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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/single-dose-of-psilocybin-provides-lasting-relief-from-depression-and-anxiety-in-cancer-patients/" 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;">Single dose of psilocybin provides lasting relief from depression and anxiety in cancer patients</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Aug 27th 2025, 10:00</div>
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<p><p>A clinical trial examined the effects of psilocybin combined with psychological support on cancer patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder. Results showed that a single dose of psilocybin had robust antidepressant effects in these individuals. Fifty percent demonstrated sustained depression reduction, while 43% experienced a sustained reduction in anxiety. The research was published in the journal <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/cncr.35889"><em>Cancer</em></a>.</p>
<p>Depression is a mental health condition that involves persistent sadness, loss of interest, and feelings of hopelessness. It is often accompanied by anxiety, which is characterized by excessive fear, worry, and physical tension. Both conditions are common psychological responses to the challenges of living with cancer.</p>
<p>Cancer patients often face uncertainty about their prognosis, undergo painful treatments, and experience changes in physical functioning, all of which can heighten anxiety. Depression may develop as a response to the emotional burden of diagnosis, fatigue, changes in body image, or loss of independence. These conditions can negatively affect treatment adherence, as patients may avoid appointments or struggle to follow medical recommendations.</p>
<p>Anxiety can also intensify physical symptoms such as pain, nausea, or insomnia, creating a cycle of distress. Depression may reduce motivation and energy, limiting the patient’s ability to engage in daily activities and draw on social support. Emotional distress in cancer patients is associated with a poorer quality of life and, in some studies, worse clinical outcomes.</p>
<p>Study author Manish Agrawal and his colleagues explored the impact of psilocybin combined with psychological support in 30 patients with cancer and a diagnosis of major depressive disorder. Some had curable, and others had incurable forms of cancer. The average age of participants was 57.5 years, and 19 were female. None were hospitalized for depression at baseline, and 61% were not receiving psychiatric medications. During the course of the study, two patients died, reducing the number of participants in the final analysis to 28.</p>
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<p>Psilocybin is a naturally occurring psychedelic compound found in certain species of mushrooms, often referred to as “magic mushrooms.” In the body, it is metabolized into psilocin, which affects serotonin receptors in the brain and produces altered perception, mood changes, and hallucinogenic effects. Research suggests that psilocybin may have therapeutic properties for individuals with anxiety and depression, particularly those who do not respond to standard medications. However, its effects are still being studied, and it can sometimes cause unwanted or distressing experiences.</p>
<p>Participants were assigned to small cohorts and received both group and individual preparatory psychotherapy. After a screening period that included two visits, participants underwent two baseline preparation sessions (one group and one individual). Each patient then received a single 25-milligram dose of psilocybin during a supervised six- to seven-hour session. Following the psilocybin session, participants completed two group and two individual integration therapy sessions. These sessions also included follow-up assessments of depression and anxiety symptoms.</p>
<p>The full intervention involved eight visits over the course of eight weeks. However, researchers also assessed mental health outcomes at 18 and 24 months after the start of the study.</p>
<p>Results showed that over the two-year follow-up period, no participants were hospitalized for depression. Sixty-one percent did not receive additional psychiatric medications, and the same proportion did not use additional psychedelic substances. Alcohol use decreased in six patients following treatment.</p>
<p>At the two-month mark, 25 out of 28 participants experienced a significant reduction in depression symptoms. At the 24-month follow-up, 54% of participants maintained significant reductions in depressive symptoms, and 50% met the criteria for remission. Notably, 25% of participants achieved sustained remission over two years after a single psilocybin dose and without any additional medications. Three patients received a second psilocybin treatment during the follow-up period.</p>
<p>Seventy-nine percent of participants showed reduced anxiety symptoms two months after treatment. At the 24-month mark, 46% still experienced significant reductions in anxiety. Five patients sustained these improvements over two years after receiving only a single dose of psilocybin. In total, 12 participants (43%) demonstrated sustained reductions in anxiety at the two-year follow-up.</p>
<p>“These findings demonstrate robust antidepressive activity from a single 25 mg dose of psilocybin combined with psychotherapy and suggest a potentially paradigm‐changing alternative to traditional antidepressants requiring further study,” the study authors concluded.</p>
<p>The study adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that psilocybin may offer long-lasting benefits for mental health. However, it is important to note that the trial did not include a placebo or control group, making it difficult to determine whether the observed improvements were due solely to the psilocybin treatment. Other factors—such as the natural course of the illness or the effects of psychotherapy—may have played a role. Some studies suggest that 60% to 70% of individuals experiencing a depressive episode may achieve remission without treatment over a one- to two-year period.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/cncr.35889">Long‐term benefits of single‐dose psilocybin in depressed patients with cancer,</a>” was authored by Manish Agrawal, Kim Roddy, Betsy Jenkins, Celia Leeks, and Ezekiel Emanuel.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/fascinating-new-psychology-research-shows-how-music-shapes-imagination/" 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;">Fascinating new psychology research shows how music shapes imagination</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Aug 27th 2025, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people reported turning to music not just for entertainment, but for comfort, support, and even companionship. Now, a new study published in<em> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-10309-2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Scientific Reports</a></em> provides evidence that this sense of “music as company” may be more than a metaphor. Researchers found that music listening can shape mental imagery by increasing the presence of social themes in people’s imagined scenes.</p>
<p>The idea that music offers social comfort has been widely reported in surveys and interviews, especially during periods of isolation such as pandemic lockdowns. Listeners often say they use music “to keep them company” or to ease feelings of loneliness. But the extent to which music genuinely prompts social thinking—rather than simply modulating mood—has been unclear. Most prior research has focused on how music affects memory, emotion, or passive mind-wandering. Few studies have examined how music shapes the content of intentional mental imagery, particularly whether it elicits social scenes or interactions.</p>
<p>This distinction is important because directed mental imagery is used in various clinical and therapeutic settings. Techniques such as imagery rescripting or exposure therapy rely on a person’s ability to vividly imagine scenarios. If music can reliably shift the content of such imagery toward social themes, it might offer new ways to enhance therapeutic outcomes or support individuals struggling with loneliness.</p>
<p>“There have been many reports of people listening to music to ‘keep them company,'” said study author Steffen A. Herff, a Horizon Fellow and leader of the <a href="https://www.sydney.edu.au/music/our-research/cross-disciplinary-research/sydney-music-mind-and-body-lab.html">Sydney, Music, Mind, and Body lab</a> at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music at the University of Sydney. “The number of these reports was particularly high during the pandemic isolation periods. But whether this is just a figure of speech, or an actual empirically observable effect of music on social thought was previously unclear, despite its great applicational implications.”</p>
<p>To explore this, the researchers designed two experiments involving over 600 participants. In the first experiment, participants were asked to perform a directed imagery task. They watched a brief video clip showing a solitary figure beginning a journey toward a distant mountain, and were then instructed to close their eyes and imagine how the journey continued. During this 90-second imagination phase, they either heard no sound or listened to folk music in Spanish, Italian, or Swedish.</p>
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<p>Each song was played in both vocal and instrumental versions, and participants were either fluent or non-fluent in the language of the lyrics. This allowed the researchers to test whether comprehension or vocal presence mattered for the effect. Across the three language groups, 600 participants took part, split evenly between native and non-native speakers of each language.</p>
<p>After each imagination trial, participants described what they imagined and rated aspects such as vividness and emotional tone. These descriptions were then analyzed using a topic modeling technique called Latent Dirichlet Allocation, which allowed the researchers to identify recurring themes across participants’ narratives.</p>
<p>The researchers found strong evidence that music had an impact on the characteristics of mental imagery. Compared to silence, music consistently led to more vivid mental scenes, more positive emotional tone, and greater perceived time and distance traveled in the imagined journey.</p>
<p>More notably, music also increased the presence of social themes. One of the nine identified topics—labeled Topic I—was clearly centered around social interaction, including words like “people,” “friend,” “village,” and “together.” This topic appeared far more frequently in participants’ imagery when they were listening to music. The effect held across nearly all music conditions tested (30 out of 36), suggesting a consistent influence of music on the presence of social content in imagined scenes.</p>
<p>“The effect of induced social interactions into imagination was much stronger than we originally anticipated,” Herff told PsyPost. “The probability of imagination to contain social interactions in our experiment is more than three times higher when participants listen to music, compared to silence.”</p>
<p>This shift toward social imagery occurred regardless of whether the song included lyrics or whether the listener understood the language. The effect also remained consistent when the vocals were removed, suggesting that the presence of a human voice or semantic content was not necessary for the social effect to emerge.</p>
<p>“Music’s ability to increase social imagination works even if you don’t understand the lyrics of the song, for example because it is in a different language,” Herff said. “In fact, it even works if there are no lyrics at all! Together, this tells us that it’s not simply a question of hearing the human voice that is driving this.”</p>
<p>One exception occurred with an Italian folk song describing a communal grape harvest, where understanding the lyrics amplified the effect—highlighting how specific lyrical content can enhance music’s social influence under certain conditions.</p>
<p>In a second experiment, the researchers used a stable diffusion model to generate images based on participants’ written descriptions of their mental imagery. These visualizations allowed for a more intuitive grasp of the differences between imagery during music and silence.</p>
<p>A new group of 60 participants then viewed pairs of these images—one generated from a music condition, the other from silence—and tried to guess which image was imagined while listening to music. Half of these participants completed the task in silence, while the other half listened to the same music that the original participant had heard.</p>
<p>Those who listened to music during the task performed better, suggesting that music provides contextual cues that help people interpret others’ imagined content. In effect, they were better able to recognize the emotional or thematic signature of music-influenced imagery when they were themselves immersed in the same auditory context.</p>
<p>“Interestingly, when a new group of participants was provided with representations of what the initial participants imagined during silence and during music, they could tell which content was previously imagined during music listening, and which was imagined during silence, but only if the new participants also listened to the music,” Herff told PsyPost. “This tells us that there is a ’theory of mind’ when it comes to music-evoked mental imagery. In other words, you can imagine what someone else might imagine when listening to music.”</p>
<p>To further validate the results, a research assistant unaware of the study’s design manually annotated all 4,200 participant responses for signs of social interaction, temperature, brightness, and narrative perspective.</p>
<p>This analysis showed that descriptions written after music trials were more likely to include social elements and described warmer, brighter environments. In contrast, descriptions following silence tended to be darker, colder, and lonelier. About 39% of music condition descriptions included some form of social interaction, compared to just 12% in the silent condition.</p>
<p>These findings add another layer of evidence that music listening can facilitate social thought, even when people are engaging in a solitary and abstract task like mental imagery.</p>
<p>“Mental imagery is a notoriously difficult phenomenon to study due to its elusive and deeply personal nature,” Herff said. “With our directed mental imagery paradigm, we can now collect data on what people imagine with enough constraint (i.e., directed imagined journey from a clearly defined starting point towards a clearly defined topographical landmark) to do comparisons across conditions (e.g., music vs silence) but also enough freedom (i.e., anything could happen during these imagined journeys) for people to truly unfold their imagination.”</p>
<p>“I believe our findings provide support for an intuition about imagination, music, and their interaction, that many who explore the topic already have, no matter if they approach it from an empirical, artistic, or philosophical perspective. But where previously we had to rely on our intuition, we now have something more tangible to build upon.”</p>
<p>Although the findings were consistent across multiple songs and languages, the study’s musical selections were limited to the folk genre and to Western cultural contexts. Future work is needed to explore whether these effects generalize to other types of music—such as pop, jazz, or electronic—and to non-Western musical traditions.</p>
<p>“Ideally, we would have tested a much larger and more diverse set of music, in particular non-western music, and for each of them, included an expert familiar with that given music and culture,” Herff noted. “However, further increasing the stimulus set and number of recruited participants would have made this already logistically challenging endeavour unfeasible. But that is certainly something we have our eyes on for the future.”</p>
<p>It also remains unclear what specific musical features drive the effect. Is it melody, rhythm, tempo, or cultural associations that make a piece of music more likely to elicit social thought? Answering these questions would help refine music-based interventions in clinical and therapeutic settings.</p>
<p>“This study is part of a larger scale investigation into music-evoked mental imagery,” Herff said. “Currently we are investigation music-evoked mental imagery by looking both at very detailed musical features and how they shape mental imagery. For example, we just published this study: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-12604-4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Micro-variations in timing and loudness affect music-evoked mental imagery.</a> We are also looking closer at how listeners use music systematically to self-regulate. For example, in this recently published study, we explored how older adults engage with music when they feel lonely: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/10298649251319403" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Music as social surrogate? A qualitative analysis of older adults’ choices of music to alleviate loneliness</a>.”</p>
<p>“At the same time, we are working closely together with the music community to understand the insights and intuitions on how to use music to shape listeners’ imagination that already exists in these experts. We hope that our research can contribute to clinical (e.g., cognitive behaviour therapies that use mental imagery techniques), recreational (e.g., roleplay), and artistic applications (e.g., new compositions).”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-10309-2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Solitary silence and social sounds: music can influence mental imagery, inducing thoughts of social interactions</a>,” was authored by Steffen A. Herff, Gabriele Cecchetti, Petter Ericson, and Estefania Cano.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/surprising-link-found-between-aesthetic-chills-and-political-extremism/" 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;">Surprising link found between aesthetic chills and political extremism</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Aug 27th 2025, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.70051" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Political Psychology</a></em> suggests that people at both ends of the political spectrum may experience more intense physical reactions to emotionally stirring stimuli, such as inspirational speeches or powerful music. These responses, often described as “aesthetic chills,” were more pronounced among both very liberal and very conservative participants, and this heightened reaction appears to be linked to traits like religiosity and bodily awareness.</p>
<p>While past work suggested that conservatives might be especially responsive to emotionally resonant moments, the current findings point to a broader pattern. The intensity of people’s physical reactions seemed to grow the further their political beliefs strayed from the center, hinting at a possible connection between emotional depth and ideological extremity, regardless of direction.</p>
<p>Aesthetic chills, often described as shivers or goosebumps triggered by music, speeches, or other powerful stimuli, have been viewed as markers of emotional intensity and <a href="http://psypost.org/unlocking-the-psychological-mystery-of-aesthetic-chills-new-study-reveals-key-predictors/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">self-transcendent experiences</a>. These sensations are frequently reported during moments of awe, inspiration, or deep emotional resonance.</p>
<p>Previous research found that conservatives tended to report more intense chills, even though liberals and conservatives experienced them at similar rates. One interpretation is that conservatives may be more emotionally reactive in specific contexts, possibly due to deeper religious engagement or greater sensitivity to purity and disgust—traits often associated with conservative worldviews.</p>
<p>However, the researchers behind the current study sought to dig deeper. They wanted to know whether the link between political conservatism and chills was truly about ideology or whether other factors—like being a cultural minority or possessing greater emotional awareness—might play a more central role. To do so, they compared two politically and culturally distinct U.S. regions: California and Texas.</p>
<p>“I have long been interested in the role that ‘the gut’ plays in our decision-making, ranging from Elaine Scarry’s work in ‘the body in pain’ where she discusses the dehumanizing effects of propaganda, to Jonathan Haidt’s ‘Emotional Dog, Rational Tail,'” said study author Leonardo Christov-Moore, a senior scientist at <a href="https://advancedconsciousness.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the Institute for Advanced Consciousness Studies</a> and research director for <a href="https://sensoria.events/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sensoria Research</a>.</p>
<p>“This led me to study the somatomotor/affective roots of prosocial behavior with Marco Iacoboni at UCLA, and later the role of feeling/interoceptive states in other-regard with Jonas Kaplan and Antonio Damasio. This specific study arose from recent work with Felix Schoeller and Nicco Reggente in over 6,000 participants, where we noted that more conservative participants seemed to show more intense aesthetic visceral responses to moving music.”</p>
<p>In their new study, the researchers surveyed 882 adults from Southern California and Central Texas, ensuring that participants reflected a mix of political orientations, genders, ethnic backgrounds, and educational levels. Using an online platform, participants were assigned to watch one of four videos previously validated to elicit chills. These included either a musical performance of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” or Charlie Chaplin’s iconic speech from The Great Dictator, each available in audio-only or audiovisual format.</p>
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<p>Before watching the videos, participants completed a battery of psychological questionnaires. These included measures of personality traits, religiosity, emotional states, absorption (or how easily someone becomes emotionally immersed), and interoceptive awareness—how attuned someone is to their internal bodily sensations.</p>
<p>After viewing the videos, participants were asked whether they experienced chills, how intense the experience was, and whether they had goosebumps. They also answered follow-up questions about their emotional reactions, including feelings of connection, ego dissolution, and moral elevation.</p>
<p>Roughly 58% of participants reported experiencing chills during the video. As expected, political conservatism was again linked to higher intensity of chills. This pattern held even when the researchers controlled for factors like location (California versus Texas) and personality traits. But the most revealing insights came when the researchers took a closer look at the role of religious belief and bodily awareness.</p>
<p>Religiosity emerged as a strong predictor of chills intensity. People who reported stronger religious beliefs were more likely to report powerful bodily reactions to the stimuli. This suggests that religious individuals—who may be more practiced in spiritual awe and transcendence—are also more emotionally moved by similar types of experiences, regardless of their political stance.</p>
<p>“Across two matched populations (California and Texas), conservatives do seem to show more intense aesthetic responses to moving music,” Christov-Moore told PsyPost. “However, this may be explained partly by greater religiosity among conservatives.”</p>
<p>Another important factor was interoceptive awareness. People who reported being more in tune with their bodily states—like noticing their heart racing or feeling emotional tension in their chest—also tended to experience more intense chills. This body-awareness variable turned out to be especially important in explaining a surprising pattern in the data: a U-shaped relationship between political orientation and chills intensity.</p>
<p>Although the original hypothesis focused on conservatism, the data showed that participants at both ideological extremes—very liberal and very conservative—reported stronger bodily reactions than those in the political center. This U-shaped trend was mirrored in levels of interoceptive awareness, suggesting that political extremism may be associated with a greater sensitivity to emotionally powerful, bodily-felt experiences.</p>
<p>When the researchers recoded political orientation to reflect extremity rather than direction, they found that interoceptive awareness played a larger role in mediating the relationship between political extremism and chills than religiosity did. In other words, it was not just belief systems that mattered, but how attuned people were to the physical sensations that accompany strong emotions.</p>
<p>“When we looked at the data in terms of <i>distance from the political center, </i>it was actually a better fit, and suggested that extreme aesthetic responses are more associated with extreme political views,” Christov-Moore explained. “In support of this, the same relationship was shown with peoples’ <i>interoceptive awareness</i>, the salience or presence of their internal sensations in day-to-day awareness. This suggests that bridging the gap between political extremes may require bridging emotional/visceral worlds, and that moderates may have an even more difficult task in communicating with the extremes on either end, because it requires translating between different <i>types</i> of thinking.”</p>
<p>“It was surprising that an initial suspicion around extremes vs conservatism/progressivism <em>per se</em> was a much better fit to the data. It was an exercise in stepping back and reexamining our own frame of reference for the study. It was also surprisingly <i>reassuring</i> to see what I think many of us hope in this day and age, that we need to examine the political spectrum along more than a single axis.”</p>
<p>“There is a cross-partisan camaraderie, I think, in seeing evidence that people of every kind feel deeply around group choral music (the major common thread in our chills-evoking stimuli set). It is important to be reminded of the depth and complexity of others’ internal lives, rather than the ‘NPC’ framing that is often applied in our solipsistic media culture.”</p>
<p>The study provides evidence that political extremism, whether left- or right-leaning, may be associated with stronger emotional reactions to powerful stimuli, as reflected in the experience of aesthetic chills. But as with all research, there are limitations. The results are based on self-report data. It’s possible that people at different ends of the political spectrum are simply more inclined to describe their experiences in intense terms.</p>
<p>“However, we have since performed on-site studies including neural and physiological data supporting our framework and the universality of the chills experience as a marker of insight and peak experience,” Christov-Moore noted.</p>
<p>The study also focused on positive aesthetic chills, like those caused by music or moral inspiration. Future research could explore chills associated with fear or threat, especially since fear is another emotion tightly linked to political ideology. Validating fear-based chills stimuli could help researchers understand how different emotions interact with belief systems across the political spectrum.</p>
<p>Another open question is whether the effects seen here would replicate in other cultural contexts, such as in countries where the links between religiosity and conservatism are weaker. Exploring these dynamics in secular societies might help disentangle how cultural norms shape the emotional foundations of political belief.</p>
<p>“Our work increasingly shows that (a) aesthetic chills are an objective marker of subjective insight and transformative experience; that (b) they can be leveraged to safely, controllably cause the therapeutic effects associated with more elusive or unwieldy states associated with meditation and psychedelics; and (c) that they can be combined to augment other forms of targeted transformative interventions (such as prayer, loving kindness meditation, or maladaptive schema-based cognitive-behavioral therapy),” Christov-Moore said.</p>
<p>“Our long-term goals are to harness these controllable transformative states to help people overcome trauma and depression, emerge from rigid, maladaptive belief systems, and achieve self-transcendent states in a more democratized fashion, without the need for a single belief system.”</p>
<p>“The Institute for Advanced Consciousness Studies is an independent, 501c(3) nonprofit research institute, that is trying to provide a third path between traditional academia and the private sector. As part of this, we are seeking to increasingly decentralize and crowdfund scientific research. If you’d like to learn more about this, please check out our latest crowdfunded studies (<a href="https://advancedconsciousness.org/donate/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://advancedconsciousness.org/donate/</a>), our ongoing projects (<a href="https://advancedconsciousness.org/research" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://advancedconsciousness.org/research</a>) and explore any of existing work on chills, all of which can be found in its peer-reviewed and more digestible blog form here : <a href="https://advancedconsciousness.org/proceedings/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://advancedconsciousness.org/proceedings/</a>.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.70051" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Individual differences in aesthetic experience point to the role of bodily awareness in political orientation</a>,” was authored by Leonardo Christov-Moore, Felix Schoeller, Anthony G. Vaccaro, Brock Pluimer, Marco Iacoboni, Jonas Kaplan, and Nicco Reggente.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/insecurely-attached-individuals-are-less-likely-to-go-for-a-compromise-in-relationship-conflicts/" 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;">Insecurely attached individuals are less likely to go for a compromise in relationship conflicts</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Aug 26th 2025, 16:00</div>
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<p><p>A study of college students in romantic relationships revealed that insecurely attached individuals are less likely to seek compromise in a relationship conflict. On the other hand, they were more likely to react aggressively, try to control their partner, be submissive, or break up the relationship. The paper was published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14681994.2025.2507796"><em>Sexual and Relationship Therapy</em></a>.</p>
<p>Along with relationships with children, romantic relationships are the most important interpersonal relationships in the lives of most people. For many, the formation and maintenance of these relationships is the central focus of life. However, people in relationships also experience conflicts.</p>
<p>Conflicts in romantic relationships arise between partners due to differences in needs, expectations, values, or behaviors. They are a natural part of intimate bonds because no two people are identical in their desires or perspectives. These conflicts can range from minor disputes, such as those around household chores, to deeper issues involving trust, intimacy, or future goals.</p>
<p>Their significance lies in the fact that how conflicts are handled often determines the strength and longevity of the relationship. Constructive conflicts can foster growth, understanding, and intimacy by encouraging open communication and problem-solving. On the other hand, destructive conflicts, marked by blame, contempt, or withdrawal, can weaken trust and emotional connection.</p>
<p>Study authors Ahva Rashin Mozafari and Xiaomeng Xu wanted to explore the impact of interpersonal trauma a person experienced and affective attachment characteristics on the use of specific strategies for managing conflicts in romantic relationships. They conducted a study focusing on how conflicts develop and the strategies people use to manage them.</p>
<p>Study participants were 365 students enrolled in a northwestern U.S. university. To be included, they were required to be in an established romantic relationship for at least the past 6 months. Sixty-five percent of participants were women. Their ages ranged from 18 to 70 years, with the average being 23. Seventy-two percent of participants were White. Eighty-two percent identified as heterosexual.</p>
<p>Study participants completed assessments of lifetime exposure to traumatic events (using the Life Stressors Checklist – Revised), occurrence of conflict in their relationship and strategies they used to manage it (the Romantic Partner Conflict Scale), and affective attachment (the Experiences in Close Relationships – Revised). They also provided demographic data.</p>
<p>Results showed that 27% of participants reported experiencing physical abuse in childhood and 26% reported physical abuse during adulthood. Twenty-seven percent reported sexual abuse during childhood, and this percentage was 28% in adulthood. Twenty-seven percent of participants reported being victims of rape, while 18% reported being raped two or more times. Sixty-three percent reported experiencing emotional abuse during their lifetimes. Eighty-five percent indicated at least one experience of interpersonal trauma during their lifetimes.</p>
<p>Individuals with insecure affective attachment patterns were less likely to seek compromise in a romantic relationship conflict, and were more likely to react aggressively, act dominantly (try to control their partner), act submissively (try to satisfy their partner), or leave their partner. The number of traumatic experiences a person had was only very weakly associated with how aggressively they reacted in a conflict, and they were also slightly more likely to report leaving their partner.</p>
<p>Avoidance and anxiety are two primary dimensions describing how individuals bond with others. Highly anxious individuals strongly fear rejection or abandonment, leading them to worry excessively about their partner’s availability and love. Highly avoidant individuals experience discomfort with closeness and intimacy, causing them to maintain distance and focus more on self-sufficiency than on others.</p>
<p>“Data from this sample suggest that interpersonal trauma is associated with higher levels of insecure attachment; and insecure attachment is associated with lower levels of compromise and higher interactional reactivity, submission, domination, and separation,” the study authors concluded.</p>
<p>The study sheds light on the links between conflict management strategies used in romantic relationships, traumatic experiences, and affective attachment patterns. However, it should be noted that all the study data came from self-reports, while information about trauma experienced in the past was based on recall. This leaves room for reporting and recall biases to have affected the results.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14681994.2025.2507796">Examining the associations among lifetime interpersonal trauma, attachment, and romantic relationship conflict,</a>” was authored by Ahva Rashin Mozafari and Xiaomeng Xu.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/conspiracy-theories-can-significantly-influence-public-support-for-war/" 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;">Conspiracy theories can significantly influence public support for war</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Aug 26th 2025, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>A large-scale international study suggests that conspiracy theories about foreign governments can meaningfully shape public attitudes about war—even among people whose countries are not directly involved in the conflict. The research provides evidence that believing such theories tends to increase support for military aggression, reduce humanitarian concern for the enemy, and heighten perceptions of threat. The findings were recently published in the <em><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ejsp.70021" target="_blank">European Journal of Social Psychology</a></em>.</p>
<p>Throughout history, conspiracy narratives have often been used to justify war. From Adolf Hitler’s claim that communism was part of a Jewish plot to Saddam Hussein’s suspicion that Iran conspired to incite revolution in Iraq, such beliefs have served as powerful political tools. The Russian government’s rationale for invading Ukraine—framing it as a mission to “denazify” the country and stop alleged genocide against ethnic Russians—follows a similar pattern.</p>
<p>While the presence of conspiracy rhetoric in wartime politics is well established, the question of how such narratives influence public opinion has received less empirical attention. The authors of the new study sought to fill this gap by systematically examining whether and how conspiracy theories about foreign nations impact support for war, sanctions, aid, and group identification.</p>
<p>They reasoned that conspiracy theories often contain strong intergroup components, portraying another group as secretly plotting to cause harm. This framing may evoke fear, justify aggression, and diminish empathy, making conspiracy theories particularly effective at shaping wartime attitudes.</p>
<p>“Political leaders often justify waging war with conspiratorial rhetoric. A recent example is Putin, who claimed that the Ukrainian government is a regime of Nazis that commits genocide on Russian minorities,” explained study author <a href="https://www.janwillemvanprooijen.com/" target="_blank">Jan-Willem van Prooijen</a>, head of the Social Psychology Section at VU Amsterdam, senior researcher at the NSCR, and endowed professor of radicalization, extremism, and conspiracy thinking at Maastricht University.</p>
<p>“This was not an anomaly: Throughout history conspiracy theories often have been part of the motivation to wage war. When Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, he believed that communism was a Jewish conspiracy for world domination. Also democratically elected leaders can justify war with conspiracy theories. Think of George W. Bush, who in 2003 claimed that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction. Our central research question was: To what extent do such conspiracy theories influence public opinion, by making people more supportive of war?”</p>
<p>The research included five core studies and one pilot, using both longitudinal surveys and controlled experiments to assess the psychological impact of conspiracy theories.</p>
<p>In the first two studies, conducted in Greece and Slovakia, the researchers used two-wave panel surveys to examine beliefs about the war in Ukraine. Study 1 included 646 Greek participants in the first wave and 513 in the second. Study 2 involved 900 Slovakian participants initially, with 690 completing both waves. In both samples, participants were asked about their agreement with conspiracy theories that portrayed Ukraine and its allies, particularly the United States, as secretly orchestrating aggression.</p>
<p>The results showed that higher belief in these conspiracies at the beginning of the study predicted increased support for the Russian invasion and reduced support for Ukraine-related aid and sanctions two months later. This pattern held after controlling for prior attitudes, suggesting that conspiracy beliefs had a meaningful influence over time.</p>
<p>In a third study, the researchers tested whether similar dynamics applied in a different conflict. A total of 1,007 participants from the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Greece were surveyed in the weeks following the 2023 Hamas attacks in Israel, with 849 completing the second wave.</p>
<p>Participants who endorsed conspiracy theories about the Israeli government—such as the belief that it allowed or staged the attacks for political gain—tended to show increased support for Hamas over time. These beliefs also predicted greater identification with Palestinians and reduced support for Israeli civilians, suggesting a broad influence on war-related attitudes.</p>
<p>In the fourth study, 600 American participants were randomly assigned to read either a conspiratorial narrative about Ukraine or a neutral historical account. A fifth study extended these findings to a fictional context, using a vignette about a made-up war between two imaginary nations, with a sample of 803 U.S. participants.</p>
<p>The experimental studies supported a causal interpretation. In Study 4, participants who read a conspiratorial narrative about Ukraine expressed higher support for Russia’s invasion than those in the control condition. </p>
<p>In Study 5, participants who read about a fabricated conspiracy involving chemical weapons were more willing to support war and less inclined to provide humanitarian assistance. Importantly, this study also found that perceived threat from the alleged conspirator mediated the relationship between conspiracy exposure and attitudes, suggesting that these beliefs change how people appraise risk and justify aggression.</p>
<p>“Previous studies has underscored that conspiracy theories can increase intergroup hostilities, as reflected in prejudice, radicalization, and even violence,” van Prooijen told PsyPost. “Our findings suggest that also at a geopolitical level conspiracy theories may have an impact, as they can influence public opinion about wars.</p>
<p>“Exposing people to such conspiratorial rhetoric causally increases their support for war. Moreover, we found similar effects on a range of other relevant variables, such as support for sanctions, humanitarian support, and military support. Apparently, conspiracy theories are effective in increasing public support for war.”</p>
<p>The researchers also found evidence that conspiracy beliefs and support for war can reinforce each other over time. The longitudinal studies found that conspiracy beliefs about Ukraine and its allies predicted increased support for the Russian invasion, greater identification with Russia, and reduced support for sanctions and aid to Ukraine over time. But the reverse was also partially true: participants who initially supported the invasion or opposed aid were more likely to endorse conspiracy theories about the United States in later waves. A similar pattern emerged in the Gaza-related study—support for the Hamas attacks predicted stronger conspiracy beliefs about Israel over time.</p>
<p>“What was interesting is that we also found some support for another process: To some extent, people may rationalize their existing support for a war by endorsing conspiracy theories,” van Prooijen said. “This finding was less consistent across measures, but still clearly visible in the data. This suggests that to some extent, people may use conspiracy theories to legitimize the harm they see happening to another group.”</p>
<p>But as with all research, there are some limitations. “Due to logistic reasons, all our studies were conducted among participants from countries that were not fighting themselves,” van Prooijen noted. “We had samples from the United States, Greece, Slovakia, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. This is still quite valuable: After all, also in these countries important political decisions relevant for wars (e.g., Ukraine and Gaza) depend on public opinion, such as support for sanctions, or providing humanitarian or military support.” </p>
<p>“Still, an open question is how the people most directly affected would respond to these conspiracy theories. What would happen if we conducted our studies among for instance Ukrainian or Russian citizens? This is currently still an open question.”</p>
<p>“While it is clear that conspiracy theories influence support for war, more work is needed to establish why this is the case,” van Prooijen continued. “We found some preliminary evidence that conspiracy theories can make another group seem threatening. This might imply that due to conspiracy theories, aggressor groups may wage war out of the belief that they are defending themselves. But more research is needed to establish this idea empirically.”</p>
<p>“There is a clear practical implication of this finding: Which is that political leaders who want to wage war (for whatever reason) can use evidence-free conspiracy theories strategically to shape public opinion. This makes conspiracy theories a cheap and potentially dangerous tool in the hands of political leaders who seek to gain support for impending military aggression.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.70021" target="_blank">The Evil Enemy: Belief in Conspiracy Theories Predicts Attitudes to War</a>,” was authored by Jan-Willem van Prooijen, Kyriaki Fousiani, Jakub Šrol, Vladimira Čavojová, Ana Clara Kaneko Ebert, Emel Müller, and Ece Sağlam.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/new-psychology-research-identifies-factors-that-predict-sexual-dream-intensity/" 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 identifies factors that predict sexual dream intensity</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Aug 26th 2025, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>People with certain personality traits, such as high sensation seeking, extraversion, and neuroticism, tend to report more intense, joyful, or bizarre sexual dreams, according to a study published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/drm0000289"><em>Dreaming</em></a>.</p>
<p>Sexual dreams are common and reflect not only private desires but also broader psychological and cultural influences. Past studies have shown that sexual dreams may provide an outlet for repressed desires and attitudes, often shaped by cultural norms about sexuality. For instance, societies with more conservative attitudes toward sex often see sexual themes emerge more prominently in dreams. Men generally report more frequent and more permissive sexual dream content, while women often describe different dream contexts and themes.</p>
<p>Youteng Gan and colleagues explored whether personality traits, along with emotional factors like anxiety and depression, shape how people experience sexual dreams. Guided by the continuity hypothesis of <a href="https://www.psypost.org/the-fascinating-neuroscience-behind-dreaming/">dreaming</a>, which suggests that our waking thoughts, emotions, and concerns flow into our dream life, the researchers aimed to clarify why some individuals experience sexual dreams as more intense, positive, or bizarre than others.</p>
<p>The researchers surveyed 412 university students in Beijing, of whom 384 met the inclusion criteria for analysis (205 women, 179 men; mean age 20.6 years). All participants completed an online questionnaire distributed through campus social media. The final sample consisted of young adults with undergraduate education, all proficient in Mandarin Chinese.</p>
<p>Participants completed several standardized psychological measures. Personality traits were assessed with the Zuckerman-Kuhlman-Aluja Personality Questionnaire Short Form (ZKA-PQ/SF), which measured aggressiveness, activity, extraversion, neuroticism, and sensation seeking. Anxiety and depression were measured using the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) and the Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS), both widely validated in Chinese populations.</p>
<p>To assess sexual dream experiences, participants completed the Sexual Dream Experience Questionnaire (SDEQ), which captures four dimensions of sexual dreams: joyfulness (e.g., “sexual dreams can make me excited”), aversion (e.g., “I feel guilty and ashamed about having sexual dreams”), familiarity (e.g., “people in my sexual dreams are familiar to me”), and bizarreness (e.g., “I am often sexually maltreated in my sexual dreams”). Items were rated on a five-point scale, allowing researchers to measure both the frequency and the intensity of sexual dream experiences.</p>
<p>Just over half of the participants (51%) reported having sexual dreams, with men more likely than women to do so. Men also rated their sexual dreams as more joyful and exciting than women did. When comparing those who had sexual dreams with those who did not, the dreamers scored higher in aggressiveness, neuroticism, and sensation seeking. This supported the researchers’ expectation that certain personality traits would differentiate sexual dreamers from non-dreamers.</p>
<p>Anxiety and depression were linked to more aversive and bizarre dream experiences, suggesting that negative emotional states carry over into <a href="https://www.psypost.org/neuroticism-is-linked-to-more-frequent-nightmares-in-adults/">unsettling dream content</a>. By contrast, extraversion and activity were linked to joyfulness and familiarity in sexual dreams, indicating that more outgoing and energetic individuals tended to perceive their dreams as more enjoyable and relatable.</p>
<p>Sensation seeking stood out as a strong predictor of both joyfulness and bizarreness, meaning that those who crave excitement and novelty in daily life also tended to have the most vivid and unusual sexual dream experiences.</p>
<p>The authors note that their reliance on self-reported data may introduce bias, and the cross-sectional design means they cannot establish cause-and-effect relationships. Additionally, the sample consisted primarily of young adults, limiting generalizability to older populations.</p>
<p>Overall, this study highlights how personality and emotional states shape the intensity of sexual dream experiences, supporting the idea that our dream life mirrors our waking psychological patterns.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/drm0000289">Whose Sexual Dream Experiences Are More Intense? An Exploratory Study on the Relationship Between Personality Traits and Sexual Dreams,</a>” was authored by Youteng Gan, Ruohang Wang, Xueyu Wang, Jiangang Li, Yuting Chen, Jianan Chen, and Hongying Fan.</p></p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
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