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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/bright-children-from-low-income-homes-lose-cognitive-edge-in-early-secondary-school/" 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;">Bright children from low-income homes lose cognitive edge in early secondary school</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Aug 8th 2025, 10:00</div>
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<p><p>An analysis of Millennium Cohort Study data from the UK found that the cognitive skills of bright 5-year-olds from poor families keep pace with those of their wealthier peers until the end of primary school. After the transition to secondary school, however, high-achieving children from low-income families tend to experience a particularly sharp decline in attitudes toward school, behavior, mental health, and academic achievement. This decline occurs between the ages of 11 and 14. The paper was published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rssm.2025.101038"><em>Research in Social Stratification and Mobility</em></a>.</p>
<p>Socioeconomic status is a combined measure of a person’s or family’s economic and social position, typically based on income, education, and occupation. While it is not a single characteristic, it is consistently linked to many important life outcomes.</p>
<p>Socioeconomic status is strongly associated with children’s academic achievement and cognitive development. Children from higher socioeconomic backgrounds typically have access to more educational resources, enriching experiences, and stable home environments that support learning. These advantages contribute to stronger early language development, memory, and executive functioning skills. Conversely, lower socioeconomic status is often linked to increased exposure to stress, less access to quality education, and fewer learning opportunities.</p>
<p>These disparities can lead to gaps in cognitive skills even before children enter school. Over time, such differences often widen, resulting in persistent achievement gaps in reading, math, and problem-solving. Socioeconomic status influences not only academic outcomes but also school engagement, motivation, and expectations.</p>
<p>Study authors John Jerrim and Maria Palma Carvajal set out to track the outcomes of high-achieving disadvantaged children starting at age 5, before they began formal schooling. They aimed to compare their achievements and cognitive skills with those of wealthier peers through to age 16. They also examined whether these bright 5-year-olds from low-income backgrounds became more disinterested or unmotivated at school than their wealthier peers, and compared their behavior, mental health, and experiences with bullying.</p>
<p>The authors analyzed data from the Millennium Cohort Study, a nationally representative longitudinal survey that follows 18,818 children born in the UK between 2000 and 2002. Of these individuals, 10,757 remained in the study at age 17. At age 5, the children completed a set of five cognitive tests. The top 25% of performers on these tests were classified as high-achievers and included in the analyses for this study.</p>
<p>From this high-achieving group, the authors examined data for 1,392 children from high-income backgrounds and 389 children from low-income backgrounds. They conducted a number of statistical adjustments to ensure that comparisons reflected differences in cognitive abilities rather than other factors stemming from socioeconomic differences.</p>
<p>The results showed that cognitive skills among high-achieving children from low-income families remained on par with those of high-income peers through the end of primary school. However, during the transition to secondary school—between ages 11 and 14—these disadvantaged high-achievers experienced a particularly sharp decline in attitudes toward school, behavior, mental health, and academic performance compared to their wealthier peers.</p>
<p>“The failure to fully capitalize on the early potential of this group [bright children from poor families] is likely to be a key reason why the UK is failing to become a more socially fluid society,” the study authors concluded.</p>
<p>The study sheds light on the importance of the socioeconomic environment children live in for their development. However, it should be noted that the findings are specific for the U.K. culture and society. Findings in other cultures and societies might differ.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rssm.2025.101038">What happens to bright 5-year-olds from poor backgrounds? Longitudinal evidence from the Millennium Cohort Study</a>,” was authored by John Jerrim and Maria Palma Carvajal.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/new-research-supports-the-rabbit-hole-model-of-conspiratorial-thinking/" 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 supports the “rabbit hole” model of conspiratorial thinking</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Aug 8th 2025, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.3153" target="_blank">European Journal of Social Psychology</a></em> provides evidence that believing in one conspiracy theory can slightly increase the likelihood of believing in others over time. While the effects were small, the findings support a long-standing theory that some people may develop interconnected systems of conspiratorial thinking, where one belief helps reinforce others.</p>
<p>Although previous studies had shown that people who believe in one conspiracy theory tend to believe in others, there was little direct evidence about how these beliefs develop over time. One influential theory, proposed by psychologist Ted Goertzel in 1994, suggested that conspiracy beliefs could form a closed system, where each belief supports and amplifies the others.</p>
<p>This model has been widely cited, but its central claim—that believing in one conspiracy theory increases the likelihood of adopting others—had not been tested in a way that could establish causality. To address this gap, a group of researchers from institutions in New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Germany conducted two extensive longitudinal studies to examine how beliefs in various conspiracy theories influence each other over time.</p>
<p>“There’s been a lot of research showing that people who believe one conspiracy theory are more likely than average to believe other conspiracy theories. A well-known theory suggests this is because developing a belief in one conspiracy theory causes people to develop beliefs in others,” said study author <a href="https://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/expertise/profile.cfm?stref=235150">Matt N. Williams</a>, an associate professor at the School of Psychology at Massey University.</p>
<p>“This is the popular idea of ‘going down the rabbit hole.’ But despite a lot of discussion about this idea in the academic literature, there haven’t previously been any studies on the topic with a credible way of testing causal effects. I realized that by doing longitudinal studies it’d be possible to test whether people who develop a belief in one conspiracy theory are more likely to subsequently develop beliefs in other conspiracy theories.”</p>
<p>In the first study, the team followed 498 participants from Australia and New Zealand across seven monthly survey waves. Participants answered questions about their agreement with 10 well-known conspiracy theories, such as beliefs that the September 11 attacks were an inside job, that fluoride is added to water to control minds, and that COVID-19 vaccines contain microchips. Responses were given on a five-point scale ranging from strong disagreement to strong agreement. Most participants disagreed with most of the theories, but there was still enough variation in responses over time to examine patterns of change.</p>
<p>The researchers used a statistical approach known as a random intercept cross-lagged panel model, or RI-CLPM. This method allowed them to isolate changes within individuals over time, separating those from stable personality traits that might predispose someone to conspiracy beliefs in general. They then analyzed whether an increase in belief in one conspiracy theory in a given month was followed by increases in belief in other theories the next month.</p>
<p>The results showed that on average, small increases in belief in one conspiracy theory were followed by small increases in belief in others. The individual effects were tiny—typically a few hundredths of a point on a five-point scale—but consistent across the data. While none of the individual cross-lagged effects were statistically significant after correcting for multiple comparisons, the average effect across all 90 possible pairings was positive and significant. This pattern supported the idea that, for at least some people, adopting one conspiratorial belief can make it more likely they’ll adopt others in the future.</p>
<p>To confirm the results and strengthen the causal interpretation, the researchers conducted a second, preregistered study. This study included a larger and more diverse sample of 980 participants from the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. The data were collected over 13 consecutive months, and the survey included 11 conspiracy theories—some overlapping with those in the first study and some newly added. These included beliefs that climate change is a hoax, that genetically modified foods are dangerous and being covered up, and that the COVID-19 pandemic was used as a pretext to restrict civil liberties.</p>
<p>Again, the researchers used RI-CLPM to analyze the data. They preregistered their hypothesis that belief in any one conspiracy theory would positively influence belief in all others over time and laid out strict criteria for what would count as support or refutation of that hypothesis.</p>
<p>According to their preregistered plan, even a single negative and statistically significant cross-lagged effect could have falsified their theory. But in the results, none of the effects were significantly negative. One positive effect remained statistically significant even after a strict correction for multiple comparisons, and the average cross-lagged effect was again small but positive and statistically significant.</p>
<p>“The results suggest that developing a belief in one conspiracy theory probably <em>does</em> make you more likely to subsequently develop beliefs in other conspiracy theories, but only very slightly!” Williams told PsyPost. “The effect sizes we found were statistically significant but <em>very</em> small.”</p>
<p>“This lines up with one of our previous studies showing that people’s levels of belief (or disbelief) in conspiracy theories tend to be quite stable over time. <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-51653-z" target="_blank">In that paper</a>, we concluded: ‘People developing beliefs in a succession of conspiracy theories are often characterised as falling down a ‘rabbit hole’—a reference to Lewis Carroll’s <em>Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland</em>. It seems that if conspiracy theorists do fall down a rabbit hole, it is typically one with a rather gradual slope.'”</p>
<p>As with all research, there are limitations to note. One concern is that the findings could be influenced by factors that change over time and affect belief in multiple theories, such as exposure to new information or political events. These time-varying influences were not controlled in the analyses, meaning they could potentially explain some of the observed effects.</p>
<p>“Our paper was specifically focused on estimating causal effects,” Williams noted. “We did collect longitudinal data, and applied a form of analysis that can rule out one type of confounding variable—confounding variables that are stable over time. However, our studies definitely aren’t as conclusive as a true experiment would be, and it is possible that our estimates of causal effects could be biased (upwards or downwards!)”</p>
<p>“It’s also worth mentioning that the two studies in this paper are about the effects of beliefs in different conspiracy theories on one another. They weren’t designed to tell us anything about other consequences of belief in conspiracy theories. That’s a different question, and other researchers have published on this topic. But to me, the fact that people are willing to entertain conspiracy theories isn’t a bad thing in and of itself; real conspiracies do happen! That said, when beliefs about conspiracies become unmoored from reality, negative consequences can take place.”</p>
<p>Another limitation is that the surveys may not accurately reflect participants’ true beliefs. Factors such as social desirability bias, inattentiveness, or insincere responding could have distorted how people reported their agreement with the conspiracy theories.</p>
<p>“People sometimes claim to believe a conspiracy theory in a survey when they don’t really believe it (e.g., because they’re making a joke or trying to troll us),” Williams explained. “Such insincere responses could possibly distort some of our findings in this research area. For example, it could inflate estimates of the prevalence of beliefs in conspiracy theories. Some of my collaborators and I are therefore working on a study where we aim to find out more about insincere responding and how it affects research on conspiracy theories.”</p>
<p>“I think it’s important that research on conspiracy theories (or any topic, really) is done in a transparent fashion. So we shared open data and materials along with this paper, so readers can check our analyses and replicate our work. We also preregistered Study 2, so that readers can have more confidence that we didn’t ‘cherry pick’ our findings. The paper itself is also open access.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.3153" target="_blank">Does Developing a Belief in One Conspiracy Theory Lead a Person to be More Likely to Believe in Others?</a>,” was authored by Matt N. Williams, Mathew D. Marques, John R. Kerr, Stephen R. Hill, Mathew Ling, and Edward J. R. Clarke.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/moderate-aerobic-exercise-enhances-the-brains-eighth-sense/" 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;">Moderate aerobic exercise enhances the brain’s “eighth sense”</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Aug 8th 2025, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2025.102939" target="_blank">Psychology of Sport and Exercise</a></em> shows that regular aerobic exercise not only improves mood but also strengthens people’s ability to sense what’s happening inside their bodies—a skill known as interoception. In a 12-week intervention, young adults who previously led sedentary lifestyles showed increased accuracy in perceiving their own heartbeats, greater confidence in those perceptions, and reduced symptoms of depression and anxiety.</p>
<p>Exercise is widely recognized for its ability to enhance emotional well-being, and it’s often recommended as a strategy to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. But while many studies focus on external improvements like energy levels or fitness, fewer have explored how exercise might influence internal awareness.</p>
<p>Interoception—the sense of internal bodily signals like heartbeat or breathing—is sometimes referred to as the “eighth sense.” In addition to the traditional five senses, scientists often include proprioception (body position) and vestibular sensation (balance) as sixth and seventh. </p>
<p>Interoception rounds out this expanded list as the sense responsible for detecting the physiological condition of the body—things like hunger, thirst, heart rate, breathing, or the need to use the bathroom. It helps people stay in tune with what’s happening inside them, which can shape emotional experiences, guide decisions, and support self-regulation. Impaired interoception has been linked to several psychological conditions, including anxiety, depression, and eating disorders.</p>
<p>The researchers wanted to investigate whether regular aerobic exercise could strengthen this internal sense—and whether those changes might be accompanied by improvements in mental health.</p>
<p>“Regular physical exercise is known to benefit mental health, but the underlying physiological mechanisms remain unclear. We were particularly interested in whether exercise improves cardioception—our ability to perceive our own heartbeats,” said study author <a href="https://psychologia.uj.edu.pl/en_GB/tomasz-ligeza" target="_blank">Tomasz S. Ligeza</a>, a postdoctoral researcher affiliated with the Institute of Psychology at Jagiellonian University in Kraków.</p>
<p>“Since aerobic (cardio) training directly engages the cardiovascular system, we hypothesized that it could also enhance ‘cardio awareness.’ Moreover, most prior research on the exercise–mental health relationship has focused on clinical or older populations, so we wanted to examine whether these effects also apply to healthy but physically inactive young adults—a population that has grown recently.”</p>
<p>The study involved 62 young adults between the ages of 18 and 32 who were not physically active at the start of the research. Participants were randomly assigned to either an exercise group or a control group that continued their usual habits. The exercise group completed a supervised 12-week cycling program on stationary bikes. The first six weeks involved moderate, continuous cycling; the following six weeks used a more demanding interval approach with alternating high and low intensities.</p>
<p>Participants’ interoceptive accuracy (IAcc) was measured using the heartbeat counting task, in which they tried to count their own heartbeats without physically checking their pulse. After each trial, they rated their confidence in their performance, giving researchers a measure of interoceptive confidence (ICon). Depression and anxiety symptoms were assessed using standardized self-report questionnaires, along with a scale measuring general self-efficacy—a person’s belief in their ability to succeed at tasks and handle challenges.</p>
<p>These assessments took place at three points: before the program began, after six weeks, and after the full 12 weeks. Throughout the intervention, the exercise group completed three training sessions per week, and both groups wore activity trackers to monitor adherence.</p>
<p>The exercise group showed clear improvements in interoception and emotional well-being after just six weeks. Participants became better at detecting their heartbeats (higher IAcc) and reported feeling more confident in their ability to do so (higher ICon). These improvements held steady through the remainder of the study but did not increase further after the shift to more intense training. By contrast, the control group showed no change in interoceptive accuracy at any point in the study.</p>
<p>Mood-related outcomes followed a similar pattern. The exercise group reported reduced symptoms of depression and anxiety after six weeks, and those improvements were maintained—but not amplified—after completing the second half of the program. Their scores on the self-efficacy scale also increased, indicating a stronger belief in their own capabilities. The control group, on the other hand, showed no meaningful changes in mood or self-efficacy during the 12-week period.</p>
<p>“Our 12-week program had two phases: the first with moderate-intensity exercise, the second with higher intensity,” Ligeza said. “We expected greater improvements after the second phase, but that wasn’t the case. It’s possible we reached a ceiling effect—meaning that in healthy young adults, further increases in intensity (or a longer program) might not bring additional benefits for mood or cardioception.”</p>
<p>These findings suggest that moderate aerobic exercise is enough to produce meaningful psychological and physiological changes, and that higher-intensity workouts do not necessarily add further benefits—at least in terms of internal bodily awareness or mood in young adults.</p>
<p>“Exercise improves both mental health and aspects of body awareness—and the good news is, you don’t need much,” Ligeza told PsyPost. “Just three sessions per week of moderate-intensity activity like cycling, for 30 to 60 minutes, can be enough. So if someone is physically inactive and unsure whether it’s worth starting, this study should serve as a friendly scientific nudge to get moving.”</p>
<p>But why does interoception matter? Previous research indicates that interoception plays an important role in emotional life. The ability to perceive internal states like heart rate or breathing contributes to how people experience and regulate emotions. Better interoceptive accuracy has been linked to improved emotional insight, decision-making, and mental health. Conversely, disrupted interoception has been associated with conditions like depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and chronic pain.</p>
<p>The study has some limitations. The control group was entirely passive, meaning participants did not engage in any structured activity during the study. While this design allowed researchers to compare natural lifestyle conditions, it also meant that differences between groups may reflect not just exercise but other factors, such as time spent in a structured routine.</p>
<p>Another limitation is that the study was not designed to determine whether improved interoception caused the improvements in mood—or whether both were separate effects of the exercise program. Although the similar patterns across measures suggest a possible link, the researchers were not able to test this directly. Future studies could help clarify whether better interoception leads to better emotional regulation, or whether the relationship works in the other direction—or both.</p>
<p>Looking forward, “we aim to better understand the psychophysiological mechanisms through which physical activity influences mental functioning,” Ligeza explained. “Another goal is to explore more personalized exercise prescriptions, so that individuals can maximize the mental and physiological benefits of training.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2025.102939" target="_blank">Long-term aerobic exercise enhances interoception and reduces symptoms of depression and anxiety in physically inactive young adults: A randomized controlled trial</a>,” was authored by Michał Remiszewski, Gabriela Rajtar, Zuzanna Komarek, Tomasz Pałka, Marcin Maciejczyk, and Tomasz S. Ligeza.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/scientists-have-uncovered-these-weird-facts-about-psychopathic-individuals/" 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 have uncovered these weird facts about psychopathic individuals</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Aug 7th 2025, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>Scientists are gaining new insights into what it means to have psychopathic personality traits—and how these traits shape everything from pain perception and sexual behavior to political preferences and hormone levels. Rather than being purely the domain of true crime documentaries or prison studies, psychopathy is now recognized as a spectrum that can be measured in the general population, with subtle effects on everyday behavior.</p>
<p>Psychopathy is typically characterized by traits such as emotional detachment, lack of empathy, manipulativeness, impulsivity, and a disregard for social norms. Psychologists often break it down into multiple dimensions, including interpersonal traits (like superficial charm), affective traits (such as callousness), and behavioral traits (such as impulsivity and antisocial tendencies).</p>
<p>While clinical psychopathy is rare, subclinical levels are relatively common—and research suggests they may influence how people relate to others, process emotions, and respond to rewards and punishment. The following 11 studies help illuminate just how far-reaching these traits can be.</p>
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<h3>1. <a href="https://www.psypost.org/narcissism-and-psychopathy-are-both-weakly-related-to-makeup-habits-among-women/">Psychopathic Traits Linked to Lower Makeup Use in Women</a></h3>
<p>A study published in the <em>Archives of Sexual Behavior</em> explored how personality traits influence women’s makeup habits. Among 1,410 Brazilian women, researchers found that narcissism and extraversion were associated with higher and more variable makeup use, especially in social situations. Women high in narcissism, for instance, tended to wear more makeup on first dates or in professional settings, likely as a way to attract admiration or boost confidence.</p>
<p>But women scoring higher in psychopathic traits showed a very different pattern. These individuals tended to use less makeup overall and were more consistent across situations. Their cosmetic routines remained stable whether they were alone, at work, or with friends. This may reflect a lower concern for social feedback, aligning with psychopathy’s hallmark features: impulsivity, reduced empathy, and indifference to norms. The findings suggest that makeup, often seen as a tool for impression management, is used less strategically by women with elevated psychopathic traits.</p>
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<h3>2. <a href="https://www.psypost.org/psychopathic-traits-linked-to-distinct-cognitive-disruptions-in-learning/">Psychopathic Traits May Impair Learning from Pain</a></h3>
<p>In a study published in <em>Communications Psychology</em>, researchers found that individuals with higher psychopathic traits were less sensitive to pain and had trouble learning from painful consequences. Using electric shocks and a computer-based learning task, they discovered that these individuals were more likely to return to their initial behaviors even after experiencing discomfort.</p>
<p>This resistance to change wasn’t simply due to stubbornness—it reflected an underlying impairment in how their brains processed pain as a teaching signal. The researchers coined this tendency “belief resetting,” where people high in psychopathy quickly dismissed painful outcomes and reverted to old expectations. This may help explain why they persist in harmful or risky behavior even after punishment. While the study used participants from the general population, it offers insight into potential mechanisms behind the antisocial behaviors seen in more extreme cases.</p>
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<h3>3. <a href="https://www.psypost.org/a-core-trait-of-psychopathy-has-a-strange-link-to-how-the-brain-processes-faces/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Meanness Blunts the Brain’s Response to Faces</a></h3>
<p>A study in <em>Biological Psychology</em> revealed that people high in the “meanness” component of psychopathy show weaker brain responses when viewing faces expressing emotion—including fear, anger, and happiness. Using EEG to measure brain activity within 200 milliseconds of viewing a face, the researchers found that meanness was uniquely linked to reduced activation, even after accounting for other traits like boldness and disinhibition.</p>
<p>This early-stage dampening of facial processing may underlie the cold, emotionally disconnected behavior often seen in psychopathy. It suggests that individuals high in meanness aren’t just indifferent to others—they may actually process emotional cues less effectively at a basic neurological level. Surprisingly, this diminished response occurred across all facial expressions, not just negative ones like fear or sadness, indicating a broader impairment in social perception.</p>
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<h3>4. <a href="https://www.psypost.org/psychopathic-traits-linked-to-distinct-cognitive-disruptions-in-learning/">Different Psychopathic Traits, Different Learning Problems</a></h3>
<p>Another study, published in <em>Translational Psychiatry</em>, showed that different facets of psychopathy are linked to distinct impairments in learning. Using a realistic foraging task and EEG, researchers found that antisocial traits were associated with the belief that the world is highly unpredictable, leading to difficulty forming stable expectations from feedback. Affective traits, like emotional coldness, were tied to reduced learning from punishment, while interpersonal traits blunted sensitivity to rewards.</p>
<p>This study challenges the idea that all psychopathic individuals are uniformly insensitive to punishment. Instead, it reveals a more complex picture: some traits interfere with processing pain, others with motivation, and still others with basic expectations about the stability of the environment. These insights could help tailor more effective interventions by identifying which types of feedback are most likely to influence behavior depending on an individual’s personality profile.</p>
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<h3>5. <a href="https://www.psypost.org/psychopathy-stands-out-as-key-trait-behind-uncommitted-sexual-behavior/">Psychopathy Is the Key Dark Trait Predicting Casual Sex</a></h3>
<p>In research published in <em>Sexual and Relationship Therapy</em>, psychopathy stood out as the strongest and most consistent predictor of sociosexual orientation—that is, a person’s openness to uncommitted sex. While narcissism and Machiavellianism were also initially associated with casual sex, their effects disappeared when controlling for overlap between traits. Only psychopathy predicted all aspects of sociosexuality: behavior, desire, and attitude.</p>
<p>This suggests that impulsivity, emotional detachment, and risk-taking—the core features of psychopathy—may play a central role in shaping short-term mating strategies. The study also found that traits associated with prosocial values (like faith in humanity or moral respect for others) had little influence once darker traits were taken into account. In short, psychopathy—not kindness or compassion—is what best explains an individual’s comfort with uncommitted sex.</p>
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<h3>6. <a href="https://www.psypost.org/psychopathic-individuals-recognize-unfairness-but-are-less-likely-to-punish-it/">Psychopathic Traits Reduce Willingness to Punish Wrongdoing—When It Costs Something</a></h3>
<p>A study in the <em>Journal of Research in Personality</em> found that individuals with higher psychopathic traits are less likely to punish norm violators when doing so is costly to them. Across a large online survey and a lab-based experiment, researchers found that people high in psychopathy were less likely to act against injustice unless it required no sacrifice.</p>
<p>Importantly, this lack of punishment wasn’t due to a failure to recognize unfairness. In fact, these individuals were just as capable of identifying wrong behavior. Their motivation to enforce social norms simply dropped when there was no personal benefit. This finding suggests that the moral disengagement associated with psychopathy is not about ignorance—it’s about self-interest. They may understand the rules but only enforce them when convenient.</p>
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<h3>7. <a href="https://www.psypost.org/youth-with-psychopathic-traits-at-increased-risk-of-dying-young-study-finds/">Psychopathy in Adolescence Predicts Premature Death</a></h3>
<p>A sobering study published in <em>Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology</em> tracked 332 formerly incarcerated youth over more than a decade. Those with higher scores on the youth version of the Psychopathy Checklist were significantly more likely to die before age 35—most commonly from violence, suicide, or accidents.</p>
<p>Even when controlling for other disorders like ADHD or conduct disorder, psychopathy predicted a heightened mortality risk. In particular, behavioral traits like impulsivity and irresponsibility were closely linked to shorter life spans. The findings suggest that psychopathy in adolescence isn’t just a phase—it’s a serious risk factor for long-term health and safety, potentially warranting earlier intervention strategies.</p>
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<h3>8. <a href="https://www.psypost.org/psychopathic-tendencies-may-be-associated-with-specific-hormonal-patterns/">Psychopathy Is Linked to Higher Cortisol and Other Hormonal Clues</a></h3>
<p>A meta-analysis in <em>Psychology & Neuroscience</em> reviewed 26 studies and found that psychopathic traits—particularly impulsive and antisocial behaviors—were associated with higher baseline cortisol levels. This contradicts some earlier theories suggesting that psychopathy is linked to a reduced stress response.</p>
<p>In addition to cortisol, the study found suggestive evidence linking psychopathy to higher testosterone and lower oxytocin—hormones connected to aggression and social bonding, respectively. While findings were mixed across studies, the research points to a possible hormonal fingerprint for certain dimensions of psychopathy. These biological links could help explain why some individuals are more prone to impulsivity or emotional detachment.</p>
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<h3>9. <a href="https://www.psypost.org/psychopathic-traits-linked-to-distinct-brain-networks-in-new-neuroscience-research/">Brain Wiring May Explain Psychopathy’s Behavioral Side</a></h3>
<p>A study in the <em>European Journal of Neuroscience</em> used brain scans and machine learning to explore how psychopathy relates to structural brain networks. Participants with higher psychopathic traits showed both stronger and weaker connections in specific white matter tracts. Some of these connections—particularly those involved in emotional regulation and attention—also predicted aggressive or antisocial behavior.</p>
<p>The results support a dual-pathway model: one set of brain circuits impairs emotional processing, while another affects attention control. Importantly, psychopathy was not just linked to brain deficits—it also involved increased connectivity in some areas, possibly reflecting compensatory mechanisms. These insights offer a more detailed neurobiological map of how psychopathic traits might be expressed.</p>
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<h3>10. <a href="https://www.psypost.org/trump-supporters-report-higher-levels-of-psychopathy-manipulativeness-callousness-and-narcissism/">Malevolent Traits and Support for Trump Go Hand in Hand</a></h3>
<p>Research in the <em>Journal of Research in Personality</em> found that people who supported Donald Trump were more likely to score high on traits like callousness, narcissism, and psychopathy—and lower on empathy and compassion. These patterns held even after accounting for demographic variables like race, education, or income.</p>
<p>The study suggests that personality traits shape political preferences in profound ways. Trump supporters, on average, reported lower affective empathy and higher enjoyment of others’ suffering (a trait known as dissonant empathy). Meanwhile, people high in benevolent traits—like humanism or moral respect for others—were more likely to hold liberal views. The findings point to a deep psychological divide underlying political ideology in the U.S.</p>
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<h3>11. <a href="https://www.psypost.org/psychopathic-men-have-more-children-study-finds/">Men High in Psychopathy Tend to Have More Children</a></h3>
<p>A study in <em>Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences</em> found that men—but not women—with higher psychopathic traits were more likely to report having more children. Among men, traits like manipulativeness, emotional detachment, and antisocial behavior were all positively associated with offspring count.</p>
<p>The findings support the idea that psychopathy may serve as a short-term reproductive strategy—favoring quantity of offspring over long-term parental investment. However, the study did not distinguish between biological and non-biological children, and future work is needed to explore whether these results hold in different populations or across cultures.</p>
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<p>These studies collectively paint a nuanced portrait of psychopathy as a multifaceted personality construct. While extreme forms can lead to dangerous or antisocial behavior, even subclinical traits influence how people process pain, navigate relationships, and interpret social norms. As research continues, we’re likely to learn more about the biological, psychological, and social mechanisms behind these traits—and what they can teach us about the human mind.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/toddler-irritability-tied-to-gut-microbiome-diversity-in-the-first-weeks-of-life/" 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;">Toddler irritability tied to gut microbiome diversity in the first weeks of life</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Aug 7th 2025, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>New research suggests that the types and variety of bacteria in a baby’s gut shortly after birth may shape how they react emotionally as toddlers. In a longitudinal study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579425100229" target="_blank">Development and Psychopathology</a></em>, researchers found that greater microbial diversity in the gut at just two weeks of age was associated with higher levels of negative affect—such as irritability and fearfulness—when the children were two and a half years old. Interestingly, this association was not seen when gut diversity was measured later in infancy, highlighting how timing may play a key role in how early gut development relates to emotional traits.</p>
<p>The gut microbiome, made up of trillions of microbes living in the digestive tract, has become a growing focus of developmental science. These microorganisms not only influence digestion and immunity, but are also thought to interact with the brain through what’s known as the gut-brain axis. While this area of research is still emerging, there is mounting evidence that early differences in gut microbial communities may be linked to a child’s temperament and later risk for emotional or behavioral problems.</p>
<p>In adults, altered gut microbiome profiles have been associated with mood and anxiety disorders. In children, some studies have shown links between specific microbes and traits like fear, fussiness, and emotional reactivity. But results have varied widely, in part due to differences in when the microbiome was measured and how emotional outcomes were assessed. The current study aimed to fill this gap by tracking the gut microbiome at two time points during infancy and examining how it related to negative affect measured more than two years later.</p>
<p>“I was driven to explore how the gut microbiome in infancy predicts negative affect as a way to better characterize how the gut microbiome shapes cognitive and emotional development,” said study author Sarah C. Vogel of Boston University. “There is growing interest in the role of the gut microbiome in temperament and later risk for psychopathology, and I wanted to contribute to a growing body of literature helping us better understand those associations.”</p>
<p>The study was part of a broader longitudinal project involving 203 pregnant women in the southeastern United States. Of those, 96 children provided stool samples during infancy and completed a behavioral assessment at 30 months old. Stool samples were collected from diapers when the infants were two weeks and again at 18 months. These samples were analyzed using whole genome sequencing to assess the diversity and relative abundance of bacterial species.</p>
<p>At 30 months, each toddler participated in a virtual home visit with a researcher over Zoom. During the session, trained raters used a standardized behavioral coding system to evaluate how each child responded to new situations and how often they appeared unhappy or irritable. These ratings were combined into a composite score of negative affect.</p>
<p>The researchers also collected information about a variety of factors that could influence gut microbiome development or emotional behavior. These included the child’s sex, race, family income and education, method of birth (vaginal or cesarean), and breastfeeding history. These variables were accounted for in the statistical models.</p>
<p>The clearest finding from the study was that infants with higher gut microbiome diversity at two weeks old tended to show more negative affect at 30 months. This was true across two commonly used measures of microbial diversity. However, this link was not present for microbiome diversity at 18 months, suggesting that the first few weeks of life may be a particularly sensitive window for microbiome-related influences on emotional development.</p>
<p>The researchers did not find evidence that overall differences between infants’ microbiomes—known as beta diversity—were related to later emotional behavior. But when they looked at specific types of bacteria, they found some associations. Higher levels of certain bacteria at two weeks of age, including Lactobacillus, Streptococcus, and Veillonella, were weakly linked to more negative affect in toddlerhood. Another bacterium, Ruthenibacterium, showed a similar pattern when measured at 18 months.</p>
<p>However, none of these specific associations remained statistically significant after adjusting for multiple comparisons. This means they could be due to chance and should be interpreted with caution. Even so, these bacteria have been flagged in previous research as potentially relevant to emotional development, and the authors note that they deserve further investigation.</p>
<p>“Infants with more diverse gut microbiomes very early in infancy tended to be less happy, more fearful, and more irritable in their temperament as toddlers,” Vogel told PsyPost. “These findings suggest that having a more diverse microbiome in infancy may not confer the same benefits to health and development that a diverse gut microbiome does later in life. Our findings also highlight our growing scientific understanding of the role of the gut microbiome in child development.”</p>
<p>These findings raise important questions about how the early gut microbiome might shape emotional tendencies. One possibility is that greater microbial diversity in the first weeks of life reflects a more “adult-like” gut environment that emerges too soon, potentially disrupting the natural course of immune or nervous system development. In fact, past studies have linked higher microbial diversity in infancy with exposure to early adversity and with differences in brain development.</p>
<p>Another explanation is that certain bacteria may influence how babies react to stress through pathways involving the vagus nerve or stress hormone systems. Animal studies have shown that gut bacteria can affect emotional behavior through these routes, but human research is still catching up.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the study found that diversity scores from two weeks and 18 months were not correlated with each other. This suggests that the gut microbiome changes in significant ways over time and that early measures may reflect very different processes than those taken later in infancy.</p>
<p>While the study offers important insights, it also comes with limitations. The sample size was relatively small, and participants were mostly from a specific geographic region, which may limit how widely the findings apply. The researchers also did not collect data on antibiotic use in the first weeks of life—a factor known to strongly influence the gut microbiome. And while they looked at a range of possible bacterial influences, none of the individual genera showed strong enough effects to rule out the role of chance.</p>
<p>Future research with larger and more diverse samples could help clarify whether these early associations hold up. It would also be helpful to collect data on emotional behavior earlier in development to see how gut-related patterns emerge over time. Including more precise measures of biological pathways—like stress hormones, immune responses, or brain imaging—could help pinpoint how exactly the gut microbiome might influence emotional traits.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579425100229" target="_blank">Longitudinal associations between the infant gut microbiome and negative affect in toddlerhood</a>,” was authored by Sarah C. Vogel, Nicolas Murgueitio, Nicole Huth, Kathy Sem, Rebecca C. Knickmeyer, Sarah J. Short, Roger Mills-Koonce, Cathi Propper, and Nicholas J. Wagner.</p></p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
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