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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/parents-tend-to-favor-daughters-and-conscientious-children-new-research-finds/" 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;">Parents tend to favor daughters and conscientious children, new research finds</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 12th 2025, 10:00</div>
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<p><p>A new large-scale analysis sheds light on a question many siblings have asked at some point: “Who’s the favorite?” Published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000458" target="_blank">Psychological Bulletin</a></em>, the study found that parents are somewhat more likely to favor daughters, as well as children who are more conscientious or agreeable. Older siblings may also receive more freedom and autonomy. These subtle but consistent patterns of preferential treatment were drawn from a meta-analysis that included data from over 19,000 participants.</p>
<p>While a large body of research has documented the consequences of parental favoritism—showing that children who receive more favorable treatment often experience better mental health, stronger relationships, and higher academic achievement—relatively little is known about what drives this differential treatment in the first place. The researchers sought to move beyond the typical focus on how parenting affects children and instead examine how children’s own traits might influence the way they are parented.</p>
<p>This shift in perspective is grounded in the “child effects model,” a framework introduced by Robert Bell in 1968. The model challenges the traditional view of parenting as a one-way process from parent to child. Instead, it suggests that children actively shape their environments, including how their parents respond to them. </p>
<p>For example, a child who is calm, agreeable, and responsible may elicit warmer and more supportive parenting, whereas a child who is difficult or emotionally reactive may evoke more controlling or negative responses. Building on this idea, the researchers set out to explore whether specific child characteristics—such as gender, birth order, temperament, and personality—could predict which sibling is treated more favorably.</p>
<p>“80% of Americans have at least one sibling, and many of those who are only children have more than one child of their own,” said study author Alexander C. Jensen, an associate professor of human development at Brigham Young University. “In other words, this is such a common thing. Nearly all of us have experienced or will experience favoritism in families. So, I wanted to know who really does tend to be favored. As a bonus, I’m the youngest, so, are younger children really favored?”</p>
<p>The researchers conducted a meta-analysis—a statistical technique that combines the findings of many separate studies to identify overall trends. Meta-analyses are especially useful when individual studies show mixed results or use different methods. In this case, the researchers analyzed 2,170 effect sizes from 87 sources drawn from 36 independent samples, representing 19,469 participants. </p>
<p>All studies compared how parents treated siblings within the same family. The included studies came mostly from the United States and Western Europe and varied widely in terms of the age of participants (from early childhood to late adulthood), who reported on the favoritism (parents or children), and what aspects of parenting were measured (such as affection, control, or resources).</p>
<p>To assess favoritism, some studies relied on perceptions—asking parents or children to rate how differently siblings were treated—while others used a “difference score” method, which compared reports about multiple siblings to identify disparities. These approaches allowed the researchers to analyze patterns across many kinds of parenting and reporting styles.</p>
<p>One of the clearest findings from the analysis was that conscientious children—those who tend to be responsible, organized, and self-disciplined—were slightly more likely to receive favored treatment. This was particularly evident when examining interactions that involved either more affection or fewer negative exchanges. Parents appeared to be more affectionate and less critical toward children who were seen as more conscientious.</p>
<p>Agreeable children were also more likely to be favored, though the effect was smaller. These children may be more compliant, cooperative, and eager to please, which could make parenting interactions smoother. However, this advantage did not extend to all domains of parenting. For example, agreeable children were not more likely to receive additional resources or money than their siblings.</p>
<p>“Children who are easier to parent are likely favored,” Jensen told PsyPost. “In our results, this was specifically children who were more responsible and compliant with parents.”</p>
<p>The analysis also explored personality traits that researchers thought might predict less favorable treatment—such as high levels of neuroticism, extraversion, or openness to experience—but found no consistent patterns. Similarly, there was no overall link between temperament and favoritism, despite earlier research suggesting that more emotionally reactive children might evoke harsher parenting. The authors suggested that the wide range of definitions and measurements for temperament across studies may have obscured meaningful effects.</p>
<p>Gender also played a role in parental favoritism. When looking only at parent-reported data, the researchers found that both mothers and fathers tended to report slightly more favorable treatment of daughters compared to sons. This pattern held across multiple countries, but it was somewhat more pronounced in the United States. Interestingly, when children themselves reported on favoritism, no gender differences were observed. In other words, parents may feel they favor daughters, but children may not perceive or interpret those differences the same way.</p>
<p>“Parents tend to favor daughters, but that is according to the perspective of parents – both mothers and fathers,” Jensen explained. “Children didn’t think gender was connected to favoritism. The gender findings were surprising. We expected mothers to favor daughters, but for fathers to favor sons. So, we were surprised that fathers favored daughters too.”</p>
<p>Birth order showed a more nuanced pattern. While the overall data suggested a slight preference for younger siblings, this effect disappeared once other factors were considered. However, older siblings were more likely to be granted autonomy and less likely to be tightly controlled by parents. These differences may reflect age-appropriate parenting—older children generally have more responsibilities and independence—but they can still be perceived as favoritism by younger siblings, especially if they feel the treatment is unfair.</p>
<p>The researchers also explored whether these patterns changed depending on the gender of the parent, the age of the children, or how favoritism was measured. Some of these factors made a difference. For example, favoritism toward older siblings was more apparent when both parents’ behaviors were considered together, and when the parenting domain involved control. However, the way favoritism was measured—whether by perception or score-based comparisons—did not seem to significantly change the results.</p>
<p>Like any study, this one had limitations. Although it drew on a large number of participants, the data came primarily from Western countries, so the findings may not generalize to other cultures where family roles and parenting norms differ. </p>
<p>“The data only represented North America and Western Europe,” Jensen noted. “Would we find different patterns in other parts of the world? Probably.” </p>
<p>The included studies also varied in how they defined and measured personality traits and temperament, which may have limited the ability to detect certain effects. Finally, even with a sample of nearly 20,000 people, the study is essentially a large collection of smaller, non-representative samples, rather than a reflection of the population at large.</p>
<p>“With a meta-analysis it is normal to have very large sample sizes,” Jensen said. “Our data represented over 19,000 people. With that, sometimes people think that the data must be representative and about as good as it gets. But that isn’t the case. Those 19,000 people were each part of smaller studies that were not representative themselves. So in many ways, this study is like a very large convenience sample.”</p>
<p>Still, the findings offer important insights into how parents interact differently with their children—and why. Jensen hopes this work can help parents and clinicians recognize when patterns of favoritism are emerging and reflect on how these patterns might shape children’s development. “All parents treat their children differently,” he noted, “but when those differences become unfair or more extreme, they can be problematic. I hope parents will take this study and be more reflective of which of their children they may tend to prefer.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000458" target="_blank">Parents Favor Daughters: A Meta-Analysis of Gender and Other Predictors of Parental Differential Treatment</a>,” was authored by Alexander C. Jensen and McKell A. Jorgensen-Wells.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/women-unconsciously-tune-into-infant-distress-regardless-of-parental-status-study-finds/" 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;">Women unconsciously tune into infant distress, regardless of parental status, study finds</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 12th 2025, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2025.109005" target="_blank">Biological Psychology</a></em> has found that women—whether they are mothers or not—are more likely to have their attention captured by distressed infant faces, even when those faces are presented so briefly that they are not consciously perceived. Using eye-tracking technology and subliminal exposure to emotional facial expressions, the researchers discovered that sad baby faces triggered longer reaction times than both happy baby faces and sad adult faces. These results suggest that the human brain may automatically prioritize signs of infant distress, highlighting an unconscious attentional bias that could support caregiving behavior.</p>
<p>While previous studies have shown that overt, visible cues from babies—such as facial expressions or cries—readily capture adults’ attention and provoke nurturing behavior, it remained unknown whether this effect would extend to subliminal cues. The research team aimed to determine whether distressed infant faces could influence attention even when they were processed below the threshold of awareness. They also sought to explore whether parental experience modulates this unconscious response.</p>
<p>“We were fascinated by the idea that certain emotional signals—like a baby’s cry or sad face—might be so evolutionarily important that our brain picks up on them even when we’re not consciously aware of them. We wanted to understand whether this unconscious sensitivity applies specifically to sad baby faces, which may be particularly relevant for caregiving behavior. Moreover, we wanted to understand if such sensitivity was specific for mothers,” said study author Elena Guida, a psychotherapist and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Milano-Bicocca</p>
<p>The study included 114 women, divided into two groups: 57 mothers of infants between three and seven months old, and 57 women who had never given birth. Participants were between 20 and 43 years old, and were matched for depressive symptoms and screened for neurological or medical conditions. All participants had normal or corrected-to-normal vision and gave informed consent before taking part in the study.</p>
<p>To examine unconscious attention to infant faces, the researchers used a visual disengagement task combined with an eye-tracker device. In each trial, participants were asked to fixate on a cross in the center of a screen, after which a subliminal emotional face—either a happy or sad baby or adult face—was shown for just 17 milliseconds. This exposure duration is considered to be below the threshold for conscious awareness. </p>
<p>Immediately following the subliminal image, a colored post-mask appeared, and participants had to quickly shift their gaze toward one of three colored squares displayed at the bottom of the screen. The correct square matched the color of the mask, and the time it took for participants to redirect their gaze—known as saccadic latency—served as a measure of how strongly their attention was captured by the subliminal face.</p>
<p>Each participant completed 96 randomized trials across four blocks. The faces used in the experiment were carefully selected from validated databases and pre-screened to ensure that their emotional expressions were easily recognizable and consistent in intensity and valence. All images were standardized for luminance and contrast to eliminate low-level visual differences that could confound the results.</p>
<p>The researchers analyzed the reaction times using a statistical model that accounted for group differences, face age (baby vs. adult), and facial emotion (happy vs. sad). Neither age nor anxiety levels significantly influenced the results, so these variables were excluded from the final model to maintain statistical power.</p>
<p>The findings revealed a significant interaction between face age and emotion. Specifically, participants took longer to disengage their attention after viewing a subliminal sad baby face compared to both happy baby faces and sad adult faces. This pattern was observed across all participants, with no statistically significant differences between mothers and non-mothers. On average, the delay in disengagement was about 16 to 18 milliseconds when participants were exposed to a subliminal sad infant face.</p>
<p>These results suggest that distressed baby faces automatically draw more of women’s attention, even when they are not consciously seen. The prolonged saccadic latencies imply that the brain allocates more cognitive resources to processing sad baby faces compared to other emotional expressions. This unconscious attentional bias appears to be specific to the combination of infant features and negative emotional expression, rather than simply the presence of sadness or the baby face alone.</p>
<p>“Our findings suggest that women are unconsciously more sensitive to sad baby faces compared to other emotional expressions and to adult faces,” Guida told PsyPost. “This indicates that the brain may prioritize processing cues of infant distress even without conscious awareness, highlighting the deep biological roots of caregiving and empathy.”</p>
<p>Interestingly, parental status did not significantly affect this unconscious attentional response. Although previous studies have found that mothers sometimes show heightened sensitivity to infant cues, especially when they are clearly visible, this study suggests that the brain’s automatic response to infant distress may operate independently of maternal experience. The researchers propose that this unconscious bias may reflect a deep-seated biological preparedness that promotes caregiving behavior in response to infant vulnerability.</p>
<p>“What surprised us was the absence of a group effect between mothers and non-mothers,” Guida said. “Both groups showed stronger unconscious processing of sad baby faces, while other expressions—such as happy or neutral baby faces, or sad adult faces—did not elicit the same response. This points to a very specific and possibly hardwired mechanism that prioritizes infant distress cues, likely rooted in evolutionary pressures related to infant survival.”</p>
<p>The researchers also emphasize that this study is among the first to demonstrate an attentional bias toward infant faces at the subliminal level. Most previous work has focused on conscious, voluntary attention to emotional infant faces, leaving it unclear whether similar effects occur without conscious perception. By adapting a gaze-based attentional disengagement paradigm, this study sheds light on how subtle cues can influence behavior through unconscious channels, potentially serving as an early-warning system that prepares caregivers to respond to infant needs.</p>
<p>However, the study has several limitations that should be addressed in future research. First, it focused exclusively on women, leaving open the question of whether similar unconscious attentional biases occur in men or fathers. Understanding how gender and parental experience interact in processing infant cues would provide a more comprehensive picture of caregiving behavior. Second, the study only compared sad and happy facial expressions, without exploring other negative emotions such as fear or anger. Investigating a wider range of emotions could help clarify whether the observed attentional bias is specific to sadness or reflects a general sensitivity to infant distress.</p>
<p>Despite these limitations, the study opens the door to new research directions. “Our long-term goal is to expand this research to include male participants, systematically investigating the role of parental status,” Guida explained. “In the future, we’re particularly interested in examining clinical populations—such as individuals with depressive symptoms or other affective disorders—to explore whether and how these traits impact the subliminal processing of infant signals. This could help us better understand vulnerabilities in caregiving responses and inform early intervention strategies.”</p>
<p>“This study is part of a broader project aimed at understanding the mechanisms underlying sensitive parenting. In particular, we’re focusing on the attentional and physiological processes that shape how caregivers perceive and respond to infant cues. By exploring both conscious and unconscious responses, we hope to shed light on the foundations of caregiving behavior and how they may vary across individuals and contexts.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2025.109005" target="_blank">Baby don’t cry: Unconscious sensitivity to sad baby faces</a>,” was authored by E. Guida, M. Addabbo, and C. Turati.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/even-in-healthy-adults-high-blood-sugar-levels-are-linked-to-impaired-brain-function/" 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;">Even in healthy adults, high blood sugar levels are linked to impaired brain function</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 12th 2025, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2024.05.007" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Neurobiology of Aging</a></em> suggests that even in people without diabetes, higher blood sugar levels may be associated with reduced brain function in networks involved in autonomic regulation. Conducted by researchers at Baycrest Health Sciences and the University of Toronto, the study found that elevated levels of glycated hemoglobin — a measure of long-term blood sugar — were linked to both lower heart rate variability and weaker communication between brain regions that regulate the body’s automatic responses. These associations were stronger in older adults and, for some measures, differed between men and women.</p>
<p>The study aimed to clarify whether relationships observed in people with diabetes — such as those between blood sugar, heart health, and brain function — also appear in healthy adults. Previous research has shown that individuals with diabetes often experience changes in the way their brains function, particularly in areas involved in regulating the autonomic nervous system, which controls heart rate, blood pressure, and other vital functions.</p>
<p>However, it has remained uncertain whether these patterns extend to people who do not have diabetes but still exhibit variability in their blood sugar levels. The researchers also wanted to examine how these relationships might differ by age and sex, factors that influence both metabolic and brain function.</p>
<p>To investigate these questions, the researchers used data from the LEMON dataset — an open-access database focused on mind-body-emotion interactions. From the initial pool of 227 healthy adults, the researchers excluded those with missing or poor-quality data, resulting in a final sample of 146 participants. This group included 114 younger adults (average age 25) and 32 older adults (average age 68), with both sexes represented.</p>
<p>Participants underwent several procedures. Blood was drawn to measure glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), which reflects average blood glucose levels over the past three months. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to assess brain activity while participants rested, and electrocardiogram (ECG) data were collected simultaneously to assess heart rate variability. Heart rate variability refers to the natural variation in time between heartbeats and is considered a marker of autonomic nervous system activity. The researchers focused on two specific indicators of heart rate variability: RMSSD and high-frequency HRV, both of which reflect parasympathetic nervous system function.</p>
<p>For the brain data, researchers examined resting-state functional connectivity — a measure of how well different parts of the brain work together during rest. They focused on two networks. The first was a subset of the central autonomic network (referred to as S-CAN), which includes the insula and amygdala and is important for regulating the body’s internal state. The second was the salience network, which includes overlapping regions but is more involved in processing emotionally significant information.</p>
<p>The findings revealed several key patterns. Across the whole sample, higher HbA1c levels were associated with lower heart rate variability, suggesting reduced parasympathetic activity. This relationship was stronger in older adults but did not differ by sex. Similarly, higher HbA1c levels were associated with weaker connectivity in the S-CAN, but not in the salience network. Once again, this association was more pronounced in older adults, particularly in the right hemisphere of the brain. These results suggest that even in the absence of diabetes, higher blood sugar levels may relate to less efficient brain functioning in areas tied to autonomic regulation — especially as people age.</p>
<p>The study also found that lower heart rate variability was associated with weaker connectivity within the S-CAN. Interestingly, these associations were stronger in women than in men, and were more prominent in the left hemisphere. This pattern suggests that while age may intensify the link between blood sugar and brain function, sex may influence how autonomic nervous system activity relates to brain connectivity. Notably, women in the study did not have significantly different blood sugar or heart rate variability levels compared to men, but the relationship between heart variability and brain function was stronger.</p>
<p>The researchers interpret these findings as evidence that healthy people with slightly elevated blood sugar — including those in the prediabetic range — may already be experiencing changes in how their brain networks function. They emphasize that these effects appear to be subtle but detectable, and they highlight the importance of considering age and sex when studying these relationships.</p>
<p>While the study provides new insights, it also has limitations. The sample included fewer older adults than younger ones, and people in middle age were not represented, making it difficult to draw conclusions across the full adult lifespan. The dataset also lacked information on race, ethnicity, and medication use, which could influence both metabolic and neurological health. Additionally, the imaging methods did not include coverage of the brainstem, a region that plays a key role in autonomic regulation and is part of the full central autonomic network.</p>
<p>The researchers also note that posture differences during data collection — with participants lying down for MRI scans and sitting for heart recordings — may have introduced variability, though this would likely affect all participants in the same way. Finally, because the study was cross-sectional, it cannot establish whether high blood sugar causes changes in brain function or vice versa.</p>
<p>Despite these limitations, the study broadens our understanding of how metabolic health is related to brain activity, even in individuals without a diabetes diagnosis. It suggests that subtle variations in blood sugar may be linked to brain function in networks responsible for regulating bodily systems — and that these links vary with age and sex. Future research could explore whether improving blood sugar control in healthy individuals leads to measurable changes in brain function and whether these effects differ across demographic groups.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2024.05.007" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The associations among glycemic control, heart variability, and autonomic brain function in healthy individuals: Age- and sex-related differences</a>,” was authored by Jeffrey X. Yu, Ahmad Hussein, Linda Mah, and J. Jean Chen.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/scientists-uncover-hidden-rhythm-between-breathing-and-vision/" 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;">Scientists uncover hidden rhythm between breathing and vision</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 11th 2025, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>You have probably heard the saying that the eyes are the windows to the soul, but now it turns out that they are also connected to how we breathe. Scientists have long studied the size of our pupils to understand attention, emotion and even medical conditions. But now, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1113/JP287205">new research</a> has surprisingly revealed that they change size in sync with our breathing.</p>
<p>Our pupils are never static; they constantly adjust in response to both external and internal factors. The most well known is that they control how much light enters the eye, just like a camera aperture.</p>
<p>You can easily test this yourself: look into a mirror and shine a light into your eye, and you’ll see your pupils shrink. This process directly affects our visual perception. Larger pupils help us to detect faint objects, particularly in our peripheral vision, while smaller pupils enhance sharpness, improving tasks like reading.</p>
<p>Indeed, this reflex is so reliable that doctors use it to assess brain function. If a pupil fails to react to light, it could signal a medical emergency such as a stroke.</p>
<p>However, it is not just light that our pupils respond to. It’s also well established that our pupils constrict when focusing on a nearby object, and dilate in response to cognitive effort or emotional arousal.</p>
<p>As the German pupil-research pioneer <a href="https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=225573">Irene Loewenfeld</a> once said: “Man may either blush or turn pale when emotionally agitated, but his pupils always dilate.”</p>
<p>For this reason, pupil size is often used in psychology and neuroscience research as a measure of mental effort and attention.</p>
<h2>The fourth response</h2>
<p>For many decades, <a href="https://journalofcognition.org/articles/10.5334/joc.18">these three kinds of pupil response</a> were the only ones that scientists were sure existed. Now, myself and our team of researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and the University of Groningen in the Netherlands have confirmed that breathing is a fourth.</p>
<p>In what will now be known as “pupillary respiratory phase response”, pupils tend to be largest during exhalation and smallest around the start of inhalation. Unlike other pupil responses, this one originates exclusively in the body and of course happens constantly. Equally uniquely, it covers both dilation and constriction.</p>
<p>There had in fact been anecdotal hints of a connection between breathing and our pupils for more than 50 years. But when the team reviewed past studies <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00424-022-02729-0">the evidence was inconclusive at best</a>. Given how widely pupil size is used in both medicine and research, we realised it was crucial to investigate this further.</p>
<p>We confirmed through a series of five experiments with more than 200 participants that pupil size fluctuates in sync with breathing, and also that this effect is remarkably robust. In these studies, we invited the participants to our lab and recorded their pupil size and breathing pattern while they were relaxing or performing tasks on a computer screen.</p>
<p>We systematically varied the other key pupil-response factors throughout the study – lighting, fixation distance and mental effort required for tasks. In all cases, the way that breathing affects the pupils remained constant.</p>
<p>Additionally, we examined how different breathing patterns affected the response.</p>
<p>Participants were instructed to breathe solely through their nose or mouth and to adjust their breathing rate, as well as slowing it down and speeding it up. In all cases, the same pattern emerged: pupil size remained smallest around the onset of inhalation and largest during exhalation.</p>
<h2>What now</h2>
<p>This discovery changes the way we think about both breathing and vision. It suggests a deeper connection between breathing and the nervous system than we previously realised. The next big question is whether these subtle changes in pupil size affect how we see the world.</p>
<p>The fluctuations are only fractions of a millimetre, which is less than the pupil response to light, but similar to the pupil response to mental effort or arousal. The size of these fluctuations is theoretically large enough to influence our visual perception. It may therefore be that our vision subtly shifts within a single breath between optimising for detecting faint objects (with larger pupils) and distinguishing fine details (with smaller pupils).</p>
<p>In addition, just as the pupillary light response is used as a diagnostic tool, changes in the link between pupil size and breathing could be an early sign of neurological disorders.</p>
<p>This research is part of a broader effort to understand how our internal bodily rhythms influence perception. Scientists are increasingly finding that our brain doesn’t process external information in isolation – it integrates signals from within our bodies, too. For example, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-023-01425-1">information from our heart and gastric rhythms</a> have also been suggested to enhance or hinder the processing of incoming sensory stimuli.</p>
<p>If our breathing affects how our pupils change, could it also shape how we perceive the world around us? This opens the door to new research on how bodily rhythms shape perception – one breath at a time.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/250435/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1"><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p>
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<p><em>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/your-pupils-change-size-as-you-breathe-heres-why-this-new-discovery-is-important-250435">original article</a>.</em></p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/agnostics-are-more-indecisive-neurotic-and-prone-to-maximizing-choices-distinguishing-them-from-atheists-and-christians/" 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;">Agnostics are more indecisive, neurotic, and prone to maximizing choices, distinguishing them from atheists and Christians</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 11th 2025, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2025.2467733"><em>Self & Identity</em></a> reveals that agnosticism represents more than mere hesitation between belief and disbelief. Research findings indicate agnostics possess a distinct psychological profile characterized by higher indecisiveness, greater neuroticism, and a stronger tendency to search for alternatives in life compared to both atheists and religious believers.</p>
<p>As secularization increases globally, understanding the psychological foundations of nonbelief becomes increasingly important. Previous research has primarily focused on religious belief and its variations, but emerging evidence suggests nonbelief also manifests in different psychological profiles. Atheists and agnostics, who together constitute a significant proportion of nonbelievers in both the U.S. and Europe, have often been treated as a homogeneous group. Yet earlier studies have indicated that agnostics differ from atheists in being more open-minded, ambivalent, and prosocial. These differences raise a deeper question: are agnostics merely less decisive atheists, or do they represent a unique type of nonbelief?</p>
<p>Researchers Karim Moise and Vassilis Saroglou investigated whether agnosticism is characterized by specific psychological traits. Their study recruited 334 adults (ages 19-82) from the UK through Prolific Academic, with participants self-identifying as Christian (102), agnostic (105), or atheist (126). The sample was gender-balanced and included participants ranging from 19 to 82 years old.</p>
<p>Participants completed the Big Five Inventory for personality and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule for emotionality states. Indecisiveness was measured using Frost and Shows’ 15-item scale, while maximization was assessed via an adapted 11-item version of Schwartz et al.’s (<a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.83.5.1178">2002</a>) scale, capturing four facets: high standards, life alternative search, leisure alternative search, and shopping decision difficulty. Self-enhancement was measured using the “better-than-average effect,” comparing participants’ ratings of themselves and others across traits relevant to religionists (e.g., prosociality), atheists (e.g., rationality), and general social desirability.</p>
<p>Participants also completed items on religiosity, spirituality, convictional strength, and religious upbringing. Religiosity was measured using a 3-item scale on the importance of God and religion, and spirituality via a single-item index. Strength of convictional self-identification was rated on a 5-point scale, and religious socialization was coded from participant responses on their family upbringing.</p>
<p>The results revealed a compelling psychological portrait of agnostics. They scored significantly higher on neuroticism and indecisiveness than both Christians and atheists, while reporting lower positive affect than Christians. Agnostics exhibited a greater tendency to search for life alternatives, suggesting they maintain a broader orientation toward keeping options open rather than simply being uncertain atheists.</p>
<p>Indecisiveness emerged as the most robust predictor of agnosticism, uniquely and significantly predicting agnostic identification (versus atheist) even after controlling for spirituality, religious upbringing, gender, and age. When comparing agnostics to those with firm worldviews (both atheists and Christians combined), indecisiveness again stood out as a unique predictor. This suggests agnosticism may be driven not only by spiritual openness but also by a cognitive and emotional style that resists definitive conclusions.</p>
<p>The study also revealed intriguing differences in self-perception. While Christians tended to rate themselves more positively on prosocial traits and atheists on intelligence-related traits (both aligning with each group’s values), agnostics showed a more balanced evaluation of themselves and others. Strong agnostic identifiers rated both themselves and others positively on traits associated with being a “nice person” without exhibiting the “better-than-average effect” seen in the other groups. This pattern may reflect a form of humility or reluctance to assert superiority consistent with the agnostic worldview.</p>
<p>Another interesting finding was that agnostics’ strength of convictional identity wasn’t significantly correlated with any psychological traits, whereas clear associations emerged for Christians (e.g., lower neuroticism) and atheists (e.g., lower indecisiveness and negative affect). This reinforces the view that agnosticism may function less as a fixed identity and more as a fluid, exploratory stance toward existential questions.</p>
<p>Limitations include the cross-sectional design and reliance on self-identification, which may not capture the full diversity within agnosticism.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2025.2467733">Agnosticism as a distinct type of nonbelief: the role of indecisiveness, maximization, and low self-enhancement</a>,” was authored by Karim Moise and Vassilis Saroglou.</p></p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
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