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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/reduced-gray-matter-and-altered-brain-connectivity-are-linked-to-problematic-smartphone-use/" 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;">Reduced gray matter and altered brain connectivity are linked to problematic smartphone use</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 12th 2026, 10:00</div>
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<p><p>A comprehensive review of neuroimaging research suggests that problematic smartphone use is associated with distinct structural and functional alterations in the brain. These changes primarily involve neural circuits responsible for reward processing, executive control, and emotional regulation.</p>
<p>The analysis indicates that the intense motivational pull of smartphones may stem from how these devices tap into the brain’s social cognition networks, reinforcing habits through digital social feedback and the avoidance of social exclusion. These findings were published in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pnpbp.2025.111531" target="_blank">Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry</a></em>.</p>
<p>Smartphone usage has become ubiquitous globally, integrated into almost every aspect of modern daily life for billions of people. While these devices offer numerous benefits in communication and information access, excessive engagement has been linked to negative outcomes in some individuals, including sleep disturbances, heightened anxiety, and reduced cognitive performance.</p>
<p>Scientists have increasingly viewed this phenomenon through the lens of behavioral addiction, prompting numerous studies into the underlying neurobiology. The researchers behind the current paper aimed to synthesize the growing body of neuroimaging data to better understand the brain mechanisms driving problematic smartphone use.</p>
<p>“Problematic smartphone use is increasingly discussed as a clinically relevant behavioral pattern, yet its neurobiological basis remains incompletely understood. Existing research has identified structural and functional brain alterations, but the field is still characterized by conceptual heterogeneity, varying terminology, and a limited integration of neuroscientific findings with psychologically meaningful models,” said study author <a href="https://www.klinikum.uni-heidelberg.de/en/zentrum-fuer-psychosoziale-medizin-zpm/klinik-fuer-allgemeine-psychiatrie/ueber-uns/sektionen/kognitive-neuropsychiatrie/" target="_blank">Robert Christian Wolf</a>, deputy director of the Department of General Psychiatry at Heidelberg University Hospital.</p>
<p>“We were particularly struck by the fact that, despite the inherently social nature of smartphone use, social cognitive mechanisms have received comparatively little attention in neuroimaging research on problematic smartphone use. This review was motivated by the need to systematically synthesize current multimodal imaging findings and to place them within a broader framework that incorporates social reinforcement, fear of missing out, and sensitivity to social exclusion.”</p>
<p>The researchers searched the PubMed database for peer-reviewed scientific papers published between January 2015 and April 2025. The search focused on studies using neuroimaging techniques to examine individuals exhibiting problematic or excessive smartphone use compared to control groups. To measure the severity of smartphone habits, researchers across the reviewed studies primarily relied on established psychological questionnaires, most notably the Smartphone Addiction Scale and the Smartphone Addiction Proneness Scale.</p>
<p>The review synthesized data from two primary types of brain scans: structural imaging, which maps the physical architecture and anatomy of the brain, and functional imaging, which measures brain activity over time by detecting changes in blood flow related to neural firing. The final analysis included 35 studies, comprising 9 looking at static brain structure, 24 examining brain function during various cognitive tasks or while at rest, and 2 additional studies that employed both structural and functional imaging techniques.</p>
<p>Across these studies, structural imaging sample sizes ranged from 19 to 266 participants, while functional imaging samples ranged from 16 to 162 individuals. The participants ranged in age from 13 to 30 years old.</p>
<p>The review identified consistent patterns across structural imaging studies. Individuals exhibiting problematic smartphone use tended to show reduced gray matter volume in specific brain areas, including the insular cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex, and the orbitofrontal cortex. The insular cortex is involved in emotional awareness and regulating the body’s internal states, while the orbitofrontal cortex plays a role in decision-making and assigning value to rewards. Additionally, studies using diffusion tensor imaging, which maps white matter tracts, suggested alterations in the neural pathways connecting frontal brain regions to limbic areas involved in emotion.</p>
<p>Functional imaging studies provided further insights into cognitive processing in affected individuals. When their brains were scanned in a resting state without a specific task, they showed altered connectivity within networks responsible for attention and executive control. When faced with tasks requiring high cognitive effort, individuals with problematic use frequently demonstrated reduced activation in prefrontal control regions. This pattern suggests a diminished capacity to inhibit impulses or maintain focus under demanding conditions.</p>
<p>In contrast, when presented with smartphone-related cues, such as notifications or pictures of the device, their brains showed heightened activity in reward-processing circuits. These neural responses to smartphone cues appear similar to patterns seen in substance use disorders, indicating conditioned associations between the device and gratification. The review also found evidence of altered emotional processing, with some studies showing different neural responses to facial expressions compared to control groups.</p>
<p>A significant aspect of the review focused on the role of social cognition in driving problematic use. The researchers found evidence that social and emotional factors, such as the fear of missing out or sensitivity to social exclusion, are linked to distinct neural responses.</p>
<p>For example, one study found that a simulated experience of social rejection in a scanning environment elicited stronger activation in brain areas associated with processing social pain among those with problematic use patterns. The researchers suggest that smartphones act as powerful interfaces connecting reward processing with social interaction. The brain may become hypersensitive not just to the device, but to the anticipation of social feedback it provides.</p>
<p>“One notable observation was how limited the neuroimaging literature remains with regard to explicitly social cognitive processes, despite the fact that smartphone use is deeply embedded in social interaction,” Wolf told PsyPost. “This is particularly striking because constructs such as fear of missing out and sensitivity to social exclusion appear highly relevant for understanding why smartphone cues become motivationally powerful. Another important point was the degree of overlap between neural systems engaged by cue reactivity and those involved in social reward and social pain. This supports the view that the reinforcing properties of smartphones may be driven to a substantial extent by their social significance.”</p>
<p>The scientists interpreted these findings through a theoretical framework known as the I-PACE model, which posits that problematic behaviors result from interactions among individual predispositions, emotional states, and cognitive control mechanisms. The review proposes expanding this model to emphasize how socially relevant rewards and digital feedback drive habitual behavior.</p>
<p>“Our findings suggest that problematic smartphone use should not be reduced to a simple matter of weak willpower or excessive screen time,” Wolf explained. “Rather, it appears to emerge from an interaction between altered reward sensitivity, reduced executive control, affective vulnerability, and cognitive biases, particularly in socially salient digital contexts. Smartphone related cues do not merely capture attention because of the device itself, but because they are often linked to social feedback, reward expectation, and the avoidance of exclusion. This may help explain why smartphone use can become repetitive, difficult to regulate, and emotionally charged in some individuals.”</p>
<p>“The practical significance of the findings lies less in any single isolated effect and more in the convergence across structural, functional, neurochemical, and longitudinal studies. Across modalities, the reviewed literature repeatedly implicates frontostriatal and frontolimbic circuits involved in executive control, reward processing, affect regulation, and social cognition. This convergence strengthens the interpretation that problematic smartphone use is associated with meaningful alterations in neurocognitive systems relevant to self-regulation and reinforcement.”</p>
<p>“Importantly, these insights may inform prevention and intervention strategies grounded in biobehavioral models, by identifying neural and psychological mechanisms that sustain maladaptive patterns of smartphone use.”</p>
<p>The researchers note that this field of study is still developing and faces certain limitations. A primary issue with the existing research is that most studies use a cross-sectional design, capturing a single snapshot in time. This methodology makes it difficult to determine whether the observed brain differences cause problematic smartphone use or are a result of prolonged overuse. Additionally, Wolf noted that their findings do not imply that typical smartphone engagement is inherently unhealthy.</p>
<p>“A central caveat is that problematic smartphone use is not formally recognized as a disorder, and our review does not imply that everyday or even frequent smartphone use should be pathologized,” Wolf told PsyPost. “We advocate a dimensional perspective that distinguishes normative use from maladaptive patterns characterized by impaired control, continued use despite negative consequences, and functional impairment. In addition, most available studies are cross sectional, which means that causal relationships cannot yet be determined with confidence. Neural alterations observed in individuals with problematic smartphone use may therefore reflect vulnerability factors, consequences of prolonged use, or reciprocal processes developing over time.”</p>
<p>To address current limitations, the investigators recommend that future research prioritize longitudinal studies tracking participants over time to better understand developmental paths and causality. They also suggest a stronger experimental focus on how social contexts influence brain responses to smartphone cues.</p>
<p>“A major next step is to investigate more directly how smartphone related cue reactivity interacts with social cognitive processes under controlled experimental conditions,” Wolf said. “In particular, it will be important to examine whether neural responses to smartphone cues differ depending on whether these cues are embedded in socially meaningful versus non-social contexts. More longitudinal and interventional studies will also be essential to clarify developmental trajectories, causal mechanisms, and potential neural changes following restriction or therapeutic interventions.”</p>
<p>“In the longer term, this line of research may help refine prevention and intervention strategies that address not only craving and impulsivity, but also maladaptive interpretations of digital social feedback and vulnerability to social exclusion.”</p>
<p>“One broader implication of the review is that smartphones may represent a particularly powerful interface between reward processing and social cognition,” Wolf added. “They provide immediate and repeated access to socially relevant cues that can engage neural systems involved in salience attribution, belonging, and self-regulation with unusual frequency. From a research perspective, problematic smartphone use therefore offers an informative model for studying how digital environments shape behavior through the interaction of neurobiological, cognitive, and social mechanisms. We hope that this review contributes to a more differentiated and scientifically grounded discussion of problematic smartphone use.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pnpbp.2025.111531" target="_blank">Screens and brains: multimodal neuroimaging insights into mechanisms of problematic smartphone use</a>,” was authored by Nadine D. Wolf, Gudrun M. Henemann, Mike M. Schmitgen, Julian Koenig, Patrick Bach, and Robert C. Wolf.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/your-breathing-pattern-is-as-unique-as-a-fingerprint/" 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;">Your breathing pattern is as unique as a fingerprint</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 12th 2026, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>Every person possesses a distinct pattern of breathing through their nose that remains stable over long periods of time and functions like a biological signature. By tracking how individuals inhale and exhale over twenty-four hours, a new study demonstrates that these unique respiratory patterns can identify people with near perfect accuracy while also predicting individual levels of anxiety, depression, and body mass. The research was published in the journal <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2025.05.008">Current Biology</a>.</p>
<p>Breathing frequently seems like an automatic and straightforward physical process. Many people only notice their respiration when they are out of breath or engaged in strenuous exercise. Yet the act of pulling air into the body and pushing it out is governed by an extensive and intricate neural network.</p>
<p>This neural network operates primarily from the brainstem. It functions as a biological pacemaker that continuously adjusts human breathing to meet physiological needs. The system takes in vast amounts of sensory information from throughout the body to regulate the speed and depth of each inhalation and exhalation.</p>
<p>Because human brains display individual uniqueness in their wiring and activity, researchers suspected that the biological outputs generated by these local brain networks might also reflect high individuality. To pursue this idea, researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel designed an experiment to track exactly how air moves through the nose over long durations.</p>
<p>Timna Soroka and Noam Sobel, the lead researchers on the project, chose to focus on the nose rather than the mouth. The nasal passages have a special relationship with the brain, packed with sensory nerves that send constant feedback regarding airflow. The brain actively controls this process, systematically alternating which nostril does the bulk of the breathing work.</p>
<p>To capture these long-term breathing patterns, the team developed a specialized wearable device. This small tracker rested on the back of the volunteer’s neck and connected to a nasal cannula, which is a thin plastic tube with two small prongs that sit just inside the nostrils.</p>
<p>Unlike standard medical tests that monitor breathing for just a few minutes to check lung capacity, this setup recorded respiration continuously for an entire day and night. The device contained highly sensitive pressure sensors that measured airflow independently for the left and right nostrils in real time. It recorded data six times per second, capturing tiny dynamic fluctuations in air movement.</p>
<p>The study involved roughly one hundred healthy participants, mostly in their twenties. Each person wore the tracker for a full twenty-four hours as they went about their daily lives, logging their basic activities and sleep schedules on a provided smartphone application.</p>
<p>For a subset of over forty participants, the research team repeated the process entirely. These individuals returned to wear the recording device for a second twenty-four hour period. The gap between the first and second recording sessions ranged from a few days to nearly two years in length.</p>
<p>When the researchers fed the raw breathing data into a computational model, they found that they could identify individuals with remarkable precision. Based on waking breathing patterns alone, the system correctly identified specific individuals out of the group with ninety-six point eight percent accuracy.</p>
<p>The success rate of this identification process places respiratory patterns on nearly the same level as established biometric markers like voice recognition. The data showed that human breathing is not just a general mammalian rhythm, but an individualized behavioral signature.</p>
<p>This ability to recognize a person based on their airflow held true even after long stretches of time. When the computer model learned a person’s breathing pattern on their first day of testing, it could still successfully pick them out of the crowd using data collected up to twenty-three months later.</p>
<p>To ensure the computer was looking at the actual act of breathing and not just distinct patterns of physical movement, the researchers also analyzed data from a motion sensor embedded within the device. While bodily movement allowed for some level of identification, it was vastly inferior to the accuracy achieved by analyzing the nasal airflow.</p>
<p>The researchers evaluated dozens of different parameters within the breathing data to verify these results. They grouped data into metrics like the volume of air inhaled, the length of pauses between breaths, and the asymmetry of airflow between the left and right nostrils.</p>
<p>No single feature was capable on its own to distinguish one person from another. The high level of overall identification accuracy required the computational model to look at roughly twenty to one hundred different breathing characteristics working in tandem.</p>
<p>Beyond simple human identification, the researchers assessed whether these respiratory signatures revealed anything regarding a person’s physical state. They broke the raw data down to look at physiological markers, such as the transition from being awake to being asleep.</p>
<p>The analytical data showed dramatic shifts between waking and sleeping states. When participants fell asleep, the overall volume of air they breathed in and out dropped, while the shifting of dominance between the right and left nostrils increased. By analyzing exactly five minutes of a person’s breathing data, the model could easily categorize whether they were asleep or awake.</p>
<p>The continuous airflow data also mathematically aligned with the participants’ body mass index, a standard calculation based on human height and weight. The research team noted a mathematical relationship between a person’s body mass and specific aspects of their nasal cycle, suggesting the neural dynamics driving respiration interact directly with body composition.</p>
<p>In addition to monitoring physiology, the researchers wanted to explore if these breathing patterns reflected specific aspects of human cognition and emotion. All the participants had completed standard psychological questionnaires to assess their baseline levels of anxiety, depressive symptoms, and behavioral traits associated with the autism spectrum.</p>
<p>Even though the study group consisted of typical adults without severe clinical diagnoses, their measured breathing patterns correlated with their survey scores. Researchers discovered they could partially predict an individual’s score on a depression inventory based entirely on features of their respiration, such as the peak speed of their inhalations during waking hours.</p>
<p>Similar predictive relationships emerged for general anxiety. Participants who scored higher on a trait anxiety assessment tended to exhibit slightly shorter inhale durations while they slept. Minor variations in the length of pauses between breaths were also associated with differing levels of self-reported anxiety.</p>
<p>When looking at the autism spectrum questionnaire, the data again highlighted mathematical associations tied to how participants breathed. Minute variations in how long a person paused during their inhalations corresponded to differing behavioral scores. These findings indicate that emotional and cognitive states leave faint but readable biological imprints on how our brainstems regulate our breathing.</p>
<p>While the study introduces a novel way to measure basic human biology, the experimental method has a few recognizable limitations. The nasal cannula occasionally slipped out of place while participants were sleeping, which interrupted the nighttime data collection.</p>
<p>Additionally, pressure-based sensors sitting inside the nose are excellent at measuring the precise timing of a breath, but they lack absolute perfection when calculating the total volume of air moving into the lungs. The physical appearance of the device could also limit its everyday usefulness, as wearing medical tubes on the face is highly visible.</p>
<p>Looking forward, the researchers plan to expand this testing methodology to broader populations. Because respiratory patterns offer direct insight into brain function, the research team envisions applying this approach to study various diseases. Monitoring a patient’s unique breathing fingerprint over long durations could eventually serve as a passive, non-invasive tool for tracking general neurological health.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2025.05.008">Humans have nasal respiratory fingerprints</a>,” was authored by Timna Soroka, Aharon Ravia, Kobi Snitz, Danielle Honigstein, Aharon Weissbrod, Lior Gorodisky, Tali Weiss, Ofer Perl, and Noam Sobel.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/extreme-athletes-just-helped-scientists-unlock-a-deep-evolutionary-secret-about-human-survival/" 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;">Extreme athletes just helped scientists unlock a deep evolutionary secret about human survival</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 12th 2026, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2026.10040" target="_blank">Evolutionary Human Sciences</a></em> provides evidence that when the human body undergoes extreme physical stress, it tends to prioritize immune defense over other basic biological functions like reproduction and tissue repair. These findings suggest that our evolutionary biology programmed us to allocate limited energy toward immediate survival needs during periods of intense exhaustion. This research helps scientists better understand the deep roots of human adaptability and energy management.</p>
<p>Scientists conducted this research to test a core idea in biology known as life history theory. This theory proposes that all organisms have a limited pool of energy, which they must divide among competing biological needs. These needs generally include defense, physical maintenance, energy storage, and reproduction.</p>
<p>During periods of severe energy shortage, the body must make biological trade-offs to survive. The prevailing idea suggests that limited resources are diverted to bodily systems that offer the greatest immediate survival benefit.</p>
<p>While biologists have documented these biological trade-offs in animals like insects and birds, clear evidence in humans has been scarce. Observational studies in humans often fail to show these trade-offs because individual differences in health and diet mask how the body internally shifts its resources.</p>
<p>To bypass this problem, scientists turned to ultra-endurance athletes. Events like multiday ultramarathons push human physiology to its absolute limits, creating a temporary but intense energy deficit. This extreme physical state provides a window to observe how the human body naturally reprioritizes its energy when pushed to the brink.</p>
<p>“This research was motivated both by scientific curiosity and personal experience. As an ultra-endurance athlete myself (I’ve set multiple official Guinness World Records and fastest known times for ocean rowing and ultra swimming), I’ve experienced firsthand the physical and psychological impact of this type of event,” said study author Danny Longman, senior lecturer in human evolutionary physiology at Loughborough University and co-leader of <a href="https://heepresearchgroup.com/" target="_blank">the Human Evolutionary EcoPhysiology Lab</a>.</p>
<p>“Life history theory predicts that when energy becomes scarce, our bodies make strategic ‘decisions’ about where to allocate limited resources – prioritizing functions critical for immediate survival over those that can be deferred. While this idea is central to evolutionary biology and has been well-demonstrated in other species, we’ve lacked clear experimental evidence that these trade-offs actually occur in humans. The challenge is ethical – we can’t experimentally starve people to test the theory.”</p>
<p>“Ultra-endurance athletes provided a unique solution: they voluntarily undergo extreme energetic stress in controlled, measurable conditions. This allowed us to observe what happens when the human body is pushed to its limits and must make real-time allocation decisions between competing physiological demands like immune defense, reproduction, energy storage and tissue maintenance.”</p>
<p>For their study, the scientists recruited 147 ultra-endurance athletes, consisting of 107 men and 40 women. These participants were competing in one of five grueling, multiday events set in highly demanding environments. Four of the events were ultramarathon footraces taking place in Finland, Peru, Spain, and Nepal. The fifth event was a multi-week ocean rowing competition across the Atlantic Ocean.</p>
<p>The scientists collected physical measurements, saliva, and blood samples from the athletes one to two days before their respective events began. They then gathered a second set of samples immediately or a day after the athletes crossed the finish line. This allowed the researchers to track changes in a wide variety of biological markers over the course of the extreme physical exertion.</p>
<p>First, the researchers measured general energetic stress by tracking changes in body mass and cortisol. Cortisol is a primary stress hormone that the body releases to help mobilize energy. The scientists also tracked specific biological markers related to the four key areas of defense, storage, reproduction, and maintenance.</p>
<p>To monitor defense, they measured levels of interleukin-6, a protein that indicates immune system activation and inflammation. They also tested the ability of the athletes’ blood serum to kill bacteria and destroy damaged red blood cells in a laboratory setting.</p>
<p>To evaluate energy storage, the scientists calculated the participants’ fat mass index and measured their leptin levels. Leptin is a hormone produced by fat tissue that signals the status of the body’s energy reserves to the brain.</p>
<p>For reproductive investment, the team tracked testosterone in both men and women, as well as estradiol, a primary female sex hormone, in the women. Finally, they monitored biological maintenance by looking at markers of tissue damage and oxidative stress. Oxidative stress happens when there is an imbalance between harmful free radicals and the antioxidants that neutralize them.</p>
<p>To track this physical maintenance, they analyzed myoglobin, a protein released into the blood when muscle is damaged. They looked at this alongside other markers that indicate cellular damage and the breakdown of cartilage.</p>
<p>The data provides evidence that participation in these extreme events caused massive energetic stress. Athletes experienced a significant drop in body weight and fat mass, alongside sharp spikes in the stress hormone cortisol.</p>
<p>Faced with this extreme energy deficit, the athletes’ bodies made clear biological trade-offs. Biomarkers related to immune defense generally increased or remained stable, particularly in the male athletes. This suggests the body dedicated its dwindling energy reserves to keeping the immune system active and ready to fight off potential infections.</p>
<p>At the same time, systems related to storage, reproduction, and maintenance were heavily suppressed. Both men and women saw massive drops in leptin and fat mass, showing that stored energy was rapidly burned. Markers of reproductive investment also declined, with male athletes showing significant drops in testosterone.</p>
<p>The body also appeared to sacrifice physical maintenance during the events. Levels of myoglobin and other markers of cellular stress skyrocketed. This indicates that the body was accumulating structural damage to muscles and cartilage but lacked the spare energy required to properly repair those tissues at the time.</p>
<p>“I was genuinely surprised by how consistent the pattern was across such diverse conditions – male and female athletes, runners and ocean rowers, races in the Arctic and the Amazon jungle,” Longman told PsyPost. “Despite these dramatically different challenges, we saw the same fundamental pattern: immune function was broadly protected or enhanced while reproductive hormones and energy stores declined.”</p>
<p>According to Longman, the strength and consistency of this effect suggests these biological trade-offs are deeply embedded in human physiology.</p>
<p>“Our bodies are remarkably adaptive, but that adaptability involves trade-offs. When energy is scarce – whether from illness, food insecurity, extreme exercise, or other stressors – your body doesn’t shut down randomly. It makes strategic choices, prioritizing immediate survival functions like immune defense while temporarily downregulating less urgent systems like reproduction and some repair processes.”</p>
<p>“This has practical implications: it helps explain why athletes training too hard get injured more often, why chronic stress may affect fertility and why people fighting infections may lose weight and feel fatigued. Understanding these trade-offs can inform better approaches to public health, athletic training and managing periods of physiological stress.”</p>
<p>As with all research, there are some caveats. Ultra-endurance athletes are highly trained individuals, meaning their physical conditioning might protect them from some of the negative consequences of severe energy loss. Average individuals might show different biological responses under similar stress.</p>
<p>“We’re not suggesting that ultra-endurance exercise is ‘natural’ or that our ancestors routinely engaged in similar activities,” Longman noted. “Rather, we’re using these extreme conditions as a tool to reveal trade-offs that would otherwise be difficult to detect. It’s also important to understand that many of the biomarkers we measured serve multiple physiological roles, so while we’ve categorized them into life history functions, the reality is more complex.”</p>
<p>“Finally, these are short-term responses measured over days to weeks – we don’t yet know whether different patterns might emerge during chronic, long-term energetic stress, or how these trade-offs might vary across different populations and life stages.”</p>
<p>To expand on this, the scientists plan to examine how these biological choices shift across different demographics and recovery periods.</p>
<p>“Important questions remain about how these trade-off patterns may vary across the human lifespan and in different populations,” Longman said. “Do children, older adults, pregnant women, or people from different ancestral backgrounds show the same prioritization hierarchy? What happens during recovery – once energy becomes available again, in what order do these functions bounce back? Can we identify individual differences that predict who is most vulnerable to these trade-offs under stress?”</p>
<p>“From a practical standpoint, key questions include: How can we work with sports scientists to use this knowledge to optimize training programs that minimize injury risk and health consequences? How might understanding these trade-offs inform clinical approaches for patients experiencing physiological stress from illness or treatment? More broadly, this research contributes to evolutionary public health – using our understanding of human evolutionary biology to design better health interventions. If we understand how the body naturally allocates resources under stress, can we work with those patterns rather than against them?”</p>
<p>Ultimately, the project highlights the benefits of merging different scientific fields to tackle modern health issues. “This study represents a genuine collaboration between evolutionary biology, sports science and public health,” Longman said. “It demonstrates that evolutionary perspectives aren’t just about our ancient past – they offer practical insights into modern health challenges.”</p>
<p>“I’m particularly excited about the potential applications: helping athletes train more safely, understanding why food insecurity has such wide-ranging health effects and informing clinical approaches to patients experiencing physiological stress from illness or treatment. I also want to acknowledge the athletes who participated – they endured blood draws and testing at the most physically demanding moments of their lives to contribute to science. Their commitment made this research possible.”</p>
<p>“Importantly, I’d also like to stress that this paper is the result of a long-term collaboration led by Professor Jay Stock (Western University, Canada) and Professor Jonathan Wells (UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, London), whose expertise in human evolutionary biology and life history theory has been instrumental in shaping this work.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2026.10040" target="_blank">Experimental evidence of life history trade-offs during ultra-endurance physical activity</a>,” was authored by Daniel P. Longman, Alison Murray, Emily L. Brown, Courtney Lewis, Richard M. Millis, Tomasz J. Nowak, Krizia-Ivana T. Udquim, Michael P. Muehlenbein, Jonathan C. K. Wells, and Jay T. Stock.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/how-different-negative-emotions-change-the-size-of-your-pupils/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">How different negative emotions change the size of your pupils</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 11th 2026, 20:00</div>
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<p><p>When people feel disgust or sadness, their pupils involuntarily widen. Conversely, feelings of anger are associated with a narrowing of the pupils, setting it apart from other negative mental states. These distinct physical responses occur even when individuals experience mixed feelings at the exact same moment. The research was published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2025.109044">Biological Psychology</a></em>.</p>
<p>The size of the human pupil is controlled by the autonomic nervous system, which governs involuntary body functions. Pupil dilation reflects the activation of the sympathetic nervous system. This is the same biological network responsible for the body’s fight or flight response. When this system springs into action, it engages a specific muscle in the iris that pulls the pupil open. A wider pupil increases a person’s overall field of vision, allowing them to scan the broader environment for potential threats.</p>
<p>Pupil constriction relies on the parasympathetic nervous system, which usually helps the body rest and digest. When this system takes over, the dilating muscle relaxes and another muscle pinches the pupil shut. A smaller pupil narrows the field of view. This creates a sharper image, giving the eye better visual acuity for fine tasks or focused attention.</p>
<p>Historically, researchers have debated how human emotions map onto these physical changes. One school of thought suggests that emotions are just broad, culturally learned labels for general states of high or low arousal. In this view, a person simply feels a general sense of negativity, which they might label as anger or disgust depending on the situation. Another school of thought argues that basic emotions are biologically distinct categories. Under this specific framework, anger, fear, and sadness should each possess a unique physiological signature.</p>
<p>Most prior research measuring pupil size looked only at broad emotional categories. Studies would expose people to positive or negative pictures and measure the resulting eye movements. These tests reliably showed that negative images correspond with wider pupils. Yet the previous tests did not ask the participants exactly what they were feeling at any given moment.</p>
<p>University of Suffolk psychologist Kate McCulloch and her colleagues suspected that relying on broad stimulus categories might obscure the finer details of emotional biology. They designed an experiment focused entirely on personal, distinct emotional experiences. Instead of assuming an image was universally scary or sad, the team asked individuals to rate their own internal states.</p>
<p>For their first experiment, the researchers recruited 98 participants. The volunteers viewed 36 images and listened to 18 short audio clips. The researchers selected these materials from standardized scientific databases containing emotionally engaging content. The visual materials ranged from neutral pictures of filing cabinets to intense images of aggressive animals or severe injuries.</p>
<p>Testing visual reactions requires strict controls because light naturally changes pupil size. To account for this, the researchers altered the images so they all shared the exact same average brightness and contrast. They also generated scrambled, completely unrecognizable versions of every picture. This allowed the team to verify that any physical eye reactions were tied to the emotional content of the picture, not just its basic color palette.</p>
<p>During the testing phases, participants kept their heads completely still using a chin support. Specialized infrared cameras tracked their eye movements and recorded the exact area of their pupils. After viewing a picture or hearing a sound, the participants used a keypad to rate their immediate feelings on a scale from one to nine. They scored how strongly they felt five specific emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust.</p>
<p>This rating system accommodated the reality of mixed emotions. A participant might view an image of an injured animal and feel a combination of deep sadness and mild disgust at the same time. By recording multiple ratings for a single event, the researchers could use statistical models to isolate the specific influence of each separate feeling.</p>
<p>McCulloch and her team found that personal ratings of disgust and sadness reliably predicted larger pupil sizes. When participants reported feeling higher levels of disgust than their own general baseline, their pupils dilated. The pupil widening effect for disgust began roughly two seconds after the start of a prompt and lasted for the entire viewing or listening period.</p>
<p>Fear was associated with pupil widening only when participants listened to audio clips, and this reaction happened very late in the recordings. The pupil’s response to anger did not reveal any obvious pattern during this first round of testing. The statistical links between anger and pupil size were not statistically significant for the images or the sounds in the initial experiment.</p>
<p>To see if these specific emotional patterns would hold up under different conditions, the researchers conducted a second experiment with 102 new participants. They discarded the visual images entirely. By only using audio clips, the team completely eliminated any lingering concerns about screen brightness interfering with the eye cameras.</p>
<p>The team also swapped the short, standardized sounds for 30-second clips taken from movies, television shows, and online videos. Some clips featured soothing nature sounds, while others contained aggressive arguments, crying out, or visceral noises like vomiting. Participants listened strictly to the audio while staring at a simple cross on a blank computer monitor. Just as before, they rated their five emotional states immediately afterward.</p>
<p>The second experiment confirmed the most prominent patterns from the first. High personal ratings of disgust again emerged as the strongest predictor of pupil dilation. The sustained physical reaction to feeling disgusted lasted throughout the entire half-minute audio clip. Sadness also predicted pupil widening, though to a slightly lesser extent than disgust.</p>
<p>The longer audio format exposed a totally different pattern for anger. When participants reported feeling angry during the extended clips, their pupils reliably shrank. This physical constriction effect completely sets anger apart from the other measured negative mental states. Happiness was associated with a slight widening of the eye during these tests, though the association was milder than the one connected to disgust.</p>
<p>Disgust and anger are often difficult to separate in psychological experiments. Some researchers have argued that the two emotions are practically interchangeable responses to things we dislike. Because anger predicts the narrowing of the pupil while disgust predicts its widening, they appear to trigger two entirely different nervous system responses.</p>
<p>These distinct physiological signatures align with evolutionary theories of behavior. Anger typically readies the body to confront a specific target. This sort of focused approach requires narrow, precise vision. Disgust usually prompts the body to back away or scan the wider environment to avoid a disease or contaminant, which requires a broader visual field.</p>
<p>The authors noted a few limitations regarding their methodology. All data collection occurred in a controlled laboratory setting. Artificial audio clips and images may not provoke the exact same physical intensity as real threats encountered in daily life. The study design also relied entirely on self-reporting. This method depends heavily on a person’s ability to accurately identify and describe their own internal moods.</p>
<p>Future experiments might track eye changes after the sights and sounds completely end. Some emotional reactions involving fear appeared exclusively at the very end of the longer audio clips. Tracking these delayed, post-exposure responses might reveal new details about how the human body processes different types of psychological distress.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2025.109044">Differences in Pupil Size During Self-Reported Experiences of Disgust, Sadness, Fear, Anger, and Happiness</a>,” was authored by Kate McCulloch, Edwin S. Dalmaijer, Gerulf Rieger, and Rick O’Gorman.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/artificial-intelligence-makes-consumers-more-impatient/" 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;">Artificial intelligence makes consumers more impatient</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 11th 2026, 18:00</div>
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<p><p>Artificial intelligence algorithms are increasingly making decisions for consumers, from curating vacation destinations to recommending auto loans. New research indicates that receiving advice from a computerized agent alters human time perception, making people feel that future delays are longer than they actually are. This distorted perception pushes consumers to make more impatient financial decisions. The study was published in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/jcpy.1455">Journal of Consumer Psychology</a>.</p>
<p>Psychologists use the term intertemporal choice to describe decisions that involve a trade-off between different times. A common example is choosing between a smaller reward today and a larger reward a month from now. Humans routinely struggle with these choices, often heavily discounting the value of future rewards because the wait feels unpleasant.</p>
<p>How people experience the passage of time is highly subjective. Psychologists use an “internal clock” theory to explain this phenomenon. The theory suggests that the human brain possesses a cognitive timer that sets the pace of our subjective experience. When a person is relaxed, the internal clock ticks slowly, making time feel like it is flying by. </p>
<p>When a person feels fear or observes fast-moving objects, the internal clock speeds up. Because the brain’s internal timer is ticking away rapidly, the person perceives that a great deal of time has passed. Consequently, the individual experiences the wait as dragging on for an extended period. </p>
<p>Consumers generally associate artificial intelligence with incredibly fast, efficient data processing. The researchers hypothesized that interacting with a fast-processing computer agent would speed up a consumer’s internal clock while they waited for a response. Once the internal clock accelerated, any upcoming wait time for a reward would seem subjectively longer, driving the consumer to choose immediate gratification. </p>
<p>Yuanyuan (Jamie) Li, a researcher at the Southern University of Science and Technology in China, led the investigation. Li collaborated with researchers Shan Lin, Han Gong, Xiang Wang, and Chris Janiszewski. The team conducted a series of online experiments and analyzed real-world financial data to test their hypothesis. </p>
<p>In their first experiment, the researchers asked participants to imagine booking a vacation. Half of the participants requested advice from a human travel specialist, while the other half interacted with an automated chat bot. Both groups waited exactly twenty seconds for a response. </p>
<p>Before seeing their travel options, participants were offered a rebate choice. They could receive thirty dollars in cash immediately or thirty-five dollars in four weeks. Participants interacting with the computer agent were significantly more likely to choose the immediate cash. When surveyed, the automated group reported that the four-week wait felt further away than the human-advised group did. </p>
<p>To confirm that the perception of speed was causing the impatience, the researchers ran a second experiment that manipulated the computer’s reputation. They told half the participants that the computer agent was programmed to spend extra time analyzing data to ensure a high-quality recommendation. By breaking the association between computers and raw speed, the researchers entirely eliminated the impatience effect. </p>
<p>The team then designed an experiment to test the internal clock theory directly. They reasoned that if a computer agent provides an instantaneous recommendation, the consumer’s internal clock never has a chance to run. Participants in this study asked for financial investment advice and received it either immediately or after a fifteen-second wait. </p>
<p>As predicted, the computer agent only induced impatience when participants had to wait for the response. The fifteen-second delay allowed the accelerated internal clock to distort the consumer’s perception of time. When the response was immediate, participants showed no difference in their preferences compared to those consulting a human advisor. </p>
<p>Another experiment demonstrated that the phrasing of time delays matters. Participants imagined buying a mobile phone and navigating a promotional rebate. The researchers offered the delayed rebate as either a time interval, such as “one month,” or a specific calendar date, such as “October 17.” </p>
<p>The researchers found that specific calendar dates anchor the human mind, leaving less room for subjective distortion. When the delay was presented as a calendar date, the identity of the agent had no impact on the consumer’s choice. The computer-induced impatience only surfaced when the delay was presented as a flexible time interval. </p>
<p>The researchers also explored situations involving recurring payments and rewards. They asked participants to choose between federal food assistance programs, offering either a larger weekly payout for nine weeks or a smaller weekly payout for fifteen weeks. Because receiving money repeatedly is a positive experience, a longer time horizon is desirable. </p>
<p>Waiting for a computer agent made the difference between the nine-week and fifteen-week periods feel larger. As a result, participants interacting with the artificial intelligence preferred the longer reward program. The opposite occurred when the researchers asked participants to select auto loans. </p>
<p>Because consumers view recurring loan payments as a negative experience, they generally want the loan period to end quickly. When a computer curated the auto loan options, participants perceived the loan duration as dragging on for a longer period. This pushed them to choose shorter-term loans with higher monthly payments over longer-term loans with lower monthly payments. </p>
<p>To see if this pattern held up outside the laboratory, the researchers analyzed auto loan data from the third quarter of 2022. They compared general industry data against loans originated through LendingTree, a financial services platform that uses an algorithm to curate loan options. They adjusted the data to account for different consumer credit scores across the two data sets. </p>
<p>The real-world data mirrored the laboratory results. Consumers using the computer-curated platform consistently selected shorter loan durations than the industry average. While the researchers note that secondary data cannot definitively prove causation, the results align perfectly with their experimental findings. </p>
<p>The authors acknowledge that the marketplace contains many variables that could influence real-world consumer behavior. Customers using financial technology apps might be more price-sensitive than those visiting brick-and-mortar banks, or they might prefer to aggressively minimize their loan durations for other reasons. Algorithms might also trigger feelings of uncertainty about the future, prompting consumers to lock in immediate gains. </p>
<p>Future investigations into artificial intelligence could explore complex decisions that mix both costs and benefits over time. For now, the research highlights a hidden psychological cost of automated convenience. As companies shift to computerized customer service, they risk making their customers feel that the future is further away than ever.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/jcpy.1455">Time is shrinking in the eye of AI: AI agents influence intertemporal choice</a>,” was authored by Yuanyuan (Jamie) Li, Shan Lin, Han Gong, Xiang Wang, and Chris Janiszewski.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/stacking-bad-habits-triples-the-risk-of-co-occurring-anxiety-and-depression-in-teenagers/" 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;">Stacking bad habits triples the risk of co-occurring anxiety and depression in teenagers</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 11th 2026, 16:00</div>
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<p><p>Adolescents who combine multiple unhealthy habits—like poor diet, too much screen time, and lack of exercise—face a significantly higher risk of experiencing both anxiety and depression, according to a new study published in <em><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12888-026-07886-5" target="_blank">BMC Psychiatry</a></em>.</p>
<p>Researchers have long known that individual habits, such as physical inactivity or poor sleep, can affect mental wellbeing. However, in real life, these behaviors rarely occur alone. Teenagers who skip meals, spend long hours on screens, and sleep poorly often do all of these at once. This “clustering” of unhealthy habits has been less studied, especially in relation to combined mental health conditions.</p>
<p>To address this gap, researchers wanted to understand whether patterns of multiple unhealthy behaviors could predict which adolescents are most at risk of developing both anxiety and depression.</p>
<p>Led by Xiaoyan Wu of Anhui Medical University in China, the research team followed 6,656 adolescents (average age 14 years; 52% female) over a one-year period. Students completed self-reported, smartphone-based surveys that assessed 15 lifestyle behaviors—including diet, physical activity, sleep patterns, alcohol consumption, suicidal behaviors, and screen time—as well as symptoms of anxiety and depression.</p>
<p>Using statistical modeling, the researchers grouped participants into four lifestyle categories: a low-risk group (24%), a group with poor dietary habits (40%), a sedentary group with high screen time (22%), and a group engaging in multiple unhealthy behaviors (14%). They then tracked how these baseline patterns related to mental health outcomes one year later.</p>
<p>The findings were striking. Teenagers in the sedentary, high screen-time group were about 50% more likely to experience both anxiety and depression. Meanwhile, those in the multiple unhealthy behaviors group were more than three times as likely to develop these co-occurring conditions.</p>
<p>The sheer number of unhealthy habits also mattered, revealing a clear dose-response pattern: the more unhealthy behaviors a teen had, the greater their likelihood of experiencing comorbid mental health issues. Adolescents with four to six unhealthy behaviors were about 40% more likely to have both anxiety and depression, while those with seven or more had nearly three times the risk.</p>
<p>Importantly, these results held even after accounting for other factors such as family income, number of friends, and family history of depression, and the patterns were consistent across both boys and girls. Furthermore, the researchers ran the data a second time excluding suicidal behaviors—which inherently overlap with depression severity—and found that the clustering of poor diet, lack of exercise, and bad sleep alone still strongly predicted the onset of the combined conditions.</p>
<p>The study highlights that unhealthy habits not only add up, but may interact and reinforce each other, creating a compounding effect on mental health. For example, excessive screen time can disrupt sleep, which in turn affects mood and energy levels, while poor diet may further worsen emotional wellbeing.</p>
<p>“These results emphasize the necessity of monitoring adolescents with high-risk behavioral profiles. Targeted lifestyle modifications may be effective strategies for the early prevention and intervention of comorbid mental health disorders in youth,” Wu and colleagues concluded.</p>
<p>Despite its strengths, the study has some limitations. It only included students currently attending school, meaning the results may not apply to all adolescents. Mental health symptoms were also self-reported rather than clinically diagnosed, which could introduce some bias. Additionally, unmeasured factors such as early life stress could have influenced the results.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12888-026-07886-5" target="_blank">Associations of clustered unhealthy lifestyle behaviors with comorbidity of anxiety and depression among adolescents</a>,” was authored by Wanyu Che, Ziyan Ruan, Shuman Tao, Meng Wang, Yuxuan Cao, Yaqian Niu, Yuming Chen, Tangjun Jiang, Tingting Li, Liwei Zou, Fangbiao Tao, and Xiaoyan Wu.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/how-women-use-physical-attractiveness-to-navigate-the-gender-wage-gap/" 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;">When the pay gap is wide, women see professional beauty as a strategic asset</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 11th 2026, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>New research indicates that many women view physical attractiveness as a practical tool for getting ahead in life, especially in the workplace. When faced with a large gap in pay between men and women, those who reject traditional gender roles often see beauty as a strategic asset for career advancement. These results were recently published in the journal <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-025-03320-1"><i>Archives of Sexual Behavior</i></a>.</p>
<p>Societies often place a heavy emphasis on physical appearance. This focus can lead to self-objectification, a process where individuals view themselves primarily as objects to be evaluated based on how they look. Previous studies have linked this phenomenon to negative outcomes for women, including reduced motivation and poorer mental health.</p>
<p>In recent years, researchers have also started looking at the potential social advantages of investing in one’s appearance. Economics and sociology researchers often refer to a beauty premium. This concept suggests that attractive individuals tend to receive higher wages, better job evaluations, and more social opportunities.</p>
<p>Lead author Lijuan Xiao, a researcher at Xi’an Jiaotong University and Beijing Normal University, along with colleagues, wanted to understand how everyday women perceive these benefits. They focused on how these perceptions shift based on financial inequality and personal beliefs.</p>
<p>The researchers examined two main concepts: the gender wage gap and traditional gender ideology. The gender wage gap refers to the persistently lower average earnings of women compared to men in the workforce. Traditional gender ideology involves the belief that men and women should stick to specific historical roles, such as men focusing on careers and women focusing on domestic life.</p>
<p>To explore these ideas, the research team conducted two initial observational studies. They asked single, heterosexual women in China to write about the benefits of physical attractiveness. In the first phase, 254 participants described the experiences of their most attractive friend.</p>
<p>The researchers used a thematic framework to categorize the written responses. Most women recognized that looking good provided advantages in social relationships. They noted that attractive friends received more help, attention, and forgiveness from others.</p>
<p>Participants also highlighted benefits in finding a romantic partner. They observed that attractive friends had more options when choosing a mate. Career benefits were another primary theme, with participants noting that good looks often led to more job opportunities and smoother experiences at work.</p>
<p>In the second phase, 182 participants wrote about their own personal experiences with attractiveness. The researchers found similar themes in these self-reflections. Many women felt their appearance helped them make friends more easily or leave positive impressions on colleagues.</p>
<p>Some participants did mention the negative consequences of being highly attractive. They reported instances of harassment, facing jealousy from peers, or being stereotyped as unprofessional by coworkers. However, these negative experiences were mentioned far less frequently than the positive benefits.</p>
<p>Across both phases, statistical analysis revealed two primary ways women thought about appearance. About three quarters of the participants fell into a category the researchers called instrumental appearance endorsers. These individuals consistently viewed beauty as a practical asset for navigating the world, both professionally and romantically.</p>
<p>A smaller portion of women exhibited a more skeptical view of beauty’s utility. The researchers labeled them evaluative appearance monitors. These participants rarely mentioned career or dating benefits.</p>
<p>Instead, these skeptical participants frequently described themselves as having an average appearance. This led them to occasionally feel insecure. It also led them to believe that human capital, such as education and hard work, mattered more than looks.</p>
<p>The initial studies established that women generally recognize the everyday benefits of looking good. The researchers then wanted to see how economic standing influenced how women might try to use those benefits. They designed an experiment with 270 participants to test how financial disparities shape these priorities.</p>
<p>Participants viewed pie charts illustrating the wealth distribution between men and women in various fictional countries. The researchers told the participants that the countries were identical in terms of general economic health and politics. Some participants saw a country with a high level of income inequality, where men earned 85 percent of the national income and women earned 15 percent.</p>
<p>Other participants viewed a country with a smaller pay gap. In this scenario, men earned 52 percent of the income and women earned 48 percent. This setup allowed the researchers to expose participants to different levels of structural economic disadvantage in a controlled way.</p>
<p>After looking at the charts, the participants imagined attending a networking event in that fictional country. They then rated their interest in two types of online tutorials. One tutorial offered advice on looking professional to secure a job. The other tutorial focused on how to look attractive to men for romantic purposes.</p>
<p>The researchers also measured each participant’s endorsement of traditional gender roles using a standard questionnaire. They wanted to know if a woman’s core belief system changed her interest in the tutorials.</p>
<p>The results indicated that personal beliefs guided how women prioritized the use of their appearance. When exposed to a large gender pay gap, women with weaker traditional gender beliefs showed a higher interest in the professional grooming tutorial. These individuals appeared to view attractiveness as a way to compete in an unfair labor market.</p>
<p>For these women, investing in their appearance seemed to act as a direct response to structural inequality. Rather than relying on a romantic partner for financial security, they showed interest in using their professional presentation to advance their own careers.</p>
<p>Women who strongly endorsed traditional gender roles exhibited a different pattern. They showed a higher initial interest in the romantic tutorial overall. Their preferences did not shift based on the level of income inequality presented in the experiment.</p>
<p>The researchers note that these more traditional women might view attractiveness as a general social expectation. Instead of using it as a targeted strategy to overcome a specific wage gap, they might see beauty as a standard way to meet societal goals or secure a spouse.</p>
<p>The study authors pointed out a few limitations to their research. The participants were exclusively single, heterosexual women in China. The social functions of physical appearance might operate differently for married women, men, or individuals with different sexual orientations.</p>
<p>Beauty standards and economic conditions vary widely across the globe. What works as a strategy in one culture might not translate to another. Future research should examine these dynamics in different cultural settings to see if the same patterns hold true.</p>
<p>The researchers also suggested that the relationship between economic inequality and beauty investments might not be a simple straight line. In extremely unequal environments, the competition to find a wealthy partner might become so intense that women invest heavily in their appearance for romantic reasons, regardless of their gender ideology.</p>
<p>The measurement tools used to assess perceptions of inequality could also be refined in future studies. The experiment relied on questionnaires that might confuse voluntary life choices, such as choosing to raise children, with forced economic dependence. Using precise definitions of wage gaps and occupational segregation could yield more detailed insights.</p>
<p>Many psychological theories assume that focusing on physical appearance simply reinforces traditional power structures. Yet this study suggests that self-presentation can sometimes serve as an active form of resistance for women focused on their careers. Ultimately, the research suggests that wanting to look good is not always about vanity, as it serves as a calculated response to a world where men and women are not paid equally.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-025-03320-1" target="_blank">Beauty Is Currency: Laywomen’s Perceptions of the Social and Instrumental Functions of Physical Attractiveness</a>,” was authored by Lijuan Xiao, Baolin Li, and Fang Wang.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/scientists-discover-intriguing-brainwave-patterns-linked-to-rhythmic-sound-meditation/" 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 discover intriguing brainwave patterns linked to rhythmic sound meditation</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 11th 2026, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/09727531261417798" target="_blank">Annals of Neurosciences</a></em> suggests that practicing a specific type of sound-based meditation can quiet electrical brain activity while simultaneously increasing a person’s sense of alertness. These findings provide evidence that listening to and focusing on rhythmic sounds may induce a unique mental state. This state is characterized by deep physical relaxation paired with sharp mental clarity.</p>
<p>Rhythmic sound meditation is a structured practice that involves focusing one’s attention on a specific repetitive auditory cue. In this particular study, participants focused on the spoken syllable “AUM.” The guided practice directs a person to gradually shift their attention from listening to the external sound to experiencing a state of internal silence. Historically, this technique is known as Nadamay Meditation and is rooted in ancient Indian philosophical texts.</p>
<p>The researchers designed the study to understand how this specific type of auditory meditation affects brain function. Most previous studies on mindfulness practices tend to show an increase in certain brainwaves associated with relaxation and focus. However, some practices aimed at achieving a state of mental emptiness tend to show the opposite effect. These techniques often result in a general decrease in electrical activity across the brain.</p>
<p>The scientists wanted to map the exact brain patterns produced by rhythmic sound meditation to see which category it fell into. They wanted to determine if focusing on a rhythmic sound would quiet the brain’s electrical signals or amplify them. They also hoped to track whether any changes in brain activity would directly affect how awake and aware the participants felt after the session.</p>
<p>“The primary motivation was to address a notable gap in the neuroscientific literature. While meditation research has grown substantially over the past two decades, the vast majority of studies have focused on silent, mindfulness-based practices such as focused attention or open monitoring meditation. Structured sound-based meditation traditions, despite having deep historical roots, have remained largely unexplored from a neurophysiological standpoint,” said study author Km Megha, a PhD scholar at the Central University of Rajasthan.</p>
<p>“The practice we examined, rhythmic sound meditation, is rooted in the ancient Indian tradition of Nada Yoga, described in classical texts such as the Nada Bindu Upanishad, which outlines sound as a pathway to altered states of consciousness. We wanted to examine whether these experiential claims had measurable neurophysiological correlates using contemporary EEG methodology.”</p>
<p>The researchers recruited fifteen healthy adults with an average age of about twenty-five. None of the participants had any previous experience with meditation or similar mindfulness practices. Each person took part in two separate twenty-six-minute sessions on different days. One session involved the sound meditation, and the other involved a resting state.</p>
<p>During the meditation session, participants practiced the guided rhythmic sound technique while keeping their eyes closed. In the resting session, they simply rested in a chair with their eyes closed and let their thoughts wander naturally. The scientists randomized the order of these visits so that some participants meditated first, while others completed the resting phase first.</p>
<p>Before and after each session, participants rated their current level of wakefulness using a standard questionnaire called the Stanford Sleepiness Scale. This survey asks individuals to rank how alert or tired they feel at that exact moment. During the full twenty-six minutes of both sessions, the researchers continuously monitored the participants’ brain activity. They used an electroencephalogram, which is a device that records electrical brainwaves through sixty-four sensors placed harmlessly on the scalp.</p>
<p>The device measures different types of brainwaves, which vibrate at various speeds and indicate different mental states. These include slow rhythms like delta and theta waves, which usually appear during sleep, deep relaxation, or daydreaming. The electroencephalogram also tracks faster rhythms like alpha, beta, and gamma waves. These faster waves are typically associated with active thinking, problem-solving, sensory processing, and deep concentration.</p>
<p>The scientists found that rhythmic sound meditation reduced the electrical power of all five types of brainwaves compared to the resting session. This reduction was most prominent in the frontal and central parts of the brain. The frontal lobe is a brain region heavily involved in attention, planning, and self-awareness. A decrease in activity here suggests that the participants were experiencing less mind-wandering and fewer distracting thoughts.</p>
<p>At the same time, the self-reported survey revealed an opposing pattern regarding the participants’ wakefulness. Before the resting session, about ninety-three percent of the participants felt alert. That number dropped to about seventy-three percent after resting, indicating that sitting quietly made them feel drowsy.</p>
<p>In contrast, about eighty-seven percent of the participants felt alert before the meditation session began. This number actually increased to over ninety-three percent after they finished meditating. The researchers noted that this combination of quiet brain activity and heightened wakefulness is highly unusual. Usually, a widespread drop in brainwave power means a person is falling asleep or losing focus.</p>
<p>“Perhaps the most striking finding was what we call the ‘alertness paradox,'” Megha told PsyPost. “Conventionally, widespread EEG power suppression is associated with drowsiness or cognitive disengagement. We anticipated some degree of power reduction, but the simultaneous increase in subjective alertness with 93.3% of meditation participants reporting heightened alertness post-session compared to only 73.3% after the resting state, was notably unexpected. This dissociation between oscillatory suppression and conscious alertness suggests that rhythmic sound meditation may induce an active, attentive state of mental quietude, rather than passive relaxation.”</p>
<p>“The central takeaway is that not all forms of meditation work the same way in the brain. Our findings suggest that rhythmic sound meditation produces a distinctive state, one characterized by reduced oscillatory brain activity, particularly in the frontal regions, yet accompanied by heightened subjective alertness. In plain terms, participants’ brains became measurably quieter, yet they felt more awake and mentally clear afterward. This combination is quite different from simply resting or relaxing, and it points toward a unique neurological state that deserves further scientific attention.”</p>
<p>As with all research, there are limitations to consider. The study relied on a very small sample size of just fifteen people. This means the results might not apply universally to the general population. The scientists note that larger studies with more diverse groups of people are necessary to confirm these initial patterns.</p>
<p>Another limitation is that the study used a self-reported questionnaire to measure alertness rather than objective cognitive tests. Relying entirely on how a participant feels can sometimes lead to biased results. Participants might expect to feel better or more awake simply because they know they are meditating. Future research should include physical behavioral tasks, such as computerized reaction time tests, to verify whether the participants are actually more alert.</p>
<p>The study also lacked an active control condition, such as having participants listen to a podcast or classical music. This makes it difficult to completely isolate the specific effects of the meditation from general relaxation. Finally, the surface-level brain sensors used in this study cannot pinpoint exactly which deep brain networks are involved in the process. Advanced imaging techniques are needed to look deeper into the brain and map the specific neural pathways affected by rhythmic sounds.</p>
<p>“We are planning to extend this line of research in several directions: replicating the study with larger and more demographically diverse samples, comparing the neurophysiological effects in long-term practitioners versus beginners, and exploring the potential clinical applications of rhythmic sound meditation for conditions such as chronic stress, anxiety, and sleep disturbance,” Megha explained. “We are also interested in examining how the specific acoustic properties of rhythm, frequency, and tonal structure, map onto distinct EEG signatures.”</p>
<p>Ultimately, the research team hopes these preliminary results help clarify how physical relaxation and mental focus can coexist. They caution against the assumption that a drop in electrical brain energy equals a decline in awareness.</p>
<p>“We would like to emphasize that reduced EEG power does not mean reduced cognitive function,” Megha told PsyPost. “There is a tendency in popular science communication to equate ‘brain activity’ with cognitive performance or mental effort. In this context, the frontal power suppression we observed is more consistent with what some researchers describe as ‘neural efficiency’ or a state of reduced self-referential processing, an organised quieting of the mind, not a disengagement from it.”</p>
<p>“We hope this study contributes to a broader scientific acknowledgment that sound-based contemplative traditions represent a rich and underexplored domain for neuroscientific inquiry. The practice examined here has been part of living contemplative traditions for centuries, and bringing it into the laboratory is as much an act of cross-cultural scientific dialogue as it is an empirical investigation.”</p>
<p>“We also wish to note that this practice is more fully known as ‘Nadamay Meditation,’ a name that better reflects its philosophical and sonic foundations,” Megha added. “We used the term rhythmic sound meditation in the study for clarity and accessibility within the scientific literature.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/09727531261417798" target="_blank">Sound-based Meditation Alters Brain Activity: EEG Evidence for Power Reduction and Enhanced Conscious Alertness</a>,” was authored by Km Megha, Ankita Mishra, Raksha Sharma, Pallabi Pal, Vijay Shanker Yadav, Arjun Ram Roja, Arun Sasidharan, Gulshan Kumar, and Sanjib Patra.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/drumming-with-friends-increases-oxytocin-levels-in-children-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;">Drumming with friends increases oxytocin levels in children, 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 11th 2026, 10:00</div>
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<p><p>A study in Japan found that elementary school girls show an increase in the levels of the hormone oxytocin in saliva when they participate in drum circles with their friends. Participation in drum circles with strangers did not affect oxytocin levels. Cortisol levels did not change after these activities. The paper was published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/brb3.71183"><em>Brain and Behavior</em></a>.</p>
<p>Oxytocin and cortisol are two important hormones that play key roles in how the body responds to social situations and stress. Oxytocin is sometimes called the “love hormone” because it is involved in bonding, trust, and social connection. It is released during activities such as hugging, childbirth, breastfeeding, and positive social interactions. Oxytocin tends to promote relaxation, reduce anxiety, and strengthen interpersonal attachment.</p>
<p>Cortisol, in contrast, is known as the “stress hormone” and is released in response to physical or psychological stress. It helps mobilize energy by increasing blood sugar and preparing the body for a “fight-or-flight” response. Short-term increases in cortisol are adaptive and help individuals cope with immediate challenges. However, chronically elevated cortisol levels can have harmful effects, including impaired immunity, sleep problems, and increased risk of disease. Oxytocin and cortisol tend to have opposing effects, with oxytocin dampening stress responses and cortisol heightening them.</p>
<p>Study author Mitsuru Kikuchi and his colleagues wanted to assess oxytocin and cortisol responses in children participating in facilitated drum circle activities for the first time. They hypothesized that children who participate in such circles with friends would show higher oxytocin levels than those participating with strangers.</p>
<p>Study participants were 28 girls, aged 9 to 10 years, attending an elementary school in Japan. Study authors divided them into two groups of 14 girls. One group participated in a drum circle with friends, while the other participated with strangers.</p>
<p>The drum circle was based solely on drumming without singing or background music. Drums were placed in a circle, and the children chose a drum they liked and sat by it. The facilitator and assistant led the children and organized them to play “Call and Response,” “Drum Circle Freeze,” and “Drum Jam” on the drums.</p>
<p>The children in the group participating in the drum circle with friends were girls attending the same school and playing together outside school hours. The other group (strangers) were girls who did not know each other. There were three drum circles for the group of strangers, each with either 7 or 4 participants. There were four drum circles with 3-5 participants for the friends group.</p>
<p>Before and after the drum circle, participants gave saliva samples, allowing study authors to measure their cortisol and oxytocin levels. They also completed assessments of the quality of life (the Kid-KINDL), autistic symptoms (the Social Responsiveness Scale-Second Edition), anxiety (the Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale), and depression (the Depression Self-Rating Scale for Children). They also rated their emotional states before and after the drum circle using visual analogue scales.</p>
<p>Results showed that salivary oxytocin levels increased after drum circles in the friend group, but not in the group that participated in drum circles with strangers. Salivary cortisol levels did not change after drum circles. Participants’ happiness and relaxation ratings improved significantly in the strangers group after the drum circles, while the friends group reported no change. However, after the activity, the overall mean emotional scores were high and similar between the two groups.</p>
<p>“Our current data suggest that participation in facilitated drum circles with friends may lead to an increase in OT [oxytocin] levels in children, and that preexisting bonds may influence the neuroendocrinological response,” the study authors concluded.</p>
<p>The study contributes to the scientific understanding of the physiological effects of social activities. However, it should be noted that the study was conducted on a small group of elementary school girls. Results on other age and demographic groups might differ.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/brb3.71183">Differences in Oxytocin Response Between a Group of Friends and a Group of Strangers Following Facilitated Drum Circle Activities,</a>” was authored by Mitsuru Kikuchi, Sanae Tanaka, Kazumi Furuhara, Haruhiro Higashida, and Chiharu Tsuji.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/cognitive-dissonance-helps-explain-why-trump-supporters-remain-loyal-new-research-suggests/" 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;">Cognitive dissonance helps explain why Trump supporters remain loyal, new research suggests</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 11th 2026, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.16085" target="_blank">Journal of Social and Political Psychology</a></em> sheds light on how supporters of Donald Trump justify their continued allegiance despite learning about allegations of his sexual misconduct and illegal activities. The research suggests that when people face information that conflicts with their deeply held beliefs, they tend to reduce their mental discomfort by denying the allegations, focusing on policies over personal behavior, or claiming that other politicians commit similar acts.</p>
<p>The scientists initiated this research to understand a specific political dynamic. They noticed that Donald Trump tends to retain widespread support even after facing severe accusations, including accounts of sexual misconduct, abuse of power, and efforts to overturn the 2020 election that culminated in the January 6 Capitol attack. To make sense of how voters mentally navigate this conflicting information, the researchers examined the situation using the psychological concept of cognitive dissonance.</p>
<p>“I was motivated by real-life experiences. I’ve been puzzled and confused by the continuing support and admiration that Donald Trump’s supporters hold for him, despite the many accusations that he has engaged in sexual assault, corruption, and other immoral and illegal activities. I wanted to give those supporters a chance to explain in their own words why they support him,” said study author Cindy Harmon-Jones, a senior lecturer in the School of Psychology at Western Sydney University. </p>
<p>“I also wanted to take a cognitive dissonance perspective to understanding their answers. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that when people hold beliefs that are in conflict, meaning that both ideas cannot be true at once, they feel uncomfortable. This discomfort motivates them to do cognitive work to bring their beliefs closer in alignment. I was interested in how people justify their support for Trump when reminded of the accusations against him.”</p>
<p>In other words, believing that a leader is good while also hearing that the leader did something bad creates mental friction. To get rid of this discomfort, people tend to change their thinking to make the two conflicting ideas fit together.</p>
<p>Past laboratory studies on cognitive dissonance usually gave participants only one limited option to resolve their discomfort. The scientists designed this research to see how people naturally respond when given the freedom to explain their reasoning. They wanted to capture a broader range of reactions to belief-disconfirming information.</p>
<p>The first study took place in October 2019, shortly before the US House of Representatives impeached Trump for abuse of power. The scientists recruited 128 American adults from an online survey platform who indicated at least slight favorability toward Trump. Participants read either a neutral news article about space exploration or an article detailing allegations of sexual misconduct against the president.</p>
<p>Afterward, the researchers asked participants open-ended questions about why they supported the president. The most frequent reason given for supporting Trump was the economy. Participants also frequently mentioned his communication style, his perceived competence, and his status as a political outsider.</p>
<p>The scientists then asked how participants justified their support given the publicized allegations of misconduct. Participants offered three primary responses to resolve their psychological discomfort. The most common reaction, provided by over half the group, was explicitly stating that they did not believe the accusations.</p>
<p>Almost a third of the respondents explained that they cared about his political policies rather than his personal life. Another third justified their stance by claiming that other politicians and wealthy individuals commit similar misdeeds. Some participants provided more than one of these justifications.</p>
<p>“I was surprised to see that many of the participants used very similar language. They repeated Trump’s phrases like ‘fake news’ and ‘drain the swamp,'” Harmon-Jones told PsyPost.</p>
<p>Two days after the House voted to impeach Trump in December 2019, the researchers conducted a second study. They recruited a new group of 173 supporters and repeated the exact same procedure. When asked why they supported Trump, economic issues and specific political policies were the most common answers.</p>
<p>The justifications for his alleged misconduct heavily replicated the first study. Participants largely denied the accusations, pointed to his policies, or noted that others behave similarly. A new response category also emerged in this group, with about 15 percent of respondents explicitly stating that they simply did not care about the alleged misdeeds.</p>
<p>A third study took place in October 2022, just after Trump was arraigned for his involvement in the January 6 Capitol attack. The scientists recruited 187 participants who had voted for Trump in the 2020 election. These individuals read an article summarizing the public hearings regarding the events of January 6.</p>
<p>After reading the summary, participants answered questions about how accurate they felt the information was and whether it made them feel bothered or uncomfortable. This step allowed the researchers to measure the actual emotional discomfort associated with cognitive dissonance. Participants then wrote open-ended responses explaining how they reconciled their support with reports of illegal election interference.</p>
<p>The results from the third study echoed the earlier findings, though participants relied even more heavily on disbelief. Over 60 percent of the respondents claimed the accusations regarding election interference and the Capitol attack were false. A small minority of participants, about 13 percent, noted that they had supported Trump in the past but no longer did so after learning about his actions.</p>
<p>The researchers found a positive association between feeling bothered by the news article and expressing disbelief in the allegations. Participants who experienced higher levels of mental discomfort were more likely to claim the accusations were fabricated. This suggests that the denial is not just a calm rejection of information, but rather a direct response to the psychological distress of cognitive dissonance.</p>
<p>From a psychological perspective, these responses represent novel ways to reduce mental friction. For instance, arguing that a politician’s personal life does not matter is a way of conceptually separating, or compartmentalizing, conflicting pieces of information. By making the personal misconduct seem completely irrelevant to political leadership, individuals can successfully eliminate their mental tension.</p>
<p>“Other people who struggle to understand why Trump’s followers support him might be interested in how they explain this,” Harmon-Jones said. “The most common way was that they said they do not believe the accusations. Other common justifications we found were that they care about his policies not his personal life, and that all politician and wealthy men commit illegal and immoral acts. Some participants said they just did not care about the accusations. ”</p>
<p>“The findings might also lead people to think about how they themselves react when confronted by information that contradicts an important belief. Do they approach the new information with curiosity or do they reject it if it makes them uncomfortable? ”</p>
<p>There are some caveats to consider. The researchers note that these studies rely on online samples, which might not perfectly represent the entire U.S. population. A potential misinterpretation of the findings is the assumption that supporters are simply ignoring facts without any internal struggle. The data provides evidence to the contrary, indicating that emotional discomfort actively drives the rejection of negative information.</p>
<p>“Some people might think that these findings aren’t due to dissonance and that the participants simply did not believe the information,” Harmon-Jones said. “However, in Study 3 was asked people whether the information about the accusations of Trump’s misconduct conflicted with their beliefs and if so, how bothered were they by the information. The more bothered they said they were, the more likely they were to say they didn’t believe the accusations. We interpreted this to mean that those participants were experiencing dissonance and not just coolly disbelieving the information.”</p>
<p>Harmon-Jones also noted that, currently, “our findings only apply to supporters of Donald Trump. However, we don’t know whether this is the case. Would supporters of Barack Obama or Bill Clinton react similarly if they learned of similar accusations against them? That remains to be tested.” </p>
<p>Future research should explore whether similar cognitive defenses occur during the heat of an active election cycle. The scientists also hope to investigate ways to soften these mental barriers so that individuals can become more receptive to information that challenges their worldview. </p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.16085" target="_blank">Responses to Belief-Conflicting Information: Justification of Support for Donald Trump</a>,” was authored by Cindy Harmon-Jones, Robin R. Willardt, Thomas F. Denson, and Eddie Harmon-Jones.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/crying-during-a-conflict-damages-your-opponents-reputation-at-a-cost-to-your-own/" 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;">Crying during a conflict damages your opponent’s reputation at a cost to your own</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 11th 2026, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>In interpersonal conflicts, staying calm tends to protect your reputation, while crying damages the reputation of your opponent alongside your own. This points to a social tradeoff where keeping your cool helps you look good, but shedding tears is more effective if you want to make the other person look bad. These findings were recently published in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2026.106858" target="_blank">Evolution and Human Behavior</a></em>.</p>
<p>Conflict between people is a naturally emotional process. When humans face disputes with colleagues, friends, or romantic partners, they often express sadness or anger to navigate the situation. While past scientific work has focused on how expressing emotions affects the person showing them, less is known about how these emotional responses impact the other person involved in the dispute.</p>
<p>Scientists wanted to examine the reputational consequences of remaining calm compared to expressing active emotions like crying or yelling. They aimed to understand whether different emotional responses create different social tradeoffs for both the person expressing the emotion and the person receiving it.</p>
<p>“Current emotion research focuses extensively on expressive emotions i.e. crying or yelling and suppressive emotions with little mention of stoicism lying in the middle of these two. And most of this research explores how emotional responses shape evaluations of emotional actors but not how emotional responses shape evaluations of emotional recipients who elicit these emotions,” explained study author Zihan Yang, a senior undergraduate student at University of Pennsylvania.</p>
<p>To test these ideas, the researchers conducted a series of five experiments involving over 3,000 adults in the United States who matched the general population’s demographics. In the first three experiments, the scientists presented participants with hypothetical conflict scenarios. These included a poor performance review at work, a dispute over a shared project, teasing from a colleague, romantic disagreements, neighbor complaints, and a sports team conflict.</p>
<p>In Study 1a, which included 392 participants, and Study 1b, with another 392 participants, individuals read scenarios where a character responded to a conflict by either yelling, crying, or remaining stoic. Remaining stoic meant staying calm, thanking the person, or simply dropping the issue. Participants then rated both the acting character and the conflict partner on their professionalism, their value as a social partner, and how much blame or praise they deserved.</p>
<p>Study 1c involved a much larger sample of 1,162 participants and added computer-generated images of the characters to make the emotions more visually apparent. Across all three of these initial experiments, the researchers observed a consistent pattern regarding the acting character’s reputation. The character who remained stoic was evaluated significantly more favorably than the character who cried.</p>
<p>The character who yelled received the worst reputational evaluations of all. However, when it came to the conflict partner’s reputation, the effects shifted. The researchers found that when the acting character cried, the conflict partner was judged much more harshly than when the acting character yelled or remained stoic.</p>
<p>This provides evidence that crying inflicts a unique reputational cost on the other person in a dispute. Yelling, on the other hand, tended to be highly costly to the person yelling but failed to impose similar reputational costs on the conflict partner. This suggests that while anger displays might serve other functions like intimidation, they do not undermine an opponent’s social standing the way tears do.</p>
<p>In Study 2, the scientists wanted to see how people view these dynamics when they imagine themselves in a dispute. They recruited 383 participants and asked them to imagine being the main character in a workplace and a teammate conflict. The participants rated how likely they were to respond with stoicism, crying, or yelling in both public and private settings.</p>
<p>They also estimated how each emotional response would impact their own reputation and their partner’s reputation. The researchers found that participants believed staying calm would make them look the most professional and respectable. The participants expected that crying or yelling would severely damage their own social standing.</p>
<p>At the same time, the participants anticipated that crying would do the most damage to their conflict partner’s reputation. This suggests that people are intuitively aware of the social tradeoffs involved in different emotional expressions. They seem to understand that stoic displays protect the self, while crying punishes the opponent.</p>
<p>Study 3 was designed to capture real experiences rather than imagined scenarios. The scientists asked 633 participants to write about an actual past conflict with another adult. The participants were randomly assigned to recall a time when their conflict partner either cried, yelled, or remained calm.</p>
<p>After writing about the event, the participants rated their own feelings of guilt and how bad they felt about the situation. They also rated how a neutral observer might judge both parties. The researchers found that when a conflict partner cried, it made the participant feel significantly higher levels of guilt compared to when the partner yelled or remained calm.</p>
<p>Participants also expected that neutral observers would judge them most unfavorably if the other person in the conflict had cried. Just as in the earlier experiments, stoic individuals were viewed the most favorably by neutral observers. These consistent findings provide strong evidence for the reputational benefits of keeping your cool.</p>
<p>“Crying imposes reputational costs on conflict partners but also damages cryer’s reputation, whereas stoic displays protect the stoic’s reputation but impose fewer costs on conflict partners,” Yang told PsyPost. “Yelling tended to be costly to the yeller (compared to stoic displays) and failed to impose costs on the conflict partner’s reputation (compared to tears).”</p>
<p>These findings suggest an interesting dynamic in human social interaction, but there are a few limitations to keep in mind. Because the first four experiments relied on imagined situations, the emotional intensity of the conflicts was likely lower than in a real dispute. While the final experiment asked participants to recall real memories, this method relies on human memory, which can be flawed or biased.</p>
<p>The researchers recommend that future studies recreate these social environments in more realistic settings, such as using virtual reality. Another detail to consider is the nature of a stoic response. A stoic display implies that a person feels an emotion but suppresses its outward expression.</p>
<p>If a person simply feels no emotion at all, a calm response might be viewed as cold or inappropriate. Future research should examine whether stoic responses only protect a person’s reputation when others know they are actively suppressing their feelings. It is also possible that cultural expectations play a role in how emotions are judged.</p>
<p>All the participants in these studies lived in the United States. The scientists note that staying calm might be viewed differently in cultures that place a different value on social harmony or emotional expression. Exploring these questions in different cultural groups would help clarify how universal these social rules are.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2026.106858" target="_blank">Stoic displays have reputational benefits but fail to undermine adversaries</a>,” was authored by Zihan Yang and Cory J. Clark.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/reasoning-and-memory-skills-build-on-each-other-in-growing-children/" 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;">Longitudinal study links associative learning gains to later improvements in fluid intelligence</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, 20:00</div>
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<p><p>The ability to link new pieces of information together and the capacity to solve entirely new problems reinforce each other as children grow. Researchers tracking elementary school students over three years found that improvements in learning associations predicted later gains in reasoning, and vice versa. These results, published in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2025.101993">Intelligence</a></em>, show that these two foundational cognitive abilities develop in tandem rather than strictly operating in isolation.</p>
<p>Associative learning is the mental process of forming connections between different pieces of information. Remembering a person’s name by linking it to their face or matching a vocabulary word to its basic definition relies on this process. Experiencing these connections allows people to organize scattered pieces of input into useful, structured knowledge. In a classroom, associative learning forms the bedrock of basic memorization, sequence recognition, and early concept formation.</p>
<p>Fluid intelligence involves a decidedly different set of mental tools. It describes a person’s ability to think abstractly, adapt to unfamiliar situations, and solve novel problems. Instead of relying heavily on prior knowledge or memorized facts from a textbook, fluid intelligence requires the brain to analyze new patterns in real time. Both mental processes mature heavily during late childhood, setting the stage for lifelong academic achievement.</p>
<p>Prior psychological theories debated how exactly these two attributes interact over a child’s lifespan. Some early models proposed that fluid intelligence acts as an innate baseline tool that individuals apply to learn new associations. In this view, a naturally high reasoning ability allows a student to detect patterns and gather knowledge at an accelerated pace. These theorists argued that fluid intelligence serves as the main investment engine driving educational success.</p>
<p>Other theorists suggested the exact opposite direction of growth. They proposed that the ongoing process of learning combinations and patterns slowly builds overall problem-solving power. Under this framework, children who engage in active, effortful learning experiences gradually assemble the flexible thinking capacities necessary for high-level reasoning. By continually practicing new associations, a child stretches their cognitive flexibility over time until abstract problem-solving feels more natural.</p>
<p>Recent developmental frameworks view the brain as a highly active, interconnected network. Under these mutualism models, distinct cognitive abilities like memory and reasoning do not develop in isolation. They are thought to mutually reinforce one another over the years, meaning a breakthrough in learning efficiency might trigger subsequent improvements in analyzing complex patterns.</p>
<p>To test these developmental models in real time, Xuezhu Ren, an education researcher at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, and a team of colleagues conducted a multi-year tracking study among elementary school children. The researchers wanted to see if superior performance in associative learning actively predicted later gains in reasoning ability. They also wanted to measure whether early reasoning ability predicted later associative learning gains.</p>
<p>The study followed 160 fourth-grade students in China. Teams evaluated the children at three distinct time points, with each testing session spaced exactly twelve months apart. The scientists tracked the students from the fourth grade through the sixth grade to capture a critical period of cognitive development.</p>
<p>To measure associative learning, the researchers used a computer-based trial. The team introduced the children to sets of abstract graphics, each of which mapped to a specific letter and a subsequent secondary graphic. After practicing these chains of associations, the children had to locate the exact three-part combination from a lineup of incorrect choices.</p>
<p>To measure fluid intelligence, the investigators administered two standard reasoning tests. One test asked the children to look at progressive geometric patterns that contained a missing puzzle piece. The students had to determine the hidden rules of the pattern and select the correct shape to complete the sequence. The other test presented strings of numbers or letters that followed a specific logical progression, challenging the students to find the single item that broke the rule.</p>
<p>The team also evaluated the students on their working memory and processing speed at the beginning of the study. Working memory acts as a mental notepad, allowing people to hold and manipulate short-term information. Processing speed measures how quickly the brain can perceive and react to simple visual cues. The team wanted to be sure that any relationship between learning and problem-solving was not just a side effect of having a naturally faster or more spacious mental workspace.</p>
<p>For the working memory evaluation, students completed a visual-spatial task where they had to remember the locations of red squares that briefly flashed on a grid. They also completed a direction-based task that required them to inhibit their natural reflexes. To measure processing speed, the children completed a rapid-fire visual task requiring them to determine which side of a grid contained more dots or triangles.</p>
<p>On a general level, the researchers found that students who scored high on associative tasks also tended to score high on the reasoning tasks. A steady positive correlation existed between the two distinct skills across the entire group. To understand how abilities grew within each specific child, the researchers used statistical models that separate broad group trends from individual growth curves.</p>
<p>By tracking each child against their own baseline performance, the team found reciprocal growth effects. When a child performed better than their own expected baseline in associative learning in one year, they tended to show greater than expected gains in fluid intelligence the following year. This pattern suggested that practice with associative links laid the groundwork for better abstract reasoning.</p>
<p>The reverse developmental path was also evident. Children who experienced a spike in fluid intelligence subsequently showed better-than-expected scores on the associative memory tests the next year. The researchers observed no statistical evidence that one direction was overwhelmingly stronger than the other. The two skills appeared to fuel one another equally over the three-year period.</p>
<p>These reciprocal patterns held steady even when the statistical models factored out the students’ baseline working memory and processing speed. The relationship between forming associations and abstract reasoning appears to exist as a dedicated connection, rather than just an artifact of general brain speed. Associative learning involves the formation and stabilization of novel relational structures, which is fundamentally different from the short-term maintenance duties handled by working memory.</p>
<p>The authors suspect that both skills might share underlying mental mechanisms. For example, both tasks require the ability to focus on relevant rules while successfully blocking out distracting information. Higher reasoning skills might also allow children to invent better logical strategies for remembering combinations, rather than just relying on rote repetition.</p>
<p>While the researchers documented a clear reciprocal relationship, they cannot claim strict causality. Because the study relied on observing test scores over time, it is impossible to say with absolute certainty that raising one skill directly causes an increase in the other. In future test settings, scientists might implement controlled experiments to see if specific educational routines meant to boost associative learning actively improve fluid reasoning test scores.</p>
<p>The study featured a relatively small sample size. Evaluating these developmental markers required intensive, one-on-one administration for each child, limiting the broader number of participants. The research also concentrated solely on children in the late elementary school years, leaving younger and older age groups out of the data set.</p>
<p>Tracking students across a wider span of ages might reveal whether these mutual benefits hold steady during earlier childhood or through adolescence. Certain tasks used at the initial testing point also demonstrated lower internal reliability, which might have muted some of the early data patterns. If cognitive skills truly develop in tandem, school curriculums that balance memory-building tasks with problem-solving challenges might foster broader intellectual growth in students.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2025.101993">More than correlates: Longitudinal evidence of bidirectional effects between associative learning and fluid intelligence in elementary school children</a>,” was authored by Xuezhu Ren, Shaochun Zhao, Xinyu Huang, and Xiaojing Lv.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/how-extremist-theories-were-disguised-as-election-integrity-in-2024-2026-03-26/" 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;">Conservative 2024 campaigns reframed demographic shifts as an election integrity issue</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, 18:00</div>
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<p><p>During the 2024 United States presidential election, conservative figures successfully repackaged demographic fears into democratic alarms to broaden their mainstream appeal. By framing immigration as a purposeful strategy to manipulate elections, political campaigns normalized extremist narratives under the guise of protecting the voting process. These observations were published in a recent study in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096525101832">PS: Political Science & Politics</a></em>.</p>
<p>Researchers have tracked a narrative known as the Great Replacement within conservative media ecosystems for years. The phrase gained modern popularity from a 2011 book by French literary theorist Renaud Camus. However, the core anxieties fueling this theory possess a long history in American electoral politics. Historic examples noted by researchers include late nineteenth century panics over a perceived Chinese invasion. Similarly, politicians in the early twentieth century fomented fear regarding a sudden flood of Southern European immigrants.</p>
<p>The modern replacement narrative relies on four central assumptions. It suggests that a nation is experiencing immense population changes, and that these shifts are not occurring by accident. Instead, the theory claims these changes reflect a conscious design established by political elites to benefit themselves. Ultimately, theorists argue this conspiracy will result in the forced displacement of the true people of the nation who should possess it as their birthright.</p>
<p>Michael Feola, an associate professor of government and law at Lafayette College, analyzed how the most recent iteration of this theory manifested in public discourse. He sought to understand how right-wing actors utilized these core themes in the months leading up to the 2024 presidential election. Specifically, Feola examined public statements, campaign advertisements, and social media posts from prominent conservative voices. His investigation sought to explain how politicians capture the civic languages of liberal democracies to serve contrary aims.</p>
<p>Extremist versions of the replacement narrative typically focus entirely on race. This specific variant posits that a historically white majority is shrinking due to both elevated immigration rates and a comparative drop in birth rates among native citizens. Extremists frequently point to demographic models predicting the United States will become a majority-minority country in the coming decades. This explicitly racialized version of the narrative has motivated multiple episodes of mass violence by white supremacists around the globe.</p>
<p>Feola found that the 2024 election cycle relied heavily on a structurally similar but rhetorically distinct version of this narrative. Rather than leaning purely into racial survival, political leaders pushed an electoral variant of the replacement theory. In this version, politicians argued that elites were orchestrating border policies specifically to recruit reliable voters. Migrants from the Global South were characterized not just as outsiders, but as tools used by a political opponent to secure permanent electoral advantage.</p>
<p>The messaging was remarkably consistent across conservative media throughout the campaign. Donald Trump routinely characterized migration as an active invasion. He boldly claimed these border policies were designed to nullify the will of actual citizens and establish a new base of power for generations. The language of a stolen election fit neatly into a broader atmosphere of populist grievance that his campaign had cultivated since the previous voting cycle.</p>
<p>Other prominent voices and Republican leaders echoed this specific claim about voting dynamics. Elon Musk, a highly visible surrogate for the Trump campaign and owner of a major social media platform, posted routinely about a supposed plot to defraud the election. He repeatedly asserted that a failure to elect conservative candidates would result in the legalization of immigrants in key swing states. Musk promoted videos claiming a grand plan to flood the country with undocumented arrivals to enshrine single-party rule.</p>
<p>This rhetoric had tangible impacts on the legislative priorities of government officials. Mike Johnson, the Republican Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, repeatedly accused the Democratic Party of executing a covert plan to turn undocumented immigrants into voters. In response to this perceived threat, lawmakers crafted the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act. Promoters claimed the legislation would preserve election integrity by demanding proof of citizenship for voter registration, even though citizenship is already a strict requirement to vote in federal elections.</p>
<p>While some operatives avoided using the specific terminology of demographic replacement, others embraced the language completely. During a nationally televised candidate debate, Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy stated that the Great Replacement was a basic statement of the opposing party’s platform. These committed appeals highlight how openly extremist terminology was utilized to navigate mainstream campaign discussions.</p>
<p>This strategy effectively laundered a xenophobic message for a wider audience. By positioning their arguments around electoral integrity, politicians masked an exclusionary ideology in the respectable language of democracy. Rather than loudly questioning the racial makeup of the country, they framed themselves as defenders of the voting system. This rhetorical shift made the core tenets of the Great Replacement theory acceptable to mainstream consumers.</p>
<p>Despite this repackaging, the underlying logic of the message remains deeply exclusionary. At the heart of democracy is the concept of a self-governing people, often referred to by the Greek term demos. Feola explains that the electoral replacement narrative warps this fundamental concept. Instead of asking whether the people still exercise power, the messaging fixates on who gets to count as a member of the people in the first place.</p>
<p>By defining the true public in opposition to migrants, political messaging establishes a strict boundary. Race and origin become the master lenses through which insiders are verified and outsiders are disqualified. The nonwhite migrant from the Global South is presented as living evidence of a plot to undermine the self-governance of the original population.</p>
<p>This type of cultivated panic over migration tends to serve a dual purpose. What is presented as anxiety over border control quickly turns inward toward domestic spaces. The suspicion generated by these narratives is often directed at minority groups who already possess citizenship. The idea that outsiders are undermining the nation easily stretches to accommodate existing racial prejudices within the country.</p>
<p>Feola notes that these dynamics reflect historical patterns associated with earlier forms of ultranationalism. In such movements, an overarching threat is often characterized as coming from a distant region. As a nation becomes obsessed with defining a pure public, the category of the dangerous alien outsider merges with racialized populations living inside the borders. This underlying logic helps explain why contemporary accusations of voter fraud are overwhelmingly targeted at urban areas with high minority populations.</p>
<p>Right-wing operatives recognized the power of the replacement narrative to mobilize voters through a sense of victimhood. The story generates a feeling of dispossession, suggesting that electoral integrity is being stolen from the rightful owners of the country. When personal sovereignty feels weakened by global forces, politicians can weaponize these anxieties to direct public anger at specific targets. The fear of an altered demographic reality ultimately reflects a broader anxiety over waning cultural authority.</p>
<p>There are recognized limitations to tracking the exact impacts of such high-level political rhetoric. The study exists as a theoretical and observational analysis of political media rather than an experimental measurement of individual voter behavior. The methodology traces narrative themes but cannot perfectly quantify how many voting decisions were swayed exclusively by this rhetoric. Future research in this area will need to evaluate how these partisan messages are internalized by average citizens.</p>
<p>Moving forward, observers must consider alternative frameworks for expressing national identity. Feola suggests that society requires new visions of the democratic public that can gracefully accommodate a changing populace. Developing these alternatives is necessary to prevent demographic shifts from fueling populist anger among historic majorities. Establishing a more inclusive public culture remains a substantial challenge in the face of an entrenched political media ecosystem.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096525101832" target="_blank">A Flood of Voters for Them: Replacement Fantasies and Democratic Distortion in the 2024 Election</a>,” was authored by Michael Feola.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/people-with-social-anxiety-scan-moving-faces-differently-than-others/" 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;">People with social anxiety scan moving faces differently than others</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, 16:00</div>
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<p><p>Individuals experiencing symptoms of social anxiety tend to identify faint expressions of sadness more accurately and scan moving faces with a more rapid, scattered gaze compared to those without the condition. These results, published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/pne0000369"><i>Psychology & Neuroscience</i></a>, indicate that incorporating moving images into research could improve our understanding of visual attention in social anxiety. The research highlights how slight changes in experimental design can reveal behavioral patterns that still images often miss.</p>
<p>Social anxiety disorder is characterized by an intense and persistent fear of being judged, evaluated, or rejected by others in social situations. This fear shapes how individuals perceive the world around them. People with the condition often process social information, such as the behavior or facial expressions of peers, in ways that reinforce their internal anxieties. When interacting with others, their brains are highly attuned to potential signs of social threat.</p>
<p>Facial expressions act as primary indicators of social intent and emotional state. In everyday life, interpreting these expressions correctly helps people navigate confusing social environments. Previous research has explored how social anxiety alters this emotional processing. Much of this past work relied on static stimuli, such as photographs or schematic drawings of faces in various emotional states.</p>
<p>Static images do not fully capture the reality of human interaction. Everyday social exchanges involve dynamic, moving faces where emotional intensity shifts and changes over time. Researchers wanted to know if testing people with moving images instead of still photographs would change the observed outcomes. They suspected that animated facial expressions would offer a more realistic simulation of a social encounter.</p>
<p>The investigation was conducted by researchers Rianne Gomes e Claudino, Ricardo Basso Garcia, and Nelson Torro-Alves from the Federal University of Paraíba in Brazil. The team designed their experiment to compare how participants recognized facial emotions in both static and dynamic formats. They also wanted to map the physical movements of the participants’ eyes while completing these tasks. By using eye-tracking technology, they aimed to reveal the hidden cognitive processes underlying emotion recognition.</p>
<p>Eye-tracking hardware uses invisible infrared light to monitor exactly where a person is looking on a screen. The equipment records fixations, which are brief moments when the eye stops moving to focus on a specific detail, such as a localized area of the face. The duration and frequency of these fixations provide a window into human attention. If a person feels anxious, their eyes might dart rapidly around an image, or they might look away entirely.</p>
<p>In the context of social anxiety, psychologists typically look for two distinct gaze patterns. One pattern is hypervigilance, defined as a hyperscanning behavior. A hypervigilant person will make many rapid, short fixations as they continuously scan their environment for threats. The other pattern is avoidance, where an individual makes fewer fixations overall and avoids looking at socially charged areas like the eyes.</p>
<p>To test these patterns, Claudino and her colleagues recruited 56 university student volunteers. The participants initially filled out several standard questionnaires, including a recognized inventory for social phobia. Based on their scores, the researchers divided the volunteers into a control group of 30 individuals and a high anxiety group of 26 individuals. The control group presented no reported history of psychiatric disorders or elevated anxiety symptoms.</p>
<p>The study utilized a distinct set of visual materials. The team sourced pictures of four different models showing expressions of joy, anger, disgust, sadness, and a neutral, unexpressive face. They chose predominantly negative emotions because social anxiety is closely tied to fears of repulsion or social rejection. Joy was included as a positive contrast to represent social acceptance.</p>
<p>Using digital morphing software, the researchers created variations of the facial expressions at different intensities. These intensities ranged from a mild 25 percent expression up to a full 100 percent expression. They generated both static photographs and two-second video sequences. The video sequences started with a neutral face that gradually morphed into one of the emotional states over the duration of the clip.</p>
<p>During the experiment, participants sat in front of a computer monitor equipped with the eye-tracking device. They rested their chins on a support to keep their heads completely still. Each trial presented a single face on the screen, either as a static image or a moving video. The participants were asked to identify the displayed emotion by pressing a corresponding number on a keypad.</p>
<p>The behavioral results showed that the two groups were generally similar in their ability to correctly identify most of the emotions. A notable exception emerged when the participants evaluated expressions of sadness. The group with elevated social anxiety scores outperformed the control group in recognizing sadness at the lowest intensity level of 25 percent. They needed less emotional information to accurately detect this specific negative emotion.</p>
<p>This enhanced sensitivity to sadness points to a negative processing bias. People with social anxiety are often highly receptive to subtle social feedback. While emotions like anger might be interpreted directly as a threat, detecting slight sadness in others might trigger either fear or feelings of empathy. This heightened perspective may ensure they do not easily miss minor shifts in another person’s mood.</p>
<p>When reviewing the eye-tracking data, the team found that the nature of the image changed how people looked at it. Both groups required a larger total number of fixations to process the static images. Static images, lacking the flow of natural movement, seem to force the brain to piece together the emotional context through multiple, separate glances. In contrast, when viewing the dynamic videos, both groups made fewer fixations, but each fixation lasted for a longer period of time.</p>
<p>Differences between the two groups became distinctly measurable within the dynamic testing condition. When watching the moving faces, the socially anxious participants demonstrated a visibly hypervigilant pattern. They exhibited a notably higher number of eye fixations than the control group. In addition, the duration of their individual eye fixations was much shorter on average.</p>
<p>This fast, scattered scanning approach suggests a level of discomfort when dealing with shifting facial expressions. The rapid eye movements allow anxious individuals to gather as much visual information as possible without staring too long at any single facial feature. This behavior aligns with clinical theories that socially anxious individuals overestimate social threats. They monitor their surroundings intensely as a means of self-protection.</p>
<p>While the findings offer new insights, the methodology retains a few limitations. The participants in the elevated anxiety group were university students who scored high on symptom questionnaires, rather than individuals with a formal clinical diagnosis from a medical professional. The findings represent a subclinical population as a consequence. The data might not perfectly mirror the behaviors of patients with severe, diagnosed disorders.</p>
<p>In addition, the dynamic videos were computer-generated morphs transitioning from a neutral state to an emotional one. While this provided a controlled way to measure changing intensities, it is a simplified version of a real human interaction. Genuine social encounters involve unpredictable shifts in expression, head movements, and conversational context. A two-second silent video cannot easily replicate the full weight of physical presence.</p>
<p>The researchers also limited their eye-tracking analysis to the basic count and duration of fixations. The equipment recorded the gaze coordinates, but the researchers did not map out specific areas of interest on the faces during this particular analysis. Future experiments could expand on this by tracking exactly which parts of the face attract the most attention from anxious observers. Measuring the distance the eye travels between two fixations could also reveal whether anxious individuals make larger leaps across the visual field.</p>
<p>Despite these limitations, the research suggests that scientists should prioritize matching experimental conditions to real-world complexities. Still photographs rarely elicit the subtle physiological responses associated with the condition. Moving facial expressions appear to act as a more sensitive tool. They readily expose the rapid, uneasy eye movements that characterize social anxiety.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/pne0000369">Hypervigilance to Dynamic and Static Facial Expressions in Social Anxiety: An Eye-Tracking Study</a>,” was authored by Rianne Gomes e Claudino, Ricardo Basso Garcia, and Nelson Torro-Alves.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/social-context-influences-dating-preferences-just-as-much-as-biological-sex/" 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;">Social context influences dating preferences just as much as biological sex</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, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2026.106837" target="_blank">Evolution and Human Behavior</a></em> suggests that a person’s socioeconomic background plays a massive role in shaping what they look for in a romantic partner. The findings provide evidence that the surrounding environment and access to resources often influence dating preferences just as much as biological sex. Ultimately, this research challenges rigid stereotypes about male and female behavior, showing that human mating strategies adapt fluidly to social conditions.</p>
<p>Historically, evolutionary psychology has focused heavily on the biological differences between men and women when it comes to choosing a partner. The standard framework suggests that men tend to prioritize physical attractiveness to maximize reproductive success, while women tend to prioritize resources to ensure stability for offspring. However, human dating behavior is highly complex and responsive to environmental pressures.</p>
<p>The authors of the new study wanted to better understand how resource availability and social standing interact with these biological predispositions. They wanted to see if people from different socioeconomic backgrounds adjusted their romantic preferences and their self-esteem to fit their specific life circumstances. By examining these environmental factors, the researchers aimed to build a more nuanced understanding of how people actually navigate the modern dating market.</p>
<p>When searching for a romantic partner, people often observe their rivals and infer their own market value through comparison. The researchers wanted to test how exposure to highly attractive or successful competitors might shift a person’s confidence. They suspected that realizing one’s own standing in the local dating pool directly shifts what a person demands in a future partner.</p>
<p>“The topic of romantic partner choice has always interested me, and I have been researching it since my undergraduate years. During my PhD, I continued to investigate partner preferences, but as theories like Strategic Pluralism Theory suggest, context significantly influences how people choose their partners,” explained study author Anthonieta Looman Mafra, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of São Paulo.</p>
<p>“I based my study on the work of <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.4236/psych.2014.57080" target="_blank">Castro et al. (2014)</a>, who investigated how exposure to different rivals influenced partner choice, but with an additional factor: living in Brazil, one notices that behaviors change significantly according to different groups. Most research is conducted with convenience samples (i.e., university students), which does not represent the majority of the Brazilian population. Brazil is a socioeconomically unequal country, so different preferences for romantic partners were not only possible but understandable. Therefore, I dedicated myself to collecting data from people with lower socioeconomic status to better understand the Brazilian reality.”</p>
<p>To investigate these dynamics, the researchers recruited 1,166 young adults from Northeast Brazil. The sample consisted of 511 individuals from higher socioeconomic backgrounds, mostly university students, and 655 individuals from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, mostly public middle and high school students. All participants were within a similar age range.</p>
<p>The scientists divided the participants into control and experimental groups to measure their self-esteem, self-perception as a romantic partner, and partner preferences. The experimental group viewed four fabricated profiles of same-sex rivals. These profiles featured photographs and descriptions that varied in physical attractiveness, social skills, and social status.</p>
<p>After viewing these potential dating competitors, participants answered a series of questions. They rated their own desirability on a ten-point scale across categories like physical appearance, sociability, and financial condition. They also detailed exactly what traits they desired in both short-term and long-term romantic partners.</p>
<p>The data revealed differences based on socioeconomic standing. Participants from lower socioeconomic backgrounds rated themselves as more physically attractive than those from wealthier backgrounds. In contrast, higher socioeconomic participants considered themselves to have superior social skills.</p>
<p>This pattern suggests that people evaluate themselves based on the resources most accessible to them in their specific environment. For people with fewer financial resources, physical appearance might act as a primary form of social currency. Meanwhile, wealthier individuals might lean on their communication abilities and networking skills, which are often fostered by advanced educational opportunities.</p>
<p>When it came to long-term relationships, socioeconomic background continued to dictate preferences. People from lower socioeconomic groups placed greater importance on physical attractiveness in a long-term partner. On the other hand, individuals from wealthier backgrounds prioritized social skills for long-term commitments.</p>
<p>The scientists suggest that in resource-unstable environments, physical attractiveness might serve as a key indicator of health and genetic quality. In more stable, wealthier environments, social skills become highly prioritized because they help maintain and advance a person’s existing social standing. In this way, people tend to seek out partners who mirror their own perceived strengths.</p>
<p>Despite these strong environmental influences, biological sex still played a role in specific situations. For short-term encounters, men preferred physical attractiveness more than women did. Meanwhile, women reported stronger preferences for general attractiveness, social skills, and social status in short-term partners compared to men.</p>
<p>Interestingly, both men and women from lower socioeconomic backgrounds expressed stronger preferences for social skills and social status in short-term partners than wealthier participants did. </p>
<p>“Initially, I did not expect men of lower socioeconomic status to prefer partners with higher social status; rather, I expected women of lower socioeconomic status to show a stronger preference for men with higher physical attractiveness,” Mafra told PsyPost.</p>
<p>The researchers also noticed a specific reaction when participants faced highly attractive rivals. When lower socioeconomic women were exposed to profiles of highly attractive female competitors, they significantly increased their preference for social status in a long-term partner.</p>
<p>The researchers propose that facing intense physical competition in the dating market may prompt these women to seek out partners with resources to ensure future stability. The static rival profiles did not broadly lower participants’ self-esteem, but rather fine-tuned what certain groups looked for in a relationship. Throughout all groups, having a high baseline of self-esteem buffered participants against feeling threatened by the fabricated rivals.</p>
<p>“The average person should recognize that men and women are far more alike than different,” Mafra said. “Despite the growing wave of conservatism that claims men and women are biologically programmed to behave in specific, rigid ways, our findings show that other factors often play a much larger role in shaping behavior than biological sex alone. Moving away from these reductive views—which limit women to passivity and child-rearing and men to being mere providers—allows for a much more accurate and nuanced understanding of how we actually choose our partners.”</p>
<p>While the study provides new insights into dating psychology, the average reader should be cautious about generalizing the results too broadly. One limitation is the use of static photographs and written descriptions to simulate dating rivals. Reading a profile on paper does not fully recreate the intense competitive pressure of a real-world social interaction. This lack of real-time pressure might explain why the rival profiles did not significantly alter most participants’ overall self-perception. </p>
<p>“This study was conducted using exposure to rivals through a booklet with photos and descriptions, which is quite different from exposure in a real-world context where you are actually in an environment with rivals and potential romantic partners,” Mafra noted. “Conducting that type of research would be much more complex and was not possible at the time. Therefore, we cannot assume that exposure to rivals has no influence on our behavior, nor that the influence rivals exert on partner preference is controlled solely by an individual’s self-esteem; a broad set of factors likely plays a role.”</p>
<p>Additionally, comparing university students to public school students captures a very specific cultural and educational divide in Brazil. These two groups may have different immediate life goals, such as finding a job right away versus pursuing higher education. These different life trajectories could easily influence their short-term and long-term dating strategies.</p>
<p>While there are many avenues left to explore regarding socioeconomic status and mating preferences, Mafra is temporarily shifting her attention to another pressing psychological issue.</p>
<p>“For now, I am focusing on LGBTQIA+ mental health and whether there is an improvement in mental health after participating in potential intervention strategies for these purposes,” she explained. “I hope to return to this line of research in the near future.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2026.106837" target="_blank">Social context may influence more self-perception and romantic partner preferences than biological sex</a>,” was authored by Anthonieta Looman Mafra, Felipe Nalon Castro, and Fívia de Araújo Lopes.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/feeling-like-you-slept-poorly-might-take-a-heavier-toll-on-new-parents-than-actual-sleep-loss/" 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;">Feeling like you slept poorly might take a heavier toll on new parents than actual sleep loss</a>
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<p><p>A new study published in <em><a href="https://www.sleephealthjournal.org/article/S2352-7218(25)00264-5/fulltext" target="_blank">Sleep Health: Journal of the National Sleep Foundation</a></em> suggests that depression and anxiety may play a growing role in sleep problems among new parents, particularly as their baby gets older.</p>
<p>Becoming a parent is often described as one of life’s most joyful experiences, but it can also be exhausting. Frequent night wakings, feeding schedules, and the stress of caring for a newborn can disrupt sleep for months. Previous research has long shown that poor sleep and mental health issues like depression and anxiety are linked, but most studies have focused solely on mothers and the early weeks after birth.</p>
<p>Researchers wanted to better understand how sleep and mental health influence each other over time and whether the same patterns apply to fathers. Led by Avel Horwitz and Liat Tikotzky of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, the research team followed 232 couples from late pregnancy through their baby’s first year.</p>
<p>Participants reported on their sleep and mental health during pregnancy (the third trimester) and again when their baby was 4, 8, and 12 months old. Sleep was measured in two distinct ways: objectively, using wearable devices (actigraphy) that tracked nighttime movement, and subjectively, through sleep diaries and the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) questionnaire. </p>
<p>The researchers also assessed symptoms of depression and anxiety using established questionnaires—the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Because the scores on these two mental health tests were so strongly linked, researchers combined them into a single “depressive-anxiety” score for their analyses.</p>
<p>The findings revealed a clear pattern: parents who felt they were sleeping poorly and reported more severe insomnia symptoms were significantly more likely to report higher levels of depression and anxiety. Interestingly, the objective sleep data from the wearable devices did not show this connection. This suggests that how parents perceive their sleep—and the distress it causes them—may be more closely tied to their mental health than the actual number of minutes they sleep.</p>
<p>Over time, the direction of this relationship appeared to shift. Rather than sleep problems simply leading to mental health issues, the study found that worsening depression and anxiety at 8 months after birth predicted poorer perceived sleep later on at 12 months for both parents. In fathers, the relationship was even more complex: poor sleep quality at 4 months predicted worse mental health at 8 months, which then fed back into poorer sleep at 12 months, creating a continuous, cyclical trap.</p>
<p>These findings are crucial because they challenge the common assumption that sleep deprivation is the sole driver of distress in new parents. Instead, they suggest that psychological struggles may actually worsen how parents experience their sleep, particularly later in the first year when infants typically begin sleeping more consistently.</p>
<p>However, the study does have limitations. Because it is observational, it cannot definitively prove cause and effect. Additionally, the study sample was quite homogenous; participants were predominantly middle- to upper-income Israeli families with healthy infants, and most had low (non-clinical) levels of depression and anxiety. As a result, these findings may not apply as well to families facing significant economic hardship or parents with severe psychiatric conditions.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://www.sleephealthjournal.org/article/S2352-7218(25)00264-5/fulltext" target="_blank">Sleep and symptoms of depression and anxiety in mothers and fathers of infants: A longitudinal perspective</a>,” was authored by Avel Horwitz, Yael Bar-Shachar, Dar Ran-Peled, Gal Meiri, and Liat Tikotzky.</p></p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
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