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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/early-physical-attractiveness-predicts-a-more-socially-effective-personality-in-adulthood/" 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;">Early physical attractiveness predicts a more socially effective personality in adulthood</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Feb 25th 2026, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2026.113648" target="_blank">Personality and Individual Differences</a></em> provides evidence that physical attractiveness during childhood and adolescence is linked to the development of a highly socially effective personality in adulthood. The findings suggest that early physical appearance may serve as a slight but consistent predictor of how well a person navigates social situations later in life.</p>
<p>Psychologists often measure human character using the Big Five personality traits. These traits include openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. People often score highly across several positive traits at once, displaying a pattern that reflects an overarching psychological quality.</p>
<p>Scientists refer to this overarching quality as the general factor of personality. This broad factor represents an individual’s overall social effectiveness, which includes their ability to cooperate and display emotional intelligence. People with a high general factor of personality tend to be skilled at interacting with others in a socially desirable manner.</p>
<p>Past research has linked this general personality factor to physical attractiveness. In a previous study, scientists found that adults rated as physically attractive by others also tended to score higher on this general personality measure. This early finding suggested that attractiveness might be an observable marker of a highly functional personality.</p>
<p>The researchers conducted the new study to see if they could replicate these earlier findings. They specifically wanted to test the idea that physical attractiveness early in life might predict the presence of a strong general factor of personality decades later. They also aimed to see if this link was tied specifically to the broad general factor rather than individual traits alone.</p>
<p>“We conducted a previous study on the same topic. We wanted to test the same relationship again using longitudinal data,” said study author <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Curtis-Dunkel" target="_blank">Curtis S. Dunkel</a>, an independent researcher.</p>
<p>The scientists analyzed data from two large, long-term research projects. The first project was the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, which began in the late nineteen fifties. This project initially tracked a random sample of 10,317 high school students in Wisconsin.</p>
<p>For the current analysis, the researchers focused on 6,248 participants, which included 3,328 women and 2,920 men. This group was overwhelmingly White, reflecting the state’s demographics at the time of the initial data collection. To measure physical attractiveness, independent raters evaluated each participant’s high school yearbook photo.</p>
<p>Twelve raters, consisting of six men and six women, scored the photos on an eleven-point scale. The scale ranged from not at all attractive to extremely attractive. The scientists averaged the scores from all twelve raters to create a single physical attractiveness score for each participant.</p>
<p>Personality was measured much later, when the participants were in their mid-thirties. The researchers used a combination of mail-in questionnaires and telephone interviews to assess the Big Five traits. They then used statistical techniques to extract the overarching general factor of personality from these combined test scores.</p>
<p>The data showed a positive link between teenage attractiveness and adult personality. Higher physical attractiveness in high school correlated with higher scores in openness and extraversion in adulthood. More importantly, early attractiveness was positively correlated with the broad general factor of personality.</p>
<p>To understand this relationship better, the researchers mathematically removed the influence of the broad general factor from their analysis. Once they did this, the connection between attractiveness and most individual personality traits disappeared. Attractiveness only remained linked to openness, which provides evidence that the relationship between looks and character largely operates at the level of overall social effectiveness.</p>
<p>The second part of the research relied on the National Child Development Study. This project tracked individuals born during a single week in Great Britain in 1958. The initial tracking project included an impressive 17,419 children.</p>
<p>The current study focused on 6,789 of these British participants, comprising 3,578 men and 3,211 women. As with the first sample, the participants in this group were almost entirely White. In this dataset, physical attractiveness was evaluated by the children’s teachers when the participants were seven and eleven years old.</p>
<p>Teachers classified the children using various descriptive categories. Because most children were placed in the attractive category, the researchers simplified the measure for their analysis. Participants were labeled as attractive if their teachers rated them as such at both age seven and age eleven, while the rest were classified as unattractive.</p>
<p>When the participants reached fifty or fifty-one years of age, they completed a fifty-item personality survey. This lengthy survey successfully measured their Big Five traits. The scientists once again extracted the broad general factor of personality from these adult responses.</p>
<p>The data from this second group yielded similar patterns. Childhood attractiveness positively correlated with intellect, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and the general factor of personality in middle age. This reinforced the idea that early physical appearance predicts later social effectiveness across different populations.</p>
<p>The researchers again adjusted their analysis to account for the broad general personality factor. After controlling for this overarching factor, only conscientiousness remained positively linked to childhood attractiveness. The association between extraversion and physical attractiveness actually turned negative, meaning the primary link mostly existed at the broad level of general social effectiveness.</p>
<p>“More physically attractive children have a slight tendency to have a more socially effective personality in middle adulthood,” Dunkel told PsyPost.</p>
<p>While the data consistently point to a connection between early appearance and adult personality, the actual effect size is quite small. Readers should avoid interpreting the findings to mean that attractive people always have better personalities. Physical attractiveness provides only a slight statistical advantage in predicting adult social effectiveness.</p>
<p>The scientists also noted that the exact reasons behind this relationship remain unclear. They initially suspected that genetics might completely explain the link, but subsequent data checks did not support this specific expectation. The shared genetic effects between human appearance and personality remain a complex puzzle for biologists and psychologists alike.</p>
<p>One possible explanation for the findings is a psychological phenomenon known as the halo effect. The halo effect occurs when people assume that someone who is physically attractive also possesses other positive qualities. Because attractive children are often treated better by teachers and peers, this favorable treatment might help them develop better social skills over time.</p>
<p>Future research will need to explore exactly how this dynamic unfolds as people grow up. Scientists hope to measure both physical attractiveness and personality at multiple points throughout a person’s life. Tracking these changes over time could help tease apart the complicated interplay between how people look and how their personalities mature.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2026.113648" target="_blank">Physical Attractiveness and the General Factor of Personality: Replication and Extension</a>,” was authored by Curtis S. Dunkel, Dimitri van der Linden, and Satoshi Kanazawa.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/scientists-tracked-a-two-word-phrase-across-millions-of-books-to-uncover-a-major-difference-in-sexual-psychology/" 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 tracked a two-word phrase across millions of books to uncover a major difference in sexual psychology</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Feb 25th 2026, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-025-03362-5" target="_blank">Archives of Sexual Behavior</a></em> suggests that the phrase “feeling sexy” is overwhelmingly used to describe women rather than men in published books. This provides evidence that women’s sexual experiences are frequently tied to the perception of being desired by others. The findings indicate that our everyday language rapidly evolves to reflect our underlying sexual interests and social roles.</p>
<p>The authors behind the new research sought to better understand a psychological concept known as “object of desire self-consciousness.” This term describes the experience of perceiving oneself as romantically or sexually desirable in another person’s eyes. According to existing psychological models, this specific perception often acts as a powerful trigger for sexual arousal.</p>
<p>The researchers wanted to know if language reflecting this concept tends to be heavily gendered. They focused on how these feelings fit into people’s sexual scripts. A sexual script is essentially a mental outline or set of internal expectations about how romantic or sexual events are supposed to unfold in a given culture.</p>
<p>The research team suspected that women’s scripts might feature the feeling of being desired more prominently than men’s scripts do. In modern English, the specific phrase “feel sexy” perfectly captures this unique experience. To “feel sexy” implies an awareness of one’s own attractiveness and a capacity to arouse others.</p>
<p>At the same time, this phrase often carries an element of personal sexual excitement. When a person feels sexy, their own sense of desirability actually fuels their internal lust or arousal. The scientists reasoned that tracking this specific phrase could reveal hidden differences in how men and women process sexual desire.</p>
<p>“I co-wrote a theoretical paper on object of desire perceptions about 10 years ago. I felt that our language—how we communicate—was an important component how these perceptions are expressed, but we had never published research on it,” said corresponding author Anthony F. Bogaert of Brock University.</p>
<p>To test their hypothesis, the scientists turned to the Google Books Ngram Viewer. This massive digital database contains the text of more than 5 million English-language books published between the years 1800 and 2022. The researchers searched the system for grammatical variations of the phrase “feel sexy” combined with male and female pronouns.</p>
<p>These search terms included phrases such as “she felt sexy,” “him feel sexy,” and “woman feels sexy.” The database search tool tracks how often these specific phrases appear in the published text over time. The scientists recorded any phrase that appeared in a minimum of 40 different books to ensure they were analyzing established language patterns.</p>
<p>To guarantee accuracy, the researchers also looked at two sets of control phrases. First, they searched for basic variations of the verb “to feel” paired with gendered pronouns. Second, they searched for the word “sexy” used as a simple descriptor, such as “she is sexy” or “he is sexy.”</p>
<p>These control searches helped the scientists verify that any discovered gender differences were specific to the feeling of being desired. They needed to rule out the possibility of a general tendency to write about women’s feelings more than men’s. They also needed to rule out the possibility that women are just generally described as sexy more often.</p>
<p>The data revealed a massive gender divide in how this language is utilized. Out of 28 total “feel sexy” phrases that met the 40-book minimum, 25 of them directly referred to women. This indicates that 89 percent of the qualifying phrases were strictly female-oriented.</p>
<p>The three most common variations in the entire database were all focused on women. In order of frequency, they were “her feel sexy,” “She felt sexy,” and “she felt sexy.” When looking at phrases that had direct male and female equivalents, the gap remained exceptionally wide.</p>
<p>Over the analyzed time period, the female versions of these phrases appeared about 10 times more often than the male versions. This specific type of language began to emerge in the late 1970s. It then grew rapidly in popularity after the 1990s.</p>
<p>The researchers found that this was a highly unique linguistic trend. General phrases about feelings showed no distinct gender bias in the database. Additionally, phrases simply describing someone as sexy showed only a weak, non-significant tilt toward female pronouns.</p>
<p>The scientists also dug deeper by examining a sample of 100 books containing the most frequent phrase, “her feel sexy.” They did this to learn more about the writers creating the text and the genres featuring it. They discovered that 89 percent of the writers utilizing this phrase were women.</p>
<p>A large majority of these books featuring the female phrase were heterosexual romance novels. Specifically, 64 percent of the sampled books fell into this genre. Smaller percentages included self-help books and general fiction.</p>
<p>For comparison, the researchers looked at a sample of books containing the phrase “him feel sexy.” The writers of these books were more evenly split by gender, with women making up 54 percent of the group. The genres for this male-oriented phrase were also much more diverse, spreading somewhat evenly across general fiction, self-help books, and gay romance novels.</p>
<p>While the data points to a strong gender difference, the scientists caution against viewing this language as exclusively female. The study clearly shows that male-oriented phrases do exist in published books and remain relevant to men’s sexual experiences. It is simply less common for writers to focus on men feeling sexually desirable.</p>
<p>It is also possible that romance novels use highly stylized language to appeal to specific reader fantasies. This written dialogue might not perfectly mirror the everyday thoughts or conversations of the general public. Readers of romance novels may also have higher interest in sexual stimulation than non-readers, meaning this language likely targets a specific audience.</p>
<p>The findings indicate “that men and women often communicate about sexuality similarly, but there are also some interesting gender differences in this form of communication,” Bogaert told PsyPost. “Also, that our language can evolve relatively quickly to reflect our interests, desires, and cognitive structures, including our sexual scripts.”</p>
<p>A primary limitation of the study is its exclusive reliance on published books. Books represent just one form of deliberate communication and do not account for more spontaneous exchanges.</p>
<p>“Although books are an important form of communication, there are other forms of language/communication—for example, everyday conversations, social and other media—that we did not analyze,” Bogaert noted. </p>
<p>The database also gives equal weight to every book regardless of its actual popularity. This means an obscure novel with few readers counts just as much as a major international bestseller. Because romance novels are incredibly popular, the actual cultural impact of female-oriented “feel sexy” language might be even larger than the numbers suggest.</p>
<p>Future studies could explore how this language operates in different, untested media formats. Scientists might also investigate whether similar gender differences exist in languages other than contemporary English. Finally, researchers hope to see if reading “feel sexy” language directly affects a reader’s mood, arousal, or self-perception in real-time settings.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-025-03362-5" target="_blank">Who “Feels Sexy” in the Google Books Corpus? Text‑Mining Evidence for Gender Differences in Object of Desire Self‑Consciousness</a>,” was authored by Anthony F. Bogaert, Jessie E. Hernder, and Jessica R. Johnson.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/fathers-reactions-to-child-distress-predict-distinct-socioemotional-outcomes-two-years-later/" 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;">Fathers’ reactions to child distress predict distinct socioemotional outcomes two years later</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, 20:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579425000161" target="_blank">Development and Psychopathology</a></em> has found that the way fathers respond when their young children are upset can shape their emotional and social development in surprisingly different ways over time.</p>
<p>When children become frightened or overwhelmed, parents typically step in to comfort them. However, not all parents respond in the same way—while some minimize the situation, others become overly involved.</p>
<p>Past studies have shown that insensitive responses can contribute to anxiety, behavior problems, and social difficulties. However, most of that work has focused on the form of the behavior—such as being harsh or overprotective—rather than the function the behavior serves in the parent-child interaction. Additionally, research on parenting has focused mostly on mothers, leaving fathers’ roles less understood.</p>
<p>Cory Platts, Melissa Sturge-Apple, and Patrick Davies from the University of Rochester sought to address this gap. The study team invited fathers and their three‑year‑old children (235 pairs, 55% girls) into a laboratory designed to resemble a living room.</p>
<p>After a brief warm‑up period, a stranger dressed either as a clown or in a black trash bag entered the room and silently approached the pair. The goal was to create a mild but realistic moment of child distress, allowing researchers to observe how fathers naturally responded.</p>
<p>From these observations, the team identified two distinct caregiving patterns. The first, called caregiving deactivation, involved fathers who downplayed the situation, offered little physical comfort, rarely made eye contact, or appeared emotionally flat.</p>
<p>The second, caregiving hyperactivation, involved fathers who became overly involved—holding their child tightly, using exaggerated “sing-song” tones of voice, or even heightening the sense of threat by forcing the child to interact with the stranger.</p>
<p>Two years later, the researchers followed up with the families. Based on behavioral questionnaires completed by the children’s mothers, the team discovered that children whose fathers showed deactivation during the distressing situation actually showed reductions in oppositional behavior and hostility over time. These children became less defiant and less prone to angry outbursts.</p>
<p>Platts and his team suggested a reason for this: “parenting that is rejecting of children’s distress bids can communicate to children that intense emotional displays will not be tolerated, leading children to both conceal expressions of negative emotion and comply to parental authority so as to increase the likelihood of receiving affection from parents.”</p>
<p>In contrast, children whose fathers showed hyperactivation experienced increases in general anxiety and social withdrawal. These children became more nervous, more easily overwhelmed, and less likely to engage with peers. The researchers believe that when fathers respond in ways that heighten the sense of threat or overwhelm the child with intrusive care, children may come to see the world as more frightening and themselves as less capable of handling challenges.</p>
<p>“Overprotective parenting is not only thought to limit the child’s autonomy but also restrict the development of children’s self-efficacy,” the authors noted.</p>
<p>Importantly, the two caregiving patterns predicted different outcomes. Deactivation was linked only to externalizing behaviors like defiance, while hyperactivation was linked to social disengagement and internalizing symptoms like general anxiety (though notably, it was not linked to separation anxiety).</p>
<p>The study does have limitations. For example, mothers’ caregiving behaviors were not included for comparison, and the novel observation method utilized has not yet been widely validated. Furthermore, because child adjustment was assessed via mother reports, the outcomes primarily reflect the children’s behavior in the home setting, which may differ from how they act at school or with peers.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579425000161" target="_blank">Patterns of father responsiveness to child distress and children’s socioemotional outcomes</a>,” was authored by Cory R. Platts, Melissa L. Sturge‑Apple, and Patrick T. Davies.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/irregular-sleep-schedules-are-associated-with-altered-brain-structure-in-youth/" 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;">Irregular sleep schedules are associated with altered brain structure in youth</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, 18:00</div>
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<p><p>When teenagers shift their sleep schedules between school days and weekends, the resulting mismatch can alter the physical structure and internal communication of their developing brains. A recent study published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsaf392" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sleep</a> reveals that this schedule inconsistency is linked to weaker connections and reduced volume in brain areas responsible for attention, emotional regulation, and reward processing. These brain alterations suggest that irregular sleep habits might hinder normal cognitive development and mental health in adolescents.</p>
<p>During adolescence, human sleep patterns undergo massive biological and social shifts. Teenagers naturally tend to stay up later due to changing hormones, but early school start times force them to wake up before they have gotten enough rest.</p>
<p>To catch up on lost rest, many adolescents sleep in on weekends. This creates a timing mismatch between their internal biological clock and their external social schedule.</p>
<p>Researchers call this phenomenon social jet lag. It is essentially the biological equivalent of traveling across multiple time zones every weekend without ever leaving home.</p>
<p>Previous research has linked this sleep mismatch to weight gain, poor academic performance, and mental health issues like anxiety and depression. However, few researchers have examined exactly how social jet lag physically alters the developing brain.</p>
<p>Adolescence is a sensitive period for brain maturation. During this time, the brain is rewiring itself, strengthening important connections and pruning away unused ones to improve cognitive functions like decision making and emotional control.</p>
<p>Matthew Risner, a researcher at Boston Children’s Hospital, led a team to investigate how irregular sleep schedules might interfere with this rewiring process. Working with colleagues Eliot S. Katz and Catherine Stamoulis, Risner wanted to see if social jet lag alters the physical shape and internal communication of adolescent brains.</p>
<p>The research team analyzed data from more than 3,500 children who were around 12 years old. This information came from a large national project that tracks child development over time.</p>
<p>The adolescents answered detailed questionnaires about their sleep habits on both school days and free days. The researchers used these answers to calculate each child’s social jet lag in two different ways.</p>
<p>The first calculation looked simply at the shift in sleep timing. The second calculation accounted for the extra hours the adolescents slept on weekends to recover from the sleep they lost during the week.</p>
<p>Alongside the sleep data, the researchers examined magnetic resonance imaging scans for every participant. They looked at structural scans, which show the physical size, volume, and thickness of specific brain regions.</p>
<p>They also looked at resting state functional scans, which measure blood flow in the brain while a person is lying still. These functional scans allow researchers to map out brain networks.</p>
<p>Brain networks are groups of anatomically separated brain regions that communicate and work together to perform specific tasks. By tracking which areas of the brain activate at the same time, scientists can measure the strength of the connections between them.</p>
<p>The team looked at time independent connectivity, which measures the overall strength of these networks. They also looked at dynamic connectivity, which tracks how these brain networks fluctuate and coordinate their activity from moment to moment.</p>
<p>The researchers found that over 35 percent of the adolescents experienced social jet lag of two hours or more. They also noted that boys, Hispanic youth, Black youth, and older adolescents tended to have larger shifts in their sleep schedules.</p>
<p>When looking at the brain scans, the team discovered extensive associations between irregular sleep and brain organization. One major finding involved the thalamus, a deep brain structure that helps regulate the sleep and wake cycle.</p>
<p>Adolescents with longer social jet lag had weaker functional connections between the thalamus and the rest of the brain. This suggests that shifting sleep schedules might disrupt the brain’s ability to regulate its own biological clock.</p>
<p>The team also observed changes in the salience network, a collection of brain regions that helps people decide which external information deserves their attention. In teenagers with high social jet lag, this network showed weaker internal connections and lower overall resilience to disruption.</p>
<p>A similar pattern appeared in the dorsal attention network, which governs focused, goal directed tasks. Adolescents who shifted their sleep heavily on weekends exhibited less efficient information processing within this network.</p>
<p>Beyond brain communication, the researchers identified differences in physical brain structure. They measured the thickness of the cerebral cortex, the wrinkled outer layer of the brain where high level thinking occurs.</p>
<p>Youth with more social jet lag had a thinner cortex in several areas, including regions of the temporal lobe involved in processing sights and sounds. They also had less physical volume in deep brain structures responsible for processing emotions and rewards, such as the amygdala and the nucleus accumbens.</p>
<p>The team also examined the spontaneous, resting activity of these brain networks. Normally, as a child grows, the spontaneous electrical activity in their brain becomes more consistent and organized.</p>
<p>Social jet lag was associated with abnormal fluctuations in this resting activity. Some brain areas, like the somatomotor network which controls movement, showed unusually high variability in their activity levels.</p>
<p>Other areas, including the default mode network which is active during daydreaming and memory recall, showed abnormally low variability. This spatial imbalance indicates that inconsistent sleep might alter the natural trajectory of brain maturation.</p>
<p>Finally, the researchers tracked how information flowed from one brain region to another. They measured phase transfer entropy, a mathematical concept used to determine if activity in one brain area is driving activity in another.</p>
<p>They found that adolescents with irregular sleep schedules had a harder time transferring information out of the amygdala and other regions related to sensory processing. This reduced information flow could make it harder for the brain to integrate sensory input with emotional responses.</p>
<p>While the results are highly informative, the researchers acknowledged a few limitations to their work. First, the study only looked at the participants at a single point in time.</p>
<p>Because they did not track the children as they grew older, the researchers cannot definitively prove that social jet lag caused these brain changes. They can only establish that an association exists between the two factors.</p>
<p>Additionally, the sleep data relied on self reported questionnaires, which are generally less accurate than objective measurements from wearable sleep trackers. Future studies could use physical tracking devices to gather more precise sleep data.</p>
<p>Moving forward, researchers hope to observe these adolescents over a longer span of years. This would help them determine if these brain alterations persist into adulthood or if they can be reversed by adopting a more consistent sleep schedule.</p>
<p>Future investigations might also explore how these specific brain differences directly impact a teenager’s daily life. Connecting the brain scan data to academic test scores or psychological evaluations could reveal exactly how sleep misalignment affects real world cognitive performance.</p>
<p>Understanding these relationships is essential for supporting adolescent health. By identifying how irregular sleep shapes the brain, health professionals can better advocate for policies and habits that promote consistent rest.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsaf392" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Social jet lag has detrimental effects on hallmark characteristics of adolescent brain structure, circuit organization, and intrinsic dynamics</a>,” was authored by Matthew Risner, Eliot S. Katz and Catherine Stamoulis.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/scientists-trace-a-neurodevelopmental-link-between-infant-screen-time-and-teenage-anxiety/" 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 trace a neurodevelopmental link between infant screen time and teenage anxiety</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, 16:00</div>
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<p><p>An analysis of the Growing Up in Singapore Towards Healthy Outcomes (GUSTO) data found that higher infant screen time was associated with higher deliberation time needed in a neuropsychological task at 8.5 years of age. Individuals with higher deliberation time in this task tended to show greater anxiety symptoms at age 13. The paper was published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ebiom.2025.106093"><em>eBioMedicine</em></a>.</p>
<p>In modern society, devices using screens are present everywhere. Globally, the amount of time young children spend on screens is increasing. Studies indicate that infants generally engage in 2 to 3 hours of daily screen time. This is much more than health authorities, such as the World Health Organization, recommend.</p>
<p>The time spent using screens is particularly concerning in the first two years of life when critical brain development processes occur. Brain volume doubles in the first year, and it increases by an additional 15% to 80% in the second year of life. Many studies so far have linked longer times spent using screens with less desirable outcomes in cognitive development, such as lower integration between the cognitive control and emotion processing networks, or a worse condition of the white matter tracts in the brain that support language and reading abilities.</p>
<p>Lead study author Pei Huang and his colleagues wanted to assess the directional association between infant screen time, the development of brain network topology, decision-making behavior, and anxiety symptoms in adolescence. They hypothesized that infant screen time would predict alterations in the developmental trajectory of network integration between some brain regions. They then hypothesized that these neural changes would relate to decision-making behavior later in life, and that changes to decision-making behavior would subsequently predict anxiety symptoms in adolescence.</p>
<p>The study authors analyzed data from the Growing Up in Singapore Towards Healthy Outcomes (GUSTO) study. GUSTO is an ongoing longitudinal birth cohort in Singapore that aims to investigate developmental influences on later life health outcomes. This study used data from 168 children enrolled in GUSTO for whom both screen time data and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data were available. Roughly 54% of these children were boys.</p>
<p>Data on children’s screen time were collected using questionnaires from their parents when the children were 1 and 2 years old. At 4.5, 6, and 7.5 years of age, the children underwent MRI scans of their brains. At 8.5 years of age, the children completed the Cambridge Gambling Task, a sub-test of the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB).</p>
<p>The Cambridge Gambling Task is a computerized neuropsychological task in which participants choose between colored options with known probabilities and wager points on their choice. This allows for the assessment of quality of decision-making, impulsivity (delay aversion), risk-taking, risk adjustment, and overall betting proportion. One of the key measures provided by this test is deliberation time, which is the latency between the start of a trial and the child making a decision. Later, when the participating children were 13 years old, they completed a self-reported assessment of anxiety (the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children).</p>
<p>Results showed that screen time in infancy was associated with the developmental trajectory of visual-cognitive network integration between 4.5 and 7.5 years of age. More specifically, children who spent more time using screens as infants tended to have a steeper decrease in visual-cognitive control network integration during this developmental window. Interestingly, screen time at ages 3 to 4 was not significantly associated with the integration level of these networks, highlighting infancy as a uniquely sensitive period.</p>
<p>Visual-cognitive control network integration reflects the structural connectivity between regions of the brain that process vision and brain networks responsible for higher-order cognitive control. As development proceeds, neural systems naturally tend to become more specialized, with stronger within-network connectivity and relatively weaker integration between different networks. Because of this, a steeper, faster decline in integration is interpreted as accelerated maturation of the brain.</p>
<p>The study authors next tested a statistical model proposing a “domino effect”: a steeper decline in the integration of the visual and cognitive control networks between 4.5 and 7.5 years of age leads to more deliberation time needed on the Cambridge Gambling Task at 8.5 years of age, which, in turn, leads to higher anxiety at 13 years of age. Results confirmed this full serial mediation pathway.</p>
<p>“Higher infant screen time is linked to accelerated topological maturation of the visual and cognitive control networks, leading to prolonged decision latency and increased adolescent anxiety. Sensory processing impairment may underlie this novel neurodevelopmental pathway, highlighting a potential target for early intervention,” the study authors concluded.</p>
<p>The study contributes heavily to the scientific understanding of the neural and developmental correlates of anxiety. However, it should be noted that the design of this observational study does not allow for definitive causal inferences.</p>
<p>Additionally, the researchers point out that they only measured total screen time, without differentiating the content of the media consumed or the context (such as whether a parent was watching and interacting with the child). Therefore, it remains possible that some of the negative effects of screen time are indirectly caused by a displacement of crucial parent-child interactions.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ebiom.2025.106093">Neurobehavioural links from infant screen time to anxiety,</a>” was authored by Pei Huang, Shi Yu Chan, Kathy Xinzhuo Zhou, Jasmine Chuah, Aisleen Mariz Arellano Manahan, Evelyn Chung Ning Law, Shefaly Shorey, Helen Juan Zhou, Marielle Valerie Fortier, Yap-Seng Chong, Michael Joseph Meaney, and Ai Peng Tan.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/new-research-links-on-again-off-again-relationships-to-increased-psychological-and-physical-symptoms/" 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 links on-again, off-again relationships to increased psychological and physical symptoms</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, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>Getting back together with an ex might feel like a second chance at love, but a recent study suggests that a pattern of breaking up and making up can act as a chronic stressor that takes a toll on mental and physical health. Published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/02654075251378864" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Journal of Social and Personal Relationships</a></em>, the research provides evidence that the stress generated by on-again, off-again relationships compounds over time. This compounding tension indirectly leads to increased psychological and physical symptoms for the partners involved.</p>
<p>Relationship cycling, defined as breaking up and renewing a romantic partnership at least once, is highly common. Approximately two thirds of adults have experienced at least one cyclical relationship in their lifetime.</p>
<p>Past studies indicate that partners in these unstable dynamics tend to report lower relationship satisfaction and engage in more negative behaviors compared to stably coupled individuals. Despite the widespread assumption that breaking up and getting back together is distressing, there has been limited direct evidence linking this specific pattern to chronic relational stress. The scientists wanted to establish a clearer connection between the fluctuating status of a relationship and the daily well-being of the people in it.</p>
<p>“My colleagues/co-authors, Amber Vennum (Kansas State University) and Kale Monk (University of Missouri), and I all do research on cyclical relationships,” said corresponding author <a href="https://commstudies.utexas.edu/faculty/rene-dailey" target="_blank" rel="noopener">René Dailey</a>, a professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.</p>
<p>“We have become increasingly interested in understanding the effects of cycling on partners’ mental health, particularly with regard to the problematic interaction patterns (ineffective conflict, aggression) they tend to exhibit more than non-cyclical relationships. In this paper, we wanted use existing data to assess any links between these problematic interaction patterns, relational stress, and mental health, and particularly if these links strengthened with additional breakup-renewal cycles.”</p>
<p>The researchers proposed a new model to explain how the negative interactions inherent in cyclical relationships generate ongoing stress. They suspected that this chronic tension depletes the emotional resources partners need to resolve conflicts effectively. When couples carry unresolved issues into a renewed relationship, they likely have fewer emotional reserves to navigate new challenges.</p>
<p>By testing this model, the scientists aimed to show how repeated relationship transitions act as an internal stressor that ultimately compromises overall well-being. To explore these dynamics, the scientists analyzed four distinct datasets collected through online surveys. The first sample included 383 adults recruited online, with 34 percent currently in a cyclical relationship.</p>
<p>The researchers measured the participants’ cycling status, the number of breakup and renewal cycles they had experienced, and their recent psychological and physical symptoms. Psychological symptoms included feelings like anxiety, depression, irritability, or loneliness. Physical symptoms included issues like frequent headaches, stomach aches, or general illness.</p>
<p>In this first group, the researchers found that cyclical partners reported more psychological symptoms than those in stable relationships. They also found that a higher number of breakup cycles was positively associated with more physical symptoms. This suggests a cumulative physical toll for partners who repeatedly end and restart their relationships.</p>
<p>The second sample consisted of 283 college students, 44 percent of whom were in cyclical relationships. For this group, the survey measured psychological and physical symptoms alongside relational stress. Relational stress refers to the specific anxiety, worry, and emotional exhaustion stemming directly from the romantic partnership.</p>
<p>The scientists found that cyclical partners in the second sample experienced significantly higher levels of relational stress compared to those who never broke up. When analyzing the connections between these factors, the data suggested an indirect effect. Relationship cycling was associated with elevated relational stress, which in turn predicted an increase in both psychological and physical health complaints.</p>
<p>The third sample focused entirely on individuals currently in cyclical relationships, comprising 306 online participants. The researchers wanted to see if the sheer quantity of breakups influenced the level of tension within the partnership. They found a clear positive association in this group, showing that individuals who reported a higher number of past breakups and renewals with their current partner also reported experiencing greater relational stress.</p>
<p>The fourth sample included 99 online participants who were also currently in on-again, off-again relationships. This survey measured the number of relationship cycles alongside problematic interaction patterns. Specifically, the researchers looked at ineffective conflict resolution, such as leaving arguments hanging, and communicative aggression, which involves hostile behaviors like yelling, invading privacy, or deception.</p>
<p>The researchers found that both ineffective conflict resolution and aggressive communication interacted with the number of breakup cycles to predict higher relational stress. The association between these negative behaviors and stress was actually strongest for couples with fewer breakups. The researchers suspect this might indicate a ceiling effect for couples with a long history of breaking up.</p>
<p>A ceiling effect means that a specific measurement has already reached its peak, so additional contributing factors do not cause a noticeable increase. Partners who constantly cycle in and out of their relationship might already be experiencing so much baseline stress that additional arguments or hostility do not drastically alter their elevated tension levels. Those with fewer breakups, on the other hand, might be much more sensitive to sudden spikes in conflict.</p>
<p>“The stress stemming from conflict or aggression may compound over multiple breakup-renewal cycles and have consequences for mental health,” Dailey told PsyPost. “In other words, the stress from conflict or aggression experienced in initial phases of the relationship may not necessarily be resolved when reconciling after a breakup. This could make it more difficult to navigate new or recurring stressors and increasingly compromise partners’ mental health. ”</p>
<p>While these findings provide evidence that relationship cycling acts as a chronic stressor, there are some limitations to keep in mind. Because the data from all four samples was correlational, it is not possible to prove a strict cause and effect relationship. It remains possible that preexisting mental health struggles or external stressors cause both the relationship instability and the reported symptoms.</p>
<p>The data was also collected primarily from white, heterosexual individuals using online platforms and college courses. This demographic focus means the results might not fully represent the experiences of other populations, such as different racial groups, sexual orientations, or socioeconomic backgrounds. The researchers also did not track which partner initiated the breakups, a factor that could heavily influence individual stress levels.</p>
<p>Future research should track couples longitudinally, meaning observing the same individuals over a long period of time. This approach would help scientists determine exactly how stress and negative interactions accumulate across multiple breakups and renewals. Following individuals as their relationships transition could help confirm whether relational stress truly acts as the bridge between cyclical romances and deteriorating health.</p>
<p>“We would like to secure funding in order to track individuals in relationships over time to determine how problematic interaction patterns and stress accumulate across multiple cycles and their effects on mental health,” Dailey said. “In the paper, we proposed a model that we would like to test with this type of longitudinal data.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/02654075251378864" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Establishing links between relationship cycling, relational stress, and well-being</a>,” was authored by René M. Dailey, Amber Vennum, and J. Kale Monk.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/how-parent-child-political-disagreements-harm-relationships-and-individual-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;">How parent-child political disagreements harm relationships and individual 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, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/02654075261418067" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Journal of Social and Personal Relationships</a></em> suggests that political disagreements within families can harm relational and individual mental health by breaking down positive communication. The research provides evidence that maintaining open and respectful dialogue is necessary to protect family bonds and personal well-being when relatives hold conflicting political or moral views.</p>
<p>Political polarization often transforms everyday decisions into highly charged emotional and moral conflicts. In regions experiencing intense political division, mundane choices like where to shop or eat can become politicized and create ongoing stress within families. Much of the previous research on family political conflict has focused on strict binary divides, such as liberals opposing conservatives or pro-government supporters opposing anti-government activists.</p>
<p>Yet, in highly polarized environments, political neutrality is not always seen as a peaceful middle ground. People who identify as neutral often hold strong views that criticize both sides, or they may be viewed by politically active family members as failing to take a stand against injustice.</p>
<p>“The motivation for this study stems from the long-standing political conflicts in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), beginning with the 2014 ‘Umbrella Movement’ and intensifying during the 2019 social unrest,” explained study author <a href="https://web.socialwork.hku.hk/faculty-members/dr-yu-y-m-branda/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Branda Yu</a>, a research assistant professor in the Department of Social Work and Social Administration at The University of Hong Kong, who conducted the research in collaboration with Christian Chan</p>
<p>“We observed an unprecedented level of family conflicts due to political discordance, including instances of estrangement, which felt even more intense than the political divides often reported in the West. We were driven to understand how these deep-seated political disagreements affect family relationships and personal well-being, especially as navigating such discord is a relatively novel challenge for families in HKSAR.”</p>
<p>“This research builds upon <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12941" target="_blank" rel="noopener">our 2021 study</a>, conducted two years after the 2019 social unrest, which found that 5.7% of respondents remained estranged from family members due to political conflict, and approximately 42% reported significant political disagreements within their families. These highlight the enduring impact of political polarization in HKSAR. Ultimately, our work seeks to understand the resilience of family bonds in the face of political disagreement.”</p>
<p>To investigate these family dynamics, the researchers recruited 586 ethnic Chinese residents of Hong Kong. This region experienced massive social unrest in 2019, creating a deep political divide between a pro-democracy, anti-government movement known as the “yellow” camp, and a pro-government, pro-police establishment known as the “blue” camp. Because housing costs in Hong Kong are exceptionally high, many young adults live with their parents, making family political tension a daily reality for many residents.</p>
<p>The sample included 492 young adults with an average age of about 24, and 94 parents with an average age of about 55. Participants completed an initial online survey that asked them to rate their own political stances and the perceived political stances of their parents or adult children. The researchers categorized these parent-child pairs, or dyads, into different groups based on their political alignment on a spectrum from the yellow camp to the blue camp, as well as a neutral middle ground.</p>
<p>The survey measured how much participants felt their family members differed from them in their support for the local government, the police, and anti-government protesters. Participants also completed standardized questionnaires to assess their levels of positive family communication, overall family functioning, and psychological distress. Positive family communication was defined as sharing ideas, expressing emotions, making joint decisions, and showing mutual respect.</p>
<p>Psychological distress was measured by asking participants about their recent experiences with symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress. The scientists also accounted for factors like gender, educational background, whether the family members lived together, and how often they used online social forums. A subset of 200 participants completed a second survey two weeks later to track how communication and mental health changed over time.</p>
<p>The researchers found that families with differing political views reported greater divides in their support for the government and police compared to families where members shared the same politics. This was true even for pairs where one person was partisan and the other was neutral. Participants in families with a yellow-neutral divide or a yellow-blue divide reported poorer family functioning and less positive communication overall.</p>
<p>When looking at the data collected over two weeks, the researchers identified how political differences translated into family and personal problems. A decline in positive communication served as the primary bridge linking political disagreement to increased psychological distress. For individuals in yellow-neutral and yellow-blue pairs, the reduction in respectful and affectionate communication explained the deterioration in family functioning.</p>
<p>Families dealing with a blue-neutral divide, however, did not experience the same drop in family functioning. Individuals in these pairs actually showed a slight reduction in psychological distress over time, which suggests that not all types of political disagreement place the same strain on a family.</p>
<p>“In the context of HKSAR’s ‘Yellow’ (pro-democracy) and ‘Blue’ (pro-government) divide, we expected discordance between Blue and Neutral individuals to mirror other forms of discordant parent-child pairs,” Yu told PsyPost. “However, we found that those strongly aligned with the Yellow camp tend to view Neutral family members in ways similar to those aligned with the Blue camp. This pattern reflects a much more complex and polarized landscape, in which neutrality itself is often viewed through a biased lens.”</p>
<p>In other words, the findings suggest that supporters of the anti-government movement might view neutrality as a moral failure to side with the oppressed. This aligns with Moral Foundations Theory, a concept suggesting that political views are rooted in core psychological values like fairness, loyalty, and harm prevention. When someone views their political stance as a moral duty, staying neutral can be seen as betraying those foundational values.</p>
<p>As a result, neutral family members may face similar levels of tension and frustration from their politically active relatives as those who hold directly opposing views. Without communication strategies that emphasize mutual respect, minor daily hassles can escalate into significant psychological distress. Families experiencing this intense political discord tend to express less affection, which ultimately undermines the supportive qualities of the parent-child relationship.</p>
<p>“The key takeaway is that political disagreement harms families primarily because it leads to a decline in positive communication, particularly when political differences are interpreted as clashes of core moral values,” Yu explained. “Our findings highlight the importance of navigating these conflicts by emphasizing respect for divergent views. By maintaining open, constructive dialogue while acknowledging differing values, family members may preserve emotional closeness and safeguard their well-being, even when they disagree on politics.”</p>
<p>While the study offers a detailed look at family political conflict, there are some limitations to consider. The participants were recruited through social media advertisements, resulting in a sample that was primarily younger and highly educated. This means the findings might not fully represent the experiences of the broader population or families from different socioeconomic backgrounds.</p>
<p>Additionally, the study relied on the reports of a single family member to describe the entire parent-child relationship. Because parents and adult children can sometimes perceive the same relationship differently, gathering data from both sides of the family would offer a more complete picture of these communication breakdowns.</p>
<p>“We are expanding this work in several directions, including whether these divided views are driven by moral intuitions and how they affect family relationships cross-culturally, and also parent-adult child interactions within these discordant families,” Yu said. “In addition, we are working on ongoing projects focusing on intergenerational communication.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/02654075261418067" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Intrafamilial political discordance impacts familial and psychological well-being through reduced positive communication</a>,” was authored by Branda Yee-Man Yu and Christian S. Chan.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/ai-and-mental-health-new-research-links-use-of-chatgpt-to-worsened-psychiatric-symptoms/" 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;">AI and mental health: New research links use of ChatGPT to worsened psychiatric symptoms</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, 10:00</div>
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<p><p>Generative artificial intelligence chatbots may be worsening the symptoms of some people who experience severe mental health conditions. A recent analysis of thousands of patient health records reveals instances where interacting with these programs reinforced false beliefs, encouraged self-harm, or exacerbated eating disorders. The findings were recently published in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/acps.70068" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica</a></em>.</p>
<p>The research was led by Søren Dinesen Østergaard, a professor and psychiatrist heading a research unit at Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark. He collaborated with Sidse Godske Olsen and Christian Jon Reinecke-Tellefsen, who are both researchers affiliated with Aarhus University and the hospital’s psychiatry department. They wanted to investigate how modern digital tools affect vulnerable populations in a real-world clinical setting.</p>
<p>Artificial intelligence programs like ChatGPT rely on underlying structures called large language models. These are massive mathematical systems trained on vast amounts of text from the internet. When a person types a prompt, the system functions as a giant statistical engine, calculating the most likely next word to generate a highly fluent response.</p>
<p>Because these conversations feel so natural, many people begin to treat the software as if it were a conscious being. This can lead to a false sense of trust, especially because the models are often programmed to be highly agreeable. To keep users engaged, the software rewards responses that make the human happy, which sometimes means echoing a user’s worldview back to them.</p>
<p>In a psychiatric context, a delusion is defined as a fixed, false belief that a person maintains despite clear evidence to the contrary. If someone believes they are a divine messenger or that they are being secretly monitored, an agreeable chatbot might validate that idea rather than challenge it. Østergaard <a href="https://www.psypost.org/chatgpt-psychosis-this-scientist-predicted-ai-induced-delusions-two-years-later-it-appears-he-was-right/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">previously warned</a> that this dynamic could trigger or worsen psychosis in predisposed individuals, acting as a powerful tool to confirm false beliefs.</p>
<p>Prior to this recent study, most evidence of this phenomenon came from media reports and online forums. News articles described situations where individuals engaged in marathon chat sessions, developing religious infatuations or grand conspiracies with their digital companions. One widely reported case involved a man who spent up to sixteen hours a day talking to a program, eventually coming to believe he was living in a simulated reality.</p>
<p>The researchers wanted to move beyond anecdotal news stories to see if this problem was appearing inside a professional medical environment. They set out to search the clinical notes of an entire regional healthcare system. They reviewed records from the Psychiatric Services of the Central Denmark Region, which provides inpatient, outpatient, and emergency care to roughly 1.4 million residents.</p>
<p>The team gathered electronic health records from nearly 54,000 unique patients treated between September 2022 and June 2025. During this nearly three-year window, medical staff entered more than ten million clinical notes into the regional database. The researchers then scanned this massive collection of text for any mentions of artificial intelligence programs.</p>
<p>To ensure they captured as many cases as possible, they searched for the words “chatbot” and “ChatGPT” alongside twenty common misspellings. They actually generated this list of misspellings by asking ChatGPT itself how human users most often type its name incorrectly. This allowed them to catch typos like “chatboot,” “ChatGBT,” and “ChatJPT” in the doctors’ notes.</p>
<p>This initial sweep surfaced 181 specific medical notes belonging to 126 unique patients. Olsen and Reinecke-Tellefsen then independently read through these notes to understand the context of the patients’ technology habits. They looked for indications that the digital interactions contributed to psychological symptoms.</p>
<p>When the two researchers disagreed on how to interpret a note, they discussed the case until they reached a consensus. Out of the initial group, they identified 38 patients who experienced potentially harmful consequences related to their use of the digital tools. The most common negative outcome was a worsening of delusions, which occurred in eleven of the cases.</p>
<p>“AI chatbots have an inherent tendency to validate the user’s beliefs,” Østergaard says in a press release. “It is obvious that this is highly problematic if a user already has a delusion or is in the process of developing one.”</p>
<p>Other patients experienced completely different types of harm. The team found six instances where the programs appeared to worsen suicidal thoughts or where patients asked the software about methods for self-injury. Another five patients used the bots to fixate on calorie counting, which worsened their existing eating disorders.</p>
<p>The researchers also found a handful of cases where the software appeared to aggravate other psychiatric conditions. A few patients experienced worsened episodes of mania, which are periods of extreme, sometimes reckless energy and elevated mood. Others used the bots compulsively in an attempt to relieve the intrusive thoughts associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder.</p>
<p>“Despite our knowledge in this area still being limited, I would argue that we now know enough to say that use of AI chatbots is risky if you have a severe mental illness,” Østergaard says. “I would urge caution here.”</p>
<p>The team also documented examples of patients using the technology in ways that seemed constructive or helpful. Out of the group, 32 patients used the tools to learn about their symptoms, seek informal talk therapy, or find companionship when they felt lonely. Another twenty patients used the programs to help organize practical tasks in their daily lives.</p>
<p>However, the researchers point out that technology companies did not design their products for medical or therapeutic use. It remains entirely unclear who is legally liable if a digital program gives a vulnerable patient dangerous advice. “I am fundamentally skeptical about replacing a trained psychotherapist with an AI chatbot,” Østergaard notes.</p>
<p>The authors acknowledge several limitations in their data collection and analysis. Most importantly, reading doctors’ notes does not definitively prove that the technology caused the patients’ symptoms. It is entirely possible the patients’ conditions would have worsened even without interacting with a computer program.</p>
<p>Additionally, doctors in this hospital system do not routinely ask every patient about their technology habits. The instances they found were simply the cases where a patient happened to mention the software during an appointment. “In our study, we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg, as we have only been able to identify cases that were described in the electronic health records,” Østergaard explains.</p>
<p>Because of this incomplete tracking, the exact rate at which these tools harm psychiatric patients remains completely unknown. The researchers also relied on a narrow list of search terms focused mostly on one specific brand. This means they likely missed patients who used other artificial intelligence platforms.</p>
<p>Other mental health professionals have echoed these concerns regarding how technology companies design their software. The business models of many digital platforms rely on maximizing the amount of time people spend looking at the screen. The software is not thinking about long-term well-being, but rather how to keep a person as engaged as possible right now.</p>
<p>Despite his concerns, Østergaard is actually exploring ways machine learning can aid the medical field. His research group recently trained an algorithm to analyze electronic health records and predict which patients might develop specific psychiatric disorders in the future. The same underlying technology that worsens delusions in isolated users might eventually help doctors accelerate care in a clinical setting.</p>
<p>Moving forward, Østergaard advocates for a much broader approach to studying this emerging problem. He suggests conducting detailed qualitative interviews with affected patients to better understand their daily digital interactions. He also recommends setting up controlled experiments to see how different programming behaviors alter a patient’s psychiatric symptoms.</p>
<p>The researchers suggest that developers should build automatic safety features into their software. These features could detect indications of psychosis and redirect the conversation toward professional mental health resources. They argue that technology companies should not be the only ones deciding if their products are safe for public use.</p>
<p>“Currently, it is left to the companies themselves to decide whether their products are safe enough for users,” Østergaard says. “Regulation is needed at a central level.” In the meantime, the researchers hope mental health professionals will actively ask their patients about their digital habits and offer guidance on safe usage.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/acps.70068" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Potentially Harmful Consequences of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Chatbot Use Among Patients With Mental Illness: Early Data From a Large Psychiatric Service System</a>,” was authored by Sidse Godske Olsen, Christian Jon Reinecke-Tellefsen, and Søren Dinesen Østergaard.</p></p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
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