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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/high-nighttime-temperatures-during-pregnancy-linked-to-increased-autism-risk-in-children/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">High nighttime temperatures during pregnancy linked to increased autism risk in children</a>
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<p><p>An analysis of data from the Kaiser Permanente Southern California hospitals collected between 2001 and 2014 found that children whose gestational weeks 1-10 and 30-37 coincided with periods of very high nighttime temperatures had a 13-15% higher risk of being diagnosed with autism by age 5. The paper was published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2026.181373"><em>Science of the Total Environment</em></a><em>.</em></p>
<p>Autism, or autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is a neurodevelopmental condition that affects how a person communicates, interacts socially, and experiences the world. It is called a spectrum because it can appear in many different forms and with very different levels of support needs.</p>
<p>Common features include differences in social communication, restricted or repetitive patterns of behavior, and strong or unusual sensory sensitivities. Some autistic people speak fluently, while others speak little or not at all. Many autistic individuals have intense interests, strong attention to detail, or preferred routines that help them feel safe and organized.</p>
<p>Causes of autism are not fully understood, but research shows that genetic influences play a major role. However, there is emerging evidence that certain prenatal environmental exposures can increase the risk of autism. Studies have so far linked increased risk of autism with maternal exposure to air pollution, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), maternal health conditions such as fever, diabetes, and hypothyroidism, and other factors.</p>
<p>Study author David G. Luglio and his colleagues investigated the association between exposure to extreme temperatures and autism risk across 37 weeks of pregnancy in a large group of children from Southern California. They note that the increasing number and severity of heat waves is becoming a worldwide concern, already implicated in increased hospitalizations and higher mortality rates. </p>
<p>Previous studies have already reported links between prenatal heat exposure and conditions such as neural tube defects, neurodevelopmental delay, or reduced language acquisition. In their study, these authors examined the links between weekly averages of daily minimum (nighttime) and maximum (daytime) temperatures during gestation and autism in children. </p>
<p>They analyzed data from Kaiser Permanente Southern California hospitals collected between 2001 and 2014. Their data came from an expansive cohort of 294,937 mother-child pairs involving singleton pregnancies. </p>
<p>The children were followed from birth until age 5 to track autism diagnoses. Study authors derived temperature and relative humidity exposure estimates from the gridMET dataset. GridMET is a dataset containing daily highly spatially resolved surface meteorological data for the contiguous United States that is used widely across various studies. From these data, study authors derived daily maximum and minimum temperatures at the residential address of each study participant during the pregnancy. </p>
<p>Weekly mean maximum and minimum daily temperatures were calculated for each participant across all weeks of each individual mother’s pregnancy. They also adjusted the data to account for other influencing factors, such as fine-particle air pollution, vegetation, and neighborhood conditions. </p>
<p>Results showed that over 80% of the 4,076 children with an autism diagnosis were boys. Autistic children were more likely to be born to mothers who did not have children previously and who suffered from chronic conditions such as diabetes and obesity.</p>
<p>Study authors defined extreme heat as temperatures hitting the 90th percentile (3.6°F hotter than average) and the 99th percentile (5.6°F hotter than average) compared to the 50th percentile. Children whose gestational weeks 1-10 coincided with extreme nighttime heat periods were 15% more likely to be diagnosed with autism by age 5 compared to children who experienced average heat. Similarly, the risk was 13% higher in children whose 30-37 gestational weeks coincided with periods of intense nighttime heat.</p>
<p>Interestingly, researchers found no such association for daytime temperatures. They hypothesize this discrepancy is due to pregnant women spending more time away from home or in air-conditioned environments during the day, making it difficult to measure actual daytime heat exposure. Conversely, nighttime heat exposure is easier to track and is known to disrupt the sleep-wake cycle; previous research shows that too little sleep for pregnant women can be linked to neurocognitive delays in their children. </p>
<p>“Exposures to high nighttime temperature during early and late pregnancy were associated with autism risk in children, a result of concern in a warming world. Further research is needed to understand why daytime temperature was not associated with autism risk,” the study authors concluded. The findings are particularly relevant given that nighttime temperatures in places like California are rising three times faster than daytime temperatures.</p>
<p>The study contributes to the scientific understanding of environmental risk factors for autism. However, it should be noted that the design of the study does not allow any direct causal inferences to be derived from the results, and the study could not account for individual access to indoor air conditioning.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2026.181373">Prenatal exposure to extreme heat and autism in children,</a>” was authored by David G. Luglio, Xin Yu, Jane C. Lin, Ting Chow, Mayra P. Martinez, Zhanghua Chen, Sandrah P. Eckel, Joel Schwartz, Frederick W. Lurmann, Nathan Pavlovic, Rob McConnell, Anny H. Xiang, and Md Mostafijur Rahman.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/repeated-doses-of-psilocybin-show-promise-for-treating-obsessive-compulsive-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;">Repeated doses of psilocybin show promise for treating obsessive-compulsive disorder</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 25th 2026, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>A new clinical trial suggests that multiple doses of psilocybin, the active compound in “magic mushrooms,” could provide substantial relief for individuals suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder. The findings indicate that repeated weekly treatments are safe and tend to significantly reduce the severity of obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors. This research, published in the <em><a href="https://www.psypost.org/%3Ca%20href=" https: target="_blank">https://doi.org/10.1177/02698811261424214</a>” target=”_blank”>Journal of Psychopharmacology</em>, provides evidence for a new potential treatment avenue for those who have not found success with standard therapies.</p>
<p>Obsessive-compulsive disorder is a debilitating psychiatric condition characterized by intrusive thoughts and repetitive behaviors. These symptoms consume a significant amount of time and can severely disrupt daily functioning. Current standard treatments typically include a combination of cognitive behavioral therapy and daily medications like serotonin reuptake inhibitors. </p>
<p>However, these traditional approaches often fall short for many patients. People frequently experience delayed or incomplete symptom relief, and they sometimes struggle to adhere to the treatments due to unwanted side effects. Because of these challenges, scientists have sought alternative therapeutic approaches that might offer faster or more robust relief. </p>
<p>Psilocybin has recently emerged as a promising candidate for treating various psychiatric conditions. When ingested, the body converts it into psilocin, a chemical that binds to serotonin receptors in the brain. Scientists have observed that the substance tends to increase cognitive flexibility, which helps reduce the rigid thought patterns characteristic of obsessive-compulsive disorder. </p>
<p>Brain imaging studies also suggest that psilocybin alters activity across specific neural networks associated with habitual responding and error monitoring. This specific circuitry often functions atypically in people with repetitive behavioral conditions. These observations provided a strong foundation for researchers to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of the compound in a controlled clinical setting. </p>
<p>Francisco A. Moreno, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Arizona, explained that clinical observations inspired this line of inquiry. “In the mid-1990s I met a patient with treatment-resistant OCD who reported having had lasting benefit from OCD while using psychedelics,” Moreno said. “We wrote a case report in 1997, and a theoretical paper on the possible mechanisms of action in 1998.”</p>
<p>Following those initial observations, the research team conducted early tests to see if the substance was safe to administer. “We pursued a pilot study of various doses of psilocybin to explore safety and signal of efficacy acutely for OCD and published this in 2006,” Moreno noted. “The work was on hold for many years until we restarted this kind of work a few years back.”</p>
<p>To investigate this modern application, the researchers recruited fifteen adult participants aged 18 to 65. All participants had a confirmed diagnosis of moderate to severe obsessive-compulsive disorder and had previously failed to respond to at least one standard treatment. Before the trial began, those taking psychiatric medications had to slowly discontinue their use to ensure safety during the psilocybin sessions. </p>
<p>The study was divided into two distinct four-week phases. During the first phase, participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups, each containing five people. One group received a weekly high dose of psilocybin, another received a low dose, and the third received an active placebo called lorazepam, which is a common calming medication. </p>
<p>This first phase was double-blind, meaning neither the participants nor the researchers knew which substance was being administered. During the second phase of the trial, the remaining fourteen participants all received a high dose of psilocybin once a week for four weeks. This phase was single-blind, meaning the participants did not know for sure what dose they were receiving. </p>
<p>Each treatment day involved a ten-hour clinic visit. Participants ingested a capsule, wore eyeshades, and listened to a standardized music playlist. Two trained facilitators remained in the room to provide support, ensure safety, and guide the participants as they returned to a typical state of awareness at the end of the session. </p>
<p>To track changes over time, researchers used the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale, a standard clinical interview used to measure the severity of a person’s symptoms. The scientists administered this interview before the study began, during each treatment day, and periodically throughout the following weeks. They also monitored the participants for adverse side effects, suicidal thoughts, and any signs of psychosis. </p>
<p>The researchers found that the repeated psilocybin doses were generally well-tolerated by the participants. No serious adverse events or psychotic symptoms occurred, and there were no significant changes in suicidal thoughts. Some participants experienced mild side effects, with nausea being the most common issue reported during the low-dose sessions. </p>
<p>In terms of symptom relief, the high doses of psilocybin significantly reduced obsessive-compulsive symptoms during the first four weeks of the trial. On the days following the treatment sessions, those in the high-dose group exhibited noticeably lower symptom scores than those in the placebo group. This therapeutic benefit continued to hold steady when measured a full week after the dosing sessions. </p>
<p>By the end of the full eight-week program, the overall outcomes were substantial. After participants had received at least four high doses of psilocybin, about 73 percent experienced at least a 35 percent reduction in their symptom severity scores. Additionally, 40 percent of the participants experienced a complete remission of their symptoms by the end of the eighth week. </p>
<p>The researchers also noticed a cumulative effect over the course of the study. A higher total number of psilocybin doses tended to predict a greater overall reduction in obsessive and compulsive symptoms. When the researchers followed up with the participants six months later, the symptom reductions had diminished slightly but remained substantial for a large portion of the individuals. </p>
<p>This enduring relief was a particularly notable outcome for the research team. “The fact that most people who benefited from psilocybin initially remained well at 6 months was nice to see,” Moreno said. </p>
<p>“Since many people with OCD are unable to benefit from current treatment options due to lack of efficacy, intolerance, access challenges, and sometimes the disease itself, having alternative options that may offer rapid and lasting benefit is highly desirable,” Moreno explained. “In this study, psilocybin shows promise as a safe and effective option when used in a clinically controlled setting.”</p>
<p>Despite these promising outcomes, the study has several limitations that provide context for the findings. The most notable limitation is the small sample size of just fifteen participants. This limited group size reduces the statistical power of the data and makes it difficult to generalize the findings to the broader population. </p>
<p>The strict screening process also limits how broadly the results can be applied. “The safety findings in this study are the result of a careful selection of candidates for treatment, and a thoughtful protocol for protection of participants,” Moreno cautioned. </p>
<p>The intensive nature of the trial, which required long clinic visits and weekly travel, also placed a high burden on the participants. This requirement might have unintentionally selected for highly motivated individuals with strong support systems, which could skew the results. Also, blinding in psychedelic trials is notoriously difficult, as the intense psychoactive effects of a high dose are hard to mistake for a calming placebo. </p>
<p>While the use of a low-dose group and an active placebo helped mitigate some of this blinding issue, it remains a persistent challenge in psychedelic research. Another potential issue involved the participants’ previous medication use. Exploratory data suggests that participants who recently discontinued a serotonin medication to join the study were less likely to respond to the psilocybin treatment. </p>
<p>“Further research is needed in larger-scale studies to demonstrate clinical utility,” Moreno noted. “We hope to replicate these findings in larger-scale studies, work on dose findings, and determine the number of dosing sessions required to achieve lasting benefit.”</p>
<p>The research team is already planning their next steps to better understand how the compound works. “We are conducting additional studies exploring mechanisms of action, functional imaging changes, relation to subjective experiences, etc.,” Moreno said. </p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/02698811261424214" target="_blank">A randomized clinical trial of repeated doses of psilocybin for the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder</a>,” was authored by Francisco A. Moreno, Katja E. Allen, Christopher B. Wiegand, Rajan Dunne, James I. Prickett, Brian Bayze, and John J. B. Allen.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/new-psychology-research-reveals-your-face-might-determine-how-easily-people-remember-your-name/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">New psychology research reveals your face might determine how easily people remember your name</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 25th 2026, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>Have you ever struggled to remember the name of someone you just met? A recent study published in the <em><a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2027-47968-001?doi=1" target="_blank">Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition</a></em> suggests that the natural stickiness of a person’s face plays a key role in whether you will recall their name. The findings indicate that highly memorable faces help people remember associated names, but this memory-boosting effect does not happen when names are paired with memorable photographs of places. </p>
<p>For decades, scientists studying human memory have focused on how the mental effort we spend processing a fact determines how well we will retain it. However, memory also depends on natural qualities belonging to the object or event itself. Some items possess an intrinsic memorability, meaning they tend to be consistently remembered better by different people regardless of how much effort is put into learning them. </p>
<p>“I was fascinated by the idea that some things in our environment are naturally more memorable than others, meaning most people will remember or forget the same images regardless of their individual memory skills,” explained Andrew Cook, a visiting assistant professor of psychology at Hamilton College. Cook and his colleagues designed a series of experiments to test whether seeing a memorable image would provide evidence for enhanced recall of an associated name. “We wanted to know if memorability is ‘sticky,'” Cook said. </p>
<p>“Specifically, if you pair a highly memorable face with a piece of information, like a name, will that name automatically become easier to remember?” To explore this, the researchers conducted twelve separate online experiments with undergraduate students from Binghamton University. In the first phase of the research, they focused on faces and first names. </p>
<p>They selected 120 face images from a standardized database, split evenly between highly memorable faces and highly forgettable faces. During the first experiment, 26 participants listened to computer-generated audio recordings of common first names while looking at the faces on a screen. The participants were asked to guess if the face and name seemed like a good match. </p>
<p>Afterward, they completed a cued-recall test, which means they were shown the faces again and asked to type out the associated name. The scientists found that students were much more likely to remember the name if it had been paired with a highly memorable face. The researchers replicated this finding in two more experiments with 21 and 20 participants, respectively. </p>
<p>In these variations, the face and name pairs were shown three times to boost overall memory performance. Another set of experiments tested whether this effect would work using a free-recall test, where no visual prompts are provided at all. In these studies, featuring groups of 115 and 61 students, participants were asked to freely list all the names they could remember from the earlier viewing phase. </p>
<p>The memory advantage persisted, meaning highly memorable faces helped lock the names into memory even when the faces were no longer visible. The scientists then wanted to see if this effect would happen with other types of visual images. They set up new experiments using 120 photographs of indoor and outdoor scenes, such as a bedroom or a forest, paired with audio recordings of city names. </p>
<p>These studies featured sample sizes ranging from 33 to 97 students after excluding people who multitasked. Even though the participants easily recognized the highly memorable photographs of scenes, they were no better at recalling the associated city names than they were for the forgettable scenes. “It was surprising that this memory boost only worked with faces,” Cook noted. </p>
<p>“Highly memorable scenes, which didn’t include faces but more indoor and outdoor scenery, didn’t offer that same advantage,” Cook continued. “People easily recognized the memorable scenes themselves, but that didn’t help them remember the cities paired with them, suggesting our brains have a special connection between faces and names.” </p>
<p>To confirm this, the researchers paired the original face images with the city names for a group of 32 participants. The highly memorable faces once again helped the students recall the city names. In yet another variation, the scientists paired the photographs of scenes with first names for 86 participants, and the scenes again failed to boost memory for the names. </p>
<p>While these findings provide evidence for a memory-boosting effect with faces, the study does have some limitations. One potential misinterpretation is that any striking visual image will help you remember associated facts, but the data indicates that this is not true for all categories of images. Additionally, the laboratory setting removed many aspects of real human interaction. </p>
<p>“Our study used controlled, still photos of faces and simple audio recordings of names,” Cook explained. “In the real world, you are dealing with moving faces, ongoing conversations, emotional connections, not to mention divided attention that comes with daily tasks.” Because of all these extra variables, the researchers do not yet know how much of a role memorability plays in everyday, face-to-face interactions. </p>
<p>Future research could explore whether this memory advantage holds up in real-world settings or with other types of images. “Moving forward, we want to see how this effect might be used practically,” Cook said. “For example, we would love to explore whether using highly memorable images in a classroom could actively help students learn and remember new facts.” </p>
<p>He also pointed out that there could be really interesting uses for fields like advertising, political messaging, or language learning. Ultimately, the study suggests that remembering a name is not just about your own brainpower, as it depends heavily on the face you are looking at. “Don’t be too hard on yourself when you forget someone’s name!” Cook said. </p>
<p>“Remembering a name isn’t just about your own brainpower; it depends a lot on the face you are looking at,” he continued. “Some faces naturally give your memory a helpful boost, making the person’s name much easier to recall.” </p>
<p>The findings illustrate how memory operates as a shared process between the mind and the environment. “We often think of memory as just a personal skill based on how hard we try to focus,” Cook summarized. “But the truth is, the features of the outside world play a [key] role in shaping what actually sticks with us.” </p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xlm0001609" target="_blank">Do People Forget Your Name? Your Face Might Be the Problem: The Effect of Cue Memorability on Recall of Associations</a>,” was authored by Andrew M. Cook and Deanne L. Westerman.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/how-eye-contact-shapes-the-believability-of-computer-generated-faces/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">How eye contact shapes the believability of computer-generated faces</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 24th 2026, 18:00</div>
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<p><p>The direction a computer-generated character looks can dictate whether their facial expressions seem like genuine emotional responses to human observers. Direct eye contact makes simulated smiles and angry glares look more authentic, while looking downwards makes a digital face expressing sadness seem more real. These findings were published recently in <i><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2026.2620987">Cognition and Emotion</a></i>.</p>
<p>Digital characters frequently appear in online therapy programs, video games, customer service applications, and virtual companionship software. To succeed in these roles, virtual humans must build a sense of rapport with the users interacting with them. Doing so requires the digital characters to display emotional states that human users interpret as authentic. </p>
<p>Because virtual figures do not possess actual feelings, they rely entirely on visual cues to simulate a genuine state of mind. Previous research has explored how physical features shape the way people interpret an emotional display. To determine if a smile is a true reflection of happiness, a person will often look for the crinkling of the skin around the eyes. </p>
<p>Observers commonly interpret these eye wrinkles as a sign of true joy, even though humans are perfectly capable of flexing those muscles when they are not happy. Because visual cues heavily influence human perception, researchers wanted to know if the direction of an avatar’s eyes could also dictate how authentic an emotion appears to a viewer. </p>
<p>A framework in psychological study known as the shared signal hypothesis proposes a link between the movement of the eyes and the social intention of an emotion. Emotions that invite interaction or signal confrontation, like happiness and anger, represent an intention to approach. The theory suggests these approach emotions pair best with direct eye contact.</p>
<p>Conversely, emotions that indicate social withdrawal or a desire to escape, like sadness and fear, represent an intention to avoid. The shared signal hypothesis assumes these avoidance emotions should look most natural when the eyes gaze away from the observer.</p>
<p>Julia C. Haile, a researcher at the University of Western Australia, led a team to test these assumptions using digital human models. The researchers focused entirely on computer-generated faces rather than photographs of actual people. Using digital models allowed the team to completely separate the perception of an emotion from the actual feeling of an emotion, because software cannot experience feelings. </p>
<p>It also gave the researchers the ability to control and adjust eye positions in exact, regular increments without the natural physical variations that occur when real human beings try to hold a pose. To start the project, the research team generated ten highly realistic virtual adults using professional animation software. This underlying technology is widely used to create polished, realistic characters in modern blockbuster video games and animated movies. </p>
<p>Human experts adjusted digital muscle sliders corresponding to different parts of the human face. Because this software maps the digital faces to actual human muscular structures, the experts could manipulate the avatars by targeting specific facial muscle groups. Rather than setting every digital muscle to fifty percent, the designers tweaked the tension in the digital cheeks, eyebrows, and jawlines until the models closely mimicked reference photos of real human emotional expressions. </p>
<p>They modified these areas to create digital faces expressing anger, fear, happiness, and sadness. The team presented a large batch of these generated faces to a group of participants who rated how well the features communicated the target emotion. The researchers selected a final set of digital humans that conveyed the intended emotion unmistakably. </p>
<p>They intentionally avoided picking expressions that looked uniformly perfect, leaving room in their data for the perceived authenticity to rise or fall depending on the eye position. In the first main experiment, Haile and her colleagues recruited 150 adults to view the faces on a computer screen. The participants rated how believable each expression appeared, using a numerical scale. </p>
<p>The researchers altered the eyes of the angry and fearful avatars to either look straight ahead or gaze sideways at five increasingly wide angles. For the happy and sad avatars, the eyes either met the viewer directly or shifted downward in varying increments. Before the rating tasks began, participants received explicit instructions on how to evaluate the avatars. </p>
<p>The researchers asked them to differentiate between the sheer strength of an emotion and its authenticity. For example, a subtle frown might be entirely authentic, while a wildly exaggerated crying face might look completely posed or fake. Participants were asked to base their scores solely on the perception of a genuine internal state, regardless of whether the expression was mild or extreme.</p>
<p>During the rating process, the researchers took steps to simulate the physical experience of making eye contact. To standardize the viewing experience, participants rested their heads on a chin support to keep their eyes perfectly level with the digital faces. Before each face appeared, a cross mark flashed on the screen directly between where the avatar’s eyes would be. </p>
<p>This ensured the participant’s direct line of sight aligned exactly with the virtual human, creating a realistic simulation of mutual eye contact before the avatar’s gaze shifted to the side or downwards. Observers also rated the intensity of the expressions on a separate scale. A stronger, more vibrant expression tends to seem more authentic to an observer. </p>
<p>The researchers used statistical models to separate the trait of intensity from the trait of believability in their analysis. Doing so helped the researchers isolate the specific, independent effect of eye direction. For angry and happy avatars, the expressions looked the most authentic when the digital character maintained direct eye contact with the viewer. </p>
<p>When the avatars diverted their eyes away from the center of the screen, the illusion of a genuine feeling faded. The happy faces became consistently less believable with every step the eyes took downward. The emotion of sadness behaved quite differently. </p>
<p>The sad digital faces grew more believable as the avatar looked further downward. The highest ratings of authenticity occurred at the sharpest downward angles. Fear, however, did not follow the expected psychological pattern. </p>
<p>Altering the gaze of the fearful faces to the side produced no statistically significant changes in how real the fear appeared to observers. The viewing angles had virtually no impact on the ratings. The team then conducted a second experiment to see if the specific direction of the averted gaze mattered for the emotion of sadness. </p>
<p>They wanted to know if any diverted gaze worked, or if pointing the eyes down was uniquely suited to sadness. The researchers recruited a new group of 64 participants to evaluate the sad digital characters. This time, the avatars either looked straight ahead, cast their eyes downward, or looked sideways.</p>
<p>The results showed that direction absolutely dictates how sadness is perceived. Just as in the first test, sad expressions became increasingly believable when the avatar looked down. When the avatar looked sideways, the exact opposite happened, and the sadness appeared less authentic. </p>
<p>This implies that humans read specific, highly tuned social messages from different types of eye movements, rather than treating all diverted gazes as a generic signal of avoidance. The research team noted a few limitations regarding their methodology. The study utilized static images of forward-facing avatars, which eliminated the realistic motion of a shifting head. </p>
<p>In everyday interactions, human beings frequently rotate their heads to match the movement of their eyes. Static images also lack the continuous timing elements of a naturally unfolding facial expression. Introducing dynamic video might alter how observers interpret a fleeting glance.</p>
<p>Additionally, the researchers generated virtual characters designed to match White European physical characteristics. They also restricted their participant pool to individuals who grew up in majority White European countries. This design choice prevented unfamiliarity with different bodily appearances from skewing the ratings, but it prevents the findings from being generalized to a global population.</p>
<p>Future research will need to test a wider diversity of digital faces to see if these patterns hold across different cultures. Researchers could also test human observers using automatic psychological responses, like heart rate or pupil dilation. Measuring automatic bodily responses might capture subtle human reactions to emotions like fear that explicit conscious ratings did not catch.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2026.2620987">Eye believe you: gaze direction affects the perceived believability of facial expressions displayed by computer-generated people</a>,” was authored by Julia C. Haile, Romina Palermo, Amy Dawel, Eva G. Krumhuber, Clare Sutherland, and Jason Bell.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/misalignment-between-self-view-and-expectations-of-others-drives-loneliness-in-borderline-personality-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;">Misalignment between self-view and expectations of others drives loneliness in borderline personality disorder</a>
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<p><p>A study of individuals seeking treatment for borderline personality disorder found that the gap between their own perceived social preferences and their expectations about the social preferences of other people might foster a vicious cycle of misunderstanding and disappointment in social relationships. In turn, this vicious cycle may lead to heightened feelings of loneliness. The paper was published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comppsych.2026.152663" target="_blank">Comprehensive Psychiatry</a></em>.</p>
<p>Borderline personality disorder is a mental health condition marked by ongoing problems with emotional regulation, self-image, behavior, and relationships. People with it frequently experience very intense emotions that can shift quickly, sometimes over hours or days.</p>
<p>Common features of this disorder include fear of abandonment, unstable or intense relationships, impulsive behavior, and a changing or uncertain sense of self. Some people also feel chronic emptiness, anger that is hard to control, or suspiciousness and stress-related changes in perception.</p>
<p>The condition often begins by late adolescence or early adulthood. Borderline personality disorder can occur together with depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance use problems, eating disorders, or bipolar disorder, which can make diagnosis more complicated.</p>
<p>Study author Ruben Vonderlin and his colleagues investigated whether individuals with borderline personality disorder differ from non-clinical control participants in their views of social value orientations and expectations from others. They wanted to know whether misalignment between these characteristics is related to how lonely these individuals feel.</p>
<p>Social value orientations are people’s relatively stable preferences about how outcomes should be distributed between themselves and others. They can range from more self-focused preferences, where people value personal gain more, to more prosocial preferences that value fairness and good outcomes for everyone. Expectations from others are beliefs about the social value preferences of others.</p>
<p>The authors believed that people with borderline personality disorder may see themselves as holding fairly prosocial values but at the same time expect other people to be much more selfish and unfair. This gap in how individuals with this disorder perceive themselves and how they perceive others might foster feelings of loneliness.</p>
<p>Study participants were 60 individuals diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, and 60 healthy individuals matched with them on education and sex. Each group of participants consisted of 8 men and 52 women. Participants with borderline personality disorder had more severe symptoms of this disorder and stronger feelings of loneliness compared to the group of healthy participants.</p>
<p>Study participants completed assessments of their own social value orientations and their expectations about the social values of others (using a slider task in which they had to allocate resources between themselves and a stranger), and of justice sensitivity, both of their own and of their expectations about the justice sensitivity of others (the Justice Sensitivity Inventory). Justice sensitivity is a tendency to perceive and react strongly to injustice experienced as a victim, an observer, a beneficiary, or a perpetrator.</p>
<p>Results showed that the differences between participants’ own social values and their expectations about the social values of others were higher among participants with borderline personality disorder than among healthy participants. As expected, participants with borderline personality disorder saw themselves as more prosocial compared to the control group. The two groups did not differ in their perceptions of the social values of others.</p>
<p>Similarly, participants with borderline personality disorder differed more than healthy controls in how they perceived their own justice sensitivity and how they perceived the justice sensitivity of other people—specifically regarding injustice that happens to others. These participants tended to see themselves as more concerned with injustice (particularly when observing it or benefiting from it) than they expected others to be. </p>
<p>Further analyses revealed that participants with borderline personality disorder who perceived themselves as more prosocial tended to feel lonelier. This association was absent in the control group. Loneliness was also associated with the size of the difference between the perception of one’s own justice sensitivity and the justice sensitivity of others, but only in the group of participants with borderline personality disorder, and specifically in scenarios where they observed or benefited from injustice.</p>
<p>“The results of this study indicate that individuals generally perceive themselves as more prosocial and more concerned about injustice than they expect others to be. This misalignment is particularly pronounced in BPD [borderline personality disorder]. Heightened prosocial preferences and JS [justice sensitivity] may predispose individuals with BPD to become especially attuned to perceiving injustices in social interactions, potentially eliciting more intense emotional responses such as anger, moral outrage, or guilt.</p>
<p>Strongly held ideals of prosocial behaviors and justice may place excessive demands on the social behaviors individuals strive for. This self-other misalignment may leave individuals with BPD vulnerable to feelings of loneliness, since their heightened social ideals collide with pessimistic expectations about others’ moral behavior,” the study authors concluded.</p>
<p>The study contributes to the scientific knowledge about borderline personality disorder. However, the authors noted some limitations. Because the sample consisted of treatment-seeking individuals and was predominantly female, the external validity of the findings may be limited. Additionally, the lack of a clinical control group (such as patients with other personality disorders) means it is unclear if these mechanisms are unique to borderline personality disorder or shared across other mental health conditions. Finally, the cross-sectional, laboratory-based design of the study does not allow any causal inferences to be derived from the results.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comppsych.2026.152663" target="_blank">Loneliness in borderline personality disorder: The role of misalignments between self-view and social expectations in social value orientation and justice sensitivity</a>,” was authored by R. Vonderlin, C. Claus, S. Hanraths, A.S. Lerchl, B. Senyüz, N. Kleindienst, T. Boritz, S. McMain, T. Teismann, P. Kirsch, M. Bohus, and S. Lis.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/research-links-environmental-policy-support-to-factual-knowledge/" 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;">Political divide on climate policies is linked to a measurable gap in factual knowledge</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 24th 2026, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study links political differences in climate change attitudes to measurable variations in factual knowledge about the subject. The research, published in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2025.102640"><em>Journal of Environmental Psychology</em></a>, reveals that left-leaning participants generally scored higher on tests of climate change knowledge than right-leaning participants. The findings suggest that these disparities in basic understanding are associated with a broader divide in how people view climate policies and personal conservation behaviors.</p>
<p>In many Western nations, climate change remains a highly polarizing topic. Polling data regularly shows that voters on the political left tend to view environmental shifts as a pressing issue that requires immediate government intervention. Voters on the political right tend to express skepticism about the severity of human-induced planetary warming, often opposing policies aimed at mitigating its perceived effects.</p>
<p>Researchers in psychology and political science have proposed several different explanations for this partisan divide. Some theories suggest that conservative voters resist climate action because new regulations threaten established economic structures or infringe upon personal liberties. Other frameworks propose that left-leaning and right-leaning individuals simply maintain different philosophies regarding how individual behaviors affect a global collective.</p>
<p>Psychology researchers Christopher Stockus, now at Marietta College, and Ethan Zell of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro proposed a different potential factor. They designed a project to measure whether an objective gap in factual knowledge exists between political groups. The researchers wanted to investigate if this knowledge gap might explain the differences in how each group views the necessity of environmental policies.</p>
<p>While previous studies have tested specific climate misconceptions or beliefs in conspiracy theories, comprehensive tests comparing overall knowledge across political groups are relatively rare. Stockus and Zell developed a systematic method to evaluate general knowledge, tracking both accuracy and response confidence.</p>
<p>In the first of three studies, the researchers recruited 217 American adults who identified strongly as either Democrats or Republicans. The participants completed a ten-item quiz testing their knowledge of the causes and consequences of climate change. Five of the statements were factual, such as noting that extreme weather events are linked to global warming. The other five statements were false, such as claiming that the hole in the ozone layer is a primary driver of planetary warming.</p>
<p>For each statement, participants indicated whether the claim was true or false. They also rated how confident they were in their answer on a sliding scale. To analyze the results, the researchers employed a mathematical approach common in cognitive psychology known as signal detection theory.</p>
<p>This analytical method tracks two main numbers. The first is the “hit rate,” which measures how often a participant confidently identifies a true statement correctly. The second is the “false alarm rate,” which tracks how often a person confidently marks a false statement as true. By comparing the hit rate and the false alarm rate, scientists can measure a person’s overall ability to distinguish factual information from fiction.</p>
<p>The first study showed that Democrats had a notably higher hit rate and a lower false alarm rate than Republicans. Left-leaning participants were better at both recognizing real facts and rejecting false ones. Democrats also scored much higher on questionnaires measuring their concern for the environment and their backing of national targets to reduce carbon emissions.</p>
<p>Using a statistical tool called a mediation analysis, the researchers looked for links between these survey responses. A mediation analysis helps scientists understand if an intermediate variable explains the relationship between an independent variable and an outcome. In this case, the researchers found that factual knowledge acted as a bridge. The political divide regarding climate concern was mathematically associated with the measured gap in objective knowledge.</p>
<p>To verify these results, Stockus and Zell conducted a second study utilizing 216 American adults with a record of voting in presidential elections. The procedures mirrored the first experiment but added a survey evaluating daily environmental habits. Participants answered questions about actions like turning off lights in empty rooms or engaging in water conservation routines.</p>
<p>The results of the second trial closely matched the first. Democrats once again demonstrated a higher overall capacity to identify factual statements and reject fictitious ones. The left-leaning participants also reported performing more daily conservation behaviors than the right-leaning participants. </p>
<p>The mediation analysis for the second study confirmed that these differences in daily actions and policy support were connected to the measured gap in factual knowledge. The statistical model showed an indirect chain where political affiliation was tied to performance on the quiz, which in turn was linked to environmental concern, which was finally linked to behaviors like turning off lights or curtailing resource use.</p>
<p>To test whether this pattern existed outside the United States, the team launched a third study focused on the United Kingdom. They recruited 216 British adults who identified as supporters of either the left-leaning Labour Party or the right-leaning Conservative Party. The British participants completed the exact same quizzes and surveys as the American cohort.</p>
<p>Overall, Labour supporters showed a higher hit rate for factual statements than Conservative supporters. Unlike the American sample, the difference in the false alarm rate between the two British political groups was not statistically significant. Both groups were similarly prone to occasionally believing false statements. Still, when combining the metrics for overall knowledge, Labour supporters scored demonstrably higher than the Conservative cohort.</p>
<p>Labour supporters also expressed stronger environmental concerns and favored stronger climate policies compared to British Conservatives. Although the knowledge gap in the United Kingdom was slightly smaller than the gap observed in the United States, the underlying pattern remained the same. Increased factual knowledge was consistently associated with stronger support for climate interventions.</p>
<p>While the data reveals a heavy association between political affiliation, climate knowledge, and environmental concern, the researchers point out several caveats. The most prominent limitation is the use of a cross-sectional study design. A cross-sectional design captures data at a single point in time, essentially taking a snapshot of a current situation rather than tracking changes over months or years.</p>
<p>Because of this observational layout, researchers cannot firmly establish cause and effect. The data shows that knowledge and attitudes are linked, but it does not prove that learning new facts will automatically shift a person’s worldview. It is possible that the relationship operates in reverse. Individuals who care deeply about nature might actively seek out accurate information, leading to higher quiz scores. </p>
<p>A third, entirely separate variable might also be driving both political identity and knowledge levels at the same time. For instance, a person’s trust in academic institutions might dictate both how they score on structured quizzes and which political candidates they ultimately support. To resolve these questions, scientists will need to design experiments that introduce new educational materials and monitor if that knowledge alters behaviors. If reading a well-researched science summary changes a participant’s voting habits or daily routines, researchers would be able to pinpoint a direct line of causation.</p>
<p>The authors also note that the participants were recruited from a popular online survey platform, which often yields samples that skew younger, more educated, and whiter than the general population. Testing these survey materials in broader demographic pools will help confirm if the specific score variations hold true across an entire nation. </p>
<p>Additionally, understanding why different political clusters absorb differing levels of factual information remains an open path for future inquiry. Partisan media diets or algorithmically driven social media feeds might expose voters to very different sets of claims, altering the baseline knowledge measured in these studies. Exploring how basic educational differences connect to massive policy disagreements could help sociologists and environmental advocates understand how public support for ecological initiatives fractures along party lines.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2025.102640">Political Differences in Climate Change Knowledge and Their Association with Climate Attitudes, Behavior, and Policy Support</a>,” was authored by Christopher A. Stockus and Ethan Zell.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/certainty-in-your-feelings-toward-your-partner-predicts-relationship-happiness-and-mental-well-being/" 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;">Certainty in your feelings toward your partner predicts relationship happiness and mental well-being</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 24th 2026, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>New research published in the <em>Journal of Social and Personal Relationships</em> provides evidence that confidence in how a person feels about their romantic partner plays an important role in their overall relationship satisfaction. The findings suggest that when people are highly certain of their positive feelings toward their significant other, they tend to experience greater relationship happiness and better mental health. This research highlights the importance of metacognition, which is the psychological process of thinking about your own thoughts and feelings. </p>
<p>For decades, social psychology has explored the concept of attitudes, which are essentially a person’s basic evaluations of a person, place, or thing as either positive or negative. Within this field, scientists have consistently noted that two people can hold the exact same attitude but differ in how strongly or confidently they hold it. Strong attitudes tend to resist change and have a greater influence on a person’s thoughts and behaviors. </p>
<p>“I have been studying ‘strong opinions’ for most of my career,” explained <a href="https://lab.andyluttrell.com/" target="_blank">Andrew Luttrell</a>, an associate professor of psychological science at Ball State University. He also hosts the <a href="https://opinionsciencepodcast.com/" target="_blank">Opinion Science</a> podcast. “These are opinions that resist change and inform our behavior. Usually, this research focuses on political opinions or consumer preferences, but I had a graduate student who was interested in relationships that are able to weather hardship, and we thought we could merge our interests to see whether the classic idea in the psychology of attitudes or opinions would apply within people’s close relationships.”</p>
<p>To explore these ideas, the researchers recruited 488 adults living in the United States and the United Kingdom who were currently in a romantic relationship. The median length of these relationships was fourteen and a half years. Of the final group, roughly 64 percent identified as female and 34 percent as male, with a large majority identifying as White. </p>
<p>The participants completed a comprehensive online survey designed to measure their evaluations of their partners, their confidence in those evaluations, and their overall well-being. To measure partner attitudes, the scientists used a semantic differential scale. This is a common psychological tool that asks people to rate a concept using opposite adjectives, allowing participants to rate their partners on a scale from negative four to positive four. </p>
<p>Following this, participants answered a single question asking how certain they were about their attitude toward their partner, using a scale from one to five. The researchers also administered several standardized questionnaires to assess relationship satisfaction and general life satisfaction. For example, the relationship satisfaction survey asked participants questions like how well their partner meets their needs. </p>
<p>To evaluate mental and emotional well-being, the scientists used a validated health-related quality of life survey. This questionnaire asks participants to rate symptoms of depression, anxiety, fatigue, and sleep disturbances over the past seven days. Together, these tools provided a comprehensive picture of each participant’s psychological state. </p>
<p>Four months after the initial survey, the scientists re-contacted the participants. A total of 319 participants completed this second phase of the study. This follow-up allowed the researchers to evaluate whether the participants’ initial attitudes toward their partners had changed over time. </p>
<p>The data revealed that participants who held more positive attitudes toward their partners naturally reported higher levels of relationship satisfaction. The scientists also noticed an independent effect where greater attitude certainty alone was associated with more relationship satisfaction. Most notably, the researchers found a significant interaction between partner attitudes and attitude certainty. </p>
<p>This interaction suggests that the link between liking a partner and feeling satisfied in the relationship is magnified for individuals who report high certainty in their attitudes. Among those with lower certainty, partner attitudes still predicted relationship satisfaction, but the effect was noticeably smaller. This provides evidence that attitude certainty acts as an important amplifier for relationship happiness. </p>
<p>“People don’t just differ in how much they like their partners — they differ in how certain they are about that opinion,” Luttrell noted. “And that degree of certainty reveals how stable those feelings will be into the future and how much they guide other judgments of the relationship, which are associated with markers of mental health.”</p>
<p>The scientists also found that relationship length played a role in these dynamics. By analyzing the data based on how long couples had been together, they discovered that the interaction between partner attitude and certainty was strongest for individuals who had been in their relationships for twelve years or longer. </p>
<p>“We were surprised to find that certainty mattered more for people who had been in their relationships longer,” Luttrell said. “For people in newer relationships, the story is simple: if you like your partner, you feel good about your relationship. But for relationships that have been going for at least 12 years, that’s where we saw a difference between people who felt more or less certain about their feelings for their partners.”</p>
<p>While the researchers anticipated that attitude certainty would directly impact mental health, the data provided evidence for a more indirect path. High attitude certainty magnified relationship satisfaction, which in turn predicted better overall subjective well-being. Through this indirect route, greater certainty was associated with fewer depressive symptoms, less anxiety, and better sleep quality. </p>
<p>In psychological terms, this is known as an indirect effect. A person’s confidence in their feelings does not automatically erase anxiety or depression on its own. Instead, that confidence tends to build a stronger sense of relationship satisfaction, which then acts as a buffer to protect their mental health. </p>
<p>The longitudinal portion of the study offered additional insights into how feelings evolve. The researchers found that the more certain participants were about their partner attitudes during the first survey, the less those attitudes changed four months later. Participants who expressed initial uncertainty were more likely to report a shift in their feelings during the follow-up survey. </p>
<p>When interpreting the findings, Luttrell offered some context to avoid misunderstandings. “Overall, we found clear patterns: people like their partners, don’t change much in how much they like them over several months, and, when they like their partners, they feel satisfied with the relationship,” he explained. “That’s true even for people who say they’re relatively uncertain about those feelings. It’s just that for people who are more certain that they like their partner, those feelings are even more durable and influential.”</p>
<p>As with all research, the study has a few limitations. The sample relied on individuals who self-selected into an online survey panel, which might not accurately represent the demographic diversity of couples in the wider population. The scientists note that cultural differences might influence how openly people report negative judgments about their relationships, which could limit the ability to detect the true effects of attitude certainty. </p>
<p>Additionally, a four-month follow-up period is relatively short when studying relationships that have endured for decades. Future research would benefit from assessing attitudes multiple times over a much longer period to better establish how feelings stabilize or fluctuate. Tracking these dynamics over years could reveal if a drop in certainty serves as an early warning sign of eventual relationship dissolution. </p>
<p>The scientists also caution that this study cannot establish a strict cause-and-effect relationship. It is possible that being in a highly satisfying relationship elevates a person’s certainty in their partner attitudes, rather than the certainty causing the satisfaction. Future research might explore this by manipulating momentary feelings of certainty to observe the direct psychological effects. </p>
<p>Finally, the researchers relied on a single-item measure to assess attitude certainty. While this is a standard practice in psychological research, future studies could use more complex measures to ensure they are accurately capturing the concept. Additional research should also work to separate attitude certainty from relationship commitment, as a person could theoretically be committed to a relationship while still feeling uncertain about their partner. </p>
<p>The study, “Partner attitude certainty and implications for relationship satisfaction, mental health, and longitudinal stability,” was authored by Rasheedah Adisa and Andrew Luttrell.</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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