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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/too-attractive-to-relate-study-suggests-extreme-beauty-may-backfire-for-fitness-influencers/" 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;">Too attractive to relate? Study suggests extreme beauty may backfire for fitness influencers</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Aug 21st 2025, 10:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.70023" target="_blank">Psychology & Marketing</a></em> casts doubt on the long-standing marketing slogan that “sex sells”—at least when it comes to social media fitness influencers. Across several experiments, researchers found that highly attractive fitness influencers, or “fitfluencers,” tended to receive less engagement from audiences than their moderately attractive counterparts. The reason appears to center on relatability.</p>
<p>Fitfluencers are social media content creators who specialize in fitness, health, and wellness-related topics, often sharing workout routines, nutrition tips, and motivational content. What sets them apart from other influencers is the degree to which their physical appearance functions as both a personal brand and a form of credentialing. Defined muscles and athletic physiques are not just visually appealing—they serve as implicit evidence of the influencer’s expertise.</p>
<p>In this way, fitfluencers act as both lifestyle models and digital coaches, with their bodies reinforcing the credibility of the advice they share. Their popularity has surged in recent years, with tens of thousands of fitfluencers now active on platforms like Instagram.</p>
<p>The researchers behind the current study aimed to explore a less examined aspect of this dynamic: how a fitfluencer’s level of attractiveness affects audience engagement. While conventional wisdom in marketing suggests that attractive endorsers are more persuasive, the rise of influencer culture has brought new attention to the role of relatability—the sense that a content creator is accessible, similar, and psychologically close to their audience.</p>
<p>“This research paper is the result of a longstanding collaboration with a talented former student (and now coauthor) of mine—Justin Palmer—whom I’d advised in an independent study course in fall 2023,” said study author <a href="https://andrewedelblum.squarespace.com/?p" target="_blank">Andrew B. Edelblum</a> (<a href="https://www.instagram.com/dr_edelblum/" target="_blank">@dr_edelblum</a>), an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Dayton School of Business Administration.</p>
<p>“Early conversations with Justin revolved around finding the right topical fit for our research. After all, publishing takes time, so it is helpful to find an area you genuinely enjoy thinking about. Justin and I eventually found a mutual interest in the health and fitness space, which turns out to be a fairly understudied area of online consumer behavior. As fellow workout enthusiasts—and digital nomads—we even found ourselves name-dropping some of the same fitness influencers on our follow list. So, the context was really a story of overlapping interests.”</p>
<p>“As for the focal effect, this actually came as somewhat of a happy accident, as many interesting findings often do,” Edelblum explained. “Our initial topic explored how consumers respond to fitness influencers sharing body-building tips, drawing on either empirical science or personal experience. We didn’t find consistent effects as we’d hypothesized in these initial experiments, but we did stumble upon something even more fascinating: In one pilot study, we found that, relative to a text-only fitness post, Instagram content depicting flesh-and-blood male and female fitness influencers performed worse on engagement metrics (e.g., liking, sharing).”</p>
<p>“This ran pretty counter to expectations. Intuition would suggest that the presence of people makes content more—not less—engaging. So, we thought very carefully about our fitness influencer stimuli, really considering what about them may have evoked a negative response. Then, it hit us: The fitness influencers pictured in that original study were… quite conventionally attractive. Chiseled abs, strong jawlines, and model-like complexions. What if it was good looks that soured participants on these posts? Thus, the roots of the beauty backfire effect were born.”</p>
<p>To investigate, the researchers ran three main experiments with U.S. adults recruited online. They manipulated the appearance of fitfluencers across high and moderate levels of attractiveness and observed how people responded to their content. Along the way, they measured not only liking and following behavior but also how relatable participants perceived the influencers to be.</p>
<p>In the first study, nearly 300 adults viewed a mock Instagram post offering fitness advice. Depending on the condition, the post included either a highly attractive female fitfluencer, a moderately attractive one, or a text-only version with no image. The caption and other elements were held constant across conditions.</p>
<p>Participants then rated the influencer on several attributes—including relatability, trustworthiness, likability, and appeal—and reported how likely they were to follow the account or like the post. The researchers also measured participants’ self-esteem using a standard scale.</p>
<p>The results revealed a pattern the authors refer to as the “beauty backfire effect.” The highly attractive fitfluencer was rated significantly less relatable than the moderately attractive one, and engagement intentions were lower as well. While the highly attractive influencer was still considered physically appealing, she was also viewed as less trustworthy, less helpful, and less likable. Relatability emerged as the strongest single factor explaining the drop in engagement.</p>
<p>Participants exposed to the highly attractive fitfluencer also reported slightly lower self-esteem, suggesting that such images may trigger unfavorable social comparisons. In contrast, the moderately attractive influencer was associated with a small boost in self-esteem—perhaps because her appearance felt more achievable or inspiring.</p>
<p>In the second study, the researchers tested whether this backfire effect was specific to fitness influencers or might generalize to other influencer types. They compared fitfluencers to “finfluencers”—social media influencers who offer personal finance advice. While both groups function as online coaches, only fitfluencers are judged heavily on their appearance.</p>
<p>Participants viewed mock Instagram posts featuring either a highly or moderately attractive female influencer giving tips related to fitness or finance. As before, they rated relatability and engagement intentions.</p>
<p>The results showed that attractiveness had a stronger impact on engagement in the fitness domain than in the finance one. Highly attractive fitfluencers were rated as significantly less relatable and received lower engagement than moderately attractive ones. For finance influencers, the effect was smaller and did not significantly impact engagement. This suggests that when an influencer’s credibility is tied to their looks—as it often is in fitness—the relatability gap caused by extreme attractiveness has more severe consequences.</p>
<p>In the third study, the researchers examined whether the way influencers present themselves might influence perceptions of relatability. Specifically, they manipulated the captions to signal either pride or humility.</p>
<p>In one version, the fitfluencer said, “I’ve always looked like this. True greatness is reserved for champions.” In the humble version, she wrote, “I haven’t always looked like this. It’s taken a lot of hard work.”</p>
<p>As expected, humble captions boosted relatability across the board. More importantly, they eliminated the engagement gap between highly and moderately attractive influencers. When the highly attractive fitfluencer acknowledged personal struggles and emphasized effort, followers were just as likely to engage with her content as they were with the moderately attractive version.</p>
<p>This suggests that even when beauty creates distance, it may be possible to bridge that gap with strategic messaging that signals authenticity and vulnerability.</p>
<p>“Many of us are dissatisfied with our bodies, fixated on the things about them we’d like to change or ‘correct,'” Edelblum told PsyPost. “Our personal fitness journeys are often rooted in insecurity and sensitivity, and prior work suggests that certain populations, like women and adolescents, are particularly susceptible to feeling bad about the way they look. So, as we go online for guidance, it’s really critical that we find coaching that feels accessible, approachable, and, as our research finds, relatable.”</p>
<p>“In an influencer domain—fitness—that already has an iffy reputation for eliciting negative emotions and pushing dubious diet products, our findings show that Adonis-like creators with perfect, immaculate physical features may only exacerbate the problem. The harmful upward comparisons are real, leaving everyday folks feeling insecure rather than empowered. In turn, it’s important that consumers seeking health and wellness guidance find creators who appear grounded in where they are. Our research suggests that this is how sustained connections are made.”</p>
<p>“On the influencer side, let’s face it: Some fitness people are genuinely blessed with undeniable chili pepper attractiveness. Does the beauty backfire effect suggest that these influencers are doomed to face more of an uphill battle in boosting their engagement numbers? Absolutely not. Our findings show that if you have 10/10 looks, keeping things humble can go a long way. In fact, we found that the beauty backfire effect completely vanished when highly attractive fitness influencers messaged in a way that addressed personal difficulties or was otherwise modest and ‘raw.'”</p>
<p>To investigate whether the beauty backfire effect extended to male fitfluencers, the researchers conducted two additional follow-up studies using experimental designs nearly identical to those in the main experiments. The pattern generally held for both genders, although the drop in relatability and engagement was more pronounced for female fitfluencers.</p>
<p>“While the core of our work focused on the general beauty backfire effect, we found some fascinating evidence that highly attractive female fitness influencers face more backlash than their male counterparts,” Edelblum said. “In other words, audiences seemed harsher toward women at the very top of the attractiveness scale. This may be tied to the extra scrutiny women often encounter around appearance on social media, where body image pressures are already intense. It raises questions about whether and when beauty can work against women online—and if similar biases show up in other areas, like race or disability.”</p>
<p>The study presents a detailed picture of how attractiveness interacts with relatability and engagement, but—as with all research—there are some caveats. The fitfluencers featured in the experiments were selected based on Western beauty norms, which may not generalize across cultures. Further research could explore how the effect plays out with different racial and cultural representations of beauty.</p>
<p>It also remains unclear how personal characteristics—like body image concerns or fitness experience—might moderate the beauty backfire effect. Some people may feel more inspired by idealized physiques, while others may feel discouraged. The findings raise questions about how audience demographics, social media habits, and personality traits shape engagement responses.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.70023" target="_blank">The Beauty Backfire Effect: How Extreme Attractiveness Undermines Fitfluencer Relatability and Engagement</a>,” was authored by Andrew Edelblum, Abby Frank, and Justin Palmer.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/first-time-fathers-show-distinct-brain-responses-to-their-own-babies/" 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;">First-time fathers show distinct brain responses to their own babies</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Aug 21st 2025, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>When first-time fathers watch videos of their own infants, specific brain regions activate in ways that differ from how they respond to unfamiliar babies—or even their pregnant partners. A new study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.70324" target="_blank">Human Brain Mapping</a></em> offers evidence that fatherhood reshapes the brain in ways that may support sensitive caregiving. The research provides insight into how regions involved in social understanding, emotion regulation, and reward processing are tuned to the unique salience of one’s own child.</p>
<p>While previous research has shown that parents tend to respond more strongly to their own children than to unfamiliar infants, most of this work has focused on mothers. Far less is known about how fathers’ brains adapt to the demands of caregiving. The new study — led by <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/philnewsomejr.bsky.social" target="_blank">Philip Newsome</a>, an incoming third-year PhD student at the University of Southern California, and Anthony Vaccaro, a research professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill — aimed to fill that gap.</p>
<p>“For a little over 20 years, scientists have been studying how mothers’ brains respond to viewing their own infant as a way to understand how biology supports the social and emotional demands of parenting. But compared to mothers, far fewer studies have looked at fathers,” said Newsome, who works in <a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/nestlab/" target="_blank">the Neuroendocrinology of Social Ties Lab</a>, directed by Darby Saxbe, the senior author of the paper.</p>
<p>“In addition, prior studies have often looked at how parents respond to their own infant versus an unfamiliar infant, but it remained unclear if those responses were specific to their baby or if they simply reflected brain responses to a person they know and love. So, we designed a task that included own-infant, unfamiliar-infant, and romantic partner videos to try and tease apart these often-overlapping dimensions.”</p>
<p>The study included 32 first-time fathers from the Los Angeles area. All were scanned using functional MRI approximately eight months after the birth of their child. During the scan, the fathers watched short video clips showing either their own baby, an unfamiliar baby, their pregnant partner, or an unfamiliar pregnant woman. The videos were naturalistic and silent, displaying faces and upper bodies with a range of emotional expressions. Fathers were asked to rate the emotional valence of each video to ensure they were paying attention.</p>
<p>These same fathers had previously filled out questionnaires measuring prenatal bonding with their unborn child, postpartum bonding, parenting stress, and bonding difficulties. The researchers examined whether neural responses to the videos were related to these self-reported parenting experiences.</p>
<p>The research team used two types of brain imaging analyses. First, they applied traditional univariate analysis to identify regions with higher average activation during specific conditions (e.g., own infant versus unfamiliar infant). Then they employed multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA), which examines spatial patterns of activation across brain regions rather than just the overall intensity, to determine whether the brain could distinguish between different types of stimuli.</p>
<p>The researchers found that fathers showed stronger activation to videos of their own baby compared to unfamiliar babies in several brain regions. These included the precuneus and posterior cingulate cortex—areas associated with social cognition and self-referential processing—as well as the orbitofrontal cortex and inferior frontal gyrus, which are linked to emotion and reward.</p>
<p>When the researchers compared fathers’ responses to their own baby versus their own partner, they again saw heightened activation in the precuneus. This region appears to play a central role in processing information that is both socially relevant and personally significant, supporting the idea that the paternal brain is especially attuned to cues from one’s own child.</p>
<p>Notably, brain responses in these regions varied depending on the father’s reported parenting experience. Fathers who reported stronger prenatal and postpartum bonding, and less parenting stress, tended to show greater activation in the precuneus and posterior cingulate cortex when viewing their own infant. This suggests that these neural responses may reflect not just general social or emotional processing, but also the depth of the father’s psychological connection to their child.</p>
<p>Unexpectedly, however, brain activation was unrelated to the amount of time fathers spent as the infant’s primary caregiver or the infant’s age at the time of the scan.</p>
<p>“We were somewhat surprised that fathers’ brain responses weren’t linked to their caregiving experience, like time spent as the primary caregiver,” Newsome told PsyPost. “Notably, it’s possible that our relatively small sample limited our ability to detect such associations.”</p>
<p>Multivariate pattern analysis revealed additional findings. Brain regions involved in visual processing, social cognition, and reward—including the parahippocampus, orbitofrontal cortex, and anterior prefrontal cortex—could distinguish between viewing one’s own infant and other conditions. When the researchers trained a classifier to differentiate between infant and adult stimuli, or between familiar and unfamiliar stimuli, they found above-chance accuracy in several areas, including the superior temporal gyrus, middle temporal gyrus, and occipital cortex.</p>
<p>Although these areas overlap with those identified in studies on mothers, the results suggest that fathers’ neural responses may be especially centered in cortical areas associated with mentalizing—interpreting the thoughts, feelings, and intentions of others. This may reflect the need for fathers to infer their infants’ needs, given that babies are preverbal and rely on caregivers to interpret their signals.</p>
<p>The findings indicate that “fathers’ brains responded uniquely to their own infant (compared to seeing an unfamiliar infant or their partner), particularly in regions supporting the ability to regulate emotions, process rewards, and interpret others’ thoughts and feelings,” Newsome explained. “In addition, these ‘own-infant brain responses’ were linked to how bonded the father felt to their infant and how stressed they were in the initial months of parenthood.”</p>
<p>While the study offers evidence of distinct neural tuning to one’s own child in first-time fathers, it does come with limitations. The sample size, though larger than in some previous parenting studies, remains modest and includes primarily highly educated families from Southern California, which may limit generalizability.</p>
<p>Additionally, while comparing infant and partner stimuli helped tease apart self-relevance and social affiliation, videos of the partners were recorded during pregnancy, introducing a possible confound due to differences in timing and context. The study also lacked a control group of non-fathers, making it difficult to determine whether the observed effects are specific to parenthood.</p>
<p>“Our sample size of 32 is comparable to other parenting fMRI studies out there, but it is still relatively small, so smaller effects may have gone unnoticed,” Newsome said. “It will be important for future work to replicate our findings in larger samples to ensure generalizability.”</p>
<p>“Future analyses with these data will focus on participants’ brain responses to their partner and how these responses relate to relationship characteristics, such as relationship quality. We are also working on analyses that assess how participants’ responses change from the prenatal period to after their baby is born.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.70324" target="_blank">My Baby Versus the World: Fathers’ Neural Processing of Own‐Infant, Unfamiliar‐Infant, and Romantic Partner Stimuli</a>,” was authored by Philip Newsome, Anthony G. Vaccaro, Sofia I. Cárdenas, Narcis A. Valen, Yael H. Waizman, Elizabeth C. Aviv, Gabriel A. León, Jonas T. Kaplan, and Darby E. Saxbe.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/new-psychology-research-finds-leftist-causes-widely-seen-as-more-moral-even-by-conservatives/" 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 psychology research finds leftist causes widely seen as more moral — even by conservatives</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Aug 21st 2025, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>People across the political spectrum tend to see left-leaning political causes as more morally compelling than right-leaning ones, according to new research published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.70018" target="_blank" rel="noopener">European Journal of Social Psychology</a></em>. The findings, based on two studies conducted in Spain, indicate that not only do leftist individuals feel a strong moral obligation to defend traditionally progressive issues — such as gender equality and environmental protection — but that conservatives do as well. Conservatives also appear to view their leftist counterparts as more morally principled than the reverse.</p>
<p>These findings provide evidence of a moral asymmetry in political judgment, one that favors progressive causes and individuals in the public imagination. The results suggest this pattern may shape political polarization and influence how people across the ideological divide perceive one another.</p>
<p>“Political debates often feel like moral battles rather than simple policy disagreements. We wanted to examine whether people perceive what we believe could be a key factor in understanding political polarization: the perceived moral superiority of the left,” said study author Cristian Catena-Fernández, a professor of social psychology at Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) in Madrid.</p>
<p>“We argue that this perception (i.e., beyond whether the phenomenon is real or not) may be reflected in at least two specific psychological processes. The first is the prevailing tendency to feel a particularly strong moral obligation to defend political topics traditionally associated with the left (e.g., gender equality) compared to those associated with the right (e.g., national security). The second is the tendency to view leftists as more morally upright than rightists.”</p>
<p>The researchers conducted two studies, both carried out in Spain. Participants were recruited by psychology students at a public distance-learning university, who invited acquaintances to participate in the online studies as part of a class assignment. This approach yielded samples that were somewhat more educated than the general Spanish population, but geographically and demographically diverse.</p>
<p>In the first study, over 650 participants were asked to rate their sense of moral obligation to defend one of 12 political topics, randomly assigned. These topics had been pre-categorized as either traditionally leftist (e.g., environmental protection, gender equality) or rightist (e.g., national security, maintaining traditions) based on prior research. Participants also identified their political orientation on a scale from very left-wing to very right-wing. Those in the ideological middle were excluded from the main analysis.</p>
<p>Participants rated how strongly they agreed with statements such as “Defending [this topic] is a deep moral imperative” or “We have a duty and moral obligation to defend [this topic].” These items were adapted from prominent public and institutional sources that use moral language to frame social and political causes.</p>
<p>In the second study, a larger sample of 749 participants rated moral stereotypes, meta-stereotypes, and self-stereotypes related to ideological groups. In other words, they evaluated how moral they thought leftists and rightists were, how they believed others viewed their own group’s morality, and how they saw their own group in moral terms. Each participant was randomly assigned one of eight topics — four leftist and four rightist — and answered questions within that topical frame.</p>
<p>Across both studies, a consistent pattern emerged: leftist topics and leftist individuals were judged more favorably in moral terms than their rightist counterparts.</p>
<p>In Study 1, both leftists and rightists perceived a stronger moral obligation to defend leftist topics than rightist ones. While this effect was more pronounced among leftist participants, it remained significant even among conservatives. Rightist participants reported feeling more morally obligated to support causes such as gender equality and fighting poverty than to defend topics traditionally aligned with their own ideology, like maintaining social order or protecting national identity.</p>
<p>The findings were backed up by statistical models showing that the more a participant saw a topic as associated with the left, the more moral obligation they felt to support it. Conversely, the more they saw a topic as rightist, the less morally compelled they felt to support it — regardless of their own political orientation.</p>
<p>“We expected some differences, but the consistency of the asymmetry was striking,” Catena-Fernández told PsyPost. “Even rightists reported feeling more morally obliged to defend leftist causes than rightist ones.”</p>
<p>In Study 2, the researchers turned to perceptions of people rather than topics. Conservatives viewed leftist individuals as more moral than liberals viewed conservatives — especially when the context was a left-leaning issue. For example, conservatives rated liberals as more honest, ethical, and morally committed when it came to defending environmental protection, but liberals did not view conservatives as similarly moral when evaluating them on topics like national security.</p>
<p>Conservatives also believed that liberals saw them as morally deficient, a pattern known as a negative moral meta-stereotype. Liberals, on the other hand, did not anticipate the same kind of moral condemnation from conservatives.</p>
<p>When it came to how participants saw their own group’s morality, there were no significant differences between leftists and rightists. Both groups rated themselves highly on moral traits, suggesting that ingroup moral identity remains strong even when outgroup perceptions are asymmetric.</p>
<p>Taken together, the studies provide empirical evidence for a widely felt — but rarely measured — phenomenon: the perception that leftist causes and people are more morally upright than their rightist counterparts. This asymmetry could help explain why political debates often feel morally lopsided, with one side perceived as defending human rights and the other seen as preserving tradition or security without the same ethical weight.</p>
<p>The researchers suggest that this may not simply reflect personal beliefs, but broader social norms. Progressive values like gender equality, environmentalism, and social justice have gained prominence in Western societies over the past few decades. As these values become embedded in public discourse, people may come to see them as universally moral — even when they do not fully align with their personal ideology.</p>
<p>“Our results show a clear moral asymmetry: both leftists and rightists feel a stronger moral duty to defend causes linked to the left (such as gender equality or environmental protection) than those linked to the right (such as national security or tradition),” Catena-Fernández said. “Moreover, rightists tend to see leftists as more morally committed than the reverse. This helps explain why political debates so often become polarized around moral issues and why each side frequently feels misunderstood.”</p>
<p>As with all research, there are some limitations to consider. The studies were conducted in Spain, a specific cultural and political setting. While some of the trends may generalize to other Western democracies, cross-national comparisons are needed to confirm this. The samples also overrepresented highly educated individuals, which could influence moral perceptions.</p>
<p>In future research, “we plan to investigate how these moral perceptions influence political behavior—such as voting intentions or willingness to engage in dialogue across ideological divides,” Catena-Fernández explained. “Ultimately, our aim is to better understand how moral asymmetries fuel polarization and what can be done to reduce them.”</p>
<p>“One key message is that political conflict is not only about policy differences, but about competing moral narratives. Recognizing that both sides see themselves as morally motivated may be a first step toward fostering more constructive dialogue.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.70018" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Moral Perceptions in Politics: Ideological Asymmetries in Perceived Moral Obligations and Stereotypical Perceptions Across Leftists and Rightists</a>,” was authored by Cristian Catena-Fernández and Saulo Fernández.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/the-neuroscience-of-rejection-the-surprising-way-your-brain-learns-from-being-left-out/" 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;">The neuroscience of rejection: The surprising way your brain learns from being left out</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Aug 20th 2025, 16:00</div>
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<p><p>Imagine finding out your friends hosted a dinner party and didn’t invite you, or that you were passed over for a job you were excited about. These moments hurt, and people often describe <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1089134">rejection in the language of physical pain</a>.</p>
<p>While rejection can be emotionally painful, it can also teach us something.</p>
<p>I am a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=4-3bs9YAAAAJ&hl=en">social psychology researcher</a>, and research my colleagues and I have conducted shows that rejection can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2400022121">serve as a learning signal</a> – shaping how people navigate relationships and decide whom to attempt to connect with in the future.</p>
<h2>What’s known about social rejection</h2>
<p>Researchers have long recognized the emotional toll of social rejection. Studies show that experiences of rejection <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2007.03.005">trigger distress, increase levels of the stress hormone cortisol</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.79.5.748">reduce sense of belonging</a> and can even <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.74.5.1225">lead to</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr1002_2">increased aggression</a>. In the long run, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721411402480">chronic feelings of rejection</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/da.22120">can harm mental and physical health</a>.</p>
<p>But why does being excluded hurt so much? From an evolutionary standpoint, our brains likely evolved to treat social rejection as a threat. For our ancestors, losing social bonds meant <a href="https://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.1990.9.2.196">losing access to protection, resources, and cooperation</a> – making social connection and belonging a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.117.3.497">fundamental human need</a>. In other words, rejection hurts to alert you that your welfare is in danger.</p>
<p>Early neuroscience studies seemed to support this idea. When people were left out of a simple virtual ball-tossing game, their brain activity <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1089134">mirrored the response to physical pain</a>, showing activation of a brain region called the anterior cingulate cortex.</p>
<p>Later studies suggested a different explanation: Perhaps it wasn’t just the pain of rejection that triggered this brain activity, but also the surprise of it. In this view, the brain responded differently to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1728">negative feedback and unexpected feedback</a>. What might your brain do with this unexpected feedback?</p>
<p>Social lives aren’t defined by isolated moments of rejection. You <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-025-00445-x">learn through interactions</a>: You get to know people, read their intentions, revise your assumptions and try to make sense of mixed signals. People might turn you down for all sorts of reasons – some understandable, others harder to accept. You then <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10463280540000007">reflect on what these experiences mean</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1010661825137">adjust</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2011.00383.x">your behavior</a>, and if you cross paths with them again, you get another chance to decide how you want to engage.</p>
<p>This is where our research takes a next step: We examine how people <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2400022121">learn from social rejection and acceptance</a> over time and how they use these past experiences to build future connections, deciding on whom to invest in building relationships with and whom to let go.</p>
<h2>Rejection as an experience to learn from</h2>
<p>My colleagues and I <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2400022121">designed a dynamic experiment</a> that mimics the structure of real social decisions. Using behavioral tests, brain imaging and computational modeling, we studied how people learn from repeated social feedback.</p>
<p>Our college-aged participants played a multi-round economic game while undergoing brain scans. First, they created personal profiles for themselves answering questions about times they were honest and trustworthy, and were told that other players would read these profiles to get to know them better. These other players, who assumed the role of “Deciders,” would then rank participants – “Responders” – in the order they wanted to play with them.</p>
<p>In each round, Responders were either accepted or rejected by Deciders. This depended on two things: how highly they had been ranked and how many slots the computer had allowed for that round. In reality, Responders weren’t paired with real people; the Deciders’ rankings and number of slots were generated by the computer.</p>
<p>Participants could receive a high rank but still get rejected if there were not enough slots. That scenario is like not receiving an invitation to a wedding due to a very tight budget – the outcome is disappointing but understandable because you know you were excluded due to circumstances and that your friend still values you. Or participants could receive a poor rank but still get accepted if there were a lot of slots. This would be similar to being picked last for a team – still getting a chance to play despite knowing you were not as desired.</p>
<p>This unique design allowed us to tease apart how people learn from two types of feedback. When you’re accepted, your brain notes that feeling included results in a rewarding experience. Your brain also calculates <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10463280540000007">relational value</a>, which indicates how much you think others value you. In the case of our study, relational value was indicated by how highly Responders were ranked by the Decider.</p>
<p>If accepted by a Decider, Responders would receive a pot of money that would triple. Responders would then get to decide whether to give half of the tripled amount back to the Decider or keep all to themselves, putting trust and reciprocity to test.</p>
<p>We found that Responders were more likely to choose Deciders who had accepted them and rated them highly, learning from both kinds of feedback. With neuroimaging, we identified that these learning mechanisms were distinctly tracked by different regions in the brain.</p>
<p>Brain areas that researchers <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1728">previously found</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1089134">to be active</a> in social rejection studies, like the anterior cingulate cortex, were also activated when participants received feedback about how much they were valued. Interestingly, this activity didn’t just reflect pain or surprise; it reflected a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2400022121">recalibration of their perceived social worth</a>, as this brain activity occurred when participants changed their beliefs about how others rank them.</p>
<p>At the same time, experiences of acceptance were linked with activity in the ventral striatum – a region well known for processing <a href="http://doi.org/10.1097/01.wco.0000173463.24758.f6">financial and social rewards</a>, such as <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK92777/">money, praise or smiles</a>.</p>
<p>Together, these findings suggest that the brain is doing more than reacting to rejection or reward – it’s in fact <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2400022121">learning from it</a>. Each social interaction helps people update internal models of who values them and who doesn’t, shaping future decisions about whom to trust, approach or avoid.</p>
<h2>Building stronger connections</h2>
<p>When it comes to social relationships, the two learning systems we studied here – how people respond to rewards and how they track relational value – serve an important role in interpreting social interactions and adjusting behavior. To maintain healthy relationships, you need to disentangle social rewards from how much you think others value you.</p>
<p>You sometimes need to recognize that your friend still values you even if they might disappoint you, like missing a birthday party for a valid reason. Without this kind of understanding, relationships can become unstable.</p>
<p>In fact, some mental health conditions reflect problems in these very processes. For example, borderline personality disorder is often marked by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1097/NMD.0b013e3181aad2e7">volatile relationships</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00223891.2010.513287">intense reactions</a> to both kindness and perceived slights.</p>
<p>At the same time, being attuned to social rewards – in the form of smiles, compliments or invites – can encourage you to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2011.00405.x">seek out such connections</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2005.00373.x">strengthen your existing bonds</a>. Other forms of mental health conditions like depression are often associated with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2011.579800">social withdrawal</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291719003222">reduced sensitivity to such positive social rewards</a>.</p>
<p>By unpacking how people learn from acceptance and rejection, our study offers a foundation to better understand both healthy social behavior and the struggle to connect.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/249124/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1"><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p>
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<p><em>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/your-brain-learns-from-rejection-heres-how-it-becomes-your-compass-for-connection-249124">original article</a>.</em></p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/securely-attached-individuals-are-more-likely-to-engage-in-bdsm/" 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;">Securely attached individuals are more likely to engage in BDSM</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Aug 20th 2025, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>A survey in Belgium found that individuals who engage in BDSM tend to report lower levels of attachment avoidance and anxiety. Those with more secure emotional attachment were more likely to act on their BDSM interests. The study was published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/19419899.2025.2527641"><em>Psychology & Sexuality</em></a>.</p>
<p>BDSM is an umbrella term encompassing sexual and roleplay activities that may involve restraint, rules, power exchange, or consensual giving and receiving of pain. It includes both physical acts, such as tying or spanking, and psychological dynamics, such as dominance and submission. Some participants adopt fixed roles—always dominant or always submissive—while others prefer to switch depending on the context.</p>
<p>A core principle of BDSM is that all participants consent to the activities in advance and understand each other’s limits. Safety practices—such as safe words, knowledge of techniques, and aftercare—are commonly used to protect participants’ well-being. These experiences can be sexual, emotional, or both, depending on the individuals involved. BDSM is not inherently linked to mental illness; rather, it represents one of many ways consenting adults explore intimacy and sexuality.</p>
<p>Study author Els Tierens and colleagues aimed to investigate whether individuals with an interest in BDSM differ from non-BDSM participants in their emotional attachment styles. They also examined whether these differences varied across BDSM role identities—dominant, submissive, or switch—and how attachment patterns were associated with the frequency of BDSM fantasies and practices.</p>
<p>Attachment in adults is typically described along two dimensions: <strong>attachment anxiety</strong> (fear of rejection and abandonment) and <strong>attachment avoidance</strong> (discomfort with closeness and reliance on others). Different combinations of these traits are often used to describe four general patterns:</p>
<ul>
<li>Secure (low anxiety, low avoidance)</li>
<li>Anxious-preoccupied (high anxiety, low avoidance)</li>
<li>Dismissive-avoidant (low anxiety, high avoidance)</li>
<li>Fearful-avoidant (high anxiety, high avoidance)</li>
</ul>
<p>The study included 263 BDSM-interested individuals recruited through FetLife, a large BDSM-oriented social networking platform, and 300 control participants from the general Belgian population recruited via the market research agency Bilendi. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 71, with an average age of around 41 to 43 years. Roughly half identified as women.</p>
<p>Participants in the BDSM group completed a shortened version of a validated BDSM questionnaire, measuring their engagement with four categories: submissive fantasies, dominant fantasies, submissive practices, and dominant practices. All participants also completed the Experiences in Close Relationships (ECR) scale, which measures attachment anxiety and avoidance on continuous scales.</p>
<p>Among BDSM participants, 25% identified primarily with a dominant role, 46% with a submissive role, and 29% as switches. On average, the BDSM group scored significantly lower than the control group on both attachment anxiety and avoidance, suggesting they were more securely attached. However, the effect sizes were small.</p>
<p>Importantly, while attachment style was not strongly associated with having BDSM fantasies, individuals with lower insecure attachment—particularly lower avoidance—were more likely to report actively engaging in BDSM behaviors, whether dominant or submissive.</p>
<p>“These results suggest that lower levels of insecure attachment are related to the tendency to put BDSM fantasies into practice,” study authors concluded.</p>
<p>The results are in line <a href="https://www.psypost.org/bdsm-practitioners-exhibit-higher-secure-attachment-and-lower-neuroticism/" target="_blank">with another recent study</a>, published in the <em>Journal of Homosexuality</em>, which found that BDSM practitioners—especially those who identify as dominants—tend to have more secure attachment styles, lower rejection sensitivity, and higher psychological well-being than non-practitioners. These findings challenge the lingering stigma that links BDSM with emotional dysfunction or psychopathology. </p>
<p>However, there are some limitations. All data were collected through self-report surveys, which may be affected by response bias. The BDSM group was recruited from a specific online platform, potentially excluding individuals who practice BDSM privately or who are less open about their interests. In addition, the control group was screened to exclude anyone who reported even occasional BDSM interests, which may have created a particularly conservative comparison sample.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/19419899.2025.2527641">Associations of BDSM fantasies and practices with insecure attachment styles,</a>” was authored by Els Tierens, Violette Coppens, Ilona De Zeeuw, Elise Wuyts, Kris Goethals, Laurence Claes, and Manuel Morrens.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/couples-who-meet-offline-tend-to-have-more-satisfying-relationships/" 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;">Couples who meet offline tend to have more satisfying relationships</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Aug 20th 2025, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>As online dating becomes increasingly widespread across the globe, a new international study suggests that how couples meet may shape the quality of their romantic relationships. Published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2025.102309" target="_blank">Telematics and Informatics</a></em>, the research found that couples who met offline — in more traditional ways — tended to report slightly higher levels of relationship satisfaction and experienced love than those who met online. The findings are based on nationally representative samples from 50 countries, providing one of the most comprehensive examinations to date of how digital dating intersects with intimacy.</p>
<p>The study stems from growing scientific interest in how technology is reshaping human relationships. Over the past two decades, dating websites and mobile apps have become common tools for initiating romantic connections. In countries like the United States, online platforms have already become the most common way heterosexual couples meet. But while these platforms have opened new avenues for connection — expanding social circles, bridging geographic divides, and offering more diverse partner options — it remains unclear how these shifts influence long-term relationship outcomes.</p>
<p>Prior studies have painted a mixed picture. Some research suggested that couples who met online had stronger marriages and lower divorce rates. Other work has indicated little difference or even lower satisfaction among online-initiated couples. Many of these studies, however, have relied on limited cultural contexts — often drawing samples only from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) countries. The current study sought to address these gaps by examining online and offline relationship formation across a broad and diverse international sample.</p>
<p>“The way people meet romantic partners has changed dramatically in recent years – there’s a good chance you or someone close to you has met the love of their life online,” said study author <a href="https://martakowal.com/" target="_blank">Marta Kowal</a>, a postdoctoral researcher at the IDN Being Human Lab at the University of Wrocław.</p>
<p>“Yet, despite the growing popularity of online dating, we still know relatively little about its long-term implications. Early studies from over a decade ago suggested that ‘onliners’ were more satisfied in their relationships than those who met offline, but more recent findings have often shown the opposite pattern. We wanted to explore this further using nationally representative data from 50 countries to see whether and how meeting online relates to relationship quality across different cultures.”</p>
<p>For their study, the researchers recruited over 10,000 adults from 50 countries, using representative quotas based on age, gender, and urban versus rural residence. Of these, 6,646 individuals were in a romantic relationship at the time of the study and formed the focus of the analysis.</p>
<p>Participants completed online surveys that asked how they met their current partner (online or offline), how satisfied they were with their relationship, and how intensely they experienced feelings of intimacy, passion, and commitment — core components of love. These dimensions were measured using the Triangular Love Scale, a well-established tool in psychological research. The researchers also collected data on participants’ age, gender, education level, socioeconomic status, and how long they had been with their partner.</p>
<p>To ensure a fair comparison between online and offline couples, the team used statistical controls and a technique called propensity score matching, which attempts to account for preexisting differences between the two groups. This approach helps reduce the influence of confounding factors, such as relationship duration or economic background, that might otherwise distort the findings.</p>
<p>The analysis showed that 16% of participants overall had met their partner online, a number that rose to 21% among those whose relationships began after 2010. The share varied widely by country, ranging from 33% in Poland to just 7% in Ghana. Among Americans in the study, about 50% of relationships that started in 2023 began online.</p>
<p>People who met online were more likely to be in newer relationships and to report lower socioeconomic status. But the researchers found no significant differences in online meeting rates based on gender, age, education level, or whether participants lived in rural versus urban areas. This suggests that the digitalization of dating has become accessible across diverse demographic groups.</p>
<p>“I was most surprised to find no evidence that younger people are more likely to meet their partners online,” Kowal told PsyPost. “The rates were strikingly similar across age groups, which suggests that online dating has become both accessible and socially accepted at any age worldwide.”</p>
<p>Across the global sample, participants who met their partner offline reported slightly higher levels of relationship satisfaction and greater intensity in all three love components: intimacy, passion, and commitment. These differences were statistically significant and held even after accounting for age, gender, relationship length, socioeconomic status, and other variables.</p>
<p>While the differences in satisfaction, intimacy, and passion were relatively small, the gap in commitment was somewhat more pronounced. This pattern held across most of the 50 countries included in the study, suggesting a consistent link between offline meeting contexts and stronger relationship bonds.</p>
<p>Post-hoc analyses revealed that these differences were more pronounced among men and among people over the age of 33. For younger participants and women, the gap between online and offline couples was smaller.</p>
<p>“On average, couples who met offline reported slightly higher relationship satisfaction and love than those who met online, with the largest difference in commitment,” Kowal explained. “However, we need to keep in mind that these are average trends, not fixed destiny. Many couples who met online have strong, happy relationships. Our results suggest that the way a relationship begins may be linked to later experiences, but it is only one of many factors that shape relationship quality.”</p>
<p>Why might online-initiated relationships be slightly less satisfying? The study does not provide definitive explanations, but the researchers suggest several possible factors that might account for the observed differences.</p>
<p>One possibility is that couples who meet online tend to be less similar in background — including education, religion, and ethnicity — than those who meet through shared social networks. Lower levels of “homogamy,” or partner similarity, have previously been associated with lower relationship quality.</p>
<p>Another contributing factor could be the nature of online dating itself. While offering a larger pool of potential partners may seem beneficial, too much choice can sometimes lead to indecision, regret, or reduced satisfaction with one’s final choice. Previous research has suggested that people who perceive they have many alternative partners may be more likely to compare their current partner unfavorably.</p>
<p>Some dating apps and websites rely on algorithms to suggest matches, but their decision-making processes are often opaque, leading users to engage in strategic “game-playing” — such as altering photos or bios to improve match rates. This behavior may shift focus away from genuine connection and toward a more transactional view of dating.</p>
<p>There is also evidence that online profiles often include misrepresentations. When expectations built on digital personas clash with reality, it can erode trust and satisfaction. And in long-term relationships, individuals who are accustomed to browsing for partners online may be more likely to continue imagining or seeking alternatives.</p>
<p>Despite its strengths, the study has some limitations. The researchers used a simple binary categorization of meeting context — online or offline — without distinguishing between different types of online platforms. It’s possible that relationships formed on traditional dating websites differ from those started on mobile apps or social media. Future research could examine these differences in more detail.</p>
<p>The study was also cross-sectional, meaning it captured a snapshot in time rather than following couples over the course of their relationship. In future research, “it would be great to look at how different online platforms, from dating apps to traditional websites and even online games, relate to relationship quality, and whether certain motivations for using them predict better outcomes,” Kowal said. “Longitudinal studies will also be key to understanding how relationships that start online evolve over time, and under what conditions they thrive.”</p>
<p>“Meeting online can bring together people who might never have met otherwise, which is a huge opportunity. Our findings aren’t a warning against online dating, but a reminder that fulfilling, lasting relationships depend on how we nurture and care for our partner and relationship – no matter where the first “hello” took place.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2025.102309" target="_blank">Meeting partners online is related to lower relationship satisfaction and love: Data from 50 countries</a>,” was authored by Marta Kowal, Piotr Sorokowski, Adam Bode, Michal Misiak, W.P. Malecki, Agnieszka Sorokowska, and S. Craig Roberts.</p></p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
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