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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/two-to-three-cups-of-coffee-a-day-may-protect-your-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;">Two to three cups of coffee a day may protect your mental health</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Mar 11th 2026, 10:00</div>
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<p><p>Drinking two to three cups of coffee a day might be the sweet spot for lowering the risk of anxiety and depression. A new analysis of hundreds of thousands of adults reveals that moderate coffee consumption is linked to better mental health, while drinking excessive amounts may reverse those benefits. The findings were recently published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2025.120992" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Journal of Affective Disorders</a></em>.</p>
<p>Mental health conditions like depression and severe stress affect millions of people worldwide. Public health experts are increasingly looking at daily diet as a way to help manage or prevent these conditions.</p>
<p>Prior research on coffee and mental health has produced mixed results. Some past projects suggested that drinking coffee lowered the risk of depression, while others found no clear connection or even hinted at potential harm.</p>
<p>Those earlier projects often looked at small groups of people or only captured a single snapshot in time. They also rarely separated coffee into specific types, like decaffeinated blends or instant granules.</p>
<p>To get a clearer picture, a team of public health researchers analyzed a massive database of long-term health records. Berty Ruping Song, a researcher at Fudan University in China, led the investigation alongside several colleagues.</p>
<p>Song and the research team wanted to see if the amount and type of coffee people drank changed their risk of developing mood or stress disorders over time. They also wanted to know if a person’s biological sex or genetic makeup played a role in this relationship.</p>
<p>Specifically, the human body processes caffeine using specific liver enzymes. Some people carry genetic variations that allow them to clear caffeine from their systems quickly, while others process it much more slowly.</p>
<p>The research team suspected that these genetic differences might change how coffee affects the brain. They designed their investigation to account for these specific genetic profiles alongside daily dietary habits.</p>
<p>The researchers utilized a massive health database containing the medical and genetic information of half a million residents of the United Kingdom. They narrowed their focus to 461,586 adults aged forty to sixty-nine.</p>
<p>Anyone who already had a diagnosed mood or stress disorder when they joined the database was removed from the analysis. This allowed the researchers to track healthy individuals over time and see who developed new mental health conditions.</p>
<p>When participants first joined the project, they filled out touchscreen surveys about their daily habits. They reported exactly how many cups of coffee they usually drank each day.</p>
<p>They also specified what kind of coffee they preferred most often. The options included decaffeinated, instant, or ground coffee.</p>
<p>The researchers then tracked these participants for an average of over thirteen years. They checked national hospital records to identify anyone who was newly diagnosed with a mood disorder, like depression, or a stress disorder, like severe anxiety.</p>
<p>During the follow-up period, the team recorded 18,220 new cases of mood disorders. They also documented 18,547 new cases of stress disorders.</p>
<p>To ensure their results were accurate, the team adjusted their mathematical models for a wide variety of outside factors. They accounted for age, biological sex, ethnic background, and education levels.</p>
<p>They also factored in lifestyle habits that could sway the results. These included smoking habits, alcohol consumption, daily sleep hours, physical activity levels, and daily tea consumption.</p>
<p>Finally, the team adjusted for underlying health conditions like high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes. They even calculated a specific genetic score to categorize participants as either fast or slow caffeine metabolizers.</p>
<p>The researchers used an advanced statistical technique to look for curved patterns in the data rather than assuming a straight line. This method allowed them to see exactly where the benefits of coffee peaked and where they began to drop off.</p>
<p>The results revealed a curved relationship connecting coffee habits and mental health. This means that as coffee consumption goes up from zero, the risk of developing mental health issues initially drops, bottoms out, and then starts to climb back up at the highest intake levels.</p>
<p>People who drank two to three cups of coffee a day had the lowest risk of developing both mood and stress disorders. Compared to people who drank no coffee at all, this moderate group enjoyed a noticeable protective effect.</p>
<p>However, consuming more than five cups of coffee daily changed the trajectory. At that high level, the protective benefits disappeared, and the risk of developing mood disorders began to rise.</p>
<p>The researchers also looked closely at the different types of coffee. Instant and ground coffee both followed the same general curve, offering the most protection at two to three cups a day.</p>
<p>Heavy consumption of ground coffee carried a distinct downside. Drinking more than five cups of ground coffee daily was linked to a higher risk of mood disorders compared to drinking no coffee at all.</p>
<p>Decaffeinated coffee did not show a clear, measurable association with mental health outcomes. This suggests that caffeine, or something associated with the caffeination process, might be driving the observed benefits.</p>
<p>The researchers also found that biological sex changed the strength of the coffee connection. The protective effect of drinking moderate amounts of coffee against mood disorders was much stronger in men than in women.</p>
<p>The research team had predicted that genetic differences in caffeine processing would alter the results. Surprisingly, a person’s genetic ability to metabolize caffeine had no impact on the relationship between coffee and mental health.</p>
<p>Fast metabolizers and slow metabolizers both saw the same optimal benefit at two to three cups a day. The genetic risk scores were not statistically significant in altering the outcomes.</p>
<p>To understand why coffee might protect the brain, the team looked at various chemical markers in the participants’ blood. They focused on markers related to kidney function, liver health, fat processing, and physical inflammation.</p>
<p>Inflammation is the body’s natural response to injury or infection, but chronic inflammation can damage tissues and has been linked to depression. The researchers found that coffee drinkers tended to have lower levels of inflammatory markers in their blood.</p>
<p>A specific protein called Cystatin C, which helps doctors measure how well the kidneys filter waste, also seemed to play a role. The researchers calculated that changes in inflammation and kidney function explained a small portion of coffee’s protective effect on the brain.</p>
<p>Coffee contains over a thousand different chemical compounds, including antioxidants that reduce cellular damage. The researchers suspect that these compounds work together to lower inflammation and protect nerve cells in the brain.</p>
<p>Moderate amounts of caffeine also stimulate specific chemical receivers in the brain that help regulate mood and alertness. However, massive doses of caffeine can trigger the release of stress hormones like cortisol, which might explain why drinking more than five cups a day becomes harmful.</p>
<p>The researchers pointed out several limitations to their work. Because this was an observational project, it cannot definitively prove that coffee directly prevents mental disorders.</p>
<p>It is entirely possible that people with declining mental health naturally choose to drink less coffee. It is also possible that some unknown factor influences both a person’s coffee habits and their mental well-being simultaneously.</p>
<p>The study relied on participants remembering and reporting their own dietary habits, which is not always perfectly accurate. People also might change their coffee habits over a thirteen-year period.</p>
<p>The researchers only used the coffee consumption data collected at the very beginning of the project. This means any subsequent changes in a person’s diet were not captured in the final analysis.</p>
<p>Additionally, the cups of coffee were not strictly measured for their exact caffeine content. A small cup of weak instant coffee contains vastly different chemicals than a massive mug of strong brewed grounds.</p>
<p>The demographic makeup of the database also presents a limitation. The participants were predominantly white, living in the United Kingdom, and generally healthier than the average population.</p>
<p>Future research will need to track exactly how much caffeine and specific antioxidants people consume over long periods. Scientists also need to test these patterns in more diverse global populations.</p>
<p>For now, the findings suggest that a moderate daily coffee habit fits well within a healthy lifestyle. Enjoying two or three cups a day might just offer a small shield against the stresses of modern life.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2025.120992" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Daily coffee drinking and mental health outcomes: Sex differences and the role of caffeine metabolism genotypes</a>,” was authored by Berty Ruping Song, Xinming Xu, Junlin Chen, Yuzhuo Wang, Yue Chen, Zhicheng Zhang, Chuang Han, Haiyang Dong, Xiang Gao, and Liang Sun.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/the-difficult-people-in-your-life-might-be-making-you-biologically-older/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">The difficult people in your life might be making you biologically older</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Mar 11th 2026, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>Recent research published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2515331123" target="_blank" rel="noopener">PNAS</a></em> suggests that having difficult people in your close social circle is associated with measurable increases in biological aging. Scientists found that individuals who report having “hasslers” in their lives tend to experience a faster pace of cellular aging and an elevated risk for various health problems. These findings provide evidence that promoting healthy aging requires reducing chronic interpersonal stress, not just strengthening supportive relationships.</p>
<p>“What drives this study is a simple observation: most of what we know about social relationships and health has focused on the protective power of friends and family who buffer stress and promote well-being. But nearly 30% of adults report someone in their inner circle who regularly makes life harder. We wanted to know whether that kind of chronic interpersonal stress leaves a biological trace,” said study author <a href="https://byungkyulee.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Byungkyu Lee</a>, an assistant professor of sociology at New York University.</p>
<p>To answer this question, the scientists analyzed data from the Person-to-Person Health Interview Study. This project included a representative sample of 2,345 adults living in Indiana. Participants completed detailed surveys about their social networks, identifying the people they interacted with regularly.</p>
<p>During the interviews, participants specifically named individuals who often caused them problems or made their lives difficult. The researchers defined these difficult people as hasslers. They also asked participants about the nature of these relationships, such as whether the difficult person was a family member, a spouse, or a friend.</p>
<p>To measure biological aging, the researchers collected saliva samples from the participants. They analyzed the saliva using advanced laboratory tools known as epigenetic clocks. These tools look at DNA methylation, which is a natural chemical process that changes how genes are turned on or off without altering the underlying genetic code.</p>
<p>By tracking these chemical tags, scientists can estimate a person’s biological age, which reflects how old their cells act rather than their chronological age in years. The researchers used two specific tools to calculate both the accumulated cellular damage and the current speed of physical decline. They then compared these biological markers to the number of stressful people each participant reported.</p>
<p>The scientists found that negative social ties are relatively common, with nearly 30 percent of participants reporting at least one hassler. The data indicates that exposure to these difficult people is not random. Women, daily smokers, people in poorer health, and those who experienced childhood trauma were all more likely to report having stressful individuals in their networks.</p>
<p>“It was striking that negative ties were linked to molecular measures of aging, not just self-reported stress or mental health,” Lee told PsyPost. “Each additional hassler in a person’s close network was associated with the body being biologically older than it should and aging at a faster pace.”</p>
<p>“It is about 9 extra months on the odometer and a 1.5% faster speedometer reading. Although the effect of each hassler might seem small, biological aging is cumulative, so even modest differences in pace can add up over years. To put this in perspective, the hassler association corresponds to roughly 13% to 17% of the estimated effect of smoking on these same aging measures. That is not trivial.”</p>
<p>The researchers also found evidence that the relationship type matters. Family members who act as hasslers showed the strongest association with accelerated aging. “That suggests the ‘stickiness’ or inescapability of certain roles may be especially important,” Lee said.</p>
<p>In other words, because family ties are often embedded in obligations and shared spaces, they are difficult to escape. This inescapable nature might trap individuals in repeated stressful interactions. In contrast, spouses who caused difficulties did not show the same strong association with accelerated aging, possibly because marriage mixes negative exchanges with positive support.</p>
<p>Beyond biological aging, the scientists discovered that negative social ties are linked to a broad range of other health issues. Participants with more hasslers tended to have higher levels of systemic inflammation. They also exhibited higher rates of depression, greater anxiety severity, and a higher body mass index.</p>
<p>These results suggest that chronic social stress places a heavy burden on the body’s physiological systems. Repeated interpersonal tension likely activates stress response systems, releasing hormones that eventually cause wear and tear on organs and tissues. This chronic activation provides a clear pathway linking bad relationships to poor physical and mental health.</p>
<p>“These findings suggest that promoting healthy aging requires not only strengthening supportive ties, but also reducing chronic interpersonal stress within close relationships,” Lee explained.</p>
<p>While the study provides robust data, there are potential misinterpretations to avoid. Because the research is observational, it cannot prove that hasslers directly cause accelerated aging. There are alternative explanations, such as the possibility that people who are biologically aging faster become more irritable and provoke negative interactions.</p>
<p>“A key caveat is that this study is observational, so we can’t claim that hasslers cause accelerated aging from these data alone,” Lee told PsyPost. “The associations are consistent with hasslers functioning as chronic stressors that drive biological wear and tear, but alternative explanations exist, including reverse causation (people aging faster may elicit more negative interactions), perceptual bias (people with more negative affect may perceive benign exchanges as hassling), and confounding from observed and unobserved factors.”</p>
<p>“We took multiple steps to address these concerns: adjusting for prior comorbidity using linked electronic health records, examining whether hasslers predicted health in a follow-up survey after controlling for baseline health, incorporating occupational and psychosocial covariates, adjusting for respondents’ affective orientation toward others, and conducting sensitivity analyses for unobserved confounding. These checks increase confidence in robustness but do not constitute causal estimates.”</p>
<p>For future research, the scientists plan to conduct longitudinal studies to track how changes in difficult relationships predict shifts in aging over time. Following the same individuals for years will help clarify the exact direction of the effect. They also hope to map the specific genetic markers that are altered by chronic interpersonal strain.</p>
<p>“We want to dig deeper into mechanisms by conducting an epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of ‘hassler’ exposure to identify specific DNA methylation patterns linked to chronic interpersonal strain,” Lee said.</p>
<p>“One broader message is that ‘social health’ isn’t only about having people around. It is also about whether those close ties are a source of support or a source of chronic strain. Public conversations about healthy aging often focus on individual behaviors like diet and exercise, but our findings underscore that the social environment, especially the difficult relationships people can’t easily escape, may also be part of the aging equation.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2515331123" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Negative social ties as emerging risk factors for accelerated aging, inflammation, and multimorbidity</a>,” was authored by Byungkyu Lee, Gabriele Ciciurkaite, Siyun Peng, Colter Mitchell, and Brea L. Perry.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/the-hidden-brain-benefit-of-getting-in-shape-that-scientists-just-discovered/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">The hidden brain benefit of getting in shape that scientists just discovered</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Mar 11th 2026, 07:00</div>
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<p><p>Starting a new exercise routine does more than just build muscle and cardiovascular endurance, as a recent study shows it also trains the brain to release larger amounts of a restorative protein. The research, published in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2026.150253" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Brain Research</a></em>, reveals that adults who become physically fitter over a few months experience a larger spike in this brain boosting molecule after a single workout. This enhanced chemical response may help explain how regular physical activity supports higher level thinking and focus.</p>
<p>For many years, the medical community has recognized a link between regular aerobic activity and better cognitive health. A primary driver of this benefit is a specialized protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF.</p>
<p>Think of this protein as a type of molecular fertilizer for the nervous system. It helps the brain grow new cells, builds fresh connections between existing neurons, and supports overall cellular metabolism.</p>
<p>Physical activity prompts the body to release this molecule into the bloodstream, but the exact mechanics of this process remain somewhat unclear. Studies looking at how single workouts and long term fitness plans affect the protein’s levels have historically yielded mixed results.</p>
<p>Some past research focused mostly on older adults or isolated memory tasks. This left major gaps in our understanding of how the molecule influences other types of cognitive skills in younger, healthy populations.</p>
<p>Flaminia Ronca, a researcher at the University College London Institute of Sport, Exercise and Health, wanted to clarify these relationships. Ronca and her colleagues designed an experiment to see if a dedicated exercise routine could change how the brain responds to physical exertion.</p>
<p>They specifically wanted to observe changes in the prefrontal cortex, which is the brain region located just behind the forehead. The prefrontal cortex manages our executive functions, acting as the command center for complex thought.</p>
<p>Executive functions include essential daily skills like paying attention, making decisions, and suppressing impulsive behaviors. The researchers aimed to track how blood levels of the BDNF protein correlate with neural activity in this specific brain area during different mental tasks.</p>
<p>The researchers also wanted to look at two different ways the protein travels through the body. The molecule can be measured in blood plasma, which is the clear liquid portion of the blood.</p>
<p>Blood plasma provides a snapshot of the protein that is immediately available to cross into the brain. In contrast, blood serum contains the protein stored inside platelets, which are the cells responsible for clotting.</p>
<p>Measuring the protein in the blood serum reflects the body’s broader production and storage capacity. Understanding the differences between these two delivery methods was a key goal of the experiment.</p>
<p>To test these ideas, the research team recruited healthy adult volunteers who lived mostly sedentary lifestyles. The participants were randomly divided into two groups, with one acting as a control group that maintained normal daily routines.</p>
<p>The other group participated in a twelve week aerobic training program. This fitness intervention involved cycling on a stationary bike four times a week.</p>
<p>The workout intensity was designed to be progressive. The participants started with light cycling and gradually increased their effort levels over the three month period.</p>
<p>All participants visited the laboratory at the beginning of the study, at the six week mark, and at the end of the twelve weeks. During each visit, the researchers evaluated the participants’ aerobic fitness.</p>
<p>They did this using a standard laboratory test that measures the maximum amount of oxygen the body can utilize during intense exercise. This measurement provides a clear, objective number to represent a person’s cardiovascular endurance.</p>
<p>Before and after this intense stationary bike test, the researchers took blood samples from a vein in the arm. These samples allowed them to measure the concentrations of the protein in both the blood plasma and the blood serum.</p>
<p>Along with the physical tests, participants completed a series of mental challenges on a computer. These included tests of spatial memory as well as executive function tasks that required focused attention and strict impulse control.</p>
<p>While the participants worked on these computer puzzles, they wore a specialized cap equipped with optical sensors. This wearable imaging device uses harmless beams of light to monitor oxygen levels and blood flow in the outer layers of the brain.</p>
<p>By tracking the way blood moved through the prefrontal cortex, the researchers could estimate how hard different parts of the brain were working. This light based imaging method provides a window into the metabolic demands of the brain in real time.</p>
<p>At the end of the twelve weeks, the cycling group had successfully improved their cardiovascular endurance. Their resting levels of the targeted protein did not change from the start of the study, which was contrary to what the researchers initially suspected.</p>
<p>However, the physical training did alter how their bodies responded to acute stress. Following the final intense cycling test, the fitter participants experienced a much larger release of the serum bound protein than they did at the beginning of the study.</p>
<p>This specific increase was closely tied to their overall improvements in oxygen utilization. Basically, the more cardiovascular endurance a participant gained over the three months, the more of this brain boosting protein they produced immediately following a hard workout.</p>
<p>The researchers also found clear associations between the levels of this protein and how the brain functioned during the mental tasks. Higher amounts of the protein were linked to changes in blood flow within specific zones of the prefrontal cortex.</p>
<p>These neural changes only appeared while the participants were engaged in tests of attention and impulse control. The researchers did not observe these same brain activity patterns during the memory tests.</p>
<p>The brain imaging data revealed a specific pattern in the prefrontal cortex during the attention and inhibition tests. Higher levels of the protein correlated with a decrease in the raw signal of blood flow in these regions.</p>
<p>In the context of cognitive testing, a lower signal while maintaining good performance can sometimes indicate that the brain is operating more efficiently. The researchers suggest that the protein may help the brain manage its energy and cellular communication in a way that requires less overall metabolic effort.</p>
<p>None of these chemical or neural changes translated to noticeably better scores on the cognitive tests. The participants did get faster at the computer tasks over the twelve weeks, but this happened in both the cycling group and the control group.</p>
<p>Because both groups improved equally on the computer tests, the faster reaction times likely resulted from simple practice rather than the exercise program. The changes in the brain protein did not cause improvements in their actual test scores that were statistically significant.</p>
<p>Ronca noted the importance of this chemical adaptation in a public statement. “We’ve known for a while that exercise is good for our brain, but the mechanisms through which this occurs are still being disentangled. The most exciting finding from our study is that if we become fitter, our brains benefit even more from a single session of exercise, and this can change in only six weeks.”</p>
<p>While these physiological changes are promising, the current study does have some limitations. The research team started with a larger group, but only twenty people completed all the required laboratory visits and provided usable data.</p>
<p>This small sample size makes it difficult to make broad, definitive claims without further testing. The researchers noted that small groups are common in studies requiring frequent blood draws and long term exercise commitments.</p>
<p>The experimental design also focused strictly on maximum aerobic exertion. It remains unclear if lighter exercise, weightlifting, or team sports would trigger a similar release of the brain protein.</p>
<p>Different types of movement might demand different metabolic responses from the nervous system. Adding a variety of exercise modalities to future studies could help paint a more complete picture of how movement heals the brain.</p>
<p>Another variable the researchers did not track was the hormonal status of the female participants. Hormone levels can influence the production of brain proteins, which is a factor that future experiments should attempt to control.</p>
<p>The imaging technology used in the study also comes with certain physical limitations. The light sensors can only measure blood flow in the outer layers of the brain, meaning deeper structures like the hippocampus could not be observed.</p>
<p>Future research could explore how these chemical changes influence the brain’s energy use beyond simply building new cells. Understanding the exact role this protein plays in daily brain metabolism could eventually lead to better exercise prescriptions for cognitive health.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2026.150253" target="_blank" rel="noopener">BDNF relates to prefrontal cortex activity in the context of physical exercise</a>,” was authored by Flaminia Ronca, Cian Xu, Ellen Kong, Dennis Chan, Antonia Hamilton, Giampietro Schiavo, Ilias Tachtsidis, Paola Pinti, Benjamin Tari, Tom Gurney, and Paul W. Burgess.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/a-surprising-number-of-men-suffer-pain-during-sex-but-are-less-likely-than-women-to-speak-up/" 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;">A surprising number of men suffer pain during sex but are less likely than women to speak up</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Mar 11th 2026, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>New research published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/19317611.2025.2605125" target="_blank" rel="noopener">International Journal of Sexual Health</a></em> provides evidence that pain during sexual activity is a common experience for college students of all genders. The study suggests that individuals who strongly believe in traditional gender roles are less likely to communicate with their partners about this discomfort. These findings highlight the need for better sexual communication to help people prevent and manage everyday physical discomfort during intimate moments.</p>
<p>While sexual activity is usually associated with pleasure, unwanted physical pain is a reality for many people. Most scientific focus on this topic relies on clinical samples, looking at people with diagnosed medical conditions or severe sexual dysfunctions. This approach leaves a gap in understanding everyday, non-medical pain that occurs occasionally during sexual encounters.</p>
<p>The authors of the new study wanted to explore this mild to moderate discomfort among a general population. They designed the study to understand how often college students encounter physical pain during different types of sexual activities. The researchers also sought to discover why people might hide their discomfort from their partners.</p>
<p>“One of my student co-authors approached me about wanting to do some research, and because of a reading I had assigned in my class, she was very interested in the issue of pain during sexual activity. Our examination of the research literature revealed that non-clinical levels of pain during sexuality hadn’t been studied all that much, especially not in men,” said study author <a href="https://new.sewanee.edu/programs-of-study/psychology/faculty/terri-d-fisher/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Terri D. Fisher</a>, a teaching professor at The University of the South and professor emeritus at The Ohio State University.</p>
<p>“We eventually added two more students to the team and developed both qualitative and quantitative questions to help us gain an understanding of the extent of physical discomfort during various types of sexual activities, the reactions to that pain, and possible reasons for the pain and the reactions.”</p>
<p>A major focus of the project was to see if beliefs about masculinity and femininity influence how people react to pain in the bedroom. Past observations suggest that women often accept pain as a normal part of sex. The researchers suspected that men might also experience discomfort but hide it to appear masculine and tough.</p>
<p>To explore these ideas, the researchers recruited 263 college students from a university in the southeastern United States. The sample included 179 cisgender women, 71 cisgender men, and 13 individuals who identified as non-cisgender or did not specify a gender. Data was collected through an anonymous online survey between October 2022 and March 2023.</p>
<p>Participants first guessed how common they believed sexual pain to be among men and women. They then reported their personal experiences with pain during three distinct types of sexual activity. These categories included penile-vaginal intercourse, anal intercourse, and non-penetrative acts like manual stimulation or oral sex.</p>
<p>The survey asked whether participants had ever felt pain during these acts, how often it happened, if they told their partner, and if they stopped the activity. Participants also answered open-ended questions about why people might experience sexual pain and why they might endure it without complaining. Finally, the students completed a questionnaire measuring their adherence to extreme traditional gender role stereotypes.</p>
<p>The survey responses revealed that participants generally underestimated how often men experience sexual pain. Participants guessed that about half of women and less than a fifth of men encounter pain during sex. However, the actual reported incidence of pain was much higher for both groups.</p>
<p>Over 90 percent of the women who had engaged in penile-vaginal intercourse reported experiencing pain at some point. Nearly 50 percent of the men also reported feeling pain during this type of sexual activity. For anal sex, 97.1 percent of women and 44.4 percent of men reported a history of pain.</p>
<p>“We were rather surprised at the number of men who indicated that they had ever experienced pain during sexual activity.” Fisher told PsyPost.</p>
<p>But the scientists found major differences in how men and women handled this physical discomfort. Women who experienced pain during penile-vaginal sex were twice as likely as men to tell their partners about it. These women were also twice as likely to stop the sexual activity altogether.</p>
<p>For anal sex, women were over three times more likely to communicate the pain to their partners. Women were also four times more likely to stop anal sex when it hurt compared to men.</p>
<p>A different pattern emerged regarding non-penetrative sexual acts, where over half of the men and slightly less than half of the women reported experiencing pain. For non-penetrative activities, the researchers found no significant differences between men and women in terms of reporting the pain or stopping the encounter.</p>
<p>The qualitative part of the survey provided insight into why people experience and endure uncomfortable sex. The researchers identified several repeating themes in the open-ended responses.</p>
<p>Participants often blamed physical issues like a lack of natural lubrication, uncomfortable angles, or aggressive movements. Female respondents frequently noted that women might experience pain due to a lack of physical arousal or inadequate foreplay. When discussing male pain, some respondents pointed to overexertion or teeth scraping during oral sex.</p>
<p>When asked why people keep going despite the pain, respondents frequently cited embarrassment or a strong sense of obligation to please their partner. Many participants believed that speaking up would ruin the mood or hurt their partner’s feelings. Some respondents even noted that people might push through the discomfort because they mistakenly believe sexual pain is normal.</p>
<p>The results also showed a strong connection between traditional gender stereotypes and silent suffering. Participants who scored higher on the traditional gender role questionnaire were less likely to tell their partners about pain during vaginal or anal intercourse. These individuals were also less likely to stop the painful activity.</p>
<p>The researchers noted that these traditional beliefs affect all genders. Women holding traditional views might feel their primary role is to satisfy a male partner at their own expense. Men with traditional attitudes tend to worry that admitting to pain makes them look weak or unmanly.</p>
<p>“This study makes clear that unwanted pain is sometimes part of sexual activity, at least for the college students in our sample,” Fisher explained. “Men engaging in uncomfortable sex were far less likely to tell their partners about the pain and to stop the painful activity than women were. For our participants, this reluctance to communicate with their partners about pain was related to the degree of their beliefs in traditional gender roles.”</p>
<p>While the study provides evidence about the social dynamics of sexual pain, there are some limitations to consider. The sample consisted primarily of young adults from a single university, and they did not report their sexual orientation or relationship status. A broader sample containing older adults from different backgrounds might yield different patterns.</p>
<p>The scientists also point out a potential misinterpretation regarding the link between gender roles and communication. The survey found a correlation between traditional gender beliefs and a reluctance to speak up about pain. However, this statistical relationship does not prove that traditional beliefs directly cause a person to stay silent.</p>
<p>In the future, the research team plans to create a new standardized questionnaire based on the themes gathered from the open-ended responses. This tool will allow scientists to measure the exact reasons people experience and hide sexual pain on a much larger scale. By expanding this research, scientists hope to improve sex education and encourage healthier communication between partners.</p>
<p>“We were pleasantly surprised at the detailed responses to the open-ended questions we received from many of the participants,” Fisher said. “The most novel contribution was our examination of pain during three different types of sexual activity: penile-vaginal intercourse, anal intercourse, and non-penetrative sexual activity. Something else that is different about our study is that we asked about pain having ever been experienced, whereas previous studies have used a more limited time frame for the retrospective reports.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/19317611.2025.2605125" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Suffering in Silence: Examining U.S. College Students’ Painful Sexual Experiences and Their Relationship to Gender Roles</a>,” was authored by Terri D. Fisher, Mary Bullard, Sydney Eyster, and Camilla Kalthoff.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/finger-length-ratios-offer-clues-to-how-the-womb-shapes-sexual-orientation/" 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;">Finger length ratios offer clues to how the womb shapes sexual orientation</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Mar 10th 2026, 16:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent analysis of over two hundred thousand people reveals that the relative lengths of a person’s index and ring fingers are linked to their sexual orientation. The research suggests that the hormones a fetus is exposed to in the womb shape both physical development and whom that person is attracted to later in life. These results were recently published in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1559158" target="_blank">Frontiers in Psychology</a></em>.</p>
<p>Before birth, developing fetuses are exposed to different levels of sex hormones. These hormones, such as testosterone and estrogen, play a central role in shaping physical differences in the body. They also help regulate how genes are expressed in the developing brain.</p>
<p>Testing exactly how these early chemicals affect human development is difficult. It is not ethical to alter hormone levels in pregnant women to see what happens to their children. Instead, researchers look for physical traits that act as biological markers of the environment inside the womb.</p>
<p>One widely studied marker is the ratio between the length of the index finger and the length of the ring finger. Men generally have a shorter index finger compared to their ring finger. Women typically have index and ring fingers that are closer to the same length.</p>
<p>This physical difference is tied to the hormone environment during fetal development. Fetuses exposed to higher levels of testosterone tend to develop a more male-typical finger length ratio. Those exposed to lower levels of testosterone, or higher levels of estrogen, develop a more female-typical ratio.</p>
<p>Researchers know this because they have studied people with specific medical conditions. For example, women with congenital adrenal hyperplasia are exposed to elevated levels of testosterone before birth. These women tend to have more male-typical finger proportions.</p>
<p>Conversely, some individuals are born with a condition called androgen insensitivity syndrome. Their bodies do not respond to testosterone. These individuals tend to have more female-typical finger proportions.</p>
<p>Because hormones shape both the brain and the body, researchers use finger measurements to guess how the brain might have been influenced before birth. Sexual orientation is one of the most strongly sexually differentiated psychological traits in humans. Researchers suspect that the same hormones that shape the fingers also shape sexual attraction.</p>
<p>Ashlyn Swift-Gallant, a psychology researcher at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador, led a team to investigate this connection. A previous review of the topic from 2010 found a link between finger proportions and sexual orientation in women. That older review found no such link in men.</p>
<p>That older review had a few limitations. It only looked at published data, which can skew the overall picture. Studies with results that are not statistically significant often go unpublished, sitting forgotten in a filing cabinet.</p>
<p>This is known in science as the file drawer problem. The 2010 review also grouped bisexual individuals together with exclusively homosexual individuals. Swift-Gallant and her team wanted to update the science by including unpublished data while treating bisexual people as a distinct group.</p>
<p>To gather their data, the research team conducted a meta-analysis. A meta-analysis is a statistical method that combines the results of many different independent studies to find broader patterns. This allows researchers to see the big picture across thousands of participants.</p>
<p>The researchers scoured academic databases to find every paper matching their criteria. They did not stop at the published literature. To avoid the bias of only looking at successful experiments, the team contacted nearly three hundred researchers to ask for unpublished data.</p>
<p>In the end, they compiled data from fifty-one studies. This included forty-four datasets focused on men and thirty-four datasets focused on women. In total, the analysis included measurements from 227,648 participants.</p>
<p>The researchers broke down the data by sex and sexual orientation. They compared exclusively heterosexual individuals against exclusively homosexual individuals. They also ran separate comparisons for the bisexual participants.</p>
<p>The results showed a clear pattern for women. Exclusively homosexual women tended to have a lower, more male-typical finger length ratio than exclusively heterosexual women. This pattern held true for measurements taken from both the right and the left hands.</p>
<p>For men, the updated data painted a different picture than the older 2010 review. The team found that exclusively homosexual men tended to have a higher, more female-typical finger ratio than exclusively heterosexual men. This suggests that gay men may be exposed to less testosterone or more estrogen before birth compared to straight men.</p>
<p>The researchers applied statistical tests to check if their results were warped by publication bias. One method they used removes extreme outliers and fills in hypothetical missing studies to balance the data. Another method tests the strength of the data by removing one study at a time to see if the overall pattern collapses.</p>
<p>They found no evidence of publication bias for the data on women. For the men, published studies were slightly more likely to show positive results than unpublished studies. Even so, the mathematical corrections confirmed that the overall pattern for men remained robust.</p>
<p>The data for bisexual participants offered another layer of detail. The researchers found that the finger proportions of bisexual men and women were more similar to those of heterosexual people. They were less similar to the finger proportions of exclusively homosexual people.</p>
<p>This detail might explain why previous reviews missed the pattern in men. By grouping bisexual men together with homosexual men, older analyses may have watered down the mathematical differences. Treating everyone with any level of same-sex attraction as a single group can hide important variations.</p>
<p>The team also performed moderator analyses to see if the way a study was conducted changed its results. A moderator analysis looks at external variables, such as the geographic location of the participants or the tools used to measure the fingers. They found that the method of measurement mattered.</p>
<p>Studies that used photocopies or digital scans of hands produced more reliable data. In contrast, having participants measure their own hands often resulted in weaker data. The researchers suggested that self-reporting is less accurate than using an independent rater to measure a digital scan.</p>
<p>The researchers noted a few caveats to their work. First, the size of the physical difference between the sexual orientation groups is relatively small. The difference in finger proportions between a straight man and a gay man is smaller than the average difference between a man and a woman.</p>
<p>This small effect size makes sense in a biological context. Sexual orientation is shaped by many different biological and environmental factors. Prenatal hormones are just one piece of a much larger puzzle.</p>
<p>Second, the finger length ratio is an imperfect proxy for the environment of the womb. It is influenced by genetic factors alongside testosterone and estrogen. Because of this, the fingers only offer a rough estimate of the chemicals a developing baby was exposed to.</p>
<p>There might also be a ceiling effect for men. Once a male fetus is exposed to enough testosterone to masculinize his body, extra testosterone might not change his finger proportions any further. This could make finger measurements less sensitive to hormonal changes in males than in females.</p>
<p>The team also suggested directions for future research. They pointed out that grouping all homosexual individuals into one category might hide important biological variations. Past research has shown that subgroups, such as lesbians who identify as more masculine, show even more pronounced differences in finger proportions.</p>
<p>Future studies should look at these subgroups more closely to uncover more detailed biological pathways. Researchers might also benefit from measuring attraction to men and attraction to women as separate scales. Placing them on opposite ends of a single continuum might obscure how different hormones affect different types of attraction.</p>
<p>Finally, the team recommended that future studies pay closer attention to demographic factors like ethnicity. Different populations might have different baseline finger proportions. Tracking these demographic details could help clarify the relationship between physical development and human behavior.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1559158" target="_blank">Sexual orientation is associated with 2D:4D finger length ratios in both sexes: an updated and expanded meta-analysis</a>,” was authored by Ashlyn Swift-Gallant, Toe Aung, Stephanie Salia, S. Marc Breedlove and David Puts.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/study-links-parents-perceived-financial-strain-to-delayed-brain-development-in-infants/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Study links parents’ perceived financial strain to delayed brain development in infants</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Mar 10th 2026, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>A study of infants during their first year of life found that those coming from households where parents felt their income was inadequate to support the family’s needs tended to show delayed brain development. More specifically, on EEG, these children tended to show slower rates of change in alpha peak frequency, alpha power, and beta power. The paper was published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2513598123"><em>PNAS</em></a>.</p>
<p>During the first year of life, a baby’s brain grows faster than at almost any other time. This period lays the groundwork for how a child will think, feel, and relate to others in the future. Although most brain cells are already present at birth, the connections between them increase at an astonishing rate.</p>
<p>In the early months, the brain forms millions of new connections every second, helping the baby learn from sights, sounds, and touch. The brain also begins to insulate its nerve pathways (myelination), which allows messages to travel more quickly and efficiently.</p>
<p>As babies see faces, hear voices, and experience movement, their sensory systems become more refined. Loving and responsive caregiving plays an important role in shaping the parts of the brain involved in emotions and relationships. Even though areas responsible for planning and self-control are still immature, the foundations for these abilities begin to form.</p>
<p>During this time, the brain is especially flexible and responsive to experience. Positive experiences, such as talking, cuddling, and play, strengthen healthy brain development, while severe stress or neglect can interfere with it.</p>
<p>Study co-first authors Haerin Chung and Carol L. Wilkinson, along with their colleagues, wanted to identify the psychosocial factors most strongly associated with altered early trajectories of brain activity during the first year after birth within a group of infants facing high rates of adversity. Because financial strain and psychological stress are often tangled together, the team used a novel network-based approach to examine how multiple family conditions interact, rather than examining risk factors one by one. They utilized data from an ongoing longitudinal study called Baby Steps, which uses electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings of infants’ brain activity.</p>
<p>They analyzed data from 293 infants recruited at the Boston Children’s Hospital Primary Care Clinic. While the broader Baby Steps study follows these infants until 2 years of age, the current research focused on data collected during their first year. The sample faced significant economic hardship: 28% of infants came from households with less than $2,100 in monthly income, and 58% came from families with a household income of up to $4,400 per month. Demographically, 155 of the infants were boys, 39% were Black, and 60% were Hispanic or Latino. English was the primary language in 57% of the infants’ families.</p>
<p>When the infants were 4, 9, and 12 months old, researchers completed 5-minute resting-state EEG recordings of their brain activity. Infants’ parents completed surveys, and researchers reviewed the infants’ medical records. The parent surveys asked about demographic and raw income information, as well as a crucial subjective question: whether they felt their household income was sufficient to meet their family’s needs.</p>
<p> The surveys also gathered information on recent stressful life events (the Recent Life Events Questionnaire), maternal appraisal of stress (the Perceived Stress Scale), depression symptoms (the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale), and an assessment of neighborhood opportunity levels. The neighborhood assessment evaluated education opportunities, health and environment (e.g., the availability of healthy food and green spaces), and economic opportunities (poverty and homeownership rates).</p>
<p>Using their network-based analysis, the researchers found that income sufficiency acted as a central “hub” linking various stressors. Results showed that mothers who reported their income was not sufficient to meet their needs were more likely to have lower educational attainment, report lower actual income, experience higher levels of stress, and face more adverse life events.</p>
<p>Controlling for these interconnected variables, income insufficiency was uniquely associated with delayed brain development in the infants. More specifically, infants developing in households where parents felt their income was inadequate to support the family’s needs exhibited slower rates of change in alpha peak frequency, alpha power, and beta power.</p>
<p>Alpha peak frequency is the dominant rhythm within the alpha frequency band of brain activity. It typically increases during the first year of life, reflecting the maturation of cortical networks and improving neural connectivity. Alpha and beta power represent the strength of neural oscillations in their respective frequency ranges.</p>
<p>Developmental increases or reorganizations in these measures are generally interpreted as markers of synaptic growth, myelination, and the increasing functional organization of the infant brain. Therefore, slower rates of change in these indicators point to slower or delayed brain development.</p>
<p>“Together, these findings provide a framework of understanding and visualizing how early adversity impacts neurodevelopment and provides evidence for the potential utility of maternal income sufficiency as an additional screening tool to accelerate identification of populations most vulnerable and in need for early intervention,” the study authors concluded.</p>
<p>This study contributes significantly to the scientific understanding of how multifaceted stress affects infant brain development. However, it should be noted that the study’s observational design does not allow for definitive causal inferences. While it is highly possible that income insufficiency leads to delayed brain development in infants, it is also possible that other unmeasured factors (such as biological or environmental variables) affect both family income and the pace of an infant’s brain development.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2513598123">Income insufficiency impacts early brain development in infants facing increased psychosocial adversity: A network-based approach,</a>” was authored by Haerin Chung, Carol L. Wilkinson, Asher Liu, Alex Job Said, Brianna Francis, Gabriela Cañaveral, Kathleen Conroy, Helen Tager-Flusberg, and Charles A. Nelson.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/genetic-factors-drive-the-link-between-cognitive-ability-and-socioeconomic-status/" 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;">Genetic factors drive the link between cognitive ability and socioeconomic status</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Mar 10th 2026, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-37786-3" target="_blank">Scientific Reports</a></em> suggests that the connection between a young adult’s cognitive ability and their future socioeconomic status is largely driven by their genes. The findings provide evidence that genetic factors play a larger role in educational and occupational success than environmental conditions. This underlying biology may help explain why some social interventions aimed at reducing inequality tend to fall short over the long term.</p>
<p>Social scientists have spent decades trying to understand the psychological mechanisms that drive socioeconomic status. Getting an education and securing a job are the primary ways young adults begin earning a living and establishing their place in society. Past research reliably shows that general cognitive ability, often measured as an intelligence quotient, is the strongest predictor of a person’s future socioeconomic position.</p>
<p>However, it has remained unclear whether this relationship is primarily driven by a person’s unique genetics or by their personal life experiences. Such experiences might include the social networks a person builds in college or the specific opportunities they encounter in the job market. <a href="https://scholar.google.se/citations?hl=en&user=AhlWvswAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate" target="_blank">Petri J. Kajonius</a>, an associate professor and personality researcher at the Department of Psychology at Lund University in Sweden and host of <a href="https://shows.acast.com/personlighetspodden" target="_blank">Personlighetspodden</a>, conducted this study to answer that question.</p>
<p>“Most people, even psychology researchers, are not aware that most correlations in psychological science are mostly driven by genetics, and not the environment. This unawareness may be particularly true in Sweden — famous for its focus on societal equality through interventions — and not many studies in social sciences attempt to control for individual genetics. This is arguably one of the first genetically informed studies from Sweden testing the well-known and very strong IQ-socioeconomic status relationship.”</p>
<p>In particular, Kajonius wanted to quantify exactly how much of the link between a young adult’s cognitive ability and their later socioeconomic status can be attributed to genetic inheritance. To examine this, the researcher utilized data from the TwinLife project, a large and representative study of families in Germany. The sample included 440 twin pairs, consisting of 228 identical twin pairs and 212 fraternal same-sex twin pairs.</p>
<p>Analyzing twins allows scientists to estimate how much of a particular trait is due to genetics. Identical twins share all of their genes, while fraternal twins share about half of their genes on average. By comparing the similarities between these two types of twins, researchers can mathematically calculate how much of a trait is due to genetic inheritance versus environmental exposure.</p>
<p>The participants in this specific analysis were young adults transitioning into their careers. They had an average age of about 23 during the first wave of data collection and an average age of about 27 during the second wave four years later. During the first wave of the study, the participants completed a computer-based cognitive assessment.</p>
<p>This assessment measured a person’s ability to reason and solve problems using unfamiliar information, which is a core component of general intelligence. Four years later, the researchers measured the participants’ socioeconomic status using four distinct variables. Two of these variables focused on educational attainment, classifying the complexity and level of schooling each participant had completed on a scale from zero to ten.</p>
<p>The other two variables measured occupational status to capture a full picture of their career success. One ranked the social prestige of their current job. The other categorized their occupation based on the level of autonomy and status it held in the broader labor market. The researcher used statistical models to separate the influence of genetics from the influence of the environment. </p>
<p>The data revealed that cognitive ability is highly heritable in young adulthood. Specifically, about 75 percent of the differences in cognitive ability between individuals could be explained by their genetic makeup.</p>
<p>Socioeconomic outcomes at age 27 also showed significant genetic influence. Genetic factors explained between 49 and 66 percent of the differences in educational attainment among the participants. For occupational status, genetics accounted for between 32 and 71 percent of the individual differences.</p>
<p>When looking at the relationship between cognitive ability at age 23 and socioeconomic status at age 27, genetic factors played a dominant role. Shared genetic traits explained between 69 and 81 percent of the association between cognitive ability and educational outcomes. For the link between cognitive ability and occupational status, genetics explained up to 98 percent of the connection.</p>
<p>This means that the same genetic predispositions that contribute to higher cognitive ability also tend to promote socioeconomic success. The overlap in genetic factors was multiple times larger than any overlap in environmental factors. These environmental factors usually consist of shared family resources or random life events, like meeting the right person at the right time.</p>
<p>The shared genetic influence between cognitive ability and socioeconomic status could operate in a few different ways. The same genes might simultaneously affect brain development and behaviors that promote career success, creating a direct biological link. Alternatively, genes could enhance cognitive ability, which then makes it easier for a person to navigate higher education and secure a better-paying job.</p>
<p>“The take-home message for the average person is that psychology manifests in life mostly through genetic make-up, not so much through environmental conditions,” Kajonius told PsyPost. “The individual is arguably more important than given credit when it comes to life outcomes, such as education, occupation, and income. This may consequently also be one reason societal interventions aimed at equality often don’t work in the long-term.”</p>
<p>While these findings highlight the heavy influence of biology on life outcomes, it is important not to misinterpret heritability as absolute destiny. A high genetic explanation for a trait only indicates an increased probability, not a predetermined certainty.</p>
<p>“Heritability does not necessarily mean determinism, only increased probabilities,” Kajonius said. “Genes for bad eye-sight could easily be solved with glasses, as a mundane example.”</p>
<p>The study does have some limitations. The four-year gap between the first and second measurements is a relatively short time span. Tracking these young adults from age 23 to 27 might not provide enough time for cognitive ability to fully shape their long-term career trajectories.</p>
<p>Additionally, the statistical models used in the study simplified the analysis by dividing influences strictly into genes and the environment. This approach did not account for more complex interactions, such as how specific genes might react differently in entirely different environments. Future research should aim to explore these complicated interactions over longer periods of a person’s life.</p>
<p>Ultimately, Kajonius hopes this line of research will help both scientists and the public understand that psychological differences are heavily influenced by our biology. Recognizing that people have different genetic predispositions may help policymakers design more effective societal interventions. Treating the population as entirely uniform often leads to programs that do not yield the intended long-term results.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-37786-3" target="_blank">Longitudinal associations between cognitive ability and socioeconomic status are partially genetic in nature</a>,” was authored by Petri J. Kajonius.</p></p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
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