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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/new-study-finds-no-evidence-linking-antidepressant-use-to-mass-shootings/" 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 study finds no evidence linking antidepressant use to mass shootings</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Oct 12th 2025, 10:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2025.116737" target="_blank">Psychiatry Research</a></em> provides evidence that antidepressant medications are not strongly associated with mass shootings in the United States. Using one of the largest databases of mass murders to date, researchers at Columbia University analyzed over 800 incidents involving firearms between 1990 and 2023. Their findings suggest that only a small percentage of mass shooters had a history of taking antidepressants or other psychiatric medications, and there was no clear link between medication use and suicide attempts during the attacks.</p>
<p>Concerns about the possible role of antidepressant medications in acts of mass violence have persisted for decades. These worries are fueled in part by warnings issued by regulatory agencies about potential increases in suicidal thinking and behavior in some people who take these medications. Media coverage has also sometimes pointed to psychiatric drugs as potential factors in mass shootings, raising public unease.</p>
<p>At the same time, research has consistently shown that mass shooters often have mental health struggles, including a high rate of suicidality. Previous studies have explored the mental health histories of mass murderers, but few have closely examined whether psychiatric medications might be involved in these events. </p>
<p>Given this backdrop, the research team wanted to take a closer look using the Columbia Mass Murder Database, a resource they developed to study the relationships between mental illness, medication, and violence. Their goal was to provide a more data-driven answer to whether antidepressants or other psychotropic drugs might play a role in firearm-based mass killings.</p>
<p>“My area of interest is schizophrenia, with a focus on violence in schizophrenia. I wanted to determine as definitively as possible, for myself, whether there is a relationship between mass shootings and mental illness. This motivated my colleagues and I to create the Columbia Mass Murder Database and pursue this line of work,” said study author <a href="https://www.columbiapsychiatry.org/profile/ragy-r-girgis-md" target="_blank">Ragy R. Girgis</a>, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University.</p>
<p>The researchers focused on incidents in the United States that occurred between 1990 and 2023, selecting only those events in which three or more people were killed by gunfire, not including the perpetrator. Events related to organized crime, terrorism, or war were excluded. The study relied on publicly available sources including media reports, court records, police statements, and existing databases. These materials were reviewed for any information about whether a perpetrator had ever been prescribed or taken psychiatric medications.</p>
<p>Out of 852 mass shootings included in the study, only 34 perpetrators (about 4 percent) were found to have a lifetime history of antidepressant use. Five individuals (0.6 percent) had taken antipsychotic medications, and another 37 (4.3 percent) had been treated with other or unspecified psychiatric drugs. In total, 56 shooters (6.6 percent) had any known history of psychotropic medication use at any point in their lives.</p>
<p>The researchers also looked at whether there was any connection between medication use and suicide attempts during these events. A total of 279 perpetrators attempted to take their own lives during the attack. Among this group, 15 individuals (5.4 percent) had used antidepressants, compared to 19 individuals (3.3 percent) who did not attempt suicide. This difference was not statistically significant. </p>
<p>A similar pattern appeared when the researchers considered all psychiatric medications, not just antidepressants. Suicide attempts were slightly more common among those with any history of medication use, but again, the difference was not meaningful from a statistical standpoint.</p>
<p>Importantly, the data suggested that in more than half of the cases involving psychiatric medications, the perpetrator was not actively taking the medication at the time of the shooting. In nearly a third of the cases, the shooter was believed to be taking the medication during the event, but the researchers found no evidence that the medication had any direct role in the attack. In the remaining cases, it was unclear whether the person was currently using the drugs.</p>
<p>The study also placed its findings in context by comparing the rates of antidepressant use among mass shooters to rates in the general population. According to previous population-based data, antidepressant use in the United States is much higher than the rate observed among perpetrators in this study. This suggests that if psychiatric medications were directly causing mass shootings, the proportion of shooters using them would likely be much higher than what was found.</p>
<p>“The vast majority of mass shootings have nothing to do with mental illness,” Girgis told PsyPost. “Psychiatric medications, and SSRIs in particular, do not cause mass shootings. The primary modifiable population level risk factor for mass shootings is firearm availability.”</p>
<p>But as with all research, there are limitations. First, all data were collected from publicly available sources, such as news articles and online records. This approach may miss cases where medication use was not reported or was kept confidential. The study also could not always determine whether medications were being taken as prescribed at the time of the attack, or whether the person had recently stopped taking them.</p>
<p>Another limitation relates to the difficulty of distinguishing between suicidal thoughts that are a side effect of medication and those that are part of the mental health condition the medication was intended to treat. This distinction is important because many people begin treatment due to existing suicidality, not because the medication caused it.</p>
<p>In the meantime, the authors suggest that prevention efforts should shift focus away from medication use and toward better identification and treatment of individuals with untreated mental illness. They note that only about five percent of mass shootings appear to be directly related to untreated mental health conditions. As such, they argue that the broader causes of mass shootings, including access to firearms and the cultural portrayal of gun violence, deserve more attention in public discussions and policy-making.</p>
<p>“We have published most of the major findings from our work,” Girgis said. “We plan to publish additional findings on legal outcomes after mass murder (for those perpetrators who do not take their life at the time of the event), relationships between adverse childhood experiences and mass murder, and relationships between a prior history of domestic violence among perpetrators and later familicide mass murder, among others.”</p>
<p>“In addition to the huge role that weak firearm laws play in mass shootings, the romanticization of gun violence by the entertainment industry (movies, television, video games, music) is a key factor in the rise of gun violence in America.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2025.116737" target="_blank">Antidepressant use and suicide among U.S.-based mass murderers who use firearms: 1990-2023</a>,” was authored by Ragy R. Girgis, Hannah Hesson, and Gary Brucato.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/most-people-rarely-use-ai-and-dark-personality-traits-predict-who-uses-it-more/" 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;">Most people rarely use AI, and dark personality traits predict who uses it more</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Oct 12th 2025, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/21522715251379987" target="_blank">Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking</a></em> has found that while artificial intelligence receives significant public attention, it is used far less frequently in day-to-day online activity than many might assume. Drawing from more than 14 million website visits, researchers found that AI-related browsing made up less than one percent of online activity for most people. The study also indicates that individuals who use AI more often tend to exhibit certain aversive personality traits.</p>
<p>There is growing public and academic interest in artificial intelligence, particularly its expanding role in education, work, and entertainment. While many surveys have asked people whether they use AI and how they feel about it, these self-reports are often unreliable. People tend to misjudge or misremember how often they use technology, especially newer forms like AI.</p>
<p>To move beyond self-reported data, the researchers set out to directly measure AI use through people’s actual web browsing histories. Their goal was to determine how often AI tools are used in everyday life, identify who uses them the most, and examine what types of online activities are typically associated with AI use. Understanding the psychological traits linked to higher levels of AI interaction could help researchers and policymakers anticipate how different groups may adopt or resist AI technologies in the future.</p>
<p>“There’s been enormous public discussion about AI and its societal impact, but surprisingly little objective data on how people actually use it in their everyday browsing,” said study author <a href="https://emilykmckinley.scholar.st/" target="_blank">Emily McKinley</a>, a PhD candidate at the University of California, Davis.</p>
<p>“Despite widespread concerns and excitement about tools like ChatGPT, we had almost no baseline understanding of actual usage patterns. We wanted to measure what’s really happening, examining not just usage frequency, but also the psychological profiles of AI adopters and how AI integrates into their broader digital behaviors.”</p>
<p>The project included two separate studies. The first involved 499 university students from two institutions, while the second focused on 455 members of the general public. In both cases, participants shared their web browsing history over a period of up to 90 days. Only those who used Google Chrome were included, as this browser allowed for the necessary data export. Participants also completed surveys measuring their personality traits, attitudes toward AI, and demographics.</p>
<p>Using a list of well-known AI websites, such as ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot, the researchers identified which browser visits were AI-related. Other websites were categorized using a content classification system powered by a large language model. The researchers then analyzed the data to understand the proportion of AI visits relative to total browsing, what kinds of websites were visited immediately before and after using AI, and which psychological traits correlated with AI use.</p>
<p>In the student sample, AI use made up just 1 percent of all website visits on average. Most participants rarely used AI at all, and only a small number accounted for the majority of the traffic. The most commonly visited AI site by far was ChatGPT, representing over 85 percent of all AI-related visits. While this use rate was higher than visits to web versions of some social media platforms like Instagram, it was far below the rate of search engine use.</p>
<p>“We were genuinely surprised by how infrequent AI use was, even among students who typically serve as early adopters of emerging technologies,” McKinley told PsyPost.</p>
<p>Students who used AI more often were slightly more likely to score high on personality traits associated with narcissism and psychopathy. These individuals also tended to have more positive attitudes toward AI in general. There were some weak associations between AI use and demographics, such as income and gender, but age and ethnicity were not significantly related to AI use in this group.</p>
<p>In contrast, the general public sample showed even lower rates of AI use, with an average of just 0.44 percent of website visits being AI-related. Once again, ChatGPT was the most visited AI platform. Fewer significant correlations between personality and AI use were observed in this group, but there was a modest relationship between Machiavellianism and AI browsing. Those who expressed more favorable views of AI were also somewhat more likely to use it.</p>
<p>The researchers paid particular attention to individuals they called “prolific users,” defined as those whose AI browsing accounted for more than 4 percent of their total website visits. Among the student group, these prolific users scored much higher on measures of Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy compared to their peers. These patterns were less clear in the general public sample, possibly because AI use was less frequent overall, reducing the ability to detect meaningful differences.</p>
<p>“Interestingly, people who use AI more tend to score higher on aversive personality traits, particularly Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy, though these patterns were stronger among students,” McKinley said.</p>
<p>In both groups, the researchers also analyzed what participants were doing online in the seconds before and after visiting an AI website. Before using AI, many were on internet and telecom sites, such as search engines and login pages. After AI use, participants were more likely to visit websites related to education, computers, or professional tasks. These patterns suggest that AI tools are often used as part of a workflow, especially in academic or job-related contexts. The researchers argue that this may point to AI being seen more as a productivity tool than a source of entertainment.</p>
<p>Another key finding involved the gap between self-reported and actual AI use. In the general public sample, participants were asked how often they believed they used AI. The correlation between their estimates and their actual browsing data was moderate, suggesting that self-reports alone are not a reliable way to assess AI use. This result aligns with previous research on other forms of media, where people often underreport or overreport their habits.</p>
<p>While this study provides rare objective data on AI use, there are still some limitations. First, the analysis was limited to web-based interactions. Mobile app use, which may be more common for some users, was not included. Similarly, only Google Chrome users could participate, which may have influenced the sample.</p>
<p>The research also focused primarily on a narrow set of individual traits, such as personality and basic demographics. Other factors, such as emotional well-being, motivations, or social environments, could play an important role in AI adoption but were not examined here. The team suggests that future studies should explore how these additional psychological and social variables relate to AI use.</p>
<p>The researchers also note the importance of understanding what people are doing during their time on AI platforms. While this study captured how often users visited AI websites, it could not track whether they were writing essays, solving problems, or simply exploring out of curiosity. Capturing the content of interactions could shed light on the goals and intentions behind AI use.</p>
<p>Finally, as AI becomes more integrated into daily life, usage patterns may change. The researchers plan to continue this line of inquiry by examining whether AI use is linked to specific outcomes.</p>
<p>“We want to understand not just how often people use AI, but what they’re using it for and how that content relates to their individual characteristics,” McKinley explained. “We’re also interested in examining the downstream consequences of AI use: for example, does actual usage predict outcomes like academic integrity, information-seeking behaviors, or work performance?”</p>
<p>“This research represents one of the first attempts to objectively quantify AI use in naturalistic settings using months of actual browsing data. While AI currently dominates many of our cultural conversations, the data suggest most people are still using it quite sparingly. The methodological approach we developed, combining passive digital trace data with psychological measures, offers a valuable template for future technology research, helping us move beyond the limitations of self-report and understand how individual differences shape technology adoption in the real world.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/21522715251379987" target="_blank">Evaluating Artificial Intelligence Use and Its Psychological Correlates via Months of Web-Browsing Data</a>,” was authored by Emily McKinley, David M. Markowitz, Rui Zhu, and Brandon Van Der Heide.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/researchers-uncover-a-stubbornly-persistent-bias-for-progress-oriented-leaders/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Researchers uncover a stubbornly persistent bias for progress-oriented leaders</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Oct 12th 2025, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>A new series of experiments published in the <em><a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-57960-001?doi=1" target="_blank">Journal of Experimental Psychology: General</a></em> suggests that people consistently favor leaders who promise progress, even when the situation calls for someone to maintain existing systems. Across six studies, researchers found a persistent preference for progress-focused leadership—even in contexts where participants personally acknowledged that maintenance would be more beneficial. These findings suggest that leadership choices often reflect ingrained assumptions rather than a thoughtful match between a leader’s style and the needs of the moment.</p>
<p>Leadership is often discussed in terms of charisma, innovation, and transformation. Yet, not all challenges require bold new ideas. Many real-world situations require steady upkeep and continued support for systems already in place. From public infrastructure to healthcare systems to political institutions, maintenance work often determines whether services continue to function smoothly. Despite this, leaders who emphasize maintaining the status quo are rarely celebrated.</p>
<p>The researchers were curious whether this disconnect reflects a deeper psychological tendency. They asked a basic question: Do people recognize when maintenance is needed, and if so, do they choose leaders who are best suited for that job?</p>
<p>“When I started researching goals, I found that the literature focused almost entirely on two types: progress (or approach) goals and protection (or avoidance) goals. But as I thought about the goals people actually pursue in their lives, it seemed to me that most of them are actually about maintenance—keeping things stable, preserving what we have, sustaining relationships or systems,” said study author Yael Ecker, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cologne.</p>
<p>“So I developed a new model that acknowledges maintenance as a distinct type of goal. When I began researching these maintenance goals empirically, my intuition was confirmed—they’re remarkably common in everyday life. Yet despite how prevalent they are, maintenance goals and the people who champion them seem to be systematically undervalued. I wanted to understand why, and whether this bias has real consequences. That’s what led to this study.”</p>
<p>The research team conducted six preregistered experiments involving over 3,000 participants, each designed to explore the gap between situational needs and leadership preferences.</p>
<p>In the first experiment, participants took part in a fictional election. They read descriptions of an imaginary country that either needed to maintain its progress, make further improvements, or protect itself from threats. After learning about the country’s situation, participants evaluated three candidates: one who focused on progress, another on maintenance, and a third on protection. Interestingly, participants overwhelmingly preferred the progress-oriented candidate—even when the country clearly needed maintenance.</p>
<p>Participants’ own decisions told a different story. When asked to allocate the country’s budget themselves, they chose to invest in maintenance when the scenario called for it. This suggests that while people understood the situational demands, they still preferred a leader focused on progress.</p>
<p>A second experiment raised the stakes. Participants played an investment game in which their earnings depended on making the right decisions. Again, participants chose to invest in maintenance when that strategy yielded better financial returns. But when asked to select a team leader, they still preferred the candidate who was focused on progress—even though this person was less likely to bring the best outcome in the given scenario.</p>
<p>This pattern repeated in two additional studies. In one set, participants evaluated policy proposals either as standalone ideas or as part of a leader’s platform. When the policies were presented without a leader, participants favored maintenance-oriented agendas. But when the same proposals were attributed to a political candidate, the preference flipped. Even when participants liked the maintenance plan, they were less likely to support a leader associated with it.</p>
<p>“I was quite surprised by how robust the progress bias is,” Ecker told PsyPost. “No matter how clearly we made it that maintenance was what was needed in the situation, it did not nudge participants enough to favor a maintenance-oriented leader.”</p>
<p>The remaining studies aimed to uncover why this bias occurs. One hypothesis was that people might see progress-oriented leaders as more energetic or hardworking. To test this, researchers described all candidates as putting in either high or low effort. Even when effort levels were equalized, participants still favored the progress-focused leaders.</p>
<p>In the final experiment, the researchers tested a second idea: that people assume progress-oriented leaders have a broader scope—that they will not only make changes but also keep existing systems running. To examine this, they described progress-oriented candidates in one of three ways. In the first group, no additional information was given. In the second group, the leader was described as also supporting maintenance. In the third, the leader was described as having no interest in maintenance.</p>
<p>In the first two groups, participants preferred the progress-oriented leader. But when told that the progress leader would ignore maintenance, the preference shifted. Participants now favored the maintenance-oriented candidate. This reversal suggests that people choose progress-oriented leaders partly because they assume those leaders will handle everything—including maintenance—whether or not that’s true.</p>
<p>“The key takeaway for individuals is to be aware of this bias and correct it—giving those who champion maintenance the credit they deserve. However, correcting bias at the individual level is hard. The main message is therefore directed at campaign managers and policymakers: rather than fighting this bias head-on, work with it. Emphasize the change and progress elements within maintenance work.” </p>
<p>“For instance, maintaining infrastructure isn’t just ‘keeping things the same’—it involves constant adaptation, improvement, and active problem-solving,” Ecker explained. “A crucial insight is that maintenance requires action and often innovation, yet our bias toward novelty can lead us to undervalue this essential work. Effective messaging should highlight the dynamic, active nature of maintenance rather than letting it be perceived as passive or static.”</p>
<p>“This may have been part of the challenge facing the Biden administration—when leadership focuses on maintaining stability, preserving institutions, or sustaining systems, it can appear less dynamic than championing bold new changes, even when that maintenance work is essential and demanding.”</p>
<p>The researchers acknowledge that their findings come from controlled experiments with clear distinctions between leadership styles. Real-world leadership is messier. Voters and group members often consider many factors at once, including past performance, political affiliations, and personal traits. In these experiments, participants judged fictional leaders with minimal background information, which may exaggerate certain tendencies.</p>
<p>Also, all the experiments were conducted in the United States and the United Kingdom. Cultural differences in leadership expectations or values might shape how people think about progress and maintenance. The bias toward progress may not be as strong in other parts of the world where long-term stability and incremental change are more highly valued.</p>
<p>The researchers plan to extend this work by studying how political speech reflects these different goal orientations.</p>
<p>“We’re currently working on large datasets of natural political speech from parliamentary records and party platforms in different countries, testing how maintenance, progress, and protection reflected in these texts predict political attitudes,” Ecker said. “We’re also planning to test what we found in this study as a more general principle—examining whether people are biased towards change in ways that may affect personal life choices, relationships, consumer choices, organizational decisions, environmental behavior, and more.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/xge0001827" target="_blank">Bias Toward Progress-Oriented Leaders: People Prefer Progress- Over Maintenance-Oriented Leaders Even When a Maintenance Orientation Is Required</a>,” was authored by Yael Ecker, Anne I. Weitzel, and Joris Lammers.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/boredom-drives-people-to-seek-new-experiences-even-when-theyre-unpleasant/" 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;">Boredom drives people to seek new experiences — even when they’re unpleasant</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Oct 11th 2025, 20:00</div>
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<p><p>A study published in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000433" target="_blank">Emotion</a></em> provides evidence that boredom motivates people to seek new experiences, even ones that are unpleasant. Across three experiments, researchers found that people who were bored were more likely to choose novel experiences, including those that elicited negative emotions like disgust. These findings suggest that boredom is not simply a nuisance but may serve a functional role by prompting people to break out of repetitive or emotionally flat situations.</p>
<p>For much of psychology’s history, boredom was dismissed as trivial. It was treated as a passing state that had little influence on behavior or decision-making. But researchers have started to rethink this position in recent years. Boredom occurs frequently in everyday life and is associated with a range of behaviors, including impulsivity, risk-taking, and disengagement in academic and work settings.</p>
<p>The research, led by Shane Bench of Utah State University Eastern and Heather Lench of Texas A&M University, builds on this growing interest by exploring what boredom actually motivates people to do. According to a functional perspective on emotions, feelings like anger, sadness, and joy serve specific purposes. They arise in response to particular situations and guide behavior in ways that help people reach their goals. The researchers proposed that boredom fits into this framework by acting as a signal that one’s current activity is no longer satisfying or meaningful, prompting a shift toward something new — even if that “something new” isn’t necessarily enjoyable.</p>
<p>“We had two related interests,” explained Bench, an associate professor. “We wanted to consider anti-hedonistic behaviors (why people choose to experience something negative) and we were interested in exploring how and why people disengage from a goal and the role boredom, as a functional emotion, may play. We proposed that boredom signals disengagement from a current goal and motivates the pursuit of a novel experience. By ‘novel’ we do not necessarily mean completely new, just affectively different from the current state (e.g., if in a positive state, negative would be affectively different).” </p>
<p>“In this sense, boredom, while frequently considered a passing or meaningless state, could serve an important functional purpose – helping people move on from something that is no longer emotionally intense, to pursue something that will elicit a more intense emotion.”</p>
<p>The researchers conducted three separate experiments to test their ideas. Each study used different methods to induce boredom and examine how people responded to it.</p>
<p>In the first experiment, 55 college students were shown a series of neutral images multiple times to induce boredom. Participants then rated how bored they felt. After this, they were given a choice: continue viewing similar neutral images or switch to a set of novel but unpleasant images, such as cockroaches or dirty dishes. More than half of the participants chose to view the negative images. Importantly, the more bored participants reported feeling, the more likely they were to make this choice.</p>
<p>“I was surprised that the negative image sets were chosen!” Bench told PsyPost. “They were not pleasant, and based on models of hedonism, I thought that people would not choose them over more positive (or less negative) options. We chose this method because we thought it would be a strong test of our proposal of boredom as a signal and motivator to pursue change.”</p>
<p>This finding suggested that boredom did not simply make people passive. Instead, it appeared to motivate them to seek a change — even if that change brought on negative emotions like disgust. Trait boredom (a person’s general tendency to get bored easily) did not predict these choices, which indicates that the effect was tied to the immediate experience of boredom rather than a stable personality characteristic.</p>
<p>In the second study, the researchers sought to better understand what drives people’s choices when they are bored. This time, 150 participants were randomly assigned to either a high-boredom or low-boredom condition. Those in the high-boredom group repeatedly viewed neutral images for about 12 minutes. The low-boredom group either saw the images only briefly or not at all.</p>
<p>Participants then chose between two new sets of images: one that was unpleasant and one that was emotionally neutral. Unlike the first study, both options were new. Participants were also asked how much their decision was motivated by a desire for something novel.</p>
<p>Those in the high-boredom condition were more likely to pick the negative image set, and they also reported a stronger desire for novelty. A statistical analysis showed that this desire for novelty helped explain the link between boredom and choosing the unpleasant experience. In other words, boredom led to a craving for something new, and that craving influenced participants’ decisions.</p>
<p>The third experiment pushed the question even further. Could boredom that came from a positive experience still lead people to choose something negative?</p>
<p>In this study, 145 participants were divided into four groups. Each group repeatedly viewed either positive or negative images that were either highly arousing or only mildly arousing. All participants eventually reported feeling moderately bored, regardless of whether the images were pleasant or unpleasant.</p>
<p>Participants then chose between four new sets of images: one that was more positive, one more negative, one similar to what they had just seen, and one that was neutral. Over 70 percent of participants chose a set that differed from the one they had seen before. Notably, people who were bored by positive images often chose more negative ones, and those bored by negative images tended to switch to more positive ones.</p>
<p>The researchers also asked participants how strongly they felt a desire to experience something either positive or negative. Those bored by positive images were more likely to report a desire for negative experiences, and this desire predicted their choice to view more negative images. This pattern was reversed for those who were bored by negative images.</p>
<p>Taken together, the studies suggest that boredom prompts a search for emotional change. The target of that change does not have to be positive — it only needs to be different. Emotional contrast appears to be the key motivator.</p>
<p>“We found that boredom motivated people to seek affectively (emotionally) different experiences – even if the different experience was hedonically negative,” Bench said. “That is, when made bored by watching a series of repeating neutral images (things like: a leaf, a building, or a light bulb – images that people had rated as neutral), participants were more likely to choose an experience they expected to elicit negative emotion (i.e., they chose to view more images based on sample of images that included cockroaches, a destroyed building, and dirty dishes – things that were consistently rated as affectively negative).” </p>
<p>“This choice was driven by participants reported desire for novelty. In addition, participants made bored by viewing positive images (things like: people skydiving or appetizing desserts) were more likely to choose to view negative images (like: a snarling dog or people walking from a plane crash), and participants made bored by negative images were more likely to choose positive images. In all cases, this is evidence of boredom increasing a desire for something affectively (or emotionally) different from the current experience.”</p>
<p>While the findings are consistent across studies, the research does have some limitations. Most notably, the main outcome in all three experiments was a single decision made in a laboratory setting. It remains unclear how these choices would play out in real-world settings where people face more complex and meaningful options. For example, it is not clear whether someone who is bored would choose to start an argument, try something risky, or engage in a creative task.</p>
<p>The researchers also did not test whether these choices actually reduced boredom or improved participants’ mood. The findings show that people sought out new experiences when bored, but they do not demonstrate whether this helped them feel better or more fulfilled afterward.</p>
<p>In addition, the participants were mostly college students, which may limit how broadly the findings can be applied. Boredom is a common experience across ages and cultures, but the ways people cope with it may vary. Cultural preferences about emotional experiences, for example, could influence whether someone is more likely to seek out high-energy excitement or quiet introspection.</p>
<p>The authors suggest that future studies should look more closely at the consequences of boredom-driven choices. Do people feel better after seeking out a new emotional experience? Or are some of these choices maladaptive in the long run? Research in this area could also explore how individual differences — such as sensation-seeking or morbid curiosity — shape how people respond to boredom.</p>
<p>Another direction would be to examine boredom in more naturalistic settings, such as classrooms or workplaces. If boredom truly pushes people toward change, then understanding its effects could help educators, employers, and policymakers design environments that channel that motivation in productive ways.</p>
<p>“Often people wonder if approaching boredom as a functional emotion is intended to frame boredom as a ‘good’ thing,” Bench added. “Our theory does not view boredom as good or bad, but as an emotion that serves a specific function (signaling to disengage from a current task and motivating engagement of something different). This would be advantageous in certain circumstances and disadvantageous in others.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000433" target="_blank">Boredom as a Seeking State: Boredom Prompts the Pursuit of Novel (Even Negative) Experiences</a>,” was authored by Shane W. Bench and Heather C. Lench.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/both-sides-favor-censorship-when-childrens-books-conflict-with-their-political-beliefs/" 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;">Both sides favor censorship when children’s books conflict with their political beliefs</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Oct 11th 2025, 18:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0332240" target="_blank">PLOS ONE</a></em> has found that Americans across the political spectrum tend to support censorship when literature conflicts with their own ideological values, even though most say they oppose censorship in general. The research challenges the notion that support for literary censorship in the United States is divided neatly along ideological lines.</p>
<p>The researchers conducted this study in response to the sharp rise in public campaigns to censor books, particularly those aimed at young readers. In recent years, efforts to ban books have surged, driven by concerns over race, gender identity, sexual orientation, and American history. These efforts are often portrayed as deeply partisan: conservative groups have targeted books with LGBTQ+ characters or discussions of racism, while progressive critics have taken aim at older texts perceived as racially or culturally insensitive.</p>
<p>Historically, calls for censorship in the U.S. had bipartisan roots. In the mid-twentieth century, liberals and conservatives often found common ground in wanting to protect children from sexually explicit or violent material. But recent controversies suggest a shift. Instead of being rooted in concerns about psychological harm or developmental readiness, modern book challenges are increasingly tied to ideological values and cultural identity.</p>
<p>Yet, the researchers point out that while public discourse is filled with claims about one side being more censorious than the other, few empirical studies have tested whether such claims hold true among the broader voting-age population. Their goal was to investigate whether ideological divisions truly shape public attitudes toward literary censorship — or whether both sides are similarly motivated by political values when it comes to restricting access to literature.</p>
<p>“In recent years, there has been a deluge of attempts to censor literature from both the left and the right. Moreover, as recent examples suggest—from <em><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/05/books/sophie-lark-sparrow-vine-bloom-books-cancelled.html" target="_blank">Sparrow and Vine</a></em> by Sophie Lark to Texas’s Senate Bill 12, which took effect this month—these attempts show no signs of dying down. Today, book censorship is very much a real-world problem that needs to be understood with the tools provided by social science,” said study author Adam Szetela of Cornell University.</p>
<p>The first part of the research involved a survey of 864 U.S. adults conducted through an online platform. Participants were presented with 15 statements related to children’s literature and asked to express their level of agreement. Some statements were designed to reflect liberal values, such as concerns about books written by white authors that center on marginalized characters. Others aligned with conservative views, such as objections to books featuring LGBTQ+ characters or criticisms of traditional American values.</p>
<p>The results showed broad opposition to censorship overall. Most participants — regardless of political identity — disagreed with the idea of removing books just because they might offend some parents. There was also strong disapproval of book burning and censoring titles without reading them.</p>
<p>However, when participants were presented with specific ideological examples, clear differences emerged. Conservatives were more likely to support censoring books with LGBTQ+ themes or portrayals of racism, while liberals were more likely to oppose publishing books written by white men about marginalized characters or books promoting Christian values. In other words, both groups showed a tendency to support censorship of material that clashed with their values, even if they claimed to oppose censorship more broadly.</p>
<p>Importantly, the researchers found that these patterns held even after adjusting for demographic differences such as age, income, religion, education level, and whether the participant was a parent. Ideological alignment remained the strongest predictor of which books participants were willing to censor.</p>
<p>The survey also included ideologically neutral statements, such as removing a book that mentions suicide or responding to complaints from parents. On these items, conservatives were more likely than liberals to support censorship. At the same time, conservatives were also more likely to say they believed they were more tolerant of controversial books — a belief that did not align with their responses.</p>
<p>In the second part of the study, the researchers conducted a controlled online experiment to examine how participants responded to ideological literary criticism. Participants read a series of short poems that had been pretested to be free of obvious political content. Some participants were then shown criticisms of the poems, drawn from both liberal and conservative viewpoints, as well as neutral or technical criticisms. Others read the poems without any accompanying criticism, which served as a baseline.</p>
<p>Liberal criticisms included accusations of racism, sexism, homophobia, or antisemitism. Conservative criticisms framed the poems as anti-Christian, anti-American, anti-family, or man-hating. The criticisms were randomly assigned so that each participant saw one liberal, one conservative, one technical, and one positive review across the four poems.</p>
<p>The researchers then measured how participants responded. Did they agree with the criticism? Did they like the poem less? Did they support or oppose the decision to publish it?</p>
<p>Interestingly, the results showed that most participants were more influenced by liberal criticisms than conservative ones. On average, participants were more than twice as likely to agree with liberal criticisms compared to conservative ones. They were also more likely to report disliking a poem after reading a liberal criticism and more likely to question whether it should be published.</p>
<p>However, this difference in influence was not driven by participants’ ideological identities. Liberals and conservatives responded similarly to both types of criticism. The key factor seemed to be the criticism itself: left-leaning critiques had a stronger effect across the board, regardless of the participant’s political beliefs.</p>
<p>When participants were not exposed to any criticism, liberals rated the poems more favorably and were more supportive of their publication than conservatives. This matches the pattern seen in the survey, where conservatives tended to be more censorious even when the content was ideologically neutral.</p>
<p>The researchers suggest that the stronger influence of liberal criticism may reflect the dominance of liberal voices in the field of literary criticism, especially in academic and publishing settings. Many participants may have been more inclined to defer to liberal critics, either because they were more familiar with this kind of critique or because they viewed these critics as more authoritative.</p>
<p>While the study provides evidence for selective censorship preferences among both liberals and conservatives, it also has limitations. The survey and experiment were conducted online, and although the researchers adjusted for demographic imbalances, the sample may not fully capture the diversity of the U.S. population. Self-reported ideology and beliefs are also imperfect measures and can be shaped by many subtle factors.</p>
<p>Another limitation is the use of children’s literature as the focus for the first study. While this choice is rooted in the historical context of bipartisan support for protecting children from inappropriate content, attitudes toward adult literature may show different patterns. Future studies might explore whether ideological selectivity changes when the content is aimed at adults rather than children.</p>
<p>The experiment focused on responses to poetry, a literary form that may not evoke the same level of emotional engagement or controversy as novels or non-fiction books. It also did not measure long-term changes in opinion, only immediate reactions. Additional studies could explore how repeated exposure to ideological criticism affects beliefs over time.</p>
<p>Finally, the authors suggest that future research might explore the psychological processes behind this selective censorship. One possibility is that people are more likely to accept criticism when it aligns with their values, a pattern known in social psychology as biased assimilation. Another is that people tend to associate with others who share their beliefs, a process called homophily. These social dynamics may help explain why both sides are drawn to censor content they find threatening or offensive, even while claiming to support free expression.</p>
<p>“The study ties into concerns that I explore via interviews <a href="https://amzn.to/4qnUiIT" target="_blank">in my book</a> that I had come out in August from MIT Press and Penguin Random House,” Szetela added.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0332240" target="_blank">The polarization of literary censorship in the U.S.</a>,” was authored by Adam Szetela, Shiyu Ji, and Michael Walton Macy.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/tiktok-activity-linked-to-young-womens-views-on-body-image-and-cosmetic-surgery/" 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;">TikTok activity linked to young women’s views on body image and cosmetic surgery</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Oct 11th 2025, 16:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in <em><a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/ppm0000566" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Psychology of Popular Media</a></em> suggests that how young women engage with TikTok may shape the way they feel about their bodies and their attitudes toward cosmetic surgery. The findings indicate that certain behaviors, such as commenting on others’ appearances or following health and celebrity accounts, are linked to both body image and the acceptance of cosmetic procedures. The study provides evidence that appearance-based activity on TikTok can have both potentially positive and negative effects on self-perception.</p>
<p>Social media platforms have long been scrutinized for how they influence body image. Previous research has mostly focused on Instagram and Facebook, where idealized photos are common and appearance-based comparisons are easy to make. But TikTok has become especially popular among young women, many of whom spend hours scrolling through videos that often highlight physical appearance, fitness routines, or celebrity lifestyles.</p>
<p>Unlike photo-based platforms, TikTok relies entirely on short videos that are selected and recommended by an algorithm designed to maximize user engagement. Researchers were interested in whether the ways young women interact with these videos — particularly when it comes to appearance-focused content — might shape their feelings about their bodies and their openness to cosmetic surgery. They aimed to examine not just time spent on the app, but specific types of engagement.</p>
<p>“My own experiences as a young woman on TikTok inspired me to consider how certain accounts might impact users’ body image-related perceptions. At the time, I was also working with a team at the University of Arizona who were also experiencing some of the same things on TikTok, and it was a great opportunity to collaborate on this emerging research area,” said study author Leah Dajches, an assistant professor at New Mexico State University and co-editor of <em><a href="https://amzn.to/48lep3L" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fandom in Marginalized Communities</a></em>.</p>
<p>For their study, the researchers surveyed 424 U.S. women between the ages of 18 and 32. Participants had to be active TikTok users and were recruited through various channels, including a university pool, Reddit, and an online platform for study participation.</p>
<p>The researchers focused on three types of appearance-related engagement on TikTok: how often participants left comments on others’ appearances, how many celebrity accounts they followed, and how many health and fitness accounts they followed. They then measured participants’ body image using two concepts: body appreciation, which reflects a positive view of one’s own body, and body dissatisfaction, which reflects discontent with one’s appearance. They also assessed how open participants were to undergoing cosmetic surgery.</p>
<p>One key finding was that young women who reported frequently leaving appearance-related comments on TikTok also reported higher levels of body appreciation. This suggests that engaging with others in appearance-based ways, possibly through compliments or encouragement, may provide a sense of connection or affirmation that supports a more positive body image.</p>
<p>“I was surprised that leaving appearance-related comments was associated with body appreciation,” Dajches told PsyPost. “We theorized that this finding could be due to the valence of comments on the platform. Positive feedback and comments are more prevalent on social media than negative comments. We thought that making positive comments on others’ TikTok videos may be a way some users create and maintain social connections, as well as fulfill their need for social bonds.”</p>
<p>“We also suggest that such comments may be a form of social support, which is shown to be rewarding and stress reducing. Thus, in the context of TikTok, complimenting others’ appearance might allow the commenter to feel that their own appearance is or would be similarly supported.”</p>
<p>However, this same group also showed higher acceptance of cosmetic surgery. This may indicate that even positive engagement with appearance can be tied to a heightened focus on physical looks, which could in turn lead to greater openness to altering appearance through surgical means.</p>
<p>“Leaving appearance-related comments was also associated with higher levels of cosmetic surgery acceptance,” Dajches explained. “Essentially, this means that commenting on how other users look was correlated with young women’s positive perception of their own body, as well as their openness/acceptance of cosmetic surgery procedures.”</p>
<p>The researchers also found that following celebrity accounts was indirectly linked to cosmetic surgery acceptance. Specifically, following more celebrity accounts was related to greater body dissatisfaction. That dissatisfaction, in turn, was linked to more favorable views of cosmetic surgery. This provides evidence for the idea that watching celebrities, who often present highly curated or edited versions of their appearance, might lead viewers to feel worse about themselves. In this case, that dissatisfaction seems to encourage more openness to altering appearance to better match those ideals.</p>
<p>A similar pattern emerged for following health and fitness accounts. Participants who followed more of these accounts were more likely to accept cosmetic surgery. But unlike the celebrity accounts, this link was not explained by either body appreciation or dissatisfaction. This suggests that following health and fitness influencers may shape attitudes about surgery in ways that are not entirely captured by how someone feels about their body. For example, viewers might be drawn to cosmetic surgery as part of a broader pursuit of “self-improvement” or appearance enhancement promoted by these influencers.</p>
<p>The researchers tested these relationships using a statistical technique that allowed them to assess both direct and indirect effects. Their model showed a good fit to the data, suggesting that the relationships they identified were consistent with the patterns in the sample. But there are still some limitations.</p>
<p>“Our study was a cross-sectional survey, which means that we can look at associations between concepts or variables; however, we cannot draw definitive causal claims about the direction of the relationships,” Dajches noted. “Our sample is also less generalizable to groups other than young women. This means that the associations may not occur in other demographics, such as young men.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2025-33202-001" target="_blank" rel="noopener">‘I Made You Look’… and Comment: Exploring the Role of TikTok on Body Image and Acceptance of Cosmetic Surgery</a>,” was authored by Leah Dajches, Heather Gahler, Larissa Terán, Kun Yan, Jiaqi Zeng, and Jennifer Stevens Aubrey.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/what-weve-learned-about-the-psychology-of-narcissism-over-the-past-30-years/" 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;">What we’ve learned about the psychology of narcissism over the past 30 years</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Oct 11th 2025, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>You’ve probably seen the word “narcissist” thrown around online in headlines, on dating apps or in therapy-themed TikToks. But the label that people often unthinkingly slap on toxic bosses or reality TV villains hides a much more complicated psychological picture.</p>
<p>Psychologists have studied narcissism for many years, but over time, our understanding has evolved. One of the biggest changes is that today, narcissism is no longer seen as just grandiosity, arrogance or egotism.</p>
<p>Early scientific descriptions of narcissism <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272735807001602?via%3Dihub">focused on dominance</a>, ambition and self-importance, all of which are traits associated with traditional masculine stereotypes. That meant narcissistic tendencies in women were often misread or overlooked. When those traits <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fa0038231">show up as emotional sensitivity</a>, insecurity or relational manipulation, they sometimes still are misdiagnosed as anxiety, mood disorders or <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1090746/full">borderline personality disorder</a> traits.</p>
<p>The most extreme and persistent forms of narcissism can sometimes be diagnosed as narcissistic personality disorder. This condition was added to the <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-14907-000">Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders</a>, the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic manual, in 1980. But most people with narcissistic tendencies won’t meet the threshold for a diagnosis.</p>
<h2>So what does the research actually say?</h2>
<p>Narcissism in general is <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09637214211044109">now understood</a> as a complex set of personality characteristics that can show up in different ways.</p>
<p>Psychologists had long suspected that there might be different kinds of narcissism, but it wasn’t until 1991 – when researcher Paul Wink and his colleagues <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0022-3514.61.4.590">presented a model</a> including grandiose and vulnerable subtypes – that they were more formally recognised. Although there are other models, this remains one of the more popular approaches to understanding narcissistic tendencies in the wider population.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09637214211044109">2021 review</a> by US psychologist Joshua Miller and his colleagues pulled together decades of research to offer one of the most authoritative summaries of how psychologists now understand narcissism. It explains that narcissism has a common foundation, which includes things such as self-importance and entitlement. It then branches into different forms of narcissism, such as grandiosity, antagonism and vulnerability.</p>
<p>Researchers now often use the terms <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272735807001602?via%3Dihub">grandiose and vulnerable</a> to describe two major forms of narcissism. One person with narcissistic traits may be bold with high levels of grandiose traits, confidence and emotional resilience. Another might be defensive, anxious and hypersensitive to criticism. Both show signs of narcissistic self-focus, but they end up looking quite different in how they experience and express emotion.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S019188692100773X?via%3Dihub">2022 research paper</a> I wrote with colleagues, we carried out the first meta-analysis examining how narcissistic traits relate to the ability to control one’s emotions. The results showed that vulnerable narcissism is consistently associated with greater emotional difficulty, which means these people might find it harder to keep their emotions in check.</p>
<p>In particular, people with high scores on vulnerable narcissism scales are more likely to rely on suppression. Suppression is a strategy that people use to hide or inhibit their emotional expressions, and has been linked to <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0022-3514.85.2.348">poorer wellbeing</a>. On the surface, suppression might sound like self-control.</p>
<p>In some situations, it can be. For example, keeping a lid on your emotions when your boss is yelling at you. But trying to mute emotional expression without addressing the underlying emotions increases stress when it becomes our default strategy. It can worsen mental and physical health over time.</p>
<p>In contrast, grandiose narcissism wasn’t linked with emotion regulation difficulties. In fact, several of the studies included in our analysis suggest that people with higher levels of grandiose traits may not experience as much emotional distress in the first place. This challenges the popular idea among researchers that people who exhibit narcissistic tendencies are also experiencing emotional instability.</p>
<h2>Emotional intelligence and self-perception</h2>
<p>The differences between forms of narcissism show up in emotional intelligence research as well. In a <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/17540739211014585">2021 systematic review</a> on narcissism and emotional intelligence, my colleagues and I found that people with grandiose traits often said they were good at understanding and managing emotions. For instance, how well they think they can handle anger or recognise other’s emotions.</p>
<p>But when their skills were tested using emotion tasks (such as recognising facial expressions or identifying the best way to respond to an emotional situation), their performance didn’t always match up with how skilled they said they were. This is consistent with a <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01606/full">2018 study</a> which also found that people with grandiose tendencies rated themselves as emotionally skilled but performed worse on skill-based emotional intelligence tasks compared to other participants.</p>
<p>In contrast, people with vulnerable narcissistic traits tend to rate themselves lower in emotional intelligence, and seem to genuinely struggle more with managing emotions in everyday life.</p>
<h2>So what should we make of all this?</h2>
<p>It’s time to move beyond the pop-psych trend of labelling difficult people as narcissists. Narcissism isn’t about taking too many selfies. And no, the partner who ghosted you or the colleague who dominates meetings isn’t necessarily high in narcissistic traits either – no matter how much we might like to complain about them over coffee.</p>
<p>These kinds of casual diagnoses aren’t just unhelpful, they’re often wrong.</p>
<p>Narcissism is a complex psychological pattern that can show up in different ways and can reflect a deeper struggle with things such as self-esteem, emotion regulation and social connection. Understanding this doesn’t excuse people’s bad behaviour – not at all. But it does help us look past the stereotypes to get a clearer picture of what narcissistic traits look like in everyday life.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/258505/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/what-weve-learned-about-narcissism-over-the-past-30-years-258505">original article</a>.</em></p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/interaction-with-the-replika-social-chatbot-can-alleviate-loneliness-study-finds/" 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;">Interaction with the Replika social chatbot can alleviate loneliness, study finds</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Oct 11th 2025, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>A study in China involving full-time college students with severe loneliness found that continuous interactions with Replika, a chatbot designed to recognize users’ emotional states, alleviated loneliness after 1, 3, and 5 months of intervention. The students who interacted with the chatbot showed larger decreases in loneliness compared to students relying on standard psychological support activities. They also showed decreased social anxiety, along with improved social self-efficacy and psychological resilience. The paper was published in <em><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17483107.2025.2540494" target="_blank">Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology</a></em>.</p>
<p>Loneliness is a distressing feeling that arises when a person’s social relationships are perceived as insufficient or lacking in quality or emotional closeness. It is not the same as being alone, since one can feel lonely even in the presence of others.</p>
<p>Among young people, loneliness is surprisingly common despite their frequent social interactions, especially through digital media. Studies across countries show that a significant proportion of adolescents and young adults—often between 20% and 40%—report feeling lonely at least some of the time.</p>
<p>Factors contributing to feelings of loneliness include social comparison on social media, pressure to fit in, and transitional life stages such as leaving home or starting university. Poor-quality friendships and bullying can also heighten loneliness in youth. Loneliness in this age group is linked to higher risks of depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem. It can also affect sleep, immunity, and academic performance. While temporary loneliness is normal, chronic loneliness can become a serious mental health concern.</p>
<p>Study authors Xinyuan Lu and Wan Guo wanted to explore whether interaction with an emotionally intelligent chatbot could be used to alleviate loneliness in college students. Chatbots, also known as conversational agents, are AI systems capable of interacting with users through natural language via text or speech.</p>
<p>However, basic interaction is often not enough to create a fulfilling conversation, as genuine connection requires an understanding of emotions. If a chatbot cannot take emotions into account, a mismatch between its responses and the user’s emotional state can lead to disappointment. The study authors note that a new generation of chatbots is emerging. These advanced chatbots can interpret not only text but also facial expressions, gestures, and physiological signals, giving them a more holistic ability to interpret a user’s emotional state.</p>
<p>They conducted a study in which they focused on the effects of interactions with the Replika social chatbot. The study authors note that Replika is “a highly popular and well-rated social chatbot available on both the Apple and Google Play stores.”</p>
<p>“Since its release in 2018, it has attracted a large user base. The app is marketed as a ‘friend who always listens’ or a ‘personalized AI version,’ and has garnered significant media attention. Unlike traditional companion chatbots, which typically rely on user prompts to trigger pre-written fixed responses, Replika employs the Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3 (GPT-3) neural network model for response generation. This model is trained on user interaction data and can select the most relevant responses from an extensive dataset, including over a million responses, and rank them based on user feedback for each reply. This mechanism provides Replika with greater flexibility, enabling it to understand a wider range of vocabulary and generate more natural, emotionally intelligent conversational responses,” the study authors explain.</p>
<p>Study participants were 120 college students assessed as having severe loneliness. The researchers divided them randomly into two groups. One group of students (the experimental group) regularly interacted with the Replika chatbot to obtain psychological support and academic assistance according to a detailed interaction plan. This plan included regularly sharing their personal emotional states with the chatbot, engaging in deep conversations with it to share feelings and experiences, completing psychological assessments provided by the chatbot, and various other activities.</p>
<p>Participants in the control group attended psychological health education events, had access to psychological counseling rooms and online counseling services, participated in psychological health promotion activities, and engaged in other similar activities. Their teachers were also encouraged to strengthen communication with study participants and to pay attention to the psychological needs of these participants.</p>
<p>Results showed that the two groups had similar loneliness scores at the start of the study. However, at the 1, 3, and 5-month follow-ups, the group that interacted with the Replika chatbot showed significantly lower loneliness levels. Similarly, this group showed lower levels of social anxiety at these measurement points. The experimental group also had increased social self-efficacy and psychological resilience after the intervention compared to the control group, even though both groups started with similar levels of these traits.</p>
<p>“High emotional intelligence AI chatbots can significantly improve and alleviate feelings of loneliness and enhance social skills, opening up new avenues for technology assisted psychological intervention,” the study authors concluded.</p>
<p>The study sheds light on the potential of AI chatbots that can interpret users’ emotional states to alleviate loneliness. However, it should be noted that all the study participants were college students and that loneliness was self-reported. If participants knew which group was experimental (which is likely), it is possible that the results were affected by the Hawthorne effect. In other words, the recorded changes might stem from participants’ awareness of being studied and their assumptions about the researchers’ expectations, rather than the intervention itself.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17483107.2025.2540494" target="_blank">Utilizing artificial intelligence to enhance social connections – the alleviating effect of emotionally intelligent chatbots on loneliness</a>,” was authored by Xinyuan Lu and Wan Guo.</p></p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
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