn from it, study finds
Sep 12th 2024, 08:00

A recent study explored how students respond to AI-powered assistance in the context of peer feedback and its impact on their ability to self-regulate their learning. The researchers found that while AI tools improved the quality of student feedback, there was a tendency for students to rely on these systems rather than learn from them. When AI assistance was removed, students’ feedback quality declined unless supported by self-regulation strategies like checklists. The research was published in (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2023.104967) Computers & Education.
Recent years have seen a rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and their fast integration in various aspects of life and work. It can be argued that the emergence of AI technologies is profoundly changing the way humans obtain information, how they work, and how they live.
One of the areas particularly affected by AI is education. AI-powered education technologies (AI-EdTech) are increasingly used to automate and support learning by suggesting personalized learning resources, providing feedback on students’ work, reminding students of upcoming deadlines, and even tailoring instruction to the needs of individual students.
However, there is a question of whether AI systems will support students’ ability to organize and regulate their own learning or if students will become dependent on AI, reducing their own self-regulation.
Study author Ali Darvishi and his colleagues sought to investigate the effects of AI assistance on student agency when working on peer feedback. They wanted to know whether AI, employed to monitor the quality of peer feedback, helps students develop the ability to provide effective feedback without relying on AI assistance.
To conduct the study, the researchers used RiPPLE, an adaptive education system that involves students in creating and evaluating learning resources. The resources created by students must go through a review process, which is conducted by other students assigned to this task by the system. The reviewers rate the resource on several characteristics, provide feedback to the author, and communicate their confidence in the ratings. If an instructor is available, the system allocates resources that could benefit from expert review to the instructor, and these reviews are final.
Recently, AI tools have been added to this system to evaluate and enhance the quality of the feedback students provide. These AI tools analyze the feedback for important characteristics, and if the feedback is lacking, they provide prompts to encourage students to improve it.
The study participants were students enrolled in 10 courses that used RiPPLE during the second semester of 2020, covering various disciplines. The experiment lasted eight weeks. In the first four weeks, all students received AI prompts when writing feedback. For the second four weeks, the researchers randomly divided them into four groups. One group continued to receive AI assistance as usual. The second group did not receive any AI prompts. In the third group, AI prompts were replaced with a self-monitoring checklist and a set of guidelines in the peer review interface. The fourth group had both AI prompts and the self-monitoring checklist in their peer review interface.
During the second four weeks, 1,625 students submitted 11,243 peer reviews on 3,573 resources across the 10 courses. The researchers tracked various indicators of review quality, such as whether the review was flagged as requiring revision, how similar it was to students’ previous comments, how relevant it was to the reviewed material, its length, how long the student took to write it, and how many other reviewers liked the review, indicating that they found it helpful.
The results showed that, in the second four weeks, students who worked without AI assistance produced much poorer reviews than those who worked with AI. Their reviews were flagged more often, were more similar to their previous texts, and were less relevant to the materials. The reviews were also shorter, although the time spent writing them was not significantly less than the time invested by the AI-assisted group.
The group working with self-monitoring checklists instead of AI assistance produced similarly poor reviews. Their feedback was worse than the group that used AI assistance. Interestingly, the group that had access to both AI assistance and self-monitoring checklists did not show any improvement in the quality of their reviews compared to the group using just AI assistance.
“Our study showed that the integration of AI in learning environments could impact students’ agency to take control of their own learning,” the study authors concluded. “Through a randomized controlled experiment, we found that while students can effectively self-regulate their learning with the aid of AI, removing this support would significantly change their performance.”
“While the hybrid human-AI approach in the SAI group [the group using both AI assistance and self-monitoring checklists] had the highest average performance among other groups, its improvement was not significant compared to the AI-only approach. These findings suggest that as AI becomes more prevalent in education, it is important to consider the role it plays in shaping student agency. There is a rising awareness of the hazards of outsourcing self-regulated learning to technology, which may impede students’ cognitive and metacognitive growth.”
The study sheds light on how AI assistance affects the way students review learning resources. However, it could be argued that writing peer reviews of learning resources may not fully represent students’ broader learning activities, and the results might differ if other types of learning tasks were examined.
The paper, “(https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2023.104967) Impact of AI assistance on student agency,” was authored by Ali Darvishi, Hassan Khosravi, Shazia Sadiq, Dragan Gašević,  and George Siemens.

(https://www.psypost.org/scientists-uncover-brain-gut-connection-that-impairs-immune-defenses-during-psychological-stress/) Scientists uncover brain-gut connection that impairs immune defenses during psychological stress
Sep 12th 2024, 06:00

Recent research published in the journal (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2024.07.019) Cell has found a link between our mental state and the immune system, particularly through an interaction between the brain and the gut. The study focused on a little-known structure in the digestive system called Brunner’s glands, located in the duodenum (the first section of the small intestine). These glands appear to play a pivotal role in how stress affects gut bacteria and immune defenses.
The relationship between the brain and gut health has been an area of growing interest in science. We know that psychological stress can harm the body’s ability to fight infections, and we also know that gut bacteria play a key role in maintaining a healthy immune system. What has been less clear is the exact mechanism by which stress and mental states can alter gut health and, in turn, affect the immune system.
Brunner’s glands were a focal point in this study because they are involved in producing mucus that protects the gut lining. Previous studies have shown that stress can reduce the population of beneficial bacteria like Lactobacillus in the gut, which leaves the body more vulnerable to infections. The researchers hypothesized that these glands might serve as a connection point between the brain and the gut, influenced by stress and other psychological states.
“We were interested in understanding how psychological states make the body more vulnerable to disease. We all know this is a real biological phenomenon, but there has been no mechanistic explanation for it. We initially assumed that a neural circuit must link emotion-related regions of the brain to the peripheral cells that control defenses against pathogens,” explained study author (https://www.mpg.de/19830563/biological-cybernetics-de-araujo) Ivan E. de Araujo, director at the Max-Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics.
The study was performed on over a thousand adult male mice. The researchers used various techniques to stimulate or suppress the activity of the vagus nerve, which plays a crucial role in communicating signals between the brain and the gut. Some mice had specific sections of their vagus nerve or Brunner’s glands altered or removed to test the role these structures play in gut health.
To explore the brain’s role, the researchers manipulated a part of the brain called the central nucleus of the amygdala, which is heavily involved in processing emotions, particularly stress and fear. They mapped out a pathway that connects this brain region to the Brunner’s glands via the vagus nerve, using advanced methods such as gene targeting, viral injections, and brain imaging. By either stimulating or inhibiting these circuits, they could observe how it affected the activity of Brunner’s glands and the gut’s bacterial composition.
Additionally, they conducted a range of physiological tests on the mice, including analyzing the thickness of the gut lining, bacterial cultures from the intestines, and even monitoring the mice’s vulnerability to bacterial infections after stress exposure.
The researchers found that when the central amygdala was suppressed—either by stress or through experimental inhibition—Brunner’s glands became inactive, reducing mucus production and allowing harmful bacteria to proliferate. Conversely, when the central amygdala was activated, it led to an increase in vagus nerve activity, which in turn stimulated Brunner’s glands to produce more mucus. This promoted the growth of beneficial bacteria.
Furthermore, the researchers observed that removing or damaging Brunner’s glands led to profound changes in the immune system. Mice that had their Brunner’s glands surgically removed were much more vulnerable to bacterial infections than those with intact glands. These mice had thinner mucus layers in their intestines, increased gut permeability (which can lead to inflammation), and a higher likelihood of harmful bacteria entering the bloodstream.
“The surprising aspect of the work is how profound the impact of duodenal glands on immunity is,” de Araujo told PsyPost. “They were initially believed to counter gastric acidity.”
This finding highlights the critical role that Brunner’s glands play not just in maintaining gut health, but in supporting the immune system as a whole. The glands help create a protective barrier in the gut, preventing harmful pathogens from gaining a foothold. Without this barrier, the immune system is left exposed, and the body is less capable of defending itself against infections.
The study mapped out a precise neural circuit that connects the brain’s emotional centers to the gut through the vagus nerve. This nerve is known for its role in controlling various involuntary functions, such as digestion and immune responses. When the vagus nerve was artificially stimulated in the study, it increased mucus production in the gut, promoting a healthier bacterial population. Conversely, when the vagus nerve’s communication with Brunner’s glands was disrupted, either by surgery or stress, this beneficial effect was lost, leading to a less hospitable environment for gut bacteria.
Interestingly, probiotic treatments, or introducing beneficial bacteria directly to the gut, were able to partially reverse these harmful effects. Probiotics are live bacteria that, when consumed in adequate amounts, can confer health benefits by restoring the balance of gut bacteria. The researchers found that administering probiotics to the stressed mice helped restore healthy levels of Lactobacillus and improved the integrity of the gut lining, reducing the risk of infections.
In one experiment, the researchers introduced a probiotic cocktail of Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium to mice that had their Brunner’s glands removed or disrupted. The probiotic treatment significantly improved the mice’s gut health, restoring mucus production, promoting healthy bacteria growth, and reducing their susceptibility to infection. This suggests that even when the natural connection between the brain and the gut is disrupted, as in the case of stress or surgery, introducing beneficial bacteria can help restore gut health.
“It must be understood that psychological states can change the ability of the body to fight pathogens in profound ways,” de Araujo said. “So, mental states do control our ability to fight off disease in palpable ways.”
While this study provides new insights, it is not without limitations. One limitation was the use of animal models, meaning the findings may not directly translate to humans. Although the researchers were able to replicate some findings in human gut tissue samples, more research is needed to confirm whether the same brain-gut circuits exist in people. Similarly, while the study showed the potential for probiotics to restore gut health, more research is needed to determine how these treatments might be applied to human patients.
“There are some caveats, which of course refer to the possibility that this system operates differently in humans,” de Araujo noted. “However, we did study (to the extent possible) these glands in humans and the conclusion thus far is that they maintain the anatomical organization and may play equivalent roles in immunity. The glands and their innervation are conserved across mammals. In the long-run, we want to study the role of the glands in human diseases known to be triggered or worsened by stress – especially inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome.”
The study, “(https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(24)00779-7) Stress-sensitive neural circuits change the gut microbiome via duodenal glands,” was authored by Hao Chang, Matthew H. Perkins, Leonardo S. Novaes, Feng Qian, Tong Zhang, Peter H. Neckel, Simon Scherer, Ruth E. Ley, Wenfei Han, and Ivan E. de Araujo.

(https://www.psypost.org/researchers-identify-a-critical-threshold-for-relationship-breakups/) Researchers identify a critical threshold for relationship breakups
Sep 11th 2024, 14:00

A large longitudinal study of romantic relationships found that relationship satisfaction tends to decline over time, but the decrease is sharper in relationships that eventually break up compared to those that endure. The study also identified a “critical value” for relationship dissolution. The research was published in the (http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000492) Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Romantic relationships are a central aspect of most people’s lives. Individuals in fulfilling relationships tend to live longer, be healthier, and experience overall better well-being. This is why most people strive to establish and maintain fulfilling romantic relationships—relationships that bring them happiness.
However, studies indicate that satisfaction in romantic relationships tends to systematically decline over the course of life. Some relationships end in dissolution, often those where satisfaction has declined more than usual. After ending a relationship, many individuals start a new one with a different partner. However, this new relationship may also follow the same general pattern of declining satisfaction.
Study authors Janina Larissa Buehler and Ulrich Orth note that current knowledge on romantic relationships mainly comes from studies of young adults in relatively brief relationships. They believe there is a need to examine whether these findings also apply to people in other stages of life, particularly older adults, and to longer relationships.
These researchers conducted a study aimed at better understanding changes in relationship satisfaction over the lifespan. They were particularly interested in how satisfaction differs between relationships that end in dissolution and those that continue. They also sought to explore how satisfaction changes across multiple relationships for the same individual, and what factors might explain individual differences in these changes.
The researchers analyzed data from the Longitudinal Study of Generations, a multi-generational research project that tracks the attitudes, behaviors, and family dynamics of over 2,000 individuals from southern California across four generations. The study focuses on how family relationships, aging, and social changes influence well-being and personal development over time. It began in 1971 with three-generation families, and a fourth generation was included in 1991. The most recent data collection was in 2005.
In their analyses, the researchers used data on gender, the presence of children in the household, relationship status, and relationship satisfaction (measured by the 10-item Gilford-Bengtson Marital Satisfaction Scale). They also calculated the duration of ongoing relationships (referred to as current relationship duration) and the duration of relationships that ended in dissolution (final relationship duration).
The study found that relationship satisfaction tends to decline over time in most relationships, but the rate of decline is much steeper in relationships that eventually end in separation. At the beginning of a relationship, couples that will later separate already report lower levels of satisfaction compared to those in relationships that will last.
Over time, this gap widens significantly, with couples headed for separation experiencing a much sharper drop in satisfaction. The study suggested that couples tend to separate when their relationship satisfaction falls to about 65% of the maximum possible score. This threshold marks a critical point at which dissatisfaction becomes too great to maintain the relationship.
For those who began new relationships after a breakup, the study revealed that satisfaction levels were higher at the start of the new relationship than at the beginning of the previous one. However, this initial boost in satisfaction does not last indefinitely. Just like in their previous relationships, satisfaction in new relationships declines over time.
Several factors were found to influence how satisfaction changes in relationships, especially in those that dissolve. Individuals with children in the household tended to be less satisfied with their relationship. In addition, younger couples were more likely to experience sharper declines in satisfaction over time compared to older couples.
Interestingly, the time between relationships was also related to how satisfied people felt in their new relationships. Those who took longer between relationships generally reported higher satisfaction in their new relationships, while those who started new relationships more quickly tended to experience lower satisfaction.
“Overall, the findings support the accumulating distress model, which posits that couples who will later dissolve their relationship have lower initial levels of relationship satisfaction and experience a more pronounced decline in relationship satisfaction over the course of the relationship. Moreover, the findings suggest that couples tend to separate when their relationship satisfaction falls below a critical value of 65% of the maximum possible score. Future research is needed to identify the relationship processes that account for the patterns of relationship satisfaction that lead to different outcomes,” the study authors concluded.
This study sheds light on changes in satisfaction within romantic relationships over the course of life. However, it is important to note that the initial participants were drawn from a small part of the United States. While many participants moved as the study progressed, this fact remains. Studies of individuals from other cultural groups may yield different results.
The paper, “(http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000492) How Relationship Satisfaction Changes Within and Across Romantic Relationships: Evidence From a Large Longitudinal Study,” was authored by Janina Larissa Buehier and Ulrich Orth.

(https://www.psypost.org/mens-gaze-patterns-toward-womens-bodies-signal-risk-of-sexual-aggression/) Men’s gaze patterns toward women’s bodies signal risk of sexual aggression
Sep 11th 2024, 12:00

A recent study published in the (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-024-02953-y) Archives of Sexual Behavior sheds light on the link between men’s habitual body gaze behavior and problematic attitudes related to sexual objectification. The researchers found that men who frequently direct their attention toward women’s bodies are more likely to accept harmful attitudes, such as rape myths, and have a higher likelihood of committing sexual assault. They also show less physiological reactivity when viewing images of partially dressed injured women.
Sexual assault remains a significant issue in many countries, including Australia and the United States, where 15-20% of women report having been assaulted at some point in their lives. Researchers have long sought to identify social and psychological markers that can predict the risk of sexual assault perpetration.
While various attitudes and behaviors related to sexual aggression have been studied, they are often difficult to measure reliably. Sexual objectification of women, where women are viewed primarily as objects for sexual gratification, is one such precursor to sexual violence.
The researchers of this study aimed to explore whether a common, everyday behavior—body gaze—could serve as a reliable marker for problematic attitudes and behaviors. Body gaze behavior involves focusing on a person’s body parts rather than treating them as a whole person.
“The literature had long made assumptions about the importance of gaze behavior as a marker for sexual objectification but few studies had reported empirical evidence supporting these assumptions,” said study author (https://www.facebook.com/drrosshollett/) Ross Hollett, a lecturer at Edith Cowan University.
“Our study was designed as a follow up to (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-022-02290-y) our 2022 paper, which pointed towards body gaze as an important marker for potentially problematic attitudes and we wanted to further establish this using a greater variety of methods (physiological and implicit). We also wanted to provide further validation evidence for our brief body gaze scale so that it might gain further traction with other researchers in the field and enable research without the need for eye tracking equipment.”
For their study, the researchers employed a combination of self-reported surveys, implicit association tests, and physiological measurements. The study involved 110 heterosexual men aged between 18 and 62, most of whom were Caucasian. Participants completed several questionnaires designed to measure their gaze habits, attitudes toward rape myths (such as blaming victims for sexual violence), and any past experiences of sexual assault perpetration. One key measure, the Pervasive Body Gaze Scale, asked men to report how often they focus on women’s bodies in everyday situations. This provided a self-reported measure of objectifying behavior.
In addition to these self-reports, the researchers used an implicit association test to assess participants’ unconscious associations between sexual arousal and aggression. This test required participants to quickly categorize erotic and aggressive words, measuring how strongly they link sexual content with either aggression or gentleness.
Participants were also shown images of women in different conditions: fully clothed, partially clothed (in underwear), and partially clothed with visible injuries. During this image exposure, the researchers monitored participants’ physiological arousal using skin conductance response, which measures changes in sweat activity to indicate emotional engagement. After viewing the images, participants also rated how sexually aroused they felt by each image.
The researchers found that men who reported higher levels of pervasive body gaze were more likely to accept rape myths, such as believing that women are to blame for being sexually assaulted. These men were also more likely to report having engaged in unwanted sexual advances, suggesting a direct link between body gaze behavior and actual sexually aggressive behavior.
“People’s visual attention is an important signal for what they are prioritizing in their environment,” Hollett told PsyPost. “For men who tend to evaluate women primarily for the value of their bodies, they may develop habitual gaze patterns which reflect this. Unfortunately, this tendency to evaluate women’s bodies more so than their other attributes is likely to be one pathway to increased sexual assault risk.”
“That is, men who place undue value on women’s bodies may be more likely to neglect women’s social and emotional states, which may facilitate treating women like a sexual object. This assumption should be interpreted with consideration that there are likely other facilitating factors that actually increase the possibility of perpetration (such as low self-control, diminished empathy and the potential influence of substances).”
Furthermore, the implicit association test revealed that men with a higher tendency for body gaze were more likely to link sexual arousal with aggression. This suggests that for these men, sexual content is more closely tied to aggressive impulses, even if they may not openly express such associations.
Physiologically, men with higher body gaze tendencies showed less emotional reactivity (measured by lower skin conductance) when viewing images of injured women, which the researchers interpreted as a form of desensitization to violence against women. These same men reported higher sexual arousal when viewing images of partially dressed women, especially when the women appeared injured. This finding hints at a troubling association between sexual objectification and diminished empathy for victims of violence.
“When using multiple methods (such as self-report, physiological and implicit) we tend to expect relatively low correlations between scores on our instruments because psychological variables are notoriously hard to capture with high validity and reliability,” Hollett explained. “However, we were surprised that our self-report body gaze scale correlated significantly with all the other measurement techniques we used. This gave us some confidence that even self-reported gaze behavior habits are valuable for understanding other processes that are more difficult to measure at scale.”
As with all studies, there are limitations that must be considered. First, the sample was predominantly composed of young, Caucasian men, limiting the generalizability of the findings to other demographic groups. The study also relied on self-reported data for certain measures, such as rape myth acceptance and sexual assault history. While steps were taken to ensure anonymity and privacy, the sensitive nature of these topics could still lead to underreporting or response bias.
Furthermore, while the study provides evidence of correlations between body gaze behavior and attitudes related to sexual aggression, it cannot establish causality. In other words, it is unclear whether frequent body gaze leads to sexual aggression or if both behaviors stem from a common underlying factor, such as personality traits or past experiences.
“Readers should always recognize that correlational research is not causal and, as mentioned above, any assumptions should be interpreted with consideration that there are likely other facilitating factors that actually increase the possibility of perpetration (such as low self-control, diminished empathy and the potential influence of substances),” Hollett noted. “Sampling is always a limitation as we observed our findings in largely Caucasian and heterosexual men who were recruited from a university community.”
Nevertheless, the study adds to the growing body of evidence that pervasive body gaze is more than a superficial habit—it is linked to deeper attitudes and behaviors that contribute to the objectification and mistreatment of women.
“At this stage, we hope that our two papers offer sufficient evidence to convince other researchers to use our brief body gaze scale in their work,” Hollett said. “We hope that this will facilitate further research on this topic. In particular, we would love to see this scale being used in more applied settings, such as screening or intervention contexts, to determine if it offers predictive utility and/or show changes in response to an intervention.”
The study, “(https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-024-02953-y) Evidence That Pervasive Body Gaze Behavior in Heterosexual Men Is a Social Marker for Implicit, Physiological, and Explicit Sexual Assault Propensities,” was authored by Ross C. Hollett, Hannah West, Candice Craig, Lorna Marns, and James McCue.

Forwarded by:
Michael Reeder LCPC
Baltimore, MD

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