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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/study-links-internalized-pornographic-standards-to-body-image-issues-among-incel-men/" 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;">Study links internalized pornographic standards to body image issues among incel men</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 20th 2026, 10:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0092623X.2026.2628651"><em>Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy</em></a> suggests that men who identify as involuntary celibates consume more pornography and experience greater bodily dissatisfaction than other men. The research provides evidence that frequent adult media use, combined with the belief that women expect men to look like pornographic actors, tends to worsen how these men view their own bodies.</p>
<p>Involuntary celibates, commonly known as incels, are men who deeply desire romantic and sexual relationships but feel entirely unable to attain them. This group tends to form a specific online identity centered around rigid and fatalistic beliefs. They generally believe that society is organized into a strict hierarchy based entirely on physical appearance.</p>
<p>From their perspective, incels are trapped at the very bottom of this social hierarchy due to permanent and unchangeable physical flaws. Because of these beliefs, they frequently experience intense loneliness, depression, and a severe lack of social support. Many harbor negative attitudes toward women, believing that women are shallow and only interested in highly attractive men.</p>
<p>Scientists Brandon Sparks and Robyn Mooney wanted to better understand how pornography fits into this specific worldview. Sparks and Mooney noted that pornography often serves as a primary source of sexual information for young men. Because incels lack real world sexual experience and romantic partners, they might rely heavily on adult media to learn about intimacy.</p>
<p>“I have been doing incel research for several years related to their social and emotional health and I came across some really interesting research from Charest and Kleinplatz (2021) that looked at where men and women get their sex information from,” said study author Brandon Sparks, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of New Brunswick.</p>
<p>“By and large, participants reported getting their knowledge about the ‘fun’ parts of sex from friends and intimate partners. But incels do not generally have this social network, nor previous intimate partners to draw this information from. Which gets at the only meaningful gender difference Charest and Kleinplatz (2021) found, which was that men rated pornography as much higher in informative value. So the question became whether this may be where incels were getting their information from.”</p>
<p>“Conceptually, it seemed to map: some incel forums discuss sex as transactional, which is how it is portrayed in pornography; incels appear to have a lot of concerns about their physical image, which is also associated with men’s pornography use; and lastly, there was some likelihood that incels may engage in more pornography use to ameliorate their elevated levels of loneliness and lack of sexual outlets. So really, it ‘fit’ from a number of angles.”</p>
<p>For their study, the scientists recruited 137 men through an online university research system, the social media platform X, and various communities on Reddit. After removing participants who did not complete enough of the survey, the final sample consisted of 121 men. This group included 45 men who self-identified as incels and 76 men who did not.</p>
<p>The participants were mostly heterosexual and had an average age of twenty-nine years old. They completed a series of online questionnaires designed to measure their pornography viewing habits. The researchers provided a standard definition of pornography to ensure all participants were answering based on the exact same concept.</p>
<p>The surveys asked the men how frequently they viewed pornography and how much time they spent watching it in a single sitting. Participants also answered questions about whether they viewed pornography as a realistic portrayal of actual sexual encounters. Another section of the survey asked participants if they believed adult media was a primary educational source for them regarding sex.</p>
<p>In addition to viewing habits, the researchers measured several aspects of the men’s psychological and emotional well-being. They asked the participants about their daily levels of social and emotional loneliness. The surveys also measured how often the men used masturbation as a way to cope with everyday worries and negative feelings.</p>
<p>The researchers also evaluated the men’s satisfaction with their own physical appearance. This involved asking participants how satisfied they were with their muscularity, body fat, and height. A separate questionnaire asked the men to rate their satisfaction with the overall size and appearance of their genitals.</p>
<p>Another central part of the survey focused on relationship expectations. The scientists measured what the men expected from future romantic partners regarding physical attractiveness. They also asked what the men believed those same female partners would expect from them in return.</p>
<p>Specifically, the questionnaires asked if the men felt that future partners would expect them to look and perform sexually like the male actors seen in pornography. Finally, the participants answered questions about whether their pornography habits had negatively affected their personal views of women. Once the surveys were complete, the researchers used statistical software to compare the answers of the two groups.</p>
<p>The results showed distinct behavioral and psychological differences between the two sets of men. Incels reported consuming significantly more pornography than the men who did not identify as incels. They also engaged in much higher levels of masturbatory coping, meaning they frequently used masturbation to manage daily stress and forget their worries.</p>
<p>Additionally, the incel group reported much higher levels of social isolation and daily loneliness. When it came to the adult content itself, the incel men viewed pornography as significantly more realistic than the other men did. They were also more likely to concede that watching pornography had worsened their views of women over time.</p>
<p>The two groups did not differ in what they expected a female partner to look like. Both incels and non-incels had similar aesthetic expectations regarding female pornographic actors. However, the incel group reported much stronger beliefs that future female partners would expect them to match the physical standards of male pornographic actors.</p>
<p>This specific belief was strongly associated with negative feelings about their own physical traits. The researchers found that incels experienced significantly more dissatisfaction with their general body image. They also reported much higher levels of dissatisfaction with their genital image compared to the other men.</p>
<p>The scientists used statistical models to explore how these different factors influence one another. They found that the belief that women expect men to look like pornographic actors acted as a bridge between being an incel and having severe body image issues. Essentially, identifying as an incel and internalizing the physical standards seen in adult media tends to predict intense bodily dissatisfaction.</p>
<p>“Compared to non-incel men, incels reported more concerns about their overall physical appearance and their genitals,” Sparks told PsyPost. “This was explained, in part, by their belief that women will watch pornography and expect other men to look and perform to that same standard. So in other words, it seems that the more incels consume pornography, the more they are internalizing this belief that they will fail to live up to women’s expectations.”</p>
<p>“When I was designing this study, I was emailing back and forth with an incel who suggested that I include some way to capture the perceptions and expectations I mentioned above. And he was bang on. So although I ultimately went into the study with this hypothesis, it wasn’t one I originally had when I was first conceptualizing the study.”</p>
<p>While the study offers new insights into the psychological struggles of socially isolated men, it is not without limitations. The sample size of 121 men is relatively small for psychological research. The researchers note that this is common when studying incels, as the group generally harbors deep mistrust toward academics and outsiders.</p>
<p>The study also relied on a cross-sectional design, meaning the researchers cannot draw conclusions about causality. It is not entirely known if consuming pornography directly causes body image issues, or if men who already have poor body image simply tend to consume more pornography.</p>
<p>“This study was cross-sectional, meaning that all of the data was collected at a single time point,” Sparks noted. “Therefore, I cannot confirm that there is a causal relationship here. Conceptually, it makes sense, and it makes sense based on what the incel I was corresponding with told me, but it needs more rigorous testing under different paradigms to really flesh out the mechanisms.</p>
<p>“It’s also worth noting that incels’ internalization of porn standards (towards themselves) does not completely account for their elevated rates of body and genital image concerns. So there are other factors to consider as well.”</p>
<p>To build on these initial findings, the scientists plan to broaden their scope to include other isolated online communities.</p>
<p>“I have started doing some research on female incels (femcels) to see if some of the same trends exist in them that we see in male incels,” Sparks explained. “I am also going to be looking into relationship and sex concerns among incels and femcels.”</p>
<p>Ultimately, the researchers hope their work fosters an objective and empathetic approach to a highly stigmatized group.</p>
<p>“I think it is important to make sure, especially with incel research, to ensure we are humanizing our participants,” Sparks said. “This research isn’t meant to position incels in any sort of light (good or bad), but to help us understand some of the issues that they are dealing with so we are better positioned to support them with it.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0092623X.2026.2628651">Pornography Consumption, Body Image, and Sexual Schemas Among Incel and Non-Incel Men</a>,” was authored by Brandon Sparks and Robyn Mooney.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/listening-to-bad-music-makes-you-crave-sugar-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;">Listening to bad music makes you crave sugar, 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 20th 2026, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>An experimental study conducted in Austria found that listening to disliked music decreased general desire to eat, but increased the specific desire to eat high-sugar food. On the other hand, listening to liked music and not listening to music was associated with a higher preference for low-sugar foods. The paper was published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2025.108438"><em>Appetite</em></a>.</p>
<p>Music is present everywhere in society and plays a significant role in everyone’s lives. Even when people do not actively listen to music, they are exposed to it in places like restaurants, supermarkets, or even in the streets. Music can be created using voice, instruments, digital technology, or even everyday objects that produce sound.</p>
<p>People use music to express feelings that are difficult to put into words, but feelings can also be affected by music. Music can change mood, reduce stress, increase energy, or help people feel comforted and understood. Music also helps people bond with one another through shared singing, dancing, rituals, celebrations, and cultural traditions. In many societies, it carries history, identity, values, and memories from one generation to the next. It gives pleasure to people and allows them to experience a sense of beauty. For some people, it serves as a way to cope with pain, loneliness, or emotional struggle.</p>
<p>Study authors Jonas Potthoff and Anne Schienle investigated whether liked or disliked music affects visual attention, desire to eat, and food choice in a buffet-like context. The study authors hypothesized that the general desire to eat and the specific desire to eat high-sugar food would be reduced after listening to liked music and increased after listening to disliked music. They also expected that visual attention to food would be increased when participants listened to music they disliked and decreased when they listened to liked music.</p>
<p>The study included 106 participants. 83 of them were women. Participants’ average age was 25 years. 33 participants were vegetarian or vegan, and all participants were instructed to fast for at least three hours prior to the laboratory session.</p>
<p>Study participants were randomly divided into three groups. One group listened to music they liked during the experiment, another listened to disliked music, and the third group finished the experiment with no music. In the experimental setting, 9 items were presented on a table in a 3×3 array. There were three high-sugar foods (vegan gummy sweets of different colors), three low-sugar foods (fruits: green grapes, an orange, and a red apple), and three non-food items (green glass marbles, an orange massage ball, and a red tennis ball).</p>
<p>Participants were instructed to bring one song that they particularly like and one song that they particularly dislike. Depending on the condition, they were instructed to either listen to the song they liked, the song they disliked, or were not given instructions to listen to music.</p>
<p>Before and after listening to music, study participants completed assessments of their affective state (the self-assessment mannikin), and of their general desire to eat. Next, they proceeded to view the items on the table (the buffet), while study authors used an eye tracker to record their eye movements. Finally, participants rated their desire to eat the food items on the table and were allowed to take and consume as many buffet items as they desired.</p>
<p>Results showed that, after listening to disliked music, participants tended to have a lower general desire to eat, but a higher desire to eat high-sugar foods (the vegan gummy sweets). In fact, nearly 62% of participants in the disliked music group chose to eat a high-sugar food, compared to only 24% in the liked music group and 38% in the no-music group. Liked music and no music were associated with a preference for low-sugar foods (fruits, in this case).</p>
<p>The researchers attribute this phenomenon to a concept called “compensatory consumption” or emotional eating. Because the disliked music worsened the participants’ moods, their brains subconsciously sought out highly rewarding, sugar-dense comfort foods as a coping mechanism to improve how they felt, even though their overall hunger was diminished.</p>
<p>Music did not affect participants’ visual attention. However, participants looked longer at food than at non-food items regardless of the music condition, proving that the decision to eat sugary foods was driven by mood rather than how long they stared at the candy.</p>
<p>“These findings suggest that music can bias food-related decision-making independently of attentional processes: liked music may encourage healthier choices, whereas disliked music increases susceptibility to high-sugar comfort foods despite reduced general appetite. The results highlight the potential of music as a subtle, non-caloric intervention for promoting low-sugar eating behaviour,” the study authors concluded.</p>
<p>The study contributes to the scientific understanding of effects of music on food choices. However, it remains unknown how much the preferences participants expressed for specific food items can really be generalized to wider food categories. Increased preference for fruits after listening to liked music might simply be a preference for fruits and not for low-sugar foods in general. Similarly, an increased preference for gummy sweets after listening to disliked music might simply apply to gummy sweets rather than high-sugar foods in general.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2025.108438">Eye candy & eye tunes: Effects of liked vs. disliked music on desire to eat and food choice in an eye-tracking buffet paradigm,</a>”” was authored by Jonas Potthoff and Anne Schienle.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/people-remain-blissfully-ignorant-of-ai-use-in-everyday-messages-new-research-shows/" 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 remain “blissfully ignorant” of AI use in everyday messages, new research shows</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 20th 2026, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2026.108929" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Computers in Human Behavior</a></em> has found that people evaluate others harshly when they know a message was written using artificial intelligence. Yet, individuals tend to remain completely unaware of potential artificial intelligence use in everyday situations. When left in the dark about how a message was created, recipients assume a human wrote it and form positive impressions of the sender.</p>
<p>Generative artificial intelligence refers to computer programs that can produce realistic, human-like text based on simple user instructions. People increasingly use these tools (such as Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini) to draft emails, social media posts, and text messages. Scientists Jiaqi Zhu and Andras Molnar wanted to explore how relying on these programs affects how we view one another in daily life.</p>
<p>Usually, writing a thoughtful message requires time and mental energy. These efforts signal a sender’s sincerity and investment in a relationship. Because text-generating programs remove this effort, the researchers wanted to know if the availability of these tools makes people more suspicious of the messages they receive.</p>
<p>Past studies have shown that people judge communicators negatively when they know a message was generated by artificial intelligence. However, in the real world, people rarely admit that they used a computer program to write their emails. Zhu and Molnar conducted their research to see how people form impressions in realistic situations where artificial intelligence use is kept secret or remains uncertain.</p>
<p>“In academic settings, discussion of generative AI has become unavoidable since ChatGPT’s release in late 2022. For most instructors, detection and regulation of AI use are now part of the job, and in this climate, it’s easy for vigilance to slide into full-on paranoia. Some instructors may even become overzealous, reading AI into writing that may be entirely human, as evidenced by the growing number of high-profile lawsuits against colleges over students who were failed or expelled based on suspected AI use,” said study author <a href="https://lsa.umich.edu/psych/people/faculty/andrasm.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Andras Molnar</a>, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Michigan.</p>
<p>“But in my conversations with people outside academia, I realized we might be living in a bubble: what feels routine in academia may not reflect how people think elsewhere. That’s what motivated our study: we wanted to understand whether people suspect AI use in everyday contexts like emails, text messages, and social media profiles.”</p>
<p>To investigate these questions, Zhu and Molnar conducted a pair of online experiments. In the first experiment, the researchers recruited 647 adults in the United States and asked them to read a hypothetical email. The participants were randomly assigned to read one of four types of messages. These included a gratitude email from a friend, a job application from a nanny, a cover letter from a data analyst, or project feedback from a colleague.</p>
<p>The scientists divided the participants into four groups, giving each group different information about how the email was written. One group was told the sender wrote the message entirely on their own. Another group was told the sender used an artificial intelligence chatbot to write the exact text.</p>
<p>A third group was told they could not be certain whether the message was human-written or generated by artificial intelligence. The final group received no information about the source of the message. This last group mimics how we usually receive emails in real life.</p>
<p>After reading the email, participants rated their social impression of the sender based on ten personal traits. These traits included friendliness, sincerity, authenticity, and trustworthiness. The researchers found that participants evaluated the sender much more negatively when they knew artificial intelligence was used to write the message.</p>
<p>This finding confirms that an explicit disclosure of artificial intelligence use damages a person’s social reputation. The researchers also analyzed the words participants used to describe their first impressions of the sender. When artificial intelligence was disclosed, participants used fewer positive words and more negative words to describe the sender.</p>
<p>Yet, when participants received no information about how the message was created, they evaluated the sender just as positively as when they knew a human wrote it. The scientists noted that participants in this group showed no natural suspicion. Even in the uncertain group, where the possibility of computer assistance was highlighted, participants formed impressions that were much closer to the human-written group than to the artificial intelligence group.</p>
<p>“In these ordinary, everyday interactions, people really dislike receiving AI-generated messages from others,” Molnar told PsyPost. “For example, we don’t want AI-generated apologies, no matter how polished they are, because they sound inauthentic and hollow; outsourcing deeply personal communication to AI may even feel like a betrayal and signal disrespect.”</p>
<p>“However, this ‘AI penalty’ seems to apply only when we know or strongly suspect that someone used AI to write the message. What our work shows is that without explicit disclosure (for example, a label indicating AI use), people generally don’t suspect AI in everyday situations and treat these messages as if they were fully human-written.”</p>
<p>The researchers conducted a second experiment seven months later to see if rising public familiarity with these text-generating programs would increase natural skepticism. They recruited a new sample of 654 adults in the United States. This time, they updated the scenarios to include a wider variety of communication styles. The new scenarios featured a social media post about a summer internship, text messages apologizing for a canceled dinner, and a detailed online dating profile.</p>
<p>In this second experiment, the scientists asked participants to estimate how much time and mental effort the sender put into the message. The researchers also asked how accurately the text reflected the sender’s true feelings. Participants who were told the text was generated by a computer program gave lower ratings on all three of these measures.</p>
<p>For the group that received no information about the source of the message, participants assumed the sender invested the same amount of mental effort as a confirmed human writer. The researchers found that the lack of mental effort and reflection accuracy completely explained why participants penalized the artificial intelligence users. The results of the second experiment fully replicated the findings of the first study, showing that people remain blissfully ignorant of artificial intelligence use.</p>
<p>“What surprised us most was that people who themselves are heavy users of generative AI (who frequently send AI-generated or AI-edited messages) were not any more likely to suspect that others were using AI,” Molnar said. “We expected that more experience with these tools would make people more skeptical, but it didn’t. In other words, familiarity with AI doesn’t automatically translate into greater suspicion in everyday communication.”</p>
<p>“This finding matters because it suggests that people can outsource their writing to AI with relatively little risk of being detected, or even suspected. This creates an uneven playing field: people who don’t want to use AI, or can’t use it, may be at a disadvantage, while heavy users can come across as more articulate, polished, and effective without incurring negative perceptions — unless they admit that they used AI. And why would they?”</p>
<p>When discussing their findings, the scientists highlighted a potential misinterpretation regarding what the participants were actually evaluating. Molnar explained that the study was designed to measure how people judge the author of a message, not how they judge the quality or effectiveness of the text itself. The focus was entirely on the social impression formed about the person behind the screen.</p>
<p>The study also has a few limitations that provide avenues for future research. The experiments relied on hypothetical scenarios, which means participants might react differently in real-life situations with actual stakes. The researchers also tested a complete use of artificial intelligence rather than a partial use, where a person might simply use a program to edit a few sentences.</p>
<p>Because the research focused on one-way communication, it is unknown how people might react during a live, back-and-forth conversation. Additionally, the study only included participants from the United States. The researchers are particularly interested in exploring what specific situations trigger suspicion in everyday life.</p>
<p>“Our next step is to understand what triggers vigilance and suspicion: what flips the switch between everyday communication and contexts like academia, where people are much more aware of possible AI use? Our current studies already suggest it’s not simply a matter of exposure or familiarity with these tools, since even heavy AI users aren’t more likely to suspect others,” Molnar said.</p>
<p>“So we’re now testing other explanations: for example, whether high-stakes situations (grades, hiring, evaluations) reliably increase vigilance, and whether people become more skeptical only after personally relevant negative experiences that teach them to watch for AI use. I would also love to collect data in other countries (our current experiments were conducted in the US) to see if there are any differences in skepticism and vigilance.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2026.108929" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Blissful (A)Ignorance: Despite the widespread adoption of AI in communication, people do not suspect AI use in realistic contexts</a>,” was authored by Jiaqi Zhu and Andras Molnar.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/how-believing-in-a-chemical-imbalance-keeps-patients-on-antidepressants-longer/" 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;">Believing in a “chemical imbalance” might keep patients on antidepressants longer</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 19th 2026, 16:00</div>
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<p><p>People who view their depression or anxiety as the result of a chemical imbalance tend to use antidepressants for much longer periods than those who see their condition as a reaction to life events. These individuals are also less likely to attempt coming off their medication, even when their ongoing symptoms are mild. The research detailing these patterns was published in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2025.121069"><i>Journal of Affective Disorders</i></a>.</p>
<p>Since the 1990s, pharmaceutical marketing and educational campaigns have heavily promoted the idea that depression is a biological disease. Many of these campaigns specifically claimed that emotional distress originates from a lack of serotonin in the brain. This medical explanation was originally intended to reduce social stigma and encourage people to seek professional help. Over the past few decades, prescriptions for depression and anxiety have surged in both the United States and the United Kingdom.</p>
<p>Today, long-term prescribing is a primary driver behind the massive increase in continual antidepressant use. In the UK, millions of people take these drugs, and at any given time, half of them have been taking their medication for more than two years. In the US, nearly half of all patients on antidepressants have been taking them for more than five years. While medical guidelines do recommend ongoing treatment for some individuals, health experts estimate that a large portion of long-term users might be taking the medication unnecessarily.</p>
<p>A growing body of modern research has <a href="https://www.psypost.org/the-chemical-imbalance-theory-of-depression-is-dead-but-that-doesnt-mean-antidepressants-dont-work/">failed to support the original biological theories</a> of depression. Recent systematic reviews of the scientific literature have found no consistent evidence linking depression to abnormal serotonin levels. Despite this shift in scientific understanding, public perception remains heavily influenced by older marketing messages. Survey data from recent years shows that up to 80 percent of the population in Western countries holds onto the chemical imbalance theory.</p>
<p>Mollie Griffin Williams, a researcher at University College London, alongside psychiatrist Joanna Moncrieff and their colleagues, wanted to investigate how these lingering biological beliefs affect modern patients. The researchers suspected that believing a mental illness is a physical brain defect might change how an individual approaches their recovery. They specifically wanted to know if this perspective makes patients more hesitant to stop taking their medication.</p>
<p>To explore this question, the research team designed a cross-sectional survey for adults attending a public psychological therapy service in the UK. This national program provides free counseling and support for people experiencing common mental health problems like depression, generalized anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. The team contacted patients who had consented to be approached for research and verified their eligibility. A total of 497 people who were either currently taking or had previously taken antidepressants completed the online questionnaire.</p>
<p>The survey asked participants to select the statements that best described their understanding of their original condition. Options included biological explanations, such as a brain illness or a chemical imbalance, as well as environmental explanations, such as a response to life issues. Another set of questions asked participants how they viewed the action of their medication. Here, they could indicate whether they believed the drugs corrected low serotonin, acted as a temporary aid, or served as a bridge to make therapy easier.</p>
<p>The researchers also extracted data from the patients’ medical records to gather an objective measure of their mental health. They looked at the participants’ starting scores on standard clinical questionnaires used to evaluate depression and anxiety. These tools, known as the Patient Health Questionnaire and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder assessment, provide a numerical rating of symptom distress. By comparing these scores, the team could check if differing beliefs were simply a byproduct of how sick the patients actually were.</p>
<p>The survey responses revealed a blend of patient perspectives. About 57 percent of the respondents endorsed at least one statement attributing their condition or their need for medication to a biological cause. At the same time, roughly 66 percent of the participants thought their mental health struggles were a response to difficult life events. This overlap suggests that many people hold mixed views, accepting both medical and environmental explanations for their emotional distress.</p>
<p>When the researchers looked at medication habits, a distinct behavioral pattern emerged. People who held biological beliefs about their mental health had used antidepressants for a median duration of 12 months. In contrast, patients who did not endorse biological explanations had used the drugs for a median of only six months.</p>
<p>The views patients held also corresponded to differing attitudes about the medication’s effectiveness. Individuals in the biological belief group were more likely to report that the drugs had improved their symptoms. They were also much more likely to express that they could not cope with daily life without their antidepressants.</p>
<p>This psychological reliance translated into a lower willingness to stop treatment. Among those with biological beliefs, only about 58 percent had ever attempted to stop taking their medication. In the group lacking these beliefs, nearly 68 percent of patients had tried to come off their antidepressants.</p>
<p>The team checked the clinical assessment scores to ensure these differences were not driven by underlying illness severity. They found no differences in the initial depression or anxiety scores between the two belief groups. The patients holding biological views were not objectively more unwell than the others, meaning their prolonged duration of use was tied to their perspective rather than their pathology.</p>
<p>The researchers also evaluated how these beliefs interacted with drug withdrawal. Patients who attempt to stop taking antidepressants often experience a discontinuation syndrome, which can include dizziness, electric shock sensations in the brain, and emotional swings. In this study, among the people who had tried to quit, holding a biological belief was not associated with experiencing more severe withdrawal symptoms. However, using the medication for a longer period of time was linked to much worse withdrawal effects down the line.</p>
<p>The research team acknowledged several limitations to their methodology. Because the study was a cross-sectional survey, it only captured a snapshot of the participants at a single moment in time. This design cannot prove that biological beliefs directly cause patients to take medication for longer periods. It remains entirely possible that the daily routine of taking a pill gradually shapes a person’s mindset, reinforcing the idea that they suffer from a permanent chemical deficit.</p>
<p>The patient sample also presents a limitation regarding how universally these findings apply. The participants were recruited from a public psychotherapy service, indicating that they were already open to non-medical forms of mental health intervention. This specific demographic might naturally lean more toward treating their condition as a reaction to personal stress compared to the broader population of drug users. Additionally, the evaluations of withdrawal symptoms were based on retrospective self-reports, which can contain memory inaccuracies.</p>
<p>Moving forward, the researchers suggest that reshaping how medical professionals talk about mental health might improve patient outcomes. Because longer drug usage leads to worse withdrawal symptoms, preventing unnecessary long-term reliance is a major public health priority. Future studies will need to test whether explicitly educating patients about the lack of evidence for chemical imbalances helps them safely discontinue their medication. If doctors avoid framing depression as a permanent biological defect, their patients might find it easier to leave their prescriptions behind once they recover from a difficult period in life.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2025.121069">Beliefs about the biological nature of mental disorders and how they affect antidepressant use and withdrawal</a>,” was authored by Mollie Griffin Williams, Mark Horowitz, James Davies, and Joanna Moncrieff.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/common-anti-parasitic-drug-reduces-withdrawal-driven-drinking-in-dependent-roden/" 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;">Can a common parasite medication calm the brain’s stress circuitry during alcohol withdrawal?</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 19th 2026, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>Alcohol use disorder affects tens of millions of people globally, resulting in massive economic costs and severe public health consequences. The chronic condition is defined by an inability to control drinking habits and the emergence of severe negative emotional states when the substance is removed.</p>
<p>While several medications are approved to treat the disorder, they only work for a fraction of patients. In a recent study, researchers found that genetic markers related to a specific brain receptor predict the severity of alcohol dependence in rodents, and that administrating the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin reduces withdrawal-driven drinking. The study was published in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropharm.2026.110881">Neuropharmacology</a></em>.</p>
<p>Current pharmaceutical treatments for alcohol use disorder often fail to provide lasting relief because patients possess wide biological and genetic diversity. A chemical intervention that successfully curbs drinking in one person might produce side effects or show no measurable effect in another. For psychiatric treatments to improve, the medical field must adopt a precision medicine model that accounts for these deeply ingrained individual differences.</p>
<p>A collaborative team of scientists, led by Paola Campo, Marsida Kallupi, and Giordano de Guglielmo at the University of California San Diego, sought to understand how specific genetic variations influence addiction behaviors. They focused on a gene called *P2rx4*. This gene contains the instructions for building the P2X4 receptor, a specialized protein channel located on the surface of brain cells.</p>
<p>These receptors are highly concentrated in areas of the brain associated with stress and reward processing. Under normal conditions, they help regulate the flow of electrical signals between neurons. When an individual consumes alcohol, the substance acts as an inhibitor, temporarily dampening the activity of these receptor channels.</p>
<p>In response to chronic alcohol exposure, the brain attempts to compensate by producing more of these receptors. Previous research linked this receptor cluster to drinking behaviors in various animal models, but the exact relationship remained largely unexplored in a naturally diverse genetic population. The research team hypothesized that baseline variations in this gene might dictate which individuals are most vulnerable to escalating their drinking over time.</p>
<p>To test this idea, the researchers utilized heterogeneous stock rats. Unlike traditional laboratory strains that are bred to be genetically identical, heterogeneous stock rats are bred from eight different source populations. This breeding strategy creates a large gene pool, producing rodents with distinct physical traits and behavioral tendencies that more closely mirror human diversity.</p>
<p>Rather than directly tracking the physical proteins in the brains of live animals, the researchers applied an advanced computational model to an existing genetic database. They examined specific variations in the DNA sequence located near the target gene. By analyzing these tiny genetic spelling differences across 131 distinct rats, the tools predicted how robustly the gene would be expressed in each animal’s brain tissue.</p>
<p>Based on these statistical calculations, the team separated the rodents into a high predicted expression group and a low predicted expression group. The animals were initially trained in specialized conditioning chambers, where they learned to press a mechanical lever to receive small liquid drops of alcohol.</p>
<p>After establishing a stable baseline of voluntary consumption, the researchers exposed the rodents to a daily cycle of alcohol vapor within their housing units. This chronic intermittent vapor model replicates human physical dependence by maintaining highly elevated blood alcohol levels for extended stretches, followed by periods of forced abstinence.</p>
<p>The researchers found that rodents assigned to the high predicted expression group escalated their alcohol intake much more severely during withdrawal compared to the other animals. Both groups drank more alcohol after becoming dependent, but the genetically susceptible rats exhibited a much heavier burden of compulsive drinking.</p>
<p>Following this genetic analysis, the researchers explored a potential pharmaceutical intervention. They tested ivermectin, a common medication typically prescribed in veterinary and human medicine to treat parasitic worm infections. Earlier cellular studies demonstrated that ivermectin acts on the P2X4 receptor and boosts its activity, essentially counteracting the biological dampening effects caused by alcohol.</p>
<p>A separate cohort of 32 dependent, genetically diverse rodents received varying doses of ivermectin via injection four hours before behavioral testing. The drug produced a dose-dependent reduction in alcohol consumption. Animals given the highest doses markedly reduced their lever-pressing for alcohol during acute withdrawal periods.</p>
<p>The researchers also needed to ensure that the medication was directly altering the brain’s motivation system rather than merely making the animals physically sluggish. They monitored the rodents’ water intake throughout the pharmacological testing. The medication did not alter the animals’ desire to drink water, confirming that it specifically reduced alcohol-seeking behavior without causing generalized motor deficits.</p>
<p>However, the researchers observed a discrepancy between the sexes. Female rodents consumed more alcohol on average and required a higher dose of ivermectin to display a drop in drinking compared to the male subjects. Because of the widespread genetic diversity among the subjects, the medication did not work universally across the entire population.</p>
<p>The researchers stratified the animals based on their specific behavioral responses to the drug, categorizing them as non-responders, mild responders, and high responders. To figure out exactly why the drug only worked for certain subjects, the scientists prepared incredibly thin slices of the rodents’ brains and kept the tissue alive in an oxygenated fluid bath.</p>
<p>They focused specifically on the central amygdala, a dense cluster of neurons that acts as a major hub for processing fear, stress, and negative emotional states. They utilized microscopic glass electrodes to record the faint electrical currents flowing across the membranes of individual brain cells within this region.</p>
<p>This advanced technique allowed them to observe the real-time activity of gamma-aminobutyric acid, commonly known as GABA. This chemical acts as the primary inhibitory messenger in the mammalian nervous system, functioning like a biological brake pedal to slow down chaotic electrical firing. During the acute phase of alcohol withdrawal, this braking system heavily dysregulates.</p>
<p>In the high-responding animals, bathing the brain slices in ivermectin resulted in a sustained increase in the frequency of calming GABA signals. This suggests that the drug successfully engaged the target receptors and facilitated the release of inhibitory chemicals, which likely reduced the animals’ internal urge to drink.</p>
<p>The drug produced a very different outcome in the non-responding animals. While it slightly changed the exact timing of the electrical currents, it failed to elevate the overall frequency of the inhibitory signals. The researchers suspect that in these animals, the medication might have interacted with other incidental receptors on the cell surface rather than properly engaging the primary target mechanism.</p>
<p>Moving pharmaceuticals from rodent experiments to human clinics presents massive hurdles. Ivermectin often struggles to cross the blood-brain barrier, which acts as a protective cellular shield around the human central nervous system. Achieving the necessary drug concentrations in the human brain might be difficult with standard oral pill dosing alone.</p>
<p>Future research will address these chemical delivery issues. Scientists might explore combination therapies, pairing ivermectin with complementary chemical agents that temporarily bypass the brain’s defense pumps, allowing more of the drug to reach the central amygdala. Other studies will attempt to map exactly which types of brain cells express the highest numbers of these targeted receptors to narrow down the mechanical focus.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the study highlights the necessity of matching the right pharmacological treatment to the correct genetic profile. Future clinical trials evaluating this cellular pathway will likely need to pre-screen human participants for specific genetic markers. By identifying who is most biologically primed to respond, medical professionals could eventually deliver strictly tailored treatments for severe alcohol dependence.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropharm.2026.110881">Ivermectin Reduces Withdrawal-Induced Alcohol Intake in Rats: Association with CeA GABAergic Enhancement and P2rx4 Genetic Liability</a>,” was authored by Paola Campo, Ran Qiao, Michelle R. Doyle, Daniel Munro, Benjamin J. Johnson, Abraham A. Palmer, Marsida Kallupi, and Giordano de Guglielmo.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/childhood-trauma-and-attachment-styles-show-nuanced-links-to-alternative-sexual/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Childhood trauma and attachment styles show nuanced links to alternative sexual preferences</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 19th 2026, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study explores the relationships between past traumatic experiences, how people connect with others emotionally, and their roles in consensual power exchange or pain play during sex. The research indicates that a history of sexual abuse in childhood and certain insecure emotional patterns are related to whether someone prefers submissive or dominant sexual roles. These initial results were published in the journal <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/bs15060813"><em>Behavioral Sciences</em></a>.</p>
<p>To understand these connections, it helps to examine the framework surrounding bondage, discipline, dominance, submission, and sadomasochism. This collection of acts is commonly known by its initialism, BDSM. The practice involves consensual power exchanges and the erotic expression of physical sensations, which can include the receipt or delivery of pain.</p>
<p>These behaviors typically feature three primary roles. A dominant partner takes control, a submissive partner relinquishes control, and a “switch” alternates between the two positions depending on the scenario. Consent is a foundational requirement, distinguishing these behaviors entirely from violence or assault. Communities centered around these practices often rely on established safety frameworks, such as the strict principle of safe, sane, and consensual participation.</p>
<p>Historically, psychology and medicine viewed these behaviors as inherently problematic because early researchers based their theories on clinical or forensic populations where consent was entirely absent. This skewed the scientific understanding of alternative sexualities for decades. Today, major diagnostic classifications separate atypical consensual sexual interests from actual mental health disorders, and modern research estimates that actual participation in these practices ranges between twenty and thirty percent of the general population.</p>
<p>Another foundational concept in the new research is attachment theory. Attachment theory describes how people form emotional bonds, pointing to how these patterns form from early interactions with parents or caregivers. The care a child receives creates a mental blueprint for how they view themselves and others later in life, and this blueprint continues to guide their adult interactions.</p>
<p>Securely attached individuals feel comfortable with closeness and trust. They generally expect others to be supportive. In contrast, insecure attachment generally falls into three specific categories. Preoccupied individuals constantly seek approval and fear abandonment, dismissive individuals avoid closeness because they prefer extreme independence and do not trust others, and fearful individuals desire emotional intimacy but pull away to avoid being hurt.</p>
<p>Researchers Maja Selič and Vesna Jug from the University of Primorska conducted this research to see how early adverse experiences might shape both adult attachment and later sexual preferences. Past literature suggests that survivors of childhood sexual abuse sometimes report difficulties with emotional intimacy. Other previous data indicate a higher rate of involvement in alternative sexual practices among trauma survivors.</p>
<p>Selič and Jug wanted to test how these factors relate to specific sexual dynamics within a modern context. They gathered an online sample of 318 adult participants living in Slovenia. The participants completed a detailed series of questionnaires exploring their demographics, sexual orientation, residential environment, and relationship status.</p>
<p>Participants also answered a series of standardized psychological questions. One survey assessed their everyday adult attachment styles, while another evaluated any history of sexual abuse during their upbringing. A third inventory assessed how often the participants practice and enjoy submissive or dominant behaviors during sex. The researchers then analyzed the responses to find mathematical correlations between these life experiences.</p>
<p>The results revealed distinct associations between early trauma and later sexual preferences. Participants who reported childhood sexual abuse were more likely to practice and enjoy submissiveness. Conversely, those with a history of early trauma reported less involvement in and enjoyment of dominant roles.</p>
<p>The authors note that these numbers show a statistical association, but they do not mean that past abuse naturally causes an interest in alternative sexual practices. Many participants in the broader alternative sexuality community report no history of trauma. People engage in these behaviors for many reasons, including identity exploration, sensory enjoyment, and pure physical pleasure.</p>
<p>Attachment patterns also aligned with specific sexual roles. The dismissive attachment style was positively associated with engaging in and enjoying dominant behaviors. People who avoid emotional closeness to protect themselves from vulnerability might feel safer when they are in complete command of a physical situation.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the preoccupied attachment style was associated with adopting a submissive position. Individuals who frequently seek external validation might find fulfillment in relinquishing control. Following the strict rules set by a dominant partner could provide a desired sense of temporary approval and relational structure.</p>
<p>The study also assessed how early trauma relates to emotional bonding styles. As expected, a history of childhood abuse corresponded with insecure attachment. Participants with a history of early trauma scored higher in both fearful and preoccupied attachment patterns. The data did not show a link between childhood trauma and the dismissive attachment style.</p>
<p>The demographic findings challenged several traditional assumptions about gender and sexuality. Men in the sample reported more frequent engagement in and enjoyment of submissive roles than women. This contrasts with older societal stereotypes that men naturally prefer dominance, although men also reported higher levels of dominant behaviors than women across the entire analytical board.</p>
<p>Other demographic variables also predicted involvement in alternative sexual dynamics. Individuals living in urban areas, older participants, and people identifying as bisexual or homosexual reported higher rates of participation. People in open relationships engaged in these behaviors more often than single or dating individuals.</p>
<p>Living in a rural setting and being legally married were associated with lower participation rates. To double-check their findings, the researchers built a customized statistical model. They tested whether early trauma was the hidden reason why non-heterosexual people engage in these behaviors more frequently. The model showed that early abuse did not serve as a mediating link, meaning non-heterosexual orientations independently predicted higher participation rates.</p>
<p>The investigators acknowledge several limitations in their work. The study relied on self-reported data, which can sometimes result in biased or inaccurate reflections of past events, as asking people to recall childhood events introduces the possibility of memory errors. The sample size for certain segments, such as asexual individuals or people who identify outside traditional gender binaries, was small. This makes it difficult to mathematically apply the findings to those specific populations without a larger dataset.</p>
<p>The researchers also did not screen for existing mental health diagnoses. Conditions related to emotional regulation or post-traumatic stress might independently influence relationships and sexual behavior. In addition, the survey removed questions about sexual fantasies to keep the focus purely on real-world actions, which omits an important psychological dimension since fantasy plays a major role in human sexuality.</p>
<p>Moving forward, the authors recommend using qualitative methods, such as in-depth interviews, to understand the personal motivations behind these actions. People might seek out specific dynamics for personal growth, healing, or spiritual fulfillment. Investigating how male participants specifically navigate submissive roles could also help clarify the shifting gender dynamics observed in the modern era.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/bs15060813">Childhood Sexual Abuse, Adult Attachment Styles, and Involvement in BDSM Practices in Adult Intimate Relationships</a>,” was authored by Maja Selič and Vesna Jug.</p></p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
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