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<td><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:20px;font-weight:bold;">PsyPost – Psychology News</span></td>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/narcissistic-individuals-are-more-prone-to-maladaptive-daydreaming/" 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;">Narcissistic individuals are more prone to maladaptive daydreaming</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Jul 14th 2025, 10:00</div>
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<p><p>Recent research found that individuals with higher levels of narcissistic traits are more prone to maladaptive daydreaming. Additionally, individuals prone to maladaptive daydreaming were less prone to use mature psychological defenses and more prone to using neurotic and immature ones. The paper was published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.prcp.20250018"><em>Psychiatric Research and Clinical Practice</em></a>.</p>
<p>Maladaptive daydreaming is a psychological phenomenon in which individuals engage in excessive, immersive, and vivid daydreaming that interferes with daily functioning. Unlike normal daydreaming, it is intense and time-consuming. Maladaptive daydreaming is often triggered by real-life events, music, or boredom.</p>
<p>People with maladaptive daydreaming may create elaborate imaginary worlds, characters, or plots—sometimes preferring them over real-life interactions. This behavior can lead to significant distress, sleep problems, and impaired academic, occupational, or social functioning. It is often associated with underlying conditions such as anxiety, depression, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or trauma. While maladaptive daydreaming is not currently recognized as a formal mental disorder, research suggests it can cause substantial impairment.</p>
<p>Study authors Alessia Renzi and Rachele Mariani aimed to explore the association between maladaptive daydreaming, narcissistic personality traits, psychological defense mechanisms, age, and gender. They also examined whether defense mechanisms might mediate the relationship between maladaptive daydreaming and narcissistic traits.</p>
<p>Narcissistic personality traits include an inflated sense of self-importance, a strong need for admiration, lack of empathy, and a tendency to exploit others for personal gain. At very high levels, these traits may be part of a mental health condition known as narcissistic personality disorder. Psychological defense mechanisms are unconscious strategies the mind uses to protect itself from anxiety or distress. These mechanisms are typically classified as mature (e.g., humor, sublimation), neurotic (e.g., repression, displacement), or immature (e.g., denial, projection), depending on how adaptive or functional they are.</p>
<p>The study included 562 participants recruited through social media platforms and websites popular among young adults. Their average age was 27 years. Thirty-six percent of participants were Italian, 18% were Greek, and 8% were Turkish, while the rest came from various other countries.</p>
<p>Participants completed an online survey that included assessments of maladaptive daydreaming (the 16-item Maladaptive Daydreaming Scale), psychological defense mechanisms (the Defense Mechanism Rating Scales Self-Report), and narcissistic traits (the Pathological Narcissism Inventory).</p>
<p>Results showed that individuals who scored higher in maladaptive daydreaming also tended to have higher levels of narcissistic personality traits. They were less likely to use mature defenses and more likely to rely on immature and neurotic defenses. Younger individuals were more prone to maladaptive daydreaming, but there were no significant gender differences.</p>
<p>The researchers tested a statistical model proposing that psychological defenses might mediate the relationship between narcissism and maladaptive daydreaming. The analyses indicated that immature and neurotic defenses partially mediated this relationship. In other words, narcissistic traits may lead to increased use of immature and neurotic defenses, which in turn may increase the likelihood of maladaptive daydreaming. However, these defense mechanisms do not fully explain the link.</p>
<p>“The significant associations found in this study support a link between narcissistic personality traits and MD [maladaptive daydreaming], where defenses seem to play a relevant role,” the study authors concluded.</p>
<p>The study sheds light on the links between narcissism and maladaptive daydreaming. However, it should be noted that the design of the study does not allow any causal inferences to be derived from the results.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.prcp.20250018">What Is the Relationship Between Narcissism and Maladaptive Daydreaming? The Role of Defense Mechanisms as Mediators,</a>” was authored by Alessia Renzi and Rachele Mariani.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/effort-or-fate-sexual-mindsets-predict-whether-bedroom-bliss-spills-over-into-broader-wellbeing/" 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;">Effort or fate? Sexual mindsets predict whether bedroom bliss spills over into broader wellbeing</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Jul 14th 2025, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>Sexual satisfaction can color how people feel about their lives, but what we believe about sex and why we choose to have it may shape that link in subtle ways. A new study of adults in romantic relationships, published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14681994.2025.2506085" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sexual and Relationship Therapy</a></em>, suggests that people who see bedroom harmony as a matter of “natural chemistry” rather than joint effort are less likely to translate bedroom contentment into wider life contentment. It also finds that frequent sex predicts greater life satisfaction especially among those who agree to intimacy mainly to ward off a partner’s disappointment.</p>
<p>The research team set out to clarify two sets of ideas that have gathered attention in recent years. One concerns fundamental beliefs about relationships. Some individuals hold what the authors call “sexual destiny” beliefs—the view that satisfying intimacy depends mainly on picking a partner whose desires and preferences line up automatically. Others endorse “sexual growth” beliefs—the view that partners can cultivate a good sex life through communication and persistence.</p>
<p>The second set involves sexual goals. These goals are the motives people have when they choose to have sex. An approach goal involves seeking a positive outcome such as pleasure or closeness, while an avoidance goal involves preventing a negative outcome such as conflict.</p>
<p>Earlier work shows that sexual growth beliefs and approach goals often track with higher relationship quality, but much less was known about who is likely to hold these beliefs and goals, or how they play into broader wellbeing. The present study addresses those gaps and explores whether beliefs and goals change the way sexual satisfaction and sexual frequency relate to life satisfaction.</p>
<p>“I became intrigued by this topic after learning that the association between sexual frequency and wellbeing is inconsistent,” said study author Melanie A. Reyes, an experimental psychology Ph.D. candidate at Saint Louis University and an incoming visiting professor in the Department of Psychology at Southern Oregon University.</p>
<p>“In an <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2015.04.021" target="_blank" rel="noopener">experimental study</a>, researchers recruited married couples and instructed half of them to double their frequency of sexual intercourse in the next three months. The other half of the couples were not given any instructions on sexual frequency. Surprisingly, compared to couples not given any instructions on sexual frequency, couples who were instructed to increase their sexual frequency did not experience increases in life satisfaction over time. The nuanced nature of the relationship between sexual activity and wellbeing is fascinating to me.”</p>
<p>The researchers recruited 185 U.S. adults through an online crowdsourcing platform. All participants had been with a romantic partner for at least six months and had engaged in partnered sex. Their average age was 40, ranging widely from young adulthood to later midlife. The sample was 57 percent women, predominantly White, and mostly heterosexual. About three-fifths were married and the rest were in committed dating relationships.</p>
<p>The participants completed a battery of validated questionnaires. These measured sexual destiny and sexual growth beliefs with 24 items crafted by earlier researchers, and assessed approach and avoidance sexual goals with nine items describing reasons one might choose to have sex. The survey also asked about sexual frequency, sexual satisfaction, perceived mismatches in sexual desire, positive and negative mood, relationship satisfaction, and overall life satisfaction. To guard against inattentive responding, the team embedded three attention-check items; anyone who missed one or more of these was dropped from analysis.</p>
<p>Average scores painted a picture of respondents who leaned toward a growth mindset. On the seven-point scales, the mean for sexual growth beliefs was nearly six, while the mean for destiny beliefs sat below four. Participants also rated partner-focused approach goals—for example, expressing love or deepening intimacy—as more influential than avoidance goals such as preventing conflict. Sexual activity was common: roughly half of the sample reported sex once a week or more, and only three people said it occurred rarely or not at all.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the researchers found that sexual destiny beliefs moderated the link between sexual satisfaction and life satisfaction. Among people who strongly believed in sexual destiny, there was no significant association between how satisfied they were with their sex life and how satisfied they were with their life overall. But among people who did not strongly believe in sexual destiny, sexual satisfaction was positively associated with life satisfaction.</p>
<p>What could account for this? The researchers suggest that when someone expects sex to be effortless, even a satisfying bedroom experience might not spill over into broader wellbeing because it is taken for granted. Only when satisfaction is seen as the product of shared effort might it carry emotional weight.</p>
<p>Gender and relationship context predicted differences in outlook. Men, on average, held stronger destiny beliefs than women, suggesting they may be more inclined to think compatibility is either present or not. Women in dating relationships, by contrast, endorsed sexual growth beliefs more strongly than their male counterparts.</p>
<p>“I found that men were more likely than women to endorse the view that sexual satisfaction is only possible with a naturally compatible sex partner,” Reyes told PsyPost. “Among participants in dating relationships, women were more likely than men to endorse the view that sexual satisfaction is achieved through effort rather than natural sexual compatibility. These results have implications for the orgasm gap, which demonstrates that heterosexual men are more likely to have an orgasm during partnered sex than heterosexual women.</p>
<p>“This orgasm gap is likely influenced by the male orgasm imperative, which is the tendency to view the male orgasm as the only desired outcome in a sexual encounter. The female orgasm may require more effort to achieve due to the male orgasm imperative, given that it may require deviating from sexual scripts, which may explain the finding that heterosexual women are more likely than heterosexual men to view sexual satisfaction as requiring effort. It would be worthwhile for heterosexual men and people in general to keep in mind that a satisfying sexual relationship requires effort, as this mindset is associated with the best sexual outcomes.”</p>
<p>When the researchers looked at motives for intimacy, they found that women in dating relationships placed greater importance on partner-focused approach goals than men did, whereas married participants—regardless of gender—gave more weight to avoidance goals than those who were dating.</p>
<p>“I found that people in marital relationships reported avoidance sexual goals as more important in influencing their decision to have sex with their partner than people in dating relationships,” Reyes explained. “When people have sex for an avoidance goal, they are having sex to avoid a negative outcome, such as partner disappointment or anger. Sexual desire tends to decline over time, which may explain this finding. Having sex with your partner to primarily avoid a negative outcome is detrimental though, so it would be worthwhile for couples who have been together for a long time to be mindful towards maintaining sexual desire levels high.”</p>
<p>Perceived mismatches in desire added another layer. Participants who felt their own sexual desire differed from their partner’s endorsed higher growth beliefs and lower destiny beliefs than those who saw their desire levels as aligned. For couples facing uneven desire, the idea that effort matters may become more salient, while the notion of effortless chemistry loses its charm.</p>
<p>The researchers also found that participants who reported frequent experiences of negative emotions—feelings such as sadness, anxiety, or disappointment—were the only group who seemed to gain a lift in life satisfaction from having sex more often. When negative affect was high, a higher sexual frequency predicted higher life satisfaction. But when negative affect was low, the same link was not present. A parallel pattern appeared for avoidance-focused sexual goals.</p>
<p>“It was surprising that at low levels of negative affect, there was a non-significant association between sexual frequency and life satisfaction, and at high levels of negative affect, there was a significant positive association between sexual frequency and life satisfaction,” Reyes told PsyPost.</p>
<p>“Avoidance sexual goals had the same moderation effect, which suggests that people who tend to experience negative emotions may benefit from frequent sex. I was not expecting these findings because people who tend to experience positive emotions and people who have sex to achieve a positive outcome are more likely to pay attention to positive cues during sex.”</p>
<p>“To address the alternative explanation that perhaps people high in avoidance goals are happier from frequent sex because their goals aimed at avoiding negative outcomes are being met by frequent sex, I conducted moderation analyses testing whether avoidance goals and negative affect moderate an association between sexual frequency and relationship satisfaction, and it was also surprising that I did not find support for significant moderation effects in those analyses.”</p>
<p>Although the study identified several significant patterns, it also had limitations. The data were collected at one point in time and were self-reported, which makes it difficult to draw conclusions about cause and effect. Participants may not have accurately remembered or reported their experiences, and their answers could have been influenced by social desirability. In addition, the sample was not very diverse, with most participants identifying as White and heterosexual, and the majority being in monogamous relationships.</p>
<p>Future research could benefit from more diverse samples and longitudinal designs that track sexual beliefs, goals, and wellbeing over time. It would also be valuable to explore these dynamics in non-monogamous or queer relationships, where different patterns might emerge. Dyadic research—where both members of a couple participate—could help clarify how mismatches or alignments in beliefs and goals affect outcomes.</p>
<p>“I would love to conduct a study in which I track sexual goals, sexual frequency, and wellbeing over time and longitudinally test whether people who tend to experience negative emotions experience boosts in wellbeing if they have frequent sex with their partner,” Reyes said. “Such a study would strengthen the conclusions made in this study.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14681994.2025.2506085" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sexual beliefs and sexual goals are associated with gender, relationship characteristics, and life satisfaction</a>,” was authored by Melanie A. Reyes and Eddie M. Clark.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/people-who-use-ai-may-pay-a-social-price-according-to-new-psychology-research/" 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;">People who use AI may pay a social price, according to new psychology research</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Jul 14th 2025, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study highlights a potential downside to using artificial intelligence at work: people who rely on AI tools to get their job done are often judged more harshly by others. Despite AI’s potential to boost productivity, workers may face negative social evaluations — especially around their competence, effort, and motivation — just for using it. The research, published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2426766122" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a></em>, provides evidence that this perception can even affect hiring decisions.</p>
<p>Generative artificial intelligence refers to tools like ChatGPT and other systems that can produce humanlike text, images, or code. These tools are becoming increasingly common in workplaces across industries, offering assistance with writing, analysis, creative tasks, and more. While they can enhance performance, some people worry that relying on AI might make them look lazy or replaceable. That concern may not be unfounded.</p>
<p>The research team — social scientists studying how people evaluate one another in professional contexts — wanted to understand whether using AI would actually harm a person’s reputation at work. Drawing on attribution theory, which explores how people explain others’ actions, the researchers reasoned that observers might see AI use as a sign of lower ability or effort. Just as past studies have shown that people sometimes assume help-seeking reflects personal weakness rather than situational need, the team predicted that AI users might face similar biases.</p>
<p>“I became interested in this topic after conversations with employees at several different organizations who expressed hesitation about using generative AI at work not because of issues with its output, but because of the social dynamics associated with AI use,” explained study author <a href="https://www.jessicareif.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jessica Reif</a>, a PhD candidate at Duke University Fuqua School of Business. “These discussions, coupled with industry surveys that suggested people hide their AI use at work, made me want to examine whether the social evaluation penalty employees seem to anticipate is real.”</p>
<p>The researchers conducted four experiments involving more than 4,400 participants. The studies were preregistered, meaning the team documented their methods and hypotheses in advance to reduce bias. Across all experiments, the researchers examined both people’s expectations about how they would be judged for using AI and how observers actually evaluated others who used AI tools.</p>
<p>In the first study, 497 participants imagined using either a generative AI tool or a traditional dashboard tool to complete a task at work. They then rated how they thought managers and coworkers would perceive them. People who imagined using AI expected to be judged as lazier, more replaceable, and less competent and diligent than those using non-AI tools. They also said they would be less likely to disclose their use of AI to others. These responses suggest that workers are aware of a possible stigma around AI use.</p>
<p>But are these fears justified? In the second study, the researchers asked 1,215 participants to read brief descriptions of hypothetical employees and rate them on various traits. The employees were described as receiving help from either AI, a human coworker, or no help at all. Participants consistently rated the employees who used AI as lazier, less competent, less diligent, and less independent than those in the other two conditions. The effect was not tied to the employee’s age, gender, or job type. These results show that people really do hold negative views of AI users, even when the help received is essentially the same.</p>
<p>“We were surprised that the social evaluation penalty in our studies occurred regardless of the age, occupation, or gender of the employee we described,” Reif told PsyPost. “In total, we compared 384 unique stimuli that systematically varied these attributes, in addition to whether the target was described as getting help from AI, getting help from another source, or getting no help at all. For instance, I thought it might be plausible that evaluations of AI users would vary depending on whether the employee described was early in his or her career (e.g., age 25) versus more experienced (e.g., age 40+). We did not find that to be the case.”</p>
<p>The third study tested whether these perceptions influence real decisions. In this case, one group of participants (801 people) completed a visual task and reported how often they used AI. A second group (1,718 people) played the role of hiring managers and chose between candidates who either used AI daily or not at all. They were told their pay would depend on the candidate’s performance, which gave them an incentive to choose carefully.</p>
<p>Overall, managers who did not use AI themselves tended to favor candidates who also did not use AI. In contrast, managers who used AI more often were more likely to prefer candidates who used AI daily. This suggests that people’s own experience with AI influences how they view others who use it. Those who are unfamiliar with the technology may be more skeptical or suspicious of its users.</p>
<p>The final study aimed to understand why these biases occur and whether they could be reduced. The researchers asked 1,006 participants to evaluate hypothetical candidates applying for tasks that were either manual (like handwriting notes) or digital (like sending personalized emails). Some candidates were described as using AI regularly, while others used traditional tools like Microsoft Office. Participants who did not use AI themselves were more likely to view AI users as lazy — and this perception translated into lower evaluations of job fit, especially for manual tasks.</p>
<p>However, when the task was digital and clearly suitable for AI assistance, the penalty disappeared. In fact, AI users were even seen as slightly better suited for the digital task than non-AI users. The researchers also found that frequent users of AI were less likely to judge AI users as lazy, suggesting that familiarity can help reduce the stigma.</p>
<p>“The top takeaway from this work is that AI use can carry a social cost,” Reif explained. “In our studies, employees described as using generative AI were evaluated as being lazier, less competent, and less diligent than employees using other tools or sources of help at work to perform the same task. The irony in our findings is that while some employees likely use AI because they are motivated to be more productive at work, its use may lead others to evaluate them as less motivated.”</p>
<p>One strength of the research is its experimental design, which allowed the team to isolate the effect of AI use from other variables. However, the authors caution that their work has some limitations. All the studies relied on online samples rather than real-world organizations, which may affect how well the results translate to actual workplaces. Also, the descriptions of AI tools were intentionally broad, which might not reflect the variety of tools and use cases that exist today.</p>
<p>“A key limitation of our studies is that the evaluators did not personally know the targets they were evaluating and were simply reporting their first impression upon reading about them,” Reif noted. “For example, we can’t say how perceptions about an employee who has a longstanding reputation for being a hard worker might change if he or she starts using AI. It could be the case that the effects we observe in our studies are weaker when the evaluator has more knowledge about the target or an existing work relationship.”</p>
<p>“One future direction I am excited about is unpacking why the social evaluation penalty we document occurs. For example, it may be the case that evaluators make assumptions about how those who use AI are spending the time they save. In addition to research on social evaluations, I am conducting research that investigates other social dynamics surrounding AI use in the workplace, such as how AI influences who seeks advice and information from whom.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2426766122" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Evidence of a social evaluation penalty for using AI</a>,” was authored by Jessica A. Reif, Richard P. Larrick, and Jack B. Soll.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/researchers-identify-a-shared-brain-pattern-behind-feeling-surprised/" 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;">Researchers identify a shared brain pattern behind feeling surprised</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Jul 13th 2025, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>Whether it’s a surprise birthday cake or an underdog team suddenly stealing the ball, moments that violate our expectations tend to feel startling—and according to new research, the brain may respond to them in a surprisingly consistent way.</p>
<p>Scientists at the University of Chicago built a whole‑brain “surprise network” that tracked how much a person’s expectations were violated and showed that the same pattern predicted surprise across three quite different scenarios: a laboratory learning game, the nail‑biting final minutes of college basketball, and short animated films that either followed or broke everyday rules. Their findings have been published in <em><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-024-02017-0" target="_blank">Nature Human Behaviour</a></em>.</p>
<p>The project began with a simple puzzle that has long preoccupied psychologists and neuroscientists. Surprise is one of the most vivid human feelings, but past studies rarely agreed on whether different kinds of surprise—social, physical, or purely informational—share a single neural signature. Study authors Ziwei Zhang and Monica Rosenberg reasoned that the best way to answer that question was not to look at one brain region at a time but to examine how hundreds of regions pulse together, moment by moment, whenever expectations are upended.</p>
<p>To build their model, the researchers first revisited an open dataset collected at the University of Pennsylvania. Thirty‑two young adults lay in a brain scanner while playing an “adaptive learning” game. On each of 120 trials a cartoon helicopter hid behind the top edge of the screen and dropped a bag somewhere along a horizontal line. Before the drop the volunteers had to slide a bucket to the predicted landing spot. </p>
<p>Most of the time the helicopter stayed in roughly the same place, but now and then it jumped to a new hidden position. The size of that jump, combined with uncertainty about whether a jump had just happened, provided an objective yardstick for how surprising each outcome should be to an ideal observer. While the game unfolded, the scanner recorded blood‑flow changes across 268 predefined brain parcels.</p>
<p>Rather than calculate average connections over long intervals—a popular but slow‑moving approach—the team computed the “co‑fluctuation” between every pair of parcels at every single image frame. Each co‑fluctuation value captured whether two parcels’ signals rose and fell together in that instant. Feeding these high‑frequency edge traces into a leave‑one‑person‑out learning routine, the scientists identified two sets of connections. One set grew stronger when the modelled surprise level was high; the other did the opposite. Subtracting the average strength of the two sets yielded a single number each moment, the surprise network score, for each participant.</p>
<p>Having trained the network on the game data, Zhang and Rosenberg next asked whether it would forecast surprise when the context changed completely. A separate group of twenty volunteers watched the last five minutes of nine National Collegiate Athletic Association tournament games while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging at Princeton University. </p>
<p>For every possession change in each game an established sports‑analytics algorithm updated the home team’s win probability based on score difference, time remaining, possession, and team strength. Surprise was operationalised as the absolute change in that probability, but only when the change contradicted the prevailing belief about which team was likely to win. </p>
<p>When the researchers aligned these probability swings with the surprise network score, the two rose and fell together even after accounting for visual and auditory features of the broadcasts, subtle head movements, court position, and remaining game time. In other words, the connection pattern forged in a joystick‑based learning task signalled belief‑inconsistent moments during real sports viewing, despite the switch from an interactive setting to passive spectatorship.</p>
<p>To guard against the possibility that any large network might show the same property, the authors ran several control tests. Networks built from slower “sliding‑window” connectivity did not generalise. Networks made by averaging activity within established systems such as the default mode network or a well‑known sustained‑attention model failed to predict surprise in both directions. </p>
<p>Models based only on activity of individual parcels, without considering how they interact, also stumbled. Even edge patterns tuned to the players’ motor predictions or to the reward signal in the learning game did not capture the basketball surprise metric. These comparisons suggest that moment‑to‑moment coordination across widely distributed regions contains information that simpler summaries miss.</p>
<p>The team then flipped the analysis. They trained a new edge‑based network on the basketball data and tested it on the learning game. The flipped network again tracked surprise, confirming that the relationship was not tied to any one dataset. </p>
<p>Interestingly, the edges that overlapped between the two independently trained networks concentrated in similar anatomical territories. Connections linking visual and parietal areas, the medial and lateral frontal cortices, and limbic zones repeatedly showed stronger co‑fluctuations when expectations were broken. In contrast, connections within primary sensory and motor systems tended to decrease in strength at those moments. </p>
<p>A computational “lesioning” analysis—removing all edges tied to one functional system and rerunning the predictions—showed that eliminating links involving the frontoparietal control system or the default mode network markedly weakened performance, highlighting their importance for monitoring belief violations across contexts.</p>
<p>For a final challenge the investigators examined a third open dataset collected at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Twenty‑nine adults watched brief videos in which cartoon agents either behaved logically or violated everyday psychology, such as walking straight through a solid wall, alongside clips that violated simple physics with no agents present, like objects passing through each other. </p>
<p>The overlapping surprise network was significantly stronger when agents acted in unexpected ways compared with their expected counterparts, yet it did not distinguish between expected and unexpected physics clips. This outcome aligns with prior evidence that physical and social violations may rely on partly distinct brain mechanisms, and it hints that the surprise network is especially sensitive to belief shifts about intentions and actions.</p>
<p>While the findings knit together three very different experimental worlds, the authors acknowledge several caveats. The network explains only a modest share of the moment‑to‑moment variance in surprise, meaning that other unmeasured factors also play large roles. Sample sizes, especially in the sports‑viewing dataset, were small by population standards. The magnetic resonance technique used is not optimised for deep brainstem nuclei that are thought to broadcast surprise signals, so those contributions remain blurry. Finally, the study depended on computational definitions of surprise rather than on each participant’s subjective reports, an issue future work could address with real‑time ratings or eye‑tracking.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-024-02017-0" target="_blank">Brain network dynamics predict moments of surprise across contexts</a>,” was published December 2024.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/new-research-shows-the-psychological-toll-of-the-2024-presidential-election/" 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 shows the psychological toll of the 2024 presidential election</a>
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<p><p>As the 2024 U.S. presidential election unfolded, many young Americans found themselves emotionally drained—not just by the outcome, but by the long months of anticipation and constant news coverage. A new study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2025.116574" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Psychiatry Research</a></em> has found that stress related to election news and the buildup before the election was linked to higher risks of depression and anxiety among young adults. Interestingly, stress about the election results themselves was not tied to increased mental health symptoms.</p>
<p>The researchers set out to examine how different aspects of election-related stress affect mental health among young adults in the United States. Presidential elections are among the most high-profile events in American civic life, and in recent years they have become increasingly stressful for many people. Past studies have shown a rise in stress levels during election seasons, but few have looked closely at how specific kinds of election-related stress might relate to clinical symptoms of depression or anxiety. This study was designed to fill that gap.</p>
<p>The 2024 presidential race was particularly intense. It came after years of political turmoil and was marked by widespread concerns about threats to democracy, fears of election-related violence, and deep divisions in public opinion. Many Americans reported feeling overwhelmed or anxious during the election period. For young adults, who are still developing emotionally and often face financial and social instability, this kind of stress can be especially hard to manage.</p>
<p>To understand how election stress affects young people’s mental health, researchers used data from the COVID-19 Adult Resilience Experiences Study (CARES), a long-running survey of young adults in the United States. This study followed participants from the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic into early 2025. The current analysis focused on a group of 778 people who completed surveys both in 2022 and in the months following the 2024 presidential election.</p>
<p>The researchers looked at three kinds of election-related stress: distress in the lead-up to the election, distress caused by the election outcome, and distress from news coverage related to the election. They used standard screening tools to measure symptoms of depression and anxiety, looking specifically for signs that participants might be at risk for at least moderate levels of these conditions. They also accounted for a wide range of background factors, such as participants’ political views, education level, employment status, race, gender identity, and sexual orientation, as well as prior mental health history, financial distress, and emotional resilience.</p>
<p>The findings showed that stress from election-related news was associated with a higher likelihood of experiencing symptoms of both depression and anxiety. Young adults who felt more distressed by the news around the time of the election were more likely to score above the clinical threshold for moderate depression and anxiety symptoms. Stress in the weeks and months before the election—the anticipation phase—was also linked to increased depression symptoms, but it was not tied to anxiety symptoms. Surprisingly, stress related to the actual results of the election did not predict symptoms of either depression or anxiety.</p>
<p>The study also found that some groups were more vulnerable than others. Participants who identified as part of gender or sexual minority groups were more likely to experience depressive symptoms. Financial stress was also a strong predictor of both depression and anxiety. Having symptoms of depression or anxiety in 2022 was a powerful predictor of whether someone would still meet the threshold for those conditions in 2025. These patterns suggest that both existing mental health challenges and ongoing life stressors continue to shape how young adults respond to political stress.</p>
<p>The researchers suggest that stress from constant exposure to news—especially on social media—may play a major role in shaping young adults’ emotional responses to elections. Because young people are more likely to get their news online, they may be more affected by the constant stream of political content. Even those who try to avoid politics may struggle to tune it out. This constant exposure may lead to feelings of helplessness, fear, or hopelessness, all of which are associated with depression and anxiety.</p>
<p>News about the 2024 election may have been especially distressing for this sample, which was predominantly made up of liberal-identifying women and individuals from gender or sexual minority groups. Many of the key issues covered in election news—such as reproductive rights and transgender healthcare—directly affect these groups. As a result, these participants may have felt personally threatened by some of the policies or rhetoric they saw in the news. This could help explain why news-related stress had such a strong link to mental health symptoms in this group.</p>
<p>Anticipatory stress, or stress experienced in the lead-up to the election, was also linked to a higher risk of depression. This kind of stress may have contributed to depressive symptoms by fueling negative thoughts, emotional fatigue, or feelings of powerlessness. In contrast, it did not appear to increase anxiety. The researchers speculate that this may be because many participants in the study were already bracing themselves for an outcome they viewed as likely, which may have led to sadness and withdrawal rather than fear or panic.</p>
<p>Interestingly, stress about the election result itself—whether participants were upset about who won or lost—was not linked to an increased risk of either depression or anxiety. This finding runs counter to the assumption that disappointment or outrage over the outcome is the most emotionally damaging part of the election. Instead, it suggests that the stress leading up to the vote, and the non-stop news coverage surrounding it, may be more harmful than the result itself.</p>
<p>The authors point out some limitations in their study. For instance, the measures of election-related stress were based on single questions, which might not capture all the nuances of how people experience stress. Because some of the stress questions were asked after the election, it’s possible that participants’ answers were influenced by the results. But the study’s design controlled for many background factors, which helps strengthen the reliability of the findings.</p>
<p>These results suggest that mental health professionals may need to pay closer attention to the emotional toll of election periods, particularly among young adults. For people who are already experiencing symptoms of depression or anxiety, the months leading up to an election may be a time of increased vulnerability. Clinicians might consider helping patients manage their media consumption, use cognitive behavioral techniques to address unhelpful thought patterns, or practice mindfulness to reduce anticipatory stress.</p>
<p>Looking ahead, the researchers call for more real-time studies to understand how people react emotionally during political events. Future work could also examine whether similar patterns appear among politically conservative or moderate young adults, or how different types of news content affect stress levels. The study adds to growing evidence that politics can have a powerful impact on emotional well-being—especially for those just beginning to find their place in civic life.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2025.116574" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2024 presidential election stress and its association with depression and anxiety among U.S. young adults: A two-wave survey study</a>,” was authored by Chang Zhao, G. Alice Woolverton, Ritika Rastogi, Anthony Menor, Hyeouk “Chris” Hahm, and Cindy H. Liu.</p></p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
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