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<td><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:20px;font-weight:bold;">PsyPost – Psychology News Daily Digest (Unofficial)</span></td>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/gender-and-creativity-new-study-challenges-traditional-views/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Gender and creativity: New study challenges traditional views</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Feb 3rd 2025, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in the <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2025-04526-001"><em>Journal of Applied Psychology</em></a> challenges the common belief that men are inherently more creative than women. Instead, the research suggests that men and women tend to express their creativity in different ways, with men leaning into risk-taking and women leveraging their empathetic abilities. Notably, the research demonstrates that empathy can be a more powerful driver of creativity than risk-taking, especially when the usefulness of ideas is taken into account.</p>
<p>Creativity is often portrayed as a trait associated with independence, risk-taking, and self-confidence—qualities that align more with traditional masculine gender roles. Prior studies have shown that people tend to perceive men as more creative than women, even when they present identical ideas. This perception may be due to an overemphasis on novelty as the defining characteristic of creativity while underestimating the role of usefulness. The researchers sought to challenge this one-sided perspective by exploring whether creativity can also stem from communal behaviors such as empathy, which align more with traditional feminine gender roles.</p>
<p>Drawing on social role theory, which suggests that societal expectations shape behaviors and attitudes based on gender, the researchers hypothesized that both men and women could be creative, but through different mechanisms. Men, they predicted, would exhibit creativity through risk-taking, whereas women would do so through empathy. They also aimed to examine the conditions under which empathy-driven creativity could be more recognized and valued.</p>
<p>“This idea emerged from discussions with my coauthors. We noted that creativity research often emphasizes the novelty aspect of creativity while neglecting the importance of its usefulness aspect, although both aspects are important (i.e., ideas need to be both novel and useful in order to be creative),” said study author Joohyung (Jenny) Kim, an assistant professor at City University of Hong Kong.</p>
<p>“Further, because men are typically better at the former (because of their risk-taking tendency) while women are typically better at the latter (because of their empathic tendency) given their gender role expectations, we thought this may explain why men are often viewed as more creative.”</p>
<p>To test their hypotheses, the researchers conducted a meta-analysis, which is a method for combining and analyzing the results of multiple independent studies on a particular topic. They searched through academic databases, previous meta-analyses, major academic conferences, and dissertations. They identified 700 studies involving 753 independent samples, encompassing a total of 265,762 individuals. These studies examined the relationships between gender and creativity.</p>
<p>The studies included in the meta-analysis measured creativity in various ways, including self-ratings, supervisor or peer ratings, and assessments by independent raters. Importantly, the studies also measured risk-taking tendency, which is the inclination to make choices that involve uncertainty and the possibility of either significant gains or losses, and empathic tendency, which is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others.</p>
<p>The researchers coded each study based on how these variables were measured. For example, they noted whether a study’s measure of creativity explicitly included usefulness as a criterion for evaluating creative ideas. They also coded whether the tasks involved in a study required participants to consider the perspectives of the people who would use the ideas they generated. To ensure accuracy, two members of the research team independently coded the studies, and any disagreements were resolved through discussion. They also consulted with subject matter experts to validate their coding decisions.</p>
<p>The results of the meta-analysis provided strong support for the researchers’ hypotheses. First, they found that men tended to score higher on risk-taking tendency, while women scored higher on empathic tendency. Second, they found that both risk-taking tendency and empathic tendency were positively related to creativity. This means that individuals who were more willing to take risks tended to be more creative, and individuals who were more empathetic also tended to be more creative.</p>
<p>The researchers then examined whether risk-taking tendency and empathic tendency could explain the relationship between gender and creativity. They found that men’s higher levels of risk-taking tendency partially explained why they might be perceived as more creative. On the other hand, women’s higher levels of empathic tendency also explained a significant portion of the relationship between gender and creativity.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the researchers found that empathic tendency was a stronger explanatory factor than risk-taking tendency. Furthermore, they looked at whether the relationship between empathic tendency and creativity was influenced by the context in which creativity was assessed. They found that when the assessment of creativity explicitly included usefulness as a criterion, the positive relationship between empathic tendency and creativity became even stronger. This suggests that when creativity is evaluated not just on novelty but also on how useful an idea is, individuals with higher empathic tendency are more likely to be recognized as creative.</p>
<p>“Both men and women have their own strengths when it comes to creativity,” Kim told PsyPost. “To help them bring their strengths to the table and to build a more equitable workplace, organizations should adopt creativity evaluation systems that put equivalent emphasis on both novelty and usefulness.”</p>
<p>The researchers also conducted a number of additional analyses to test the robustness of their findings. For example, they controlled for factors such as education level and social network connections. Across all these analyses, the main findings remained consistent.</p>
<p>The researchers also examined whether the gender gap in creativity remained when creativity was assessed by individuals unaware of the creator’s gender. When evaluators knew the gender of the individual being assessed, men were rated as slightly more creative than women. But when gender was hidden, this difference vanished.</p>
<p>“Although this was not extensively discussed in the paper, we found (in our supplementary analysis) that gender differences in creativity disappeared when the raters of creativity were blind to the creator’s gender,” Kim said. “This shows the impact of gender-related biases in creativity evaluation and suggests that creativity evaluators (typically supervisors) should be heedful of these biases in their creativity assessments.”</p>
<p>The researchers acknowledge that their study has limitations. As a meta-analysis, it relies on the data collected in previous studies, which may have their own limitations. For example, most of the studies did not allow the researchers to determine whether gender influenced creativity above and beyond gender role differences. Future research could investigate this question further. Additionally, the number of studies available for some analyses, particularly those examining the impact of workplace conditions, was relatively small.</p>
<p>“The number of studies examined for the moderator analyses was not very large, so we encourage future research to replicate our findings,” Kim said.</p>
<p>The study highlights the importance of fostering environments that encourage diverse approaches to creativity. While risk-taking can be valuable in certain contexts, organizations should also create space for more collaborative, empathetic forms of creative problem-solving.</p>
<p>“My ultimate goal is to alter perceptions about gender and contribute to a more equitable workplace through my research,” Kim said.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/apl0001205">Looking Inside the Black Box of Gender Differences in Creativity: A Dual-Process Model and Meta-Analysis</a>,” was authored by Joohyung (Jenny) Kim, Manuel J. Vaulont, Zhen Zhang, and Kris Byron.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/algorithmic-manipulation-tiktok-use-predicts-positive-views-of-chinas-human-rights-record/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Algorithmic manipulation? TikTok use predicts positive views of China’s human rights record</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Feb 3rd 2025, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/social-psychology/articles/10.3389/frsps.2024.1497434/full"><em>Frontiers in Social Psychology</em></a> suggests that the popular social media platform TikTok may be manipulated to conceal content critical of the Chinese government while amplifying narratives aligned with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The research, which involved three separate studies, found that TikTok users were exposed to significantly less content critical of China compared to users of other platforms like Instagram and YouTube. Additionally, the study found that heavier TikTok users tended to have more positive views of China’s human rights record and were more likely to consider China a desirable travel destination.</p>
<p>Authoritarian regimes such as those in Russia and Iran have increasingly used social media to manipulate information and advance their strategic interests. China, in particular, has developed sophisticated strategies to control narratives and influence public opinion through digital platforms. This phenomenon, often referred to as “networked authoritarianism,” involves state actors using subtle tactics like algorithmic manipulation and strategic content curation to shape narratives on popular social media platforms.</p>
<p>These tactics are particularly effective because they are often invisible to users, making overt censorship or manipulation difficult to detect. Given that TikTok is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, concerns have been raised that it may be susceptible to influence from the CCP, either directly or through algorithmic adjustments. The study aimed to assess whether TikTok’s content curation patterns differed from those of other social media platforms and, if so, whether these differences aligned with Chinese government interests.</p>
<p>“China is a communist country. The CCP has a vast propaganda apparatus and a long record of enforcing conformity to its preferences,” said study author <a href="https://unsafescience.substack.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lee Jussim</a>, a distinguished professor of psychology at Rutgers University and author of <em><a href="https://amzn.to/3CnJ1nJ" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Poisoning of the American Mind</a></em>. “Many before us have raised concerns about whether the CCP exerts undue influence on TikTok to further its goals. We decided to empirically assess whether this was the case regarding issues about which the CCP was likely to be sensitive.”</p>
<p>To address this, the researchers conducted three studies.</p>
<p>In Study 1, Jussim and his colleagues employed a user journey methodology to simulate the experience of new users on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, specifically focusing on content related to sensitive issues for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). They created 24 new accounts on each platform, designated as belonging to 16-year-old users from the United States. The researchers then used these accounts to search for four keywords: “Uyghur,” “Xinjiang,” “Tibet,” and “Tiananmen.” For each search, they collected the first 300 videos served by the platform’s algorithm, recording data such as the video’s URL, upload date, and the time spent viewing it.</p>
<p>After collecting the video data, two independent analysts coded each video as “pro-CCP,” “anti-CCP,” “neutral,” or “irrelevant” based on a pre-defined coding system. Content explicitly critical of the Chinese government’s actions or policies was coded as “anti-CCP,” while content promoting positive narratives about China or supporting the Chinese government was coded as “pro-CCP.” Videos unrelated to politics or the search terms were classified as “irrelevant,” and those presenting factual information without explicit criticism or support were coded as “neutral.”</p>
<p>The researchers found significant differences in the type of content served on TikTok compared to Instagram and YouTube. Notably, TikTok searches yielded far less anti-CCP content than searches on the other platforms. For instance, only 2.5% of search results for “Uyghur” on TikTok were coded as anti-CCP, compared to 50% on Instagram and 54% on YouTube. Similarly, only 8.7% of “Tiananmen” search results on TikTok were anti-CCP, in contrast to 51% on Instagram and 58% on YouTube.</p>
<p>Additionally, TikTok searches produced a higher proportion of irrelevant content across most search terms compared to the other platforms, which aligned with the researchers’ “distraction hypothesis” – the idea that sensitive topics might be obscured by a flood of unrelated content.</p>
<p>Study 2 built on the findings of Study 1 by examining user engagement metrics, specifically the number of likes and comments, for pro-CCP and anti-CCP content across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. The researchers analyzed whether the prevalence of pro- and anti-CCP content aligned with user engagement data, which typically drives content amplification on social media platforms. They hypothesized that if TikTok’s algorithm was unbiased, the ratio of pro-CCP to anti-CCP content should be similar to the ratio of likes and comments for each type of content. Conversely, if TikTok was suppressing anti-CCP content, the ratio of pro-CCP to anti-CCP content would be much higher than the engagement ratios.</p>
<p>The researchers found that, across all platforms, users engaged far more with anti-CCP content than with pro-CCP content, as indicated by likes and comments. However, TikTok was the only platform that produced vastly more pro-CCP content than anti-CCP content in its search results. Specifically, on TikTok, users liked or commented on anti-CCP content nearly four times as much as they liked or commented on pro-CCP content, yet the search algorithm produced nearly three times as much pro-CCP content.</p>
<p>This discrepancy between user engagement and content served suggests that TikTok’s algorithm may be suppressing anti-CCP content despite its popularity among users. In contrast, Instagram and YouTube showed patterns more aligned with engagement metrics, indicating that their algorithms were likely driven more by commercial considerations than by potential propaganda objectives.</p>
<p>“The CCP exploits TikTok to protect and advance its interests,” Jussim told PsyPost.</p>
<p>In Study 3, Jussim and his colleagues conducted a survey of 1,214 American adults to investigate the relationship between social media usage and perceptions of China. Participants were recruited through Amazon’s Prime Panels CloudResearch service, and the sample was stratified to match U.S. census data on demographic categories. The survey assessed participants’ daily time spent on various social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, Reddit, and YouTube), their perceptions of China’s human rights record, and their views on China as a travel destination.</p>
<p>Participants rated the human rights records of ten countries, including China, on a scale from 1 (extremely poor) to 10 (extremely good), and indicated whether they believed China was one of the most desirable travel destinations in the world.</p>
<p>The researchers found a positive correlation between time spent on TikTok and favorable views of China. Specifically, the more time users reported spending on TikTok, the more positively they rated China’s human rights record and the more likely they were to agree that China is a desirable travel destination. These relationships held even when controlling for time spent on other social media platforms and demographic variables such as age, gender, ethnicity, and political affiliation. The relationship between TikTok use and favorable views of China was stronger than the relationships observed for other social media platforms, suggesting a unique association between TikTok usage and perceptions of China.</p>
<p>“I was most surprised at how strong the relationship was, in the third study, between TikTok use and ratings of China’s human rights record,” Jussim said. “The more time people spent on TikTok, the more positively they rated China’s human rights record.”</p>
<p>However, he noted that “our third study was a survey, not an experiment. So we know that the more time people spent on TikTok, the more positive views they held regarding China’s human rights record. Although it is possible that time spent on TikTok caused their views, our study demonstrated only the correlation, not a causal relationship.”</p>
<p>Additionally, while the study identified patterns suggesting potential algorithmic bias, it could not determine whether this bias results from direct interference by the Chinese government, self-censorship by TikTok’s parent company, or other factors.</p>
<p>Future research could examine whether similar patterns exist across different user demographics and geographic regions. Experimental studies could also assess whether exposure to different types of content on TikTok directly influences political attitudes over time. Additionally, researchers suggest investigating whether other social media platforms, including those owned by American companies, may also exhibit biases in content distribution related to geopolitical issues.</p>
<p>Despite these caveats, the findings contribute to a growing body of evidence that highlights the potential for social media platforms to serve as vehicles for state-sponsored narratives.</p>
<p>“One of America’s great strengths is that it is an open society,” Jussim said. “But that great strength also means that it is perennially vulnerable to manipulative propaganda promoted by those who wish to advance their own interests at the expense of our own, and to sow discord and weaken America. Exposing how malicious foreign actors do this is a labor of love. See also <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/social-psychology/articles/10.3389/frsps.2024.1408913/full" target="_blank" rel="noopener">our other recent paper</a> on how foreign funding of U.S. institutions of higher education predicts erosion of support for free speech and academic freedom, and increases in antisemitism.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/frsps.2024.1497434" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Information manipulation on TikTok and its relation to American users’ beliefs about China</a>,” was authored by Danit Finkelstein, Sonia Yanovsky, Jacob Zucker, Anisha Jagdeep, Collin Vasko, Ankita Jagdeep, Lee Jussim, and Joel Finkelstein.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/new-research-identifies-two-belief-systems-that-shape-reactions-to-diversity-initiatives/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">New research identifies two belief systems that shape reactions to diversity initiatives</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Feb 2nd 2025, 16:00</div>
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<p><p>A new psychological concept called “lay theories of diversity initiatives” may help explain why diversity programs sometimes face resistance from White Americans. This concept encompasses two distinct beliefs: “zero-sum beliefs,” which see diversity as a trade-off where minorities gain at the expense of Whites, and “win-win beliefs,” which see diversity as mutually beneficial. The findings, published in the journal <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/13684302231193320"><em>Group Processes & Intergroup Relations</em></a>, suggest that these beliefs influence whether majority group members resist or embrace diversity policies</p>
<p>Organizations across the United States invest heavily in diversity initiatives, which aim to create more inclusive environments and improve opportunities for underrepresented groups. While these initiatives can have positive outcomes for both minority and majority group members, they are <a href="https://www.psypost.org/racism-underlies-negative-reactions-to-requests-for-dei-statements-according-to-new-research/">sometimes met with resistance</a> from majority group members, such as White Americans.</p>
<p>In their new study, the researchers aimed to understand this resistance by investigating the underlying beliefs people hold about diversity initiatives. Previous research has shown that majority group members may perceive diversity initiatives as a threat to their economic opportunities, social status, sense of belonging, or desire for fair treatment. These perceptions often stem from a belief that efforts to help underrepresented groups <a href="https://www.psypost.org/diversity-initiatives-heighten-perceptions-of-anti-white-bias/">will inherently disadvantage majority groups</a>. However, not all majority group members share this view, and the study sought to explore the different beliefs that shape people’s responses to diversity initiatives.</p>
<p>The researchers conducted three separate studies to develop and validate their new measures of zero-sum beliefs and win-win beliefs.</p>
<p>In the first study, 548 American adults completed surveys designed to measure these beliefs. Participants were presented with statements such as “When organizations increase diversity, it ends up hurting White people” (assessing zero-sum beliefs) and “Everyone benefits when organizations increase diversity” (assessing win-win beliefs). Statistical analyses confirmed that these two belief systems were distinct from each other, rather than being opposite ends of the same spectrum. Further analyses confirmed the two-factor structure and demonstrated that the scales were reliable and valid across different demographic groups, including gender, race and ethnicity, and political ideology.</p>
<p>The second study aimed to further validate the new scales and examine their relationships with other established measures. A sample of 476 White American adults completed the zero-sum beliefs and win-win beliefs scales, along with measures of social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, old-fashioned racism, modern racism, system-justifying beliefs, symbolic threat, realistic threat, prototypicality threat, outgroup contact, social desirability, trait optimism, and trait pessimism.</p>
<p>Participants also rated their attitudes toward diversity initiatives, their anticipated feelings of social identity threat in a diverse workplace, their support for affirmative action, and their endorsement of colorblindness and multiculturalism.</p>
<p>The results showed that zero-sum beliefs were positively correlated with measures associated with resistance to diversity, such as social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, and system-justifying beliefs. Zero-sum beliefs were also related to perceiving other racial groups as a threat and to higher levels of old-fashioned and modern racism. In contrast, win-win beliefs showed the opposite pattern, being negatively correlated with these measures.</p>
<p>Importantly, neither zero-sum beliefs nor win-win beliefs were significantly related to social desirability, trait optimism, or trait pessimism, indicating that they are not simply capturing a tendency to respond in socially approved ways or to view events in a generally positive or negative light.</p>
<p>Further analyses demonstrated that both zero-sum beliefs and win-win beliefs uniquely predicted participants’ responses to diversity initiatives. Higher zero-sum beliefs predicted more negative attitudes toward diversity efforts, less support for affirmative action, and greater feelings of identity threat in a diverse workplace. Win-win beliefs, on the other hand, predicted more positive attitudes, greater support for affirmative action, and reduced identity threat. These relationships held even after controlling for other established measures, such as social dominance orientation, modern racism, and political ideology.</p>
<p>Additionally, the study found that zero-sum beliefs predicted greater endorsement of colorblindness, while win-win beliefs predicted greater support for multiculturalism. Exploratory analyses revealed that win-win beliefs could buffer the negative effects of zero-sum beliefs. Specifically, the relationship between zero-sum beliefs and negative attitudes toward diversity was weaker among individuals with higher levels of win-win beliefs.</p>
<p>The third study examined how zero-sum beliefs and win-win beliefs influenced White individuals’ reactions to a specific diversity policy. A sample of 1,387 White American adults read a mission statement from a hypothetical consulting company that espoused either a colorblind or a multicultural diversity policy. The colorblind policy emphasized similarities between people and stated that the company looked beyond characteristics such as gender or ethnic background when making employment decisions. The multicultural policy celebrated diversity and stated that the company valued diverse characteristics when making employment decisions.</p>
<p>Participants then imagined they were hired by the company and completed measures of social identity threat, including belonging, bias expectations, and interracial anxiety. They also completed the zero-sum beliefs and win-win beliefs scales, as well as measures of social dominance orientation, modern racism, and political ideology.</p>
<p>The results showed that both zero-sum beliefs and win-win beliefs uniquely predicted feelings of social identity threat, even after controlling for social dominance orientation, modern racism, and political ideology. As in Study 2, an interaction between zero-sum beliefs and win-win beliefs emerged. Among individuals with lower levels of win-win beliefs, higher zero-sum beliefs predicted greater identity threat.</p>
<p>However, this relationship was weaker among individuals with average levels of win-win beliefs and was not significant among those with higher levels of win-win beliefs. Furthermore, exploratory analyses revealed a three-way interaction between the diversity policy manipulation, zero-sum beliefs, and win-win beliefs. Among participants who read the multicultural policy, the relationship between zero-sum beliefs and identity threat was stronger for those with lower levels of win-win beliefs compared to those with average or higher levels of win-win beliefs. This suggests that win-win beliefs can mitigate the perceived threat of multicultural policies among individuals with higher zero-sum beliefs.</p>
<p>The research provides insights into the beliefs that shape majority group members’ responses to diversity initiatives. However, there are some limitations to consider. The studies primarily focused on White individuals, and future research should examine how these beliefs operate among other racial and ethnic groups.</p>
<p>Additionally, the correlational nature of the studies does not allow for causal conclusions. While it is reasonable to expect that these beliefs have causal effects on reactions to diversity, future research should manipulate these beliefs to examine their causal impact. Finally, the research focused on diversity initiatives related to race, and future research could examine whether these beliefs apply to other dimensions of identity, such as gender, age, and sexual orientation.</p>
<p>“The present research offers a theoretical framework for understanding majority group members’ responses to diversity efforts,” the researchers concluded. “People can differ on lay theories of diversity initiatives, specifically, how much they hold zero-sum or win-win beliefs about diversity initiatives. Furthermore, zero-sum and win-win beliefs may both help explain majority group members’ backlash against and support for organizational diversity initiatives.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/13684302231193320">Lay theories of diversity initiatives: Theory and measurement of zero-sum and win-win beliefs</a>,” was authored by Taylor Ballinger, Tao Jiang, and Jennifer Crocker.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/psychedelic-use-linked-to-lower-fear-of-death-through-enhanced-transcendence-beliefs/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Psychedelic use linked to lower fear of death through enhanced transcendence beliefs</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Feb 2nd 2025, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02791072.2025.2451035"><em>Journal of Psychoactive Drugs</em></a> suggests that people who use psychedelic substances may experience less anxiety about death compared to those who do not. The research indicates that this reduced fear is not directly caused by the drugs themselves, but rather by the experiences of transcending death that these substances can facilitate. These experiences involve a sense of continuity beyond physical death, either through spiritual beliefs or a lasting legacy.</p>
<p>Death anxiety, or the distress caused by the awareness of mortality, is a universal experience. It often manifests in various ways, from fear of illness and loss of control to avoidance of death-related discussions. Motivated by the growing interest in the therapeutic potential of psychedelics, the researchers sought to investigate whether people who use psychedelics exhibit lower levels of death anxiety compared to those who do not.</p>
<p>“My interest in this topic originates from my primary research area: hospice and palliative care. Thanatology (the study of death and dying) is closely intertwined with end-of-life care and the themes of mortality and finitude,” said study author Ana Cláudia Mesquita Garcia of the State University of Campinas in Brazil.</p>
<p>“I have a strong academic and personal curiosity about exploring issues related to death, dying, and how people confront their own mortality. Death anxiety is a relatively common phenomenon, as many individuals fear or are apprehensive about death. My goal was to investigate whether and how psychedelics influence death anxiety, particularly given their reported potential to evoke profound psychological and spiritual experiences that may help individuals better cope with existential concerns.”</p>
<p>The study employed a cross-sectional design, recruiting 517 adult participants from Brazil through social media and messaging platforms using a snowball sampling strategy. Participants ranged in age from 19 to 76, with a mean age of 38.7 years, and 70% identified as female.</p>
<p>To measure death anxiety, the researchers used a validated Brazilian version of the Death Anxiety Scale, which consists of 15 items that assess individuals’ emotional reactions to the anticipation of death. Participants also completed the Death Transcendence Scale, which evaluates their perceptions of continuity beyond physical death across religious, mystical, and creative dimensions, among others. Additionally, the study included the Spiritual Well-Being Scale to assess participants’ sense of purpose and satisfaction with life.</p>
<p>Participants were asked about their use of psychedelics, including substances such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), psilocybin, ayahuasca, and dimethyltryptamine (DMT). The frequency of use was categorized as “never,” “almost never,” “occasionally,” or “frequently.” They also provided information about their age, gender, education level, and whether they regularly engaged in discussions about mortality.</p>
<p>The results showed a consistent relationship between psychedelic use and lower levels of death anxiety. Individuals who reported frequent or occasional use of psychedelics, particularly substances like LSD, psilocybin, ayahuasca, and DMT, exhibited lower scores on the Death Anxiety Scale compared to those who had never or almost never used these substances.</p>
<p>The findings also highlighted the role of death transcendence in explaining these reductions. Among various dimensions of death transcendence, the researchers identified religious and mystical experiences as being particularly influential in lowering death anxiety. Participants who reported stronger beliefs in life after death or who had experienced feelings of unity and interconnectedness during mystical states tended to have less anxiety about death. On the other hand, individuals with a stronger focus on symbolic or creative forms of transcendence—such as leaving a lasting legacy through artistic or scientific contributions—exhibited higher levels of death anxiety, potentially reflecting a heightened awareness of their mortality.</p>
<p>“In our study, we investigated death anxiety and transcendence of death, among other variables, among users and non-users of psychedelics,” Mesquita Garcia told PsyPost. “The results of our study suggest that psychedelics favor the transcendence of death, that is, the perception of the possibility of continued existence (in symbolic or spiritual terms) even after physical death. And it is the possibility of transcending death that contributes to reducing death anxiety. In other words, psychedelics facilitate the transcendence of death and this, in turn, helps to reduce death anxiety.”</p>
<p>“One result that surprised me was the indication that what reduces death anxiety is not the psychedelics themselves but the transcendence of death they facilitate. Psychedelics promote experiences of death transcendence, which then reduce death anxiety. This suggests that humans are inherently spiritual beings, regardless of religious affiliation. Spirituality relates to our innate need for transcendence, the search for purpose, meaning, and significance in life. This finding highlights the deep psychological and existential mechanisms at play, suggesting that addressing the spiritual dimension of human existence is central to alleviating death anxiety.”</p>
<p>While the study shed new light on the relationship between psychedelic use and death anxiety, it has some limitations. Because it was an observational study relying on self-reported data, it is not possible to establish a direct causal relationship between psychedelic use and reduced death anxiety.</p>
<p>The sample was also predominantly female and relied on a non-random recruitment method, which may limit the generalizability of the findings. “The self-selected nature of participants might introduce motivational bias, as they were likely predisposed to view psychedelics positively,” Mesquita Garcia noted.</p>
<p>Future research could address these limitations by using more diverse and representative samples and experimental designs that can better establish causality. Further investigation is also needed to understand the mechanisms through which psychedelics influence death transcendence and death anxiety. The researcher plans to continue this line of research, focusing on longitudinal studies and exploring the potential therapeutic use of psychedelics.</p>
<p>“I aim to further explore the mechanisms through which psychedelics influence death transcendence and death anxiety,” Mesquita Garcia explained. “I also intend to continue investigating the therapeutic potential of psychedelics in controlling symptoms in people with serious illnesses – especially in terms of relieving existential and spiritual suffering. Future studies will focus on longitudinal or experimental designs to better establish causality, as well as on creating therapeutic frameworks that integrate psychedelics for hospice and palliative care.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02791072.2025.2451035" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Death Anxiety Among Users and Non-Users of Psychedelics</a>,” was authored by Ana Cláudia Mesquita Garcia, Lucas Oliveira Maia, Everson Meireles, Denismar Alves Nogueira, and Luís Fernando Tófoli</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/fathers-emotional-awareness-and-testosterone-linked-to-childrens-prosocial-behavior/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Fathers’ emotional awareness and testosterone linked to children’s prosocial behavior</a>
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<p><p>A longitudinal study in Israel found that fathers with more pronounced alexithymia before the birth of their child provided worse parental care when the baby was three months old. At two years of age, children of these fathers tended to exhibit fewer prosocial behaviors, but only if the father experienced at least an average increase in testosterone levels when subjected to a stressful parenting task. The paper was published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yhbeh.2024.105565"><em>Hormones and Behavior</em></a>.</p>
<p>Prosocial behavior refers to voluntary actions intended to benefit others, such as helping, sharing, and showing empathy. It begins to develop in early childhood, influenced by both biological and social factors, including genetics, parenting, and cultural norms. Young children gradually learn to consider the needs and emotions of others either through imitation or reinforcement—for example, being rewarded for prosocial behavior.</p>
<p>As they grow, cognitive and emotional development, particularly empathy and perspective-taking, play a crucial role in shaping prosocial behavior. Social environments, such as schools and peer interactions, further reinforce prosocial norms and cooperative behavior. Prosocial behavior in childhood is associated with many other positive developments later in life, including better academic readiness, stronger relationships with peers and teachers, improved problem-solving and planning skills, and greater attention control.</p>
<p>Study author Osnat Zamir and colleagues sought to explore whether coparenting quality—that is, how well parents work together to care for the child—mediates the relationship between fathers’ alexithymia before the birth of the child and the child’s prosocial behavior at two years of age. They hypothesized that fathers with more pronounced alexithymia would provide lower-quality coparenting, which, in turn, would result in lower prosocial behavior in their children.</p>
<p>Alexithymia is a psychological trait characterized by difficulty in identifying, understanding, and expressing emotions. Individuals with this trait tend to struggle with interpersonal relationships and regulating their own emotions.</p>
<p>The study included 105 cohabiting heterosexual couples expecting a baby. Fathers ranged in age from 23 to 42 years, with an average age of 32, while mothers had an average age of 30.</p>
<p>Data collection occurred at three time points: during the third trimester of pregnancy, three months after the baby was born, and when the child was two years old. Some couples left the study during this period, so data from only 74 couples were available when the child reached two years of age. At each data collection point, study participants received the equivalent of approximately $71 in the local currency for their participation.</p>
<p>The first data collection involved a laboratory visit where participants completed an assessment of alexithymia using the Toronto Alexithymia Scale. Fathers also completed a version of the Inconsolable Doll task, before and after which saliva samples were collected to measure testosterone levels and any changes in response to the task.</p>
<p>The Inconsolable Doll task simulates a stressful parenting situation. The apparatus consists of a computerized doll resembling a realistic six-week-old baby in appearance, size, weight, and sound. The simulator was programmed not to respond to participants’ attempts to soothe it but to cry at varying intensity levels for two minutes, followed by 20 seconds of quiet, before resuming. The task lasted a total of 10 minutes. While the mother completed the alexithymia assessment and other questionnaires, the father underwent the task.</p>
<p>During the second study visit, parents reported their coparenting quality using the Coparenting Relationship Scale. When the child reached 24 months, the family attended the third study visit, during which the child completed two prosocial behavior tasks.</p>
<p>In the first task (the Marker Task), the experimenter pretended to accidentally drop a marker, then directed the child’s attention to it, observing whether the child would attempt to pick it up and return it. The second task followed a similar structure but involved dropping a roll of tape instead of a marker.</p>
<p>The results showed that the Inconsolable Doll task indeed triggered an increase in fathers’ testosterone levels. Fathers with more pronounced alexithymia, as well as those who experienced a larger testosterone increase after the task, tended to exhibit lower coparenting quality when their baby was three months old. Lower-quality coparenting at three months was associated with fewer prosocial behaviors in the child at two years of age.</p>
<p>The researchers tested a statistical model proposing that higher alexithymia and greater testosterone increases in response to the Inconsolable Doll task would lead to lower-quality coparenting, which, in turn, would result in less prosocial behavior in the child at two years of age. The results suggested that this relationship was possible but only in fathers who experienced at least moderate testosterone increases following the Inconsolable Doll task.</p>
<p>“The current study illuminates a mechanism by which the interplay between alexithymia and testosterone reactivity in expectant fathers forecasts the child’s prosocial behavior at the age of two years. It shows that a greater tendency for alexithymia in fathers can predict a lower coparenting quality in the post-birth period, subsequently forecasting less prosocial behavior in two-year-old toddlers. Still, these longitudinal associations were evident only if fathers displayed average or high testosterone increases after a prenatal stressful parenting task,” the study authors concluded.</p>
<p>The study sheds light on an important psychological mechanism in parent-child interactions. However, it is important to note that the study participants were predominantly of middle or high economic status. Additionally, the study design does not allow for definitive causal conclusions regarding the links between alexithymia, coparenting quality, and children’s prosocial behavior.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yhbeh.2024.105565">The intersection between alexithymia, testosterone reactivity, and coparenting in fathers predicts child’s prosocial behavior,</a>” was authored by Osnat Zamir, Noa Oved, Ohad Szepsenwol, Roi Estlein, Jessica L. Borelli, Douglas A. Granger, and Dana Shai.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/is-psychology-getting-race-wrong-harvard-study-reveals-racial-categories-may-not-predict-shared-views-on-racism/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Is psychology getting race wrong? Harvard study reveals racial categories may not predict shared views on racism</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Feb 2nd 2025, 10:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in the <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2025-33494-001"><em>Journal of Experimental Psychology: General</em></a> suggests that widely used research methods for studying racial differences in perceptions of racism may be misleading. While people in different racial categories often show average differences in how they perceive racism, the new findings indicate just as much disagreement exists within those categories as between them. The findings challenge the common assumption that racial groups have cohesive, shared perspectives on what constitutes racism and suggest that current methods may unintentionally reinforce the illusion that race categories represent real, psychologically distinct groups.</p>
<p>Social scientists have long been interested in how people perceive racist events. One important question is what kinds of actions or words are considered racist in the first place. How people use the term “racist” can reveal how they define racism, how they recognize racist experiences, and how they position themselves in relation to events considered racist.</p>
<p>Previous research has found that racial classifications are often associated with different perspectives on what counts as racist, with studies showing that, on average, people from racialized groups that experience discrimination are more likely to perceive racism compared to those who are not targeted. However, most of this research relies on statistical averages to compare racial categories, a practice that assumes within-group agreement and treats race categories as if they represent stable, coherent groups.</p>
<p><a href="https://joeledmartinez.com/">Joel E. Martinez</a>, a former postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University’s Data Science Initiative, questioned whether this common approach might be reinforcing, rather than merely measuring, race as a real social entity. Drawing on the concept of “racecraft”—which describes how the belief in race as a real category is sustained through social practices and research methods—Martinez hypothesized that average-based analyses might be concealing a more complex reality. Instead of assuming that race categories predict uniform perspectives on racism, the study sought to map the actual variation in perceptions within and across racial categories.</p>
<p>“This paper had a long 8 year history before it was published, so inspirations came and went as I read more and grew as a scholar,” Martinez told PsyPost. “But what kept my interest and motivation going was this gut feeling (which I eventually developed into a research agenda) that the methods we (psychologists) are trained with and the ways of interpreting data and norms around communicating our findings were really just sophisticated ways of creating caricatures of the people we studied. Caricatures draped in the illusion of objectivity given by the authority status of scientific procedures.”</p>
<p>To investigate these questions, Martinez designed a study in which participants evaluated the perceived racism of anti-immigrant tweets. He recruited 368 participants living in the United States, with roughly 100 participants from each of three racial categories: Black, Latino, and White. After excluding participants whose responses were not reliable across repeated measures, the final sample included 306 participants. A second study replicated the findings with a separate sample of 301 participants.</p>
<p>Participants were shown a series of tweets related to two Trump-era policies—the construction of a border wall and the travel ban targeting Muslim-majority countries. These tweets were selected to range from blatantly racist statements (e.g., calls for violence against immigrants) to more coded political rhetoric about immigration and national security. Each participant rated how racist they perceived each tweet to be on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 9 (extremely). Importantly, each participant rated the same tweets multiple times across three different blocks, allowing Martinez to assess the consistency of their perceptions.</p>
<p>In addition to traditional average-based analyses, Martinez used a novel approach called variance component analysis (VCA). This method allowed him to measure the degree of agreement and disagreement among participants, both within and across racial categories.</p>
<p>As expected, Martinez found that there were average differences in how participants from different racial groups rated the tweets. Specifically, participants who identified as White tended to rate the anti-immigrant tweets as less racist compared to those who identified as Black or Latino. This aligns with previous research showing that different racial groups often perceive discrimination at different rates.</p>
<p>However, the core finding of the study was that there was a substantial amount of disagreement about what constituted racism <em>within</em> each racial group. When the researcher used variance component analysis to examine the variation in ratings, he found that the level of disagreement within each racial group was just as high as the disagreement across all participants combined. This means that even though there were average differences <em>between</em> groups, these averages did not reflect a shared or unified viewpoint <em>within</em> each group. In other words, knowing a person’s racial identity did not reliably predict how they would rate the tweets.</p>
<p>“I was trained as a social psychologist, so I actually came into this paper thinking I would find the kind of perceptual patterns theorized or discussed in this field: big racial gaps in perceptions of racism accompanied by relatively more agreement within than between race categories,” Martinez said. “That disagreement (of various kinds) dominated perceptual patterns across <i>and within</i> race categories was a surprising wake up call.”</p>
<p>“The surprise was mostly about how theories can sometimes replace your vision/logic. If I think about what I experienced all throughout my personal life, people who would be categorized as all sorts of different race categories have had all sorts of contradictory beliefs on all sorts of issues. The data I collected were just a continuation of that experience, which left me with a different kind of gap: how do I reconcile this with the theories about racial cognition I was reading in social psychology papers? This is what led me to read widely beyond this field, in search of alternative ways of thinking about the same problem.”</p>
<p>Martinez also explored what factors contributed to agreement and disagreement in the ratings. Agreement across the entire sample was largely driven by the aggressiveness of the language used in the tweets. This suggests that people, regardless of their racial background, tended to agree that more aggressive tweets were more racist.</p>
<p>On the other hand, disagreements were partly explained by individual characteristics such as a person’s level of symbolic racism (a measure of beliefs that racial disparities are due to lack of effort rather than discrimination), social dominance orientation (a preference for hierarchical social structures), and general political ideology.</p>
<p>Another important finding was that a significant portion of the disagreement came from the way individuals ranked specific tweets relative to each other. Two people might have similar average ratings overall, but one might consistently rate certain tweets as more racist than others, while the other person might do the opposite. This highlights the fact that even when people appear to agree on average, there can be substantial differences in how they perceive and interpret specific instances of potential discrimination.</p>
<p>In short, the findings suggest that while race does correlate with perceptions of racism on average, it is not a strong predictor of individual views. There is a great deal of variation within racial groups, highlighting the problem of treating them as distinct entities.</p>
<p>“When people hear ‘race is not real,’ they immediately think you’re advocating for colorblindness – disregarding the reality of racism by rejecting the reality of race,” Martinez told PsyPost. “This is because mainstream race talk seems to be governed by two poles where race and racism are both either real or not real.”</p>
<p>“What my paper is attempting to showcase is the potentials of an alternative stance: that we can take racism seriously while resisting its alluring illusion of race, which functions to make racism’s violence appear as if natural. And if we start from that place, which the paper calls the race anti-realist perspective, then our science starts to look different.</p>
<p>“The commonsense analytic and theorizing practices for studying ‘race’ (especially in social psychology) start to feel wrong because they are deeply connected to a race-realist perspective (aka racecraft, where races are real, even if socially constructed),” Martinez explained. “And that’s what led me to explore and experiment with alternative practices that start by asking ‘what could a race-anti realist social science look like?’ The switch from examining averages (which contain a lot of assumptions about the groupiness and thus realness of race categories) to mapping out variation felt like a good entry point.”</p>
<p>One limitation of the study is that it focused on perceptions of anti-immigrant discourse, which some people may not consider a “racial” topic. Future research could examine whether similar patterns of disagreement are found in contexts that are more explicitly related to race. Additionally, the variance component analysis used in this study requires a specific study design that may not always be practical.</p>
<p>“The variance component analysis is just one tool for mapping variation – and to use it requires a specific study design that isn’t always feasible (multiple people rating multiple stimuli multiple times),” Martinez noted. “So figuring out how to widen the practicality of mapping variation to other kinds of data and study designs will be an incredibly useful step in resisting the analytic essentialization of social categories.”</p>
<p>“I have left academia, so I’m just hoping other researchers can continue this line of thinking, where we don’t take race for granted but instead trace the dynamic processes of racialization and broader forces (such as anti-blackness, capitalism, and sociogeny) that enable us to see and treat each other as <i>racial</i> beings in the first place.”</p>
<p>“One barrier I see is that mainstream social psychology as a discipline is very insular in its reading and citation practices, it barely engages with the humanities,” Martinez added. “In the 8 years of working on this paper, I became radically interdisciplinary, and I purposefully left a citation trail within this paper and my other related papers (<a href="https://joeledmartinez.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/facecraft.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://joeledmartinez.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/facecraft.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1738515292159000&usg=AOvVaw1ymyCMpOHA4shvAmP8cu0i">this</a> and <a href="https://joeledmartinez.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/f4944-cikaraetal.2c2022-natrevpsy.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://joeledmartinez.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/f4944-cikaraetal.2c2022-natrevpsy.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1738515292159000&usg=AOvVaw0RfFZ9bMUnAD4vdW79WbVP">this</a>) so that others could follow my line(s) of thinking. My hope is that it inspires researchers to read widely and look inward at their own practices and imagine new ones that take seriously their political and societal embeddedness.”</p>
<p>“The point of this paper is not that ‘in-group’ variation exists and is important, but to think about what that variation means for the coherence of the analytic categories (like race) we use to produce knowledge (or caricatures) about the world and the people forced to inhabit/navigate those categories.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001673">Analytic Racecraft: Race-Based Averages Create Illusory Group Differences in Perceptions of Racism</a>,” was published October 7, 2024.</p></p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
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