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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/ketone-esters-show-promise-as-a-new-treatment-for-alcohol-use-disorder/" 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;">Ketone esters show promise as a new treatment for alcohol use disorder</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 14th 2026, 10:00</div>
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<p><p>A small study comparing individuals with alcohol use disorder and healthy participants found that a single dose of a ketone ester supplement significantly reduced alcohol cravings in participants with alcohol use disorder and shifted brain energy use from glucose to ketones. The paper was published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pscychresns.2026.112154"><em>Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging</em></a>.</p>
<p>Ketone esters are synthetic compounds designed to raise the level of ketone bodies in the blood without requiring fasting or a strict ketogenic diet. Ketones are alternative energy molecules produced naturally by the liver when carbohydrate intake is low, especially during fasting or prolonged exercise.</p>
<p>The rationale behind the study stems from how alcohol changes the brain’s metabolism. People who drink heavily adapt to using acetate (a byproduct of alcohol) for brain energy instead of glucose. When a person stops drinking, the sudden lack of acetate creates a brain energy deficit that is believed to trigger withdrawal symptoms and severe alcohol cravings. Researchers hypothesized that ketones, which act similarly to acetate, could serve as an alternative brain fuel to safely close this energy gap.</p>
<p>A ketone ester supplement typically contains molecules such as β-hydroxybutyrate (BHB) bound to an alcohol, which the body rapidly converts into usable ketones. These supplements can quickly induce a state of nutritional ketosis within minutes of ingestion.</p>
<p>Unlike ketone salts, ketone esters do not contain large amounts of minerals and therefore can deliver higher ketone levels more efficiently. They are sometimes used by athletes to (potentially) enhance endurance performance by providing an alternative fuel source. Some research suggests they may also affect cognitive function by supplying the brain with a steady energy substrate. However, the taste of ketone ester supplements is unpleasant (for most people), and they can cause gastrointestinal discomfort in some users.</p>
<p>Study author Xinyi Li and colleagues wanted to explore the effects of a single dose of a ketone ester supplement. They note that previous studies showed a single dose of ketone ester supplements to elevate BHB levels in blood 30 minutes after intake, with the effects peaking 45-60 minutes after intake. In this study, they investigated the effects on brain glucose metabolism in individuals with alcohol use disorder and healthy individuals. They also looked into how alcohol cravings changed after intake of this supplement.</p>
<p>Study participants included 5 individuals with alcohol use disorder and 5 healthy individuals. Participants were between 21 and 65 years of age; 3 of them were women and 7 were men. Healthy participants’ average age was 36 years, while the average age of individuals with alcohol use disorder was 31 years.</p>
<p>There were two treatment conditions – receiving no ketone ester supplement (baseline) and receiving 395 mg/kg of a ketone ester supplement. All participants went through both conditions in two visits to the laboratory, but the order in which they received the treatments was randomly determined for each participant. On each visit, they completed a PET scan.</p>
<p>The ketone ester supplement participants took was diluted with diet soda or sparkling water and given to participants 1 hour before they had a PET scan. The PET scan portion of the study was open-label, meaning no intervention was provided at the baseline visit and participants knew when they were receiving the supplement. Study participants gave blood samples at arrival to the laboratory, prior to injection of the radioactive glucose (that is needed for PET scans to work), 30 minutes later, and 60 minutes later.</p>
<p>Participants with alcohol use disorder also underwent magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), allowing study authors to directly measure BHB levels inside the brain. Unlike the PET scans, this MRS portion of the study was double-blind and placebo-controlled; participants received either the ketone ester or a taste-matched, bitter dextrose placebo 45 minutes prior to the scan.</p>
<p>Results showed that the ketone ester supplement lowered blood glucose levels and increased BHB levels in both groups. Brain scans revealed a 17% reduction in glucose metabolism, especially in the frontal, occipital, and cingulate cortices of the brain, as well as in the hippocampus, amygdala, and insula regions.</p>
<p>The ketone ester supplement significantly reduced self-reported alcohol cravings in participants with alcohol use disorder. It also tripled BHB levels in the cingulate cortex region of their brains, proving the supplement successfully crossed the blood-brain barrier.</p>
<p>“These findings suggest that a single KE [ketone ester] dose can rapidly shift brain energy use from glucose to ketones, and may help reduce cravings in AUD [alcohol use disorder], supporting its potential as a therapeutic approach,” the study authors concluded.</p>
<p>The study contributes to the scientific understanding of the physiological and psychological effects of ketone ester supplements. However, it should be noted that the study was conducted on a very small group of participants. Because of this, effects needed to be of very substantial magnitude to be detectable.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pscychresns.2026.112154">Pharmacokinetic effects of a single dose nutritional ketone ester supplement on brain glucose and ketone metabolism in alcohol use disorder,</a>” was authored by Xinyi Li, Anthony J. Young, Zhenhao Shi, Juliana Byanyima, Sianneh Vesslee, Rishika Reddy, Timothy Pond, Mark Elliott, Ravinder Reddy, Robert K. Doot, Jan-Willem van der Veen, Henry R. Kranzler, Ravi Prakash Reddy Nanga, Jacob G. Dubroff, and Corinde E. Wiers.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/psychedelic-therapy-and-traditional-antidepressants-show-similar-results-under-open-label-conditions/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Psychedelic therapy and traditional antidepressants show similar results under open-label conditions</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 14th 2026, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in <em><a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/2846479" target="_blank">JAMA Psychiatry</a></em> suggests that psychedelic therapy may not be significantly more effective than standard antidepressants for treating depression when both are compared under similar conditions. The findings provide evidence that the impressive results seen in earlier psychedelic trials might be influenced by study design rather than the unique chemical properties of the drugs themselves. This research helps clarify expectations around new mental health treatments and highlights the importance of fair comparisons in medical science.</p>
<p>Psychedelic therapy combines psychological support with the supervised use of mind-altering substances like psilocybin, which is the active ingredient in “magic” mushrooms. Patients typically undergo preparatory therapy sessions before taking the drug in a controlled clinical environment. They then attend follow-up sessions to help them process the experience.</p>
<p>Scientists conducted this study to address a major methodological problem in psychedelic research known as functional unblinding. In standard clinical trials, neither the patient nor the doctor knows who receives the real drug and who receives an inactive placebo. This blinding process helps prevent a patient’s expectations from influencing the results.</p>
<p>However, functional unblinding occurs when a drug’s physical or psychological effects are so obvious that patients can easily guess whether they received the real treatment. Because psychedelics cause intense changes in perception, practically everyone who takes them in a trial knows they did not receive a placebo. This complete lack of mystery compromises the standard testing procedures used in medical research.</p>
<p>This lack of blinding tends to inflate the perceived benefits of the drug. Patients who realize they received the active psychedelic often experience a boost in hope and positive expectations. At the same time, patients who realize they received the placebo often experience profound disappointment, which can suppress their natural improvement.</p>
<p>“Functional unblinding, i.e. patients realizing who gets placebo and who gets psychedelic in formally blind trials, is the central methodological problem of psychedelic trials. There is agreement in the field that the lack of blinding introduces some bias, but there is no consensus about the magnitude of this bias,” said study author Balázs Szigeti, a postdoctoral clinical data scientist at UCSF’s <a href="https://psychedelics.ucsf.edu/" target="_blank">Translational Psychedelic Research Program</a>.</p>
<p>To solve this problem, the scientists sought to compare treatments on a level playing field by comparing psychedelic therapy to open-label antidepressant trials. This approach allows researchers to measure how both treatments perform when patients are fully aware of their medication.</p>
<p>“Our reasoning is that psychedelic therapy is effectively always open-label (i.e. patients know what treatment they receive), thus, the fair comparison is to other open-label interventions,” Szigeti said.</p>
<p>To conduct the study, the researchers performed a meta-analysis, which is a statistical method that combines data from multiple independent studies to identify broader trends. They searched medical databases for clinical trials treating adults with major depressive disorder. They specifically looked for trials using either open-label standard antidepressants or psychedelic therapies.</p>
<p>The traditional medications included commonly prescribed daily pills, such as escitalopram or fluoxetine. The psychedelic interventions involved mind-altering substances like psilocybin, LSD, or ayahuasca. The final analysis included 24 clinical trials that met their strict criteria.</p>
<p>This dataset consisted of 16 open-label antidepressant trials involving 7,921 patients and 8 psychedelic therapy trials involving 249 patients. The scientists extracted depression severity scores from each study and standardized them using a common metric known as the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale. By converting all the data to a single scale, the researchers could directly compare the symptom improvements reported in both groups.</p>
<p>The researchers used advanced statistical models to estimate the average change in depression symptoms. This change was measured from the beginning of the treatment to the primary endpoint of each trial. The researchers found no meaningful difference in symptom improvement between the two types of treatment.</p>
<p>Both psychedelic therapy and open-label antidepressants led to reductions in depression scores. The statistical models estimated the difference in effectiveness between the two interventions to be a fraction of a point on the depression scale. This negligible difference suggests that psychedelics perform about as well as traditional medications when the playing field is equal.</p>
<p>“When we defined our hypothesis prior to data collection, I wanted to be a psychedelic hero showing that psychedelics are still better than open-label antidepressants, which could have been a strong argument for the superiority of psychedelics,” Szigeti told PsyPost. “While our results are not quite the opposite, we showed no difference rather than antidepressants being better, but was surprised and disappointed once the analysis came together.”</p>
<p>The scientists also examined the impact of blinding on both types of treatment. For standard antidepressants, patients who knew they were taking the drug showed slightly greater improvement than those in blinded trials. This finding provides evidence that simply knowing you are receiving a treatment can boost its effectiveness.</p>
<p>For psychedelic trials, however, the researchers found no difference in outcomes between formally blinded studies and open-label studies. This supports the idea that formal blinding in psychedelic research does not work, as the intense effects of the drugs effectively unblind the patients anyway. Ultimately, the massive advantages previously reported for psychedelics seem partly driven by the poor performance of control groups in blinded trials.</p>
<p>When disappointed placebo patients fail to improve, the active drug looks much better by comparison. The scientists refer to this phenomenon as the “know-cebo” effect, which occurs when patients realize they missed out on the experimental treatment. In some earlier psychedelic trials, patients in the placebo group actually saw their depression worsen due to this disappointment.</p>
<p>While these findings adjust expectations regarding symptom reduction, it is important not to dismiss psychedelic therapy entirely. The researchers point out that their study only measured the reduction of core depressive symptoms. It did not evaluate other potential benefits, such as functional improvements in daily life or differences in side effects.</p>
<p>“Our main finding is that the patient improvement is the same after psychedelic therapy and traditional antidepressants when patients know they are getting an active treatment,” Szigeti explained. “This finding does not mean psychedelics are not effective, only that they are not more effective than traditional antidepressants. These also need to be understood as ‘on average’ effects, some patients are still going to get more benefits from traditional antidepressants, while others from psychedelic therapy.”</p>
<p>Some prior studies suggest that standard medications can cause emotional blunting or sexual dysfunction, while psychedelics might help patients process emotions more deeply. These differing side effect profiles are difficult to compare across widely varied trials. Psychedelics might still offer an alternative option for patients who do not respond well to standard daily medications.</p>
<p>“We received a lot of criticism that we only compared symptom reduction, which is what is measured by classic measures of depression,” Szigeti noted. “It is true that psychedelic therapy may result in better functional outcomes with less side effects. Unfortunately, data on these factors is heterogeneous, making it near impossible to compare across interventions.”</p>
<p>The study also had some limitations regarding the matched data. The psychedelic trials often recruited patients with treatment-resistant depression, which might make their symptoms harder to treat from the start. </p>
<p>Additionally, the measurement timelines differed, with antidepressant trials usually tracking patients for about eight weeks. Psychedelic trials, on the other hand, typically measured outcomes after about three weeks. </p>
<p>Looking ahead, the scientists plan to continue exploring how patients’ expectations shape mental health treatments. “We will have a follow up study comparing patient improvement after blinded antidepressants vs. psychedelic therapy,” Szigeti said. “More broadly, working towards quantitative assessments on the impact of blinding on both treatment and placebo arms for various psychiatric conditions and interventions. My hunch is that the variability is much larger than the field assumes, time will tell.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/2846479" target="_blank">Psychedelic Therapy vs Antidepressants for the Treatment of Depression Under Equal Unblinding Conditions: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis</a>,” was authored by Zachary J. Williams, Hannah Barnett, and Balázs Szigeti.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/romances-with-narcissists-dont-deteriorate-the-way-psychologists-expected/" 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;">Romances with narcissists don’t deteriorate the way psychologists expected</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 14th 2026, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.70065" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Journal of Personality</a></em> suggests that having a highly narcissistic and antagonistic partner is associated with lower overall relationship satisfaction. Yet, this personality trait does not necessarily cause satisfaction to drop at a faster rate over time. The findings challenge the popular idea that romantic relationships with narcissistic individuals start off incredibly satisfying before inevitably crashing into dysfunction.</p>
<p>Scientists Gwendolyn Seidman and William J. Chopik conducted this research to better understand how specific traits associated with narcissism affect romantic relationships over long periods. Narcissism is a personality trait characterized by an inflated sense of self-importance and a deep need for excessive attention.</p>
<p>“Most of the research on narcissism focuses on the narcissistic partner themselves. However, many theories on why narcissism is interpersonally harmful emphasize its potential effects on narcissists’ partners, not just the narcissists themselves. This study documents how these traits could affect both partners’ relationship satisfaction over time,” said study author <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/contributors/gwendolyn-seidman-phd" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gwendolyn Seidman</a>, an associate professor of psychology at <a href="https://psychology.msu.edu/directory/gwendolyn-seidman.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Michigan State University</a>.</p>
<p>“These theories also focus on differences between short- and long-term effects of narcissism in relationships. Narcissists tend to make positive impressions at first acquaintance but are prone to destructive behaviors over the long term. A goal of this study was determine if narcissism produces a downward trajectory in partner’s relationship satisfaction.”</p>
<p>Past frameworks, like the “Chocolate Cake Model” proposed by researchers Amy Brunell and W. Keith Campbell, propose that dating a narcissistic person is highly pleasurable at first but becomes unhealthy later. To test this idea, Seidman and Chopik focused on two distinct dimensions of grandiose narcissism. These dimensions are known as admiration and rivalry.</p>
<p>Narcissistic admiration involves a strong desire to be uniquely special, which is often displayed through charming behavior and self-promotion. Narcissistic rivalry is a more hostile trait that involves looking down on others. People high in rivalry act aggressively to maintain a feeling of superiority.</p>
<p>Seidman and Chopik wanted to see if these two traits caused relationship satisfaction to plummet as the initial charm of a new romance faded. To find answers, the researchers analyzed data from a large, nationally representative survey of German adults and their romantic partners.</p>
<p>The full group included 5,869 couples of varying relationship lengths. A smaller subgroup consisted of 533 couples who had been dating for less than a year. Tracking these distinct groups allowed the scientists to compare brand new romances with established commitments.</p>
<p>To collect data, the researchers had the primary participants complete a short questionnaire. This survey measured their levels of both narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry on a scale from one to five.</p>
<p>For up to six years, both the main participants and their romantic partners rated their overall relationship satisfaction. They did this using a simple scale ranging from zero for very dissatisfied to ten for very satisfied. This dual-perspective approach provided a more complete picture of the relationship dynamics.</p>
<p>The researchers found evidence that narcissistic rivalry tends to be harmful to relationship satisfaction. In the larger group of established couples, higher levels of rivalry were linked to lower overall satisfaction for both the narcissistic individuals and their partners.</p>
<p>The researchers noted that this negative effect was much stronger for the narcissistic individuals themselves than for their partners. People high in rivalry might feel entitled to perfect relationships. This sense of entitlement could leave them chronically disappointed regardless of how well their partner treats them.</p>
<p>In the smaller group of very new relationships, narcissistic rivalry did not lower relationship satisfaction. “I was surprised to find that the negative effects of narcissism were present in the full sample of couples, but not the newer couples who had been together between 1 and 6 years,” Seidman told PsyPost. “These newer couples showed no association between narcissism and satisfaction. So, these newer relationships were more resilient than we expected.”</p>
<p>The researchers propose that partners might overlook or fail to notice hostile behaviors during the early honeymoon phase of a romance. New couples are often on their best behavior and hide their flaws.</p>
<p>Narcissistic admiration, on the other hand, was not linked to relationship satisfaction in either group. The charming aspects of narcissism simply did not predict how happy people were with their romantic partners over time.</p>
<p>When looking at changes over the full six-year period, relationship satisfaction generally declined for most couples. This is a common pattern in relationship research as the initial excitement of romance naturally settles into routine.</p>
<p>The scientists originally suspected that satisfaction would plummet steeply for couples dealing with high levels of narcissistic rivalry. They expected to see a sharp drop as the narcissistic partner’s hostile traits became impossible to ignore.</p>
<p>Instead, the data indicates that satisfaction decreased at roughly the same pace for everyone. A partner’s level of narcissism did not speed up the decline of happiness. The relationship satisfaction of couples with a highly rivalrous partner started lower, but it dropped at the exact same rate as couples without narcissistic traits.</p>
<p>“We found that there was no straight downward trajectory in relationship satisfaction for narcissistic individuals or their partners,” Seidman said. “We expected to find that there would be this clear downward slope, especially in newer relationships. We actually found that in new relationships (those that began within a year of the first data collection), narcissism was not associated with lower satisfaction. That association only showed up in the full sample where couples varied quite a bit in how long they been together. This suggests that narcissism is corrosive, but there isn’t a drop-off in those early years of the relationship. It shows up gradually and in a non-linear fashion.”</p>
<p>These findings do not mean that narcissistic rivalry is harmless in the long run. The scientists suggest that the damage caused by a hostile partner might happen in sudden bursts during major conflicts. These sudden turning points might not be captured well by a slow, steady decline in yearly surveys.</p>
<p>Additionally, narcissistic rivalry might gradually wear down a partner’s self-esteem or sense of independence. This emotional toll could occur without necessarily changing a person’s simple rating of global relationship satisfaction. People might remain satisfied with the relationship while still suffering emotional costs.</p>
<p>The study has a few limitations to consider when interpreting the findings. The scientists relied on a very brief questionnaire to measure personality traits and used only a single question to track relationship satisfaction. This limited approach might miss subtle shifts in how a couple communicates or supports one another.</p>
<p>The study also focused heavily on couples in established relationships who were willing to participate in a multi-year project together. Highly dysfunctional couples might have broken up before the study even began. This means the most toxic relationships might be invisible to the researchers.</p>
<p>“The study examined levels of narcissistic traits in the general population,” Seidman noted. “These traits vary on a continuum – there is no firm cut-off to determine if a person is a narcissist. This research also doesn’t bear on people who have narcissistic personality disorder who likely would not be a large proportion of participants in a sample like this.”</p>
<p>Future studies should use more detailed questionnaires and track couples more frequently during the first few months of dating. Measuring couples every few weeks could reveal exactly when the negative traits of narcissism begin to cause friction. The researchers also plan to measure other relationship outcomes.</p>
<p>“I am planning to go beyond outcomes like overall relationships satisfaction,” Seidman said. “In my latest project, I’m focusing on how narcissistic people can undermine their partners’ basic needs for agency and competence.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.70065" target="_blank" rel="noopener">From Spark to Strain? Changes in Relationship Satisfaction as a Function of Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry</a>,” was authored by Gwendolyn Seidman and William J. Chopik.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/new-research-links-personality-traits-to-confidence-in-recognizing-artificial-intelligence-deception/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">New research links personality traits to confidence in recognizing artificial intelligence deception</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 13th 2026, 16:00</div>
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<p><p>A study published in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.128915.3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">F1000Research</a></em> in 2023 suggests that specific personality traits, particularly honesty and agreeableness, can predict how confident young adults feel in their ability to spot deepfake videos. The findings provide evidence that our underlying psychological makeup shapes our perceived vulnerability to sophisticated artificial intelligence deception.</p>
<p>Deepfake technology relies on artificial intelligence to create highly realistic, manipulated videos or audio recordings of real people. These programs study thousands of images or voice clips to generate synthetic media depicting people saying or doing things that never actually happened. As these digital forgeries become harder to distinguish from reality, they pose a growing threat to personal privacy and accurate information.</p>
<p>Scientists wanted to understand why some individuals feel more capable of recognizing these digital forgeries than others. A person’s belief in their own capability to succeed in a specific situation is known in psychology as self-efficacy. Past research indicates that self-efficacy is often heavily influenced by fundamental personality traits.</p>
<p>By examining these underlying psychological characteristics, the researchers aimed to map out how different personality profiles influence a person’s confidence in identifying deceptive media. Understanding this relationship helps scientists build better strategies for improving digital literacy and media resilience.</p>
<p>”As a social psychologist, I am fascinated by the intersection of human integrity and technological evolution and am concerned with how information technology is not a neutral tool, but one that can be used to consolidate power by manipulating reality. Deepfakes represent a new frontier of perceptual enclosure, where our very ability to witness the truth is being challenged. I wanted to investigate whether our inherent personality traits offer a form of natural defense or, conversely, a vulnerability to the sophisticated systems that now dictate our digital environment,” explained study author <a href="https://about.me/juneman" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Juneman Abraham</a>, a professor and vice rector of research and technology transfer at BINUS University.</p>
<p>For their study, the scientists focused on the HEXACO model of human personality. This framework categorizes human personality into six broad dimensions. These six dimensions include honesty-humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience.</p>
<p>The researchers recruited 200 young adults from Indonesia to participate in an online survey. The sample included 139 women and 61 men, all between the ages of 18 and 25, with an average age of just over 22 years. This specific age group was selected because young adults are highly active online and frequently encounter digital media.</p>
<p>Participants completed a standardized 60-item questionnaire to measure their six HEXACO personality traits. They also answered a custom questionnaire designed to assess their specific self-efficacy in recognizing manipulated media.</p>
<p>This custom measure asked participants to rate their confidence in noticing unnatural elements in photos and videos. For instance, participants rated how capable they felt at spotting abnormal eye movements, mismatched skin tones, or awkward facial expressions that did not match the emotion being spoken.</p>
<p>The statistical analysis revealed that only two of the six personality traits significantly predicted a person’s confidence in detecting deepfakes. Specifically, honesty-humility and agreeableness showed strong but opposing relationships with deepfake detection self-efficacy.</p>
<p>People who scored high in honesty-humility tended to report lower confidence in their ability to spot deepfakes. This personality trait involves a reluctance to manipulate others and a general lack of interest in breaking rules or accumulating wealth.</p>
<p>The researchers suggest that individuals with high honesty-humility might be less accepting of manipulative technologies in general. As a result, they may feel overwhelmed by the highly deceptive nature of deepfakes and doubt their own capacity to identify them.</p>
<p>In contrast to this, individuals who scored high in agreeableness reported higher confidence in their ability to detect artificial intelligence manipulations. Agreeableness reflects a person’s tendency to be cooperative, trusting, and willing to reach a compromise with others.</p>
<p>The scientists propose that agreeable people might have more faith in collective intelligence and shared forensic tools. This cooperative mindset tends to boost their confidence in using community resources or the wisdom of the crowd to navigate digital spaces safely.</p>
<p>“The most important takeaway is that individual confidence is an unreliable shield against systemic deception,” Abraham told PsyPost. “Our study found that Agreeableness correlates with higher self-efficacy, which suggests that a person’s willingness to cooperate and trust (traits essential for social cohesion) are being directly tested by AI.”</p>
<p>“However, the negative correlation with Honesty-Humility warns us that those who are most grounded and cautious may actually feel the most vulnerable. For the average person, especially in non-Western contexts where communal trust is a vital social currency, we must realize that digital literacy is not just a technical skill, but a form of social resilience.”</p>
<p>The other four personality traits did not significantly predict self-efficacy. Emotionality, extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness to experience showed no clear impact on how confident the young adults felt.</p>
<p>“It was telling that traits traditionally associated with ‘individual success’ in a market-driven society, such as Conscientiousness and Openness, did not significantly predict a person’s confidence in recognizing deepfakes,” Abraham said. “This suggests that the ‘virtues’ of the individual are insufficient when facing the scale of algorithmic deception. It highlights that the problem is not a lack of individual ‘effort’ or ‘intelligence,’ but rather a systemic asymmetry between the creators of these technologies and the people who consume them.”</p>
<p>The statistical analysis also showed no significant difference in self-efficacy between men and women. Both genders reported similar levels of overall confidence in their ability to recognize manipulated digital media.</p>
<p>While these findings offer an insightful look into digital psychology, there are a few limitations to keep in mind. The most significant limitation is that the study measured subjective confidence, not actual accuracy in spotting deepfakes.</p>
<p>People often overestimate their own skills, a psychological phenomenon known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. It is entirely possible that individuals who feel highly confident in their detection abilities might actually perform poorly when tested with real deepfake videos.</p>
<p>“There is a profound danger in a false sense of security provided by technology or personality,” Abraham said. “Furthermore, our research was conducted among young adults in Indonesia. This is important because non-Western societies often have different psychological responses to authority and collective information compared to the Western populations that most AI research focuses on. By democratizing this research, we can help societies in the Global South build their own digital defense systems that are culturally relevant and resistant to external manipulation.”</p>
<p>Future research should involve testing participants with actual deepfake media to compare their perceived confidence against their real world accuracy. The scientists also recommend using randomized sampling methods to confirm whether these personality traits directly cause changes in digital media awareness.</p>
<p>“My long-term goal is to solidify the framework of Digital Psychoethics as a necessary response to the challenges of our era,” Abraham explained. “If you look at the trajectory of my publications on Google Scholar, there is a very consistent thread, i.e. an effort to understand human integrity within the context of structural pressures. My academic journey, ranging from in-depth studies on the Psychology of Corruption and Academic Integrity to the development of Psychoinformatics, is a logical evolution to address how human honesty is tested when AI begins to hijack the narrative of reality.”</p>
<p>“I view deepfakes not merely as a hiccup, but as a new form of reality tunnel that threatens to erode human agency, particularly in non-Western contexts and the Global South. Consequently, my commitment to Open Science, which I have consistently advocated for across various forums and writings, serves as a form of resistance against the commodification of truth. My aim is to ensure that psychological knowledge regarding AI mitigation does not become a private monopoly or a tool for the tech elite, but rather remains a public good that empowers ordinary people to build collective resilience against the systemic manipulation of reality.”</p>
<p>“We must stop viewing AI deception as a mere technical glitch and start seeing it as a psychological challenge to human sovereignty in an increasingly automated world,” Abraham added. “At a time when our shared reality is being partitioned and sold to the highest bidder, maintaining social trust requires us to understand the human vulnerabilities that these systems are designed to exploit.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.128915.3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Prediction of self-efficacy in recognizing deepfakes based on personality traits</a>,” was authored by Juneman Abraham, Heru Alamsyah Putra, Tommy Prayoga, Harco Leslie Hendric Spits Warnars, Rudi Hartono Manurung, and Togiaratua Nainggolan.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/trust-and-turbines-how-conspiratorial-thinking-and-wind-farm-opposition-fuel-eac/" 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;">Trust and turbines: how conspiratorial thinking and wind farm opposition fuel each other</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 13th 2026, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>A generalized tendency to believe in secret plots can predict whether someone will oppose the construction of a local wind farm months later. Likewise, coming to oppose that local wind farm can deepen a person’s general conspiratorial worldview over time. These mutually reinforcing perspectives can potentially stall the transition to renewable energy sources if community concerns go unaddressed. The research was recently published in the <i><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2025.102620">Journal of Environmental Psychology</a></i>.</p>
<p>Transitioning to renewable energy often relies heavily on the expansion of onshore wind power. Local communities, however, frequently resist the construction of new turbines in their neighborhoods. Residents might worry about changes to the landscape, the potential impact on local wildlife, or the economic fairness of the development. Without community acceptance, ambitious national goals to mitigate climate change can face severe delays.</p>
<p>Previous research indicated that people with a high propensity to believe in conspiracy theories were more likely to oppose local wind farms. A conspiracy mentality is a general worldview characterized by the assumption that secretive, malevolent groups are orchestrating societal events behind the scenes. This is different from believing in a single, specific theory, like the idea that the moon landing was faked. It represents a baseline assumption that the public is constantly being deceived.</p>
<p>People with a high conspiracy mentality tend to view political and scientific authorities as inherently corrupt or deceitful. Because these authorities are the primary advocates for wind energy expansion, a high baseline level of distrust might readily translate into skepticism about nearby renewable energy projects.</p>
<p>Kevin Winter, a researcher at the University of Hohenheim, and his colleagues wanted to understand the timing of this relationship. Past studies only captured a single snapshot in time. A single snapshot makes it impossible to tell whether a conspiratorial worldview leads to wind farm opposition, or if the opposition develops first. To find out, Winter worked with Lotte Pummerer, Timo von Oertzen, Matthew J. Hornsey, and Kai Sassenberg to track changes in people’s views over an extended period.</p>
<p>Knowing which attitude comes first helps public policy planners design better ways to interact with communities. If a conspiracy mentality comes first, authorities might need to focus on building basic epistemic trust before proposing new infrastructure. Epistemic trust refers to a person’s willingness to believe that the information provided by experts and institutions is accurate and well-intentioned. If opposition to the wind farm comes first, planners might instead need to focus on local economic benefits and fair planning procedures.</p>
<p>The research team set up a longitudinal survey, questioning the same group of German adults at three separate points in time. Each survey wave took place about four months apart, starting in late 2022. By revisiting the same individuals repeatedly, the researchers could look for patterns indicating that a shift in one specific attitude preceded a shift in another.</p>
<p>Out of the original group, 297 participants completed all three rounds of surveys. The questionnaires asked participants to rate their general attitudes toward the construction of wind farms near their hometowns using a standard rating scale. The surveys also measured their overall conspiracy mentality by asking how strongly they agreed with statements asserting that the public is kept in the dark regarding important global events. Participants also indicated their willingness to vote in favor of a local turbine in a hypothetical referendum.</p>
<p>To round out their data, the researchers also measured beliefs in specific conspiracy theories about wind energy. They asked participants if they agreed with statements suggesting that the government intentionally withholds information about the dangers of wind power. Specific narratives often circulate online, claiming that energy companies cover up the negative health impacts of living near turbines or exaggerate the environmental benefits to secure public funding.</p>
<p>The researchers analyzed the data to see how temporary shifts in a person’s mindset affected their views months later. They used a statistical model that separates a person’s stable, long-term traits from their short-term fluctuations in attitude. Human beliefs are generally stable, meaning someone who opposes a wind turbine in January will likely still oppose it in May. By controlling for these stable characteristics, the team could look at the less obvious deviations in personal perspectives.</p>
<p>This procedure allowed the team to see exactly what happened when a participant’s level of suspicion or opposition rose slightly above their own normal baseline. They found that when a person’s conspiracy mentality increased above their typical baseline, they were likely to express more negative attitudes toward local wind farms in the next survey. A generalized suspicion of hidden agendas appears to precede the rejection of specific local initiatives. People who develop a heavier distrust of authorities might naturally assume that government and industry representatives are hiding the true costs or dangers of a proposed energy project.</p>
<p>The data also revealed a pattern working in the opposite direction. When participants reported an increase in negative feelings toward nearby wind farms, they subsequently showed a higher overall conspiracy mentality four months later. This second pathway actually showed a slightly stronger mathematical relationship than the first. Becoming opposed to a local project seems to foster a broader suspicion of society’s institutions.</p>
<p>This dynamic suggests that holding a negative view about a local energy project might prompt people to actively seek out information that justifies their resistance. During this motivated search, they might encounter specific conspiracy theories regarding wind turbines spread by influential figures or online groups. Absorbing these targeted concepts could then broaden into a more generalized suspicion of government and industry. Ultimately, the two mindsets appear to feed into one another back and forth over time, creating a cycle of increasing distrust and policy resistance.</p>
<p>The research team noted a few limitations restricting how broadly these conclusions can be applied. The study relied solely on self-reported survey answers, meaning participants were rating their own attitudes rather than demonstrating them through observable actions. It also only tracked changes over relatively short four-month intervals, which might not capture how these beliefs evolve over the span of a multi-year infrastructure project.</p>
<p>Additionally, the participants were entirely from Germany, a country that was experiencing intense debates about energy policy during the study period. The Russian invasion of Ukraine had recently disrupted natural gas supplies, making domestic energy production and political trust highly polarized topics across the nation. Future studies will need to recruit larger numbers of participants from diverse geographic regions to see if these patterns hold steady in different cultural contexts.</p>
<p>It is also possible that a deeper, underlying trait might be the root cause driving both wind farm opposition and conspiracy beliefs simultaneously. A general disposition to distrust others, for example, could make someone highly susceptible to both phenomena. Expanding the research focus to include broad personality traits could help untangle these intertwined psychological patterns.</p>
<p>If left unchecked, this reinforcing cycle between skepticism of authorities and opposition to renewable energy could slow down efforts to combat climate change. The researchers suggest that local governments can help break the cycle by increasing transparency and encouraging public participation early in the planning process for new wind farms. Building trust directly with local residents might leave less room for secretive suspicions to take root and spread.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2025.102620">Conspiracy belief and opposition to wind farms: A longitudinal study</a>,” was authored by Kevin Winter, Lotte Pummerer, Timo von Oertzen, Matthew J. Hornsey, and Kai Sassenberg.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/advanced-meditation-techniques-linked-to-younger-brain-age-during-sleep/" 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;">Advanced meditation techniques linked to younger brain age during sleep</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 13th 2026, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>People who regularly engage in advanced meditation techniques may possess brains that appear biologically younger than their actual chronological age. By measuring electrical activity in the brain during sleep, researchers found that long-term meditators exhibited brain activity patterns typical of people nearly six years younger. These measurements were published recently in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-025-02583-y"><i>Mindfulness</i></a>.</p>
<p>As human beings age, their sleep changes in predictable ways. Older adults typically experience shorter, more fragmented rest alongside a reduction in deep sleep stages. At the level of brain electrical activity, aging is associated with fewer slow brain waves and a reduction in sleep spindles, which are short bursts of high-frequency brain activity that help consolidate memories.</p>
<p>Scientists can use these natural age-related changes to calculate a biological brain age. They compare an individual’s sleep brain waves against established age norms. When a person’s biological brain age is higher than the number of years they have been alive, they are at a higher risk for cognitive decline, dementia, and mortality. Lower estimates are associated with better general health.</p>
<p>Previous studies using magnetic resonance imaging have shown that meditation protects the physical structure of the brain against aging. Jayme Banks, a neurology researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital, and a team of colleagues wanted to see if similar protective markers appeared in the brain’s real-time electrical activity. The researchers decided to study brain age in a cohort of advanced meditation practitioners.</p>
<p>The research team recruited 34 individuals scheduled to attend an intensive four-day meditation retreat called Samyama Sadhana. This specific retreat requires participants to complete years of prerequisite meditation courses. In the weeks leading up to the retreat, participants must adhere to a vegan diet and practice specific breathing and seated meditation techniques for several hours every day.</p>
<p>To measure brain activity, the study participants wore specialized headbands while sleeping in their own beds. These at-home devices used electroencephalography, a technology that records electrical signals through sensors resting against the scalp. The meditators wore the headbands for several nights in the week before the retreat and for several nights in the weeks following the event.</p>
<p>The researchers compared the sleep data of the meditators against several large existing databases of sleep records. The comparison groups included healthy individuals who used the same at-home headbands, as well as distinct groups of patients who had visited clinical sleep laboratories. These clinical groups ranged from entirely healthy individuals to patients diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment and severe dementia.</p>
<p>The research team matched the meditators with the control subjects based on age, sex, race, and education levels to ensure equivalent comparisons. The meditators possessed an average chronological age of 38 years. According to the sleep data, the estimated biological brain age of the meditation group was 5.9 years younger than their true age.</p>
<p>In contrast, the healthy control groups showed brain ages that closely matched their true chronological ages. The groups with known age-related pathologies displayed much older brain ages. Individuals with mild cognitive impairment possessed brain ages nearly nine years older than their true age, and patients with dementia scored over ten years older.</p>
<p>The researchers looked closely at the specific sleep stages responsible for the younger brain age in the meditators. The younger estimations were largely driven by high-amplitude bursts of brain activity during periods of light sleep. These bursts suggest a highly active and organized neurological state during rest.</p>
<p>The data also revealed a difference in the overall amount of sleep. The meditating cohort slept an average of 6.0 hours per night, while the healthy control group slept an average of 7.6 hours. The researchers propose that advanced meditation habits improve sleep quality, which allows for restorative rest in a shorter period of time.</p>
<p>Alongside the sleep monitoring, the participants completed a series of standardized emotional and cognitive tests. The results showed that the meditators consistently outperformed national averages on tests of fluid cognition, which measures real-time problem-solving skills. They also scored highly on certain tests of crystallized cognition, which measures accumulated knowledge like reading recall.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the four-day meditation retreat itself did not alter the measured brain ages. Sleep records taken in the weeks following the retreat showed no measurable reduction in brain age compared to the records taken beforehand. The cognitive test scores also remained entirely static across the event.</p>
<p>The retreat did affect emotional health. Participants reported increased feelings of positive affect, emotional support, and friendship after the event concluded. They also reported lowered levels of perceived daily stress. The researchers suggest that brief meditation retreats can rapidly shift emotional well-being, but physiological shifts in brain aging likely require years of sustained practice.</p>
<p>The biological mechanisms that connect meditation to sleep and brain aging are not fully understood. Regular slow-paced breathing exercises might play a role by altering activity in the brain stem. Specific cellular groups in the brain stem supply norepinephrine to the cerebral cortex, and calming these cells through controlled breathing might encourage the brain to produce protective sleep patterns.</p>
<p>The study has several limitations regarding its ability to establish cause and effect. The research team did not have access to baseline sleep data from before the participants originally began their long-term meditation habits. Because of this missing baseline, it is not possible to claim that meditation directly caused the younger brain age.</p>
<p>A phenomenon known as self-selection bias could explain the findings. People who are naturally healthier, or who possess lifestyles and genetics that promote slower brain aging, might be more likely to pursue intensive meditation practices in the first place. The study cohort was also highly educated, with the vast majority holding advanced college degrees, which is another factor known to protect cognitive health.</p>
<p>When the researchers tested whether the sheer number of years a person had been meditating correlated with an even younger brain age, the results were not statistically significant. This absence of a longitudinal correlation adds weight to the possibility that innate predispositions might be at play. Future studies tracking beginners over many years are required to see if meditation actively drives these changes in brain health.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-025-02583-y">Sleep-Based Brain Age Is Reduced in Advanced Inner Engineering Meditators</a>,” was authored by Jayme C. Banks, Sepideh Hariri, Kestutis Kveraga, An Ouyang, Kaileigh Gallagher, Syed A. Quadri, Ryan A. Tesh, Preeti Upadhyay Reed, Robert J. Thomas, M. Brandon Westover, Haoqi Sun, and Balachundhar Subramaniam.</p></p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
<p><strong>This information is taken from free public RSS feeds published by each organization for the purpose of public distribution. Readers are linked back to the article content on each organization's website. This email is an unaffiliated unofficial redistribution of this freely provided content from the publishers. </strong></p>
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