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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/how-loneliness-and-the-desire-for-status-fuel-online-shopping-addiction-2026-03-20/" 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 unexpected link between loneliness, status, and shopping habits</a>
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<p><p>Feelings of social isolation can drive people to purchase items to soothe their emotions, a habit that often evolves into buying flashy goods for social validation and ultimately spirals into online shopping addiction. New research published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01639625.2025.2608885">Deviant Behavior</a></em> outlines this exact psychological sequence. The authors map how a private attempt to heal emotional pain transforms into a public display of status that reinforces compulsive buying.</p>
<p>Online shopping has become deeply integrated into daily life globally, but its convenience brings negative behavioral impacts. Core among these is online shopping addiction, a condition characterized by uncontrollable purchasing that damages an individual’s financial and psychological health. Understanding how this addiction develops is a major priority for behavioral scientists.</p>
<p>Online shopping addiction is a condition defined by a strong, persistent craving to make purchases despite negative consequences. Psychologists evaluate this condition through a multi-component model. This includes salience, where shopping dominates a person’s thoughts, alongside emotional withdrawal symptoms when the activity is stopped. It also involves tolerance, meaning the buyer needs to spend increasing amounts of money to achieve the same emotional relief. </p>
<p>To understand the root of this behavioral escalation, psychologists often look at loneliness. Loneliness is an unpleasant psychological state that occurs when a person feels their social connections are lacking in quantity or quality. To cope with this social deficit, people often engage in compensatory consumption. This coping strategy involves buying things to patch an internal emotional void.</p>
<p>This behavior is rooted in psychological frameworks like compensatory control theory, which suggests that people use consumption to regain mastery over their lives when they feel powerless. Another related framework is symbolic self-completion. When an individual’s self-esteem or sense of competence is threatened, they often purchase symbolic goods to artificially mend that threatened self-concept.</p>
<p>While compensatory shopping aims to fix an internal problem, loneliness is fundamentally tied to a lack of social interaction. This means internal coping strategies alone often fail to resolve the core issue. Individuals eventually seek external feedback, such as attention or recognition from others, to feel a true sense of belonging.</p>
<p>This search for external validation leads to conspicuous consumption. It is the practice of purchasing and displaying luxury goods or status-symbolizing products to publicly signal wealth and social standing. In modern digital environments, social media and algorithm-driven e-commerce platforms provide a massive, highly visible stage for this behavior.</p>
<p>Kai-En Hung, a researcher at the National Pingtung University of Science and Technology in Taiwan, led a team to investigate how these distinct behaviors connect. Hung and his colleagues suspected that the digital landscape amplifies a person’s desire for belonging. They wanted to test whether loneliness creates a progressive chain reaction, moving from private emotional compensation to public display, before settling into a rigid addiction.</p>
<p>The research team surveyed 364 adults in Taiwan who had shopped online within the previous three months. Participants answered a series of standardized questions designed to measure their subjective feelings of emotional isolation.</p>
<p>The participants ranged from 19 to 60 years old to capture different generational experiences with digital commerce. The largest group in the sample consisted of millennial adults. As digital natives balancing substantial life stress and identity challenges, millennials provide an incredibly relevant window into using the internet for emotional therapy.</p>
<p>The survey evaluated their purchasing habits using several specialized scales. It measured compensatory tendencies by asking if participants felt they would be happier or more fulfilled if they could buy more things. It evaluated conspicuous behavior by asking if they bought products specifically to show friends or peers that they were wealthy. </p>
<p>Finally, a separate addiction scale probed for deep-seated behavioral issues. The questions checked for persistent, uncontrollable thoughts about shopping and unsuccessful attempts to cut back on digital spending. They also looked for feelings of severe frustration when participants were unable to buy things, serving as a measure of psychological withdrawal.</p>
<p>To process the survey data, the team used path analysis. This is a statistical technique that evaluates potential direct and indirect relationships between multiple variables. By applying this method, the researchers could test whether one type of shopping behavior chronologically precedes another in the pathway from initial loneliness to eventual addiction.</p>
<p>The results revealed a clear sequential progression. First, loneliness strongly predicts compensatory consumption. People who feel socially isolated have a marked tendency to try and fix their inner void by acquiring material goods.</p>
<p>Second, this internal coping mechanism externalizes as consumers seek deeper validation. The data showed that compensatory purchasing habits heavily predict conspicuous consumption. Following a psychological evolution, individuals shift from buying items to feel better internally to buying items that show others they are doing well.</p>
<p>Finally, this combined behavioral sequence acts as a robust predictor of online shopping addiction. The progression from internal compensation to external display forms a complete psychological cycle. When individuals continuously rely on this loop, their routine becomes erratic and escalates into an uncontrollable habit.</p>
<p>A notable detail from the dataset involves the direct relationship between loneliness and addiction. Once the intermediate habits of compensation and status-seeking were accounted for in the statistical model, the direct link between loneliness and online shopping addiction was not statistically significant.</p>
<p>This statistical detail indicates that loneliness does not automatically result in impulsive or addictive buying on its own. Instead, the emotional deficit must channel through a specific process of psychological compensation. It is only when people attempt to broadcast that compensation for social status that the risk of addiction peaks.</p>
<p>The authors noted several limitations in their work. Because the study relied on cross-sectional survey data taken at a single point in time, the results highlight strong statistical trends but cannot strictly prove a long-term cause-and-effect relationship. Longitudinal studies, which track the same individuals over many years, would be needed to confirm absolute causality.</p>
<p>The survey sample was also limited to Taiwanese consumers. Because cultural contexts heavily influence consumer habits and the perception of social status, the psychological pathways observed might differ in other societies. The researchers suggest that future studies should conduct cross-cultural comparisons.</p>
<p>Additionally, the survey treated all digital commerce as a single, uniform category. However, different digital environments offer varying levels of social interaction. Live shopping streams, for instance, create a social atmosphere with real-time comments and a unique sense of urgency.</p>
<p>The researchers propose that future investigations should analyze specific types of platforms. Online auctions and secondhand luxury markets might alter how people seek psychological compensation and social status. Studying these distinct formats could reveal if specific digital architectures pose a higher risk for addiction.</p>
<p>To better understand individual motivations, the authors recommend combining traditional surveys with narrative prompts in future assessments. These prompts would present varied scenarios, allowing participants to explain exactly why they choose shopping over other coping mechanisms when feeling isolated.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01639625.2025.2608885" target="_blank">Lonely Hearts Craving Fulfillment and Recognition: The Dual Role of Compensatory and Conspicuous Consumption in Online Shopping Addiction</a>,” was authored by Kai-En Hung, Jia-Wei Liu, Shu-Yi Liaw, and Chien-Po Liao.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/scientists-uncover-the-neurological-mechanisms-behind-cannabis-induced-munchies/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Scientists uncover the neurological mechanisms behind cannabis-induced “munchies”</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 10th 2026, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study provides evidence that the intense hunger following cannabis use is a neurological response that increases the motivation to eat, regardless of a body’s actual need for calories. These findings suggest that cannabis could serve as a medical tool to stimulate appetite in individuals experiencing weight loss from chronic illnesses. The research was published in the <em><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2518863122" target="_blank">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a></em>.</p>
<p>Cannabis is a plant that contains psychoactive compounds, most notably tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. When a person inhales or ingests cannabis, THC interacts with the body’s endocannabinoid system, a complex network of receptors that helps regulate mood, memory, pain, and appetite. While pop culture frequently references the intense food cravings that follow cannabis use, the exact biological and behavioral mechanics of this phenomenon remain surprisingly understudied.</p>
<p>“While in pop culture it seems widely accepted that consumption of cannabis increases food intake, also known as ‘the munchies,’ there is a surprising lack of empirical research that has examined the parameters of the munchies following inhalation of cannabis vapor. This study used both human and rodent subjects to examine how vaporization of THC enriched cannabis extracts could influence food consumption patterns in a controlled setting,” said study author <a href="http://www.hill-lab.ca/" target="_blank">Matthew N. Hill</a>, a professor at the University of Calgary and director of the Mathison Centre for Mental Health Research and Education.</p>
<p>The scientists conducted the research to fill the gap in the scientific literature. They wanted to understand exactly how inhaled cannabis alters eating patterns, macronutrient preferences, and the brain’s reward system. Determining whether this hunger stems from the brain or the gut could help inform treatments for appetite loss.</p>
<p>To investigate these questions, the scientists designed two parallel experiments involving both human participants and laboratory rats. The human clinical trial included 82 volunteers between the ages of 21 and 62 from the greater Pullman, Washington area. The researchers randomly assigned these participants to one of three groups in a highly controlled setting.</p>
<p>Participants inhaled vapor containing either 20 milligrams of cannabis, 40 milligrams of cannabis, or a placebo plant material. The placebo material lacked psychoactive compounds, and neither the participants nor the scientists knew which dose was administered. After completing about an hour of cognitive memory tests, the volunteers were given access to a variety of snacks and beverages.</p>
<p>The scientists measured the participants’ food intake over time and asked them to rate the taste of the items. The human study provides evidence that inhaled cannabis acutely increases the consumption of food. In the first 30 minutes of food access, participants who received either dose of cannabis ate significantly more carbohydrates, fats, and proteins than those in the placebo group.</p>
<p>The data indicates that cannabis did not alter the specific types of food the participants preferred. Instead, the volunteers simply ate a larger quantity of all available macronutrients without changing their proportional diet. The researchers also found that the duration of time since a participant last ate did not influence the amount of food they consumed after using cannabis.</p>
<p>Fasting had no impact on the volume of snacks eaten during the trial, meaning the hunger was not driven by an empty stomach. Additionally, the cannabis did not affect the taste ratings provided by the participants. This suggests that the plant does not necessarily make food taste better, but rather drives a general, non-specific urge to consume calories.</p>
<p>In the parallel animal study, researchers exposed adult male and female rats to either a cannabis vapor or a neutral control vapor. The scientists then closely observed the feeding behaviors of the rodents. Much like the human volunteers, the rats exposed to cannabis vapor consistently ate more food than the control group.</p>
<p>This increase in calorie consumption occurred regardless of the rats’ sex. To test if cannabis could override feelings of fullness, the scientists allowed a group of rats to eat a highly appealing meal until they were completely satisfied. After exposure to cannabis vapor, these full rats began eating again as if they were starving.</p>
<p>When given a choice between high-fat and high-carbohydrate foods, the cannabis-exposed rats ate more of everything. This behavior effectively abolished their pre-existing food preferences. The scientists then designed a task to measure the animals’ motivation to obtain a food reward.</p>
<p>The rats were trained to press a lever to receive a sugary treat. As the experiment progressed, the number of lever presses required to get a single treat steadily increased. Rats under the influence of cannabis consistently worked harder and pressed the lever more times than the sober rats.</p>
<p>This highly motivated behavior persisted even when the researchers made the sugary treats less appealing. The scientists achieved this devaluation by either feeding the rats beforehand or pairing the food with a mild nausea-inducing substance. The results suggest that cannabis increases the brain’s reward valuation for food, making the animals highly motivated to eat even when they have no biological need.</p>
<p>To understand the physical mechanics behind this intense hunger, the researchers measured the rats’ blood levels for various appetite-regulating hormones. They tested for hormones like ghrelin, leptin, and insulin, which typically signal hunger or fullness in the body. They found that cannabis exposure did not alter the levels of any of these metabolic hormones.</p>
<p>This lack of hormonal change provides evidence that the urge to eat does not originate in the digestive system. Next, the scientists used specific medications to block cannabinoid receptors in different parts of the rats’ bodies. Blocking the receptors located in the peripheral nervous system, which includes the gut and other organs, did not stop the cannabis-induced overeating.</p>
<p>However, the results changed when the scientists blocked the cannabinoid receptors located directly in the brain. With their central nervous system receptors blocked, the rats no longer exhibited an increased appetite after cannabis exposure. This suggests that cannabis hijacks the brain’s natural appetite-regulating centers to trigger a strong motivation to seek out food.</p>
<p>“Our data confirmed the widely held beliefs and reliably found that cannabis vaporization did indeed increase food intake,” Hill told PsyPost. “Interestingly, this food intake was relatively short lived, was not specific to any macronutrient (both human and rodent subjects intoxicated on cannabis vapor indiscriminately increased consumption of fat, carbs and protein) and was not directly related to increased sensitivity to flavor. More detailed studies in rodents identified that the munchies was actually due to cannabis enhancing the rewarding aspects of food and increased motivation to eat food.”</p>
<p>“The munchies are a real thing and cannabis can genuinely increase the rewarding value of food and increase your motivation to eat food. While many people think this is just funny side effect of cannabis, this ability to stimulate food intake and make food more rewarding can actually be leveraged therapeutically to help people suffering from wasting related disorders or who have developed intense aversions to food through interventions like chemotherapy which produce nausea.”</p>
<p>While this research provides an extensive look at cannabis-induced hunger, there are some potential misinterpretations and limitations to consider. The study primarily focused on the immediate, short-term effects of cannabis inhalation. It does not provide evidence on how regular, long-term cannabis use might impact daily calorie intake or overall body weight over time.</p>
<p>“Cannabis induced munchies do not actually mean that people who use cannabis will develop obesity or metabolic issues,” Hill said. “Our work suggests that the effects of cannabis on food intake are relatively transient and not long lasting. More so, there are several large scale studies which have consistently found that cannabis users have lower rates of obesity then the general population.”</p>
<p>The human participants were also experienced cannabis users, which means the results might differ in people who have never used the plant. Future research should investigate how different formulations of cannabis might affect appetite. The current study used a specific type of cannabis that was high in THC, but other compounds in the plant might yield different behavioral responses.</p>
<p>Scientists also hope to map the exact neural circuits in the brain that respond to cannabis inhalation. Understanding these specific pathways tends to be an important step in developing targeted medical therapies. These future discoveries could eventually help patients suffering from severe appetite loss due to chronic diseases.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2518863122" target="_blank">Cannabis produces acute hyperphagia in humans and rodents via increased reward valuation for, and motivation to, acquire food</a>,” was authored by Catherine Hume, Carrie Cuttler, Samantha L. Baglot, Lucia Javorcikova, Ryan J. McLaughlin, and Matthew N. Hill.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/new-psychology-research-explains-why-some-women-devalue-their-own-orgasms/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">New psychology research explains why some women devalue their own orgasms</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 10th 2026, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672261417538" target="_blank">Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin</a></em> suggests that women and men reduce the importance they place on women experiencing climax when it happens infrequently. This psychological adjustment tends to protect a person’s self-esteem and relationship satisfaction in the short term. Over time, this mental shift likely contributes to the ongoing orgasm gap, which is the consistent difference in how often heterosexual men and women experience climax during partnered sex.</p>
<p>Cultural stereotypes often hint that women care less about their own physical satisfaction than men do. Past scientific research provides mixed evidence on this topic. Some studies indicate women prioritize emotional connection during intimacy, while others show women desire physical peaks just as much as men do.</p>
<p>The scientists conducted this study to reconcile these conflicting findings by exploring the specific conditions under which women might lower their expectations. They suspected that downgrading the importance of climax acts as a mental defense mechanism against feelings of inadequacy. When people feel they are failing at a specific goal, they often protect their self-esteem by deciding the goal simply does not matter.</p>
<p>“I study the orgasm gap, which is the well-established phenomenon in which men, on average, have more orgasms than women during partnered sex,” said <a href="http://www.gracewetzel.com" target="_blank">Grace Wetzel</a>, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Indiana University School of Public Health, who conducted the current study while at Rutgers University.</p>
<p>“There is conversation in the field and in popular culture about whether women simply care less about orgasm compared to men. But we know from the motivation literature that, in general, people care less about outcomes that they don’t expect to achieve. So, that led us to design an experiment to investigate whether women care less about orgasm specifically when they don’t experience it.”</p>
<p>For the study, the researchers recruited 271 adult cisgender women for an online experiment. The participants read hypothetical romantic scenarios that varied in two specific ways regarding sexual history. The stories described a woman who either had a history of frequent or infrequent orgasms in the past, combined with either frequent or infrequent orgasms with a new, current partner.</p>
<p>After reading their assigned story, the women rated how much they would value having an orgasm in that specific situation. They also answered detailed questions about their imagined levels of sexual desire, overall sexual satisfaction, and commitment to the new relationship. Finally, the participants rated whether they would blame themselves or their partner for a lack of orgasms.</p>
<p>The scientists found that women valued orgasms the least when they imagined a history of rare orgasms combined with rare orgasms in their current relationship. In this specific scenario, the women tended to blame themselves rather than the hypothetical partner. This suggests that the women viewed the lack of physical pleasure as a personal flaw, prompting them to lower their expectations to protect their feelings of self-worth.</p>
<p>When women imagined having a history of frequent orgasms but a lack of orgasms with the new partner, they reported especially low relationship commitment and lower sexual satisfaction. The participants largely blamed the new partner in this scenario, viewing the physical disconnect as a threat to the relationship’s viability. However, women who mentally downgraded the importance of orgasms in these disappointing scenarios reported better emotional outcomes than those who kept their expectations extremely high.</p>
<p>The researchers then conducted a second experiment with 278 women to measure exact changes in attitude over time. First, the participants reported their baseline feelings about how important it is to climax in a general romantic relationship. One week later, the women read the same hypothetical scenarios from the first experiment and rated their feelings a second time.</p>
<p>The findings replicated the first experiment and provided evidence of an actual shift in mindset. Women actively decreased their personal rating of orgasm importance compared to their original baseline only when they imagined a consistent lack of orgasms across past and present partners. For these women, lowering their expectations was linked to higher levels of imagined desire and satisfaction compared to women who maintained their original standards.</p>
<p>“The takeaway is that many women actually reduce the importance they place on orgasm when they consistently don’t experience it,” Wetzel told PsyPost. “On the individual level, this is likely an adaptive response which protects their self-esteem, their sexual satisfaction, their relationships, and their interest in sex. But on a sociocultural level, this likely perpetuates the orgasm gap over time as women stop expecting orgasms and stop trying to have them.”</p>
<p>A third experiment explored how men view this issue and whether they adjust their expectations similarly. The researchers recruited 278 heterosexual and bisexual men to read similar stories about a hypothetical female partner. The men rated how much they would value their partner experiencing an orgasm in the given situation.</p>
<p>The men responded in the exact same pattern as the women did. They placed the lowest value on their partner’s physical pleasure when the story described her as rarely experiencing it in the past and rarely experiencing it currently. The men also accurately guessed that the hypothetical woman would care less about her own physical peak under these specific conditions.</p>
<p>The men’s feelings about the relationship also suffered when orgasms disappeared from the bedroom. The men reported lower relationship commitment when they imagined their female partner used to climax often with past lovers but could not do so in their current romance. The researchers noted that men likely view this specific situation as a sign of deep incompatibility and blame themselves for the failure.</p>
<p>“We were surprised that men responded to the scenarios the same way that women did: they also devalued a hypothetical female partner’s orgasm in the same way under the same conditions, with similar consequences for their imagined relationships,” Wetzel said.</p>
<p>The researchers emphasize that their findings should not be interpreted as a mandate to make orgasms the sole goal of intimacy.</p>
<p>“We want to avoid promoting the idea that an orgasm is the only or ultimate goal of all sexual encounters,” Wetzel explained. “Sex can be very satisfying and meaningful without an orgasm, and putting pressure on orgasm can actually make it less satisfying and less likely to happen. What we do want to emphasize is that women’s pleasure is often culturally de-prioritized, and couples should work towards an equal prioritization of pleasure, whatever that looks like for each relationship.”</p>
<p>A main limitation of this project is the reliance on fictional scenarios rather than real romantic experiences. Imagined stories do not fully capture the complex motivations and emotions present in real bedrooms. Additionally, the online participant pools were mostly white and not entirely representative of the diverse general population of the United States.</p>
<p>Future research will aim to study women’s real sexual histories to see if these mental adjustments happen similarly outside of a controlled experiment. The scientists hope to track couples over time to see if lowering expectations leads to long-term resentment. </p>
<p>“These scenarios were hypothetical so that we could have a certain level of control over the experiment,” Wetzel said. “The next step is to replicate these findings using women’s real experiences, by looking at women’s orgasm histories and their orgasm importance.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672261417538" target="_blank">Devaluing Women’s Orgasm: An Experimental Investigation of Whether, When, and to What Effect Women and Men Reduce the Importance of Women’s Orgasm</a>,” was authored by Grace Marie Wetzel, Hayley Svensson, Shana Cole, and Diana T Sanchez.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/how-materialism-and-subjective-social-standing-alter-a-person-s-civic-engagement-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;">New data shows a relationship between subjective social standing and political activity</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 9th 2026, 20:00</div>
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<p><p>People who perceive themselves as holding a high socioeconomic status tend to be more politically engaged, a relationship that hinges on their belief in societal fairness and their personal attachment to wealth. Research published in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0324680">PLOS One</a></em> indicates that a person’s sense of justice and materialistic values act as psychological bridges between their perceived class and their civic actions. These results help explain why some individuals turn away from the political process when they feel their economic status is lacking.</p>
<p>A person’s objective reality, such as their exact income or level of education, only tells part of the story regarding their place in the world. Psychologists often look at subjective socioeconomic status, which is how individuals personally rank themselves compared to others in their local community. This self-perceived ranking can sometimes differ from objective reality. Someone might have a modest bank account but still feel highly respected and comfortable in their daily social standing.</p>
<p>Researchers wanted to understand exactly how this self-perceived status shapes a person’s willingness to participate in local politics. Past studies have produced conflicting results on the topic. Some data suggests that people feeling left behind economically will engage in protests to demand change. Other evidence points in the opposite direction, indicating that wealthy individuals are far more likely to vote and advocate for their favored policies.</p>
<p>Academics rely on a few different theories to explain these contradictory patterns. One theory proposes that people with lower social standing simply lack the vital resources needed to participate in civic life, such as free time or community connections. Another framework, known as system justification theory, proposes that individuals generally prefer to view their existing social structures as reasonable and correct. People feeling comfortable at the top of the social ladder are heavily motivated to defend the system that currently rewards them.</p>
<p>To clarify how wealth perception influences political action, lead author Zhirui Zhao at the China University of Geosciences designed a study alongside colleagues Qi Zhao, Su Tao, and Wenchong Du. The academic team suspected that internal psychological steps mediate the relationship between feeling wealthy and participating in governance. They focused heavily on how strongly people value money, alongside how fair those individuals believe their society truly is.</p>
<p>The researchers surveyed 1,306 university students across China to gather relevant data. The participants reported their age, gender, and geographical background, and then completed a series of established psychological questionnaires. To measure subjective social standing, participants looked at a drawing of a ladder representing different levels of wealth and education, then picked the rung where they felt they most naturally belonged. The students also rated how often they engaged in civic activities, such as providing feedback to government institutions or visiting political websites.</p>
<p>The team also used questionnaires to assess two other critical layers of the participants’ personal mindsets. They measured perceived social justice by asking the students to rate statements about whether they felt their society distributed resources and opportunities equitably. Finally, they assessed materialistic tendencies by asking the participants how much they associated personal happiness and overarching life success with acquiring money and luxury possessions.</p>
<p>When the researchers analyzed the survey responses, they found a clear positive correlation between subjective social standing and political participation. Participants who placed themselves higher on the hypothetical social ladder reported engaging in more civic activities. The individuals feeling lower on the ladder reported much lower levels of generalized civic engagement. The data indicated that subjective wealth serves as a strong predictor of an individual’s willingness to be politically active.</p>
<p>The survey analysis revealed that perceived social justice acted as a mediator in this relationship. A high subjective social status was not linked to political action in a vacuum. Instead, individuals ranking themselves highly were much more likely to view their society as a fair and equitable place. This positive emotional belief in a fair system corresponded with higher participation in moderate political activities meant to uphold the current social order.</p>
<p>Materialism also played a measurable role in the findings, fundamentally altering how social status linked to a belief in fairness. For students who scored low in materialism, their position on the social ladder showed very little connection to whether they thought society was fair. Their judgments about societal fairness appeared largely disconnected from their own personal wealth. The relationship changed drastically for the students who placed a high value on acquiring money and possessions.</p>
<p>Highly materialistic people showed a very tight link between their personal social status and their entire worldview. When materialists felt successful and wealthy, they strictly believed the surrounding society was just and equitable. When materialists felt they occupied a lower social standing, they viewed their entire society as deeply flawed and unfair. For these individuals, the fairness of the world seemed entirely dependent on whether their own material desires were currently being met.</p>
<p>The researchers noted that people obsessed with wealth often neglect basic internal human needs, like a desire for personal autonomy or deep community relationships. When materialists fail to acquire money, they experience a deep emotional dissatisfaction that they quickly blame on external systems. They assume the surrounding society is organized directly against them. This perceived injustice often precedes cultural apathy and complete personal withdrawal from the political process.</p>
<p>The academic team looked closely at three distinct aspects of materialism to see which individual elements drove this psychological withdrawal. The three elements included material centrality, material happiness, and material success. Material centrality describes a person who makes acquiring possessions the absolute core purpose of their life. Material happiness describes someone who believes that buying things is the only valid route to joy and daily contentment. </p>
<p>Both material centrality and material happiness clearly modified how a person viewed society based on their wealth. For people scoring high in these two specific areas, financial insecurity corresponded heavily with a lack of belief in social justice, alongside minimal political participation. The third aspect, material success, was not statistically significant in modifying these associations. Material success involves using wealth simply as a metric to measure personal achievement, which appears to be less closely tied to civic disengagement than relying on possessions for basic daily happiness.</p>
<p>The study has a few limitations that require consideration when interpreting the broad conclusions. The survey responses were entirely self-reported, meaning participants may have evaluated their own beliefs and civic actions more generously than reality would show. The research team also relied on a single cross-sectional survey at one exact moment in time. This type of snapshot measurement can show mathematical correlations between survey answers, but it cannot definitively prove that one psychological state directly causes another to occur.</p>
<p>The specific cultural context of the participant pool also limits how broadly the results can be applied. The surveyed individuals were all university students living in China, a nation heavily influenced by collectivist ideals and traditional values promoting long-term social harmony. In this environment, educated individuals often view political participation as a structural duty to maintain stability. The dynamics of civic engagement might operate very differently in more fiercely individualistic cultures.</p>
<p>In many Western democracies, citizens facing economic hardship and a lack of required resources are often the ones who mobilize into highly visible protest movements. A lower perceived social status in those nations might be linked with more frequent confrontational forms of political engagement, rather than strictly corresponding with the kind of civic withdrawal seen in this study. The researchers point out that future investigations need to observe different cultural environments to see how these psychological theories hold up internationally.</p>
<p>Moving forward, academics hope to measure real-world political behaviors over a span of years rather than relying entirely on single survey sessions. Tracking the voting records, community meeting attendance, and structured activism habits of a diverse population could provide stronger evidence for the theories explored by the team. Understanding exactly how materialistic desires and economic anxieties push people away from governance could eventually help community leaders reengage citizens who feel entirely left behind.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0324680" target="_blank">Materialists perceive their high socioeconomic status as justice: Associations with increased political participation</a>,” was authored by Zhirui Zhao, Qi Zhao, Su Tao, and Wenchong Du.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/psychedelic-retreats-linked-to-mental-health-improvements-in-people-with-severe-2026-03-20/" 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;">Psychedelic retreats linked to mental health improvements in people with severe childhood trauma</a>
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<p><p>People who have a history of severe early childhood trauma may experience marked improvements in their mental health following the use of psychedelic drugs in a ceremonial setting. A new observational study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/28314425251392251">Psychedelic Medicine</a></em> found that individuals who reported more adverse events during their early years showed greater reductions in anxiety and larger boosts in overall well-being after attending psychedelic retreats compared to those with fewer childhood traumas. These results suggest that guided psychedelic experiences could provide a novel approach for helping individuals with deep psychological wounds.</p>
<p>Adverse childhood experiences encompass a wide range of stressful early life events that happen before a person turns eighteen. These events are generally divided into two broad categories. The first includes direct childhood maltreatment, such as physical abuse, emotional abuse, and extreme neglect. The second category involves household dysfunction, which can include growing up with family members who struggle with severe mental illness, substance abuse, domestic violence, or criminal behavior.</p>
<p>The impact of these early adverse experiences often persists long into adulthood, leading to poor physical and mental health. Individuals with a heavy burden of childhood trauma frequently show elevated levels of general anxiety and lower overall mental well-being. They also tend to exhibit a psychological trait known as experiential avoidance, which is a defense mechanism where a person attempts to suppress, ignore, or escape from difficult thoughts, painful memories, and uncomfortable physical sensations.</p>
<p>Treating the psychological fallout of early life trauma is notoriously difficult. Standard interventions like traditional talk therapy and common psychiatric medications are often less effective for individuals with a history of childhood maltreatment. People who experienced high levels of early life trauma are frequently less likely to engage deeply in therapy or find the provided interventions helpful. Because of these challenges, mental health professionals are actively searching for alternative interventions to help this specific population.</p>
<p>Psychoactive substances have recently gained global attention for their potential to alleviate stubborn mental health conditions. Classic psychedelics, such as the chemical psilocybin found in magic mushrooms, interact with specific serotonin receptors in the human brain. At higher doses, these substances reliably alter a person’s mood, thoughts, and perception of reality. Recent clinical research indicates that these drugs might relieve symptoms of depression, anxiety, and eating disorders.</p>
<p>Beyond formal medical clinics, psychedelic use is becoming increasingly popular in naturalistic and ceremonial settings. Retreats often span several days and consist of guided group sessions overseen by a facilitator who provides ongoing emotional support. Taking psychedelics in a supportive, communal environment has been linked to positive mental health outcomes, but the specific benefits and risks for people with severe trauma histories remains poorly understood.</p>
<p>Maryam K. Mehmood, a researcher at Imperial College London, led an investigation to examine the mental health outcomes of ceremonial psychedelic use across the spectrum of childhood trauma severity. The research team utilized data from a large-scale online survey conducted between 2018 and 2019. The project recruited individuals who were already planning to take a psychedelic drug at an established retreat center.</p>
<p>The final analysis included 570 participants who attended varied retreats located largely in the Netherlands and the Caribbean regions. Most of the participants took psilocybin, while a smaller portion consumed ayahuasca, a traditional South American psychoactive brew. The group tended to be highly educated, predominantly white, and originated mostly from the United States and the United Kingdom.</p>
<p>To track changes over time, the researchers gathered data at four distinct points. Two weeks before the psychedelic ceremony, participants completed questionnaires measuring their history of adverse childhood experiences. During this baseline assessment, they also answered questions designed to evaluate their current levels of generalized anxiety, experiential avoidance, and overall mental well-being.</p>
<p>One day after the psychedelic ceremony concluded, the participants were surveyed again to gauge the acute subjective intensity of their experience. The researchers focused on measuring three specific types of psychedelic phenomena. First, they looked at mystical experiences, which involve a deep sense of spiritual unity, transcendence of time and space, and a feeling of sacredness.</p>
<p>Second, the team evaluated emotional breakthrough experiences. This refers to the process of facing painful emotions that a person usually pushes aside, ultimately leading to a sense of emotional release or catharsis. Finally, the researchers measured challenging experiences, which encompass symptoms of acute distress such as fear, paranoia, feelings of isolation, and grief during the drug’s active influence.</p>
<p>Following the retreat, the research team checked in with the participants to measure longer lasting psychological changes. The participants completed follow-up surveys at two weeks and four weeks after the psychedelic experience. These surveys reassessed their levels of anxiety, avoidance behaviors, and general psychological well-being.</p>
<p>The researchers found that participants across all groups tended to report improvements in their mental health following the retreats. When accounting for how the individuals felt before the ceremony, the data showed that people with a greater number of adverse childhood experiences reported larger psychological benefits compared to those who had fewer traumatic childhood events. Following the retreat, higher levels of childhood trauma were associated with higher subsequent well-being.</p>
<p>Participants with a heavier burden of severe childhood events also reported lower general anxiety in the weeks following their trip. The surveys showed an association between extensive early life trauma and a reduction in experiential avoidance four weeks after the ceremony. This suggests that the participants became more willing to sit with uncomfortable emotions rather than actively suppressing them.</p>
<p>The study also revealed an association between childhood trauma and the specific nature of the drug induced experience. The researchers found a positive correlation between adverse childhood experiences and both mystical and emotional breakthrough experiences. Participants with more traumatic backgrounds were generally more likely to have a strong sense of spiritual unity and a deep emotional release during their psychedelic session.</p>
<p>The researchers did not find a correlation between early life trauma and challenging experiences. People with traumatic histories did not report facing more paranoia, fear, or profound psychological distress during their psychedelic sessions than the other participants. The acute experiences of the trip did not alter the general relationship between childhood trauma and the observed mental health improvements.</p>
<p>The team conducted an additional analysis focusing entirely on a subgroup of participants who reported four or more distinct types of adverse childhood events. This threshold of trauma is known to be strongly associated with particularly poor outcomes in both mental and physical health. For this severely traumatized group, the researchers wanted to see if the subjective qualities of the psychedelic trip predicted specific psychological benefits.</p>
<p>For those with high levels of childhood trauma, having an emotional breakthrough during the ceremony predicted greater feelings of well-being at both two weeks and four weeks after the event. Emotional breakthroughs in this group were also negatively associated with anxiety at the four-week mark, meaning a stronger emotional release was linked to lower anxiety levels later on. This delayed reduction in anxiety might suggest that these participants needed time to process repressed memories confronted during the ceremony.</p>
<p>Similarly, for the highly traumatized subgroup, experiencing a strong mystical state was associated with improved well-being in the weeks after the ceremony. Deep mystical experiences also predicted a drop in experiential avoidance one month later. In contrast, having a highly challenging or frightening psychedelic experience was not associated with changes in mental health outcomes either positively or negatively.</p>
<p>The authors noted several limitations to their study. Because the research utilized a prospective observational design, it cannot prove that the psychedelic substances directly caused the improvements in mental health. Participants actively sought out and paid for these retreats, which introduces a high likelihood that their personal expectations influenced their psychological outcomes.</p>
<p>The convenience sample used in the study also limits how broadly the findings can be applied. The participants were predominantly white people from higher socioeconomic backgrounds, which does not reflect the broader population most burdened by severe childhood trauma. A large number of the individuals who completed the initial surveys also failed to complete the final follow-up questionnaires, which can skew the findings if those who dropped out had worse outcomes.</p>
<p>The findings offer tentative guidance for developing structured psychedelic therapies for people deeply affected by early life adversity. The authors suggest that future research should involve clinical trials that specifically recruit individuals with mental health disorders and a verified history of childhood trauma. Conducting controlled longitudinal studies will clarify the safety, efficacy, and proper administration of psychedelics for this vulnerable population.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/28314425251392251" target="_blank">Ceremonial Psychedelic Experiences and Changes in Mental Health Outcomes in Those with Adverse Childhood Experiences</a>,” was authored by Maryam K. Mehmood, Rebecka Bremler, Meg J. Spriggs, Hannes Kettner, Leor Roseman, Lasse Damgaard, Robin Carhart-Harris, David Erritzoe, and Richard J. Zeifman.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/children-are-less-likely-to-use-deception-after-being-given-permission-to-deceive-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;">Children are less likely to use deception after being given permission to deceive, study finds</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 9th 2026, 16:00</div>
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<p><p>A set of three studies of 36- to 83-month-old Singaporean children found that they were less likely to use deception in a strategic game after they were given explicit permission to deceive. The paper was published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.70168"><em>Developmental Science</em></a>.</p>
<p>Deception is the act of intentionally causing another person to believe something that is false. It can be done through lying, hiding information, exaggeration, or creating a misleading impression. In everyday life, deception is part of social interactions, competition, and self-protection.</p>
<p>People use deception to avoid punishment, gain an advantage, protect privacy, or spare someone’s feelings. In some situations, deception can help maintain social harmony, as in polite or tactful communication. In other situations, it can seriously damage trust, relationships, and cooperation.</p>
<p>Engaging in deception demands both the cognitive sophistication to mislead others and the moral awareness to navigate the ethical implications of such behavior. Because of this dual nature, scientifically researching deception can be quite difficult. For example, when a person does not engage in deception in a certain situation, it is very difficult to determine whether this was because of ethical concerns or because the person was simply not capable of the cognitive processes needed to deceive.</p>
<p>Most children learn about deception—both how to recognize it and how to engage in it—from a very young age. For example, parents may teach them that lying is bad, but children may also learn that lying can be a way to avoid punishment. From an evolutionary perspective, both being able to deceive others and to recognize deception had survival value. Because deception is such a widespread phenomenon, human societies developed moral rules, laws, and social norms to limit harmful deception.</p>
<p>Study author Chadmen Tan and his colleagues wanted to explore how the strong norms against deception in Singaporean culture interact with the context of a strategic game in which lying is morally acceptable and expected. They assessed how 3- to 6-year-old children would behave in a strategic game when explicitly given permission to engage in deception compared to when this permission is not explicitly given.</p>
<p>The study authors hypothesized that telling children lying is permitted would lead to more lies being told. They expected that children who would otherwise refrain from lying due to moral concerns would be relieved of that guilt and focus more on what is needed to win the game.</p>
<p>In the experiment, children participated in a game with one of the researchers. First, the children selected 10 stickers depicting a mix of cartoon characters (e.g., Pokémon, Transformers, Paw Patrol, Frozen, Sanrio, Cars). The child’s task in the game was to hide a sticker under one of two identical cups while the experimenter kept their eyes closed. The experimenter’s task was to try to find the sticker. After opening their eyes, the experimenter would ask, “Where is the sticker?”</p>
<p>The child would then point to one of the two cups, and the experimenter would always lift that cup. If the experimenter did not find the sticker, the child would win that trial and could keep the sticker. If the experimenter found the sticker, the child would lose the trial and the sticker. Therefore, the child could ensure they won by deceiving the experimenter about the location of the sticker.</p>
<p>In the experimental group, before the main game started, the experimenter told the child: “Usually it is bad to give someone the wrong answer, but in this game, the rules say that you can give either the right or the wrong answer. So, in this game you can say whatever you want to win.” This instruction was not given to children in the control group. Before this instruction and the main game, there were several practice sessions in which the children learned how to play the game.</p>
<p>The participants of the first study were 124 children between 3 and 7 years of age. Their average age was around 5 years, and 49 of them were girls. The children were divided into two groups: 63 were assigned to the experimental condition, while 61 children were controls.</p>
<p>Study 2 included 99 children between 4 and 6 years of age. Three-year-olds were excluded this time, as exploratory analyses from the first study suggested they were not affected by the experimental instruction. Finally, the third study involved 56 5- and 6-year-olds. All studies used the same experimental procedure.</p>
<p>The results of the three studies showed that, in both practice and main test sessions, children in both groups lied between 60% and 80% of the time. However, contrary to the researchers’ expectations, children in the experimental condition in Study 1 lied less often than children in the control group.</p>
<p>There was no statistically significant difference in lying rates in the second study when the study authors applied their initially planned analytic procedure. However, a secondary exploratory analysis revealed that children in the experimental condition engaged in fewer lies than their counterparts in the control group after controlling for varying lying rates that occurred during the initial practice phase.</p>
<p>The results of Study 3, which was pre-registered to account for those initial practice phase lying rates, confirmed the paradoxical finding: children who were explicitly told that they were allowed to lie actually became less likely to lie compared to children in the control group who did not receive the instruction.</p>
<p>“This paradoxical effect was replicated, suggesting that moral considerations persist even in contexts where ethical guidelines are presumed to be suspended and that the cognitive and moral aspects of deception are deeply intertwined during early development,” the study authors concluded.</p>
<p>The researchers propose a few psychological reasons for why giving a child permission to lie actually makes them more honest. For one, by saying, “Usually it is bad to give someone the wrong answer,” the adult accidentally highlighted the word “bad,” bringing the moral weight of lying to the very front of the child’s mind. Children are also very good at trying to figure out what adults really want, leading them to assume the game was a secret test of their honesty.</p>
<p>However, it should also be considered that winning in strategic games tends to be about doing what the opposing side does not expect. Giving children explicit permission to lie might have simply communicated to them that their opponent (the experimenter) was expecting them to lie. This would make telling the truth the behavior that the opponent would be less likely to expect, and thus the behavior that would make the child more likely to win. This could potentially explain the observed results without the need to involve moral considerations.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.70168">The Permission Paradox: Condoning Deception Can Promote Honesty in Young Children,</a>” was authored by Chadmen Tan, Xiao Pan Ding, and Gail D. Heyman.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/why-some-neuroscientists-now-believe-we-have-up-to-33-senses/" 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;">Why some neuroscientists now believe we have up to 33 senses</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 9th 2026, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>Stuck in front of our screens all day, we often ignore our senses beyond sound and vision. And yet they are always at work. When we’re more alert we feel the rough and smooth surfaces of objects, the stiffness in our shoulders, the softness of bread.</p>
<p>In the morning, we may feel the tingle of toothpaste, hear and feel the running water in the shower, smell the shampoo, and later the aroma of freshly brewed coffee.</p>
<p>Aristotle told us there were <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2184311">five senses</a>. But he also told us the world was made up <a href="https://www.cabinet.ox.ac.uk/fifth-element-and-medieval-cosmology-2">of five elements</a> and we no longer believe that. And modern research is showing we may actually have dozens of senses.</p>
<p>Almost all of our experience <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/senses-1914">is multisensory</a>. We don’t see, and hear, smell and touch in separate parcels. They occur simultaneously in a unified experience of the world around us and of ourselves.</p>
<p>What we feel affects <a href="https://doi.org/10.1163/22134808-bja10003">what we see</a> and what we see affects <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00725">what we hear</a>. Different odours in shampoo <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0950329309000202">can affect how you</a> perceive the texture of hair. The fragrance of rose makes hair seem silkier, for instance.</p>
<p>Odours in low-fat yogurts can make them feel richer and thicker on the palate without adding more emulsifiers. Perception of odours <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304394006010020">in the mouth</a>, rising to the nasal passage, are modified by the viscosity of the liquids we consume.</p>
<p>My long-term collaborator, professor Charles Spence from the Crossmodal Laboratory in Oxford, told me his neuroscience colleagues <a href="https://www.sciculture.ac.uk/files/2014/07/AHRC-Rethinking-the-Senses-Case-Study.pdf">believe there are</a> anywhere between 22 and <a href="https://www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/cspe/projects/rethinking-the-senses/">33 senses</a>.</p>
<p>These include <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/proprioception">proprioception</a>, which enables us to know where our limbs are without looking at them. Our sense of balance draws on the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/ear/The-physiology-of-balance-vestibular-function">vestibular system</a> of ear canals as well as sight and proprioception.</p>
<p>Another example is interoception, by which we sense changes in our own bodies such as a slight increase in our heart rate and hunger. We also have a sense of agency when moving our limbs: a feeling that can go missing <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn.2017.14">in stroke patients</a> who sometimes even believe someone else is moving their arm.</p>
<p>There is the <a href="https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/147/2/390/7319594">sense of ownership</a>. Stroke patients sometimes feel their, for instance, arm is not their own even though they may still feel sensations in it.</p>
<p>Some of the traditional senses are combinations of several senses. Touch, for instance involves pain, temperature, itch and tactile sensations. When <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v486/n7403_supp/full/486S6a.html">we taste something</a> we are actually experiencing a combination of three senses: touch, smell and taste – or gustation – which combine to produce the flavours we perceive in food and drinks.</p>
<p>Gustation, covers sensations produced by receptors on the tongue that enable us to detect salt, sweet, sour, bitter and umami (savoury). What about mint, mango, melon, strawberry, raspberry?</p>
<p>We don’t have raspberry receptors on the tongue, nor is raspberry flavour some combination of sweet, sour and bitter. There is no taste arithmetic for fruit flavours.</p>
<p>We perceive them through the <a href="https://theconversation.com/smell-triggers-the-same-brain-response-as-taste-does-even-if-you-havent-eaten-anything-264922">combined workings</a> of the tongue and the nose. <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/foods11121686">It is smell</a> that contributes the lion’s share to what we call tasting.</p>
<p>This is not inhaling odours from the environment, though. Odour compounds are released as we chew or sip, travelling from the mouth to the nose though the nasal pharynx at the back of throat.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.archive.org/work/sn5ora556nerbd2gwndzdut5t4">Touch plays its part too</a>, binding tastes and smells together and fixing our preferences for runny or firm eggs, and the velvety, luxuriousness gooeyness of chocolate.</p>
<p>Sight is influenced by our vestibular system. When you are on board an aircraft on the ground, look down the cabin. Look again when you are in the climb.</p>
<p>It will “look” to you as though the front of the cabin is higher than you are, although optically, everything is in the same relation to you as it was on the ground. What you “see” is the combined effect of sight and your ear canals telling you that you are titling backwards.</p>
<p>The senses offer a rich seam of research and philosophers, neuroscientists and psychologists work together at the Centre for the Study of the Senses at the University of London’s School of Advanced Study.</p>
<p>In 2013, the centre launched its Rethinking the Senses project, directed by my colleague, the late Professor Sir Colin Blakemore. We discovered how modifying the sound of your own footsteps can make your body feel lighter or heavier.</p>
<p>We learned how audioguides in Tate Britain art museum that address the listener as if the model in a portrait was speaking enable visitors to remember more visual details of the painting. We discovered how aircraft noise interferes with our perception of taste and why you should always drink tomato juice on a plane.</p>
<p>While our perception of salt, sweet and sour is reduced in the presence of white noise, umami is not, and tomatoes, and tomato juice is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/2044-7248-3-2">rich in umami</a>. This means the aircraft’s noise will taste enhance the savoury flavour.</p>
<p>At our latest interactive exhibition, <a href="https://www.kingscross.co.uk/event/club-curling">Senses Unwrapped</a> at Coal Drops Yard in London’s King’s Cross, people can discover for themselves how their senses work and why they don’t work as we think they do.</p>
<p>For example, the size-weight illusion is illustrated by a set of small, medium and large curling stones. People can lift each one and decide which is heaviest. The smallest one feels heaviest, but people can them place them on balancing scales and discover that they are all the same weight.</p>
<p>But there are always plenty of things around you to show how intricate your senses are, if you only pause for a moment to take it all in. So next time you walk outside or savour a meal, take a moment to appreciate how your senses are working together to help you feel all the sensations involved.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/270697/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1"><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p>
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<p><em>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/humans-could-have-as-many-as-33-senses-270697">original article</a>.</em></p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/mathematical-model-sheds-light-on-the-hidden-psychology-behind-authoritarian-decision-making/" 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;">Mathematical model sheds light on the hidden psychology behind authoritarian decision-making</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 9th 2026, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study suggests that authoritarian leaders are most likely to initiate major democratic reforms when they possess a specific blend of impulsive optimism and rational calculation. By using mathematical models to map how political leaders process risk and reward, the research provides evidence that the path to reform often looks risky in the short term but beneficial in the long term. The findings were published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.70054" target="_blank" rel="noopener">American Journal of Political Science</a></em>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.eugeneyuji.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Eugene Yu Ji</a>, a postdoctoral researcher in cognitive science and computer science at the University of Waterloo and the Mila Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, conducted the study to understand the psychological mechanisms behind major political changes. Ji, who was a postdoctoral teaching fellow at the University of Chicago during the study, wanted to explain why powerful leaders sometimes voluntarily give up control. Previous research tends to focus on the broad social and economic pressures facing a government rather than the people in charge.</p>
<p>Ji designed this research to bridge the gap between those large-scale political dynamics and the individual cognitive processes that happen in a leader’s mind. The goal was to build a model that predicts how leaders handle rare but highly impactful decisions. These situations include yielding power, initiating massive economic shifts, or transitioning a country to a democracy.</p>
<p>“One motivation is the gap between psychology and other social science disciplines in addressing many real-world problems,” Ji told PsyPost. “In comparative politics, how authoritarian leaders make decisions is a central question, and fundamentally a psychological one, yet psychologists have offered few answers, largely because it is difficult to study by most traditional empirical means. This led me to develop the authoritarian decision-making modeling framework.”</p>
<p>To investigate these decision-making processes, Ji created a mathematical framework based on a dynamical systems approach. A dynamical system is a mathematical method used to describe how a complex state evolves over time, similar to how astronomers predict the movement of planets. In this context, the researcher used two mathematical equations to map how a leader’s thoughts and emotions change as they consider the future consequences of a potential reform.</p>
<p>The model focuses on two distinct types of cognitive processing that happen simultaneously. The first is metacognition, which is the slow, deliberate, and conscious process of thinking about one’s own thinking. In behavioral science, this mental effort is often called System 2 thinking.</p>
<p>System 2 thinking allows a person to handle complex analytical tasks and make logical judgments based on intentional effort. In the mathematical model, this represents how a leader rationally calculates the potential benefits of a reform and the uncertainty surrounding those future rewards.</p>
<p>The second type of processing is subcognition, which involves fast, automatic, and emotional responses to immediate situations. Scientists frequently refer to this rapid, intuitive reaction as System 1 thinking.</p>
<p>System 1 operates with little to no conscious effort, relying on gut feelings and past experiences to make quick assessments. In the model, this represents a leader’s impulsive and risk-averse reactions to potential threats or losses. The researcher suggests that major political decisions require both systems to interact, balancing deep logical analysis with strong emotional instincts.</p>
<p>Ji applied this mathematical model to six historical and contemporary cases in East and Southeast Asia to test its accuracy. The sample included China in the early 1990s and the 2010s, Taiwan in the late 1980s, and Singapore from the 2000s to the present. It also included Myanmar in the early 2010s and Vietnam in the 2010s.</p>
<p>The researcher assigned numerical scores to each region based on historical data. These scores reflected domestic economic performance, the strength of the ruling party, and international geopolitical pressures. These numbers were then plugged into the equations to see if the math could predict whether a major reform, a minor reform, or no reform would occur.</p>
<p>When evaluating Taiwan in the late 1980s, the researcher noted that the ruling party enjoyed strong economic growth but faced indirect pressure from the United States. This specific combination of strengths and pressures created a high degree of risk-driven optimistic thinking in the mathematical model. The equations predicted this would lead to a major reform, which aligns with Taiwan’s actual transition to democracy.</p>
<p>In contrast, the model analyzed China in the early 1990s following a period of intense political unrest. The mathematical variables indicated a scenario where leaders expected the risks of reform to simply outweigh the benefits. As a result, the equations accurately predicted that only minor economic reforms would happen, with no major democratic shifts.</p>
<p>Overall, the calculations successfully predicted the actual historical outcomes for five of the six cases examined. The model accurately mapped the major democratic reforms in Taiwan and Myanmar, as well as the lack of political reform in Singapore and modern China. The only exception was Vietnam, where the model predicted a major reform, but only minor to moderate political shifts actually took place.</p>
<p>“Autocrats can be sophisticated decision-makers, but their behavior is not beyond scientific understanding, and psychology can provide indispensable perspectives and tools to understand and analyze it,” Ji said.</p>
<p>The model suggests that major reforms only happen under very specific psychological conditions. A leader must anticipate what the researcher calls a “bittersweet path.” This means the leader expects uncertainties and risks to initially spike after a reform is announced, representing the “bitter” phase.</p>
<p>However, the leader must also believe that these uncertainties will eventually drop to levels lower than before the reform began, which represents the “sweet” phase. The researcher found that rational calculation alone is usually not enough to prompt a leader to embrace this chaotic middle period. Instead, the model provides evidence that a leader needs a certain degree of wishful thinking driven by their impulsive, emotional subcognition.</p>
<p>This optimistic impulse allows them to override their natural aversion to risk and push through the initial instability of a major political transition. Small shifts in the political environment can alter these psychological variables and completely change the outcome. For instance, slight changes in economic performance or party strength can make a leader feel the risks are too high, halting the reform process entirely.</p>
<p>“What surprised me most is how powerful and productive the cognitive modeling approach can be for addressing a major political science question,” Ji told PsyPost. “The practical significance lies in showing that important psychological processes shaping contemporary life, even those difficult to study through controlled experiments, can still be meaningfully approached. Cognitive modeling provides a way for psychology to engage with these types of questions that matter across the social sciences.”</p>
<p>While the mathematical model offers a new way to look at political history, the researcher notes some caveats. The study does not confirm the biological reality of the two thought systems used in the equations, but rather uses them as a practical framework to understand human behavior.</p>
<p>“This is a modeling study and does not affirm or deny the validity of the dual-process framework of system-1 and system-2, which are interpreted quite differently within psychology and across the social sciences,” Ji explained. “Rather, it shows that this framework can serve as useful heuristics for certain questions and can function as an interdisciplinary bridge in certain settings.”</p>
<p>The mathematical framework also leaves out cross-generational leadership dynamics. For example, the equations do not account for how an aging leader might behave differently than a younger successor. The model currently treats the decision-making process as an isolated event, rather than a long chain of interconnected choices involving multiple politicians. Future research is expected to incorporate more complex scenarios.</p>
<p>“One goal is to develop a more integrative and dynamic account of system-1 and system-2 processes, bridging behavioral economics, where the framework is often seen as transformative, and psychology, where it is sometimes viewed as overly simplistic,” Ji explained. “More broadly, this work opens a pathway to study rare but important social scientific phenomena through cognitive modeling, and I have already begun several interesting and important projects building on this framework, especially on rare but consequential decision-making under radical uncertainty across social sciences.”</p>
<p>“This work suggests that psychology can contribute even more powerfully to core questions in other social sciences than is often assumed. It also highlights the value of theoretical and modeling approaches in extending psychology’s reach beyond traditional empirical settings (especially given the field’s strong empiricist orientation).”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.70054" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Unraveling authoritarian reform decision-making: A metacognitive–subcognitive model</a>,” was authored by Eugene Yu Ji.</p></p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
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