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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/belief-in-the-harmfulness-of-speech-is-linked-to-both-progressive-ideology-and-symptoms-of-depression/" 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;">Belief in the harmfulness of speech is linked to both progressive ideology and symptoms of depression</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 1st 2026, 10:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2026.113785" target="_blank">Personality and Individual Differences</a></em> suggests that people who believe words can cause lasting psychological damage tend to experience worse mental health. The findings provide evidence that this specific belief is measurable and stable over time. This research helps explain modern cultural divides surrounding free speech, safe spaces, and political correctness.</p>
<p>The researchers conducted this work because public debates often center on whether certain speech is merely offensive or truly damaging to a person’s well-being. These disagreements influence policies on college campuses and in workplaces regarding things like trigger warnings or restricted language. </p>
<p>“People disagree about whether words can cause lasting psychological harm. Some argue that speech can be violent or traumatizing. Others argue that expanding the concept of harm to offensive or controversial speech coddles people and discourages open discourse,” explained study author <a href="https://sam-pratt.owlstown.net/" target="_blank">Sam Pratt</a>, a PhD student at the University of California, Los Angeles.</p>
<p>“Where you stand on this likely determines your stance on other issues, like whether instructors should provide trigger warnings in the classroom, whether social media sites should regulate what their users can say, and whether schools should ever ban students from reading certain books.”</p>
<p>“To study the belief that words can harm, we need a good way of measuring it. So we created the Words Can Harm Scale (WCHS), a 10-item measure of the belief that words can cause lasting psychological harm.”</p>
<p>The research team recruited 956 adults living in the United States through an online platform called Prolific. This group was stratified to reflect the national population in terms of age, sex, and race to ensure the findings were representative of the country. The participants had a mean age of approximately 46 years and were almost evenly split between males and females.</p>
<p>Participants completed the Words Can Harm Scale, where they rated their agreement with statements about the power of language. For example, one item asked if a person could be left emotionally scarred by something they read, while another focused on whether vulnerable people should be protected from certain speech. Each response was provided on a sliding scale from one to one hundred, with higher numbers indicating stronger agreement that words cause lasting harm.</p>
<p>Two weeks after the first survey, 756 of the original participants returned to take the test a second time. This follow up allowed the researchers to check if the participants’ beliefs remained stable over a short period. The results suggest that the scale is a reliable tool, as the scores from the first and second tests were very similar.</p>
<p>The study provides evidence that people higher in the belief that words can harm tend to have certain demographic characteristics. These individuals are often younger, female, and from non-White backgrounds. Black participants in the study scored higher on the scale than White or Asian participants did.</p>
<p>Political leanings also show a strong relationship with these beliefs about language. People who identified as liberal or as members of the Democratic party were more likely to endorse the idea that speech is harmful. This connection suggests that progressives may see language as being closely tied to power structures and social justice.</p>
<p>One of the most notable findings involved attitudes toward restricting speech in public and educational settings. There was a strong link between high scores on the scale and support for top down censorship. People who believed words are harmful were much more likely to agree that the government should shut down websites that promote hateful positions.</p>
<p>Individuals who scored high on the Words Can Harm Scale also expressed more support for the use of trigger warnings and the creation of safe spaces in classrooms. The data indicate a correlation between believing words are harmful and the belief in the importance of silencing others. This suggests that the perception of harm is a central driver in modern debates about free speech and censorship.</p>
<p>“Most of the correlations we observed were small to medium in size,” Pratt told PsyPost. “However, the WCHS had a notably strong relationship (a correlation of r = 0.52) with support for top-down censorship – the endorsement of using institutional power to suppress problematic speech.”</p>
<p>“This is a large effect, meaning that people who believed more strongly that words can harm were much more likely to agree with statements like ‘classroom discussions should be safe places that protect students from disturbing ideas’ and ‘I am in favor of allowing the government to shut down right-wing internet sites and blogs that promote nutty, hateful positions.'”</p>
<p>The researchers also examined how these beliefs relate to personality traits and social motivations. People with higher scores on the scale rated themselves as being more empathic and agreeable toward others. At the same time, they were more likely to engage in moral grandstanding, which involves sharing moral beliefs to gain social status.</p>
<p>The study also provides evidence of a link between these beliefs and a person’s sense of victimhood. Individuals who scored high on the scale tended to see themselves as victims in their daily interactions more often than others did. They also reported lower levels of emotional stability, which is a personality trait related to how people handle stress.</p>
<p>The findings regarding mental health were consistent across several different measures used in the study. People with higher beliefs in the harmfulness of words reported higher levels of both anxiety and depression over the previous two weeks. They also described themselves as being less resilient, meaning they felt less able to recover from stressful events.</p>
<p>The researchers used specific screening tools for clinical symptoms, such as the Patient Health Questionnaire and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder scale. Participants who met the criteria for moderately severe depression scored about seven points higher on the scale than those who did not. Similarly, those with moderate or severe anxiety scored significantly higher than those with minimal symptoms.</p>
<p>The data also suggest that people who believe words can harm are more sensitive to the physical symptoms of anxiety. This is a concept known as anxiety sensitivity, where a person fears the experience of feeling anxious. These individuals also viewed themselves and other people as being more vulnerable to experiencing post traumatic stress disorder after a difficult event.</p>
<p>Difficulties in managing emotions were also associated with higher scores on the scale. People who agreed that words cause lasting damage often reported that they struggled to regulate their feelings when they were upset. These correlations suggest that a person’s belief about the danger of words is closely tied to their overall psychological well-being.</p>
<p>As with all research, there are some caveats to consider. “Our study was correlational, so we can’t make claims about causality,” Pratt noted. “For example, we know that the WCHS is associated with worse mental health, but we don’t yet know why.”</p>
<p>In other words, the study does not show whether believing words are harmful causes poor mental health or if poor mental health causes people to view words as more dangerous.</p>
<p>“One possibility is that people who are more often targeted by negative speech – like women and racial minorities – develop a belief that words can harm from firsthand experience,” Pratt explained. “A second possibility is that believing words can harm causes worse mental health, for example by leading people to interpret speech more negatively. Or both could be true: experiencing negative speech leads people to believe words can harm, which in turn worsens their mental health.”</p>
<p>Future research would need to follow people over many years to see how these beliefs develop and change. The researchers also noted that people might sometimes answer survey questions in a way that makes them look good to others. This is known as socially desirable responding, and it could potentially influence how people report their beliefs about empathy or harm.</p>
<p>There are also questions about whether these beliefs are becoming more common because of cultural shifts. Some experts suggest that younger generations are more sensitive to harm due to changes in parenting or the influence of social media. The small negative correlation between age and scale scores provides some support for the idea that younger people hold these views more strongly.</p>
<p>“One natural question is: where does the belief that words can harm come from?” Pratt said. “Is this a new belief that emerged from younger generations who champion political correctness? Or has everyone in society gradually come to believe that words can harm over time? Or have people always held this belief, and it’s only now generating political discussion?” </p>
<p>“Answering these questions will require tracking how beliefs about the harmfulness of words have changed across generations and over time, which is exactly the type of research that the WCHS was designed to help with.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2026.113785" target="_blank">The words can harm scale: Measuring beliefs about harmful speech</a>,” was authored by Samuel Pratt, Payton J. Jones, Benjamin W. Bellet, Richard J. McNally, and Kurt Gray.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/better-parent-child-communication-is-linked-to-stronger-soft-skills-and-emotional-stability-in-teens/" 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;">Better parent-child communication is linked to stronger soft skills and emotional stability in teens</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 1st 2026, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>An analysis of the China Education Panel Survey (2014-2015) data found that better parent-child communication is associated with stronger non-cognitive abilities in adolescents. The link was found to be both direct and achieved indirectly—better parent-child communication increases the social support available to children, which makes them more physically active, which in turn boosts their non-cognitive skills. The paper was published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0338946"><em>PLOS One</em></a>.</p>
<p>Non-cognitive abilities are a broad set of psychological traits that are not directly related to intellectual capacity (like IQ) but strongly influence behavior, motivation, and life outcomes. These abilities include characteristics such as self-control, perseverance (grit), emotional regulation, and social skills. During adolescence, these traits are still developing and are particularly sensitive to environmental influences such as family, school, and peer relationships.</p>
<p>Self-regulation allows adolescents to manage impulses and delay gratification, which is crucial for academic and social success. Emotional stability helps them cope with stress, peer pressure, and identity-related challenges typical of this developmental stage. Social competencies, such as empathy and communication skills, facilitate the formation of friendships and integration into social groups. Motivation and goal orientation influence how adolescents approach learning and long-term planning. Ultimately, non-cognitive abilities are strong predictors of outcomes like educational attainment, employment, and mental health, sometimes even beyond traditional measures of intelligence.</p>
<p>Study author Minghan Cai and his colleagues wanted to investigate the relationship between parent-child communication and the non-cognitive abilities of adolescents. Additionally, they wanted to explore the possible psychological mechanisms underlying this link.</p>
<p>The study authors analyzed data from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS). This survey recruits middle school students, their parents, teachers, and school administrators, using complex sampling techniques to produce a sample that is as representative of the general population as possible. The data used in this study came from 5,055 eighth-grade students (approximately 14 years old) who completed a follow-up survey during the 2014-2015 academic year.</p>
<p>The study authors used information on the participants’ Big Five personality traits (Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Openness, Extraversion, and Conscientiousness), the quality of parent-child communication (measured by the frequency of parents actively discussing topics with their children, such as “what happened at school” or “your relationship with friends”), social support (e.g., “Most of my classmates are friendly towards me”), and physical exercise (total weekly exercise duration). The authors then used the data on the Big Five personality traits to create an integrated index measuring overall non-cognitive abilities.</p>
<p>The results showed that children reporting better parent-child communication tended to report higher levels of social support, slightly more physical exercise, and significantly better non-cognitive abilities.</p>
<p>The researchers then tested a statistical model proposing that parent-child communication affects non-cognitive abilities by triggering a “chain reaction” of better social support and more physical exercise. The results showed that this indirect chain effect is indeed real: good communication at home makes a teenager feel more supported socially; feeling supported makes the teen more likely to participate in physical exercise; and regular physical exercise builds character and emotional regulation, ultimately boosting their non-cognitive abilities.</p>
<p>However, this chain reaction did not fully explain the association between non-cognitive abilities and parent-child communication, as a strong direct association also remained. Simply talking to a teenager directly improves their character and emotional stability.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the researchers found that the benefits of parent-child communication were stronger for urban teenagers than for rural teenagers. They suggest this may be due to the dual urban-rural societal structure in China, where urban parents often have higher educational levels and spend more time with their children, whereas rural parents frequently migrate for work or adhere to more traditional, less communicative parenting styles. They also found the effect was stronger for only children compared to children with siblings, likely because parents in single-child households can dedicate their undivided time, energy, and resources to fostering close communication.</p>
<p>“The findings reveal that regular parent-child communication substantially boosts adolescents’ non-cognitive abilities, with social support and physical exercise serving as independent and joint mediators in this relationship, forming a chain mediation effect,” the study authors concluded. “It is recommended that parents strengthen communication with their adolescent children through various methods, focusing on effective communication styles and techniques to enhance the quality of parent-child interactions.”</p>
<p>The study sheds light on the psychological importance of parent-child communication. However, it should be noted that relying on self-reported data from adolescents regarding their own personality traits and exercise habits leaves room for measurement bias. Furthermore, because the data is cross-sectional (taken from a single point in time in 2014-2015), the design of the study does not allow for definitive causal inferences to be derived from the results.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0338946">The association between parent-child communication and adolescents’ non-cognitive abilities: An examination of the chain mediating effect,</a>” was authored by Minghan Cai, Huijie Guo, Dailong Fang, Yao Zheng, Weifeng Guo, Zhengmei Lin, and Zhiqiang Zheng.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/men-who-favor-the-tradwife-lifestyle-often-view-the-women-in-it-with-derision/" 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;">Men who favor the tradwife lifestyle often view the women in it with derision</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 1st 2026, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/03616843261433199" target="_blank">Psychology of Women Quarterly</a></em> suggests that young men who favor the internet subculture known as the tradwife movement tend to hold hostile and patronizing sexist attitudes. The findings provide evidence that the appeal of this lifestyle for men is rooted in a desire for traditional power dynamics rather than a simple preference for a stay-at-home partner.</p>
<p>The term tradwife is a combination of the words traditional and wife. It refers to an internet subculture made up of women who promote a return to traditional gender roles. These women often use platforms like TikTok and Instagram to share videos of themselves cooking from scratch, cleaning, and caring for children.</p>
<p>The subculture relies heavily on a nostalgic aesthetic that glorifies the 1950s American suburbs. Women in these videos are often seen wearing vintage dresses, aprons, and high heels while performing domestic labor. The movement partly emerged as a response against the modern girlboss culture that encourages women to prioritize corporate careers and individual wealth.</p>
<p>The lifestyle centers on the idea that women should focus entirely on homemaking while submitting to their husbands. In this dynamic, the husband acts as the sole financial provider and the primary decision maker in the family. Women who identify with this subculture often reject the idea of working outside the home.</p>
<p>“The overarching goal of this research was to better understand how men perceive the #tradwife movement. Although the traditional homemaker/breadwinner lifestyle is nothing new, social media influencers who identify as tradwives have popularized this lifestyle anew by sharing idealized images of their homemaker role that invoke a sense of simplicity and nostalgia,” said study author <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=S1JQciwAAAAJ&hl=en" target="_blank">Rachael Robnett</a>, director of the Women’s Research Institute of Nevada and professor of psychology at <a href="https://robnett.faculty.unlv.edu/" target="_blank">the University of Nevada, Las Vegas</a>.</p>
<p>“Tradwives also emphasize the importance of submitting to their husbands, with some even deciding to avoid leaving the home unless their husbands escort them. Only a few previous studies have focused on the #tradwife movement. Of these studies, all focus on women who identify as tradwives.” </p>
<p>“To date, research has not examined men’s attitudes about the #tradwife movement, which is surprising considering that the husband’s financial support is a necessary component of women’s ability to live the tradwife lifestyle. Because tradwives yield substantial personal and financial autonomy to their husbands, it is crucial to better understand what types of men are drawn to the tradwife lifestyle.”</p>
<p>The researchers recruited a sample of 595 young men living in the United States. The participants ranged in age from 18 to 29 and were recruited through an online survey platform. They represented a diverse mix of racial backgrounds, including White, Black, and Hispanic or Latino individuals.</p>
<p>The men completed an anonymous online survey that measured their familiarity with the tradwife movement. To ensure everyone was on the same page, the survey provided a standard definition of a tradwife before asking opinions. Participants then answered 12 questions designed to measure how favorably they viewed the lifestyle and the women who adopt it.</p>
<p>The researchers also measured the participants’ levels of hostile sexism and benevolent sexism. Hostile sexism refers to openly negative feelings toward women, such as the belief that women try to control men. Benevolent sexism is a more subtle, patronizing form of sexism that frames women as pure creatures who need men to protect and provide for them.</p>
<p>Benevolent sexism is broken down into three separate parts. The first part is protective paternalism, which is the belief that men should shield and financially support women. The second part is complementary gender differentiation, which suggests men and women have distinct natural traits suited for different roles. The third is heterosexual intimacy, which is the idea that a man is incomplete without a romantic relationship with a woman.</p>
<p>The survey also included a single open-ended question. This question asked the men to explain why they thought the tradwife lifestyle was appealing to some couples. The research team read through these written responses to identify common themes in how the men reasoned about the movement.</p>
<p>When looking at the data, the scientists found that about 31 percent of the men were already familiar with the tradwife movement. Most of these men had learned about it through social media. White men were more likely to be familiar with the movement than Black or Hispanic men, which aligns with the heavy focus on White aesthetics within the subculture.</p>
<p>Unexpectedly, men who identified as Christian or Republican were less familiar with the subculture than other participants. The scientists suspect this might be due to social media algorithms. Tradwife content is primarily targeted at audiences of women, meaning it might not frequently appear on the digital feeds of conservative men.</p>
<p>When examining what drives a man’s approval of the movement, the researchers made an unexpected discovery. They originally predicted that protective paternalism would be the strongest predictor of favorable attitudes. They based this on the idea that the tradwife lifestyle emphasizes a man’s role as a provider and protector.</p>
<p>The data did not support this expectation. Instead, hostile sexism emerged as the strongest predictor of whether a man liked the tradwife movement. Men who scored high in openly resentful attitudes toward women tended to view the tradwife lifestyle very positively.</p>
<p>“We expected protective paternalism to play a central role in explaining why some men perceive the #tradwife movement positively,” Robnett told PsyPost. “We were taken aback to discover that it was instead men’s overt sexism that played the most important role in their attitudes about the tradwife movement.”</p>
<p>Heterosexual intimacy was the only part of benevolent sexism that predicted favorable views of tradwives. Men who believed they needed a woman to feel complete were more likely to support the movement. General religious devotion, being married, and having a higher level of education also predicted more positive attitudes toward the subculture.</p>
<p>“Although hostile sexism was the strongest predictor in our statistical model, our findings also showed that men tend to perceive the #tradwife movement favorably when they believe that intimacy (both physical and emotional) is a necessity for men that only women can provide,” Robnett explained.</p>
<p>“Together, these findings indicate that men who perceive the #tradwife movement favorably believe that they rely on women for intimacy and simultaneously resent that this is the case. This mentality could put tradwives in a precarious position considering the amount of control–both financial and otherwise–that they yield to their husbands.”</p>
<p>The written responses provided deeper context for these statistical patterns. Many men wrote that the tradwife lifestyle offers a sense of fulfillment and purpose through traditional roles. These participants often suggested that women are naturally predisposed to caregiving and homemaking.</p>
<p>Other men noted that having strictly separated roles makes running a household much easier. They liked the straightforward nature of the husband working and the wife managing the home. A smaller group of men liked the lifestyle because it allows for traditional power dynamics, explicitly mentioning a desire for submissive women.</p>
<p>A final theme that emerged from the written responses focused on the trendy nature of the movement. A small number of men recognized that the lifestyle is heavily driven by internet algorithms and a desire for social media views. These participants viewed the movement as a glorified aesthetic rather than a practical way of living.</p>
<p>Some of the written responses revealed a darker, more derisive view of the women in the movement. These men suggested that the tradwife lifestyle is simply an easy out for women who want to avoid the hardships of a real job. They described women who choose this path as lazy people who just want to stay home and do nothing.</p>
<p>The researchers note that these findings include some exploratory evidence of racial differences. For instance, the belief that men are incomplete without women did not predict tradwife approval among Black participants. Because this specific analysis was exploratory, scientists need to conduct more studies to confirm and fully understand these differences.</p>
<p>Another limitation is that the sample consisted of men aged 18 to 29, meaning the results might not apply to older generations. The study also looked at men in general rather than specifically focusing on men who are currently in tradwife marriages. Men who are actively living this lifestyle might show different psychological patterns than those who just observe it online.</p>
<p>“That said, the findings nonetheless provide new insight into the traits and belief systems that might lead men to seek out the tradwife lifestyle in their current or future relationships,” Robnett told PsyPost.</p>
<p>“The link between men’s hostile sexism and their tradwife attitudes was moderate in its statistical magnitude even after taking into account a range of control variables that included demographic background, political affiliation, religiosity, and other forms of sexism. Thus, the link between men’s higher hostile sexism and their more positive attitudes about the #tradwife movement appears to be fairly robust.” </p>
<p>“It also merits noting that the sample included 595 men from a wide range of sociopolitical backgrounds. The large sample size and sample diversity were intentional methodological choices we made to help enhance our confidence in the findings and their generalizability.” </p>
<p>In the future, the research team plans to explore whether there is a connection between the tradwife movement and the manosphere. The manosphere is a collection of online communities that promote masculinity and anti-feminist ideas. </p>
<p>“Our next step is to examine whether there is crossover between the manosphere and the #tradwife movement,” Robnett said. “Specific communities within the manosphere advocate for a return to traditional gender roles in a manner that parallels messaging in the #tradwife movement; however, it is not clear whether these communities (i.e., manosphere and tradwife) are directly engaging with one another. It is possible that these are two largely separate communities that are both shaped by the same sociopolitical forces.”</p>
<p>“In the social sciences, there is a burgeoning interest in understanding how strict gender-role adherence can create challenges for men,” she added. “For example, economic trends indicate that it is increasingly difficult to support a family on a single income.” </p>
<p>“Accordingly, men in tradwife marriages who enact the breadwinner role may find themselves under significant pressure. Although we do not equate the challenges that women and men encounter in tradwife marriages, we do want to emphasize that gender-role norms that put men in positions of power (be it in relationships or in society) can come with downsides for men’s wellbeing.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/03616843261433199" target="_blank">Ambivalent Sexism Theory as a Framework for Understanding Men’s Attitudes About the #Tradwife Movement</a>,” was authored by Rachael D. Robnett and Matthew D. Hammond.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/a-diet-based-on-ultra-processed-foods-impairs-metabolic-and-reproductive-health-study-finds/" 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 diet based on ultra-processed foods impairs metabolic and reproductive health, study finds</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Mar 31st 2026, 16:00</div>
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<p><p>An experimental study looking into the health effects of a 3-week ultra-processed food diet found that such a diet impairs both metabolic and reproductive health compared to a diet based on unprocessed foods. The adverse effects of the ultra-processed food diet were independent of total caloric intake. The paper was published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2025.08.004"><em>Cell Metabolism</em></a>.</p>
<p>Ultra-processed foods are industrial formulations made mostly from refined ingredients and additives rather than whole foods. In the NOVA food classification system, they are the most heavily processed category of foods.</p>
<p>Ultra-processed foods typically contain substances such as refined sugars, hydrogenated oils, starches, and protein isolates. They also include additives like preservatives, flavor enhancers, artificial colors, and emulsifiers designed to improve taste and shelf life. Common examples are packaged snacks, sugary drinks, instant noodles, processed meats, and ready-to-eat meals.</p>
<p>Ultra-processed foods are usually convenient, highly palatable, and aggressively marketed. They tend to have high energy density and low nutritional quality, with limited fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Studies report that individuals consuming high amounts of these foods are at an increased risk of obesity, cardiovascular disease, and metabolic disorders. Some authors even propose that a diet based on ultra-processed foods can lead to a health condition referred to as food addiction.</p>
<p>Study author Jessica M. Preston and her colleagues wanted to compare the effects of an ultra-processed food diet with an unprocessed food diet on metabolic and male reproductive health. They conducted an experimental crossover study in which 43 healthy young men (aged 20 to 35) followed prescribed diets.</p>
<p>All participants followed each of the two diets for a period of 3 weeks. One group started with the ultra-processed diet and then switched to the unprocessed diet, while the other group started with the unprocessed diet and switched to the ultra-processed diet. Study authors included a 12-week washout period between the two diets to allow any residual effects to dissipate before the participants started their second diet.</p>
<p>To isolate the effects of calories versus food quality, half of the participants received diets with an adequate number of calories to maintain their weight, while the other half consumed diets with an excessive number of calories (an extra 500 calories per day).</p>
<p>The two diets were strictly matched to have similar amounts of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. However, the ultra-processed food diet was designed to reflect a typical Western diet. Compared to the unprocessed diet, it contained elevated levels of saturated fats, cholesterol, refined grains, added sugars, and dairy products, and lower amounts of fiber. In the ultra-processed diet, 77% of calories were derived from ultra-processed foods, while this was under 1% in the unprocessed food diet. Study authors supplied all food to the participants during the study periods.</p>
<p>Study participants visited the center 7 times: once for an eligibility assessment, twice before starting the diets, twice after the diets, and twice during the washout period. During each pre- and post-diet visit, participants completed surveys, underwent body and vital sign measurements, completed dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scans, and provided blood and semen samples.</p>
<p>Results showed that even when calories were strictly controlled, participants weighed 1.3 to 1.4 kilograms more after the ultra-processed food diet than after the unprocessed food diet. More specifically, participants’ lean muscle mass did not change significantly between the two conditions, but they accumulated approximately 1 kg more fat mass after the ultra-processed food diet.</p>
<p>The ultra-processed food diet also triggered adverse changes in metabolic health indicators. Total cholesterol was higher, and the ratio of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) to high-density lipoprotein (HDL) increased, though this was primarily seen in the adequate calorie group. In the excessive calorie group, the ultra-processed food diet was linked to increased diastolic blood pressure.</p>
<p>Crucially, the diet also negatively impacted male reproductive health. The ultra-processed food diet was followed by a decrease in follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) levels in the excess calorie group, and a trend toward decreased circulating testosterone in the adequate calorie group. Sperm quality was also affected, with a trend toward decreased total sperm motility observed in participants in the excess calorie group after the ultra-processed diet.</p>
<p>Because ultra-processed foods are heavily industrially processed and packaged, the researchers also tested participants for chemical pollutants. They found a trend of higher levels of cxMINP, a chemical compound linked to phthalates (plasticizers), in the participants’ blood after the ultra-processed diet. Additionally, the ultra-processed diet was associated with lower levels of lithium in the blood—a mineral important for mood regulation—and a corresponding trend toward increased depression scores in the adequate calorie group.</p>
<p>“In conclusion, our results demonstrate that consumption of UPF itself, irrespective of excess caloric intake, is detrimental to human health,” the study authors wrote. “Moving dietary patterns away from UPF and toward less-processed alternatives may promote cardiometabolic and mental health, along with amelioration of male reproductive fitness.”</p>
<p>The study contributes heavily to the scientific understanding of the health effects of ultra-processed food consumption, proving that the negative impacts go far beyond simple overeating. However, it should be noted that while the study authors provided food for participants, information about their actual adherence to the diets (and whether they ate outside food) was based on self-reporting, leaving room for reporting bias. Additionally, the 3-week duration of the diets was relatively short, and the study only examined healthy, young men, meaning the results may differ for women, older adults, or individuals with pre-existing obesity.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2025.08.004">Effect of ultra-processed food consumption on male reproductive and metabolic health,</a>” was authored by Jessica M. Preston, Jo Iversen, Antonia Hufnagel, Line Hjort, Jodie Taylor, Clara Sanchez, Victoria George, Ann N. Hansen, Lars Ängquist, Susan Hermann, Jeffrey M. Craig, Signe Torekov, Christian Lindh, Karin S. Hougaard, Marcelo A. Nóbrega, Stephen J. Simpson, and Romain Barrès.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/psychologists-identify-nine-core-habits-associated-with-healthy-non-monogamous-partnerships/" 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;">Psychologists identify nine core habits associated with healthy non-monogamous partnerships</a>
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<p><p>A recent study published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-025-03334-9" target="_blank">Archives of Sexual Behavior</a></em> suggests that people who maintain multiple romantic or sexual relationships use specific communication and boundary-setting practices to keep their partnerships healthy. The research provides evidence that openly discussing jealousy, sharing resources, and managing sexual health tends to improve relationship satisfaction for both non-monogamous and monogamous couples.</p>
<p>Consensual non-monogamy involves having more than one romantic or sexual partner at the same time with the informed consent of everyone involved. This includes relationship styles like polyamory, open relationships, and swinging. </p>
<p>The research team, a large international group of relationship scientists and therapists, conducted the new study to investigate how some individuals successfully manage the complicated dynamics of having multiple partners. They wanted to identify the specific habits that reduce conflict and build trust when more than one partner is in the picture. The goal was to create a psychological questionnaire that measures these relationship maintenance habits accurately.</p>
<p>“Early in my career, I developed an interest in <em>how</em> people in consensually non-monogamous (CNM) relationships make multiple relationships work. My personal experiences, and my training within the evolutionary social sciences, led me to believe that humans are well-designed for monogamy and experience less satisfaction and more conflict when non-monogamous,” said study author <a href="https://substack.com/@justinmogilski" target="_blank">Justin K. Mogilski</a>, an associate professor of psychology at the University of South Carolina Salkehatchie.</p>
<p>“We experience jealousy when valued relationships are threatened, we engage in mate guarding behavior to prevent a partner from having sex or forming a loving relationship with other people, and we are competitive for access to intimate partners. Nevertheless, I’d read about and met people who reported success, happiness, and low levels of conflict within CNM relationships. So, I wanted to know what people were doing to circumvent the discord that people can experience when they or their partner(s) form multiple relationships.”</p>
<p>The research team conducted their investigation in two main phases. In the first phase, they recruited 429 participants with experience in consensual non-monogamy through social media and personal networks. These participants answered open-ended questions about the challenges of having multiple partners, such as managing jealousy or sharing finances. They then nominated the most effective and least effective ways to resolve those specific issues.</p>
<p>Four independent reviewers sorted these responses into categories based on common themes. This process helped the researchers identify ten core habits that people use to maintain harmony across multiple relationships. Based on these categories, the team drafted a thirty-question survey designed to measure how often individuals use these specific communication and boundary-setting strategies in their daily lives.</p>
<p>“We started with an evolutionary framework and predicted that whatever people were doing in these relationships <em>must</em> at least partially resolve the adaptive challenges that people face when courting multiple partners, such as the risk of mate poaching or partner resource diversion, STI and pregnancy risk, childcare and provisioning, reputational damage, or zero-sum rivalry,” Mogilski explained. “We then crowdsourced the ‘best’ practices for having a CNM relationship from people with experience in these relationships, turned these into a questionnaire that measures how often people engage in each practice (i.e., the Multiple Relationships Maintenance Scale; MRMS).”</p>
<p>In the second phase, the researchers administered this new survey to a massive international sample to test its accuracy and reliability. The survey was translated into multiple languages, including Portuguese, Italian, Polish, and Finnish. They collected data from 4,290 participants, analyzing their responses to refine the survey into a final twenty-four-question tool. To do this, they used a mathematical process called factor analysis, which groups similar survey responses together to reveal underlying behavioral trends.</p>
<p>The researchers also tested the survey across different demographics to ensure it worked universally. They confirmed that the questionnaire was accurate across men and women, single and multi-partnered people, North Americans and Europeans, and individuals older and younger than forty.</p>
<p>The final survey measured nine distinct relationship habits. These included disclosing attractions to others, regulating jealousy, showing a willingness to share childcare responsibilities, and experiencing compersion. Compersion is the feeling of joy or satisfaction a person experiences when their partner is romantically or sexually involved with someone else. </p>
<p>Other habits measured by the survey included sharing extra sexual experiences, creating a hierarchy of partners, being thoughtful about resource distribution, maintaining sexual health, and managing one’s reputation by hiding relationships.</p>
<p>A smaller group of 871 participants from the main sample completed additional questionnaires about their relationship intimacy, passion, and commitment. The researchers compared the survey scores between people who practice consensual non-monogamy and those who practice monogamy. They found that people in non-monogamous relationships were more likely to disclose outside attractions, regulate jealousy, experience compersion, share sexual experiences, focus on sexual health, and manage their reputations by hiding their relationships.</p>
<p>People in monogamous relationships reported higher levels of partner hierarchy and greater willingness to care for a partner’s children. Partner hierarchy refers to giving one specific partner, such as a spouse, more influence over major life decisions than other partners. The researchers did not find a statistically significant difference between the two groups regarding how thoughtfully they distributed material resources like food and money.</p>
<p>The researchers also looked at differences within non-monogamous groups. Individuals in swinging relationships reported the highest levels of shared sexual experiences and the most willingness to care for a partner’s children. People in polyamorous relationships reported the highest focus on sexual health maintenance and the lowest levels of partner hierarchy. Those in open relationships reported the lowest levels of compersion and the least thoughtfulness about sharing resources.</p>
<p>Experience levels also played a role in how people managed their partnerships. Having more experience with non-monogamy was linked to more frequent disclosure of attractions, better jealousy regulation, and more shared sexual experiences. Having more experience with monogamy was associated with less disclosure of outside attractions, less compersion, and fewer shared sexual experiences.</p>
<p>The study provides evidence that engaging in these communication and boundary-setting habits tends to predict higher relationship quality across both monogamous and non-monogamous groups. Practices like regulating jealousy and sharing extra sexual experiences were linked to higher satisfaction, commitment, and love across almost all measures. People who scored high on these habits also reported that their interactions with others felt less like cheating, which suggests that setting clear expectations prevents feelings of betrayal.</p>
<p>“We identified nine relationship maintenance practices that were more common to CNM relationships, and we demonstrated that people who engage in these practices – whether monogamous or CNM – report higher relationship quality,” Mogilski told PsyPost. “We also separately assessed how often people engage in infidelity (i.e., they have interactions with other people that they knowingly keep secret from a current partner).” </p>
<p>“People who reported more infidelity reported engaging in the MRMS practices less often, and had lower relationship quality. To us, this suggests that there are different ways of having multiple partners, and an approach that involves dishonesty, deception, or broken relationship agreements (e.g., infidelity) appears to be worse for relationship quality compared to when partners are thoughtful about the challenges of having multiple partners and then coordinate openly and honestly to resolve them (e.g., CNM).”</p>
<p>Sharing resources and childcare duties requires explicit negotiation in non-monogamous relationships. The researchers found that explicit thoughtfulness about sharing resources and childcare strongly predicted higher relationship investment quality for non-monogamous individuals compared to monogamous ones. Openly discussing how time and money will be divided seems to clarify expectations and provide a sense of security.</p>
<p>However, not all communication habits improved every aspect of a relationship. Disclosing outside attractions, expressing a willingness to share childcare, maintaining a partner hierarchy, and sharing resources were linked to more trust and relationship investment. These specific practices did not, however, relate to higher sexual satisfaction or passion.</p>
<p>Other habits showed surprisingly weak or specific links to relationship quality. Compersion was only weakly connected to overall relationship satisfaction and trust. A focus on sexual health maintenance was only associated with current relationship investment in a first partner, rather than general relationship quality across all partners.</p>
<p>“The practices that we identified sometimes did <em>not</em> have a clear or expected association with relationship quality,” Mogilski said. “For example, among people in CNM relationships, there is disagreement about whether it is better to be hierarchical (e.g., some partners are considered “primary” compared to others) or non-hierarchical (e.g., you do not give some partners greater priority than others). We found that people who reported more hierarchy tended to report better relationship quality. Likewise, experiences like ‘compersion,’ where you feel joy or gratitude for your partner’s other relationships, had weak or no association with relationship quality.”</p>
<p>As with all research, there are some caveats to consider. The data is observational and collected at a single point in time, meaning it cannot prove cause and effect. It is possible that these communication habits lead to better relationships, but it is also possible that people in already healthy relationships are simply more willing to communicate openly with their partners.</p>
<p>“We did not use an experimental design,” Mogilski said. “This means that we don’t know that engaging in these CNM practices <em>causes</em> a change in relationship quality. Therefore, readers should not confidently assume that adopting these behaviors will improve their success in a CNM relationship.”</p>
<p>Additionally, some of the specific habits measured by the survey showed low statistical reliability. This suggests that the questions measuring habits like resource distribution or sexual health maintenance may need further refinement to capture these behaviors perfectly. </p>
<p>“The next step is to further validate the MRMS as a tool for assessing how people in CNM relationships manage their relationships,” Mogilski explained. “Right now, research comparing monogamous and CNM relationships does so by comparing people with different relationship identity labels (e.g., do you label yourself as ‘monogamous’ or ‘polyamorous’?). Instead, I believe that researchers should be comparing what people actually <em>do</em> in these relationships; not just what they say they are doing.” </p>
<p>“A tool like the MRMS allows social scientists to quantify or measure people’s behaviors or relationship habits, which I hope will make it key to advancing this area of social science. But most importantly, the next step is to design an intervention based on the MRMS that can be experimentally administered to people who are having difficulty with CNM. This study design will test whether the MRMS practices cause improved relationship quality, or whether they are associated with higher relationship quality for some other reason.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-025-03334-9" target="_blank">How Do People Maintain Consensual Non-Monogamy? An International Development and Validation of the Multiple Relationships Maintenance Scale</a>,” was authored by Justin K. Mogilski, Geoffrey F. Miller, Peter K. Jonason, Katarzyna Grunt-Mejer, Jaroslava Varella Valentova, Rhonda Balzarini, David L. Rodrigues, Elisabeth Sheff, Laith Al-Shawaf, Zsófia Csajbók, Andrew G. Thomas, Tamas David-Barrett, Cezar Giosan, Daniel J. Kruger, David J. Ley, Justin J. Lehmiller, Heath A. Schechinger, Amy C. Moors, Stefano Ciaffoni, Leif Edward Ottesen Kennair, Stephen Whyte, Zuzana Štěrbová, Klára Bártová, Ryan G. Witherspoon, Magdalena Żemojtel-Piotrowska, Pavol Prokop, Virgil Zeigler-Hill, David P. Schmitt, Adil S. Sarıbay, Magdalena Lipnicka, Ivana Goláňová, Ezra Hampikian, William Costello, Limor Gottlieb, Cory J. Cascalheira, and Michelle A. Larva.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/childhood-trauma-linked-to-elevated-risk-of-simultaneous-physical-and-mental-ill/" 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;">Childhood trauma linked to elevated risk of simultaneous physical and mental illness in old age</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Mar 31st 2026, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>Individuals who endured difficult and traumatic experiences during their very early years face an elevated risk of developing simultaneous physical and mental health conditions in later life. A recent observational study tracked thousands of middle-aged and older adults over several years, finding that childhood adversity strongly predicts the later coexistence of chronic physical diseases and clinical depression. The research, which offers new insights into how early life trauma shapes long-term human health, was published in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2026.121169">Journal of Affective Disorders</a>.</p>
<p>Adverse childhood experiences encompass a wide variety of severe hardships that happen before a person reaches adulthood. These traumatic events include direct harm like physical abuse, emotional violence, continuous bullying, and general parental neglect. The concept also covers broader household dysfunctions, such as witnessing domestic violence, living with a family member who has a severe mental illness, or enduring extreme poverty and parental loss. Health researchers study how these early hardships shape human biology and behavior over an entire lifetime, seeking to understand the long shadows cast by early trauma as a person physically ages.</p>
<p>Medical professionals increasingly recognize a specific health pattern where patients suffer from both a psychological disorder and a chronic physical illness simultaneously, presenting intense challenges for healthcare systems. People facing both depression and an illness like diabetes or heart disease often experience worse clinical outcomes than those with only one condition. They frequently have a harder time adhering to medical treatments and face much higher medical costs over time. This combined health toll often speeds up cognitive decline and increases general mortality risk across aging populations.</p>
<p>Past research has frequently linked isolated childhood hardships to adult health problems, but most of these investigations looked at physical ailments and mental health struggles entirely separately. Earlier investigations also typically relied on single snapshots in time, making it exceedingly difficult to establish the exact sequence of events leading to illness. Xing He, a researcher at the Institute of Population Research at Peking University in Beijing, led a new investigation to track how these dual conditions actually develop over time. He and his colleagues sought to map out the specific developmental pathways connecting a difficult childhood to combined health struggles in older age.</p>
<p>To test their ideas systematically, the researchers analyzed information drawn from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study. This massive, ongoing project collects extensive health, economic, and socioeconomic data from adults scattered across China. The nationally representative survey includes people from diverse backgrounds, covering rural villages and major urban centers across various income brackets. This enormous sample cohort provides an opportunity to study aging in a middle-income country where instances of early trauma are relatively high. </p>
<p>The research team selected 4,015 individual participants who were entirely free of combined physical and mental conditions when the initial baseline study began in 2011. All designated participants were aged 45 and older. The investigators assessed these individuals through continuous follow-up surveys conducted in the years 2013, 2015, and 2018. During a separate, dedicated survey wave in 2014, the participants answered highly detailed questions regarding their personal early life histories. </p>
<p>The researchers used a standard international framework covering 20 distinct indicators to categorize the participants based entirely on how much severe childhood adversity they had experienced. All participants were divided into three distinct groups based on the sheer volume of early hardship they reported to surveyors. The first group served as a stable baseline, consisting of people who recalled zero adverse events during their upbringing. The second group consisted of individuals who reported enduring between one and three distinct types of childhood adversity. </p>
<p>A final group included people designated with high exposure, which researchers defined as having faced four or more different types of early hardships before reaching the age of adulthood. The researchers tracked the changing health of these participants continuously throughout the multi-year study period. They evaluated psychological health using a standardized screening questionnaire specifically designed to detect depressive symptoms. Physical health was measured by the onset of any of 14 separate chronic diseases, including high blood pressure, asthma, liver disease, arthritis, kidney disease, and cancer. </p>
<p>A participant was formally classified as having the combined condition if they showed clinical symptoms of depression and also reported a newly diagnosed physical disease during the exact same follow-up period. The overall prevalence of early hardship within the study group was unusually high. More than 85 percent of the participants reported experiencing at least one adverse childhood event, a rate notably higher than typical figures gathered in Western nations. Over the course of the tracking period, slightly more than 42 percent of the study participants ultimately developed the combined psychological and physical condition. </p>
<p>The rate of onset varied noticeably depending directly on the severity of a participant’s early life challenges, with approximately 33 percent of people with no childhood adversity eventually developing the dual conditions. In sharp contrast, nearly 53 percent of the people in the high-exposure group eventually developed both clinical depression and a severe chronic physical illness. The researchers calculated the specific numerical risk increases after adjusting for variables like age, sex, education level, geographic residence, and health behaviors like drinking and smoking. They found a clear proportional relationship, often called a dose-response relationship, between early hardship and later illness in the statistical data. </p>
<p>Participants who endured one to three childhood hardships faced a 20 percent higher risk of developing the combined conditions compared to the baseline tracking group. Individuals who endured four or more hardships faced a massive 56 percent higher proportional risk. The analytical data also revealed distinct differences between men and women regarding long-term health outcomes. Women who endured similar levels of childhood adversity experienced substantially higher risks of developing the combined conditions than their male counterparts. </p>
<p>Both interpersonal traumas, such as domestic violence, and non-interpersonal traumas, such as parental loss, played a part in producing this gender disparity. The research team suggested this risk gap might reflect biological differences in how the female body reacts to chronic stress over decades. They added that cultural and social expectations placed heavily on women might also factor into this heightened physical vulnerability. To understand exactly how early life events lead directly to late-life illness, the scientists mapped out the developmental pathways involved. </p>
<p>They looked at whether a person developed just depression or just a physical disease first, before eventually acquiring the combined condition. They found that the early adult onset of either depression or a chronic disease often functioned as a primary stepping stone. A difficult childhood first contributed to an isolated health issue. That initial issue then increased the statistical likelihood that the patient would experience a broader, multi-system health crisis further down the line. </p>
<p>For the study participants with low exposure to childhood hardship, chronic physical diseases acted as the central stepping stone moving toward the combined condition. For individuals with high exposure, early depressive symptoms played a much more prominent role in accelerating the eventual onset of a separate physical illness. The researchers explained that early trauma can fundamentally disrupt human biology by altering the central nervous system’s built-in stress regulation mechanisms. This constant bodily state of heightened biological stress can promote systemic inflammation and disrupt immune responses, gradually wearing down both mental and physical health.</p>
<p>The research team verified their statistical math using a battery of alternative tests to confirm their primary results. They checked whether rare physical diseases were skewing the observational data, confirming that they were not. They also treated the count of adverse childhood events as a continuous flowing number rather than separating them into rigid categories. This specific testing approach revealed that the risk of health problems remains relatively flat at very low levels of adversity, but accelerates sharply upward once an individual reaches the specific threshold of four or more adverse events.</p>
<p>While the study relied on a large and representative national sample, the researchers noted multiple limitations regarding their chosen methodology. The primary data on childhood adversity came entirely from participants recalling traumatic events from several decades ago. Retrospective self-reporting can sometimes introduce accidental memory errors or lead to the intentional underreporting of deeply traumatic personal events. The team also lacked access to any reliable information regarding specific medical, psychological, or pharmacological treatments the participants might have received during their early adulthood years. </p>
<p>Additionally, the observational study only measured psychological health in terms of clinical depressive symptoms. The researchers pointed out that childhood adversity can also increase adult vulnerability to a host of other mental health conditions, such as anxiety disorders or long-term trauma-related symptoms. Future scientific studies will need to incorporate these other psychological issues to fully understand how early hardship affects aging populations on a global scale. Future clinical research might also examine whether early interventions, strong social support networks, and community medical programs can successfully break the cycle of escalating multimorbidity before it begins.</p>
<p>Medical systems usually treat physical ailments and mental health issues in completely separate departments using different medical specialists. By identifying exactly how combined conditions emerge together over time, the scientists hope their work will encourage a more unified and holistic approach to early patient care. Doctors screening patients for common chronic diseases might greatly benefit from incorporating standard questions about early life history and current emotional well-being. Identifying vulnerable older adults and offering targeted preventative psychiatric care could reduce the intense physical, emotional, and financial burden placed on aging populations globally.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2026.121169" target="_blank">The long-term impact of adverse childhood experiences on later-life physical and psychological multimorbidity: A prospective cohort study of middle-aged and older adults in China</a>,” was authored by Xing He, Mingxing Wang, Yushan Du, Ziyi Ye, Ying Yang, and Chao Guo.</p></p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
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