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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/brain-scans-reveal-the-unique-brain-structures-linked-to-frequent-lucid-dreaming/" 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;">Brain scans reveal the unique brain structures linked to frequent lucid dreaming</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Mar 9th 2026, 10:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jsr.70305" target="_blank">Journal of Sleep Research</a></em> suggests that people who frequently experience lucid dreams have specific physical network patterns in their brains. Scientists found that the tendency to realize one is dreaming while asleep is associated with integrated brain structures responsible for self-awareness, mental imagery, and cognitive control. This provides evidence that lucid dreaming might reflect a distinct physical organization of the brain rather than just a temporary sleep state.</p>
<p>Lucid dreaming occurs when a person becomes aware that they are dreaming and can sometimes direct the dream’s events. While past studies using brain scans have explored the mental activity that happens during these dreams, the physical anatomy supporting this ability has remained largely uncharted. The authors of the new study wanted to understand if the frequency of lucid dreaming is linked to structural differences in the brain that vary from person to person.</p>
<p>“Lucid dreaming is a fascinating state because it sits at the boundary between two worlds: the immersive imagery of dreaming and the self-reflective awareness of wakefulness,” said study author <a href="https://webapps.unitn.it/du/en/Persona/PER0039682/Curriculum" target="_blank">Nicola De Pisapia</a>, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Trento and author of <em><a href="https://www.amazon.it/coscienza-Nicola-Pisapia/dp/8815389741/" target="_blank">La coscienza</a></em>.</p>
<p>“We know something about its functional brain activity, but much less about whether people who experience lucid dreams more often also differ in the structural organization of the brain. I was especially interested in whether lucid dreaming is simply a stronger version of ordinary dream recall, or whether it relies on partially distinct neural architectures related to metacognition, imagery, and self-monitoring.”</p>
<p>For their study, the researchers recruited 30 healthy adults, consisting of 15 men and 15 women. The participants were around 26 years old on average. The participants filled out detailed questionnaires about their sleeping habits, rating how often they recalled ordinary dreams and how frequently they experienced lucid dreams using a 15-point scale.</p>
<p>To ensure accuracy, the researchers provided participants with clear definitions of lucid dreaming before they answered the questions. Following the questionnaires, the researchers took high-resolution structural magnetic resonance imaging scans of each participant’s brain. These scans provided detailed three-dimensional pictures of the participants’ brain anatomy.</p>
<p>The scans allowed scientists to look at two different types of brain tissue. They examined gray matter, which consists mostly of the cell bodies where information is processed. They also examined white matter, which is made up of the nerve fibers that connect different areas of the brain and transmit signals.</p>
<p>The researchers used an advanced machine learning program to analyze the brain scans. This data-driven computer model automatically grouped the brain tissues into distinct, naturally occurring networks based on how their structures varied together across different participants. This method allowed the scientists to see how different brain regions physically coordinate with one another.</p>
<p>The findings revealed that the frequency of lucid dreaming was linked to a shared structural network involving both gray and white matter. This specific network spans across several brain regions, including the frontal, temporal, and parietal lobes, as well as the cerebellum. These areas are typically responsible for higher-level thinking skills, such as self-reflection, creating mental images, and directing attention.</p>
<p>A key region identified in this network was the precuneus, an area at the back of the brain involved in internally directed thought and visual simulation. This integration suggests that people who frequently have lucid dreams possess a highly connected physical network. This network bridges the brain areas needed to generate a virtual dream world and the areas needed to monitor it.</p>
<p>The scientists also found a second brain pattern associated with lucid dreaming that only involved gray matter. This pattern was located in visual and attentional areas of the brain, such as the cuneus. This specific gray matter network likely helps people construct and pay attention to internally generated visual scenes without any actual light entering their eyes.</p>
<p>Together, these physical patterns point to a brain architecture uniquely suited for maintaining self-awareness during sleep. The inclusion of the cerebellum in these networks is notable, as it is increasingly recognized for its role in cognitive simulation and emotional regulation. Its presence might reflect a capacity for temporal coordination and embodied presence in the dream state.</p>
<p>“Our findings suggest that the tendency to have lucid dreams is associated with distributed brain networks involving regions linked to self-awareness, internal imagery, and cognitive control,” De Pisapia told PsyPost. “In other words, lucid dreaming may reflect a specific trait-like organization of the brain that supports the remarkable ability to realize, while still asleep, that one is dreaming.”</p>
<p>In contrast, the frequency of remembering ordinary, non-lucid dreams was linked to entirely different brain patterns. The researchers found that ordinary dream recall was associated exclusively with two specific networks made of white matter. These white matter networks showed no overlap with the structures linked to lucid dreaming.</p>
<p>“It was very interesting to find that lucid dreaming frequency was associated with a joint grey matter–white matter component, whereas ordinary dream recall was linked only to white matter components,” De Pisapia said. “That distinction was striking because it suggests that becoming lucid in a dream may depend on a more integrated neuroanatomical profile than simply recalling dreams after waking.”</p>
<p>In other words, this separation indicates that the physical brain systems underlying the ability to remember a standard dream are distinctly different from the systems that allow someone to become self-aware inside a dream. While ordinary dream recall relies on pathways that help access memories upon waking, lucid dreaming requires executive-level brain structures. This highlights lucid dreaming as a unique cognitive trait.</p>
<p>As with all research, there are some limitations. The study was correlational and the results do not prove that these specific brain structures directly cause a person to have lucid dreams. The study simply highlights a physical association between these brain networks and the reported frequency of the experience.</p>
<p>“We are not definitely saying that we have found ‘the lucid dreaming brain,’ nor that these structural features cause lucid dreams in a simple one-way sense,” De Pisapia noted.</p>
<p>The study also relied on self-reported questionnaires to measure how often people dreamed, rather than monitoring and verifying their dreams in a sleep laboratory. Future studies will need to include larger groups of people and use objective sleep measurements to confirm these patterns.</p>
<p>“This was an exploratory study with a relatively small sample, so the findings should be interpreted with appropriate caution,” De Pisapia said. “I would not present them as a basis for individual prediction or diagnosis. Nonetheless, their significance is that lucid dreaming appears to have a measurable structural signature and may be meaningfully distinguished from ordinary dream recall at the level of large-scale brain organization.”</p>
<p>The scientists hope to conduct long-term studies to see if training someone to have lucid dreams can physically alter their brain structure over time. Understanding the physical basis of lucid dreaming could eventually lead to new therapies for sleep disorders. By learning how the brain regulates self-awareness and imagery during sleep, researchers might develop techniques to help people suffering from chronic nightmares or trauma-related sleep disturbances.</p>
<p>“My broader goal is to understand altered states of consciousness, and lucid dreaming is one of them,” De Pisapia told PsyPost. “Lucid dreaming is special because it is a natural model of hybrid consciousness: a state in which internally generated worlds become illuminated by self-awareness. The next steps are to combine structural imaging with sleep physiology, longitudinal training studies, and methods that can clarify whether these brain patterns reflect stable predispositions, plasticity through practice, or both. </p>
<p>“I am also very interested in the translational side, especially whether lucid-dream-related capacities could eventually help with nightmares, trauma-related sleep disturbances, mental wellbeing, and the study of states of consciousness more generally.”</p>
<p>“More broadly, I think lucid dreaming is scientifically valuable because it challenges simple oppositions between waking and sleeping, conscious and unconscious. It shows that consciousness is not made of rigid boxes, but of dynamic configurations. For that reason, studying lucid dreams may help us understand not only sleep, but also imagination, selfhood, and the architecture of conscious experience itself.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jsr.70305" target="_blank">Lucid Dreaming Frequency Associated With Grey–White Matter Networks: An Exploratory Multimodal MRI Study</a>,” was authored by Nicola De Pisapia, Erdem Taskiran, Stefano Mastino, Gabriele Penazzi, and Alessandro Grecucci.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/black-lives-matter-protests-sparked-a-short-term-conservative-backlash-but-ultimately-shifted-the-2020-election-towards-democrats/" 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;">Black Lives Matter protests sparked a short-term conservative backlash but ultimately shifted the 2020 election towards Democrats</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Mar 9th 2026, 09:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-025-10014-w" target="_blank">Political Behavior</a></em> suggests that the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 significantly increased the Democratic vote share in the presidential election that same year. The research provides evidence that peaceful mass mobilization can change public attitudes about racial inequality rather than simply encouraging existing supporters to vote. While the protests initially triggered a conservative backlash, this reaction ultimately shifted into increased progressive support by November.</p>
<p>The authors of the new study sought to better understand exactly how large public demonstrations influence electoral outcomes. Previous research yields conflicting views on whether protests advance or hinder a movement’s goals. Peaceful protests often generate sympathy and shift public opinion toward the demands of the participating group.</p>
<p>At the same time, protests that involve severe disruption can push voters toward conservative politicians who emphasize law and order. The Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the spring of 2020 represented one of the largest mass mobilizations in United States history. Because the movement faced both widespread support and intense criticism, scientists wanted to measure how this massive collective action affected the choices voters made at the ballot box.</p>
<p>“Interestingly, around the 2020 elections we were discussing with my coauthor whether the protests would do anything to the electoral result, so ended up writing a paper about it. More substantively, the 2020 BLM protests represented one of the largest collective action movements in US history, with an estimated 15-26 million participants,” said study author <a href="https://www.georgemelios.com/" target="_blank">George Melios</a>, a research officer at the London School of Economics.</p>
<p>“Yet there’s an ongoing debate in political science about whether protests ultimately help or hurt their cause—some research shows they generate support for protesters’ goals, while other work suggests violent protests can trigger backlash. We wanted to provide causal evidence on how this historically unprecedented movement affected actual electoral outcomes.”</p>
<p>To measure these political shifts, the researchers analyzed data from 3,053 of the 3,139 counties in the United States. They focused on the two-week window immediately following the death of George Floyd, specifically from May 26 to June 7, 2020. The scientists used protest attendance records from the Crowd Counting Consortium, an organization that tracks public demonstrations across the country.</p>
<p>They paired this information with county voting records from the 2012, 2016, and 2020 presidential elections. Because people in heavily Democratic areas might simply be more likely to protest, the researchers needed a way to separate pre-existing political leanings from the actual effect of the demonstrations. To do this, they used local daily rainfall data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.</p>
<p>Rainfall acts as a natural, random event that discourages people from protesting but is otherwise unrelated to a county’s political climate. The researchers looked at how unexpected rainfall during the two-week protest window reduced demonstration size. They then calculated how that weather-driven drop in protest attendance affected local voting patterns in the November election.</p>
<p>To verify their findings, the scientists also used a statistical method that compares the change in voting patterns between counties that experienced protests and those that did not. This method assumes that, without the protests, voting trends in both sets of counties would have continued on similar paths. </p>
<p>They also analyzed survey responses from a Gallup public opinion panel involving 85,106 adults. This public opinion survey ran daily between March and August 2020. Analyzing these daily responses allowed the researchers to track how political identities shifted week by week. </p>
<p>The researchers found that Black Lives Matter protests caused a distinct leftward shift in local voting behavior. In counties that experienced at least one protest, the Democratic vote share increased by an estimated 1.2 to 1.8 percentage points. In a county with 100,000 voters, this shift translates to roughly 1,200 to 1,800 additional votes for the Democratic presidential candidate. In an election decided by narrow margins in key states, the researchers note that shifts of this size are highly meaningful.</p>
<p>The data suggests this shift did not happen because the protests simply increased overall voter turnout. The researchers tested whether protests altered the total number of ballots cast relative to the eligible voting population and found no significant effect. Instead, the protests appear to have genuinely changed the minds of independent or moderate voters.</p>
<p>Surveys showed that protests successfully altered local attitudes regarding historical and modern discrimination. Following the demonstrations, fewer people agreed with the statement that Black Americans should work their way up without special favors. Concurrently, more people agreed that historical slavery created ongoing conditions that make it difficult for Black Americans to succeed in modern society. These shifts in perspective appear to have directly influenced decisions at the ballot box.</p>
<p>“To put this concretely: in a county of 100,000 voters, our estimates suggest protests shifted roughly 1,200-1,800 votes toward Biden,” Melios told PsyPost. “With 40% of US counties experiencing protests, these effects accumulate substantially. Consider that Biden won Georgia by around 12,000 votes and Arizona by about 10,500 — margins well within the range that protest — driven shifts across multiple counties could plausibly explain. So while a 1.5 percentage point shift might sound modest, in an election decided by razor-thin margins in key states, it’s potentially decisive.”</p>
<p>The scientists also noted an unexpected pattern over time regarding public reaction. Survey data from the immediate aftermath of the protests showed a brief decrease in the likelihood that people identified as Democrats. The researchers suggest this initial conservative backlash was likely a reaction to media coverage of property damage or intense disruption. </p>
<p>Over the following weeks and months, however, this initial backlash completely reversed. As immediate disruptions faded from the news cycle, voters appeared to reflect more heavily on the core issues of racial injustice and police brutality. By the time the November election arrived, this reflection resulted in increased support for the Democratic party. </p>
<p>“The temporal dynamics were unexpected,” Melios said. “Immediately after the protests, we observed suggestive evidence of a conservative backlash—increased Republican identification in protest areas. But over the following weeks, this reversed entirely, ultimately producing the progressive shift we observe in the November election. This highlights how evaluations of protest effectiveness can depend critically on when you measure outcomes.”</p>
<p>The researchers also found that the protests tended to have the strongest electoral impact in smaller counties with predominantly white populations and lower average education levels. In massive urban centers, local protests might easily blend into the background of daily city life.</p>
<p>In smaller communities, a local protest is a highly visible event. Seeing neighbors engage in a demonstration can make a strong impression on fellow residents, signaling that racial inequality is a pressing community issue. While these findings are detailed, the researchers note a few potential limitations to their work.</p>
<p>“Mass mobilization can meaningfully shape elections (when peaceful),” Melios explained. “The BLM protests genuinely shifted political preferences—not just by mobilizing existing Democratic voters, but by changing people’s attitudes about racial inequality. Perhaps most importantly, timing matters: we found an initial backlash immediately after the protests that ultimately reversed into increased Democratic support by November.”</p>
<p>As with all research, there are some caveats to consider. The analysis primarily captures how protests affected voting in the specific local counties where they occurred, rather than measuring how national media coverage influenced the country as a whole. </p>
<p>The rainfall-based analysis also specifically identifies effects in places where weather conditions actually influenced protest turnout. This specific focus means the findings might not completely apply to extremely politically active areas where people would protest regardless of the weather.</p>
<p>As for future research, “we’re interested in whether these findings generalize to other protest movements, countries, and historical periods,” Melios told PsyPost. “It also remains an open question whether the BLM movement achieved its primary goal of promoting more equitable treatment in the criminal justice system—that’s an important area for future research.”</p>
<p>“Our results offer encouragement for peaceful collective action. While the immediate aftermath of protests can be turbulent and may even trigger short-term backlash, sustained mobilization can ultimately shift both attitudes and electoral outcomes in meaningful ways.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-025-10014-w" target="_blank">Weather to Protest: The Effect of Black Lives Matter Protests on the 2020 Presidential Election</a>,” was authored by Bouke Klein Teeselink and Georgios Melios.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/massive-global-study-links-the-habit-of-forgiving-others-to-better-overall-well-being/" 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;">Massive global study links the habit of forgiving others to better overall well-being</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Mar 9th 2026, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s44184-026-00187-5" target="_blank">npj Mental Health Research</a></em> provides evidence that a general tendency to forgive others is linked to small but broad improvements in a person’s overall well-being. The findings suggest that practicing forgiveness acts as a helpful ingredient for human flourishing across many different cultures and geographic regions. By highlighting these potential benefits, the research offers a foundation for promoting forgiveness as a way to support mental, social, and emotional health worldwide.</p>
<p>The researchers focused on a concept known as dispositional forgivingness. This refers to the general habit or tendency of a person to forgive others across various situations and over time. When people experience an interpersonal offense, they often feel a sense of injustice that leads to unforgiveness.</p>
<p>Unforgiveness involves negative cognitive and emotional responses like bitterness, resentment, and anger. Over time, holding onto these negative feelings tends to harm a person’s well-being. Scientists consider forgiveness to be an adaptive coping strategy, meaning it is a healthy way to process stress and reduce the negative impact of being wronged.</p>
<p>A single act of forgiveness can provide a temporary boost to well-being. Developing a lasting disposition to forgive others has the potential to influence a person’s life much more broadly. However, past studies on this topic often relied on data collected at a single point in time, which makes it difficult to understand the order of events or determine cause and effect.</p>
<p>Past research also largely focused on specific groups within Western, educated, and industrialized nations. Scientists wanted to explore how forgivingness relates to human flourishing on a global scale. They sought to examine whether the benefits of forgiveness extend beyond mental health to include physical, social, and economic dimensions of life.</p>
<p>To explore these relationships, scientists used data from the Global Flourishing Study. They examined a massive sample of exactly 207,919 individuals from 23 different countries. These samples were designed to be nationally representative, meaning they accurately reflected the demographic makeup of each country’s general population.</p>
<p>“Interpersonal hurts are common, and many people struggle with unforgiveness. In Wave 1 of the Global Flourishing Study, which included over 200,000 individuals across more than 20 countries, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-82502-8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">about one in four</a> respondents reported they had ‘rarely’ or ‘never’ forgiven those who had hurt them,” explained study author <a href="https://hfh.fas.harvard.edu/people/richard-cowden" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Richard G. Cowden</a>, a social-personality psychologist and research scientist with the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University and the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.</p>
<p>“We used two waves of longitudinal data from the Global Flourishing Study to address a major gap: no prior work had tested, in nationally representative samples across many countries, whether the tendency to forgive others predicts subsequent well-being across a wide range of outcomes.”</p>
<p>The researchers measured participants at two different points in time, spaced about one year apart. During the first wave of data collection, participants answered a survey question about how often they forgave people who had hurt them. This assessment established each participant’s level of dispositional forgivingness.</p>
<p>About a year later, the participants completed a second survey. This follow-up measured 56 specific well-being outcomes across eight different domains of life. These domains included psychological well-being, psychological distress, social well-being, social distress, social participation, character and prosocial behavior, physical health, and socioeconomic status.</p>
<p>In their analysis, the researchers controlled for various background factors like age, gender, education, and childhood experiences. They did this to isolate the specific impact of forgivingness from other variables that might influence well-being.</p>
<p>The scientists found evidence that a tendency to forgive others was associated with small improvements in multidimensional well-being one year later. These benefits appeared across numerous specific outcomes, though the strength of the associations varied depending on the domain. Forgivingness was most consistently linked to better psychological and social well-being. People who were more forgiving tended to report higher levels of optimism, a better understanding of their life’s purpose, and higher relationship satisfaction.</p>
<p>“The tendency to forgive others was associated with small improvements in well-being across numerous outcomes assessed about one year later,” Cowden told PsyPost. “The results suggest forgiveness may be one helpful ingredient in supporting well-being, but well-being is shaped by many other factors as well. If we consider these findings alongside intervention studies that show forgiveness can be cultivated (<a href="https://bmjpublichealth.bmj.com/content/2/1/e000072" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ho et al., 2024</a>), strengthening people’s capacity to practice forgiveness more consistently (when safe and appropriate) may benefit well-being.”</p>
<p>The researchers also noted positive associations with character and prosocial behavior. This domain relates to voluntary actions intended to help others, such as showing love, practicing gratitude, and being oriented toward promoting good in the world.</p>
<p>“The tendency to forgive others was associated with outcomes spanning multiple domains of well-being, and in some cases the strength of those associations was larger than anticipated,” Cowden said. “For example, forgiveness showed associations with some character and prosocial behavior outcomes (e.g., an orientation to promote good, gratitude) that were comparable in magnitude to its associations with outcomes more commonly emphasized in forgiveness research, such as psychological well-being indicators of happiness and self-rated mental health.”</p>
<p>Links between forgivingness and physical health or socioeconomic outcomes were generally much weaker. For example, the habit of forgiving others did not show a clear relationship with material security or the number of days a person exercised per week.</p>
<p>The data also revealed that the relationship between forgiveness and well-being differed somewhat across countries. In places like the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom, forgivingness was associated with better well-being across a large majority of the measured outcomes. In countries like Nigeria, South Africa, and Egypt, the scientists found very few associations between forgiving others and later well-being.</p>
<p>“Although there was some evidence of association across many well-being outcomes when results were pooled across the countries, the pattern of associations differed across countries, underscoring the importance of not assuming a uniform effect of forgiveness on well-being across sociocultural contexts,” Cowden explained.</p>
<p>The researchers suspect that these cross-national differences might be due to broader social and cultural environments. In regions facing severe political instability or economic inequality, the positive effects of forgiveness might be overshadowed by chronic daily stressors.</p>
<p>Alternatively, in cultures where forgiveness is viewed as a strict social obligation rather than a personal choice, its individual benefits might be reduced. While these findings offer a broad perspective on human flourishing, there are a few limitations and potential misinterpretations to keep in mind.</p>
<p>The study, like all research, has limitations. Because the study only used two waves of data collected a year apart, it cannot definitively prove that forgiving others directly causes better well-being. The associations observed were also relatively small in magnitude. The study relied entirely on self-reported survey data, which can sometimes be influenced by a participant’s desire to view themselves in a positive light.</p>
<p>Despite these limitations, the findings have some practical implications. “From a public health perspective, the importance of any factor depends on how common it is and how much it influences outcomes,” Cowden told PsyPost. “Because interpersonal hurts are common and many people struggle with unforgiveness (which can negatively affect physical and mental health if not effectively resolved), even relatively small associations between forgiveness and well-being outcomes could matter at the population level if resources to support processing of forgiveness (when safe and appropriate) can be widely disseminated at low cost and adopted by large numbers of people.”</p>
<p>Future research will aim to further explore how cultural variations shape the practice and impact of forgiveness. The scientists hope to identify the specific mechanisms that explain exactly how forgiving others leads to improved health and happiness.</p>
<p>“These findings are helping to inform <a href="https://hfh.fas.harvard.edu/forgiveness" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the Global Forgiveness Movement’s</a> applied work, which focuses on disseminating evidence-based resources that support healthy responses to interpersonal hurts,” Cowden said. “One example is the self-directed REACH Forgiveness workbook, which has been rigorously evaluated in <a href="https://bmjpublichealth.bmj.com/content/2/1/e000072" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a large randomized trial</a> and is freely available for public use (<a href="https://hfh.fas.harvard.edu/sites/g/files/omnuum8886/files/2025-04/HFH_REACH%20WB_ALL_Digital_1-Page_Spreads_Final_April_28_2025__0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">PDF</a>). Future research will build on these findings to explore cross-cultural variation in forgiveness and its effects, potentially modifiable predictors of forgiveness, and mechanisms underlying links between forgiveness and well-being outcomes.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s44184-026-00187-5" target="_blank">Longitudinal associations of dispositional forgivingness with multidimensional well-being: a two-wave outcome-wide analysis in the Global Flourishing Study</a>,” was authored by Richard G. Cowden, Everett L. Worthington Jr., R. Noah Padgett, Chris Felton, Dorota Weziak-Bialowolska, Renae Wilkinson, Katherine Jackson-Meyer, Zhuo J. Chen, Matt Bradshaw, Byron R. Johnson, and Tyler J. VanderWeele.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/neuroscientists-have-pinpointed-a-potential-biological-signature-for-psychopathy/" 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;">Neuroscientists have pinpointed a potential biological signature for psychopathy</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Mar 9th 2026, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study has found that high levels of psychopathic traits are associated with reduced thickness in specific outer layers of the brain responsible for processing emotions and guiding decision-making. These neural patterns appear consistently in men with high psychopathic traits, regardless of whether they have a history of committing domestic violence. The study was published in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2026.102134" target="_blank">Aggression and Violent Behavior</a></em>.</p>
<p>Psychopathy is a complex psychological concept characterized by traits like callousness, manipulation, impulsivity, and a lack of remorse. It is widely recognized as a risk factor for various forms of violence, including intimate partner violence. Scientists have sought to establish the biological markers of psychopathy by linking specific brain structures to these manipulative and antisocial traits.</p>
<p>A clear biological marker could help clinicians define the condition more accurately and improve forensic evaluations. Past studies have produced mixed results regarding the exact brain regions involved in psychopathy. The researchers conducted this study to summarize past findings and test these brain-psychopathy links in a specific group of men convicted of domestic violence.</p>
<p>“Psychopathy is a major risk factor for persistent violence, including intimate partner violence (IPV). Therefore, understanding the biological basis of these traits can help forensic practitioners create more accurate profiles by combining psychological assessments with neuroimaging. Additionally, as broader our knowledge to establish objective brain correlates, better our ability for adequately define psychopathy as a psychological construct,” said study author <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Angel-Romero-Martinez" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ángel Romero-Martínez</a>, a professor of psychobiology at the University of Valencia.</p>
<p>The researchers also wanted to see if the relationship between psychopathic traits and brain thickness differed between violent offenders and men with no history of violence. To begin, the scientists conducted a systematic review of twenty-nine past studies. They focused on research examining the thickness and volume of the cerebral cortex, which is the wrinkled outer layer of the brain involved in high-level functions like thought and emotion.</p>
<p>This review helped them identify specific brain areas that consistently show structural differences in individuals with psychopathic traits. One major area was the orbitofrontal cortex, a region situated just behind the eyes that helps guide decision-making. Another frequently implicated area was the insula, located deep within the brain and tied to emotional processing and empathy.</p>
<p>Following the review, the scientists conducted an empirical study involving 125 men in Valencia, Spain. The sample included 67 men convicted of intimate partner violence who had received prison sentences of less than two years. These men were participating in a mandatory community psychological intervention program as an alternative to finishing their sentences in prison.</p>
<p>The remaining 58 participants were community controls with no criminal records and no history of violent behavior. To verify their non-violent history, the researchers had these men complete a conflict tactics questionnaire, ensuring they scored zero on psychological aggression, physical assault, and sexual coercion. The scientists also screened all participants to confirm they had no severe mental or physical disorders.</p>
<p>To measure intelligence, the researchers administered a brief cognitive test, requiring all participants to have an intelligence quotient of eighty or above. To measure psychopathic traits, trained interviewers administered the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised. This involved a detailed forty-five-minute interview and a review of the participants’ personal files to score their traits on a specific scale.</p>
<p>This psychological tool divides psychopathy into two main categories. Factor 1 covers interpersonal and affective traits like emotional coldness, grandiosity, and a lack of remorse. Factor 2 covers antisocial lifestyle traits like poor behavioral control, impulsivity, and a history of juvenile delinquency.</p>
<p>The researchers then used high-powered magnetic resonance imaging scanners to take high-resolution, three-dimensional images of each participant’s brain. The scanning process took about six minutes per person and required them to remain completely still. They used specialized software to measure the exact thickness of the cerebral cortex in the specific regions identified during their initial systematic review.</p>
<p>To isolate the effect of psychopathy, the scientists controlled for several outside variables that might independently influence brain thickness. These variables included age, educational level, total intracranial volume, and whether the participant was right or left-handed. They also controlled for a history of alcohol or drug misuse, utilizing specific dependency scales to account for substances like cocaine and cannabis.</p>
<p>The results indicated that across the entire sample of 125 men, higher psychopathy scores were linked to reduced cortical thickness in several specific brain regions. These regions included the left orbitofrontal cortex, the bilateral superior frontal gyrus, the left insula, the right anterior cingulate, and the right dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. The superior frontal gyrus helps restrain actions by anticipating behavioral consequences, while the anterior cingulate processes social information and weighs the costs and benefits of an action.</p>
<p>The reduced thickness in these areas suggests why individuals with high psychopathic traits struggle to integrate their thoughts and emotions. This neural difference tends to lead to poor decision-making and an inability to adapt behavior based on future consequences. When analyzing the different types of psychopathic traits, the researchers found that the interpersonal and affective traits of Factor 1 were most consistently linked to reductions in these specific frontal brain regions.</p>
<p>“The reduced thickness in areas like the orbitofrontal cortex and the insula, among others, may explain why individuals with these traits struggle to integrate thoughts and emotions, leading to poor decision-making and impaired goal-directed behavior,” Romero-Martínez told PsyPost.</p>
<p>“Practically, these findings provide a ‘biological signature’ that can complement self-reports, potentially improving the accuracy of forensic evaluations. But it is necessary to be cautious with these conclusions as it is completely necessary to conduct additional research to better understanding this link and their practical applications.”</p>
<p>When the researchers compared the two groups, they found that the link between psychopathy and brain thickness was identical for both the intimate partner violence perpetrators and the community controls. The biological signature of psychopathy remained consistent regardless of an individual’s criminal history. This suggests that the observed brain structure differences are a general characteristic of psychopathic traits, rather than being uniquely tied to the act of domestic violence itself.</p>
<p>“We initially expected that the link between cortical thickness and psychopathy were specific of IPV perpetrators, but group (IPV perpetrators or controls) did not significantly change the association between psychopathic traits and cortical thickness,” Romero-Martínez noted. “Therefore, the association remained consistent across the entire sample (both groups together).”</p>
<p>While the findings are informative, the researchers caution against a strict localizationist view, which assumes psychopathy is controlled by a single isolated brain region. Different aspects of psychopathy are linked to various brain areas, meaning the condition arises from a complex network of regions rather than one specific spot.</p>
<p>“It is important not to view psychopathy as a single, uniform trait,” Romero-Martínez explained. “The research shows that different brain regions may be more specifically linked to one factor than the other — for instance, Factor 1 is more consistently linked to reductions in the orbitofrontal cortex. Nonetheless, this does not mean that the psychopathy was explained only by a single brain region.”</p>
<p>The study also has some limitations, including its cross-sectional design, which means it cannot prove that these brain structures directly cause psychopathic behavior. Additionally, the sample was relatively homogeneous, consisting entirely of adult Spanish men without severe mental health conditions. Future research should include larger and more diverse samples to confirm these findings and explore how these structural brain differences develop over time.</p>
<p>“The long-term goal is to use neuroimaging to help develop more precise diagnostic and forensic profiles, which in turn, might help to develop specific and effective intervention programs,” Romero-Martínez explained. “By identifying the ‘fronto-temporo-parietal’ network as being particularly relevant, the study guides future research to focus on these specific structures to better understand the complexity of the psychopathy construct.”</p>
<p>“I would like to emphasize that this study is, of course, the result of a collective effort involving many dedicated colleagues. This research was made possible through the collaboration of researchers from the Department of Psychobiology (Luis and Carolina) Department of Social Psychology at the University of Valencia (Marisol) and the Biomedical Imaging Research Group (GIB1230) at the La Fe Health Research Institute (María, Fernando, Leonor and Luis).”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2026.102134" target="_blank">Reduced cortical thickness in fronto-temporo-parietal regions associated with high psychopathic traits: Conclusions of a review and an empirical study with intimate partner violence perpetrators</a>,” was authored by Ángel Romero-Martínez, María Beser-Robles, Leonor Cerdá-Alberich, Fernando Aparici, Luis Martí-Bonmatí, Carolina Sarrate-Costa, Marisol Lila, and Luis Moya-Albiol.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/supportive-relationships-are-linked-to-positive-personality-changes/" 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;">Supportive relationships are linked to positive personality changes</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Mar 8th 2026, 18:00</div>
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<p><p>An 8-month study of university students found that those receiving autonomy support from others tended to experience small improvements in subjective well-being. They also showed slight increases in agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience. The paper was published in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.70050"><em>Journal of Personality</em></a>.</p>
<p>Autonomy support from others refers to interpersonal behaviors that nurture a person’s sense of volition and psychological freedom rather than controlling or pressuring them. It is a central concept in the psychological macrotheoretical framework called Self-Determination Theory.</p>
<p>Autonomy support involves acknowledging another person’s perspective, even when you disagree with it. It includes offering meaningful choices instead of imposing directives, and providing rationales for requests so the person understands the purpose behind them.</p>
<p>Autonomy-supportive individuals avoid guilt, shame, threats, or conditional approval as motivational tools. They communicate confidence in the other person’s capacity to decide and act competently. In educational and organizational settings, autonomy support has been linked to higher intrinsic motivation and better performance. In close relationships, it fosters trust, authenticity, and psychological well-being.</p>
<p>Study author Élodie Audet and her colleagues wanted to examine the relationship between autonomy support for important personal goals from close individuals and personality traits, as measured by the Big Five framework, along with subjective well-being.</p>
<p>The Big Five is a widely accepted model of personality that organizes individual differences into five broad dimensions: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. The authors hypothesized that perceived autonomy support would be associated with future changes in personality traits and with enhanced subjective well-being.</p>
<p>Study participants were 1403 university students. Their average age was approximately 20.5 years. About 82% of them were women, 57% were White, and 38% were Asian. Students were recruited across 4 different academic years, from 2016 to 2020. Within each of these school years, study participants completed 6 waves of data collection.</p>
<p>The participants first identified two close individuals who supported their goal pursuits and described their relationships. After this, they assessed their perceptions of the level of support from these individuals. On top of that, students recruited in the last academic year of the study (2019-2020) were asked to nominate a friend and a family member who could provide additional data. The nominated individuals completed brief surveys about how much they engaged in autonomy-supportive behaviors towards the study participant who nominated them.</p>
<p>In addition, study participants completed assessments of the Big Five personality traits (the 44-item Big Five Inventory) and subjective well-being (assessed through life satisfaction and the frequency of pleasant and unpleasant emotions).</p>
<p>The results showed that individuals reporting higher autonomy support from others tended to report better subjective well-being and to be slightly more conscientious, agreeable, open to experience, extraverted, and emotionally stable (a negative association with neuroticism).</p>
<p>However, when the authors looked at changes in well-being and personality traits between the first and the last assessment of the study, results showed that individuals receiving higher autonomy support from others tended to experience small enhancements in their subjective well-being over the study period, as well as slight increases in agreeableness, openness to experience, and conscientiousness.</p>
<p>Overall, both personality traits and subjective well-being tended to be very stable across the studied period.</p>
<p>“This investigation provides compelling evidence that autonomy-supportive relationships play a formative role in shaping both personality traits and well-being during young adulthood. Autonomy support was related to increases in agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience across the academic year, alongside meaningful gains in subjective well-being. These patterns were further corroborated by informant reports, strengthening the robustness of the findings,” the study authors concluded.</p>
<p>The study contributes to the scientific understanding of the role autonomy support plays in the psychological development of individuals. However, it should be noted that, although this is a longitudinal study, its design does not allow any definitive causal inferences to be derived from the results.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.70050">Autonomy Support, Personality Traits, and Subjective Well-Being,</a>” was authored by Élodie Audet, Anne Holding, Jérémie Verner-Filion, Ben Thomas, Amanda Moore, and Richard Koestner.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/brain-controlled-assistive-robots-work-best-when-they-share-the-workload-with-users/" 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;">Brain-controlled assistive robots work best when they share the workload with users</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Mar 8th 2026, 16:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2025.1718713" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Frontiers in Human Neuroscience</a></em> suggests that assistive robots may work best when they share control with their users, striking a middle-ground between full automation and manual operation.</p>
<p>For people living with severe motor impairments such as from the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), everyday tasks like cooking, eating, or moving objects often require constant assistance from caregivers. While physically assistive robots have the potential to restore independence, many existing systems are limited to simple, pre-programmed tasks.</p>
<p>Brain-robot interfaces, which allow users to control robots using brain signals, offer a promising alternative—but they are often noisy, slow, and difficult to use without help from the robot itself.</p>
<p>Led by Hannah Douglas, researchers at Araya Inc. in Tokyo set out to design a system that could overcome these challenges.</p>
<p>Their goal was to create a shared realistic virtual kitchen environment where two users could work alongside two mobile robots to complete tasks. The users would use a combination of brain signals via electroencephalography (EEG), muscle signals via electromyography (EMG), and eye-tracking to direct the robots’ actions.</p>
<p>The system needed to be flexible enough to handle a wide range of daily-living tasks, from picking up dishes to moving pots and pans, while still giving users a meaningful sense of control.</p>
<p>To investigate this, the team developed three different “levels of autonomy” for the robots.</p>
<p>In the first level, Assisted Teleoperation, users controlled nearly every step—selecting objects, choosing actions, and navigating the robot through the kitchen. “At this level, the robot acts primarily as an executor of detailed instructions,” the authors explained.</p>
<p>In the second level, Shared Autonomy, users still chose what they wanted the robot to do, but the robot handled navigation and some of the finer details. “Users simply select a landmark with the eye tracker, and the robot moves autonomously, allowing them to focus on higher-level decisions.”</p>
<p>In the third level, Full Automation, users simply selected a high-level goal, such as choosing a food item, and the robot completed the entire sequence on its own. “In this condition, user input is minimal, focusing on high-level goal selection rather than stepwise control.”</p>
<p>Thirty healthy adults (9 females, aged 31 years on average) participated in a controlled study to compare the three modes. Although the participants were not individuals with disabilities, the researchers used this group to test the system’s usability and performance before moving to clinical populations.</p>
<p>The results showed clear differences between the autonomy levels. Full Automation was the easiest for participants to use, requiring the least mental effort and completing tasks the fastest. Participants rated it highest for usability and lowest for workload. However, this convenience came at a cost: users felt less in control of the robot’s actions.</p>
<p>Assisted Teleoperation, by contrast, was the most demanding. Participants had to manage navigation, object selection, and action commands, leading to higher workload and lower performance. Many found it tiring and difficult to use.</p>
<p>Shared Autonomy offered a middle ground. In fact, it achieved a higher task success rate than Full Automation (80% compared to 66.7%) while preserving a stronger sense of agency. Maintaining independence and personal control is especially important in assistive technology, as it can empower individuals with severe motor impairments. The researchers found that Shared Autonomy was more reliable when EEG signals were noisy—a common issue in non-invasive brain-computer systems—because it utilized highly accurate eye-tracking to offset the potential for catastrophic robot errors.</p>
<p>“Therefore, while Full Automation is the optimal solution for efficiency, Shared Autonomy represents a valuable alternative for users who prioritize reliability and individuality,” Douglas and colleagues concluded.</p>
<p>The study has limitations. For example, all participants were healthy adults, meaning the results may not fully reflect the needs of people with ALS or other motor impairments.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2025.1718713" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Levels of shared autonomy in brain-robot interfaces: enabling multi-robot multi-human collaboration for activities of daily living</a>,” was authored by Hannah Douglas, Marina Di Vincenzo, Rousslan Fernand Julien Dossa, Luca Nunziante, Shivakanth Sujit, and Kai Arulkumaran.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/common-airborne-chemicals-are-linked-to-suicidal-thoughts-in-a-new-public-health-study/" 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;">Common airborne chemicals are linked to suicidal thoughts in a new public health study</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Mar 8th 2026, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent public health study found a positive link between exposure to common airborne pollutants and the occurrence of suicidal thoughts in adults. The research suggests that chemicals found in everyday products and vehicle emissions might negatively impact human mental health. These results were published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2025.03.049" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Journal of Affective Disorders</a></em>.</p>
<p>Suicide remains a major public health challenge across the globe. Hundreds of thousands of individuals die by suicide every year. In the United States, rates of suicide have continued to escalate over the past decade.</p>
<p>Suicidal ideation is a term used to describe thoughts of self-harm or planning one’s own death. Experiencing these thoughts elevates the risk of suicide and serves as a strong predictor of suicide mortality. Public health officials want to understand the environmental triggers for these thoughts to create better prevention strategies.</p>
<p>Historically, experts have linked suicidal ideation to factors like genetics, sleep disruption, and occupational stress. Recent studies have also connected these thoughts to environmental pollutants, such as pesticide exposure and airborne particulate matter. Huan He and Zhonghua Sun, researchers at Nanjing Medical University in China, wanted to explore another category of pollution.</p>
<p>They focused their attention on a group of chemicals called volatile organic compounds. These substances are gases emitted from certain solids or liquids at room temperature. They are released from petrochemical plants, vehicle exhaust, and fuel evaporation.</p>
<p>People also encounter these gases inside their homes through daily activities. Cooking, smoking tobacco, and using solvent-based cleaning supplies all release these chemicals into the air. Once airborne, they quickly disperse and are easily inhaled into the human body.</p>
<p>After entering the body, these gases break down into smaller molecules known as metabolites. The human body eventually flushes these metabolites out through urine. Testing urine for these specific chemical byproducts offers a reliable way to track exactly how much chemical exposure a person has experienced over time.</p>
<p>Previous research has connected these airborne pollutants to physical ailments like asthma and heart disease. Investigations have also shown that these chemicals can cross into the brain and affect the central nervous system. Exposure to these gases has been associated with sleep disruption, anxiety, and depression.</p>
<p>Despite these known neurological impacts, the relationship between these chemical gases and suicidal thoughts remained largely unexplored. The researchers initiated their current study to fill this gap in the scientific literature. They hypothesized that a higher rate of chemical exposure would correspond with a higher rate of suicidal ideation.</p>
<p>To test this idea, the researchers analyzed data from a massive, long-running health survey in the United States. This program, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, collects detailed medical, dietary, and environmental information from thousands of people every year. The research team looked at records from 6,966 adults who participated in the survey between 2005 and 2020.</p>
<p>The selected participants had provided complete data for both urine samples and a specific mental health questionnaire. To determine if participants experienced suicidal thoughts, the team looked at their responses to a standard depression screening tool. One specific question asked individuals how often they thought about being better off dead or hurting themselves over the past two weeks.</p>
<p>Out of the nearly 7,000 people analyzed, 253 individuals reported having these thoughts. The scientists then examined the participants’ urine samples for traces of eighteen different chemical metabolites. Because people are rarely exposed to just one pollutant at a time, the researchers used advanced statistical models to evaluate the data.</p>
<p>These mathematical tools allowed them to look at the impact of individual chemicals as well as the combined effect of a chemical mixture. To ensure accuracy, the team adjusted their models to account for lifestyle and demographic differences among the participants. They factored in variables like age, gender, education level, smoking habits, and existing health conditions.</p>
<p>The researchers noticed a clear pattern when looking at the entire mixture of pollutants. People with the highest levels of chemical metabolites in their urine reported higher rates of suicidal thoughts. This positive association remained consistent across multiple statistical models.</p>
<p>When looking at individual chemicals, three specific byproducts stood out in the analysis. These three metabolites were consistently linked to a higher prevalence of suicidal thoughts. The most prominent chemical byproduct among them is known by the acronym CYMA.</p>
<p>CYMA is a molecule that remains after the human body processes a chemical called acrylonitrile. Acrylonitrile is an industrial substance widely used to manufacture plastics, synthetic fibers, and rubber products. Humans can be exposed to it by inhaling industrial air, smoking tobacco, or coming into contact with certain consumer goods.</p>
<p>The study showed a strong, linear relationship between higher amounts of CYMA in the urine and the presence of suicidal thoughts. As the concentration of this specific chemical byproduct increased, the likelihood of a participant reporting thoughts of self-harm also increased. This specific molecule emerged as the primary contributor among all the chemical mixtures tested.</p>
<p>The researchers wanted to understand the biological path connecting these airborne chemicals to mental health. Toxic gases often harm the body by triggering inflammation or causing oxidative stress. Oxidative stress happens when unstable molecules damage cells, which is a process linked to many severe diseases.</p>
<p>The team checked blood markers for both inflammation and oxidative stress in the survey participants. They expected these biological markers to explain the connection between the chemical exposure and the mental health outcomes. The results for these biological pathways were not statistically significant in explaining the link.</p>
<p>Inflammation and oxidative stress did not appear to be the primary bridge between the volatile gas exposure and suicidal thoughts. Instead, the authors suspect a different biological mechanism is at play. They proposed that the chemicals might deplete a specific protective antioxidant in the body.</p>
<p>This naturally occurring antioxidant is called glutathione. When the body tries to process acrylonitrile, the chemical binds to glutathione and reduces the overall cellular levels of this protective molecule. When glutathione levels drop too low, brain cells might become more vulnerable to environmental damage.</p>
<p>The study design presents some limitations that require consideration. It relies on observational data taken at a single point in time for each participant. This snapshot approach means researchers cannot definitively prove that chemical exposure directly causes suicidal thoughts.</p>
<p>Scientists can only observe a mathematical correlation between the two factors using this type of survey data. Additionally, the researchers were unable to test blood samples because the gas concentrations in the blood were too low to detect accurately. The study relied entirely on urine tests to estimate the initial chemical exposure.</p>
<p>Future investigations will need to track participants over many years to establish a clear timeline of cause and effect. Scientists also need to explore exactly how the depletion of antioxidants like glutathione might alter human brain function. Confirming these biological pathways could eventually lead to new medical treatments.</p>
<p>For instance, health professionals might one day use antioxidant supplements to help protect vulnerable populations from environmental pollutants. More studies are also needed to confirm the effects of gas exposure on other neuropsychiatric conditions. These upcoming projects will help clarify the precise biological mechanisms influencing mental health.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2025.03.049" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Exposure to volatile organic compounds and suicidal ideation: Insights from a U.S. population-based study</a>,” was authored by Huan He, Zhonghua Sun, Xin Chen, Xinyu Tao, Minyi Tao, Danjiang Dong, Zhengxia Liu, Ying Xu, and Chen Qu.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/new-research-sheds-light-on-the-psychological-recipe-for-a-grudge/" 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 sheds light on the psychological recipe for a grudge</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Mar 8th 2026, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>New research published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672251414770" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin</a></em> provides evidence that holding a grudge is driven by a specific emotional cocktail of both hurt feelings and anger. The findings suggest that when these two emotions combine, victims tend to view the person who wronged them as fundamentally immoral, which encourages a lasting grudge. This psychological shift acts as a form of self-protection, helping people guard against future harm by maintaining vigilance against those who have betrayed them.</p>
<p>Developing close social bonds is a basic human need that is essential for survival, but relationships are inevitably threatened when one person harms another. When someone is wronged, they can respond by seeking revenge or offering forgiveness. Revenge aims to impose costs on the wrongdoer, which might deter future harm, but retaliation tends to escalate conflict and damage relationships beyond repair.</p>
<p>Forgiveness acts as a friendly response to preserve the relationship, but it carries a significant downside. It can leave a person vulnerable to being repeatedly harmed without the wrongdoer facing any actual consequences. Holding a grudge offers an alternative response that serves as a protective psychological shield.</p>
<p>A grudge is defined as a persistent negative feeling that diminishes over time but is easily reactivated when a person is reminded of the offense. By maintaining a level of vigilance against someone who has betrayed them, a victim successfully guards against ongoing threats. Past studies typically examined how emotions like anger and hurt operate independently after a conflict.</p>
<p>Anger usually signals a sense of injustice, an imbalance of power, and a desire to confront the offender. Hurt feelings reflect a sense of vulnerability, emotional dependence, and a damaged social bond. Hurt is often associated with a sense of social pain and devaluation, which highlights how much a person values a specific relationship.</p>
<p>But scientists suspected that looking at these feelings in isolation missed the complete psychological picture. “We saw important gaps in the literature. One gap was the lack of conceptual and theoretical work on grudge holding,” explained study author <a href="https://jysophieli.weebly.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jingyuan Sophie Li</a>, a PhD candidate at York University in Canada.</p>
<p>“Recently, van Monsjou and colleagues interviewed about 20 people who were holding grudges and they developed a conceptual definition of grudge holding as sustained feelings of hurt and anger that dissipate over time but can be activated when needed. However, this definition had not been quantitatively tested. We didn’t yet know whether hurt and anger both contribute to grudge holding, or how they might work together.</p>
<p>“Another gap in the literature was the lack of empirical evidence on the factors that contribute to grudge holding. To address these gaps, we began by testing the role of victims’ hurt feelings and anger in the development of grudges. We didn’t yet know whether, how, or why hurt and anger contribute to grudge holding. Previous research shows that hurt and anger are distinct emotions with different social consequences: hurt can sometimes motivate relationship repair, whereas anger can damage relationships.”</p>
<p>“However, researchers still did not understand the interactive effect of hurt and anger,” Li explained. “We therefore asked what happens when someone feels both hurt and anger at the same time. We hypothesized that the interaction of these two emotions would be especially likely to lead to grudge holding. In addition, we began to test hypotheses about why hurt feelings and anger interact to affect grudge holding.”</p>
<p>The researchers designed four studies to explore how the combination of hurt and anger influences the likelihood of holding a long-term grudge. They also wanted to explore if this emotional combination alters a victim’s moral judgment of the person who harmed them. In the first study, the researchers recruited 242 adults from the community who were currently in a romantic relationship.</p>
<p>The participants were asked to write about a recent unresolved conflict with their romantic partner. They then rated their levels of hurt and anger on a numerical scale from one to seven. Participants also completed a survey measuring how strongly they held a grudge, which included assessing feelings of disdain and expectations that the harm would not be easily resolved.</p>
<p>The scientists found that feelings of hurt and anger interacted to predict grudge holding. Participants who experienced high levels of both hurt and anger reported significantly stronger grudges than those who felt only one of these emotions strongly. Neither emotion independently caused a strong grudge without the presence of the other.</p>
<p>To ensure these findings were reliable, the researchers conducted a second study with a larger sample of 694 adults in romantic relationships. The setup mirrored the first study, asking participants to recall a conflict and rate their emotional responses. The results replicated the initial study, providing evidence that the combination of high hurt and high anger is uniquely associated with holding a grudge.</p>
<p>The third study expanded the scope to include a broader range of social connections, not just romantic partners. The researchers recruited 463 undergraduate students and asked them to recall a recent unresolved offense committed by anyone in their life. This included friends, family members, coworkers, or everyday acquaintances.</p>
<p>In addition to measuring hurt, anger, and grudge holding, Li and her colleagues asked participants to rate how immoral they believed the offender was. The findings showed the exact same interaction between hurt and anger on grudge holding. They also revealed that this emotional combination led victims to judge the offender as a bad or completely immoral person.</p>
<p>This harsh moral judgment in turn explained the persistence of the grudge against the offender. For the fourth study, the scientists used an experimental design to test whether the combination of hurt and anger actually causes grudges. They recruited 438 undergraduate students and randomly assigned them to recall a past offense that made them feel one of four specific ways.</p>
<p>Participants recalled an event where they felt only hurt, only angry, both hurt and angry, or neither hurt nor angry. Participants then rated the offender’s moral character and their own level of grudge holding. After accounting for how negative the overall event was, the researchers found that participants in the condition recalling both high hurt and high anger held the strongest grudges.</p>
<p>The scientists also tested alternative explanations, such as whether victims simply stopped caring about the offender’s overall wellbeing or prioritized themselves over the transgressor. Just as in the third study, only the act of viewing the offender as immoral explained why the combination of hurt and anger led to a stronger grudge. This suggests that the moral judgment of the offender is a key driving force behind maintaining a grudge.</p>
<p>“Hurt feelings can changes the meaning of anger in the development of grudges,” Li told PsyPost. “Anger often signals that something is wrong, but when it is accompanied by hurt, it can signal that the offense is deeply personal and intolerable within the relationship. When people feel both hurt and anger, they seem to change their moral judgment toward the offender from “good” or moral to “bad” or immoral. This shift in perception explains why hurt and anger interact to affect grudge-holding.”</p>
<p>“From this perspective, grudge holding can function as a form of self-protection by maintaining a level of vigilance against transgressors. It helps people remember the offense and guard them against future transgressions from the offender.”</p>
<p>While this research provides evidence about how grudges form, there are a few limitations to keep in mind. The experimental study relied on participants recalling past events rather than experiencing a standardized offense in a controlled laboratory setting. Because people’s memories of conflicts can vary widely in severity, this reliance on memory might introduce unseen inconsistencies.</p>
<p>Additionally, the researchers noted that the exact timeline of when hurt and anger emerge is still not perfectly understood. It is unclear if these emotions arise simultaneously or if one typically triggers the other during an ongoing conflict.</p>
<p>“Moving forward, we are currently trying to understand the shared meaning of hurt and anger in interpersonal conflicts, how people interpret these emotions, and how they shape relationship outcomes over time,” Li said. “We are also beginning to test the impact of grudge-holding on different victim, offender, and relationship variables.</p>
<p>“As well, we are especially interested in the role of culture. The meaning and the process of how hurt and anger lead to grudge holding may differ depending on social norms and relationship structures. To address this, we’d like to collect both qualitative and quantitative data from different geographical regions to examine how these emotional processes unfold across cultures.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672251414770" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Understanding Grudges: The Interplay Between Hurt Feelings and Anger</a>,” was authored by Jingyuan Sophie Li, C. Ward Struthers, Jewy Ferrer, Ola AlMakadma, Kai Wen Zhou, and Dmytro O. Rebrov.</p></p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
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