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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/benevolent-sexism-appears-to-buffer-the-impact-of-unequal-chores-on-womens-sexual-desire/" 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;">Benevolent sexism appears to buffer the impact of unequal chores on women’s sexual desire</a>
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<p><p>A recent study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2026.2656775" target="_blank">The Journal of Sex Research</a></em> provides evidence that how couples divide household chores is linked to women’s sexual desire, but this connection depends heavily on their personal beliefs about gender roles. The findings suggest that women who prefer equal partnerships tend to experience lower sexual desire when they take on more of the housework, while those who embrace traditional gender roles do not. These insights highlight how societal expectations about gender can shape intimate relationship dynamics.</p>
<p>Low sexual desire is frequently reported among women in long-term relationships with men. Historically, scientists have often treated this as an individual or relational issue. They tend to look at stress, relationship dissatisfaction, or hormonal changes as the primary causes. </p>
<p>Often, society treats women’s low desire as an internal problem or a medical issue without considering the environment the woman lives in. Psychological theories suggest that society normalizes strict binary gender roles, which position women as caregivers with naturally lower sexual motivation and men as providers with high sexual interest. The researchers wanted to see if living within these structural gender inequities actually shapes sexual desire.</p>
<p>Alexandra Liepmann, a clinical psychology PhD student in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Colorado Boulder, helped lead the research. She conducts her work in the Renée Crown Wellness Institute’s Growth, Identity, and Sexual Trauma Lab. </p>
<p>“One way that broader gender inequities are expressed in romantic relationships are through unequal division of household labor, where women often do more of the household chores compared to their man partner,” Liepmann explained. “Although there has been an increase in expectations for more egalitarian gender roles in man-woman relationships, women are still performing more of the household chores.”</p>
<p>Because of this persistent imbalance, the scientists set out to investigate how domestic responsibilities impact physical intimacy. “We wondered whether when women perform more of the household chores, they may experience less desire to have sex with their partner within long-term relationships, especially when they value an egalitarian partnership,” Liepmann noted.</p>
<p>To test these ideas, the researchers conducted two separate studies. The first study utilized a sample of 163 mixed-gender couples, meaning 326 participants in total. These couples were living together during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The scientists used a longitudinal approach, asking participants to complete an initial baseline survey followed by three weekly surveys. </p>
<p>The questionnaires asked participants to report on their sexual desire and to estimate how they divided household chores with their partner. Participants also completed a widely used psychological survey to measure their levels of benevolent sexism. Benevolent sexism refers to a set of beliefs that idealize traditional, complementary gender roles, often framing women as naturally warm caretakers and men as providers. </p>
<p>The researchers found that women generally reported lower sexual desire and performed more of the household labor than men. Surprisingly, doing more of the overall housework was not directly linked to lower sexual desire for women as a whole group across the study period. For women, the relationship between housework and sexual desire depended on their gender role beliefs.</p>
<p>The second study expanded on these ideas using a separate sample of 617 individuals in mixed-gender relationships. This group included 409 parents, which allowed the researchers to look at the specific impacts of childcare. Instead of a single question about general chores, participants in the second study completed a detailed 59-item survey about specific household tasks. </p>
<p>These tasks included categories like cleaning, financial management, social planning, and parenting logistics. For each item, participants indicated who usually completed the task, ranging from themselves doing it entirely to their partner doing it entirely. This allowed the scientists to see if specific types of chores had different effects on sexual desire. </p>
<p>Similar to the first study, there was no overall drop in sexual desire for all women who simply did more total chores. But when looking at specific types of chores, nuances emerged. Women reported lower sexual desire when they took on a larger share of the cleaning, parenting, and financial management tasks. </p>
<p>“Even though there have been societal shifts and an increased emphasis on egalitarian division of household labor in man-woman relationships, women are still doing more of the household tasks across almost all household chore domains,” Liepmann told PsyPost. “In our studies, even though most couples were in dual-earning couples with both partners working outside the home, on average, women did more of the household tasks in all domains except for financial tasks, household administrative tasks, and house and car maintenance.”</p>
<p>This unequal burden carries specific psychological weight. “Women’s responsibility for the bulk of the household labor, even after working outside of the home, has been termed their ‘second shift,’ which is a key example of gender inequity,” Liepmann added.</p>
<p>Both studies provided evidence that benevolent sexism plays a moderating role. “How household chores are divided up is important for women’s sexual desire for their partner, especially when women want equity in their relationships,” Liepmann emphasized. </p>
<p>“When women endorsed less benevolent sexism (in line with wanting an equitable partnership) and were evenly splitting household chores with their man partner, they reported the highest sexual desire for their partner,” Liepmann detailed. “But, when women who want an equitable partnership were doing more household chores than their man partner, they reported the lowest sexual desire for their partner.”</p>
<p>The burden of physical and mental labor appeared especially heavy for parents. When the researchers isolated the group of mothers, they found that mothers who did more of the overall household labor experienced the lowest levels of sexual desire. </p>
<p>“Regardless of benevolent sexism attitudes, when mothers did more household labor, they reported less desire to have sex with their man partner,” Liepmann said. “Prior research shows that when couples have children, division of household labor tends to become gendered, even in couples who value an egalitarian partnership.”</p>
<p>Because of this shift, Liepmann advised that “our work suggests that parents should be especially mindful of how household tasks are divided and how this may be related to their sex lives.”</p>
<p>A potential misinterpretation is that holding traditional, sexist beliefs is universally beneficial for a woman’s romantic relationship. While benevolent sexism might buffer a woman’s sexual desire from the negative impacts of unequal housework, these beliefs are generally tied to broader societal inequities. </p>
<p>“Although, when women endorsed more benevolent sexism attitudes and did more of the household chores than their man partner, they did not report lower sexual desire for him, these sexual ‘benefits’ function as a way to mask the significant costs for women who endorse more benevolent sexism attitudes,” Liepmann warned. </p>
<p>“For instance, prior work has found that when women endorse more benevolent sexism, women experience reduced power in public domains, less career advancement, lower career competence and worse well-being,” Liepmann explained. “Although women who endorse more traditional gender roles may not experience these costs in their sexual desire for their partner when doing more household labor, they may still experience costs in their personal and professional lives.”</p>
<p>And as with all research, there are some limitations. Because the studies relied on self-reported survey data and were observational, scientists cannot conclude that doing more chores directly causes a drop in sexual desire. It is entirely possible that other unmeasured factors influence both how couples divide labor and how much desire they feel. </p>
<p>The researchers note that both studies focused exclusively on relatively satisfied mixed-gender couples from Western countries. The dynamic between chores and sexual desire might look very different in same-gender couples, who tend to divide labor more equally. The patterns might also differ in countries with starkly different gender norms. </p>
<p>Moving forward, the scientists plan to investigate the active communication strategies couples use regarding chores. “This work suggests that on average, division of labor is still gendered in man-woman romantic relationships, and this can be associated with lower sexual desire for women,” Liepmann said. </p>
<p>“However, we know very little about how couples negotiate or discuss division of labor and whether they have reflected on the role of gender in this division,” Liepmann continued. “We are currently asking couples in long-term relationships about the extent to which they see their division of labor as gendered and whether they have conversations about this.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2026.2656775" target="_blank">Division of Household Labor and Sexual Desire: The Role of Gender and Benevolent Sexism</a>,” was authored by Alexandra Liepmann, Emily J. Cross, and Amy Muise.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/want-your-kids-to-keep-their-faith-new-research-says-its-about-conversation-not-just-church-attendance/" 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;">Want your kids to keep their faith? New research says it’s about conversation, not just church attendance</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 8th 2026, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>An analysis of Communio data found that more frequent religious engagement in childhood and better family experiences were associated with greater religious participation in adulthood. Children who frequently talked about faith with their parents tended to attend religious services more frequently as adults and were more likely to transmit their faith to their own children. The paper was published in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.70039"><em>Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion</em></a>.</p>
<p>Religiosity and spirituality are central parts of many people’s lives. They shape people’s moral frameworks, inform commitments, and guide behaviors, while also supporting many aspects of their health and well-being. As concepts, religiosity and spirituality are related, but not identical. Religiosity is the degree to which a person believes in, practices, and identifies with an organized religion. Spirituality is broader and usually refers to a person’s search for meaning, connection, transcendence, inner peace, or relationship with something larger than the self.</p>
<p>Both religiosity and spirituality can help people make sense of suffering, uncertainty, loss, and major life transitions. They can provide comfort, hope, emotional regulation, and a feeling that life has meaning. Religious and spiritual communities can also provide social support, shared values, identity, and practical help during difficult periods. They can be psychologically beneficial, although they may also create distress when linked with guilt, fear, exclusion, or conflict.</p>
<p>Study author Julia S. Nakamura and her colleagues examined how religious and familial experiences in childhood shape religious and relational outcomes in adulthood. The researchers focused on seven childhood factors: parental marital status, conversations about faith with parents, childhood religious service attendance, mother/father religious service attendance, and the quality of the relationship with one’s mother/father.</p>
<p>They also investigated five adulthood outcomes: religious service attendance, conversations with one’s own children about faith, forgivingness, sense of belonging, and marital status. The study authors hypothesized that more religious involvement in childhood, as well as intact family structures and better relationship quality with parents, would be associated with more religious engagement and better relational outcomes in adulthood.</p>
<p>The researchers analyzed data from Communio, a faith-based nonprofit focused on strengthening relationships and families among those embedded in church communities. Data came from 16,548 members of 32 Catholic and Protestant congregations across the U.S. Approximately 54% of study participants were Protestant, and 60% of participants were women.</p>
<p>Study participants reported their parental marital status (“Were your biological mother and father married to each other?”), how much they talked with their parents about faith when they were children, how often they and their parents attended religious services when they were around 12 years old, and the quality of their relationship with their parents (“Please think about your relationship with your mother/father when you were growing up. Would you say that relationship was very good, somewhat good, somewhat bad, or very bad?”).</p>
<p>Study participants also reported how often they attend religious services now (“How often do you attend Mass/Church Services?”), how often they have open conversations with their children encouraging the Christian faith, their sense of belonging to their church community (“How would you describe your sense of belonging to your church community?”), and their marital status. They also answered a single-item question to assess dispositional forgiveness (“I have forgiven those who hurt me”).</p>
<p>Results showed that 71% of participants reported growing up in intact families (or 83% of the participants who responded to that specific question). Forty percent reported attending services once a week when they were children, while 25% reported attending more than once a week. Twenty-three percent reported having conversations with parents about faith yearly or a few times a year, while 16% reported having them monthly or a few times a month. Forty-one percent reported having a *very* good relationship with their father, and 51% reported a *very* good relationship with their mother. </p>
<p>Additionally, participants whose parents were never married to each other were less likely to have conversations about faith with their own children later in life, and were less likely to be married in adulthood. Interestingly, those whose parents divorced before they turned 18 reported higher levels of forgivingness. </p>
<p>Further analyses showed that participants who attended religious services more often as children tended to attend them more often as adults. However, parental religious attendance showed contrasting patterns depending on the parent: while frequent attendance by a father was linked to more frequent attendance by the participant in adulthood, frequent attendance by a mother was actually associated with slightly *less* frequent adult attendance. </p>
<p>The researchers noted that the strongest predictor of adult outcomes was communication. Those who had conversations about faith with their parents more often as children tended to talk about faith more often with their own children, attend religious services more frequently as adults, and report higher forgivingness and a stronger sense of belonging to their church. Finally, results showed that people who reported better relationships with their fathers tended to report higher forgiveness and a stronger sense of belonging to a church community, but less frequent conversations about faith with their own children.</p>
<p>“Our findings contribute to a growing body of research demonstrating that faith transmission is not solely a matter of childhood RSA [religious service attendance] but is also deeply embedded in relational and experiential contexts. The role of conversations about faith with parents may be a particularly influential factor, potentially reinforcing the importance of proximal factors in childhood in shaping later religious engagement and future relationships, though further research is needed to corroborate these findings,” the study authors concluded.</p>
<p>The study contributes to the scientific knowledge about the transgenerational transmission of religious beliefs and practices. However, it should be noted that all data from this study came from self-reports, leaving room for reporting and recall biases to have affected the results. Additionally, all study participants were current congregation members and thus likely more religious than the general population. This limits the generalizability of the findings.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.70039">Associations of Childhood Experiences With Adulthood Religious and Relational Outcomes Among Protestants and Catholics in the United States</a>,” was authored by Julia S. Nakamura, J. P. De Gance, Isaiah Contu, Katheryn C. H. Yang, Rachel S. Leong, Richard G. Cowden, Katelyn N. G. Long, and Tyler J. VanderWeele.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/scientists-tested-ais-moral-compass-and-the-results-reveal-a-key-blind-spot/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Scientists tested AI’s moral compass, and the results reveal a key blind spot</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 8th 2026, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2519941123" target="_blank">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a></em> suggests that large language models struggle to accurately estimate the moral values of people outside of Western societies. Scientists found that these artificial intelligence systems tend to overestimate the moral concerns of Western nations while underestimating the values of non-Western cultures. This pattern provides evidence that relying on these models to gauge global public opinion could unintentionally reinforce cultural stereotypes.</p>
<p>Large language models are sophisticated artificial intelligence systems trained on vast amounts of text data to generate human-like writing and answer complex questions. Popular examples include ChatGPT, created by OpenAI, and similar tools built by companies like Google and Meta. People increasingly use these models for communication, business, and even academic research.</p>
<p>Some academics have recently suggested using these models to simulate human participants in social science research. This idea relies on the assumption that the models possess an accurate understanding of diverse human populations. The researchers conducted this study to put that assumption to the test.</p>
<p>Mohammad Atari, an assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, explained the team’s motivation. “We already know in moral psychology that people are not very good at judging other groups’ moral values,” Atari said. “Liberals often get conservatives wrong, and conservatives misread liberals in predictable ways.”</p>
<p>“With AI now playing a growing role in everyday life and even in scientific workflows, we asked a simple question: do these systems make the same kinds of accuracy errors?” Atari explained. “In other words, does AI ‘stereotype’ the moral values of different cultural groups?” </p>
<p>“That question matters because any bias built into these systems could quietly influence how information is generated, interpreted, and acted on,” Atari added. “If they do, those biases could shape research agendas, influence decision-making, and reinforce misunderstandings at scale.”</p>
<p>The authors wanted to see if these models actually understand global morality. Most of the text these artificial intelligence systems learn from originates from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic societies. In psychology, these societies are often referred to by the acronym WEIRD.</p>
<p>Because the training data is skewed heavily toward Western perspectives, the researchers suspected the models might generate biased estimations of right and wrong. If a model lacks sufficient information about certain cultures, it tends to fill in the gaps based on statistical patterns from its dominant training data. This process is very similar to human stereotyping, where limited exposure leads to overgeneralized beliefs about unfamiliar groups.</p>
<p>In human psychology, one common form of stereotyping is known as valence inaccuracy. This occurs when people overestimate positive traits in groups similar to themselves and underestimate those same positive traits in outside groups. The researchers theorized that large language models might display a similar pattern, projecting higher moral concern onto Western societies while downplaying the moral principles of other nations.</p>
<p>To explore this, the researchers compared the moral judgments generated by artificial intelligence to real-world survey data. The human data came from 90,802 participants across 48 different countries. These individuals completed a widely used psychological survey that measures six core dimensions of morality, based on a framework known as Moral Foundations Theory.</p>
<p>These six dimensions include Care, Equality, Proportionality, Loyalty, Authority, and Purity. Care relates to virtues of compassion, while Equality focuses on egalitarianism. Proportionality revolves around merit and fair rewards, and Loyalty deals with solidarity to one’s group. Authority concerns deference to traditions and leaders, and Purity involves ideas of sanctity and avoiding degradation.</p>
<p>Participants rated statements related to these foundations on a scale from one to five. The researchers used a statistical technique to adjust the human survey data to better reflect the actual age and sex demographics of each country based on World Bank census data. </p>
<p>Next, the researchers prompted several versions of OpenAI’s language models, including GPT-3.5, GPT-4, and GPT-4o. They asked the models to estimate how the average person from each of the 48 countries would respond to the exact same moral questions on the same one-to-five scale. To ensure consistency, they repeated these queries ten times per question, generating a massive dataset of 103,680 artificial intelligence responses.</p>
<p>The authors also conducted similar tests using Meta’s LLaMa models and Google’s Gemini Pro. They then calculated the statistical differences between the human responses and the computer-generated estimates. To conceptually measure the inaccuracy of the overall moral concern of a nation, the researchers calculated the Euclidean distance, which captures how far the artificial intelligence’s overall estimates strayed from the actual human data across all six moral dimensions.</p>
<p>The models failed to accurately capture the diversity of global moral values. The artificial intelligence systems consistently overestimated the moral concerns of people from Western countries, such as the United States, Canada, and Australia. At the same time, the models underestimated the moral values of people from non-Western countries, such as Nigeria, Morocco, and Indonesia.</p>
<p>Specifically, the programs tended to overestimate values like Care and Authority in Western nations. Meanwhile, the models systematically underestimated values like Equality and Purity across most nations, particularly in less Westernized regions. The distance between the human data and the machine data was largest for countries in the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa.</p>
<p>To verify these patterns, the authors conducted additional experiments to rule out language bias. They collected new data from 4,666 participants in nine non-English speaking countries, using surveys translated into local languages like Arabic, Spanish, and Urdu. They then prompted the artificial intelligence in those same local languages.</p>
<p>Even when communicating in local languages, the models still underestimated the moral values of non-Western populations. The researchers also looked at country-level factors that might explain these discrepancies. “In countries with greater press freedom (e.g., the Netherlands, Sweden), AI may be able to more accurately estimate moral values,” Atari noted.</p>
<p>To ensure their findings were not just a quirk of one specific psychological theory, the researchers ran another test using a different framework called Morality-as-Cooperation. This framework views morality through the lens of seven cooperative strategies, such as family values, reciprocity, and bravery. Using a dataset of 63 countries in 29 languages, the researchers found the exact same pattern, showing massive deviations when estimating the moral profiles of non-Western populations.</p>
<p>A potential misinterpretation of this study is the assumption that artificial intelligence models are intentionally biased or inherently prejudiced. Instead, the research provides evidence that these systems simply absorb and reproduce the statistical patterns present in their training data. Since the models lack real-world social experiences, they cannot correct for the distortions in the text they consume.</p>
<p>The exact causes of the models’ behavior require further investigation. “These patterns likely reflect cultural biases in the data and the way these models are ‘debiased’ or made appropriate as chatbots,” Atari said. This debiasing process involves human feedback to make the software safer and more polite, but it often relies on Western human reviewers who enforce their own cultural norms. </p>
<p>The study does have some limitations. The primary human dataset was collected online, which might mean the participants represent a more globally connected or highly educated segment of their respective countries. Although the researchers used statistical adjustments and translated replication studies to account for this, sampling bias remains an ongoing challenge in global psychology research.</p>
<p>Atari advises readers to be cautious when using these technologies. “Don’t assume AI is an objective observer,” he said. “Our findings suggest that different AI systems (e.g., ChatGPT or Llama) can reproduce the same kinds of distorted views of different groups that people already have.” </p>
<p>“That means it is worth approaching AI-generated information (especially on morally loaded issues ranging from abortion and social justice to military applications and religion) with some skepticism, especially when it claims to reflect what other groups believe or value,” Atari continued. “The next time ChatGPT claims, implicitly or explicitly, that it knows what people value in Egypt, Turkey, or Argentina, take it with a grain of salt.” </p>
<p>“Our research shows that AI estimates of the moral values of non-Western cultures are especially off,” Atari said. “This is a part of my broader research looking at cultural skews of AI. Because morality shapes how people form opinions, justify laws, and participate in politics, skewed representations can misrepresent public sentiment.”</p>
<p>The researchers note that these findings carry significant risks as technology becomes more integrated into daily life. If artificial intelligence systems provide distorted moral representations, they might mischaracterize public sentiment or offer culturally inappropriate advice. For example, a mental health chatbot trained on Western norms might prioritize individual boundaries over family loyalty, which could conflict with the moral values of East Asian cultures. </p>
<p>Future research could explore how these moral distortions influence specific real-world tasks, such as automated hiring systems or political polling. Scientists suggest that developers need to focus on diversifying the training data by incorporating more language content from different global regions. Greater transparency from technology companies regarding the exact makeup of their training data is necessary to help researchers build culturally inclusive tools. </p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2519941123" target="_blank">Moral stereotyping in large language models</a>,” was authored by Aliah Zewail, Alexandra Figueroa, Jesse Graham, and Mohammad Atari.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/a-robust-vocabulary-of-curse-words-indicates-strong-verbal-fluency/" 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;">A robust vocabulary of curse words signals strong verbal fluency</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 7th 2026, 20:00</div>
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<p><p>A persistent cultural myth suggests that individuals who swear frequently do so because they lack the vocabulary to express themselves with better words. But in 2015, researchers discovered that a robust knowledge of taboo language actually correlates with higher overall verbal ability, suggesting that a rich repertoire of curse words accompanies a well-stocked mental dictionary. The research was published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2014.12.003"><i>Language Sciences</i></a>.</p>
<p>Listeners often judge people who use profanity as lazy, uneducated, or lacking in self-control. This assumption relies on the idea that swear words serve as a crutch for people struggling to find an appropriate descriptive term. Yet studies on human speech production indicate that when speakers fail to retrieve a specific word, they tend to hesitate or use filler expressions rather than automatically generating profanity.</p>
<p>To better understand the mental mechanics of swearing, psychologists Kristin L. Jay of Marist College and Timothy B. Jay of the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts sought to test the poverty-of-vocabulary hypothesis. They wanted to know if a biological propensity for swearing truly points to a deficit in overall expressive ability. </p>
<p>The researchers designed a series of experiments relying on a standard psychological metric known as verbal fluency. Verbal fluency represents a person’s ability to quickly retrieve and produce words from their mental lexicon. Psychologists measure this trait by asking participants to list as many words as possible starting with specific letters within a short time limit. A person with high verbal fluency will generate a long list, indicating a wide and easily accessible vocabulary.</p>
<p>Kristin L. Jay and her coauthor compared performance on this standard letter assessment with two other cognitive tasks. They asked participants to name as many animals as possible, which tests the ability to recall items within a specific semantic category. They also asked participants to list as many curse words as possible. </p>
<p>In the first experiment, 43 college students sat in a room alone with an audio recorder. An automated voice instructed them to speak aloud as many words as they could think of starting with the letters F, A, and S, giving them one minute for each letter. The participants then completed one-minute spoken trials for animal words and taboo words.</p>
<p>The researchers observed a positive correlation across all the categories. Participants who excelled at generating words starting with standard letters also generated the highest number of taboo words. Rather than serving as evidence of a restricted vocabulary, the ability to generate numerous swear words pointed to strong overall verbal fluency.</p>
<p>The participants produced far more animal words than letter-group words, and they produced the fewest words in the taboo category. Participants paused longer before reciting their first taboo word compared to the animal category. This delay raised a secondary question about whether people were simply hesitant to swear aloud in an academic setting.</p>
<p>Words tend to be organized in the human brain by their literal definitions, known as denotative meanings. Animal words share this kind of structure, making it relatively easy for people to systematically name farm animals, then zoo animals, then pets. Taboo words lack a unifying literal definition, instead forming a mental category based entirely on emotional weight. </p>
<p>Linguists typically divide offensive language into distinct subcategories, which the study participants’ responses seemed to reflect. People generated general words that express heightened emotional states at much higher rates than words used to insult specific groups based on demographic traits. Just ten common swear words made up over half of the recorded responses.</p>
<p>The researchers observed an exception to the low rate of targeted slurs. Female-sex-related insults appeared frequently in the respondents’ lists, ranking alongside the most common general swear words. The authors suggested that such words might be transitioning in modern usage, functioning less as specific derogatory descriptors and more as general emotional outbursts.</p>
<p>To eliminate the possibility that spoken hesitation suppressed the taboo word count, the researchers conducted a second experiment with 49 different college students. This time, participants wrote their responses on paper and had two minutes to complete each category. The written format also reduced the cognitive load, as participants did not have to hold their previous answers in their working memory to avoid repeating themselves.</p>
<p>The written test produced the same pattern of results as the spoken test. Verbal fluency in the standard letter task positively correlated with animal word fluency, and the researchers observed a similar positive trend matching those categories with taboo word fluency. Even with the privacy of writing on paper, participants still generated fewer curse words than animal words. </p>
<p>This consistency suggests that the size of the taboo vocabulary category is genuinely smaller or organized differently in the human brain compared to standard semantic categories. Similar to the first experiment, a small handful of expressive curse words dominated the lists, while specific slurs appeared relatively rarely. </p>
<p>The researchers then expanded their investigation to include personality traits, running a third written experiment with 126 students. Participants filled out extensive questionnaires assessing their religious habits, self-reported swearing frequency, and basic personality traits. Psychologists use an assessment called the Big Five personality inventory to measure universal human traits, which include openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.</p>
<p>Once again, the tests showed positive correlations between standard verbal fluency, animal fluency, and taboo fluency. In addition, the findings mapped onto established observations regarding how different personalities approach swearing. Higher taboo word fluency positively correlated with neuroticism and openness, while showing a negative correlation with agreeableness and conscientiousness. </p>
<p>When analyzing the responses by sex, the researchers found few differences in offensive language performance. Men and women produced highly similar vocabularies in the taboo category. The top eight swear words generated by women matched the exact top eight words generated by men, and both groups produced gender-based insults at similar rates.</p>
<p>While the research challenges the idea that swearing stems from a lack of vocabulary, the authors noted a few boundaries to their conclusions. The experiments primarily relied on samples of college students, a demographic that naturally possesses above-average verbal abilities due to academic admission filters. </p>
<p>To benchmark the data, the researchers compared the students’ performance on the standard letter task to established national averages. The students generated volumes aligned perfectly with existing norms for educated adults, indicating that the participant group represented a typical cognitive baseline.</p>
<p>The specific phrasing of the prompt might have also influenced the types of words generated. Asking participants to list “curse words or swear words” may have mentally directed them toward general emotional outbursts. The researchers proposed that asking for insults or slurs might have yielded a different set of vocabulary words, leaving room for future investigations into how the brain organizes offensive language.</p>
<p>Finally, the researchers emphasized the distinction between knowing taboo words and choosing to use them in everyday life. A person’s performance on a fluency test measures the size of their mental lexicon, but the actual frequency of their swearing depends on social etiquette, impulse control, and the context of their environment. </p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2014.12.003">Taboo word fluency and knowledge of slurs and general pejoratives: deconstructing the poverty-of-vocabulary myth</a>,” was authored by Kristin L. Jay and Timothy B. Jay.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/violent-pornography-linked-to-sexual-aggression-risk-among-university-students/" 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;">Violent pornography use linked to sexual aggression risk among university students</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 7th 2026, 18:00</div>
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<p><p>Watching violent pornography is associated with a higher likelihood of committing sexual aggression among university students, especially when viewers believe the videos reflect reality and think their friends hold victim-blaming attitudes. These findings, published in the journal <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-025-03199-y"><i>Archives of Sexual Behavior</i></a>, suggest that educational programs must teach young adults to critically evaluate explicit media. The results also emphasize the need to challenge harmful social norms within peer groups.</p>
<p>As young people navigate romantic relationships, they build mental blueprints for how intimate encounters should unfold. Psychologists call these blueprints sexual scripts. These expectations are shaped by personal experiences and external influences, including explicit internet videos and conversations with friends. Because a massive amount of mainstream adult material includes physical aggression like slapping or choking, young adults are routinely exposed to media that pairs violence with sexual pleasure.</p>
<p>Melissa S. de Roos, a researcher at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands, led a team to study how consuming this violent material interacts with a person’s social environment to influence behavior. The research builds on theories suggesting that explicit media alone does not automatically create violent behavior. Instead, a combination of cultural messages and social networks merges to guide individual actions.</p>
<p>The study focused on two specific factors that might alter the impact of violent media. The first was perceived realism. This concept describes how closely a person believes adult videos mirror actual life. The second factor was the acceptance of rape myths within a person’s friend circle. </p>
<p>Rape myths contribute heavily to a culture that excuses sexual violence. These are false beliefs that blame targets of assault or make excuses for perpetrators, such as the idea that people exaggerate the impact of nonconsensual contact. When people believe these myths, they often fail to identify situations where a person is being coerced. Some individuals use these narratives to justify their own persistence after a partner has expressed a desire to stop an encounter.</p>
<p>These false narratives rely heavily on the idea of a “real rape” scenario. This is a stereotype portraying assault exclusively as a violent attack by an unknown assailant in a dark alley. The prevalence of this stereotype allows people to ignore instances of acquaintance assault or verbal coercion. It gives individuals a mental loophole to excuse behavior that actually violates consent.</p>
<p>To gather data, the researchers distributed an online survey to university students in the Netherlands. The final sample included 677 participants, consisting of about two thirds women and one third men. The participants answered detailed questions about their media habits. They indicated their age at first use, average hours watched per week, and the specific genres they preferred.</p>
<p>The participants rated how often they watched content featuring various acts. These genres included conventional acts along with group encounters, fetish materials, and explicit depictions of violence or coercion. The respondents then rated how acceptable they found explicit media and how realistic they considered the material to be.</p>
<p>The survey then asked participants to imagine a private conversation with their three closest friends. Based on this imagined scenario, respondents rated how strongly their friends would agree with statements excusing sexual coercion. For instance, participants guessed if their friends believed that attackers simply get too carried away during intimate moments.</p>
<p>Finally, the researchers used a behavioral questionnaire to ask participants about their own actions. The survey asked if they had ever engaged in unwanted sexual contact, attempted coercion, or used threats of force while attending university. The questionnaire broke these behaviors down into specific physical acts, allowing the researchers to categorize respondents based on the severity of their actions.</p>
<p>The results revealed distinct differences in how men and women engage with explicit materials. Male participants reported viewing adult content much more frequently than female participants did. The men held more positive attitudes toward the material and were much more likely to report watching content that featured violence or coercive scenarios.</p>
<p>In addition to differences in media habits, the male respondents perceived their friend groups as having a higher tolerance for victim-blaming myths compared with the female respondents. Overall, peer acceptance of these myths was relatively low across the entire sample. The exact phrasing of the responses still showed a gap between the genders, as women believed their friends would strongly disagree with excuses for violence, while men felt their friends would only mildly disagree.</p>
<p>When it came to aggressive behavior, male students who viewed violent explicit media had a higher risk of committing sexual aggression. This association grew stronger when the men viewed the adult videos as an accurate portrayal of real life. If a male student thought the videos were highly realistic, his overall risk for reporting abusive behavior was elevated.</p>
<p>The link between media consumption and aggressive behavior was also amplified when male students believed their close friends accepted false narratives about assault. If a man consumed violent videos and felt his peer group tolerated coercion, his likelihood of committing an offense rose. This pattern suggests that adult videos reinforce existing victim-blaming attitudes that are subtly tolerated among some male friend circles.</p>
<p>The research team highlighted the importance of peer dynamics, especially in all-male social circles. Within these groups, harmful myths are sometimes subtly reinforced through jokes or a failure to call out bad behavior. This lack of vocal objection can lead to a phenomenon known as pluralistic ignorance. In this situation, individuals falsely assume their friends endorse victim-blaming ideas just because no one is actively arguing against them.</p>
<p>The trend looked completely different for female students. Simply watching violent explicit content was not independently linked to abusive behavior for the women in the study. A link between viewing violent material and committing sexual aggression only appeared among women who believed their close friends were accepting of toxic narratives about assault. For women, the social environment appears to heavily dictate whether aggressive media consumption translates into physical actions.</p>
<p>The researchers observed an intriguing discrepancy in how people report their own actions. The survey asked participants about specific physical acts involving force or incapacitation, which legally constitute rape. It also included a separate item, asking: “Do you think you may have ever raped someone?”</p>
<p>Many individuals admitted to the specific coercive actions but denied the label. Among the men who met the behavioral criteria for rape, roughly two thirds denied ever raping anyone when asked the direct question. The denial rate was even higher for the women, with about 87 percent rejecting the label despite their reported actions. The authors suggest this highlights how perpetrators fail to recognize their own actions, relying instead on the false “real rape” narrative.</p>
<p>Because the study relies on data collected at a single point in time, the results cannot prove that watching violent media forces people to commit assault. It is entirely possible that individuals who already possess a baseline interest in aggressive behavior actively seek out media that matches their preferences. A person with pre-existing aggressive tendencies might naturally gravitate toward violent videos. To better understand this timeline, researchers recommend observing how media habits change alongside behavior over several years.</p>
<p>The researchers note that their findings offer practical ideas for preventing violence on college campuses. Educational programs should focus heavily on improving media literacy. If instructors can teach young adults to view adult videos as fictional entertainment rather than real-world instructional guides, they might reduce the influence of violent content.</p>
<p>Prevention strategies must also target behavior within social groups. Because peer beliefs heavily alter the risk of aggression, interventions should encourage people to actively speak out against victim blaming when talking with their friends. Changing the social expectations within a friend group limits the normalization of violence, taking away the social cover that allows people to make excuses for coercive behavior.</p>
<p>Campus initiatives also need to include women. Even though women perpetrate sexual violence at lower rates than men, the study shows that female students are still highly susceptible to peer influences that promote toxic ideas. Interventions that build healthy communication skills and teach students to recognize coercion can benefit all members of a college community.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-025-03199-y">Moderating Effects on the Link between Violent Pornography and Sexual Aggression</a>,” was authored by Melissa S. de Roos and Emma Ferrando.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/untreated-sleep-apnea-linked-to-physical-brain-changes-in-alzheimers-disease/" 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;">Untreated sleep apnea linked to physical brain changes in Alzheimer’s disease</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 7th 2026, 16:00</div>
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<p><p>People who have difficulty breathing during sleep may be more vulnerable to the brain changes associated with Alzheimer’s disease. New research published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2025.06.006" target="_blank">Neurobiology of Aging</a></em> provides evidence that sleep-disordered breathing has a meaningful effect on key brain and spinal fluid markers of the condition across different stages of cognitive decline.</p>
<p>Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia, and identifying modifiable risk factors has become an urgent priority. Sleep-disordered breathing — an umbrella term for conditions where breathing is repeatedly interrupted during sleep, including obstructive sleep apnea — is now thought to be one such factor.</p>
<p>Previous research suggested that sleep breathing problems might accelerate the build-up of a toxic protein called amyloid-beta in the brain, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease. However, studies have produced inconsistent results, and few have examined how these effects differ depending on how far along the Alzheimer’s disease process an individual already is.</p>
<p>To better understand this distinction, a team led by Mohammad Akradi of Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran analyzed data from 757 participants enrolled in the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, a large collaborative research database.</p>
<p>The sample included people with Alzheimer’s disease, mild cognitive impairment (a condition that can be a precursor to Alzheimer’s), and cognitively unimpaired individuals. Of all the participants, 102 reported having sleep-disordered breathing and 655 did not. Importantly, researchers excluded anyone currently treating their sleep apnea with devices like a CPAP machine, meaning the study focused entirely on untreated sleep breathing issues.</p>
<p>All participants had undergone three types of brain imaging: one to detect amyloid-beta protein deposits, one to measure how much energy different brain regions were using (a proxy for how active and healthy those regions are), and one to measure the physical volume of brain tissue. They also completed a standard test of memory and thinking ability, alongside an analysis of their cerebrospinal fluid (the liquid surrounding the brain and spinal cord) to check for tau and amyloid-beta proteins.</p>
<p>To ensure robustness, the researchers created 512 matched sets of participants using a statistical technique, comparing outcomes between those with and without sleep breathing problems within each group to account for variables like age, sex, and body mass index.</p>
<p>The results revealed a complex but telling pattern. Among those who were cognitively healthy or had mild cognitive impairment, those with untreated sleep breathing problems had lower amyloid-beta build-up in the brain and higher brain energy activity. This suggests that in the earlier stages of disease, the brain may be mounting a kind of compensatory response, working in overdrive to offset the stress caused by poor sleep. These individuals also demonstrated widespread alterations in brain tissue volume—mostly shrinkage, though some areas appeared enlarged, possibly as the brain attempted to compensate.</p>
<p>However, in those already diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, the pattern reversed: amyloid-beta brain plaques were higher, and brain energy metabolism was lower. Furthermore, their cerebrospinal fluid showed a steeper drop in amyloid-beta levels. (In Alzheimer’s research, lower levels of this protein in the spinal fluid typically indicate that it is getting trapped and forming toxic plaques inside the brain). Three specific brain regions — the precuneus, the middle temporal gyrus, and the fusiform gyrus — showed particularly strong amyloid-related effects that were directly linked to poorer scores on the memory and thinking test.</p>
<p>“We hope that this multimodal study incentivizes clinicians to consider the importance of screening and treating individuals with sleep disordered breathing as potential therapeutic targets to reduce the burden of Alzheimer’s disease,” Akradi and colleagues concluded.</p>
<p>The researchers cautioned that sleep-disordered breathing was identified through self-report rather than objective sleep testing, which likely underestimates the true extent of the problem, particularly in those with cognitive impairment who may not accurately recall or report their symptoms. The study’s cross-sectional design also means the findings reflect a single snapshot in time, making it impossible to definitively establish cause and effect or track exactly how these brain changes evolve over a lifespan.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2025.06.006" target="_blank">How is self-reported sleep-disordered breathing linked with biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease?</a>,” was authored by Mohammad Akradi, Tara Farzane-Daghigh, Amir Ebneabbasi, Hanwen Bi, Alexander Drzezga, Bryce A. Mander, Simon B. Eickhoff, and Masoud Tahmasian, for the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/new-study-sheds-light-on-how-going-braless-alters-public-perceptions-of-a-woman/" 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 study sheds light on how going braless alters public perceptions of a woman</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 7th 2026, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1797201" target="_blank">Frontiers in Psychology</a></em> suggests that a woman’s decision to wear a bra involves a strategic trade-off between signaling physical attractiveness and avoiding negative social judgments. Scientists found that while going braless tends to be viewed as highly attractive by both men and women, it also provides evidence of being perceived as a sign of sexual availability. This perception of availability appears to increase the fear of harassment among women, shaping their daily clothing choices.</p>
<p>Scientists conducted this study to understand the evolutionary and social factors driving everyday clothing choices. From an evolutionary perspective, clothing acts as a tool for self-promotion, helping individuals enhance their physical appeal to potential romantic partners. At the same time, clothing serves to conceal intimate body parts, which can signal sexual restrictiveness and relationship fidelity. </p>
<p>The authors explain that human males naturally prefer female breasts of average or above-average size and high firmness. One evolutionary theory suggests that after early humans began walking upright on two legs, protruding breasts gained visual importance. Another theory proposes that breast firmness serves as an honest indicator of a woman’s health and metabolic resources. </p>
<p>The authors wanted to see how the specific choice of wearing or not wearing a bra fits into this evolutionary balance. Going without a bra can increase sexual attractiveness by making the breasts and nipples more visible to observers. On the other hand, wearing a bra can improve the visual firmness of the breasts. This creates a strong biological signal of youth and fertility, which can elicit a powerful response from potential partners.</p>
<p>To explore these dynamics, the researchers recruited 686 heterosexual adults from Slovakia. The sample included 409 women and 277 men, with an average age of about 35 years. The scientists used social networking sites to distribute their survey and asked participants to invite their acquaintances to join. </p>
<p>The authors asked the female participants detailed questions about their bra-wearing habits in both public and private settings. The researchers also measured various psychological and physical traits in the female participants. These included self-esteem, breast size, breast shape, media exposure, and fear of sexual harassment. </p>
<p>They also measured sociosexuality among the participants. This psychological concept refers to a person’s willingness to engage in casual sex without a committed emotional relationship. Additionally, the researchers asked participants about their pornography consumption, as this media can influence sexual expectations.</p>
<p>In a separate task, the 277 men and a subgroup of 158 women viewed ten pairs of photographs showing women’s torsos. Each pair featured the same woman wearing a white shirt, once with a bra and once without a bra. The participants had to choose which image in each pair looked more sexually attractive. They also had to choose which image suggested greater relationship fidelity.</p>
<p>The findings revealed that women rarely go braless in public. About 78.5 percent of the female participants reported they wear a bra almost every time they go out. In private settings, the behavior was much more evenly split, meaning women feel much more comfortable skipping a bra at home. </p>
<p>Women who reported having smaller, firmer breasts were more likely to go braless in public. The authors noted that firmer breasts tend to serve as an evolutionary signal of youth and fertility. This suggests these women may feel less need for the artificial enhancement that a bra provides. Women with silicone breast implants were also more likely to go braless, likely because implants increase both size and firmness.</p>
<p>Interestingly, a woman’s openness to casual sex did not predict her bra-wearing habits. Instead, the fear of sexual harassment played a major role in these decisions. Women who expressed a higher fear of being harassed were significantly more likely to wear a bra in public. This suggests that women intuitively use clothing to protect themselves from unwanted attention.</p>
<p>When evaluating the photographs, both men and women consistently rated the braless images as more sexually attractive. However, both genders also rated the braless women as less likely to be faithful to a partner. Men who had a stronger personal preference for large breasts found the braless photos especially attractive. </p>
<p>The researchers also found that men who reported an intention to sexually harass women were highly sensitive to the braless photos. These men tended to view the lack of a bra primarily as a cue of infidelity and sexual exploitability. The authors suggest this aligns with evolutionary ideas about male sexual jealousy, where certain men interpret provocative clothing as a sign of a woman’s willingness to cheat.</p>
<p>This new data aligns with previous research on how society views women’s bodies and clothing choices. For example, a study published in the journal <em>Sexuality and Culture</em> examined <a href="https://www.psypost.org/women-are-more-critical-of-female-toplessness-than-men-which-may-be-explained-by-objectification-theory/" target="_blank">attitudes toward female toplessness</a> in public. The researchers asked 326 residents of the United States to rate images of topless women in various public settings, like a beach or a park. </p>
<p>The authors of that paper found that a person’s individual traits drove their reactions, rather than the location of the photograph. Interestingly, women actually rated the photos of topless women more negatively than men did. The authors suggested that sexually objectifying environments encourage competition among women. This concept, known as intrasexual competition, prompts individuals to socially police their rivals. </p>
<p>Similarly, research published in the <em>European Journal of Social Psychology</em> provides evidence that <a href="https://www.psypost.org/womens-bodies-are-moralized-more-than-mens-study-finds/" target="_blank">people judge women’s bodies</a> through a strict moral lens. In that study of 470 participants, scientists found that behaviors like being topless or getting a tattoo are viewed as moral issues for women, but not for men. When participants were asked to explain their opposition to female toplessness, they spontaneously used arguments about harm and purity. </p>
<p>This double standard highlights how society places heavier burdens on female bodily autonomy. The researchers found that people with sexist beliefs were especially likely to use concepts like purity to oppose female toplessness. This form of prejudice, known as benevolent sexism, idealizes women as pure beings who need protection. This mindset helps explain why society places stricter controls and judgments on women’s bodies compared to men’s bodies.</p>
<p>Other research has focused specifically on the biological signals associated with not wearing a bra, such as nipple visibility. A study in the journal <em>Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences</em> involving 234 participants explored how people react to photographs of women with visibly erect nipples. The findings suggest that this involuntary physical response <a href="https://www.psypost.org/new-psychology-study-shows-how-erect-nipples-can-alter-perceptions-of-women/" target="_blank">triggers immediate sexualization</a> and objectification by observers.</p>
<p>The scientists found that women with visibly erect nipples <a href="https://www.psypost.org/nipple-erection-influences-perceptions-of-womens-intelligence-morality-and-sexuality/" target="_blank">were perceived as less intelligent, less moral, and more promiscuous</a> than women without visible nipple erection. Female participants in that study rated the women with visible nipples as having lower quality relationships. Men in that study expressed a desire to interact with these women, while female participants expressed a desire to avoid them. This further supports the idea that prominent breast signals carry significant social and reputational costs for women.</p>
<p>While these studies offer fascinating insights, the authors of the bra-wearing research note a few limitations to their work. The study relies heavily on self-reported data for bra-wearing frequency and media exposure. This method can be influenced by a desire to appear socially acceptable, meaning people might not accurately report their daily habits. </p>
<p>The study also frames clothing choices primarily through an evolutionary lens. This approach might overlook the strong influence of modern cultural norms, personal comfort, and fashion trends. Future research could use more objective methods, such as daily diaries, to track clothing habits in real time. Scientists also recommend cross-cultural studies to see how different societal rules interact with these evolved sexual signals.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1797201" target="_blank">Women’s and men’s perceptions of (not) wearing a bra in public</a>,” was authored by Pavol Prokop, Ivana Tomanová Čergeťová, and Jozef Balcerčík.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/perpetrators-of-ai-sexual-abuse-often-view-their-actions-as-a-joke-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;">Perpetrators of AI sexual abuse often view their actions as a joke, 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;">May 7th 2026, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>A survey of over 7000 people in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States found that 3.2% of the population reports engaging in creating, sharing and/or threatening to share sexual deepfakes. Men, younger adults, non-white respondents, and individuals with a disability were more likely to engage in this behavior. 18% of people deliberately viewed these images, most often out of curiosity. The research was published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2026.108935"><em>Computers in Human Behavior</em></a>.</p>
<p>Sexual deepfakes are synthetic sexual images, videos, or audio recordings created or altered with AI or other digital tools. They are usually created to make it appear that a real person is naked, engaged in sexual activity, or saying sexual things, even though this did not actually happen. A sexual deepfake can use a real person’s face, body, voice, or likeness, and combine it with fabricated sexual content.</p>
<p>Many sexual deepfakes are nonconsensual, meaning the person depicted did not agree to the creation or sharing of the material. Nonconsensual sexual deepfakes can be used for harassment, humiliation, blackmail, revenge, or sexual exploitation. They can harm a person’s reputation, privacy, safety, relationships, and mental health, even when viewers know the content is fake.</p>
<p>Although sexual content shown in such deepfakes is not real, the harm they cause can still be very real when the deepfake represents a real and identifiable person. Because of this, sexual deepfakes are increasingly treated as a serious legal and ethical problem in many jurisdictions. In research or policy writing, they are typically described as synthetic sexual media depicting an identifiable person without that person’s consent.</p>
<p>Study author Rebecca Umbach and her colleagues wanted to examine how often people engage in what they call AI-generated image-based sexual abuse. This behavior includes the nonconsensual creation of AI-generated intimate images (i.e., sexual deepfakes), the nonconsensual sharing of AI-generated intimate images, and threats to share AI-generated intimate images. Study authors also examined how many people view such images and how often. More specifically, they were interested in content generated using a range of platforms—from those using AI to digitally remove clothing and generate explicit synthetic content, to more sophisticated deepfake generators or custom-built models.</p>
<p>They conducted an online survey. Study participants were 7,231 respondents from Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, recruited by Sago, a large market research company with proprietary online panels. There were approximately 2,400 respondents from each of the three countries. Study authors state that they selected these countries based on evidence of high “deepfake porn” traffic. Around 50-51% of study participants were women. 12-13% of participants identified as LGBTQ+. 18-20% were people with a disability.</p>
<p>The survey directly asked participants whether they engage in the nonconsensual creation, sharing, or threatening to share of digitally altered sexual images. For example, a question asked participants how many times, since they turned 18, they had “posted, sent, or shown a fake or digitally altered nude/sexual image (photo or video) of someone (who was also over 18) without their permission?”.</p>
<p>The survey also asked about participants’ demographic data, their relationship with the person in the sexual content they targeted (e.g., “former sexual partner”, “family member”, “acquaintance”), and the motivation for that behavior. Participants were also asked whether they had ever deliberately watched or viewed AI-generated nude or sexual photos or videos of celebrities or famous people, influencers, and ordinary people. Those that answered that they did deliberately watch or view such images were asked why they watched them, why they thought the images were AI-generated, and how they felt when they viewed the images.</p>
<p>Results showed that 3.2% of participants engaged in at least one of the three behaviors study authors considered to be AI-generated image-based sexual abuse. In other words, 3.2% of people reported creating, sharing, or threatening to share sexual deepfakes. This percentage varied by country—it was 6.1% in the U.K., 3.5% in Australia, and 2.6% in the U.S.</p>
<p>In addition to this, 1.4% of respondents reported creating, sharing, or threatening to share digitally altered sexual images that did not use AI, and 0.5% reported being unsure about AI involvement in the images they were manipulating. A further 0.3% of participants reported threatening to share digitally altered images that did not actually exist.</p>
<p>Further analyses showed that men, younger individuals, non-white participants, and those with a disability were more likely to engage in these behaviors. (While less educated individuals initially appeared more likely to engage in AI-IBSA, statistical modeling showed this relationship disappeared when researchers adjusted for other demographic factors. Similarly, the racial gap between white and non-white respondents disappeared among U.K. participants when the data was adjusted.) Most often, participants reported creating sexual deepfakes because they wanted to experiment with the technology and because they were showing off. Sharing was most often explained as being done “for fun/as a joke”.</p>
<p>26% of people who shared images and 22% of those who created them said they wanted to destroy the target’s reputation. 12% of creators and 20% of sharers reported doing it for financial gain. Most often, the perpetrators targeted current or former sexual partners. Interestingly, participants more often reported sharing deepfake sexual images of men (56%) than of women (41%).</p>
<p>18% of participants reported deliberately viewing sexual deepfake images. Men were 3.6 times more likely than women to deliberately view sexual deepfake images (29% vs 8%). Similarly, younger people, LGBTQ+ individuals, non-white participants, and participants with disabilities were more likely to deliberately view sexual deepfakes. Curiosity was the leading motivation for viewing such images, followed by sexual gratification and amusement. </p>
<p>However, the study revealed a stark gender divide in emotional reactions to the content: men were significantly more likely to report feeling amused or aroused, while women were far more likely to feel empathy for the depicted person, sadness about the world, and disgust toward the creator.</p>
<p>“These findings suggest that, in addition to working to prevent the creation of nonconsensual AI-generated sexual images, sociotechnical interventions are needed to address the seeming normalization of consuming these images,” the study authors concluded.</p>
<p>The study contributes to the scientific understanding of behaviors involving sexual deepfake images. However, all data used in the study came from self-reports, leaving room for reporting bias to have affected the findings.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2026.108935">AI-generated image-based sexual abuse: Perpetration and consumption across three regions,</a>” was authored by Rebecca Umbach, Nicola Henry, Renee Shelby, Gemma Stevens, and Kwynn Gonzalez-Pons.</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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