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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/womens-sexual-desire-is-more-strongly-affected-by-stress-new-study-suggests/" 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;">Women’s sexual desire is more strongly affected by stress, new study suggests</a>
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<p><p>A study in Austria found that higher subjective stress is linked to lower sexual desire and arousal in the moment. Furthermore, sexual activity was associated with lower subsequent levels of the stress hormone cortisol. The paper was published in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2025.107583" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Psychoneuroendocrinology</a></em>.</p>
<p>Stress and sexuality are closely interconnected because they involve overlapping hormonal, emotional, and cognitive processes. When a person experiences chronic stress, the body releases higher levels of cortisol, which can interfere with sex hormones like testosterone and estrogen. This hormonal imbalance may lead to reduced libido and difficulties with sexual arousal or performance.</p>
<p>Stress can also narrow attention and increase self-consciousness, making it harder to feel relaxed or emotionally connected with a partner. Psychological tension may trigger an avoidance of intimacy, especially if the stress originates from relationship conflicts. In some individuals, however, stress can increase sexual desire as a form of emotional release or reassurance.</p>
<p>Study author Hanna M. Mües and her colleagues investigated the association between subjective stress and levels of the stress hormone cortisol on one hand, and sexual desire, arousal, and activity on the other. They were particularly interested in how these associations unfold in daily life. Based on the ‘tend-and-befriend’ model, they hypothesized that the link between sexuality and stress reduction would be stronger in women than in men.</p>
<p>Participants were recruited via flyers and online posts in Vienna, Austria. While 270 individuals were initially assessed, the final study sample consisted of 63 healthy, heterosexual participants between 19 and 32 years of age (32 women and 31 men). The participants’ average age was about 24.5 years.</p>
<p>For 14 consecutive days, participants used an iPod to provide ratings of their current sexual arousal, sexual desire, and stress up to six times per day. They also provided saliva samples six times per day for cortisol analysis. Directly after any sexual activity (within 15 minutes), participants completed an additional event-based report. Masturbation, petting, oral sex, sexual intercourse, and anal sex were all considered sexual activities.</p>
<p>The results showed that when participants reported higher levels of subjective stress, they also tended to experience lower levels of sexual desire and arousal at the same time. While this was true for both genders, the reverse association—higher sexual desire and arousal being linked to lower stress—was only significant for women.</p>
<p>The study also found a key gender difference related to the biological stress response. Higher cortisol levels were significantly associated with lower concurrent sexual desire in women, but not in men. No significant time-lagged associations were found, meaning stress at one point in the day did not predict lower desire a few hours later. However, previous sexual activity was significantly associated with lower cortisol levels later, suggesting a biological stress-reducing effect of sex for both men and women.</p>
<p>“The present findings indicate that feelings of stress inhibit momentary sexual desire and arousal. In light of the Dual Control Model, stress may play a role in inhibiting sexual processes,” the study authors concluded.</p>
<p>The study contributes to the scientific understanding of the links between stress and sexuality. However, its generalizability is limited, as the participants were young, healthy, and heterosexual adults in stable relationships. Results on more diverse demographic groups might differ.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2025.107583">Too stressed for sex? Associations between stress and sex in daily life,</a>” was authored by Hanna M. Mües, Charlotte Markert, Anja C. Feneberg, and Urs M. Nater.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/scientists-identify-a-crucial-brain-feature-connecting-genetics-to-intelligence/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Scientists identify a crucial brain feature connecting genetics to intelligence</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Nov 13th 2025, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in the journal <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhaf199" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cerebral Cortex</a> provides evidence that differences in general intelligence may be partly explained by the density of neurites within certain brain connections, and that this brain structure is, in turn, influenced by a person’s genetic makeup. The researchers found that individuals with higher genetic scores for intelligence tended to have a higher density of neurites in specific white matter tracts, and that this structural feature mediated the relationship between genetic variation and cognitive ability.</p>
<p>The research addresses a longstanding challenge in neuroscience: understanding how inherited genetic differences relate to brain structure and cognitive performance. While earlier studies have shown that general intelligence is highly heritable, the new study focuses on the role of white matter.</p>
<p>White matter acts as the brain’s communication network, composed of vast bundles of nerve fibers that transmit signals between different regions. While it has been known that white matter is involved in cognitive functioning, it has remained unclear which specific features are most relevant and how they connect genetics to intelligence.</p>
<p>Past studies have often relied on a measurement called fractional anisotropy, which captures the directional movement of water molecules in the brain and is commonly used to assess white matter integrity. Higher values have been associated with better cognitive performance.</p>
<p>However, fractional anisotropy does not clarify whether the observed effects are due to denser neurite connections, more uniform fiber orientation, or greater levels of myelination. The new study was designed to go beyond that general measure by using more targeted neuroimaging techniques.</p>
<p>“In general, our motivation for this study was to examine the structural network connectivity of the brain, i.e., anatomical connections between brain regions, in relation to intelligence more thoroughly, as there is now a consensus that different regions of our brain form a network and exchange information,” said study author Christina Stammen of the Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Fa ctors(IfADo).</p>
<p>“The motivation for this study in particular arose from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhac538" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a previous study</a> we conducted. In that study, we found significant positive associations between fractional anisotropy values, a commonly used measure of white matter microstructure, and general intelligence. Since it remained unclear whether this association was due to axon density, parallel, homogenous fiber orientation distributions, or myelination, we conducted our second study.”</p>
<p>To examine the brain’s microstructural architecture in greater detail, the researchers used two advanced imaging methods. One, known as neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging (NODDI), provides estimates of both the density and alignment of neurites—the projections from nerve cells, which in white matter are primarily signal-transmitting fibers called axons.</p>
<p>The other, myelin water fraction imaging, estimates the amount of myelin, a fatty substance that wraps around nerve fibers and speeds up signal transmission. Together, these approaches allowed the team to separately examine neurite density, orientation dispersion, and myelination in white matter.</p>
<p>The study involved more than 500 healthy young adults, most of whom were university students. Each participant completed a series of well-validated intelligence tests that measured a range of cognitive abilities, including verbal, numerical, and spatial reasoning, general knowledge, and processing speed. The researchers then used a statistical approach called factor analysis to compute each participant’s general intelligence score, often referred to as the g factor.</p>
<p>To assess genetic influence, the researchers generated a polygenic score for intelligence for each participant. These scores summarize the small effects of thousands of genetic variants previously linked to intelligence in large-scale genome-wide studies.</p>
<p>DNA was obtained from cells brushed from the participants’ oral mucosa and analyzed for common single nucleotide polymorphisms. After a series of quality control steps, the polygenic scores were calculated based on how many intelligence-associated variants each person carried and the strength of those associations.</p>
<p>Participants also underwent MRI scans, from which the researchers extracted detailed measurements of white matter properties in 64 distinct brain tracts. For each tract, they calculated the neurite density index, orientation dispersion index, and myelin water fraction. The researchers then conducted mediation analyses to examine whether these brain features statistically explained the link between genetic variation and general intelligence.</p>
<p>The findings showed that neurite density, but not orientation dispersion or myelination, was significantly related to general intelligence. The analysis revealed two key connections: First, people with higher polygenic scores for intelligence tended to have higher neurite density in 28 of the 64 white matter tracts. Second, higher neurite density in 18 tracts was directly associated with higher general intelligence scores.</p>
<p>Among these, six tracts were found to be significant in both relationships, statistically mediating the connection between genetics and cognitive performance. These included areas such as the uncinate fasciculus, superior longitudinal fasciculus, cingulum, and middle longitudinal fasciculus, which are known to support functions like memory, language, and cognitive control.</p>
<p>In these regions, higher genetic scores were associated with greater neurite density, which in turn was linked to higher intelligence scores. This suggests that genetic variation may influence how densely packed the brain’s communication pathways are, and that this difference in structure may help explain why some people perform better on cognitive tasks than others.</p>
<p>Notably, the orientation dispersion index, which reflects how uniformly or diffusely aligned the neurites are within a tract, did not show any association with intelligence. This suggests that the arrangement or directionality of white matter fibers may not be as important as their overall density when it comes to cognitive performance.</p>
<p>The results for myelin content were similar. Although some genetic associations were found with myelin water fraction in a few tracts, there was no evidence that this feature was related to intelligence in the sample. In other words, the degree of myelination in white matter did not mediate the link between genetics and general intelligence.</p>
<p>“The fact that there were no significant associations between myelin water fraction and intelligence in predominantly young adults surprised us, as it is a long-standing hypothesis that differences in myelination could underlie differences in intelligence,” Stammen told PsyPost. “Myelin plays a crucial role in increasing conduction velocity and ensuring precise spike timing, both of which are critical for the synchronization and coupling of neuronal ensembles across distributed brain networks.”</p>
<p>The researchers interpret these findings to mean that the number of neurites in certain brain pathways may be more relevant for intelligence than the speed or efficiency of signal transmission along those pathways. This aligns with the idea that individuals with more densely connected brain networks may be better equipped for complex problem-solving because they have more parallel routes for information processing.</p>
<p>Some of the white matter regions found to be important in this study overlap with areas highlighted in previous research using more general imaging measures. For example, past work has shown associations between intelligence and fractional anisotropy in the superior longitudinal fasciculus and cingulum. The current study adds specificity to those findings by identifying neurite density as the relevant microstructural property.</p>
<p>The findings indicate that “our genetic makeup influences the neurite density of certain connections, i.e. fiber tracts, in our brain, which in turn has an impact on our intelligence,” Stammen explained. “The relation between our genetic variants and our intelligence is therefore partially mediated by the neurite density of certain fiber tracts in the brain, which has never been investigated before.”</p>
<p>“In contrast, neurite orientation dispersion and estimated myelination of the same fiber tracts showed no mediating effects between genetic variants and intelligence,” Stammen explained. “This means that the number or density of neurites is more important for intelligence than their alignment or estimated myelination. The predominantly positive mediation effects suggest that parallel information processing takes place between important areas of intelligence, as there are more neurites and thus more possible ways to think through problems.”</p>
<p>“Overall, the effects found are of course very small. However, given that all three interrelated variables – genetic makeup, the brain, and intelligence – are very complex constructs, even small contributions from individual factors are meaningful.”</p>
<p>As with all research, there are some limitations. The sample consisted mostly of young, highly educated individuals with above-average intelligence scores. This limits how broadly the findings can be applied to the general population. Additionally, while the neuroimaging methods used here offer more specificity than earlier approaches, they still rely on indirect estimates and cannot capture the full complexity of brain microstructure.</p>
<p>The authors also caution that their mediation analyses are exploratory and based on regularization methods designed to detect patterns in complex data. These methods can help identify promising relationships, but the results should be replicated in other samples and confirmed with different statistical techniques.</p>
<p>Another limitation is that the polygenic scores used in this study, while based on large-scale genetic data, still explain only a small portion of the total variation in intelligence. As larger and more diverse genetic studies become available, future research may be able to account for a greater share of cognitive differences.</p>
<p>Overall, this study provides new insights into the biological mechanisms linking genetics to intelligence. By focusing on specific microstructural features of white matter, it offers a more detailed view of how genetic variation may shape the brain’s structural networks and contribute to cognitive ability. The findings suggest that the density of neurites, rather than their alignment or myelination, may play a more central role in this process.</p>
<p>“The next steps would be to replicate our results in independent samples,” Stammen explained. “Furthermore, it would be interesting to use other new imaging methods to investigate the relation between genetic variants, the brain, and human intelligence. We would like to encourage others to conduct more mediation research in order to directly analyze the triad between genes, the brain, and behavior in one.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhaf199" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Neurite density but not myelination of specific fiber tracts links polygenic scores to general intelligence</a>,” was authored by Christina Stammen, Javier Schneider Penate, Dorothea Metzen, Maurice J. Hönscher, Christoph Fraenz, Caroline Schlüter, Onur Güntürkün, Robert Kumsta, and Erhan Genç.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/study-suggests-smart-drugs-are-used-for-optimization-not-self-medication/" 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;">Study suggests smart drugs are used for optimization, not self-medication</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Nov 12th 2025, 18:00</div>
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<p><p>A study of people using cognition-enhancing drugs without a prescription (conducted in London) found that these individuals had faster reaction and error-correction times with equally accurate automatic responses on cognitive tests compared to their peers not using these drugs. This indicates that users of cognition-enhancing drugs might be using them to enhance their already healthy cognitive function rather than to alleviate deficiencies in cognitive function. The paper was published in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s41465-025-00330-8"><em>Journal of Cognitive Enhancement</em></a>.</p>
<p>Cognition-enhancing drugs, also known as nootropics or smart drugs, are substances that aim to improve mental functions such as memory, attention, creativity, or motivation. Some of these drugs are prescribed for medical conditions that impair cognition, like ADHD, Alzheimer’s disease, or narcolepsy.</p>
<p>Common examples include stimulants such as methylphenidate and modafinil, which can enhance alertness and concentration. Others, like donepezil or memantine, target neurotransmitter systems involved in memory and learning in dementia patients. There are also over-the-counter supplements, such as caffeine, ginkgo biloba, and omega-3 fatty acids, that are sometimes marketed as natural cognitive enhancers.</p>
<p>While these substances can provide short-term benefits, their long-term effects on healthy individuals are less clear. Misuse or overuse of prescription cognition-enhancing drugs can lead to side effects such as anxiety, insomnia, or dependence.</p>
<p>Study author Rachel D. Teodorini and her colleagues wanted to investigate whether the cognitive functions of individuals who use modafinil or methylphenidate differ from those of non-users. They also wanted to see whether individuals who use these drugs without a prescription do so to compensate for a cognitive deficit or to enhance their otherwise healthy cognition.</p>
<p>Study participants were recruited through two online forums—Bluelight and Reddit—and via advertisements placed at the London South Bank University campus in Elephant and Castle in Central London.</p>
<p>A total of 90 participants completed the study. Of these, 47 used cognition-enhancing drugs without a prescription. More specifically, 28 reported using only modafinil, 6 reported using only methylphenidate, and 13 reported using both. Seventy-seven percent of participants were male. Their average age was 30. Sixty-eight percent had a university education. Fifty-one percent of cognition-enhancing drug users reported that they were currently studying for a qualification, compared to 88% of participants not using these drugs.</p>
<p>Study participants completed a questionnaire that asked about their demographic data, mental health, and drug use habits. They also completed two cognitive tasks—the Antisaccade task and the Arrow Flanker Task—and self-reported their executive functioning quality (using the BRIEF-A questionnaire). The Antisaccade Task measures inhibitory control and the ability to suppress automatic eye movements, while the Arrow Flanker Task measures attention and cognitive control by assessing how well a person can ignore distracting stimuli.</p>
<p>Results showed that participants who used cognition-enhancing drugs tended to be faster to respond and correct errors in the cognitive tasks, while being as equally accurate as their non-using peers. Also, the use of cognition-enhancing drugs was not associated with any self-reported measures of cognitive functioning.</p>
<p>The study authors state that this suggests users of (unprescribed) cognition-enhancing drugs are not individuals with poorer cognitive functions who are self-medicating. Rather, they seem to be individuals with healthy cognitive functions who wish to enhance them through the use of drugs.</p>
<p>“The data reported here suggest that some CED [cognition-enhancing drug] use may be motivated by optimization of function and not self-medication of problems, perceived or otherwise, with the endogenous control of attention,” the study authors concluded.</p>
<p>The study contributes to the scientific understanding of the psychological characteristics of individuals using cognition-enhancing drugs without a prescription. However, it should be noted that the study was conducted on a relatively small sample of participants from a single, relatively small geographical area (London). Results from larger groups and groups from other cultural and geographical regions may differ.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s41465-025-00330-8">The Cognitive Performance of Unmedicated Off‑Prescription Users of Modafinil and Methylphenidate</a>,” was authored by Rachel D. Teodorini, James H. Smith‑Spark, and Nicola Rycroft.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/aggression-in-pornography-has-tripled-over-25-years-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;">Aggression in pornography has tripled over 25 years, study finds</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Nov 12th 2025, 16:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study suggests that visible physical aggression in popular online pornography has increased substantially over the past 25 years. This trend appears to be driven primarily by a rise in spanking, though the research also points to a smaller but significant increase in hitting and choking. The findings were published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2025.2565660" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Journal of Sex Research</a></em>.</p>
<p>Scientific literature has explored the connection between viewing pornography with aggressive content and holding attitudes that support aggression. A body of research indicates that exposure to aggressive pornography is associated with a greater likelihood of sexually aggressive behaviors and attitudes. Despite these connections, there has been considerable debate and variation in findings regarding how much aggression is actually present in mainstream pornography.</p>
<p>Previous analyses of pornographic content have produced varied results about how common aggression is, partly due to different definitions, time periods, and types of media being studied. Most of this research did not include data from the last decade, a period of significant change in online content. The researchers of the current study sought to provide a systematic, long-term analysis to understand if, and how, depictions of aggression within highly popular online pornographic videos have changed over time.</p>
<p>I was teaching a class on deviance and came across claims about rates of aggression in sexuality that were either not empirically substantiated or relied on problematic analyses and definitions of aggression. So I decided to conduct my own research on it, particularly on the common claim that mainstream pornography is becoming ‘harder and harder,”‘” said study author Eran Shor, a professor at McGill University and author of <em><a href="https://www.routledge.com/Aggression-in-Pornography-Myths-and-Realities/Shor-Seida/p/book/9780367540302" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Aggression in Pornography: Myths and Realities</a></em>. “This research is part of the larger picture that I present in my book.”</p>
<p>To investigate these trends, the researchers analyzed a sample of 255 videos from Pornhub, one of the most visited websites globally. They selected videos from the “most viewed” category, sampling content uploaded between the years 2000 and 2024 to create a long-term perspective. Each video had received at least two million views. This strategy was chosen to focus on the content most likely to be seen by large audiences and to maintain a consistent type of video for comparison across the years.</p>
<p>The research team used two different operational measurements for aggression. The first, termed “visible aggression,” included a predefined list of physical acts like spanking, hitting, and choking, regardless of whether performers appeared to consent. The second definition, “nonconsensual aggression,” was applied only when performers showed clear verbal or nonverbal signs of resistance or distress that were ignored by their partners. Coders also noted the presence of specific aggressive acts, titles suggesting aggression, and verbal aggression.</p>
<p>Across the entire 25-year sample, visible physical aggression was present in 43.9% of the videos. Spanking was by far the most frequent act, appearing in 39.2% of all videos, followed by hair pulling at 10.2%. In contrast, nonconsensual aggression was found to be quite uncommon, appearing in only 1.6% of the videos analyzed. Titles that suggested aggression were also relatively uncommon, appearing in about 10% of the sample.</p>
<p>The study’s analysis of trends over time provides evidence of a notable shift in content. The rate of visible aggression nearly tripled, rising from approximately 20% in the videos sampled from the early 2000s to around 55-60% in videos from the last decade. This suggests that viewers of popular pornography today are substantially more likely to encounter scenes with physical aggression than they were 15 to 20 years ago.</p>
<p>“Previous research that covered data up to the mid-2010s did not find a significant increase in most types of aggression,” Shor told PsyPost. “So the significant increase in this study that covered data up to the mid 2020s was not necessarily expected.”</p>
<p>The researchers report that this increase can largely be attributed to a sharp rise in the depiction of spanking. This practice was seen in less than 20% of videos from the 2000s but appeared in more than half of the videos sampled from the late 2010s and early 2020s. The authors note that spanking is often considered a milder form of aggression and that its meaning can be subjective, with some viewers not perceiving it as aggressive at all.</p>
<p>While spanking accounted for most of the change, the study also identified a statistically significant increase in other forms of aggression that are often considered more severe. Depictions of hitting a partner’s body or face showed an increase, as did the practice of choking or applying pressure to the neck.</p>
<p>The rise in depictions of choking was particularly consistent. This practice was absent in the earliest videos sampled for the study but showed a steady climb over the years, appearing in 15% of the most popular videos from the 2020s. This finding aligns with anecdotal reports and scholarly concerns about the normalization of choking in sexual contexts. The study did not find significant changes over time for nonconsensual aggression, titles suggesting aggression, or verbal aggression, which all remained relatively low.</p>
<p>“While there’s a rise in overall aggression over the years, most of it can be ascribed to an increase in relatively light forms of aggression, primarily spanking,” Shor said. “Still, I also found a significant (though smaller) increase in hitting and strangulation. The latter is particulalry concerning, as it might affect young people’s sexual script and normalize a practice that could be health-risking and even life- endangering.”</p>
<p>The researchers propose that a bidirectional relationship may exist, where pornography both reflects and shapes sexual interests. As choking becomes more visible in pornography, it may be perceived as a normal or expected part of a sexual script. This can influence viewers to believe the practice is safe and does not require explicit consent, potentially leading them to incorporate it into their own sexual activities.</p>
<p>The authors acknowledge certain limitations to their study. The sample size was relatively modest, and the analysis was confined to the “most viewed” videos on a single website, which may not represent all available pornographic content. Relying on the platform’s own viewership data also presents a potential constraint, as such figures could be manipulated for commercial reasons.</p>
<p>For future research, the study suggests expanding analyses to include larger samples, other websites, and different genres of pornography. Researchers could also explore subscription-based services or employ more context-sensitive coding methods to better understand how viewers might interpret these acts. Such an approach could provide a more nuanced understanding of how sexual scripts in pornography are changing and how they are perceived by audiences.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2025.2565660" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Rise of Spanking, Hitting, and Strangulation: A Longitudinal Evaluation of Aggression in Pornography</a>,” was authored by Eran Shor and Xuanchi Liu.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/new-research-examines-can-religion-tame-dark-personalities-at-work/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">New research examines: Can religion tame dark personalities at work?</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Nov 12th 2025, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study suggests the connection between an employee’s religious practices and their tendency toward self-interest at work is more complex than it might appear. The research indicates that any protective effect of religion against egoistic behaviors depends on both an individual’s personal sense of connection with God and the ethical atmosphere of their workplace. The paper was published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-025-02363-x" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Journal of Religion and Health</a></em>.</p>
<p>The role of religion in professional settings has been a relatively neglected area of study, particularly outside of the United States. Much of the existing research has focused on how religious belief can promote positive workplace virtues like gratitude or forgiveness. Less is known about whether religiosity might help prevent negative personality traits from manifesting as antisocial or unethical behavior on the job.</p>
<p>Marcin Wnuk, a researcher in the Department of Work and Organizational Psychology at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland, sought to explore this gap, specifically within the context of Poland, a country where a large majority of the population identifies as religious.</p>
<p>The study centered on a set of three personality traits known collectively as the “dark triad”: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. While these are distinct traits, they share an underlying tendency toward self-centeredness, manipulativeness, and a lack of concern for others. The research investigated if religious practices like prayer or attending Mass were associated with lower levels of these traits, and in turn, with less egoism at work, which is defined as an attitude of caring only for one’s own interests, even at the expense of colleagues or the organization.</p>
<p>The study also examined two other important factors. The first was an employee’s perception of their personal relationship with God, a subjective feeling of bonding and support. The second was the “instrumental ethical climate” of the workplace, which describes an environment where employees perceive that self-interest is the primary driver of behavior and that looking out for oneself is the expected norm.</p>
<p>To conduct the study, the researcher administered a series of questionnaires to 434 employees in Poland. Participants answered questions about the frequency of their prayer and Mass attendance. They also completed assessments designed to measure their levels of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy, as well as their tendency toward egoistic attitudes at work. Additional questionnaires gauged their personal sense of a relationship with God and their perception of the ethical climate at their job.</p>
<p>The analysis revealed a nuanced set of relationships. The frequency of religious practices alone was not consistently associated with lower levels of dark triad traits. For instance, simply attending Mass more often was linked to lower narcissism, but prayer on its own showed no direct link to any of the three traits. The connection became clearer when the employee’s perception of a bond with God was considered.</p>
<p>Prayer was associated with lower narcissism and lower psychopathy, but only for individuals who also reported a strong, positive relationship with God. Among those who felt a weak connection to God, prayer was unexpectedly associated with higher levels of Machiavellianism. This suggests that the internal, relational aspect of faith may be a key component in how religious behavior influences personality expression.</p>
<p>The study also confirmed that all three dark triad traits were positively associated with higher levels of egoism at work. An employee with higher levels of narcissism, Machiavellianism, or psychopathy was more likely to report an egoistic attitude in their professional life. This finding set the stage for examining how the workplace environment might influence this connection.</p>
<p>The workplace’s ethical climate was found to play a significant role, though not always in the expected way. For employees with psychopathic tendencies, working in an environment that promoted self-interest amplified the link to egoism. In other words, a self-serving workplace appeared to activate or encourage the expression of egoistic behavior in these individuals.</p>
<p>The finding for Machiavellianism was different. In a workplace with a strong self-interest climate, the positive link between Machiavellianism and egoism was actually weaker. One possible interpretation offered is that in an environment where everyone is expected to be self-serving, individuals with Machiavellian traits may not need to engage in as much active manipulation to achieve their goals, slightly reducing the expression of their egoistic motivation. The ethical climate had no observable effect on the relationship between narcissism and egoism.</p>
<p>The study has some limitations that point toward avenues for future inquiry. Because the data was collected at a single point in time, it shows associations between these factors, but it cannot establish a direct cause-and-effect relationship. The findings are also specific to a sample of Polish employees, who are predominantly Roman Catholic, and may not be generalizable to other cultural or religious contexts. Future research could track employees over time to better understand these dynamics or explore these questions in more religiously diverse populations.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-025-02363-x" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Indirect Relationship Between Religious Practices and Egoism at Work Through Dark-Triad Traits? A Sample of Polish Employees</a>,” was authored by Marcin Wnuk.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/is-anger-the-secret-fuel-for-your-next-big-idea-a-new-study-suggests-it-could-help/" 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;">Is anger the secret fuel for your next big idea? A new study suggests it could help</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Nov 12th 2025, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>A new large-scale analysis suggests that feeling angry may be associated with a boost in creative performance. The comprehensive review of previous research also indicates this effect is particularly pronounced when creativity is channeled toward intentionally harmful or malevolent ends. The findings, published in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2024.2392614" target="_blank">Cognition and Emotion</a></em>, offer a more detailed picture of the complex relationship between our emotional states and our capacity for innovation.</p>
<p>The idea that anger is purely destructive is a common one, yet history is filled with anecdotes of fury fueling discovery and artistic expression. In the world of psychology, the connection between emotion and creativity has been a subject of extensive inquiry, with conflicting results. Some studies have suggested that anger can stimulate original thought, while others have found it to be a hindrance. This inconsistency has left an open question about the emotion’s true impact on cognitive performance.</p>
<p>To bring clarity to this topic, a team of researchers from East China Normal University sought to synthesize the existing evidence. Liangyu Xing, Wenyu Zhang, Yikuan Kan, and Ning Hao recognized that many prior analyses grouped various negative emotions together, which could obscure the specific effects of anger. By focusing solely on anger compared to a neutral emotional state, they aimed to isolate its influence and identify the conditions under which it might help or harm the creative process.</p>
<p>The researchers also distinguished between two different facets of creativity. The first, “general creativity,” is the conventional understanding of the concept: the ability to produce ideas that are both novel and appropriate for a given problem. The second, “malevolent creativity,” describes the use of originality to intentionally cause harm to others. This distinction was central to their investigation into whether anger’s influence on creativity depends on the creator’s intent.</p>
<p>The investigation was conducted as a three-level meta-analysis, a sophisticated statistical method for combining results from many different studies. The team gathered data from 28 independent studies, which included a total of 115 distinct measurements from 2,413 participants. This approach allowed them to calculate an overall effect while also accounting for variations within and between the individual studies, preventing any single piece of research from having an outsized influence on the final conclusion.</p>
<p>Overall, the analysis revealed a small but statistically significant positive relationship between anger and creative performance. This suggests that, on average, individuals experiencing anger tended to produce more creative output than those in a neutral mood. </p>
<p>This finding aligns with psychological theories proposing that high-arousal emotions, whether positive or negative, can activate the cognitive persistence needed for creative work. Anger, by its nature, can motivate a person to confront and overcome obstacles, which may translate into more effortful and systematic thinking on a creative task.</p>
<p>The analysis became more revealing when the researchers examined factors that might modify this relationship. They found that the type of creativity being measured was a significant factor. The connection between anger and creativity was substantially stronger when participants were engaged in tasks measuring malevolent creativity. </p>
<p>In contrast, the link between anger and general, or constructive, creativity was much weaker, though still present. This suggests that the aggressive and confrontational nature of anger may align particularly well with the cognitive state required to generate harmful ideas.</p>
<p>Another influential factor was the method used to induce anger in the experiments. In many studies, researchers evoke emotions in participants using specific techniques, such as showing them film clips, giving them negative feedback on a task, or asking them to recall and write about an emotional memory. The meta-analysis showed that when anger was induced through imagination, such as recalling an infuriating event, the positive association with creativity was strongest. Other methods did not show as clear of a connection.</p>
<p>At the same time, several other factors did not appear to change the anger-creativity link. The type of creative task, whether it was a “divergent thinking” task that requires generating many possible solutions or a “convergent thinking” task that requires finding a single correct answer, did not alter the effect. Likewise, the specific outcome measured, such as the quantity of ideas, their flexibility, or their originality, was not a significant variable. The presence or absence of a time limit on the creative task also had no discernible impact on the results.</p>
<p>The authors note some limitations that point toward avenues for future inquiry. Their analysis focused specifically on anger, leaving open questions about related but distinct emotions like hostility or aggression. Future work could compare the effects of different high-arousal negative emotions, such as anger and fear, or contrast them with low-arousal negative emotions like sadness, to better understand the role of emotional activation.</p>
<p>Additionally, the researchers point out that the methods for assessing malevolent creativity are less developed than those for general creativity, which may influence the results. They also encourage future research to explore creativity in non-verbal domains, such as visual art or music, to see if these findings apply more broadly. </p>
<p>Since the included studies were published in English or Chinese, expanding the analysis to include research in other languages could provide a more complete global picture. These next steps will help build on this work to further refine our understanding of how our darkest moods can sometimes fuel our brightest, or most sinister, ideas.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2024.2392614" target="_blank">The relationship between anger and creative performance: a three-level meta-analysis</a>,” was authored by Liangyu Xing, Wenyu Zhang, Yikuan Kan, and Ning Hao.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/the-debate-over-screen-time-may-be-missing-the-point-new-research-suggests/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">The debate over screen time may be missing the point, new research suggests</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Nov 12th 2025, 10:00</div>
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<p><p>Recent research published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/s0954579425100655" target="_blank">Development and Psychopathology</a></em> has revealed that how children use screens may matter more than how long they use them when it comes to mental health. Behaviors such as obsessing over screen time or becoming upset when denied access were more strongly linked to depression, anxiety, and self-harm than total hours spent on devices.</p>
<p>Parents and experts have debated whether screen time is harming kids’ mental health. Some studies have suggested that more time on phones and tablets leads to worse outcomes, while others have found little evidence of harm. But researchers are now shifting focus to how children behave around screens – what they call “problematic media use.”</p>
<p>Problematic media use includes behaviors such as sneaking in screen time, becoming emotionally dysregulated when denied access, or using screens to cope with negative emotions. These patterns may interfere with family life and signal deeper emotional struggles.</p>
<p>To better understand these behaviors, a research team led by Lauren Eales from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis analyzed data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study. The ABCD Study is a large national project tracking 10,052 children aged 10 to 13.</p>
<p>The team scrutinized parent-reported screen time and problematic media use, and compared these to measures of mental health, including depression, anxiety, behavioral issues, suicidal thoughts, and self-injury.</p>
<p>The results were clear: problematic media use was a much stronger predictor of mental health concerns than screen time. Children who showed more problematic behaviors around screens were significantly more likely to experience emotional and behavioral problems. They were also more likely to report suicidal thoughts and engage in self-harm.</p>
<p>Importantly, these patterns held across nearly all racial and ethnic groups and for both boys and girls. While screen time had some associations with mental health, its effects were smaller and less consistent. For example, screen time did not predict suicidal ideation or self-injury, while problematic media use did.</p>
<p>The study also found some demographic nuances. For instance, Hispanic/Latine youth with higher screen time showed fewer externalizing symptoms (outward behaviors like aggression, defiance, or acting out), and multiracial youth with high screen time had higher emotional problems. But overall, problematic media use was the more reliable indicator of mental health risk.</p>
<p>Eales and colleagues emphasised the key message of their study, “it is more important to focus on <em>how </em>screens impact youth’s daily lives, rather than how much time they engage with the screen.”</p>
<p>Researchers caution that some limitations remain. Parent reports may blur the line between problematic media use and general behavioral issues, and screen time measures may not capture the full picture. Additionally, small sample sizes in some racial groups mean those findings should be interpreted carefully.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/s0954579425100655" target="_blank">Screen time, problematic media use, and clinical concerns in the ABCD Study: Differences by sex and race/ethnicity</a>”, was authored by Lauren Eales, Andrea Wiglesworth, Kathryn R. Cullen, and Bonnie Klimes-Dougan.</p></p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
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