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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/high-meat-consumption-may-protect-against-cognitive-decline-in-people-with-a-specific-alzheimers-gene/" 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;">High meat consumption may protect against cognitive decline in people with a specific Alzheimer’s gene</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Mar 26th 2026, 10:00</div>
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<p><p>Older adults carrying a specific genetic variation linked to Alzheimer’s disease might actually protect their brain health by eating a diet high in meat. A recent study published in <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2846712"><em>JAMA Network Open</em></a> suggests that personalized dietary recommendations based on genetics could help prevent cognitive decline in a large portion of the global population.</p>
<p>Every person carries a gene called APOE, which provides instructions for making a protein that helps carry fats and cholesterol through the bloodstream. This gene comes in three main versions, known as variants, named e2, e3, and e4. A person inherits one variant from each parent, creating different genetic combinations. Apolipoproteins are a family of proteins that bind to fats, playing a major role in cholesterol metabolism in the liver and the brain.</p>
<p>The APOE e4 variant is the oldest form of the gene in human evolutionary history. It first appeared millions of years ago, around the time our early ancestors transitioned to hunting and began consuming large amounts of meat. Some anthropologists propose that human ancestors went through a period a few million years ago where they consumed diets made up almost entirely of meat. This timeline aligns directly with the emergence of the APOE e4 variant.</p>
<p>The newer variants, e3 and e2, emerged much later in human history. Human populations eventually shifted toward agriculture and started eating more plant-based foods. The e3 variant is thought to have appeared roughly 200,000 years ago, reflecting an adaptation to an omnivorous diet. Today, the e3 variant is the most common form found across global populations.</p>
<p>In modern times, the APOE e4 variant is the strongest known genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease. People who inherit copies of this variant have a much higher chance of developing dementia compared to those with other combinations. In Northern Europe and North America, individuals with the e3/e4 or e4/e4 combinations account for nearly 70 percent of all Alzheimer’s cases.</p>
<p>Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden wanted to understand how dietary habits interact with these genetic risks over time. Lead author Jakob Norgren, a researcher at the institute’s Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society, suspected that our evolutionary history might hold clues. He and his colleagues hypothesized that the older APOE e4 variant might be specifically adapted to a high meat diet.</p>
<p>If this idea held true, people with the older gene variants might process animal nutrients differently than people with the newer variants. “This study tested the hypothesis that people with APOE 3/4 and 4/4 would have a reduced risk of cognitive decline and dementia with higher meat intake, based on the fact that APOE4 is the evolutionarily oldest variant of the APOE gene and may have arisen during a period when our evolutionary ancestors ate a more animal-based diet,” says Norgren.</p>
<p>To investigate this potential connection, the research team analyzed data from an ongoing project called the Swedish National Study on Aging and Care. They focused on a specific group of 2,157 older adults living in an urban area of Stockholm. All the participants were at least 60 years old and free of any dementia diagnosis when the study began.</p>
<p>The volunteers provided detailed information about their dietary habits through validated questionnaires. These forms covered 98 different food items, capturing the participants’ eating habits over the previous year. The research team grouped the volunteers based on their daily intake of total meat, unprocessed red meat, poultry, and processed meats like sausage or bacon. They also drew blood samples to determine each participant’s APOE gene combination.</p>
<p>Over a period of up to 15 years, the researchers tracked the cognitive health of the volunteers. Participants were evaluated every six years until they reached age 78, and then every three years after that. At each visit, doctors assessed memory, language skills, and mental processing speed. Two independent physicians reviewed the medical data to diagnose any cases of dementia, with senior neurologists stepping in if there were any disagreements.</p>
<p>The researchers separated the data into two main groups based on genetics. One group included people with the e3/e4 and e4/e4 combinations, which carry a high risk for Alzheimer’s disease. The second group consisted of people with all other gene combinations. They compared the cognitive trajectories of both groups against their self-reported meat consumption.</p>
<p>A clear pattern emerged for individuals with the high risk e3/e4 and e4/e4 genes. For this group, eating more meat was associated with slower cognitive decline and better memory preservation. The protective association was strongest for those in the top twenty percent of meat consumption.</p>
<p>These high consumers ate an average of about 870 grams of meat per week, standardizing the measure to a typical daily intake of 2,000 calories. Within this high consumption group, the expected genetic vulnerability vanished entirely. Their rates of cognitive decline mirrored those of people without the high risk gene variants.</p>
<p>The research team did not observe any similar benefits from meat consumption for people carrying the newer gene variants. In fact, people with the high risk gene combinations who ate the least amount of meat faced more than twice the risk of developing dementia compared to people without those gene variants. This suggests that a low meat diet might trigger the genetic vulnerability associated with the older genetic variant.</p>
<p>“There is a lack of dietary research into brain health, and our findings suggest that conventional dietary advice may be unfavourable to a genetically defined subgroup of the population,” says Norgren. “For those who are aware that they belong to this genetic risk group, the findings offer hope; the risk may be modifiable through lifestyle changes.”</p>
<p>The type of meat consumed played a defining role in the health outcomes. Unprocessed meats were associated with better brain health and lower mortality rates in the high risk genetic group. However, processed meats failed to offer these protective benefits.</p>
<p>“A lower proportion of processed meat in total meat consumption was associated with a lower risk of dementia regardless of APOE genotype,” says Sara Garcia-Ptacek, an assistant professor at the Karolinska Institute and a senior author of the study. Eating processed foods appears detrimental to cognitive health across all genetic backgrounds.</p>
<p>The researchers also looked into possible biological mechanisms to explain their observations. They measured blood levels of certain vitamins, finding that people with the e4 gene variants seemed to absorb vitamin B12 from meat better than those with other variants. This hints that the older genetic profile might be uniquely tuned to extract nutrients from animal products.</p>
<p>The study has several limitations that require consideration. It was an observational study, meaning the researchers tracked natural habits rather than assigning specific diets, making it impossible to prove cause and effect. The participants also self-reported their food intake, a method that occasionally introduces memory errors into the data.</p>
<p>Additionally, the study population was predominantly of Northern European descent. Because the APOE gene behaves differently in various ethnic populations, these associations might not apply globally. For instance, the increased Alzheimer’s risk associated with the e4 variant is known to be weaker in Hispanic and Black populations compared to white populations.</p>
<p>Future research will need to address these gaps through controlled clinical trials. Scientists must directly test whether increasing unprocessed meat intake can actively prevent dementia in people with specific high risk gene combinations. “Clinical trials are now needed to develop dietary recommendations tailored to APOE genotype,” says Norgren.</p>
<p>Such trials could eventually lead to personalized nutrition plans that protect the aging brain based on an individual’s evolutionary genetic makeup. “Since the prevalence of APOE4 is about twice as high in the Nordic countries as in the Mediterranean countries, we are particularly well suited to conduct research on tailored dietary recommendations for this risk group,” Norgren continues.</p>
<p>The findings highlight the growing relevance of precision nutrition in cognitive aging research. The study, “<a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2846712">Meat Consumption and Cognitive Health by APOE Genotype</a>,” was authored by Jakob Norgren, Adrián Carballo-Casla, Giulia Grande, Anne Börjesson-Hanson, Hong Xu, Maria Eriksdotter, Erika J. Laukka, and Sara Garcia-Ptacek.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/hiding-your-true-self-in-a-relationship-is-linked-to-a-higher-risk-of-cheating/" 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;">Hiding your true self in a relationship is linked to a higher risk of cheating</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Mar 26th 2026, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>People who feel unable to be their genuine selves in romantic relationships might be more likely to consider cheating on their partners. A recent study published in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2026.113758" target="_blank">Personality and Individual Differences</a></em> suggests that individuals with insecure attachment habits and lower levels of emotional closeness tend to have a higher inclination toward infidelity. These findings provide evidence that cheating is often linked to unmet emotional needs and personal vulnerabilities rather than simply malicious intentions.</p>
<p><a href="http://a%20phd%20student" target="_blank">Teodora-Elena Huţanu</a> and Andrei Corneliu Holman, researchers at the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iaşi in Romania, wanted to look beyond the moral judgments that typically surround infidelity. They specifically focused on how an individual’s attachment style might relate to their ability to be authentic.</p>
<p>“While people often condemn infidelity as a purely intentional wrongdoing, the psychological drivers behind this behavior are frequently misunderstood. I was interested in whether infidelity might sometimes reflect personal vulnerabilities – such as insecure attachment patterns and reduced authenticity – which may be associated with lower emotional intimacy within relationships,” explained Huţanu, a PhD student.</p>
<p>“While previous research has focused largely on relationship dissatisfaction and other relationship factors as predictors of infidelity, I wanted to go a step further and explore the role of individual characteristics in shaping relational climate and the propensity towards infidelity.” </p>
<p>“I was particularly interested in how insecure attachment may relate to authenticity, potentially leading individuals to suppress important parts of themselves in order to feel comfortable. Understanding these underlying dynamics may help us move from blame to insight and toward healthier relationships.”</p>
<p>“On a more personal note, my interest in this topic was also shaped by the realization that infidelity can occur even when positive feelings toward a partner are still present. This led me to reflect on how such experiences may be less about the partner or the relationship itself and more about one’s own internal processes.”</p>
<p>To investigate these dynamics, the researchers recruited 307 Romanian adults through social media platforms, specifically Facebook and Instagram. All participants were currently in a committed romantic relationship, as those who answered otherwise were excluded from the final data set. The study group included individuals ranging in age from 18 to 60, with an average age of roughly 30 years old.</p>
<p>The participants completed a series of online questionnaires designed to measure four specific psychological concepts. First, the surveys assessed insecure attachment styles, which generally fall into two distinct categories. Anxious attachment involves a deep fear of rejection, feelings of worthlessness, and a constant need for reassurance from a partner.</p>
<p>The other category is avoidant attachment, which is characterized by emotional distance and a general discomfort with closeness. People with avoidant attachment habits often exhibit permissive attitudes toward infidelity and seek outside validation. Both of these insecure attachment styles have previously been linked to a higher likelihood of cheating.</p>
<p>Next, the researchers measured personal authenticity, which refers to a person’s ability to live in alignment with their true thoughts, feelings, and desires without bending to outside pressures. The participants also answered questions about the level of emotional intimacy in their current relationship. Emotional intimacy involves partners openly communicating their feelings, ideas, and concerns with one another.</p>
<p>Finally, the surveys measured each participant’s individual propensity toward infidelity. This concept refers to a person’s general inclination or willingness to engage in emotional or sexual betrayals with a third party. The participants rated statements on a numerical scale to indicate how much they agreed or disagreed with various infidelity-related scenarios.</p>
<p>The data revealed several interconnected relationships among these psychological traits across the study sample. The scientists found that individuals with higher levels of insecure attachment, both anxious and avoidant, tended to report significantly lower authenticity and lower emotional intimacy. At the same time, these specific insecure attachment styles were positively associated with a greater overall propensity toward infidelity.</p>
<p>When the researchers analyzed all the factors together using statistical models, they found that lower authenticity and lower emotional intimacy were significant predictors of a higher inclination to cheat. Anxious attachment also remained a strong positive predictor of this tendency, even when accounting for a participant’s age and gender. The contribution of avoidant attachment to the prediction of infidelity became non-significant when controlling for the other psychological factors.</p>
<p>This specific pattern provides evidence for a complex chain of behavioral events. The researchers propose that individuals with insecure attachment styles are less authentic, which deters them from being open with their romantic partners. This lack of openness lowers the emotional intimacy in their relationship, which in turn increases their tendency to seek out outside relationships.</p>
<p>“The negative association between authenticity and propensity towards infidelity was a genuinely new and important insight,” Huţanu told PsyPost. “Neglecting one’s true self – what one truly thinks, feels, and desires – is associated with emotional disconnection within a relationship and with greater propensity towards infidelity. </p>
<p>“If individuals are not honest with themselves, it may become difficult to be authentic with their partners, which may implicitly increase the likelihood of seeking connection elsewhere. Could extradyadic involvement sometimes be perceived as a space where individuals feel freer to express their authentic selves? This possibility highlights the importance of fostering authenticity within primary relationships.”</p>
<p>“One important takeaway is that infidelity is not always driven by bad intentions, but may also be linked to unmet emotional needs and personal vulnerabilities,” Huţanu continued. “Our findings suggest that low authenticity and insecure attachment patterns are associated with reduced emotional intimacy, which in turn are related to a greater propensity toward seeking connection outside the relationship. </p>
<p>“This perspective shifts the focus from blame to self-understanding. Becoming more aware of one’s attachment dynamics and striving to be more authentic within a relationship may help strengthen emotional connection and reduce the likelihood of seeking connection elsewhere. Ultimately, fostering authenticity and emotional openness may function as protective factors for relationship stability and well-being.”</p>
<p>As with all research, there are some limitations to consider. Because the study measured all variables at a single point in time, the data does not prove that a lack of authenticity directly causes infidelity. Instead, the findings suggest that these personal and relationship struggles tend to be linked in important ways.</p>
<p>“It is also important to recognize that individuals differ greatly, and each person’s context, experiences, and relationship dynamics may shape their likelihood of engaging in infidelity,” Huţanu noted. “Therefore, these results should be viewed as highlighting potential psychological vulnerabilities, not as deterministic explanations of behavior.”</p>
<p>Looking ahead, the researchers hope to conduct long-term studies to better understand the cognitive and emotional mechanisms linking authenticity and infidelity. They aim to observe how changes in a person’s authenticity over time might impact their relationship choices.</p>
<p>“My long-term goal for this line of research is to deepen the understanding of the cognitive and emotional mechanisms underlying the link between authenticity and infidelity,” Huţanu said. “I would also like to investigate how changes in authenticity might reflect on the relationship context. Specifically, I am interested in whether becoming more authentic encourages individuals to remain in the same relationship and stop infidelity, or whether it might lead them to choose a different partner.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2026.113758" target="_blank">Insecure, detached, and unfaithful: Propensity towards infidelity as predicted by authenticity, emotional intimacy and insecure attachment styles</a>,” was authored by Teodora-Elena Huţanu and Andrei Corneliu Holman.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/depression-is-linked-to-a-genuine-pessimistic-bias-rather-than-a-realistic-view-of-the-world/" 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;">Depression is linked to a genuine pessimistic bias rather than a realistic view of the world</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Mar 26th 2026, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2026.104959" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Behaviour Research and Therapy</a></em> provides evidence that people experiencing symptoms of depression hold genuinely pessimistic biases about future positive events, rather than simply viewing the world more realistically. The research suggests that while individuals with depression can update their beliefs when desirable things happen, these hopeful shifts tend to be fragile and easily reversed.</p>
<p>The study was designed to test whether the negative thinking patterns seen in depression reflect a genuine bias or just an absence of normal optimism. For decades, experts have debated the idea of depressive realism, a concept suggesting that depressed individuals actually see the world more accurately than healthy individuals, who tend to be overly optimistic. To test this, the researchers wanted to see how people predict everyday life events and how they adjust those expectations when real life proves them wrong.</p>
<p>“We know that depression involves a generally pessimistic outlook on life. Previous research has shown that people with high depressive symptoms tend to underestimate the likelihood of positive outcomes in their lives,” said study author Joe Maffly-Kipp, a postdoctoral fellow in <a href="https://u.osu.edu/fourniermindlab/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the Mood & Individual Differences Lab (MIND Lab)</a> at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.</p>
<p>“However, less is known about how symptoms of depression are related to ‘learning from experience.’ For example, if someone thinks that a positive outcome is unlikely, but then it keeps happening, do they then predict that it is more likely to happen again in the future? Uncovering how learning works in depression is important for understanding how/why people develop depression and stay depressed, and may help to inform future treatments.”</p>
<p>The scientists focused on commonplace occurrences, like having a conflict with a partner or receiving a gift, because these routine experiences are highly relevant to daily moods. By tracking how people update their beliefs over time based on actual experiences, the scientists hoped to uncover the mechanisms that keep people stuck in a depressed state.</p>
<p>The scientists recruited 372 adult participants through an online platform. The sample was specifically chosen to include people with either highly elevated depressive symptoms or very low depressive symptoms. Participants completed a survey where they evaluated a list of 40 common life events.</p>
<p>Half of these events were positive, like taking a leisure trip, and half were negative, like getting a headache. For each event, participants estimated the percentage chance that it would happen to them in the upcoming month. At the same time, the participants reported whether each of those exact events had happened to them over the previous month.</p>
<p>The researchers contacted the participants again one month and two months later to repeat the exact same survey. This setup gave the scientists three separate time points to observe how initial predictions matched reality. It allowed them to measure how expectations shifted after participants saw what actually happened in their lives.</p>
<p>The findings indicate that depression is strongly linked to expecting and experiencing fewer desirable outcomes. People with high levels of depression displayed a clear pessimistic bias, specifically regarding positive events. They consistently predicted that positive events were less likely to happen than they actually were.</p>
<p>People with low depression levels showed an optimistic bias by overestimating how often good things would happen. This pattern supports the idea that depression involves an active distortion of reality toward the negative, rather than a purely realistic outlook. The scientists also found that higher depression levels were associated with less accurate predictions about negative events, regardless of whether the specific guess leaned positive or negative.</p>
<p>When looking at how people changed their minds over time, the researchers noticed an unexpected pattern. Participants with elevated depression were actually more likely to adjust their predictions about positive events based on real-world feedback. If a positive event occurred, they readily updated their expectations for the following month to be more optimistic.</p>
<p>However, this newfound optimism tended to be incredibly fragile. By the third month of the study, people with high depression were highly likely to reverse their optimistic updates, dropping their expectations back down. Their beliefs about positive events essentially bounced back and forth in a pattern of oscillation.</p>
<p>In contrast, when these individuals updated their beliefs about negative events, those updated expectations became deeply entrenched. They were much less likely to reverse their predictions about negative events later on. This suggests that people with depression might overvalue internal negative thoughts and too quickly discard external positive evidence.</p>
<p>“Overall, our findings support the idea that people with depression are more pessimistic, and their beliefs about negative events may be harder to shift,” Maffly-Kipp told PsyPost. “Beliefs about positive events might be more volatile, which could contribute to cycles of hope and disappointment in depression.”</p>
<p>The findings cast doubt on the theory that depressed individuals tend to have more realistic expectations. “While our work did show that the least depressed people were overly-optimistic, we also showed that people high in depression were pessimistic ‘by definition,'” Maffly-Kipp explained. “In other words, they predicted positive outcomes as being less likely than how often those events actually occurred in the next month, on average. This suggests that depression is associated with unrealistically negative expectations about one’s life.”</p>
<p>The study does have some limitations, such as relying entirely on self-reported surveys and using artificial numerical percentages to measure complex human expectations. Asking people to assign a specific probability to a life event is not perfectly natural and might change how they normally process their daily outlook.</p>
<p>Looking ahead, the scientists hope to examine how to help individuals hold onto positive expectation changes.</p>
<p>“We hope to better understand what allows for true, stable learning in depressed populations,” Maffly-Kipp said. “Many therapies for depression depend on the idea that we can help people to build more optimistic ways of thinking about themselves and the world. Our work suggests that this learning process may be more complex than it seems, and these updated ways of thinking may not last over time. By understanding what helps positive changes last, and who is most likely to maintain them, we may be able to improve therapy and help people recover more effectively.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2026.104959" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Learning from experience: Depressive bias and updating beliefs about common life events</a>,” was authored by Joseph Maffly-Kipp, Daniel R. Strunk, Robert J. Zhou, and Jay C. Fournier.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/women-experience-greater-jealousy-when-their-romantic-rivals-have-highly-feminine-faces/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Women experience greater jealousy when their romantic rivals have highly feminine faces</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Mar 25th 2026, 18:00</div>
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<p><p>A study published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-27643-0"><em>Scientific Reports</em></a> found that heterosexual women report greater jealousy when imagining women with more feminine faces flirting with their romantic partner. This pattern was also present in lesbian participants, though the strength of the association was significantly weaker.</p>
<p>Facial femininity is the degree to which a person’s facial features display traits that are typically associated with female faces. These traits include larger eyes, fuller lips, a smaller jaw and chin, higher eyebrows, and smoother facial contours. Facial femininity is influenced by biological factors such as sex hormones, especially estrogen, during development.</p>
<p>Researchers most often study facial femininity in the context of evolutionary psychology and social perception. In general, women with feminine faces tend to be perceived as more attractive, more youthful, and healthier. Studies have also indicated that facial femininity can influence social judgments—women with highly feminine faces tend to be perceived as warmer, kinder, and more trustworthy.</p>
<p>Study author Junzhi Dong and his colleagues note that evolutionary theory suggests individuals displaying cues of higher “mate value” (e.g., those who are physically more attractive) represent a greater threat to romantic relationships and, consequently, elicit greater jealousy.</p>
<p>While previous studies have shown that feminine rivals trigger higher jealousy, those older studies often relied on computer-manipulated face images and forced-choice tasks. Critics argue this method lacks “ecological validity” because it does not reflect how we view real, unedited people in the real world. With this in mind, the researchers conducted a new study to see if the jealousy effect holds true when women view natural, unmanipulated photographs of potential rivals.</p>
<p>Study participants included 51 heterosexual women and 49 lesbian women from the U.K., with an average age of 28 to 29 years. They were shown a sequence of 50 natural pictures of white female faces with neutral expressions and asked: “Imagine this person was flirting with your romantic partner (if you do not currently have a romantic partner, imagine that you do have one). How jealous would you be?” The women provided their answers on a 1–7 scale ranging from “not very jealous” to “very jealous.”</p>
<p>To ensure accuracy, the study authors used two different methods to determine how feminine the 50 faces actually were. First, they used statistical software (the facefuns package in R) to map facial landmarks and produce a purely objective, mathematical measure of face-shape femininity. Second, they had a separate group of 30 heterosexual and 30 lesbian women rate the subjective femininity of the faces.</p>
<p>Both measurements yielded the same results: heterosexual women reported significantly greater jealousy when imagining more feminine women flirting with their romantic partner. This same pattern was observed in lesbian women, but the strength of the association was weaker.</p>
<p>The researchers suggest this weaker correlation may reflect the fact that the lesbian dating pool features a wider variety of attractiveness preferences (e.g., the butch/femme dynamic), whereas heterosexual men are more universally drawn to highly feminine female traits, making a feminine rival a more uniform threat to straight women.</p>
<p>“Collectively, these results present further evidence that facial femininity of potential rivals influences women’s reported jealousy, particularly in heterosexual women, and is further evidence for the proposal that putative markers of the mate value of rivals play a role in women’s jealousy,” the study authors concluded.</p>
<p>The study confirms that past findings regarding facial femininity and jealousy were not simply a byproduct of manipulated photos. However, the study does have limitations. It was conducted on a relatively small group of English-speaking women from the U.K., and all 50 photos used in the experiment featured white women. Additionally, bisexual and pansexual women were excluded. The authors note that findings in other cultures, across different sexual orientations, or with more diverse image sets might yield different results.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-27643-0">Facial femininity of potential rivals predicts jealousy in both heterosexual and lesbian women,</a>” was authored by Junzhi Dong, Benedict C. Jones, Esperanza Miyake, and Victor K. M. Shiramizu.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/how-empathy-and-race-shape-american-attitudes-toward-refugees-2026-03-19/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">How empathy and race shape American attitudes toward refugees</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Mar 25th 2026, 16:00</div>
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<p><p>Global refugee crises often spark varying levels of public sympathy, with some displaced groups receiving warmer welcomes than others. A recent psychological study found that while a general sense of empathy strongly drives public support for all refugees, the race of the displaced individuals can sway the opinions of white Americans who otherwise exhibit low empathy. The research was published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/rep.2025.35">The Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics</a>.</em></p>
<p>People fleeing conflict or persecution rely on host countries to supply a safe harbor. Refugees differ from voluntary economic immigrants because they are forced to flee their homes to escape violence. Because their movement is humanitarian, host populations typically view them with less economic suspicion than undocumented immigrants. Still, public warmth toward displacement communities remains uneven.</p>
<p>Political scientists Hannah L. Paul of the University of Missouri and Courtney J. Nava of Grinnell College wanted to understand the psychological roots of these disparities. They suspected that racial dynamics might condition the way Americans feel about incoming populations. Existing research shows that reading about the hardships of immigrants can boost inclusive attitudes, but little was known about how an individual’s daily empathy intersects with the perceived race of a displaced person.</p>
<p>Paul and Nava proposed a concept called racialized empathy. Empathy is simply the capacity to understand and share the feelings of another person. Because empathy requires mental and emotional energy, humans subconsciously regulate how much of it they extend to outside groups. Empathizing with others is an exhausting cognitive task, and people often find it psychologically easier to relate to those who share their own social or racial background.</p>
<p>The researchers theorized that this shared identity might elevate a person’s willingness to accept specific refugee groups. To test this idea, they designed a web-based experiment. They recruited over 2,600 participants from across the United States. Half of these respondents self-identified as Black, and the other half self-identified as white.</p>
<p>The study specifically focused on Black and white populations to explore deeply rooted American political categories. Participants of mixed racial backgrounds or Hispanic heritage were excluded to cleanly isolate specific, long-standing historical dynamics. Once enrolled, the respondents read a standard, diplomatic definition of the word refugee.</p>
<p>Alongside this text, each participant viewed a photograph of a young woman with a blurred background. By random chance, half of the respondents saw a picture of a white woman from Ukraine. The remaining participants saw a picture of a Black woman from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The images were chosen because the women appeared similar in age and facial expression.</p>
<p>After viewing the profile, respondents answered a series of statements designed to measure their baseline empathy toward displaced people. Empathy generally contains two functional parts. The first aspect involves perspective taking, which means mentally stepping into someone else’s shoes. The second aspect involves emotional concern, which translates to feeling protective or softhearted toward a vulnerable group.</p>
<p>Participants then answered questions to map their actual policy attitudes concerning refugee resettlement. They were asked if they viewed these groups as an economic threat to American society. They also rated their willingness to take direct action, such as donating money or calling their elected representatives to support migration policies.</p>
<p>The researchers converted the answers into a standardized score. They found that a mild increase in generalized empathy pushed public support up heavily on their designated scale. This internal psychological trait completely overpowered traditional demographic indicators like age and education level.</p>
<p>The strongest factor predicting approval of refugees turned out to be the respondent’s underlying capacity for empathy. For both Black and white test subjects, people who scored high on the general empathy scale were highly supportive of refugee resettlement. For these highly empathetic individuals, the race of the woman pictured in the photograph did not matter.</p>
<p>Race did affect attitudes in certain subsets of the population, however. For white respondents who possessed low baseline empathy, the racial cues shifted their policy preferences. Low-empathy white participants reported distinctly lower support for refugees after seeing the photograph of the Black woman compared to those who viewed the white woman.</p>
<p>For Black respondents, the race shown in the photograph did not alter their final answers. Across the board, Black participants showed generally high support for all refugees, regardless of whether the woman pictured was Black or white. A slight preference for the Black refugee was observed among Black participants, but this bump in support was not statistically significant.</p>
<p>The researchers note that this specific finding aligns with distinct cultural and political frameworks. For white Americans, public opinion on immigration is heavily influenced by racial viewpoints. For Black Americans, these specific attitudes are often guided by a broader sense of solidarity with marginalized groups. A fear of being historically marginalized in society leads many Black voters to view humanitarian issues through an egalitarian lens.</p>
<p>Paul and Nava also measured the concept of linked fate among the participants. Linked fate describes a belief that a person’s individual success is directly tied to the success of their broader racial group within the country. For white respondents, a strong sense of a linked fate actually curbed their support for refugees.</p>
<p>The relationship reversed for Black participants. Black respondents who strongly felt their fate was tied to other Black Americans were highly supportive of refugee groups. The researchers suggested this means public opinion regarding displaced populations hinges heavily on an individual’s placement within societal hierarchies.</p>
<p>The study also examined the role of political party affiliation. The researchers wanted to know if identifying as a Republican or a Democrat predicts a person’s underlying empathy. They found that Republicans generally expressed much less empathy for refugees and much less support for their resettlement than Democrats.</p>
<p>The political divide directly shaped policy attitudes entirely on its own. While identifying as a Republican was associated with lower measurable empathy, that reduction only explained a small fraction of the total partisan gap. The direct association between being a Republican and opposing refugee resettlement was quite large.</p>
<p>The authors acknowledge a few limitations regarding their experimental design. The study only examined Black and white racial identities, leaving out many other global ethnic backgrounds. The research also captured public opinion at a single moment in time, meaning the results represent a specific snapshot of the current political climate.</p>
<p>Additionally, the researchers only utilized pictures of female refugees. Photographs of women typically elicit less perceived threat from the general public than photographs of men. Using images of men might have reduced the baseline sympathy levels of the respondents and altered the final data.</p>
<p>Future research could explore how these empathy boundaries shift during major international conflicts. The social categories that define who belongs in an accepted group are constantly evolving. As different migration crises dominate global news cycles, the psychological energy required to empathize with foreign populations may continue to fluctuate.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/rep.2025.35">Racialized Empathy and Attitudes Toward Refugees in the United States</a>,” was authored by Hannah L. Paul and Courtney J. Nava.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/the-adolescent-mental-health-gap-is-widening-in-progressive-countries-2026-03-19/" 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 mental health gap between teen boys and girls is growing in progressive nations</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Mar 25th 2026, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>Over the past two decades, psychological distress has risen among teens worldwide, particularly in adolescent girls. A recent study published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.14081">Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry</a></em> reveals that the gap in mental health between boys and girls has paradoxically widened more in countries with higher levels of gender equality. Researchers linked this widening divide to an increase in academic pressure and a dual burden of expectations placed on young women.</p>
<p>Adolescence is a sensitive period of brain development and social growth. Mental health struggles that begin during these formative years often persist into adulthood. Across the globe, mental health indicators for teens have been declining since the early 2000s. Girls tend to report higher rates of what psychologists call internalizing symptoms. These encompass subjective experiences like feelings of intense sadness, irritability, nervousness, and sleep disruption.</p>
<p>The disparity in symptom prevalence between boys and girls is known as the gender gap in mental health. Sociologists and public health experts have sought to understand why the size of this gap varies so much from one country to another. Cultural context plays a major role in how adolescents experience stress. National policies and social attitudes create the environment in which teenagers shape their identities and gauge their self-worth.</p>
<p>Some theories proposed that greater national gender equality would protect girls. In this view, equal societies reduce discrimination and loosen restrictive gender norms, leading to better well-being for young women. Other theoretical frameworks suggested that living in progressive societies might inadvertently create an exhausting dual expectation. In this scenario, girls are pressured to excel academically and professionally while still facing traditional demands regarding emotional availability and physical appearance.</p>
<p>Lead researcher Margreet E. de Looze of Utrecht University in the Netherlands and her colleagues wanted to investigate these competing ideas. The research team included academics from across Europe, Canada, and Israel. They sought to determine if the mental health gap grew faster in more equal societies over time. They also wanted to know whether changes in specific daily stressors could explain the worsening trends.</p>
<p>To answer these questions, the research team analyzed data from a large international survey called the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study. This effort included responses from more than 1.2 million adolescents aged eleven to fifteen across forty-three countries. Surveys were administered in classrooms every four years between 2002 and 2022. The team measured how often students experienced symptoms of distress over a six-month period.</p>
<p>The team paired the student survey results with the United Nations Gender Inequality Index. This index ranks countries based on factors like reproductive health, women’s empowerment, and participation in the labor market. The researchers accounted for national wealth so economic differences would not skew the results. They also tracked students’ self-reported feelings of schoolwork pressure, body dissatisfaction, and perceived support from classmates.</p>
<p>The survey data showed that psychological symptoms increased for both boys and girls worldwide over the twenty-year period. However, the mental health divide between the sexes grew much faster in nations with high gender equality. In 2002, girls in more equal countries reported lower symptom levels than their peers in less equal nations. By 2022, that advantage had completely disappeared.</p>
<p>To understand why this shift occurred, the researchers looked at the specific educational and social pressures the students faced. They discovered that schoolwork pressure intensified for girls at a much higher rate in countries with strong gender equality. While boys also reported more academic stress, the increase for them was less pronounced. Over the same two decades, the sense of social support from classmates declined more sharply for girls in highly equal nations.</p>
<p>The researchers suggest that the steep rise in academic pressure for adolescent girls partly explains the widening gap in psychological symptoms. In the early 2000s, young women may have benefited from the optimism and expanded opportunities that came with structural gender equality. Over time, that initial boost may have been replaced by the realities of intense competition and perfectionism. Girls today might feel an overwhelming pressure to succeed in every area of life without making mistakes.</p>
<p>The association between gender equality and worsening mental health for girls does not imply that progressive policies are harmful. The authors emphasize that the results highlight how societies may have only achieved partial equality. Young women are still navigating modern academic demands alongside lingering traditional ideals. Young people today may also be highly aware of the ongoing discrimination women face, leading to frustration with the slow pace of cultural change.</p>
<p>Another potential explanation involves broader societal trends that parallel the push for equality. Between 2002 and 2022, many progressive countries have become increasingly competitive and individualistic. Digital media use has also skyrocketed during this timeframe. Adolescents might feel increasingly solely responsible for their own failures in environments that prize individual academic and professional achievement above community well-being.</p>
<p>The study relies on observational data, meaning the researchers cannot prove that gender equality directly dictates mental health outcomes. Societal shifts that often accompany gender equality in wealthy nations could be acting as hidden variables. For example, countries highly ranked for gender equality might also place more cultural emphasis on individual meritocracy. Due to limited data availability across all the represented countries, the researchers could not measure these elements directly.</p>
<p>The scope of the survey also involved several other limitations. The survey’s measure of body dissatisfaction was limited to feelings about being too fat or too thin. This narrow definition may not capture the muscularity dietary concerns that are increasingly prominent among adolescent boys. The data collection also relied on a basic binary measure of gender. This approach does not reflect the experiences of gender nonconforming youth or adolescents whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth.</p>
<p>The demographic data also lacked variables related to race and ethnicity. Minority status relates closely to psychological well-being, especially considering the intense social and health challenges of the recent pandemic years. Incorporating more diverse demographic information could provide a much clearer picture of who is suffering the most under these societal pressures.</p>
<p>Future research should explore how modern cultural pressures affect specific communities. By identifying the exact sources of stress for young women, policymakers and school administrators might design better support systems for adolescent well-being. The findings suggest that true gender equality requires a culture where the burdens and expectations of daily life are genuinely shared. Providing equal opportunities in education and the workplace is only the first step in protecting young minds.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.14081">Exploring mechanisms behind the increasing gender gap in adolescent psychological symptoms, 2002–2022: the role of national-level gender equality</a>,” was authored by Margreet E. de Looze, Alina Cosma, Frank J. Elgar, Karen Schrijvers, Jo Inchley, Sophie D. Walsh, and Gonneke W. J. M. Stevens.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/expanding-high-speed-rail-systems-provides-unexpected-cognitive-benefits-for-aging-populations/" 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;">Expanding high-speed rail systems provides unexpected cognitive benefits for aging populations</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Mar 25th 2026, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118624" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Social Science & Medicine</a></em> provides evidence that access to high-speed rail networks can significantly improve the cognitive health of middle-aged and older adults. The findings suggest that large-scale transportation infrastructure acts as an unexpected tool for public health, offering mental well-being benefits alongside pure economic efficiency. By reducing depression, lowering air pollution, and boosting personal income, high-speed trains appear to offer a unique pathway to healthier aging.</p>
<p>As populations age globally, cognitive decline has become a major public health challenge. Diminishing mental abilities not only impact a person’s daily life but also place a heavy financial and logistical burden on healthcare systems. Scientists have extensively studied individual factors that protect the aging brain, such as social engagement, high education levels, and routine physical activity.</p>
<p>Environmental elements like fine particulate air pollution and access to public green spaces also play a recognized role in brain health. Yet, the impact of transportation infrastructure on cognitive aging has received little attention in the scientific community. High-speed rail networks transform how people travel, making it easier to visit distant family members, access specialized medical care, and find new economic opportunities.</p>
<p>China began a massive expansion of its high-speed rail network in 2010. This rapid development, combined with the country’s aging demographic, offered scientists a unique opportunity to test whether modern transportation systems influence the cognitive health of older citizens. The researchers wanted to see if the ability to travel faster and farther could protect the aging brain from decline.</p>
<p>“While high-speed rail (HSR) has expanded rapidly across countries like Germany, France, Japan, and especially China, most existing research focuses on its economic impact,” said study author <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/xu-zong-972544344/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Xu Zong</a>, a researcher at the Max Planck – University of Helsinki Center for Social Inequalities in Population Health in Finland.</p>
<p>“We noticed a unique intersection: China’s HSR network grew from 118 km in 2008 to 42,000 km in 2023, while its aging population (those 65+) rose from 8.3% to over 15% in that same window. This created a ‘natural experiment’ that allowed us to examine how modern infrastructure affects cognitive health on a massive scale.”</p>
<p>To explore this relationship, the scientists analyzed data from a national health survey conducted between 2011 and 2018. They tracked 11,572 adults aged 45 and older, observing changes in their cognitive health as high-speed rail services opened in their cities. The research team measured global cognition by combining scores from two specific mental performance tests.</p>
<p>The first test measured episodic memory, which involves recalling a list of ten distinct words immediately and then again after a short delay. The second test measured mental intactness, which requires participants to perform tasks like subtracting the number seven sequentially from one hundred, drawing a specific picture, and correctly stating the current year, month, and day. To ensure accuracy when analyzing this complex data, the scientists used a sophisticated statistical technique called double machine learning.</p>
<p>Machine learning involves training computer algorithms to recognize intricate patterns in massive sets of data. By using this advanced method, the researchers could account for a huge number of outside variables, such as childhood health, parental education history, family structure, and baseline physical mobility. The algorithms were tested multiple times to verify that the identified patterns were real, an approach that helps isolate the specific impact of the new train lines from other life events.</p>
<p>To further ensure their findings were accurate, the scientists looked at geographical data like land elevation and historical railway maps from 1933. These geographical and historical factors influenced where modern trains were built but had no direct effect on modern brain health. By using these environmental variables as mathematical anchors, the researchers could confidently link changes in cognitive health directly to the new train lines.</p>
<p>The results showed that the introduction of high-speed rail services improved global cognition scores among the participants. Specifically, the trains boosted mental intactness, though they did not show a measurable impact on episodic memory. Episodic memory decline is often more permanent, so while improved transportation might protect it from worsening, it tends to be harder to improve once lost.</p>
<p>The scientists also found that the trains improved brain health through three specific pathways. First, high-speed rail reduced local fine particulate air pollution by taking conventional polluting vehicles off the road. Breathing cleaner air prevents inflammation in the brain and nervous system, which directly supports healthier cognitive aging over time.</p>
<p>Second, the improved economic connectivity increased individual earnings, providing older adults with better financial resources for healthy living. Finally, the expanded travel options reduced depressive symptoms, likely by cutting down on social isolation. The scientists noted that simply having the option to travel easily tends to alleviate psychological stressors and keeps the mind active.</p>
<p>“I was surprised by the ‘multi-channel’ effect,” Zong told PsyPost. “It wasn’t just one factor; HSR improves cognitive health by simultaneously reducing air pollution, increasing incomes, and lowering depression levels.</p>
<p>The benefits of the high-speed rail network were not distributed equally among all demographic groups. The cognitive improvements were particularly strong for women, who generally experience higher rates of depression and cognitive decline due to longer life expectancies. Urban residents and individuals between the ages of 60 and 74 also saw massive benefits, as retirement often gives this specific age group the free time needed to actually take advantage of new travel options.</p>
<p>The trains also had a complex effect on social inequality. The new transportation narrowed the cognitive health gap between people with different education levels, heavily benefiting those with elementary or middle school educations. Highly educated people already have strong cognitive reserves, so the new train lines gave them less room to improve compared to those with basic education.</p>
<p>At the same time, the infrastructure widened the gap between rural and urban residents. Urban populations saw much larger overall cognitive benefits than rural individuals, who often faced higher ticket prices. However, the researchers did note that the trains helped rural residents access better medical treatment in distant cities, offering a small but meaningful lifeline for isolated populations.</p>
<p>“We also uncovered a ‘dual effect’ on inequality,” Zong said. “HSR narrowed the cognitive health gap between people with different education levels, but it actually widened the gap between rural and urban residents. This highlights that while infrastructure can empower disadvantaged groups, it must be designed inclusively to ensure rural populations aren’t left behind.”</p>
<p>“High-speed rail is more than just a faster way to travel; it is a tool for public health. We found that HSR access helps improve cognitive health, by reducing depression. By making it easier to travel and visit friends or family, HSR may reduce social isolation. Our findings suggest that when governments plan large-scale infrastructure, they should consider the ‘health dividends’—such as improved mental well-being—alongside economic efficiency.”</p>
<p>While the study provides robust evidence, the scientists noted a few limitations to consider. The cognitive health data relied on self-reported survey responses and basic memory tasks, which can be more subjective than formal clinical assessments in a hospital. The dataset also lacked specific measurements for long-distance social interactions, meaning the researchers could only estimate how often participants actually used the trains to visit distant friends.</p>
<p>Additionally, the findings are specific to the unique, rapid expansion of China’s railway network. These exact figures might not apply perfectly to countries with mature, slower-growing transit systems like those in Japan or France. Rural residents might also be permanently priced out of the benefits if governments do not plan inclusive policies, as high-speed train tickets cost more than traditional travel options. Future research will need to validate these findings in other aging populations, particularly in Europe.</p>
<p>“We hope to validate these findings in other regions, such as Germany or Spain, where the population is aging even more rapidly,” Zong said. “We want to understand if the ‘mobility-cognitive health’ link holds true in different cultural and geographic contexts, particularly where the urgency for healthy aging solutions is at its peak.”</p>
<p>“Our findings are particularly timely for Europe. With the EU’s new High-Speed Rail Network Blueprint aiming to link all capitals by 2040, there is a massive opportunity to integrate health into transport policy. As the EU’s 65+ population is projected to reach 30% by 2050, we believe that ‘health-inclusive mobility’ is essential. Healthy aging isn’t just about medicine; it’s about how we move and stay connected. The brain ages within a social and environmental context, and a train ticket can be a prescription for a more connected, cognitively active life.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118624" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Railways to better minds – The influence of high-speed rail on cognitive health inequalities</a>,” was authored by Xu Zong, Mingming Guan, Ye Zhang, and Guowei Dong.</p></p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
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