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(https://www.psypost.org/adhd-and-emotional-problems-share-genetic-basis/) ADHD and emotional problems share genetic basis
Feb 15th 2025, 08:00

An analysis of data from the Twins Early Development Study revealed that the association between ADHD symptoms and emotional problems increased in magnitude from early childhood to adulthood. These two clinical conditions appear to have a shared genetic basis. The paper was published in (https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291724002514) Psychological Medicine.
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental condition that affects attention, impulse control, and activity levels. It is characterized by symptoms such as inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity, which can impact daily life, school, and work performance. ADHD is commonly diagnosed in childhood but can persist into adulthood, adversely affecting relationships and productivity. The exact cause is not fully understood. However, it is clear that ADHD is not caused by a single factor but rather by a combination of genetic and environmental influences.
ADHD often co-occurs with other mental health conditions. For example, children with ADHD tend to exhibit conduct problems and various neurodevelopmental issues. Around 34% of children and adolescents with ADHD experience anxiety, and this percentage increases to 50% in adulthood. Studies have also found ADHD to be associated with emotional problems.
Study author Yuan You and her colleagues sought to explore the association between emotional problems and ADHD symptoms from early childhood to early adulthood. They analyzed data from a longitudinal study of twins to assess whether ADHD and emotional problems share a common etiology. They examined five different developmental stages: early childhood (2–4 years old), mid-childhood (7–9 years old), early adolescence (12 years old), late adolescence (16 years old), and early adulthood (21 years old).
The researchers analyzed data from the Twins Early Development Study (TEDS), an ongoing longitudinal twin study on cognitive and behavioral development from childhood to adulthood. Participants were selected from twins born in England and Wales between 1994 and 1996. The study initially included 15,000 pairs of twins and currently involves more than 10,000 twin pairs.
For the current analysis, the researchers examined data from 3,675 pairs of identical twins and 7,063 non-identical twin pairs. Fifty-one percent of the participants were women. In the early childhood stage, a total of 9,617 pairs of twins provided data on emotional problems or ADHD. This number was 8,223 pairs in mid-childhood, 5,752 in early adolescence, 4,990 in late adolescence, and 6,495 pairs in early adulthood. Participants completed different assessments of ADHD and emotional problems at different ages. In earlier years, their parents completed the assessments, reporting on their children.
The results showed that there was an association between the severity of ADHD symptoms and the severity of emotional problems. In other words, individuals with more severe ADHD symptoms tended to have more emotional problems. This association was weakest in early childhood and increased in strength to a moderate level by early adolescence.
When examining specific groups of ADHD symptoms, the researchers found that the association between hyperactivity-impulsivity and emotional problems was stronger than the association between inattention and emotional problems during mid-childhood. However, from early adolescence to early adulthood, the association between inattention and emotional problems became stronger than that between hyperactivity-impulsivity and emotional problems.
When the researchers compared these correlations in dizygotic and monozygotic twins, they found that the correlations in dizygotic twins were much lower than those in monozygotic twins. This finding indicated that shared genetic factors play a significant role in the association between ADHD symptoms and emotional problems.
“The present study demonstrated that in a general population sample, the correlations between ADHD symptoms and emotional problems increase from early childhood to early adulthood, with this increase largely driven by an increase in links between inattention and emotional problems, rather than between hyperactivity and emotional problems. At all developmental stages from early childhood to early adulthood the association between ADHD symptoms and emotional problems was significantly explained by shared genetic effects,” the study authors concluded.
The study sheds light on the shared biological underpinnings of ADHD and emotional problems. However, it should be noted that assessments of children’s symptoms were reported by parents in early and mid-childhood. In general, parents are more likely to detect externalizing problems (e.g., conduct problems) than internalizing problems (e.g., emotional difficulties).
The paper, “(https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291724002514) Exploring associations between ADHD symptoms and emotional problems from childhood to adulthood: shared aetiology or possible causal relationship?”, was authored by Yuan You, Olakunle A. Oginni, Fruhling V. Rijsdijk, Kai X. Lim, Helena M. S. Zavos, and Tom A. McAdams.

(https://www.psypost.org/new-psychology-research-uncovers-an-unexpected-benefit-of-smiling/) New psychology research uncovers an unexpected benefit of smiling
Feb 15th 2025, 06:00

Smiling, often associated with happiness and joy, might be more than just a simple expression of positive emotion. A recent study published in the (https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2025.2462231) Journal of Positive Psychology suggests that smiling during moments of pain can have a noticeable effect on our bodies and minds. Researchers discovered that people who spontaneously smiled while undergoing a painful task experienced a lower heart rate throughout the experiment and reported feeling better emotionally afterward. This suggests that smiling could be a natural coping mechanism that helps us manage physical discomfort.
The idea that our facial muscles can actually affect our emotions is known as the Facial Feedback Hypothesis. While we know people sometimes smile when they are in pain or distress, it wasn’t clear if this spontaneous smiling had any real benefits in managing pain. The new study aimed to explore whether these naturally occurring smiles could play a role in how we handle painful experiences, both physically and emotionally.
“Facial expressions are a universal means of communication, yet many people rarely pause to consider their deeper significance,” said study author Jazlyn H. Luu, a clinical psychology PhD student at UC Irvine. “We wanted to explore beyond the surface and uncover the functions facial expressions (particularly smiling) serve beyond merely conveying emotion. In this study, we look at one possible function: how smiling might help manage pain.”
To investigate this, the researchers recruited 57 participants, mostly university students around 20 years old. The study involved a standard procedure called the cold pressor task, which is used to induce temporary pain in a controlled setting. Participants were asked to place their non-dominant hand into a bucket of very cold water, kept at a consistently chilly temperature just above freezing. They were instructed to keep their hand in the water for as long as they could tolerate, up to a maximum of two minutes.
Throughout the experiment, the researchers monitored the participants’ heart rates using sensors placed on their chests. Their faces were also recorded using video cameras and analyzed with specialized software that could detect and measure facial expressions, specifically smiles.
Before the cold water task, participants completed some questionnaires to assess their current mood and general stress levels. They also had a period of rest and a writing task about their morning routine to establish a baseline. After the cold water challenge and a recovery period of five minutes, participants were asked to rate their pain and distress levels during the task, as well as their current emotional state.
To measure their emotional state, the researchers used a questionnaire that asked about various feelings like happiness, cheerfulness, and calmness, allowing them to calculate a score for positive emotion. The facial expression software analyzed the video recordings to determine if participants smiled during the cold water task and, if so, for how long. The software tracked the movement of different facial muscles to identify smiles and other expressions. The researchers then compared the heart rates, pain reports, and emotional states of participants who smiled during the cold water task with those who did not.
The results revealed some interesting connections between smiling and responses to pain. The researchers found that participants who spontaneously smiled at any point during the cold water task had lower heart rates throughout the entire study, even before they put their hand in the cold water.
“Surprisingly, many people naturally smile in uncomfortable situations (like pain, but also in unpleasant social situations)! We really wanted to understand why, and our findings pointed to some possible explanations, suggesting that smiling through the discomfort can help both the mind and body to better cope,” Luu told PsyPost.
“Past studies have looked into this as well, pointing to smiling as a type of ‘stress buffer’ that can counter the negative impacts of stressful situations (see (https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/emo0000913) Pressman et al., 2021, a study that looked at how smiling can improve the experience of a needle-injection). While many past studies experimentally manipulated smiling, our study seeked to explore if natural smiles are powerful enough to have the same impact.”
In fact, those who smiled had heart rates that were consistently lower – by about 7 to 8 beats per minute – during rest, while writing, during the cold water task itself, and during the recovery period, compared to those who did not smile. However, the length of time someone smiled did not seem to influence their heart rate. It was the simple act of smiling, regardless of how long it lasted, that appeared to be linked to a lower heart rate.
Interestingly, smiling did not have a significant impact on how participants rated their pain or distress levels immediately after the cold water task. There was no clear difference in reported pain or distress between those who smiled and those who did not. However, when it came to their emotional state after recovering from the pain, there was a subtle but noteworthy finding.
While simply smiling or not smiling didn’t change overall positive emotion scores, the duration of smiling did matter. Participants who smiled for a longer time during the cold water task reported feeling more positive emotion after the recovery period. This suggests that while smiling might not directly reduce the immediate sensation of pain, it could contribute to a better emotional recovery afterward.
“Smiling is more than just a simple expression of joy or happiness,” Luu said. “It plays a role in pain regulation and helps the mind and body cope better in the face of stressful events like acute pain.”
But, like all research, there are some limitations. The number of participants was relatively small, which could limit the ability to detect subtle effects, especially for self-reported pain and emotion. Also, the majority of participants were women, and there are known differences between men and women in how they experience and express pain and emotions. Future studies should include more men and a larger, more diverse group of people to confirm these findings and see if they apply more broadly.
Furthermore, the facial expression software used could detect smiles, but it could not differentiate between different types of smiles, such as genuine smiles of joy versus what are sometimes called “miserable smiles.” Future research could use more sophisticated methods to analyze the nuances of smiling expressions and understand if different types of smiles have different effects.
“I would like to continue researching the power of smiles, particularly through the lens of the Facial Feedback Hypothesis,” Luu said. “This hypothesis suggests that merely activating certain facial muscles can influence emotional experience, thus, I aim to conduct more studies to rigorously test this phenomenon. I would also like to explore the clinical implications of smiling during distress. For example, for individuals who experience low moods and depressive symptoms, understanding whether smiling can serve as a beneficial therapeutic strategy can inform future interventions and contribute to bolstering mental health in the community.”
The study, “(https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2025.2462231) The power of smiles: mitigating pain through facial expression,” was authored by Jazlyn H. Luu, Amanda M. Acevedo, Vida Pourmand, and Sarah D. Pressman.

(https://www.psypost.org/study-parenthood-goals-in-youth-linked-to-later-life-happiness/) Study: Parenthood goals in youth linked to later life happiness
Feb 14th 2025, 18:00

For many, parenthood is considered a key component of a fulfilling life. However, with an increasing number of adults remaining childfree, concerns have emerged regarding their long-term well-being.
Laura Buchinger and colleagues investigated how life goals in early adulthood predict midlife well-being among those who become parents and those who do not. This research was published in (https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0000862) Psychology & Aging.
Life goals play a crucial role in shaping individuals’ emotions, thoughts, and behaviors across the lifespan. According to lifespan development theories, people adjust their aspirations based on societal expectations and personal circumstances. Prior research suggests that failing to achieve significant life goals, such as parenthood, can negatively affect well-being.
This study sought to determine whether prioritizing the goal of having children in one’s 20s is associated with different well-being trajectories in midlife, particularly for those who never become parents.
Buchinger and colleagues utilized data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), a large, nationally representative dataset that tracks individuals over time. The study followed 562 participants from their early adulthood (ages 18 to 30) into midlife (age 40 for women, age 50 for men). To minimize preexisting differences between individuals who eventually became parents and those who remained childfree, the researchers employed a propensity-score matching technique. This method allowed them to compare two carefully balanced groups—281 parents and 281 nonparents—by controlling for factors such as income, education, employment, relationship status, and baseline well-being levels.
Participants were assessed on their subjective well-being across eight domains: life satisfaction (including overall, health, work, and family life satisfaction), mental health, positive and negative affect, and loneliness. Additionally, they rated the importance of nine life goals in their 20s, particularly focusing on aspirations for parenthood and career success. These early-life priorities were later examined in relation to midlife well-being outcomes. The researchers analyzed participants’ responses across nearly 25 waves of data collection, making it one of the most extensive longitudinal investigations into life goals and parenthood.
A key aspect of the study was its consideration of goal adjustment, particularly whether individuals who did not become parents disengaged from the goal of having children in midlife and how this shift influenced their well-being.
The findings challenge common assumptions about parenthood and well-being. On average, adults with and without children showed remarkably similar midlife well-being trajectories. However, there were some notable differences.
Young adults who did not become parents reported better mental health and lower levels of negative affect compared to those who eventually had children. However, they also reported lower levels of positive affect and higher loneliness, suggesting a more stable but emotionally subdued experience compared to the greater emotional variability associated with parenthood.
Over time, these differences diminished, with both groups showing converging well-being trajectories in midlife.
One of the most striking findings was that individuals who highly prioritized having children in their 20s but did not become parents experienced declines in mental health, cognitive well-being, and affective well-being in midlife. In contrast, those who disengaged from the goal of having children later in life showed increases in life satisfaction, suggesting that adjusting expectations plays a crucial role in long-term well-being.
There were also gender differences, with fathers reporting significantly lower levels of loneliness in midlife compared to both mothers and individuals without children, suggesting that fatherhood may offer unique social benefits.
These results highlight the complexity of life goals and well-being, emphasizing that it is not simply parenthood itself that influences long-term happiness, but rather how individuals set, pursue, and ultimately adapt their goals across the lifespan.
One limitation of this study is that it could not distinguish between individuals who chose to remain childfree and those who wanted children but could not have them. This distinction may have affected well-being outcomes.
The study, “(https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0000862) Kids or No Kids? Life Goals in One’s 20s Predict Midlife Trajectories of Well-Being,” was authored by Laura Buchinger, Iris V. Wahring, Nilam Ram, Christiane A. Hoppmann, Jutta Heckhausen, and Denis Gerstorf.

(https://www.psypost.org/people-with-dark-personalities-more-likely-to-use-unethical-tactics-in-negotiations/) People with dark personalities more likely to use unethical tactics in negotiations
Feb 14th 2025, 16:00

A new study has found that individuals with dark personality traits are more inclined to use inappropriate strategies when negotiating. This tendency is amplified in situations where they perceive less dependence on the other party and stand to gain significant personal benefits. However, the researchers also discovered that an individual’s concern for maintaining relationships can somewhat lessen the likelihood of resorting to these unethical tactics. The findings were published in (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2024.112790) Personality and Individual Differences.
Negotiation is a regular part of professional life, from discussing project goals with colleagues to setting salaries with new employees. In these situations, people often balance their own interests with the need to be fair to others. Unfortunately, research shows that individuals frequently resort to unethical tactics to get ahead. These tactics can include aggressive bargaining, making promises they don’t intend to keep, misrepresenting facts, manipulating someone’s professional network, and even secretly gathering information to use as leverage. While we know personality and situational factors can influence these behaviors, there is still much to learn about which specific personality traits and situations are most influential, and how they interact.
To address this gap, researchers investigated the role of what they termed the “dark core” of personality. This concept describes a basic tendency in people to cause problems for others to achieve their own aims, while also justifying their actions. The dark core encompasses a range of negative traits such as manipulation, psychopathy, narcissism, greed, sadism, spitefulness, amorality, egoism, feeling entitled, lacking moral restraint, and self-centeredness. The researchers wanted to see how this dark core, combined with different work situations, might affect the use of inappropriate negotiation strategies.
The study was conducted in two parts. The first part examined personality traits and individual tendencies. Researchers recruited 283 managers working in India. These managers completed questionnaires designed to measure their dark core personality traits, their relational interdependent self-construal (how much they value and consider their relationships with others), and their self-reported use of inappropriate negotiation strategies. The relational interdependent self-construal measures how much people are motivated to build close relationships and consider the impact of their actions on others. The questionnaire on negotiation strategies assessed five types of unethical tactics: competitive bargaining, false promises, misrepresentation of facts, attacking someone’s professional network, and gathering inappropriate information.
The managers completed the questionnaires in two separate sessions, spaced three weeks apart, to reduce the possibility of biased answers. They were assured their responses would be anonymous and used for research purposes only. To match responses from the two sessions, participants created a personal code. Any responses without matching codes were discarded to ensure data accuracy.
The second part of the study shifted to situational factors and involved 221 postgraduate business students in India. These students participated in a controlled experiment designed as a “dictator game.” In this game, students were placed in the role of a supervisor negotiating with a subordinate. The experiment was designed to manipulate two situational variables: interdependence and incentives.
Interdependence was varied at three levels: low, medium, and high. Low interdependence meant the supervisor and subordinate were portrayed as having little impact on each other’s future. High interdependence suggested their roles were closely linked, and their future success was reliant on each other. Incentives were also manipulated at three levels: 30%, 60%, and 90%. These percentages represented the potential increase in earnings the supervisor could gain by using inappropriate negotiation strategies. For each combination of interdependence and incentive level, the students were asked to rate how likely they would be to use unethical tactics to increase their earnings.
The students were presented with nine different scenarios, each representing a unique combination of interdependence and incentive level. They indicated their likelihood of using inappropriate negotiation strategies on a six-point scale, ranging from “highly unlikely” to “strongly likely.” Before the experiment, students were informed about the different types of unethical negotiation strategies, the interdependence conditions, and the incentive structures. They were also assured of anonymity and given the option to withdraw from the study at any time.
The results of the first study revealed a significant link between the dark core personality traits and the use of unethical negotiation strategies. Managers who scored higher on the dark core scale were more likely to report using all five types of inappropriate negotiation tactics. Interestingly, relational interdependent self-construal played a mediating role. This means that while the dark core traits increased the likelihood of using unethical strategies, this effect was somewhat lessened by an individual’s stronger sense of relational interdependence. In other words, people with dark core traits who also valued relationships were less likely to act unethically compared to those with dark core traits who did not value relationships as much.
The second study confirmed that situational factors significantly influence the endorsement of unethical negotiation strategies. When interdependence was low, meaning the negotiators were less reliant on each other for future success, individuals were more likely to endorse using inappropriate tactics, especially when incentives were high. As interdependence increased, the likelihood of endorsing unethical strategies decreased. Furthermore, higher incentives consistently led to a greater willingness to use unethical tactics, regardless of the level of interdependence.
The researchers also examined the interaction between personality and situation. They found that the dark core personality traits interacted with both interdependence and incentives. For individuals with higher dark core scores, the level of interdependence had a less pronounced effect on their likelihood of using unethical strategies, particularly when incentives were high. In high incentive scenarios, those with dark core traits were willing to employ unethical tactics even when interdependence was medium or high, indicating that the lure of personal gain could override relational concerns for these individuals.
The study’s authors noted some limitations. Firstly, the dictator game design in the second study only looked at one-sided actions. Real negotiations are interactive, involving responses and reactions from both sides. Future research could use more complex negotiation games involving multiple rounds and interactions. Secondly, the negotiation task focused solely on dividing a fixed resource. Future studies could explore situations where cooperation could increase the overall value for both parties, and see if dark core individuals are still as likely to be unethical in these scenarios.
The study, “(https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2024.112790) When the dark one negotiates: Sacrificing relations at the altar of money,” was authored by Sujit Sekhar and Nishant Uppal.

(https://www.psypost.org/sexual-shame-a-hidden-barrier-to-womens-intimacy-and-fulfillment/) Sexual shame: A hidden barrier to women’s intimacy and fulfillment
Feb 14th 2025, 14:00

A new review published in (https://www.mdpi.com/2411-5118/5/4/47) Sexes proposes that sexual shame reduces sexual arousal and desire, leading to poorer sexual functioning. Sexual shame itself is determined by a multitude of biological, psychological, and cultural factors.
Sexual difficulties affect many women worldwide. Some studies indicate that between 30% and 50% of women report problems with sexual functioning. These problems include reduced desire and arousal, difficulties in experiencing orgasm (or an inability to experience it), and pain. The number of women experiencing these difficulties is probably even greater than studies report due to the social stigma associated with acknowledging and reporting sexual issues.
Many factors can lead to sexual difficulties in women, and sexual shame is one of them. Sexual shame is a deeply internalized feeling of guilt, embarrassment, or discomfort related to one’s sexuality. It is typically shaped by cultural, religious, or societal norms. In women, it can manifest as a negative body image, difficulty discussing sexual desires, or avoidance of sexual experiences due to a fear of judgment.
Some women experience guilt after sexual activity, even in consensual or committed relationships, due to learned beliefs that sex is inappropriate or “wrong.” Sexual shame can also lead to suppressed sexual desire, anxiety about intimacy, or dissociation during sexual encounters. Women with high levels of sexual shame tend to struggle with asserting boundaries or communicating their needs, fearing rejection or criticism. Over time, this can impact self-esteem, emotional well-being, and the ability to form healthy, fulfilling relationships.
Researchers Camilla Graziani and Meredith L. Chivers reviewed the existing literature on the role of sexual shame in women’s sexual difficulties and proposed a theoretical model describing the potential relationships among the factors involved. They based their review on published reviews, empirical studies, discussion and theoretical papers, and dissertations obtained through keyword searches on Google Scholar. The keywords they used included women, shame, sexual shame, sexual functioning, sexual dysfunction, arousal, desire, orgasm, and pain.
The authors define shame as a self-conscious emotion involving the global devaluation of the self. At its core, shame attacks an individual’s desire to be loved, valued, and seen as deserving and desirable. It stems from real or perceived negative evaluations by others. Sexual shame overlaps with this general concept of shame in that it is “a visceral feeling of disgust and self-abasement directed toward one’s physical body, sexual being, and identity, and includes beliefs and feelings of inferiority, inadequacy, and helplessness, resulting in perceiving the self as flawed and defective.”
The researchers then identified a list of factors that contribute to the experience of sexual shame in women. These factors include sociocultural messages about women’s sexuality, body image, genital self-image, sexual self-schemas, sexual pain, chronic diseases and illnesses, sexual trauma, experiences of childhood sexual abuse and adult sexual violence, and posttraumatic stress disorder.
Sociocultural messages about women’s sexuality, rooted in religious, familial, and media narratives, shape expectations that can make women feel ashamed of their sexual desires or behaviors. The authors discuss how these messages shape women’s internalized sexual norms, leading to shame when their desires or behaviors deviate from societal expectations. Body image, or how a woman perceives her physical appearance, influences sexual confidence. When this body image is negative, it can lead to feelings of shame and discomfort during intimacy, and even to the avoidance of sexual experiences.
Similarly, genital self-image concerns (a woman’s perception of the appearance and function of her genitals) can contribute to shame when societal beauty standards or misinformation about “normal” anatomy create self-doubt. Women’s sexual self-schemas (cognitive representations of one’s own sexuality) influence the ability to feel desire and engage in fulfilling sexual activities, with negative schemas reinforcing shame.
Chronic sexual pain disorders, such as dyspareunia and vaginismus, can lead to shame by making women feel inadequate or fearful of being unable to meet perceived sexual expectations. Additionally, chronic illnesses like diabetes and endometriosis can disrupt sexual function, and the resulting difficulties may heighten feelings of shame and a loss of sexual identity.
Women who have experienced sexual trauma may internalize shame, associating sexual activity with guilt, fear, and distress. Survivors of childhood sexual abuse sometimes struggle with shame-related cognitive distortions, which can impair their ability to form healthy sexual relationships. Adult sexual violence can lead to persistent sexual shame, particularly when victims face societal stigma or internalize self-blame for the assault. Finally, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, such as hypervigilance and avoidance, further reinforce sexual shame by making intimacy feel unsafe or emotionally distressing.
In turn, sexual shame reduces sexual arousal and desire, leading to poorer sexual functioning.
“This review brings attention to the powerful and negative impacts of sexual shame on women’s sexual functioning in the areas of arousal, desire, orgasm, and pain. Additionally, we present a model theorizing how sexual shame impacts affective and attentional processes in sexual functioning for women. Our synthesis of research to date identifies the complex and multifactorial biopsychosocial and interpersonal factors that contribute to sexual shame and the association between sexual shame and negative sexual functioning outcomes for women,” study authors concluded.
The paper proposes a comprehensive theoretical model of sexual shame and its role in female sexuality. However, it should be noted that this model is theoretical and derived from synthesizing existing research findings. Specific predictions of the model might require testing in empirical research.
The paper “(https://doi.org/10.3390/sexes5040047) Sexual Shame and Women’s Sexual Functioning” was authored by Camilla Graziani and Meredith L. Chivers.

(https://www.psypost.org/exercise-boosts-memory-for-up-to-24-hours-after-a-workout/) Exercise boosts memory for up to 24 hours after a workout
Feb 14th 2025, 12:00

What’s good for your heart is good for your brain. Just as physical activity helps keep our bodies fit and strong as we age, it also helps maintain our cognitive function – and is even linked with (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01296-0/abstract) lower dementia risk.
Yet beyond the longer term cognitive benefits of physical activity, exercise also seems to give a short-term boost to cognitive performance lasting from minutes to hours. According to our latest study, this cognitive boost may last up to 24-hours after exercising. Because some cognitive abilities start to decline as we get older, even small boosts to cognitive function can help keep us active and independent for longer.
Studies conducted both in the lab and real-world settings have shown that people who are more physically active – whether that’s in the form of (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5928534/) structured workouts or they just do more activity in their (https://ijbnpa.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12966-023-01536-9) day-to-day lives – perform better on cognitive tests in the hours after exercising.
But one question researchers are still trying to answer is how long these cognitive benefits last – particularly in older adults, where maintaining cognitive function is very important. This is what our research aimed to do.
In (https://ijbnpa.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12966-024-01683-7) our study of middle-aged and older adults, we found that people who did more moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (such as jogging or cycling) performed better on memory tests the following day. This suggests that the memory benefits of physical activity might last longer than the couple of hours found in previous, (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5928534/) lab-based studies.
Our study involved 76 participants aged 50-83. Each participant wore a wrist-worn activity tracker for eight days and nights. They were instructed to go about their daily lives as usual. From these activity trackers, we were able to see how much time participants spent being sedentary or physically active each day – and how intense this physical activity was.
Because physical activity also (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0278591904001395?via%3Dihub) affects sleep quality – particularly the amount of time spent in the deepest and most restorative sleep phase, referred to as slow-wave sleep – we were also interested in exploring the role of sleep in cognitive performance. We extracted sleep quality characteristics from the activity trackers – including total sleep duration and time spent in slow-wave sleep.
On each day the participants wore the activity trackers, they also took a set of cognitive tests. Some of these cognitive tests assessed episodic memory (being able to recollect previous experiences) and working memory (the ability to temporarily store information in the mind). The type of cognitive tests the participants were given alternated each day to reduce the chances of participants learning and remembering the answers.
We wanted to be sure we had isolated the effect of physical activity and sleep on next-day cognitive performance. So, we took into account a number of demographic, socioeconomic and lifestyle characteristics that could have distorted the results. Each day, we also accounted for a participant’s previous cognitive score to be sure we were focusing on day-to-day improvements in cognitive performance.
Memory boost
We found that the more time a participant spent doing moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, the better their episodic and working memory scores were the following day. Getting more sleep, particularly slow-wave sleep, was also associated with improvement in memory scores – independently of physical activity. But people who were more sedentary had worse working memory scores the following day.
While the improvement in memory performance was relatively modest, none of our participants had cognitive impairment or dementia. So they realistically did not have much room to improve on these tests to begin with.
But these results could serve as a jumping-off point for future studies examining next-day cognitive performance in people with neurodegenerative diseases – such as dementia, where we might see larger improvements in test scores. These findings also need replicating in a larger study before we can be sure of them.
The short-term cognitive benefits of exercise are thought to occur because exercise stimulates blood flow and the release of specific brain chemicals that (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5928534/) contribute to cognitive function. Generally, these neurochemical benefits are thought to last a couple hours following exercise. However, other changes induced by exercise — including some (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5928534/) implicated in memory function — might last for 24-48 hours following exercise. This might underlie the results we found in our study.
Our findings point to the importance of maintaining active lifestyles as we age – and supporting this active lifestyle with good sleep.
 
This article is republished from (https://theconversation.com) The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the (https://theconversation.com/exercise-boosts-memory-for-up-to-24-hours-after-a-workout-new-research-245693) original article.

(https://www.psypost.org/study-shows-growing-link-between-racial-attitudes-and-anti-democratic-beliefs-among-white-americans/) Study shows growing link between racial attitudes and anti-democratic beliefs among White Americans
Feb 14th 2025, 10:45

A new study published in the (https://doi.org/10.1017/rep.2025.1) Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics has found that anti-democratic sentiments among white Americans, such as support for voting restrictions and the belief in widespread voter fraud, are strongly connected to racial attitudes, especially negative feelings towards minority groups. While the prevalence of these anti-democratic beliefs has not increased over the past decade, the study indicates they have become more interconnected and are now more closely tied to racial resentment and the perception that white people are losing status in society.
“Newspaper headlines and academics have signaled alarm over the state of America’s democracy in recent years, especially in the wake of President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results,” said study author (https://www.joshuaferrer.com/) Joshua Ferrer, a PhD candidate at UCLA who will be starting as an assistant professor at American University in the Fall.
“There has been particular concern over declining popular support for democratic laws and ideals, such as the peaceful transfer of power, a fully inclusive participatory democracy, and confidence in the integrity of our elections. We were interested in shedding light on the contours of these anti-democratic beliefs, including whether they have grown more prevalent in recent years, how interconnected they are, and the role that racial attitudes play in shaping them. We also wanted to connect four different beliefs together in one analysis: support for voting restrictions, opposition to voting expansions, belief in widespread voter fraud, and support for overturning democratic election results.”
To conduct their research, the researchers analyzed data from several large national surveys conducted between 2012 and 2022. These surveys included the Political Unrest Study, the Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey, the Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape survey, and the Survey of the Performance of American Elections. These surveys involved large samples of American adults and collected information on a wide range of political and social attitudes. For this particular study, the researchers focused specifically on responses from white Americans to understand the dynamics within this demographic group. They used survey weights to ensure that the results accurately reflected the views of the broader white adult population in the United States.
The researchers examined several measures of anti-democratic beliefs. These included support for policies that make voting more difficult, such as voter identification laws, and opposition to policies that expand voting access, like same-day voter registration and mail-in voting. They also looked at belief in widespread voter fraud and support for actions that would overturn the results of democratic elections. To measure racial attitudes, the study used questions assessing racial resentment, which reflects negative feelings towards minority groups based on the belief that they are demanding too much or gaining unfair advantages. They also measured anti-immigrant sentiment and the feeling that white people are experiencing discrimination. The study also considered attitudes reflecting positive feelings towards white people as a group.
In addition to analyzing survey data, the researchers also conducted an experiment within one of their surveys, the Political Unrest Study. In this experiment, participants were randomly assigned to read different descriptions of voting policies. Some participants read descriptions that were race-neutral, while others read descriptions that explicitly mentioned the racial implications of these policies, such as how limiting Sunday voting might affect Black communities or how expanding mail-in voting could benefit communities of color and immigrants. By comparing the responses of these different groups, the researchers could test whether highlighting the racial aspects of voting policies influenced white Americans’ support for or opposition to these policies.
The researchers found that the overall level of anti-democratic beliefs among white Americans has not significantly increased between 2012 and 2022. In fact, some measures of anti-democratic beliefs, such as opposition to voting expansions and belief in voter fraud, have even slightly decreased over this period. However, the study also found that different anti-democratic beliefs have become more closely linked together over time. This means that white Americans who hold one anti-democratic belief, such as support for voter identification laws, are now more likely to also hold other anti-democratic beliefs, such as believing in widespread voter fraud or opposing expanded voting options.
“We expected to find more evidence of increasing polarization in anti-democratic beliefs,” Ferrer told PsyPost. “While we found modest evidence of an increasing gap in anti-democratic beliefs between Democrats and Republicans, this trend is far overshadowed by the increasing connection between out-group racial attitudes and anti-democratic beliefs.”
The study found little evidence that positive feelings towards white people as a group were related to anti-democratic beliefs. But there was a strong connection between other racial attitudes and anti-democratic beliefs. White Americans who expressed higher levels of racial resentment, anti-immigrant sentiment, or who believed that white people face discrimination were significantly more likely to support voting restrictions, oppose voting expansions, believe in voter fraud, and support overturning election results. This relationship held even when considering other factors like political party affiliation, ideology, and support for Donald Trump.
“The most explanatory variable by far in explaining support for voting restrictions, opposition to voting expansions, belief in widespread voter fraud, and support for overturning democratic election results is favorability towards President Trump,” Ferrer noted. “However, it should be noted that the relationship between anti-democratic beliefs and racial attitudes persists even after accounting for Trump favorability, as well as partisanship, ideology, education, gender, age, income, religion, and conspiratorial beliefs. ”
Furthermore, the study found that racial attitudes have become increasingly important in explaining anti-democratic beliefs over the past decade. Racial resentment and the belief that white people are discriminated against were about twice as influential in shaping anti-democratic beliefs in 2020 compared to 2012.
The experimental part of the study provided further evidence for the role of racial attitudes. When voting policies were described in a way that explicitly highlighted their racial implications, white Americans showed increased support for voting restrictions and decreased support for voting expansions. This suggests that racial considerations can directly influence opinions on democratic processes and policies.
“On the one hand, anti-democratic beliefs have not grown more prevalent among white Americans, nor have they become increasingly polarized between the two parties,” Ferrer said. “This is cause for relief among some of the doomsday headlines signaling the end of American democracy.”
“On the other hand, we find a close connection between anti-democratic beliefs and attitudes towards other racial and ethnic groups. White Americans who are racially resentful towards Blacks, hold negative views of immigrants, and believe that whites are being discriminated against are especially likely to hold anti-democratic beliefs. Over the past decade, racial resentment and white racial grievance have grown particularly connected to anti-democratic beliefs.”
The researchers acknowledged some limitations to their study. Like all survey-based research, this study relies on self-reported attitudes and beliefs, which may not always perfectly reflect individuals’ true feelings or behaviors. The research also focused exclusively on non-Hispanic white Americans, meaning that the patterns observed may not apply to other racial or ethnic groups. Future research could examine a more diverse sample or explore in more detail the specific mechanisms through which racial attitudes influence anti-democratic beliefs.
Despite these limitations, this study provides important insights into the nature of anti-democratic beliefs in contemporary American politics. It highlights that these beliefs are not simply driven by partisan politics or fleeting political figures, but are deeply intertwined with racial attitudes and perceptions of social status.
“In order to preserve and strengthen America’s democracy, it is necessary to understand why some people have grown skeptical of its usefulness,” Ferrer said. “Especially with Trump’s return to the presidency and his policies attacking DEI initiatives, it is more important than ever that we confront the racial underpinnings of anti-democratic sentiments in order to build a more inclusive and resilient democracy. We believe we are witnessing important changes to how democratic beliefs are racialized, and will continue to explore the relationship between racial attitudes and support for democracy.”
The study, “(https://doi.org/10.1017/rep.2025.1) Beyond the Trump Presidency: The Racial Underpinnings of White Americans’ Anti-Democratic Beliefs,” was authored by Joshua Ferrer and Christopher Palmisano.

(https://www.psypost.org/brain-inflammation-affects-behavior-differently-in-males-and-females-study-finds/) Brain inflammation affects behavior differently in males and females, study finds
Feb 14th 2025, 10:00

A new study published in (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0889159124006950) Brain, Behavior, and Immunity has found that inflammation in a key memory center of the brain can change motivated behavior in mice, and these changes occur differently in males and females. The research shows that when an inflammatory substance is introduced directly into the hippocampus, it alters how mice learn to seek food and even affects basic movement patterns, with female mice showing some unique changes compared to their male counterparts.
Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and depression are just a few of the conditions that share a common trait: inflammation in the hippocampus. This inflammation is thought to interfere with everyday behaviors, affecting the drive to seek food, perform routine tasks, and pursue personal goals.
Despite this connection, it remains uncertain whether inflammation by itself is enough to cause these behavioral changes. In most of these disorders, inflammation occurs alongside other brain abnormalities, making it difficult to pinpoint the exact role of inflammation in altering behavior.
To clarify this issue, lead author Kiruthika Ganesan, together with her PhD supervisor (https://profiles.uts.edu.au/Laura.Bradfield.) Laura A. Bradfield and their research team, focused exclusively on the impact of inflammation. Their study was designed to determine whether inflammation alone could be responsible for the differences in behavior observed in these conditions.
“I am a behavioural neuroscientist with an interest in the behavioural and brain mechanisms of action control,” explained Bradfield, a senior research fellow at the University of Technology Sydney.
“Prior to this study, I reported a finding that a transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer’s showed behavioural deficits (1) . From this study, we wanted to know if it was neuroinflammation that caused these behavioural deficits (the prior study suggested a correlation, here we tested causation). The fact that it did so in a sex-specific manner was a complete surprise, as the prior transgenic mice looked similar in females and males, although they were older.”
The researchers conducted a series of experiments, starting with cells grown in the laboratory. They began by studying neurons from the hippocampus in isolation, in what is known as a monoculture. They exposed these pure neuron cultures to a substance called lipopolysaccharide, which is known to trigger inflammation. Interestingly, they found that lipopolysaccharide applied directly to these neurons did not significantly alter their activity levels.
However, when they repeated the experiment using cultures that contained a mix of neurons and glial cells – the support cells of the brain, including astrocytes and microglia – they observed a different result. In these mixed cultures, the same inflammatory substance did increase neuronal activity. This initial finding suggested that glial cells, specifically astrocytes, might play a role in how inflammation affects neurons and subsequently behavior.
Following these cell culture experiments, Ganesan, Bradfield and their colleagues moved to studying live mice. Young adult male and female mice underwent a precise surgical procedure where lipopolysaccharide was injected directly into the dorsal hippocampus, the part of the hippocampus involved in learning and memory. A control group of mice received injections of saline, a harmless solution. After the injections, the animals were given time to recover, and then they were placed in special test chambers to measure different aspects of motivated behavior.
The researchers examined instrumental food-seeking by teaching the mice to press two different levers, each of which delivered a distinct food reward. Over several training sessions, the animals learned that pressing one lever produced a small food pellet while pressing the other delivered a sugar solution. After a few days of training, the scientists carried out a test in which one of the food rewards was made less desirable by allowing the mice to eat it until they were full. The idea was that a mouse relying on goal-directed behavior would press the lever for the food it still wanted rather than the food it had just eaten.
The findings showed that female mice with inflammation pressed the levers more frequently than their control counterparts, suggesting that the inflammatory treatment led them to work harder to obtain food. Moreover, both male and female mice that received the inflammatory treatment showed a more pronounced preference for the lever linked to the more desirable food reward during the early test, which indicated an accelerated shift toward goal-directed behavior.
“As mentioned before, we did not expect sex differences at all (we have a study looking at neuroinflammation in a different part of the brain, the striatum, and found no sex differences in that study), so that was a surprise,” the researchers told PsyPost.
“The fact that goal-directed learning was accelerated rather than impaired (in both male and female mice) was also a surprise. We gave several potential reasons for this in the discussion, including the age of the animals, and the fact that accelerated learning in this case may not actually be a good thing, but rather could represent an imbalance between goal-directed and habit learning.”
Another test focused on the natural tendency of mice to approach areas where food is usually delivered. In this case, the researchers measured the number of times the mice poked their heads into the food magazine—the spot in the operant chamber where food rewards were normally dispensed.
During the initial training days, when food was still being provided, the number of these “head entries” was similar among all groups of mice. However, when the animals were later tested in a situation where food was no longer delivered, a clear sex-specific pattern emerged. Female mice that had been given the inflammatory substance made fewer head entries, suggesting that the inflammation disrupted their memory or expectation of food delivery. By contrast, male mice with inflammation made more head entries than their control peers, implying that their recall of the food-associated location was enhanced. This divergence indicates that the inflammatory treatment affects the way male and female mice remember and respond to cues related to food.
A further behavioral assessment involved placing the mice in an open arena to measure their overall activity and levels of anxiety. In this open field test, each mouse was allowed to explore a large, unobstructed space while its movements were tracked. The total distance traveled during a ten-minute session provided a measure of general activity.
In this test, mice that had received the inflammatory treatment in the hippocampus moved a greater overall distance than those that received a control injection, regardless of their sex. This finding suggests that the inflammation boosted the animals’ basic level of locomotion.
Additionally, the researchers looked at how much time the mice spent in the center of the arena compared to the edges. Typically, spending more time in the open center is interpreted as a sign of reduced anxiety, while sticking to the perimeter suggests increased anxiety. Here, male mice generally spent more time in the center than female mice. The inflammatory treatment did not alter these patterns, indicating that while the treatment increased movement, it did not directly change the animals’ anxiety-like behaviors.
After completing the behavioral assessments, the researchers examined the brains of the mice to see if the injections had indeed caused inflammation and to explore any changes in brain cell activity. They prepared thin slices of the dorsal hippocampus and used special staining techniques to look for markers of inflammation.
The scientists found higher levels of a protein associated with inflammation, known as tumor necrosis factor alpha, in the brains of the mice that had received the lipopolysaccharide injection. They also observed changes in the appearance of microglia and astrocytes, the supportive cells in the brain that become activated during inflammation.
Importantly, the amount of neuronal activation—as indicated by a marker called c-Fos—changed in opposite ways depending on the sex of the animal. In female mice, the inflammatory challenge led to increased neuronal activity, while in males, the same treatment resulted in reduced activity. This pattern is particularly interesting because it may explain why the behavioral effects of inflammation differed between the sexes.
“The glia-neuron interactions were also surprising,” Ganesan and Bradfield said. “The fact that neuroinflammation appeared to cause a sexually-dimorphic effect on neuronal activation in males and females (i.e. increasing it in females and decreasing it in males) is a potentially very important finding, that could underlie a lot of sex differences in diseases that feature hippocampal neuroinflammation. Neuroinflammation also caused morphological changes (i.e. changes in the shape of) in glial cells as well as in the expression of cytokine TNF-α that were sex specific.”
Together, the findings indicate that “chronic neuroinflammation alone causes multiple behavioural changes, and these can be the opposite in males and females,” the researchers explained. “For instance, one of our findings was that neuroinflammation improved food approach memories in male mice but impaired it in female mice. Given that Alzheimer’s disease – a disease that features both neuroinflammation and memory deficits – is twice as prevalent in females than males, this finding suggests that chronic neuroinflammation could be particularly harmful to females and could possibly underlie the higher rates of diagnoses.”
But the study, like all research, has some limitations. Using lipopolysaccharide to induce inflammation is a common experimental method, but it is not identical to the complex inflammatory processes that occur in human diseases.
“The work being done in mice obviously brings into question whether these effects would apply similarly in humans,” Ganesan and Bradfield noted. “By the same token, although lipopolysaccharide is very commonly used in research to induce neuroinflammation, whether it does so in a physiologically relevant manner is questionable (i.e. does the neuroinflammation we see in mice really match that induced in humans through more natural causes such as infection or injury? It’s impossible to say).”
Looking ahead, the authors hope to extend their work by investigating how long-lasting these effects on behavior and neuronal activation might be. They are also interested in exploring whether changes in the structure of neurons, such as the density of connections on their branches, are affected by inflammation in a sex-specific manner.
“Currently we are investigating dendritic spine density in the hippocampus of male and female rats that have neuroinflammation in one hemisphere, and have behavioural training (versus controls), and are again finding some interesting sex differences,” Ganesan and Bradfield said. “We don’t see these sex differences after inducing neuroinflammation in the striatum. Indeed, in humans, diseases that feature hippocampal neuroinflammation in particular (e.g. major depressive disorder, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s) seem to be more prevalent in females. I would like to know what it is that is unique about the hippocampus that makes it so susceptible to these sex/gender differences. In the longer term, I would of course love to figure out a way to treat and/or prevent the behavioural deficits that occur as a result of hippocampal neuroinflammation.”
Bradfield added: “The first author of the study, Kiruthika Ganesan, is an extremely talented researcher. She was my PhD student when she ran the study but is about to take up a new postdoctoral position in Germany and I’m super proud of her!”
The study, “Hippocampal neuroinflammation induced by lipopolysaccharide causes sex-specific disruptions in action selection, food approach memories, and neuronal activation,” was authored by Kiruthika Ganesan, Sahar Ghorbanpour, William Kendall, Sarah Thomas Broome, Joanne M. Gladding, Amolika Dhungana, Arvie Rodriguez Abiero, Maedeh Mahmoudi, Alessandro Castorina, Michael D. Kendig, Serena Becchi, Veronika Valova, Louise Cole, and Laura A. Bradfield.

Forwarded by:
Michael Reeder LCPC
Baltimore, MD

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