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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/individuals-adhering-to-ketogenic-diet-are-less-likely-to-suffer-from-depression/" 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;">Individuals adhering to ketogenic diet are less likely to suffer from depression</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Jul 24th 2025, 10:00</div>
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<p><p>An analysis of U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data from 2005 to 2023 found that individuals with higher adherence to the ketogenic diet were less likely to experience depression. Greater adherence to the diet was also linked to lower severity of depression symptoms. The findings were published in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2025.04.035"><em>Journal of Affective Disorders</em></a>.</p>
<p>The ketogenic (or keto) diet is a low-carbohydrate, high-fat eating plan intended to shift the body into a state called ketosis, in which fat is burned for energy instead of carbohydrates. This diet typically includes meats, eggs, cheese, healthy fats, and low-carb vegetables, while avoiding bread, pasta, sugar, and most fruits.</p>
<p>Originally developed to treat epilepsy, the keto diet has gained popularity for weight loss and blood sugar control. Many followers report reduced appetite and improved mental focus. However, some people experience side effects—especially in the early stages—including fatigue and digestive discomfort, often referred to as the “keto flu.”</p>
<p>Study author Hao Ren and his colleagues sought to examine the relationship between adherence to the ketogenic diet and the risk of depression. They noted that previous research has linked frequent consumption of fried foods to a higher risk of depression, possibly due to acrylamide—a compound that forms during high-temperature frying.</p>
<p>Since fried foods are often consumed on a ketogenic diet, one might expect a higher depression risk among keto dieters. However, other characteristics of the diet may support brain function, including improved glucose metabolism, reduced neuroinflammation, and decreased oxidative stress, which could potentially lower depression risk.</p>
<p>The researchers analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, a program run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The survey uses a nationally representative sample to assess the health and nutritional status of the U.S. population through interviews, physical examinations, and dietary assessments.</p>
<p>This study included data from 28,995 participants surveyed between 2005 and 2023. Of these, 4,484 were classified as having depression. The average age of participants was 47 years, and 15,654 were women.</p>
<p>The researchers used information on depression diagnoses and symptoms, as measured by the Patient Health Questionnaire-9, along with data from two 24-hour dietary recall interviews. These interviews asked participants to report everything they had eaten and drunk in the previous 24 hours. The researchers then estimated how closely each individual’s diet aligned with the ketogenic diet.</p>
<p>The results indicated that the more a participant’s diet resembled a ketogenic pattern, the lower their risk of depression. The study also found that individuals who slept more than 10 hours per day, those who slept less than 6 hours, and individuals over the age of 40 were more likely to experience depression. Depression risk was also elevated among participants with serious health conditions such as angina, stroke, diabetes, or high cholesterol.</p>
<p>“As our analysis suggests, the observed relationship between KD [the ketogenic diet] and depression warrants further investigation into the effects of this dietary approach on mood disorders. Elucidating the potential mechanisms of KD on mood disorders is crucial for providing dietary recommendations for patients with these conditions,” the study authors concluded.</p>
<p>The study contributes to the scientific understanding of depression risk factors. However, it should be noted that the design of this study does not allow any causal inferences to be derived from the results. While it is possible that the ketogenic diet protects against depression, it is also possible that depressed individuals are less capable of taking care of their diet resulting, among other things, in lower adherence to the ketogenic diet.</p>
<p>The paper “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2025.04.035">Association between ketogenic diets and depression: A cross-sectional analysis of the NHANES 2005–2023 August</a>” was authored by Hao Ren, Zhihao Wang, Yunbo Yuan, Yuze He, Wenhao Li, Yuhang Ou, Shuxin Zhang, Siliang Chen, Junhong Li, Yunhui Zeng, and Yanhui Liu.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/attractive-long-term-mates-have-a-weird-unexpected-effect-on-womens-creativity/" 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;">Attractive long-term mates have a weird unexpected effect on women’s creativity</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Jul 24th 2025, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/14747049251337983" target="_blank">Evolutionary Psychology</a></em> examined whether exposure to attractive dating prospects could boost creative thinking. The researchers found that for women, viewing profiles of long-term-oriented mates led to more fluent and original ideas—but only when sexual arousal was low. Heightened sexual arousal appeared to inhibit their creative output. </p>
<p>Creativity is often considered an adaptive trait. It helps people solve problems, communicate ideas, and navigate challenges. But creativity may also serve as a kind of ornament—a display that helps people stand out and attract romantic partners. Past research has shown that creativity is seen as desirable in a mate, particularly artistic creativity. People with creative talents tend to report more romantic partners, and women especially rate creativity highly in potential long-term partners.</p>
<p>If creativity evolved partly through sexual selection, then romantic contexts—especially those involving attractive potential mates—might be expected to activate creative thinking. A classic 2006 study found that imagining romantic situations could enhance creativity, but few studies have tested this idea since. The current research aimed to build on that work.</p>
<p>“Most of us—whether we realize it or not—try to highlight certain traits when we want to catch someone’s eye. We might showcase our appearance, but also our personality, skills, or talents,” said study author <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Katarzyna-Galasinska-2" target="_blank">Katarzyna Galasinska</a>, a PhD candidate and member of <a href="https://rcbbsb.com/" target="_blank">the Center for Research on Biological Basis of Social Behavior</a> at SWPS University.</p>
<p>“These behaviors aren’t random; they’re deeply rooted in our evolutionary past. Scientists have suggested that creativity may be one of the traits shaped by sexual selection. It could have helped our ancestors attract romantic partners—and it likely still plays a role today. Research shows that people, regardless of gender, find creativity attractive.</p>
<p>“If that’s the case, we should be able to observe increases in creativity when people are thinking about potential partners—especially in situations where attraction is central, such as dating, flirting, or even during the fertile phase of a woman’s menstrual cycle (a topic I’ve studied before).”</p>
<p>Galasinska and her co-authors, Aleksandra Szymkow and Marco Antonio Correa Varella, conducted two large online experiments with Polish adults recruited through a national survey panel. All participants were heterosexual and between 18 and 40 years old. The two experiments were designed to mimic online dating experiences. </p>
<p>“Online dating platforms provided the perfect testing ground,” Galasinska said. “Our question was simple: does seeing an attractive potential partner make us think more creatively?”</p>
<p>In the first study, 483 participants were randomly shown either four attractive or four unattractive photos of opposite-sex individuals on a simulated dating platform. After rating the photos, participants wrote a short self-promotional biography for a hypothetical dating profile. Independent raters evaluated these bios on four dimensions of creativity: fluency (number of ideas), flexibility (variety of themes), originality (uniqueness), and self-creativity promotion (how much participants described themselves as creative).</p>
<p>The researchers also measured mood, arousal, sexual arousal, and motivation to perform well. They examined whether these factors might mediate the effect of viewing attractive partners on creativity. They also looked at individual differences like relationship status, mate value, and openness to casual sex.</p>
<p>In the second study, 494 participants completed a repeated-measures version of a classic creativity test—the Alternative Uses Task—both before and after viewing profiles of attractive potential mates. This time, the profiles described the individuals as either seeking short-term or long-term relationships. The researchers again evaluated participants’ creativity based on fluency, flexibility, and originality of their responses. They also measured arousal, mood, dating desirability, and sexual arousal after the manipulation.</p>
<p>The first study found no direct effect of viewing attractive versus unattractive faces on creativity overall. Across the board, participants did not score significantly higher or lower in creativity after seeing more attractive potential partners. However, there were interesting gender differences in the data.</p>
<p>Men showed greater flexibility and originality in their bios, while women displayed more fluency and greater emphasis on their own creative traits. For men, being in a positive mood after viewing attractive mates was linked to greater fluency. Single men, in particular, were more motivated to perform well, which also predicted greater creativity.</p>
<p>“Our research shows that creative expression is shaped by a combination of situational, emotional, and individual factors,” Galasinska told PsyPost. “Simply seeing an attractive face on a dating platform doesn’t automatically boost creativity compared to seeing a less attractive one. What truly matters is how a person feels in response to what they see. The same image can evoke very different emotional reactions—and those emotions, in turn, influence how creatively we think.” </p>
<p>“This suggests that emotional and motivational states aren’t just background noise; they actively shape how we respond to romantic cues and what psychological or cognitive value—like creativity—we derive from them. For men, creativity tends to flourish when they’re in a positive mood and feel motivated to impress someone.”</p>
<p>The second study provided more nuanced results, especially for women. Women who viewed profiles of long-term-oriented mates were more creative than those who saw short-term-oriented mates. They generated more ideas and offered more original responses, even though the overall average creativity scores decreased slightly after the manipulation.</p>
<p>However, this boost in creativity only held when women’s level of sexual arousal remained low. When women reported being more sexually aroused by a desirable long-term mate, their creative fluency and originality actually dropped. A deeper analysis showed that dating desirability predicted greater sexual arousal, which in turn suppressed creative performance. This pattern was not seen in flexibility (i.e., the range of categories women used) and did not occur among men.</p>
<p>For men, there were no significant differences in creativity after viewing short-term versus long-term mates. Their creative thinking appeared less sensitive to relationship context, which may reflect differences in how men and women approach mate selection.</p>
<p>“The most surprising finding was how women responded to attractive men who, in their dating profiles, expressed interest in long-term relationships,” Galasinska explained. “We expected these candidates to increase dating desirability—and, as a result, boost creative thinking. But the opposite happened: greater interest in going on a date was actually linked to lower creativity, and this drop was explained by heightened sexual arousal.”</p>
<p>“At first, this pattern puzzled us. But when we turned to predictions from sexual selection theory, it began to make sense. The effect aligned with strategic aspects of female mating psychology: before investing effort—such as through creative expression—women often seek reassurance that a potential partner is truly committed to long-term investment, especially in the context of offspring.”</p>
<p>“What’s striking is how precisely evolutionary theories can predict such outcomes—often in ways that seem counterintuitive at first, but become clear when viewed through the deeper logic of mating strategies,” Galasinska said.</p>
<p>The experimental design of the research is a key strength. By randomly assigning participants to conditions and manipulating variables like mate attractiveness and relationship orientation, the studies allowed for stronger causal inferences about the effects of mating contexts on creativity. This approach helps move beyond mere correlations to identify potential mechanisms linking attraction and creative expression.</p>
<p>But the researchers caution that their findings are specific to an artificial context—a simulated dating portal—and may not fully capture the dynamics of real-world attraction. Viewing static images is very different from interacting with someone in person.</p>
<p>“One limitation of this study is that laboratory settings may not activate mating motivation as effectively as real-life romantic contexts,” Galasinska noted. “When individuals select a partner in constrained or artificial environments—where information about potential partners is limited—key non- verbal cues of mate value and romantic interest, such as charm, charisma, scent, voice pitch, or eye contact, are often absent. These subtle signals may be more effective in triggering creativity than purely verbal descriptions used in experimental designs.”</p>
<p>“Since evolutionary theories of sexual selection suggest that any trait used to attract a potential mate may also serve as an advantage in same-sex competition, the natural next step is to investigate whether—and how—competition for a partner influences our creativity. I have already collected data addressing this question, and the results are truly intriguing. A forthcoming publication will soon present the full story.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/14747049251337983" target="_blank">The Influence of Mating Context on Creativity: Insights from Simulated Dating Scenarios</a>,” was authored by Katarzyna Galasinska, Aleksandra Szymkow, and Marco Antonio Correa Varella.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/scientists-link-common-forever-chemical-to-male-specific-developmental-abnormalities/" 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 link common “forever chemical” to male-specific developmental abnormalities</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Jul 24th 2025, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study from the University of Rochester finds that developmental exposure to a type of “forever chemical” known as PFHxA may lead to increased anxiety-related behaviors and memory impairments—but only in male mice. The chemical, once considered safer than older forms of PFAS, was found to enter the brain during early life and trigger long-lasting behavioral changes that persisted even after the chemical had cleared from the body. The findings were published in the <em><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ejn.70174" target="_blank">European Journal of Neuroscience</a></em>. </p>
<p>Perfluorohexanoic acid (PFHxA) belongs to a larger group of chemicals called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. These substances have been widely used for decades in everything from firefighting foams and nonstick cookware to waterproof fabrics and food packaging. Because they don’t naturally break down, they accumulate in the environment and in human and animal bodies—earning the nickname “forever chemicals.”</p>
<p>While older, long-chain PFAS like PFOA and PFOS have been linked to developmental and behavioral problems in both humans and animals, newer short-chain alternatives like PFHxA were introduced in the hope that they would pose fewer risks. But evidence is beginning to suggest that these replacements may not be as harmless as originally thought. PFHxA has already been detected in human serum and breast milk, and postmortem studies show it accumulates in the brain, especially in the cerebellum—a brain region involved in motor control and emotion regulation.</p>
<p>“There is a really thorough and rigorous body of research focusing on the effects of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorosulfonic acid (PFOS) exposures on brain development,” said study author Ania K. Majewska, a professor of neuroscience and senior author of the study.</p>
<p>“However, there isn’t as much research focusing on the effects of short-chain, next generation PFAS like perfluorohexanoic acid (PFHxA) despite the growing detection of them in contaminated waters and soils and in human tissue samples. We found this to be a huge gap of knowledge, and we were hopeful to begin the conversation around PFAS that have been historically less studied but to which we are all exposed to throughout our lives.”</p>
<p>The researchers used a well-established strain of lab mice and exposed pregnant females daily to PFHxA by feeding them specially prepared mealworms from the first day of pregnancy through the end of lactation. Two doses were tested: a low dose representing a human safety threshold proposed in France, and a high dose previously used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in animal studies. A separate group received a chemical-free control feed.</p>
<p>After birth, offspring were monitored through different life stages. At various time points—postnatal day 1, day 21 (weaning), and day 90 (adulthood)—some animals were sacrificed to measure PFHxA levels in their brains and blood. The remaining mice underwent a range of behavioral tests to assess activity levels, anxiety-like behavior, memory, strength, coordination, and gait.</p>
<p>To minimize confounding factors, only one male and one female from each litter were included in behavioral tests. This helped ensure that any effects observed weren’t due to differences in maternal care or genetics within litters.</p>
<p>PFHxA was detected in the brains of exposed offspring as early as one day after birth, and levels were especially high by weaning. By adulthood (day 90), brain concentrations had returned to control levels, suggesting the chemical had been cleared. However, behavioral effects persisted, especially in male mice.</p>
<p>Males exposed to PFHxA showed a consistent pattern of reduced activity in an open-field test, a common way to assess exploratory behavior and anxiety. They spent less time moving and jumping, especially in the center of the testing area, which animals tend to avoid when anxious. Females did not show these same effects.</p>
<p>In an elevated plus maze, another test of anxiety, males exposed to the low dose entered closed and center areas of the maze more often—indicating increased stress or risk-avoidance—while those exposed to the higher dose spent more time frozen in the center. Again, females showed no significant behavioral differences.</p>
<p>Memory was also affected in males. In a novel object recognition test, male mice exposed to the higher dose spent less time investigating new objects, suggesting impairments in short-term memory or attention. There were no such effects in females.</p>
<p>“Perhaps it shouldn’t be too surprising, as neurotoxicant exposures often result in deficits in several behavioral domains, but we were surprised to find that the behavioral changes spanned multiple areas, including locomotor activity, anxiolytic behaviors, and memory,” Majewska told PsyPost. “This finding will hopefully inspire future research investigating the effects of PFHxA exposure on specific behavioral domains.”</p>
<p>Interestingly, PFHxA exposure did not impair strength or coordination in either sex, as measured by the hang test and an inverted screen challenge. Gait was mostly unaffected, although minor changes in stride timing were observed.</p>
<p>Taken together, these results suggest that PFHxA exposure during gestation and nursing affects brain function in male mice, leading to subtle but measurable changes in activity, stress responses, and memory.</p>
<p>“One of the key takeaways from this study is that PFHxA should receive the same level of research focus as older PFAS, as developmental exposure to PFHxA may cause similar male-specific behavioral effects,” Majewska said. “More research is needed on this pervasive PFAS.”</p>
<p>While the findings are suggestive, the authors caution that this was a preliminary study. Sample sizes were relatively small, especially for the brain PFHxA measurements, and behavioral outcomes were only assessed at specific time points. Larger studies examining behavior across development—and in both sexes—will be needed to confirm and expand on these results.</p>
<p>The study also did not directly measure how PFHxA may be altering the brain at a cellular or molecular level. Future work is planned to explore changes in gene expression and protein activity in brain regions linked to emotion and memory. The authors also noted that they did not examine how PFHxA might affect maternal behavior, which could indirectly influence offspring development.</p>
<p>Importantly, while the mouse model allows for precise control of exposure and behavior, extrapolating these findings to humans should be done with caution. Human development is more complex, and people are typically exposed to multiple PFAS chemicals at once, often over long periods.</p>
<p>Still, the fact that PFHxA was shown to enter the brain, influence behavior, and linger during early development—even though it later cleared from the body—raises questions about how seemingly short-lived exposures might shape long-term mental health.</p>
<p>“This study is a starting point suggesting that developmental PFHxA exposure can affect different behavioral domains, studies with larger sample sizes for both sexes and that address behavior at different time points and in different domains – social behaviors, for example – would allow us to determine how behavioral differences arise and evolve after exposure in a mouse model,” Majewska said.</p>
<p>This study is one of the first to demonstrate that PFHxA, a widely used short-chain PFAS, can alter brain function in mammals. Although the behavioral effects were modest, the sex-specific pattern—affecting only males—mirrors trends seen in many developmental disorders like autism and attention problems.</p>
<p>By identifying these effects in a controlled animal model, the researchers hope to provide a foundation for future work on how PFHxA acts in the brain. They also hope their findings will inform public health policies on the use, regulation, and disposal of short-chain PFAS chemicals.</p>
<p>As Majewska explained, “This publication focused on behavioral effects of gestational and lactational exposures to PFHxA, and we are currently working on understanding the effects of this exposure at the gene and protein level. A complete characterization of the developmental neurotoxic profile of this chemical will hopefully aid in the creation of policies around its use and disposal.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ejn.70174" target="_blank">Gestational and Lactational Exposure to Perfluorohexanoic Acid Affects Behavior in Adult Male Mice: A Preliminary Study</a>,” was authored by Elizabeth C. Plunk, Katherine E. Manz, Andre Gomes, Kurt D. Pennell, Marissa E. Sobolewski, and Ania K. Majewska.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/spontaneous-mind-wandering-linked-to-heavier-social-smartphone-use/" 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;">Spontaneous mind wandering linked to heavier social smartphone use</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Jul 23rd 2025, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>New research published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00332941251330555" target="_blank">Psychological Reports</a></em> indicates that people who frequently experience spontaneous mind wandering also tend to be more preoccupied with the online world and use their smartphones more for social purposes. The findings suggest that this link is influenced by a mental tendency called online vigilance, and that mindfulness might weaken the connection.</p>
<p>The authors of the new study wanted to better understand how smartphone use relates to attention. They were especially interested in how different types of mind wandering—spontaneous and deliberate—relate to smartphone behavior. </p>
<p>Past studies found that people who mind-wander more also report higher smartphone use, but these were based on surveys rather than real-world use data. The current research aimed to investigate whether these findings would hold true using objective, recorded smartphone activity, and to explore how online vigilance and mindfulness might explain or influence the connection.</p>
<p>The study focused on U.S. undergraduate students and took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, a time when many students were learning remotely and likely using smartphones heavily. Researchers recruited 188 iPhone users to take part in an online survey. Participants completed several questionnaires assessing their tendency to mind-wander, their overall mindfulness, and their level of online vigilance. They also provided screenshots of their iPhone screen time settings, which showed their actual weekly smartphone use across different app categories.</p>
<p>To measure mind wandering, the researchers used both a general questionnaire and scales that separated spontaneous (unintentional) and deliberate (intentional) mind wandering. They also measured mindfulness using a well-established inventory suited for people without meditation experience. Online vigilance was assessed with a 12-item scale that captured how much participants think about, monitor, and react to online content.</p>
<p>The smartphone data captured average daily use, number of pickups and notifications, and weekly use across app categories such as social media, entertainment, games, education, and health. Researchers paid special attention to the “Social” category, which includes apps used for messaging and viewing others’ content, like Instagram and TikTok.</p>
<p>The results showed that participants spent more time in the Social app category than any other. On average, they spent over 17 hours per week using social media, significantly more than time spent on entertainment or productivity apps. This pattern mirrors findings from other studies and reflects the central role social media plays in the daily lives of many college students.</p>
<p>The most notable findings involved the relationships among spontaneous mind wandering, online vigilance, and social smartphone use. Participants who scored higher in spontaneous mind wandering also had higher levels of online vigilance. In turn, those with higher online vigilance reported greater use of social apps. </p>
<p>This suggests that when people frequently have self-generated thoughts unrelated to their current task—particularly those that arise unintentionally—they may become more mentally preoccupied with their online lives, leading them to use their smartphones more for social purposes.</p>
<p>Statistical analysis confirmed that online vigilance helped explain the link between spontaneous mind wandering and social smartphone use. That is, people who tend to mind-wander spontaneously may be more mentally tuned in to the online world, which then predicts more time spent on social apps. This pattern was not observed for deliberate mind wandering, which involves intentionally letting the mind drift. This distinction highlights that unintentional mental drift may be more strongly tied to smartphone habits than purposeful daydreaming.</p>
<p>The researchers also explored the role of mindfulness. Although mindfulness did not directly relate to how much time people spent on their smartphones, it did influence the strength of the relationship between online vigilance and social smartphone use. People with higher levels of mindfulness were less likely to translate their online vigilance into increased social smartphone use. In other words, even if someone had frequent online thoughts, those with higher mindfulness appeared more able to resist the impulse to engage with their smartphones.</p>
<p>This protective effect of mindfulness was especially evident among participants with the highest mindfulness scores. For these individuals, high levels of online vigilance did not lead to significantly higher social smartphone use, suggesting that mindfulness may offer some buffer against technology overuse driven by mental preoccupation.</p>
<p>In addition to testing their main model, the researchers explored whether smartphone notifications—the external pings and alerts that draw users back in—might also relate to increased smartphone use. They found that notifications were linked to both the number of phone pickups and social app use. There was also some evidence that notifications might influence social smartphone use indirectly by sparking spontaneous mind wandering, which then increased online vigilance. However, this pathway appeared weaker than the main findings linking internal mental states to smartphone behavior.</p>
<p>However, because the study used a correlational design, the researchers cannot determine whether spontaneous mind wandering causes online vigilance or social smartphone use, or whether the direction goes the other way. It’s possible that frequent smartphone use could increase online vigilance and lead to more spontaneous mind wandering. In fact, additional analyses supported this reverse pathway as a plausible explanation. The researchers also did not measure the content of participants’ mind-wandering thoughts, so it remains unclear how many of them were actually about social media or online activities.</p>
<p>Future research could use experience sampling methods—brief surveys sent to participants’ phones throughout the day—to track real-time thoughts and behaviors more accurately. Experimental studies could also investigate how people with different levels of mind wandering or mindfulness respond in controlled settings that simulate real-life distractions.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00332941251330555" target="_blank">Spontaneous Mind Wandering and Smartphone Use</a>,” was authored by Lara L. Jones, Gregory A. Norville, and Zachary I. Wunder.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/attending-all-girls-high-schools-boosts-womens-political-engagement-and-leadership/" 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;">Attending all-girls high schools boosts women’s political engagement and leadership</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Jul 23rd 2025, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study using data from South Korea finds that women who attended all-female high schools are more likely to engage in political and civic life and take on leadership roles than those who went to coeducational schools. These effects persist long after graduation. However, the study found no evidence that single-sex schooling makes women more likely to hold feminist views or reject traditional gender roles.</p>
<p>Across the world, women continue to be underrepresented in positions of political and organizational power. Researchers have long tried to understand what shapes this persistent gap in leadership and participation. One hypothesis is that early-life experiences—such as those in school—can play a major role in shaping ambitions and self-perceptions that influence whether people seek out leadership or civic engagement later in life. </p>
<p>The new study, published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/XPS.2025.6" target="_blank">Journal of Experimental Political Science</a></em>, took advantage of a rare natural experiment in South Korea to explore how school environments influence women’s later behavior in politics and leadership.</p>
<p>The researchers were particularly interested in whether attending an all-female high school increases women’s willingness to participate in civic life and seek out leadership roles. They also wanted to test whether such an environment changes women’s views on gender roles and stereotypes. While many have speculated that single-sex schooling might provide a more empowering context for young women, very few studies have tested this idea using methods that can establish cause-and-effect relationships.</p>
<p>In South Korea, however, between 1974 and 2009, students in Seoul were randomly assigned to high schools within their local districts as part of a government equalization policy. This random assignment included both single-sex and coeducational schools, which provided a unique opportunity for researchers to study the long-term effects of school environments without the confounding influence of family preferences. Because curriculum, tuition, and school standards were standardized by the government, differences in student outcomes could more confidently be linked to the type of school environment rather than other factors.</p>
<p>The study was co-authored by political scientist Nicholas Sambanis, who was inspired to explore the topic after choosing an all-girls middle school for his daughter. Wondering whether this decision actually influenced her development, he turned to the randomized system in South Korea to look for answers in the data.</p>
<p>“When I moved to the suburbs of Philadelphia to take a position at Penn in 2016, I had a choice to make regarding my daughter’s middle school. There were a couple of all-girls schools in the area that everyone said were very good, and they pitched themselves as creating well-rounded, self-assured young women who would be able to handle themselves in a workplace dominated by men,” explained Sambanis, the Kalsi Professor of Political Science and director of <a href="https://campuspress.yale.edu/yaleicl/" target="_blank">the Identity & Conflict Lab</a> at Yale University.</p>
<p>“I enrolled my daughter in one of those schools. It was definitely less fun and I always wondered if it was the right decision so I decided to look for some data on this. Of course, it is very hard to identify the causal effect of single-sex schooling in the United States because school assignments are not random, so I collected data from Korea because school assignment there is random (ostensibly for egalitarian reasons).”</p>
<p>The researchers conducted a survey of over 3,400 adults in South Korea who had graduated from high schools in Seoul between 1990 and 2010. Because school assignment had been random during that period, the researchers could compare outcomes between graduates of single-sex and coeducational schools as if in an experiment. They asked participants about their past and current civic and political engagement, experiences in leadership roles, leadership attitudes, and beliefs about gender roles.</p>
<p>To test political participation, the researchers created an index based on self-reported involvement in activities such as voting, attending rallies, contacting public officials, signing petitions, and donating to political causes. They also separated participation into several categories, including traditional electoral activities, private activism, collective action, and political contact. All responses were converted to scales ranging from 0 to 1.</p>
<p>The researchers found that women who had attended all-female high schools reported higher overall political and civic engagement. Specifically, they were more likely to vote, take part in private forms of activism like donating or boycotting, and contact public officials or engage with political content online. On average, attending a single-sex school increased women’s participation score by 4.1 percentage points. These effects were statistically significant and persisted even after accounting for other background factors.</p>
<p>Men did not experience the same benefits. Among male graduates, there was no consistent effect of single-sex schooling on political participation, with the exception of a small increase in private activism. This suggests that single-sex schooling had a uniquely positive influence on women’s engagement with political and civic life.</p>
<p>When it came to leadership, the researchers examined both attitudes and behavior. They asked participants how much they agreed with statements about preferring leadership roles and feeling confident in their leadership abilities. They also asked whether respondents had ever held a leadership position in any group or organization, such as a volunteer group, community association, or professional society.</p>
<p>Women who had attended all-girls schools were more likely to express interest in leadership, though the increase in self-reported leadership confidence was modest—just over 2 percentage points—and only marginally statistically significant. The behavioral measure, however, showed a much stronger effect: women from single-sex schools were 7.3 percentage points more likely to have held a leadership position in a group or organization. Again, men did not show significant differences based on school type.</p>
<p>“The study shows that there may be a benefit for girls to be educated in an all-girl environment,” Sambanis told PsyPost. “The effect is likely due to seeing girls in leadership roles – by virtue of the school’s structure, girls will be the best students, the best athletes, the class president. This could make all girls believe that they can compete effectively and they would also be more comfortable expressing their opinions and aspirations. This effect carries over into their professional lives when they become adults and can last a lifetime.”</p>
<p>One unexpected result emerged when the researchers turned to gender attitudes. Despite showing higher participation and leadership rates, women who attended all-girls schools were no more likely to hold progressive views on gender roles than their peers from coeducational schools. </p>
<p>The researchers used two well-established measures to assess this: one for hostile sexism and one for traditional beliefs about gender roles in the household. On both scales, women overall scored lower (meaning they were less sexist and more supportive of gender equality) than men—but there was no difference between women who had attended single-sex and coeducational schools.</p>
<p>“My co-author, Amber Hye-Won Lee, and I were surprised not to find any effects of an all-girls education on girls’ attitudes toward gender norms,” Sambanis said. “In retrospect, this might not be surprising; for schools to such an effect, the school’s leadership and teachers probably need to consciously promote a feminist agenda, which is not the case in all-girls schools in Korea, as far as we know.”</p>
<p>The study has some limitations. It focuses only on people who graduated from schools in Seoul during a specific timeframe, so the findings may not generalize to all regions or countries. </p>
<p>“The study is limited to analyzing self-reported data obtained via surveys,” Sambanis noted. “It has the benefit of analyzing effects among people who graduated decades ago, so we can say something about the durability of effects. But we could not manipulate anything related to curriculum or other aspects of the school experience (beyond the natural experiment involving random assignment to schools). The topic is important enough to be studied more closely and prospectively in more countries using experimental methods.”</p>
<p>Looking forward, Sambanis said he is “considering a field experiment focused on girls’ competitiveness and a study on the effects of exposing girls to sports at an early age. But in general this line of research is not a major agenda item in my lab at the time. It was something I focused on a few years ago for personal reasons, as mentioned earlier.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/XPS.2025.6" target="_blank">Same-Sex Schooling, Political Participation, and Gender Attitudes? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in South Korea</a>,” was authored by Amber Hye-Yon Lee and Nicholas Sambanis.</p></p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
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