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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/donald-trumps-2024-election-win-increased-the-social-acceptability-of-prejudice-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;">Donald Trump’s 2024 election win increased the social acceptability of prejudice, study suggests</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Feb 24th 2026, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>Following the 2024 United States presidential election, new evidence suggests that negative political rhetoric continues to shape how Americans express prejudice. A recent study reveals that groups targeted by Donald Trump during his campaign experienced an increase in both the perceived acceptability of prejudice and self-reported prejudice against them. This research was published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672251411348" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin</a></em>.</p>
<p>Political campaigns help shape the unwritten rules, or social norms, that govern how people act and speak in everyday life. Because individuals naturally want to fit in, they tend to hide their prejudices when society disapproves of them. However, when a prominent political figure openly uses derogatory language against specific groups, it sends a signal that these negative attitudes are now socially acceptable.</p>
<p>This public validation acts as a form of permission, providing evidence to ordinary citizens that they are justified in expressing previously hidden biases. Scientists observed this exact shift in social expectations following the 2016 election of Donald Trump. After his initial campaign, voters across the political spectrum agreed that expressing prejudice against specifically targeted groups, such as immigrants and Muslims, had become much more acceptable.</p>
<p>For the current study, researchers wanted to test if Trump’s 2024 reelection would trigger a similar reaction in a different political climate. During the 2024 campaign, the candidate repeated harsh rhetoric against several minority communities. The researchers designed their study to see if this continued exposure to hostile political language would again desensitize the public to hate and alter personal levels of prejudice.</p>
<p>“This is a replication study, suggested by Sam Arnold, the first author, to look at Trump’s effect on how people think prejudice is acceptable to express,” explained corresponding author Christian S. Crandall, a professor of psychology at the University of Kansas.</p>
<p>“In 2016, our lab looked at the effect of Trump’s election on whether people could express more prejudice, as a result. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550617750735" target="_blank" rel="noopener">We found</a> it was considered OK to express more prejudice—but it was mostly limited to groups Trump had attacked in the campaign. Other groups didn’t shift. Would it happen if Trump were elected in 2024?”</p>
<p>To investigate this, the scientists designed a study around the November 2024 presidential election. They recruited undergraduate students from a large midwestern state university to serve as participants. The study required these participants to evaluate a wide variety of social groups, including immigrants, Muslims, Asian Americans, disabled people, and many others, totaling 128 distinct groups.</p>
<p>The scientists collected data in two main phases to capture attitudes before and after the political event. The pre-election phase took place between September and October 2024 and included 362 participants. The post-election phase occurred in mid-November 2024 and involved a separate group of 261 participants.</p>
<p>Participants in both groups were randomly assigned to rate 60 of the 128 social groups. For each group, participants answered questions about the social acceptability of prejudice. They used a three-point scale to indicate whether it was definitely not acceptable, maybe acceptable, or definitely acceptable to feel negatively toward the group.</p>
<p>Participants also rated their own personal prejudice toward these groups using a scale from zero to one hundred. On this scale, a score of zero indicated very negative feelings, while one hundred indicated very positive feelings. The responses were later reversed during analysis so that higher scores reflected higher levels of prejudice.</p>
<p>To measure the impact of political speech, the researchers recruited a third group of 188 participants in December 2024. These individuals evaluated how positively or negatively Donald Trump spoke about each of the 128 groups during his campaign. Participants rated the rhetoric on a scale ranging from negative three to positive three, providing a specific measure of the campaign’s hostility toward each social group.</p>
<p>The scientists then analyzed the data by combining the individual responses into group-level averages. They compared the pre-election ratings with the post-election ratings to see if attitudes shifted in a meaningful way. They used a statistical model that accounts for existing levels of prejudice before the election, which allowed them to isolate the specific impact of the campaign rhetoric.</p>
<p>When people evaluate a wide range of groups, they naturally rate widely admired professions very positively and widely disliked groups very negatively. The researchers used statistical techniques to separate these general feelings from the specific impact of the political campaign. This approach ensured that the results reflected true shifts in prejudice rather than basic preferences for certain types of people.</p>
<p>The findings showed that prejudice expression and perceived acceptability are closely linked. Across the entire dataset, self-reported prejudice correlated very highly with the perceived social acceptability of that prejudice. This pattern remained stable both before and after the election, suggesting that people are highly sensitive to social norms when reporting their own biases.</p>
<p>When evaluating the changes across the election cycle, the baseline levels of prejudice remained highly stable. How participants rated a social group before the election strongly predicted how they would rate that group afterward, leaving only a small margin for attitudes to shift. Despite this high level of stability, the specific negativity of Trump’s campaign rhetoric accounted for a clear and significant change within that remaining margin.</p>
<p>Specifically, when Trump spoke harshly about marginalized communities during his campaign, such as immigrants, Haitians, and Asian Americans, participants were more likely to view prejudice against them as socially acceptable after he won.</p>
<p>Beyond altering these societal rules, this negative political language also predicted a direct rise in the participants’ own internal biases. Following the 2024 election, individuals admitted to holding stronger personal prejudices against the exact groups that the campaign had heavily criticized, which also included Muslims and transgender people.</p>
<p>“If people have any attitudes at all about a group, they’re likely to be stable,” Crandall told PsyPost. “But Trump can create strong new prejudices, especially if people don’t have much of an opinion about the group in the first place. Attitudes are fairly difficult to change, but they’re much easier to create.”</p>
<p>Surprisingly, this effect occurred equally among participants who leaned Democratic and those who leaned Republican. The political rhetoric seemed to influence the entire sample, regardless of their personal voting preferences. The scientists interpret this as evidence that the election of a prominent leader normalizes the language used during their campaign.</p>
<p>“The effects are not large but they are spread out across the whole nation and population,” Crandall said. “I think that various kinds of prejudice have become much more overt. Antisemitism (which the administration says it’s fighting, but that seems to be a cover to attack universities, and I’m saying that as a personal opinion, not on the data), and elimination of all DEI-relevant policies and grants seem to be backing off concern for civil rights.”</p>
<p>These findings build upon a growing body of research regarding political leadership and social behavior. The results mostly align with the previous study conducted by the research team following the 2016 election. In 2016, the scientists also found that Trump’s negative rhetoric increased the perceived acceptability of prejudice, showing that this shift in social norms is a repeating phenomenon.</p>
<p>However, the new findings diverge from the 2016 data in one specific way. In the 2016 study, participants actually reported lower levels of personal prejudice after the election. At the time, scientists proposed that the surprising election results changed people’s comparison standards, making individuals feel less prejudiced compared to the rest of the nation. The 2024 election was less surprising, which might explain the different outcomes in self-reported prejudice.</p>
<p>The recent findings align more closely with other long-term studies of political behavior. For instance, a 2022 study involving over ten thousand Americans found that <a href="https://www.psypost.org/donald-trumps-presidency-associated-with-significant-changes-in-the-topography-of-prejudice-in-the-united-states/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">explicit racial and religious prejudice increased among Trump supporters</a> following the 2016 election.</p>
<p>The new research also aligns with broader trends in American society regarding bias. A recent 2025 study found that prejudices against various marginalized groups are becoming <a href="https://www.psypost.org/political-conservatism-increasingly-linked-to-generalized-prejudice-in-the-united-states/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">increasingly connected and tied to conservative political ideology</a>.</p>
<p>But as with all research, the study does have some limitations. The participants were predominantly White and female college students from the midwestern United States. This demographic makeup limits how confidently the findings can be applied to the broader national population.</p>
<p>The study also evaluated changes over a span of just a few weeks. Because of this short timeframe, the long-term stability of these shifts remains unknown. The research also relied on an observational design rather than a controlled experiment.</p>
<p>Due to the observational nature of the research, it is impossible to completely rule out other historical events that happened at the same time as the election. The group-level data analysis also makes it difficult to understand how specific marginalized communities experienced these changing norms. The data reflects the perceptions of the general population rather than the targets of the prejudice.</p>
<p>Future research will likely explore the specific mechanisms that connect political leadership to individual prejudice. The scientists plan to investigate how much of human prejudice is driven simply by a desire to conform to social rules. They hope to understand how political figures act as role models for acceptable behavior in society.</p>
<p>“Our work is showing that prejudice is controlled a lot by social norms and rules about what’s OK to say and to feel,” Crandall said. “A major chuck — maybe the biggest single chunk — of prejudice is conformity. And Trump leads.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672251411348" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Changing Norms Following the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election: The Trump Effect on Prejudice Redux</a>,” was authored by Samuel E. Arnold, Jenniffer Wong Chavez, Kelly S. Swanson, and Christian S. Crandall.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/people-who-feel-a-spiritual-connection-to-their-surroundings-tend-to-report-better-mental-health/" 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;">People who feel a spiritual connection to their surroundings tend to report better mental health</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Feb 24th 2026, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in the <em><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00846724251408338" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Archive for the Psychology of Religion</a></em> suggests that feeling a deep, spiritual connection to a specific physical location can act as a protective shield for a person’s mental health. This bond with a meaningful physical space tends to reduce the psychological harm caused by feelings of insignificance or questioning whether one’s life matters. The research provides evidence that our physical environments can serve as vital resources for maintaining emotional stability during highly stressful times.</p>
<p>The goal of the research was to examine how people manage intense emotional distress after losing access to their normal daily structures. Widespread isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic forced many individuals to confront deep feelings of insignificance. In psychology, the belief that a person is important to others and makes a difference is known as mattering.</p>
<p>When people experience mattering struggles, they feel invisible to those around them, which tends to increase loneliness and anxiety. At the same time, the pandemic fundamentally changed how people interacted with their physical environments. As communal spaces closed, people spent much more time in their own homes or out in nature.</p>
<p>Scientists noticed a research gap regarding the spiritual dimension of place attachment, which is the emotional connection humans feel toward specific locations. They wanted to explore spiritual ties to place, referring to the unique bonds people form with environments they consider sacred. A sacred space does not have to be a traditional religious building, as it can be a quiet spot in a park or a dedicated corner of a living room.</p>
<p>The researchers designed the present study to see if this spiritual connection to a physical space could buffer the negative mental health effects of mattering struggles. They wanted to know if a meaningful location could offer psychological support during a major crisis.</p>
<p>“I have always been fascinated by the intersection of our physical environment and our inner spiritual lives. Historically, environmental psychology focused on ‘place attachment’ (emotional bonds to home or neighborhood) while the psychology of religion focused on ;spiritual attachment; (bonds to the Divine), but the two rarely spoke to each other,” said study author <a href="https://vcounted.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Victor Counted</a>, an associate professor and director of the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs at Regent University.</p>
<p>“I wanted to explore the “sacred-spatial bond”; a sort of idea that spirituality unfolds within the milieu of the social and physical environment and anchored in specific physical settings. The COVID-19 pandemic provided a unique, albeit challenging, context to see how these ties act as lifelines when our usual social and physical structures are disrupted. This is what I explored in the book <em><a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-82580-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Place and Post-pandemic Flourishing</a></em>, and many other studies on ‘<a href="https://vcounted.com/spiritual-ties-to-place-project/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Spiritual Ties to Place</a>‘ — how people sense or connect to the sacred in a significant place.”</p>
<p>For their new study, the researchers used data from the National Religion and Spirituality Survey 2022. The sample included exactly 3,640 adults living in the United States. This group was selected to be nationally representative based on age, gender, race, and education levels. Data collection took place between November 9 and December 7, 2022. Participants completed the survey either through a secure web portal or via a telephone interview.</p>
<p>The researchers measured three main variables by asking participants to reflect on their experiences since the pandemic began in March 2020. First, participants rated their perceived increase in spiritual ties to a place on a five-point scale, indicating whether they had become more spiritually connected to sacred locations. Second, participants reported their mattering struggles on a four-point scale by answering how often they questioned whether their life really mattered.</p>
<p>Finally, the survey asked participants to rate their perceived change in mental well-being on a simple scale. This scale indicated whether their mental health had worsened, remained the same, or improved. The researchers also accounted for a wide range of background factors to ensure accuracy, including age, gender, household income, political orientation, and religious affiliation.</p>
<p>The data provides evidence that mattering struggles were consistently associated with a perceived decline in mental well-being. People who questioned their own significance were much more likely to report worsening mental health. At the same time, the data suggests that individuals who experienced an increase in their spiritual connection to a physical place tended to report improved mental well-being.</p>
<p>“I was particularly struck by the variety of places where people find these connections,” Counted told PsyPost. “In our related <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/rel0000560" target="_blank" rel="noopener">latent class analysis</a>, we found that people not only form spiritual ties to massive cathedrals or nature; they find them in ‘unfrequented’ places (e.g., memorial grounds or burial sites) and private home sanctuaries (e.g., private altar).”</p>
<p>About 29 percent of the adults surveyed reported that their spiritual connection to a sacred place had strengthened during the pandemic. The scientists found a notable interaction between these differing experiences. Specifically, a strong spiritual connection to a place appeared to moderate the harmful effects of mattering struggles.</p>
<p>For people who felt a deep spiritual bond with a specific setting, the negative impact of feeling insignificant was notably weaker. The physical location seemed to act as an emotional anchor for the participants. This anchoring effect suggests that finding a sense of the sacred in a specific place provides individuals with an alternate source of stability and purpose.</p>
<p>“Another surprise was the strength of the ‘buffering’ effect,” Counted said. “For example, spiritual ties to place did not just correlate with mental well-being; it specifically weakened the link between feeling like you don’t matter and the decline of mental health. This, as you can imagine, suggests that place-based spirituality is a robust mechanism for resilience.”</p>
<p>The researchers noted a few specific demographic patterns in the data. For instance, female participants were slightly more likely to report an increased spiritual connection to a place than male participants. This detail aligns with previous research suggesting that women might engage with spiritual resources more frequently during times of extreme stress.</p>
<p>“The most important takeaway from our recent paper on spiritually significant places as adaptive psycho-spatial resources is that your physical surroundings are a vital psychological resource,” Counted explained. “Our study found that for people struggling with feelings of insignificance or ‘not mattering,’ a strong spiritual connection to a significant place acts as a ‘protective shield’ for their mental health. Whether it is a place of worship, a quiet spot in nature, or even a dedicated corner of your home, these ‘sacred’ spaces provide a sense of stability and meaning that can buffer the negative effects of life’s stressors.”</p>
<p>While the study offers a helpful perspective on human resilience, there are a few limitations to consider. The research relies on cross-sectional data, meaning all the information was gathered at a single point in time. Because of this design, researchers cannot definitively prove cause and effect. It is possible that feeling mentally well makes a person more likely to seek out spiritual places, rather than the place itself causing the improved mood.</p>
<p>“It is important to note that our 2026 study was cross-sectional, meaning it provides a snapshot in time,” Counted said. “While we found a strong association, we cannot definitively say that an increase in spiritual ties to place caused the improvement in mental well-being. Additionally, our data was gathered in the unique context of the COVID-19 pandemic, so the intensity of these feelings might be higher than in more “normal” times.”</p>
<p>A potential misinterpretation of this work is the assumption that it only applies to highly religious individuals. The scientists note that sensing the sacred in a physical location is a broad psychological experience that transcends organized religion. It involves bodily regulation and emotional connection, whether one is sitting in a traditional cathedral or walking through a dense forest.</p>
<p>“My long-term goal is to move from ‘mapping’ these ties to ‘mobilizing’ them,” Counted said. “I want to see this research inform urban planning and clinical therapy, essentially ‘prescribing’ place-based spiritual practices to help people regulate distress. There are some work in ecotherapy but I am think of better models that cut across the different place profiles.”</p>
<p>“We are also looking into longitudinal studies to understand how these spiritual bonds with places evolve over a person’s lifetime and across different cultures beyond the Western context. There has been limitations to expanding this research due to lack of funding, but we are working bits by bits with the little resources with have to make it happen.”</p>
<p>“Our research emphasizes that spiritual ties to place are an embodied experience,” the researcher continued. “It transcend what one believes and involves how we sense the sacred in a significant place of attachment. This is one of the first attempts to psychologically study the unique links between religion and place. When people are in a place they consider sacred, they describe a process of ‘sensing the sacred’ that involves bodily regulation, emotional connection, and a renewed sense of action. This work reminds us that in order to flourish, we need to be rooted in the world around us.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00846724251408338" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Spiritually significant places as adaptive psycho-spatial resources: Mattering struggles, spiritual ties to place, and mental well-being in US adults</a>,” was authored by Victor Counted, Benjamin R Meagher, and Richard G Cowden.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/competitive-gaming-communities-can-become-essential-social-sanctuaries/" 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;">Competitive gaming communities can become essential social sanctuaries</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Feb 23rd 2026, 16:00</div>
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<p><p>Online platforms built for competitive video gaming can unexpectedly transform into welcoming social havens that offer essential emotional support. A recent study published in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251399015" target="_blank">Social Media + Society</a></em> reveals that players who initially join a group to improve their digital skills often stay for the deep personal connections they form. These virtual environments provide an important escape from the rigid expectations of daily life, functioning as modern community spaces.</p>
<p>Sociologists categorize the spaces where people spend their time into three distinct areas. The first place is the home, and the second place encompasses environments tied to productivity, like the workplace or a school. The third place refers to neutral, accessible locations where people gather voluntarily to relax and converse, like a local cafe or a neighborhood park.</p>
<p>Historically, academics have debated whether virtual spaces can fulfill this community role. Some early theories suggested that video games could only act as third places if the focus remained strictly on casual socialization. Once a game demanded high levels of technical skill and strict teamwork, researchers suspected the environment would become too stressful to offer relaxation.</p>
<p>Mattias van Ommen, a cultural anthropologist at Doshisha University in Japan, wanted to understand how digital spaces might replicate these neighborhood hubs today. Working with former student Ginga Yahanashi, van Ommen sought to explore online environments within Asian cultures. The researchers focused on Japan, where society often enforces strict hierarchies in both academic and corporate settings.</p>
<p>Japanese working culture often requires individuals to separate their genuine inner feelings from their outward public behavior. The researchers wanted to see if competitive digital arenas could offer young adults a reprieve from these daily social pressures. They also noticed a lack of research on how modern communication applications foster these communities in non-Western contexts.</p>
<p>To investigate this phenomenon, the research team focused on a community built around Splatoon 3. This is a team-based video game where players use virtual water guns and paint rollers to cover an arena in brightly colored ink. Because the game itself lacks built-in tools for organizing long-term groups, players often rely on external applications to coordinate their matches.</p>
<p>The researchers observed a private Japanese server on Discord, an application that hosts text and voice chat rooms. The team referred to this specific server by the pseudonym “Medimura” to protect user privacy. Yahanashi, an experienced player of the game, participated in the group’s daily activities to take detailed notes on member interactions.</p>
<p>The participant observation period lasted over a year, with a heavy focus on a three-month span of daily activity. During this time, the researchers also conducted in-depth interviews with eleven community members. This group of interviewees included conversations with the server manager, a user operating under the name Tom.</p>
<p>The team discovered that joining Medimura required navigating a strict and highly specific screening process. Prospective members had to achieve a high competitive rank within the game to prove their technical proficiency. The server manager also interviewed applicants over a voice call to assess their reading comprehension and general demeanor.</p>
<p>This screening aimed to filter out individuals prone to angry outbursts, inappropriate remarks, or overly aggressive behavior. The manager relied on the opinions of existing members to determine if an applicant would disrupt the group’s harmonious atmosphere. By maintaining these strict boundaries, the community preserved a safe environment for a diverse group of players.</p>
<p>Once inside the server, members interacted on equal footing regardless of their real-world occupations or social status. In traditional Japanese workplaces, junior employees are expected to use polite, formal language when speaking to older or more senior colleagues. In Medimura, members frequently bypassed these strict linguistic rules to speak plainly with one another.</p>
<p>The fast-paced nature of the video game required quick and effective communication to succeed. This shared goal allowed players to communicate casually and form bonds across different age groups. While offline customs were not entirely ignored, the virtual environment allowed members to transcend rigid social boundaries on a daily basis.</p>
<p>Members told the researchers that they originally joined the server purely to find skilled teammates for competitive matches. Over time, their motivations for logging into the application shifted almost entirely. The server became a comfortable hangout spot where players would chat about their daily lives or share their screens while playing single-player games.</p>
<p>Players described the community as a place of belonging where they could express their true feelings without professional repercussions. One female player noted the clear difference between her online and offline lives in a profound way. She told the researchers, “The real-world version of me is still me, but it’s a me without personal will.”</p>
<p>For many users, the digital group provided a reliable source of comfort and a way to combat isolation. Members could log in from their smartphones at any time of day to find friendly regulars waiting in the voice channels. The server effectively functioned as a home away from home, complete with a sense of rootedness and warmth.</p>
<p>Despite the relaxing environment, the video game remains a competitive activity focused on winning and losing. The researchers observed that players had to actively manage the atmosphere to keep the space enjoyable. Group members used specific labels on their message board posts to indicate whether they wanted a casual game or an intense practice session.</p>
<p>The most common community label was “seriously fun,” a formal rule that balanced competitive effort with lighthearted conversation. Maintaining this balanced environment required active emotional effort from the experienced regulars. Players described hiding their own frustration after a match loss in order to cheer up their teammates.</p>
<p>This emotional management prevented the community from devolving into the aggressive atmosphere typical of many competitive gaming spaces. The shared commitment to improving at the game served as a common interest that helped players relate to one another. Over time, these virtual interactions frequently blossomed into physical social outings, like group dinners or trips to amusement parks.</p>
<p>The researchers noted that the study focused on a single, closed community centered around one specific game. The strict entry requirements mean that this particular server favors players with specific backgrounds and skill levels. Due to these limitations, the results might not perfectly translate to every online gaming space.</p>
<p>Future research should examine digital communities that feature open entry rules to see if similar social bonds form. Gathering data from a wider variety of digital platforms would provide a more complete picture of online socialization. The authors also recommend that subsequent studies utilize methods that track how online friendships translate into physical, real-world interactions.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251399015" target="_blank">Finding Belonging in Competitive Play: How a Japanese Splatoon Discord Community Functions as a Third Place</a>,” was authored by Mattias van Ommen and Ginga Yahanashi.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/how-personality-and-culture-relate-to-our-perceptions-of-artificial-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;">How personality and culture relate to our perceptions of artificial intelligence</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Feb 23rd 2026, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study reveals that a person’s cultural background, personality traits, and technical skills shape how they view the impact of artificial intelligence on their overall well-being. The findings suggest that feeling competent with new technology and possessing a sense of personal control lead to more positive experiences with artificial intelligence. The research was published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s41347-025-00503-4" target="_blank">Journal of Technology in Behavioral Science</a></em>.</p>
<p>As artificial intelligence becomes a regular part of daily life, from personalized internet recommendations to healthcare planning, questions have emerged about how these tools affect mental health and happiness. Previous research tends to focus on the positive contributions of these technologies in specific fields like education or medicine. Less is known about how an individual’s unique psychological traits influence their daily interactions with these systems.</p>
<p>Most existing studies also focus heavily on Western populations. This leaves a gap in understanding how people from different cultural backgrounds experience artificial intelligence.</p>
<p>“Public reactions to artificial intelligence are highly polarized. While some people see AI as exciting and beneficial, others express concern, discomfort, or even fear about its societal and personal consequences,” explained study authors Magnus Liebherr of the University of Duisburg-Essen and Raian Ali of Hamad Bin Khalifa University.</p>
<p>“Much of the public debate focuses on the capabilities of the technology itself, but psychological research suggests that people’s responses to new technologies are strongly shaped by individual differences. We therefore wanted to understand which personal factors are associated with how people perceive AI’s impact on their well-being.”</p>
<p>In particular, the researchers aimed to see how cultural differences, personality types, and a psychological concept called “locus of control” affect whether people view these tools as helpful or harmful. Locus of control refers to how much a person believes they have the power to influence events in their own life. Sociologists generally classify Arab cultures as collectivist, meaning they emphasize group harmony, social bonds, and community cohesion.</p>
<p>The United Kingdom represents a more individualistic culture, where personal autonomy and individual rights tend to take precedence. The researchers suspected these foundational cultural differences might shape how societies embrace new and potentially disruptive software.</p>
<p>“This geographical diversity was particularly important given the different cultural contexts in which AI is adopted and used,” Liebherr and Ali told PsyPost. “As we discussed in our work “Who lets AI take over? Cross-national variation in willingness to delegate socially important roles to artificial intelligence” (<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-026-02858-5" target="_blank">Yankouskaya et al., 2026</a>), cultural factors play a significant role in how people approach and integrate AI technologies into their lives.”</p>
<p>The researchers conducted an online survey involving 562 participants between the ages of 18 and 60. The sample was split evenly, featuring 281 individuals from the United Kingdom and 281 individuals from Arab countries. To qualify for the Arab sample, participants had to reside in a Gulf nation, ensuring a shared cultural and political background.</p>
<p>The participants completed several psychological questionnaires. First, they rated their own competency in using and managing artificial intelligence on a scale from one to six. Next, they answered questions designed to measure five major personality traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Neuroticism is a trait associated with a tendency to experience anxiety and negative emotions.</p>
<p>Participants also completed an assessment to determine their locus of control, indicating whether they felt their life was guided by their own actions or by outside forces. Finally, they answered a modified well-being questionnaire. This specific survey asked them to rate how often they felt positive emotions, engagement, meaning, and accomplishment when thinking about artificial intelligence and its presence in society.</p>
<p>The data revealed significant cultural differences in how people view these technologies. Arab participants reported that artificial intelligence contributed much more positively to their well-being than British participants did. The British group actually scored higher on measures linking artificial intelligence to negative emotions and feelings of loneliness.</p>
<p>The scientists found that technical skills played a massive role in shaping user attitudes. Across both cultural groups, individuals who reported higher competency with artificial intelligence perceived the technology as having a much more positive impact on their well-being. This provides evidence that understanding how these systems work and knowing how to use them helps reduce uncertainty and increases the perceived benefits of the technology.</p>
<p>“We expected personality traits to be the dominant predictors, but AI competency emerged as equally strong in predicting positive perceptions of AI,” Liebherr and Ali said. “This was encouraging because personality traits tend to be relatively stable, whereas competency can potentially be improved.”</p>
<p>Personality traits also strongly predicted user experiences, though the specific traits mattered differently depending on the culture. Individuals who scored high in neuroticism tended to view artificial intelligence as less beneficial and more concerning in both the British and Arab groups. This aligns with broader psychological concepts suggesting that people who are naturally prone to anxiety are more sensitive to the potential risks of new technologies.</p>
<p>“Another notable finding was the consistent role of anxiety-related traits: individuals who are generally more prone to worry tended to perceive AI more negatively across both cultural groups,” the researchers explained.</p>
<p>Other personality traits varied by region. Extraversion and conscientiousness predicted positive perceptions of artificial intelligence in the Arab sample. Agreeableness predicted positive perceptions in the British sample.</p>
<p>“This suggests that the influence of personality on attitudes toward AI may vary across cultural contexts, possibly due to other culture-related variables moderating this relationship,” Liebherr and Ali told PsyPost. “These cultural variations highlight the complexity of how personal and cultural factors interact in shaping AI perceptions.”</p>
<p>A consistent finding across both cultures was the importance of an internal locus of control. Participants who believed they were largely in control of their own life paths viewed artificial intelligence as a positive contributor to their well-being. The scientists suggest that feeling a strong sense of personal agency helps people feel more comfortable integrating new tools into their routines.</p>
<p>The statistical models used by the scientists explained a substantial amount of the differences in user attitudes. The tested variables accounted for 31 percent of the varied perceptions in the British sample and 47 percent in the Arab sample. The analysis also revealed that demographic factors like age and gender did not influence how individuals perceived the technology’s contribution to their well-being.</p>
<p>“A central message of the study is that people’s experiences with AI are shaped not only by how AI products are designed but also by their own characteristics and skills,” Liebherr and Ali said.</p>
<p>As with all research, there are a few limitations in mind when interpreting these findings. The study is correlational, which means it cannot prove that specific traits directly cause positive or negative views of artificial intelligence. High technical competency might lead to more positive perceptions, but people with positive attitudes might also simply be more motivated to learn about the technology.</p>
<p>The researchers also point out that the survey measured people’s subjective perceptions of their well-being, rather than objective changes in their mental health. The survey did not specify which types of artificial intelligence the participants should think about when answering the questions. A person might have a very different reaction to a helpful medical tool than they would to an automated hiring system or a social media algorithm.</p>
<p>“Future research should examine how these psychological factors interact with specific AI applications and how perceptions change over time as people gain experience,” Liebherr and Ali said. “It is also important to investigate both potential benefits and risks of AI use. For example, conversational AI systems may provide support and information, but there is also a need to study whether heavy reliance on such systems could have unintended negative consequences for well-being.”</p>
<p>“As we explored in our work “Can ChatGPT be addictive? A call to examine the shift from support to dependence in AI conversational large language models” (<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s44230-025-00090-w" target="_blank">Yankouskaya et al., 2025</a>), understanding the full spectrum of AI’s impact, from enhancement to potential problematic use, is crucial for developing responsible AI systems and usage guidelines. We are also interested in understanding how interventions aimed at improving AI competency and sense of control might positively influence well-being outcomes.”</p>
<p>“A practical implication of our findings is that improving people’s competency and skills in AI (not just their understanding) may help them feel more comfortable with these technologies,” the researchers added. “For developers and policymakers, this means providing transparent systems, clear explanations, and opportunities for users to build skills and maintain a sense of control. Explainable AI (XAI) is particularly important in this regard.” </p>
<p>“Our study found that internal locus of control (the belief that one can influence their own outcomes) was a significant predictor of positive AI perceptions. By helping users understand how AI makes decisions, XAI can enhance this sense of control, which in turn may lead to more positive perceptions of AI’s contribution to well being. Supporting users in developing competency and providing them with tools to understand and control AI systems may be just as important as improving the technology itself.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s41347-025-00503-4" target="_blank">Artificial Intelligence vs. Users’ Well-Being and the Role of Personal Factors: A Study on Arab and British Samples</a>,” was authored by Magnus Liebherr, Areej Babiker, Sameha Alshakhsi, Dena Al-Thani, Ala Yankouskaya, Christian Montag, and Raian Ali.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/grandiose-narcissists-tend-to-show-reduced-neural-sensitivity-to-errors/" 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;">Grandiose narcissists tend to show reduced neural sensitivity to errors</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Feb 23rd 2026, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>Two studies of students in the U.K. revealed that individuals with pronounced grandiose narcissism traits tended to show blunted neural activity in response to errors. It is possible that this is the mechanism through which narcissists resist correcting themselves, bolstering their positive self-views. The paper was published in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.70036"><em>Journal of Personality.</em></a></p>
<p>Narcissism is a personality trait characterized by grandiosity, a strong need for admiration, and a tendency toward self-centeredness. Two major forms of narcissism are grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. Grandiose narcissism is marked by confidence, extraversion, and exhibitionism, whereas vulnerable narcissism involves defensiveness, insecurity, and hypersensitivity to criticism.</p>
<p>Individuals high in narcissism tend to be very interested in seeking status and recognition. They often appear charismatic and competent to others. However, they tend to struggle with empathy and prioritize personal gain over collective welfare. Because of this internal contrast, narcissism is linked to both short-term social success and long-term relational instability.</p>
<p>In leadership contexts, narcissistic individuals may make bold, visionary decisions but also take excessive risks. Theoretical models suggest that narcissists either mask underlying insecurity or maintain a robust self-view through cognitive distortions and avoidance of negative feedback.</p>
<p>Lead author Esther M. Robins and her colleagues wanted to examine the association between narcissism—particularly grandiose agentic narcissism—and error-related negativity (ERN). ERN is a neural marker of error-processing detectable using electroencephalography (EEG). It is a rapid negative deflection in the EEG signal that occurs approximately 50 milliseconds after an individual makes an error. It reflects early neuronal processes of error detection generated in the anterior cingulate cortex region of the brain. To investigate this, the researchers conducted two studies.</p>
<p>The first study included a final analyzed sample of 144 undergraduate students from the University of Southampton (approximately 81% of whom were women). The students completed the Eriksen Flanker Task while an EEG device recorded their brain activity. Afterward, they completed an assessment of narcissism (the Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Questionnaire). The Eriksen Flanker Task is a cognitive task in which participants respond to a target stimulus while ignoring surrounding distractor stimuli (flankers). It is commonly used to measure selective attention, response conflict, and cognitive control.</p>
<p>The second study replicated the procedure of the first, with the addition that students received feedback after each trial telling them whether their response was correct or incorrect. This allowed the study authors to test whether the blunted neural response to errors found in the previous study extends to situations in which performance failures are clearly signaled by external sources.</p>
<p>In this setup, there were two conditions: students were told that their feedback was either being signaled by two researchers in another room or that it was computer-generated. While 120 undergraduate students from the University of Southampton were initially recruited, the final analyzed sample consisted of 50 participants (80% female), as a number of participants had to be excluded for not making enough errors to record a reliable EEG signal.</p>
<p>Results of the first study showed that error-related negativity responses were clearly detectable and markedly stronger when participants were incorrect than when their answer was correct. They were strongest over the Fz electrode location (i.e., over the frontal midline of the scalp). Individuals with more pronounced grandiose narcissism tended to show a weaker (less negative) error-related negativity response. This indicated that these individuals’ early neural response to errors was blunted.</p>
<p>Results of the second study conceptually replicated the findings of the first. Even with explicit external feedback, individuals with more pronounced narcissism tended to show less negative (weaker) error-related negativity responses. This association was evident for both the admiration and rivalry facets of grandiose narcissism, though the effect was stronger for the admiration facet.</p>
<p>“Higher admiration and rivalry narcissism were associated with a blunted (less negative) error-related negativity. The results are consistent with the metacognitive model of narcissism, showing that grandiose narcissists exhibit reduced neural sensitivity to errors. These findings highlight a potential mechanism through which narcissists resist self-corrective learning, bolstering their positive self-views. Blunted error processing may influence decision-making and behavior across contexts,” the study authors concluded.</p>
<p>The study contributes to the scientific understanding of the neural underpinnings of narcissism. However, it should be noted that the study was conducted solely on predominantly white, British university students. Results in other demographic, cultural, and age groups may differ.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.70036">Narcissism Is Associated With Blunted Error-Related Brain Activity,</a>” was authored by Esther M. Robins, Zhiwei Zhou, Chengli Huang, Douglas J. Angus, Constantine Sedikides, and Nicholas J. Kelley.</p></p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
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