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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/the-human-brain-processes-the-passage-of-time-across-three-distinct-stages/" 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;">The human brain processes the passage of time across three distinct stages</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 13th 2026, 10:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study mapping the human brain reveals that our perception of time does not happen all at once, but rather unfolds across a series of distinct physical processing stages. As visual information travels from the back of the brain to the front, different groups of neurons handle specific parts of the timing process, ultimately creating our subjective experience of how long an event lasts. These findings were published in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003704" target="_blank">PLOS Biology</a></em>.</p>
<p>For decades, researchers have mapped out a broad network of brain regions that become active when people estimate how much time has passed. Studies involving both animals and humans have shown that certain groups of neurons respond to specific durations of time.</p>
<p>These specialized cells are often arranged in topographic maps across the brain. In these maps, neurons that prefer similar lengths of time are located physically close to one another on the folded outer layer of the brain, known as the cerebral cortex.</p>
<p>Despite knowing where these timing regions are located, researchers have struggled to understand exactly how they work together. It has been unclear how a physical feature like the duration of a flashing light is transformed into an abstract feeling of passing time.</p>
<p>To piece together this puzzle, neuroscientist Valeria Centanino and her colleagues Gianfranco Fortunato and Domenica Bueti at the International School for Advanced Studies in Italy conducted an imaging study. They wanted to track how the properties of time-tracking neurons change as signals move through the brain.</p>
<p>The researchers recruited thirteen healthy volunteers to perform a visual categorization task. First, the participants were trained to memorize a specific reference duration of half a second, which they would use as a mental benchmark.</p>
<p>During the main experiment, the volunteers watched a series of blurry, flickering circles appear on a screen. Each circle stayed on the screen for a random amount of time, ranging between two-tenths of a second and eight-tenths of a second. </p>
<p>After each circle disappeared, the participants pressed a button to indicate whether the shape was visible for a longer or shorter time than their internalized reference. While the volunteers performed this task, the researchers recorded their brain activity using an ultra-high-field functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner.</p>
<p>Functional magnetic resonance imaging is a technology that measures brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow. When a specific area of the brain works harder, it requires more oxygen, and the scanner tracks the oxygen-rich blood rushing to that region.</p>
<p>The scanner used in this study operates at a magnetic field strength of seven Tesla. This is much stronger than standard hospital scanners, allowing the team to capture highly detailed images of the brain surface.</p>
<p>With these detailed images, Centanino and her team modeled the behavior of individual populations of neurons. They looked for unimodal tuning, which happens when a group of brain cells responds most strongly to one specific stimulus and less strongly to anything else.</p>
<p>The researchers found that the way neurons tuned into time changed depending on their location in the brain. They identified three distinct processing stages that form a hierarchy of time perception.</p>
<p>The first stage occurs in the occipital visual areas, located at the back of the head where the brain first processes sight. Here, the neurons acted like simple timers that gathered sensory information from the eyes. </p>
<p>In these visual areas, the brain cells showed a strong preference for the longest durations. Their activity increased steadily the longer the shape stayed on the screen, encoding the physical length of the visual event.</p>
<p>The second stage takes place in the parietal and premotor regions, which sit near the top and middle of the brain. In these areas, the researchers observed a complete topographic map of time.</p>
<p>Neurons in these middle regions were tuned to the entire range of presented durations. Some groups of cells responded only to brief flashes, while others responded only to medium or long appearances. </p>
<p>These specialized cells were neatly organized into clusters based on their preferred durations. This suggests that the parietal and premotor regions are responsible for reading out the specific duration of the visual event, allowing the brain to track exactly how much time just passed.</p>
<p>The final stage happens in the frontal regions of the brain, including the anterior insula and the rostral supplementary motor area. These areas are heavily involved in complex thought, decision making, and self-awareness.</p>
<p>In these frontal areas, the neurons did not represent the full range of time. Instead, they showed a strong preference for the middle of the time range, which was close to the half-second reference duration the participants had memorized.</p>
<p>This central preference represented the boundary that participants used to decide whether a duration was short or long. By tracking the exact time at which participants switched their answers from “shorter” to “longer,” the researchers calculated each person’s unique subjective boundary.</p>
<p>The activity in these frontal regions matched up perfectly with these subjective boundaries. This indicates that the frontal areas take the raw measurement of time and turn it into a personal, abstract categorization.</p>
<p>“Our results show that time perception is not a unitary process, but the outcome of multiple processing stages distributed across the cerebral cortex,” the authors wrote. “Each stage contributes differently, from encoding physical duration to constructing the subjective experience of time.”</p>
<p>To interpret the brain scan data, the research team used a mathematical approach called population receptive field modeling. This technique allowed them to estimate the exact time preference of neurons in tiny sections of the brain.</p>
<p>By mapping these preferences, the team could see exactly which brain folds contained neurons tuned to brief moments and which contained neurons tuned to longer stretches. They also evaluated how these preferences clustered together physically.</p>
<p>In the visual areas at the back of the brain, the physical clustering of time-sensitive cells was relatively weak. However, in the parietal and frontal regions, neurons with the exact same time preferences were grouped tightly together. </p>
<p>This tight grouping implies that organizing time into structured maps becomes more important as the brain moves from simply seeing an event to making a decision about it. The brain physically structures its cells to handle the demands of categorizing information.</p>
<p>Additionally, the researchers noticed a difference between the left and right sides of the brain in the motor areas, which control physical movement. Because the participants used their right hands to press the response buttons, the motor areas in the left hemisphere showed distinct activity patterns.</p>
<p>These motor areas consistently showed a preference for the shortest possible durations. The researchers suspect this was a byproduct of the brain preparing to make a physical movement as soon as the shape appeared, rather than a true measurement of passing time.</p>
<p>Another surprising detail emerged in the supplementary motor area, a part of the brain near the top of the head that helps plan movements. The researchers found a clear split in how the front and back sections of this region handled time.</p>
<p>The back half of the supplementary motor area contained cells tuned to the entire range of durations, reading out the time like a stopwatch. The front half contained the boundary cells that helped categorize the time as short or long.</p>
<p>This split within a single brain region had been seen previously in animal studies. Finding it in humans suggests that this specific area might act as a central hub where actual time and subjective time are integrated.</p>
<p>While this imaging study provides a detailed roadmap of visual time perception, it does have a few limitations. The research focused entirely on the cerebral cortex, which is the brain’s folded outer layer.</p>
<p>The team did not measure activity in deeper brain structures or the cerebellum, which are also known to play roles in processing time. Future studies will need to look at these deeper regions to see how they interact with the cortical maps.</p>
<p>The experiment was also restricted to visual time perception. It remains an open question whether the brain uses this exact same pathway to process the duration of sounds or physical touches.</p>
<p>To fully understand the boundary neurons in the frontal lobe, the researchers suggest conducting experiments that test multiple different reference durations. This would reveal whether the boundary cells physically shift their preferences when the rules of the task change.</p>
<p>Despite these limitations, the research offers a clearer picture of how a simple flash of light turns into a conscious experience of time. It reveals that our sense of time is a collaborative effort, passed along a specialized assembly line inside the head.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003704" target="_blank">Neuronal populations across the cortex underlie discrete, categorical, and subjective representations of visual durations</a>,” was authored by Valeria Centanino, Gianfranco Fortunato, and Domenica Bueti.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/your-eyes-reveal-how-strongly-you-believe-fake-news-before-you-even-make-a-choice/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Your eyes reveal how strongly you believe fake news before you even make a choice</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 13th 2026, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2518776123" target="_blank">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a></em> suggests that our preexisting beliefs deeply influence how we learn new information in our daily lives. By tracking eye movements and decision-making during a simulated news evaluation game, scientists found that people readily learn from rewards that match their existing views but struggle to adapt when rewards challenge their preconceived notions. </p>
<p>These findings provide evidence for the cognitive pathways that allow misinformation to persist in the modern digital landscape. This dynamic explains why simply presenting factual corrections often fails to change minds.</p>
<p>People increasingly rely on social media platforms for their daily news consumption, where automated algorithms tend to filter content to match users’ existing preferences. This digital environment provides a fertile ground for disinformation to spread rapidly across large populations, raising the question of why individuals continue to believe false content even when objective fact-checking is readily available. </p>
<p>“I began seriously considering this line of research in 2021, after witnessing firsthand the damage misinformation caused during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in relation to the vaccination campaign,” said study author <a href="http://www.beholderlab.it" target="_blank">Stefano Lasaponara</a>, an associate professor in the department of psychology at Sapienza University of Rome. “That experience led me to wonder to what extent fake news might affect not only what people believe, but also how they learn from feedback and experience.”</p>
<p>Lasaponara and his colleagues sought to understand how a person’s preexisting judgments and internal confidence interact with the way they learn from external feedback. They designed the study to test whether our tendency to favor belief-consistent information might be rooted in basic, everyday learning mechanisms. By examining these fundamental learning processes, the authors hoped to uncover why people find it so difficult to update their opinions when faced with misleading news stories.</p>
<p>To explore these questions, the scientists recruited a final sample of 28 healthy young adults, aged between 18 and 36, to participate in a detailed three-part experiment. In the first phase, participants viewed a set of 324 news headlines that had recently circulated on popular social media platforms. Half of these selected headlines contained real news events, and the other half contained entirely false information. Participants had to read each headline on a computer screen and judge whether it was true or fake. </p>
<p>They also wagered a virtual amount of money, ranging from zero to 99 cents, on their provided answer. This financial bet served as a measurable indicator of their internal confidence regarding each specific news item. Based on these answers, the scientists grouped the headlines into four personalized categories for each individual participant. These customized categories included news judged as true with high confidence, true with low confidence, fake with high confidence, and fake with low confidence. </p>
<p>During this phase, the researchers used specialized eye-tracking glasses to measure the participants’ pupil dilation as they read. Pupil dilation is an involuntary physical response that indicates mental effort, focused attention, and physiological arousal. Measuring this subtle response allowed the team to track brain engagement in real time without interrupting the participants. </p>
<p>In the second phase, the researchers tested how well participants could learn new rules based on their previous judgments. Participants played a computer game where they had to choose between pairs of the headlines they had just rated in the first phase. The goal was to select the specific headline that would win them a 20-cent virtual monetary reward. Unknown to the participants, the rewards were not randomly assigned throughout the game. </p>
<p>In different rounds of the game, the 83 percent chance of winning a reward was tied to specific categories established during the initial evaluation. For example, in one round, picking headlines the participant had previously judged as true provided the reward. In another round, picking headlines judged as fake gave the reward. Other rounds rewarded choices based on high or low confidence, and one single round gave rewards entirely at random to serve as a baseline comparison. </p>
<p>The third and final phase tested whether the learning game had changed the participants’ minds regarding the news items. The scientists showed the participants the original headlines again, along with their initial true or false judgments and their associated confidence wagers. Participants were given the option to either confirm their original judgment or change their mind completely. If their final answer matched the actual real or fake status of the news, they kept their wagered money as a final payout. </p>
<p>The outcomes of the learning phase showed that participants learned very differently depending on the hidden rules of the computer game. When the game rewarded participants for choosing headlines they already believed to be true, they learned the winning strategy quickly and earned high scores. On the other hand, performance dropped when the game rewarded them for picking headlines they believed were fake. Participants also struggled to figure out the game’s hidden rules when rewards were tied to their confidence levels rather than their beliefs about truth. </p>
<p>“One important takeaway is that our prior beliefs can begin shaping our decisions even before we explicitly express a judgment,” Lasaponara said. “In our study, these pre-existing convictions were strong enough to influence learning itself. More broadly, this suggests that we should approach new information as critically and as openly as possible, trying, when we can, to evaluate it without immediately filtering it through our preconceptions.”</p>
<p>To understand the underlying mental strategies at play, the scientists used computational modeling, which involves creating mathematical simulations of human decision-making processes. The models revealed that when the rewards matched a participant’s belief in the truth, they used broad, generalized rules to make their choices. </p>
<p>When the rewards no longer matched their sense of truth, the participants abandoned these broad generalization strategies. Instead, they reverted to simply reacting to positive and negative feedback on a trial by trial basis, which proved to be a much less effective way to navigate the game. </p>
<p>The eye-tracking data provided physical evidence that our beliefs engage our nervous systems before we even make a conscious choice. In the initial phase, participants’ pupils dilated more when they were looking at headlines they would later judge with high confidence. This noticeable dilation suggests that strong subjective beliefs trigger an early physical arousal response within the body. During the learning phase, pupils dilated when participants faced a mental conflict, such as having to choose between a strongly held belief and a competing reward signal. </p>
<p>“I expected to find pupillary effects related to the moment of decision itself, but I did not expect to observe them at an earlier stage, during the formation of a belief-consistent choice tendency,” Lasaponara noted. “That was particularly interesting because it suggests that the influence of prior beliefs may begin unfolding before an overt response is made.”</p>
<p>When participants received feedback that went against their established beliefs, their pupils also widened, indicating cognitive surprise and an increased mental load. In the final feedback phase, participants showed a strong tendency to stick to their original opinions about the headlines. They rarely changed their minds, especially if they had placed a high confidence wager during the very first phase of the experiment. </p>
<p>Interestingly, high confidence made people resistant to changing their minds regardless of whether the headline was actually true or false in reality. Participants were slightly more willing to update their beliefs if they had initially expressed low confidence in their judgment. While the study provides detailed evidence on how subjective beliefs shape learning, there are potential misinterpretations and limitations to keep in mind. </p>
<p>Because the study required participants to experience all the different reward rules back to back, the learned rules from one round might have affected how they behaved in the next round. “An important caveat is that this study does not yet allow us to make strong claims about correcting misinformation, or about when and how people truly change their minds after learning,” Lasaponara explained. “Our results show that prior beliefs can bias reinforcement learning, but they do not yet tell us how to reliably undo that bias. This is something we are currently addressing in follow-up work.”</p>
<p>The experiment also relied exclusively on political and social news headlines, meaning these learning patterns might look different if the topics were neutral or completely unrelated to current events. Future research could expand on these physiological findings by using different types of information to see if this learning behavior applies to other areas of human life. </p>
<p>“Our broader goal is not only to better understand why people believe fake news, but also to identify the conditions under which misinformation becomes less effective,” Lasaponara added. “In follow-up studies, we are investigating whether different reinforcement structures can lead to varying degrees of belief updating and how computational models can help explain when people remain resistant to correction and when they become more flexible.”</p>
<p>Scientists could also design experiments that explicitly present participants with direct evidence contradicting their beliefs, rather than just changing a computer game’s reward rules. This alternative approach would help map out the exact conditions that might finally encourage people to update their most stubborn opinions. </p>
<p>“The title is also a small nod to Metallica, whom I am a big fan of,” Lasaponara added. “More importantly, this work would not have been possible without my co-authors, especially Valentina Piga and Silvana Lozito, whose contributions were fundamental to the project.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2518776123" target="_blank">Eye of the beholder: Pupillary response reflects how subjective prior beliefs shape reinforcement learning with fake news</a>,” was authored by Silvana Lozito, Valentina Piga, Sara Lo Presti, Angelica Scuderi, Fabrizio Doricchi, Massimo Silvetti, and Stefano Lasaponara.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/brain-scans-identify-the-neural-network-that-traps-anxious-people-in-cycles-of-self-blame/" 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;">Brain scans identify the neural network that traps anxious people in cycles of self-blame</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 13th 2026, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>New research published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pnpbp.2026.111679" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry</a></em> suggests that people with higher levels of everyday anxiety tend to experience more intense self-blaming emotions, along with specific changes in how their brain networks communicate. The findings provide evidence that this heightened self-blame is accompanied by unhelpful behaviors like hiding or self-attacking. These patterns could help explain the social difficulties often faced by anxious individuals in their daily lives.</p>
<p>The researchers conducted this study to better understand how self-blaming emotions operate in people who experience anxiety, even if they do not have a formal psychiatric diagnosis. Emotions like guilt and shame can be adaptive when they prompt someone to make amends for a mistake. They tend to become harmful when they lead to social withdrawal and constant self-criticism.</p>
<p>“People with elevated levels of anxiety quite often experience hardships in their social environments,” said study author Michal Rafal Zareba, a researcher at the Department of Basic and Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology at Universitat Jaume I in Castellon de la Plana, Spain. “For instance, they excessively blame themselves for the negative things that happen to themselves but also to others in their close environment.”</p>
<p>Zareba noted that previous research has explored the brain networks involved in these negative feelings, particularly in people with severe, diagnosed depression. “Although we have known for a long time that such behaviors contribute to poorer well-being of anxious individuals, the brain processes that could contribute to this were largely unexplored,” Zareba said. Understanding these mechanisms could inform preventative strategies to help people before their symptoms worsen.</p>
<p>To investigate these connections, the authors designed a multi-part experiment. First, a group of 140 healthy volunteers completed a computer-based assessment called the Moral Sentiment and Action Tendencies task. During this activity, participants read 54 hypothetical scenarios in which they or their best friend behaved in a way that violated social or moral rules.</p>
<p>For each situation, the participants rated how strongly they would blame themselves or their friend on a numerical scale. They also selected the specific emotion they would feel most strongly, choosing from options like guilt, shame, or self-directed anger. Finally, participants indicated what action they would most likely take in that scenario. The choices included hiding, apologizing, physically or verbally attacking themselves, or creating mental distance from themselves.</p>
<p>The data from this behavioral task indicated that increased anxiety was linked to stronger self-blaming emotions across the board. Highly anxious individuals were more likely to report a desire to attack themselves or hide away from others when imagining these scenarios. This occurred regardless of whether the hypothetical bad behavior was committed by themselves or their friend.</p>
<p>“Self-blaming emotions per se are not something bad; they are a signal telling us that we might have done something wrong,” Zareba said. “What contributes to their prominent role in anxiety is the maladaptive way of dealing with them.”</p>
<p>Interestingly, when experiencing negative emotions about themselves, such as shame or self-directed anger, these anxious participants were less likely to mentally step back or disengage from their self-focused thoughts. In psychology, the ability to create mental space from negative feelings is known as self-distancing. “When feeling self-blaming emotions, anxious individuals appear to be distancing themselves from others and engage more in self-oriented thoughts, rather than try to make up for the resulting situations,” Zareba explained.</p>
<p>In the next phase of the study, a subset of 80 participants underwent brain scanning using functional magnetic resonance imaging. This technology allows scientists to measure brain activity by tracking tiny changes in blood flow. Before the scan, participants provided brief, written cues for seven personal memories that made them feel guilty, as well as seven emotionally neutral memories.</p>
<p>Inside the scanner, the volunteers were shown these custom cues and asked to mentally relive the emotions associated with each specific memory for ten seconds. After reliving the memory, they had four seconds to answer a question about the location or social nature of the event. Between recalling these different memories, they completed simple math problems. This math task was designed to help shift their attention outward and reset their emotional state before the next memory cue appeared.</p>
<p>During the recall of guilt-inducing memories, the researchers observed a widespread increase in brain activity across several regions compared to neutral memories. Most notably, they found that individuals with higher anxiety scores displayed enhanced functional connectivity between two specific brain areas. Functional connectivity refers to how well different regions of the brain communicate and synchronize with one another during a task.</p>
<p>The enhanced communication occurred between the left superior anterior temporal lobe and the bilateral subgenual anterior cingulate cortex. The superior anterior temporal lobe is a brain area known to process social knowledge and complex social concepts. The subgenual anterior cingulate cortex is a deeper brain region involved in processing social affiliation and feelings of self-worth.</p>
<p>“The neuroimaging analysis revealed that when feeling self-blaming emotions, anxious individuals have higher levels of communication between brain regions responsible for understanding the meaning of social emotions, such as guilt, and areas involved in self-worth and social affiliation processing,” Zareba said. “This suggests that the self-blaming emotions may more strongly contribute to how anxious individuals feel about themselves but also their sense of belonging to others. Interestingly, similar observations on the self-blaming emotions have been previously made in patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder.”</p>
<p>The researchers also measured how much participants wanted to approach or avoid the people and places associated with their guilt memories. They found that a higher desire to approach the memory was linked to increased activity in the left superior anterior temporal lobe. On the other hand, a stronger desire to avoid the memory was linked to enhanced connectivity between the corresponding region in the right hemisphere and areas of the brain involved in physical embodiment and social feedback.</p>
<p>A separate resting-state brain scan involving 86 participants yielded additional insights. During a resting-state scan, participants simply focus on a crosshair without performing any specific task, allowing scientists to observe baseline brain activity. The researchers found that people who reported stronger self-blaming emotions in the earlier behavioral task exhibited lower baseline activity in the right temporal pole. This specific area at the tip of the temporal lobe connects social processing with emotional cognition.</p>
<p>As an exploratory step, the scientists also compared the brain activity patterns seen during guilt recall with existing, public maps of neurotransmitter systems in the human brain. Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers that help neurons communicate. The analysis showed that the brain areas activated by guilt heavily overlapped with the distribution of receptors for serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, and oxytocin. This hints that these specific chemical systems play a prominent role in shaping how the brain processes strong, negative emotions about the self.</p>
<p>While this research offers detailed insights into the brain mechanics of anxiety and self-blame, the authors note a few limitations to keep in mind. The study focused on healthy volunteers with subclinical anxiety rather than patients formally diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder. The observed patterns might differ in individuals with a long-term, clinical history of severe anxiety or depression.</p>
<p>“Our study was performed in a sample of subclinically anxious individuals, and therefore it still remains to be seen whether similar differences in behavior and brain processes are also found in patients diagnosed with anxiety disorders,” said senior author Maya Visser, an associate professor at the Department of Basic and Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology at Universitat Jaume I. “In fact, we are currently waiting for the results of a grant application that we submitted for such a project.”</p>
<p>Because the brain imaging portion contrasted personal guilt memories against neutral memories, the identified neural activity might not be entirely unique to self-blame. The brain networks highlighted in the study could also be active during other intensely negative emotions. Also, the behavioral task was translated into Spanish, and the Spanish word for guilt can also mean self-blame, which limits the ability to separate those two specific concepts lexically.</p>
<p>The researchers suggest that future longitudinal studies should track individuals over time to see if these patterns predict the development of more severe clinical disorders. “If we replicate the findings in a clinical sample, our research, combined with the previous studies in depressive patients, might contribute to the establishment of a transdiagnostic neuroimaging biomarker of self-blaming emotions,” Visser said. “Such a tool could help better understand what happens in the brains of patients in the course of different pharmacological and psychological treatments.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pnpbp.2026.111679" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Subclinical anxiety is associated with reduced self-distancing and enhanced self-blame-related connectivity between anterior temporal and subgenual cingulate cortices</a>,” was authored by Michal Rafal Zareba, Ivan González-García, Marcos Ibáñez Montolio, Richard J. Binney, Paul Hoffman, and Maya Visser.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/women-who-outrank-their-partners-in-education-face-a-smaller-child-penalty/" 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;">Women who out-earn their partners through education face a smaller child penalty</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 12th 2026, 20:00</div>
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<p><p>When couples have their first child, women generally experience a long-term drop in their income compared to their male partners. A new analysis shows that this combined loss of relative earnings is noticeably smaller for women who possess more formal education than their partners. The research was published recently in the journal <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2026.103327"><i>Social Science Research</i></a>.</p>
<p>Parenthood operates as a sudden fork in the road for the career trajectories of men and women. Mothers routinely undergo a large and persistent reduction in their labor market income after the birth of a first child. Fathers generally see their earnings continue untouched. Economists and sociologists refer to this divergence as the child penalty. </p>
<p>The child penalty remains a primary factor driving the persistent wage gap between men and women in the modern workforce. To understand how this dynamic plays out across different types of households, researchers look at how partners match up before having children. In the past, people predominantly married within their own educational bracket, a pattern known as homogamy. </p>
<p>Another common historic structure was hypergamy, where the male partner held a higher level of education than the female partner. Now, women are increasingly outpacing men in academic attainment across many geographic regions. This demographic shift has led to a rise in hypogamous relationships, where the woman is the more educated partner. </p>
<p>Previous investigations into how a woman’s relative status within her household might shape her career after childbirth have yielded mixed results. Some researchers suggested that a woman’s place in the household hierarchy mattered very little to her long-term income. Others proposed that women who outrank their partners navigate the transition to parenthood with less financial loss. The available evidence lacked enough detail to resolve these conflicting theories. </p>
<p>A research team sought to resolve these mixed signals by isolating the role of a woman’s relative education within her relationship from the general effects of holding a university degree. University of Vienna sociologist Nadia Steiber led the investigation. She partnered with Lara Lebedinski, Bernd Liedl, and Rudolf Winter-Ebmer to examine how varying levels of academic achievement within a romantic partnership change the financial consequences of starting a family. </p>
<p>The research team utilized a massive database derived from Austrian social security records and tax authorities. They focused their attention on 268,156 heterosexual couples who had their first child between 1990 and 2007. The database allowed the investigators to track the annual earnings of both parents starting five years before the birth of their child and ending ten years after the child was born. </p>
<p>By tracking these individual financial histories alongside detailed demographic data, the team could observe the direct shift in earnings associated with parenthood. To evaluate the data, the team employed an event-study framework. This type of analysis organizes information around a specific incident, which in this case was the exact date of the first child’s birth. The framework treats the transition to parenthood as an abrupt change to a person’s career timeline. </p>
<p>Establishing a baseline of earnings in the years prior to the transition enabled the researchers to measure the exact percentage by which women fell behind men over a decade of parenthood. The investigators created three broad categories based on the educational gap between the parents. The largest group consisted of couples with matching education levels, capturing about 60 percent of the sample. </p>
<p>Couples where the man was more educated made up nearly 20 percent of the total sample. Couples where the woman was more educated accounted for the final 20 percent. The overall trajectory of earnings followed a predictable pattern across all couple types. Men experienced steady earnings growth with no visible interruption at the time of childbirth. </p>
<p>Women saw their market income drop to nearly zero in the immediate period following the birth. This sharp decline aligns with the adoption of mandatory maternity leaves and extended breaks from the labor force. Over the subsequent ten years, women’s collective earnings gradually recovered, reaching about half of their pre-birth levels. </p>
<p>Although all mothers faced an economic setback, the size of the child penalty varied based on the couples’ educational pairings. Women in relationships where they were the more educated partner experienced the smallest overall financial disadvantage. Their share of the couple’s total earnings dropped by about 20 percentage points in the decade following the birth. </p>
<p>Women in couples with matching education levels saw slightly steeper declines in their relative earnings capacity. The largest overall drops happened for women in relationships where the man held more academic credentials. To rule out other explanations for these variations, the researchers applied statistical models that adjusted for the respective ages of the parents and the total number of children the couple eventually had. </p>
<p>The team also adjusted for the absolute level of education each partner held to establish an even baseline. This procedural adjustment ensured that the results were not simply highlighting the fact that higher education generally leads to higher wages regardless of partnership status. Even after these adjustments, the overarching pattern held steady. Women with a relative educational advantage over their partners sustained a smaller financial blow. </p>
<p>The researchers broke the dataset down further into highly specific academic pairings. This detailed breakdown revealed specific variations that the broad demographic categories occasionally masked. The smallest child penalties appeared for women with university degrees who partnered with men holding vocational qualifications or high school diplomas. </p>
<p>In contrast, the largest child penalties emerged for women with vocational or high school degrees who partnered with university-educated men. The researchers then addressed a specific theory that could have undermined their final conclusions. Some academics propose that highly educated women occasionally enter relationships with men who have unusually low earning potential for their specific background. </p>
<p>If that suggestion held true, the smaller child penalty in these relationships might just mirror the man’s stagnant wages rather than a true preservation of the woman’s career. To test this hypothesis, the researchers ran a computer sorting exercise. They built a mathematical scenario matching the highly educated women in their sample with randomly selected men chosen from the broader population. </p>
<p>These random men possessed the exact same education level as the women’s actual partners and became fathers in the same calendar year. By comparing the actual couples to these randomized couples, the team could see if the real partners were unusually low earners. They found that the actual male partners were not low earners at all. </p>
<p>Both the real and hypothetical groupings resulted in the identical child penalty, confirming the financial advantage was genuine and not a statistical illusion. The researchers attribute the smaller penalty to shifting power dynamics inside the modern home. A woman whose educational background exceeds her partner’s usually possesses a stronger financial fallback position. </p>
<p>This heightened status may provide her with enhanced bargaining power, allowing her to negotiate a more balanced division of household labor and childcare duties. Instead of defaulting to traditional roles, these particular couples might be more inclined to rely on outsourced childcare or share domestic responsibilities evenly. An economic concept called the specialization model also helps explain the measured outcome. </p>
<p>When a woman has a high earning potential relative to her partner, the opportunity cost of her leaving the workforce is much steeper for the entire household. In situations where the family relies heavily on the woman’s maximum income capacity, specializing in unpaid domestic labor becomes less economically viable. Financial necessity might push these women to return to work sooner and take on more scheduled shifts. </p>
<p>The study relies on historical data from Austria, a country with specific family policies. During the period analyzed, Austria offered generous, job-protected parental leave paired with flat-rate financial compensation. That structural design often encouraged long leaves and a subsequent return to part-time work, particularly among mothers functioning in a traditional cultural environment. </p>
<p>Because these regional policies shaped employment choices across the entire population, the average child penalties observed might appear higher than in nations with highly subsidized early childcare networks. Additionally, the national employment registers do not record the exact number of hours an individual works each week. The researchers could determine if a parent shifted to part-time employment, but they could not analyze the specific reduction in total hours. </p>
<p>The data also excluded income derived entirely from self-employment, meaning couples relying entirely on entrepreneurial ventures were left out of the final analysis. Future investigations could look directly at the daily scheduling negotiations happening within actual households. Studying how couples divide domestic tasks before and after childbirth would clarify exactly how relative education translates into shared responsibilities. </p>
<p>While the precise daily mechanisms require more exploration, the broad demographic trend is shifting. The evidence indicates that women completing higher education at greater rates than men may gradually help reduce gender earnings inequality.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2026.103327">Educational hypogamy is associated with a smaller child penalty on women’s earnings</a>,” was authored by Nadia Steiber, Lara Lebedinski, Bernd Liedl, and Rudolf Winter-Ebmer.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/genetic-predisposition-for-muscle-strength-linked-to-slower-cognitive-decline/" 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;">Genetic predisposition for muscle strength linked to slower cognitive decline</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 12th 2026, 18:00</div>
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<p><p>A genetic tendency for a strong grip is linked to better cognitive health in older adults. Researchers recently discovered that individuals born with DNA traits favoring muscle strength also tend to experience slower mental decline as they age. This relationship operates independently of how much a person exercises, according to a recent study published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2026.02.008"><i>Neurobiology of Aging</i></a>.</p>
<p>Loss of motor function, which includes basic physical movements and muscle control, often precedes cognitive decline. Medical professionals frequently measure hand grip strength using a simple hand-held device as a quick indicator of a person’s overall vitality. Weaker grip strength is a known risk factor for developing memory problems and Alzheimer’s disease later in life.</p>
<p>The biological reasons behind this connection have remained a subject of debate. One common explanation revolves around general health. People who maintain their strength might simply be more physically active, which supports heart health and brain function over time. In this view, lifestyle choices provide the main bridge between a strong body and a sharp mind.</p>
<p>Another explanation suggests a more direct biological link between muscles and the brain. Generating a forceful physical grip requires coordinated signals from the nervous system. As people age, changes in these neural pathways might cause both muscular weakness and cognitive difficulties.</p>
<p>Some evidence points to physiological interactions between tissue types. Skeletal muscles secrete specific proteins that travel through the bloodstream and influence learning and neural adaptation in the brain. In this scenario, genetic profiles that protect muscle mass or nervous system integrity could directly preserve cognitive function.</p>
<p>To investigate this relationship, Rachel Bercovitch and Daniel Felsky, along with a team of colleagues at the University of Toronto, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, and Rush University Medical Center, turned to genetic data. They wanted to see if an innate genetic predisposition for hand grip strength could predict cognitive outcomes. They also wanted to see if this genetic link existed before lifestyle factors like exercise came into play.</p>
<p>A polygenic risk score is a tool that adds up the estimated effects of thousands of tiny genetic variations across a person’s entire DNA sequence. Many physiological traits are not controlled by a single gene, but rather by small contributions from countless scattered genetic markers. By calculating this summary score, researchers can gauge an individual’s genetic likelihood of developing a specific physical trait.</p>
<p>The research team generated a genetic score for hand grip strength for more than 25,000 adults. The participants came from two separate aging studies: the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging and the Religious Orders Study and Rush Memory and Aging Project. By using two large groups, the researchers could look for patterns that held true across different demographics and testing methods.</p>
<p>The Canadian study included over 23,000 mostly healthy adults in mid-to-late life, allowing the team to observe early variations in memory and thinking. The Rush project tracked roughly 2,000 older individuals, including Catholic nuns and priests in the United States. These older participants underwent detailed annual cognitive tests and agreed to brain donations after their deaths.</p>
<p>First, the researchers verified that their genetic tool worked as intended. In both study groups, individuals with higher genetic scores for hand grip strength also recorded a stronger physical grip when squeezing a testing device. This confirmed that the genetic summary accurately reflected real-world physical traits.</p>
<p>Next, the team examined cognitive performance. In both the Canadian and the Rush groups, people with higher genetic scores for hand grip strength performed better on overall cognitive tests. This test score association remained intact even after the researchers accounted for age, sex, body mass index, and cardiovascular disease risk.</p>
<p>The researchers also tracked changes in memory and thinking skills over time. In the Rush study, where participants were followed for up to 21 years, those in the top third of the grip strength genetic scores experienced a slower rate of cognitive decline compared to those in the bottom third. The difference equated to a 20 percent improvement in preserved cognitive function over the study timeline.</p>
<p>In the Canadian group, the genetic score did not predict longitudinal changes in cognitive speed or memory. The researchers suggested this discrepancy might stem from the Canadian participants being relatively younger and healthier. The shorter follow-up time for the Canadian group might also have made it harder to detect slow changes in mental acuity.</p>
<p>The team then checked if the cognitive benefit simply came down to physical activity. They used statistical models to test whether the association between the genetic score and cognitive health was primarily driven by reported exercise habits. The analysis showed that physical activity did not act as a mediating factor.</p>
<p>Instead, actual physical strength and lean muscle mass played a larger role in connecting the genetic score to cognitive outcomes. This suggests that the genetic predisposition for muscle strength influences cognitive aging primarily through direct biological pathways related to muscle function, rather than behavioral choices like deciding to exercise.</p>
<p>Because the Rush study included brain autopsies, the team was able to look for physical signs of Alzheimer’s disease. These signs include the buildup of misfolded proteins known as amyloid plaques and tau tangles. They also checked for evidence of microinfarcts, which are tiny strokes that can damage brain tissue over time.</p>
<p>The genetic score for hand grip strength showed no relationship to any of the 12 postmortem brain pathologies measured. The lack of an association with traditional indicators of dementia suggests an entirely different biological mechanism at work. The genetic tendency for muscle strength might reflect a form of overall biological resilience that protects the brain without altering the typical accumulation of plaques and tangles.</p>
<p>The researchers also tested their grip strength score alongside an established genetic score for Alzheimer’s disease risk. Medical professionals are increasingly looking at genetic Alzheimer’s risk to help identify patients who might benefit from early interventions. However, these genetic models are still imperfect and capture only part of a person’s total risk.</p>
<p>Adding the grip strength variable improved the accuracy of the baseline Alzheimer’s prediction models. This combined approach demonstrated a stronger association with cognitive outcomes than the Alzheimer’s score alone. Future clinical models might incorporate physical trait genetics to evaluate cognitive conditions with greater precision.</p>
<p>Despite the large sample sizes, the researchers noted several limitations in their data. The metrics for physical activity relied on self-reported questionnaires covering only recent weeks, which might not accurately capture a person’s lifelong exercise habits. A lifetime history of physical activity would provide an accurate picture of how behavioral factors connect to genetic predispositions over decades.</p>
<p>Additionally, the analysis focused exclusively on individuals of European ancestry. Research involving a wider variety of genetic backgrounds would be required to confirm whether these relationships apply globally across diverse populations.</p>
<p>Future research will need to identify the exact biological networks that link muscular and cognitive health. The team is currently examining other potential biological markers, such as specific brain structures visible on brain scans and circulating immune system proteins. Finding the specific metabolic or neurological pathways that tie muscle function to brain health could eventually inspire new strategies to slow memory loss.</p>
<p>The study, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2026.02.008">“Genetic Predisposition to Hand Grip Strength Predicts Cognitive Decline,”</a> was authored by Rachel Bercovitch, Earvin S. Tio, Rajith Wickramatunga, Melissa Misztal, Kristina Gicas, Philip L. De Jager, Julie A. Schneider, Aron S. Buchman, David A. Bennett, Tarek Rajji, James L. Kennedy, and Daniel Felsky.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/new-study-finds-sustainable-living-relies-on-stable-personality-traits-not-temporary-bursts-of-willpower/" 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 finds sustainable living relies on stable personality traits, not temporary bursts of willpower</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 12th 2026, 16:00</div>
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<p><p>Recent research suggests that people who naturally possess higher levels of self-control tend to engage in more environmentally friendly habits over time. However, short-term changes in a person’s willpower do not directly lead to greener choices. These findings provide evidence that making sustainable choices easier, rather than relying on individual discipline, might be a more effective way to encourage eco-friendly habits. The study was published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.102946" target="_blank">Journal of Environmental Psychology</a></em>.</p>
<p>Scientists conducted this study to better understand the psychological traits that drive people to protect the environment. Environmental challenges like climate change and biodiversity loss require immediate action from everyday people. Actions that reduce a person’s negative impact on the planet are known as pro-environmental behaviors. Taking these actions often requires individuals to override their immediate conveniences for the sake of long-term ecological goals. </p>
<p>Pursuing these long-term goals requires a degree of self-regulation. Self-control is a specific and essential type of self-regulation. It involves managing internal reactions, delaying gratification, and resisting unwanted behavioral impulses. Previous research suggests that people with higher self-control tend to act more sustainably because they can keep long-term goals in mind.</p>
<p>“The idea first struck me during a very ordinary moment,” said Jingguang Li, a professor of psychology at Dali University in China. “I had just finished a bottle of water and there was no recycling bin in sight. I felt the urge to simply discard it, but instead I held onto it until I found a proper disposal point.”</p>
<p>“That minor internal struggle made me curious: do people with stronger self-control naturally gravitate toward greener choices in their daily lives?” Li said. His laboratory was already studying self-control, making the connection to everyday environmental behavior a natural extension of their work.</p>
<p>Most previous studies on this topic relied on cross-sectional designs. A cross-sectional study looks at a group of people at a single point in time, much like a photograph. This makes it difficult to know the exact direction of the relationship between variables. </p>
<p>“Previous studies found that more self-controlled people also report more sustainable habits, but almost all of that evidence came from cross-sectional surveys, single snapshots in time,” Li told PsyPost. “That leaves a crucial ambiguity: does the link simply reflect stable differences between people, or can a real change in self-control actually drive a change in behavior?”</p>
<p>This single-snapshot approach also leaves room for survey bias. “Because both self-control and pro-environmental behavior are socially valued traits, respondents filling out a one-shot questionnaire tend to paint a consistently positive picture of themselves,” Li said. “If they rate themselves as highly disciplined, they often feel compelled to rate themselves as environmentally conscious too.”</p>
<p>This bias can artificially inflate the correlation, making the two traits look more tightly linked than they truly are in daily life. “To get around both problems, we followed the same participants across multiple time points,” Li said. “Spacing out the measurements helps separate genuine directional effects from the bias of wanting to appear virtuous in a single sitting.”</p>
<p>Longitudinal studies track the exact same individuals across multiple points in time. This allows scientists to see how changes in one trait might predict changes in another trait over months or years. The researchers specifically chose to study adolescents and young adults. Late adolescence and early adulthood are periods when individuals are still developing their self-regulation capacities and forming their long-term environmental habits.</p>
<p>In the first study, the researchers recruited 221 high school students from a public school in China. The sample included about 66 percent female students with an average age of roughly 16 years old. The researchers assessed the students twice, with a full year passing between the first and second assessment waves. During each wave, the students filled out paper questionnaires in their classrooms while supervised by research assistants.</p>
<p>To measure self-control, the scientists used a 13-item questionnaire. Students rated statements about their ability to resist temptation and their tendency to think before acting. To measure pro-environmental behavior, the students rated how often they engaged in specific green activities over the past 12 months. These activities included recycling cans, saving energy at home, or buying products in reusable containers. </p>
<p>When analyzing the data, the scientists used a statistical technique called a cross-lagged panel model. This method looks at how a variable at the first time point predicts a different variable at the second time point. The findings of this first study showed that higher self-control at the start of the year predicted an increase in pro-environmental behaviors by the end of the year. </p>
<p>The researchers conducted a second study to expand on these findings using a larger sample and a longer timeframe. The second study included 1286 university students from a single university in China. This group was about 63 percent female with an average age of roughly 19 years old. Instead of just two check-ins, the researchers tracked these students across three distinct waves, with exactly one year between each wave. </p>
<p>Because the study spanned three full years, the scientists could use a more advanced statistical tool called a random-intercept cross-lagged panel model. This advanced statistical model separates the survey data into two different mathematical layers. The first layer looks at stable differences between different people. The second layer looks at temporary fluctuations within the exact same person. </p>
<p>Separating these layers helps scientists avoid confusing a stable personality trait with a passing state of mind. At the stable, trait-like level, the researchers found a positive association between the two factors. Individuals who consistently showed higher self-control compared to their peers also consistently reported more sustainable behaviors. This suggests that self-control is a stable personal trait strongly linked to living a greener lifestyle.</p>
<p>At the fluctuating, individual level, the data showed a different pattern. When a specific student experienced a natural drop or increase in their own typical self-control, it did not predict any subsequent change in their sustainable habits. This suggests that year-to-year shifts in a person’s willpower do not directly drive short-term changes in how they treat the environment.</p>
<p>“We were genuinely surprised by what we found inside the same person over time,” Li said. “At the outset, we had assumed that if someone’s self-control improved, their pro-environmental behavior would improve with it. But when we tracked the same individuals across waves, natural fluctuations in self-control simply did not translate into meaningful shifts in pro-environmental behavior.”</p>
<p>“The link is really anchored in stable, long-term trait differences,” Li continued. “It underscores that promoting sustainability requires more than urging people to ‘try harder’; we need to build habits and shape environments that make green choices effortless.”</p>
<p>The results provide evidence that having greener habits is part of an overarching lifestyle rather than a fleeting mood. “The main message is that the connection between self-control and green behavior is primarily a stable trait-level pattern: people who generally have stronger self-control also tend to live more sustainably across time,” Li said. “Yet when we tracked the same individuals over multiple waves, short-term ups and downs in their self-control did not reliably produce immediate changes in their environmental habits.”</p>
<p>“So it is not about heroic bursts of willpower in the moment; it is about who you are, on average, over the long haul,” Li added. “That distinction matters for everyday life. Sustainable living is really a marathon built from countless small decisions, turning off lights, carrying reusable bags, sorting waste, that add up over months and years.”</p>
<p>This highlights the need for structural changes that make sustainable choices easier for everyone. “If we rely solely on asking people to ‘try harder’ each time, we are fighting an uphill battle against human nature,” Li said. “A smarter approach is to reduce the self-control demand itself. Putting reminder stickers near light switches, placing recycling bins in convenient locations, or sharing monthly electricity or water-use feedback with family members can make the green choice the easy choice.”</p>
<p>Communities can also use nudging strategies to encourage green behaviors. Nudging involves designing choices in a way that guides people toward a desired action without restricting their freedom. Making recycling bins more accessible or automatically opting people into green energy plans reduces the amount of willpower needed to help the planet. “By designing environments and routines that minimize friction, we can promote sustainable actions without requiring constant mental effort,” Li said.</p>
<p>The researchers also note that self-control could be used as a helpful metric when assembling teams to tackle climate issues. People with naturally high self-control might be better equipped to handle the long-term demands of environmental advocacy. “One final thought: when selecting people for roles with significant environmental responsibilities, it makes sense to weigh self-control alongside their environmental attitudes and professional competence,” Li said.</p>
<p>The study does have a few limitations that should be noted. “We used self-report questionnaires and focused on Chinese high school and university students,” Li said. “That makes the findings suggestive rather than definitive. Future work should test whether the same pattern holds in other populations and with objective measures, such as actual behavioral tasks or real-world tracking, before drawing firmer conclusions.”</p>
<p>In addition, the one-year gap between the data collection waves might have missed smaller, short-term connections between willpower and sustainable choices. A full year is a long time, and a person’s self-control might fluctuate on a daily or weekly basis. </p>
<p>Going forward, the researchers plan to look at other psychological traits that support sustainable living. “Our next step is to understand why some people follow through on environmental intentions while others do not,” Li said. “We are especially interested in grit, passion and perseverance for long-term goals, because environmental protection is not a one-off act; it is a decades-long commitment.”</p>
<p>“The Paris Agreement, for instance, sets carbon-neutrality targets for the mid-twenty-first century, a timeline that feels distant to most people alive today,” Li noted. “That means safeguarding the planet demands sustained effort against slow, incremental payoffs, exactly the conditions where grit should matter.”</p>
<p>The scientists hope to figure out exactly how to foster this type of long-term dedication. “We want to test whether grit and related traits can help explain who stays the course in the face of such delayed rewards, and whether we can design interventions or educational programs that cultivate this kind of persistence for ecological goals,” Li said.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.102946" target="_blank">Longitudinal associations between self-control and pro-environmental behaviors</a>,” was authored by Xingbo Wang, Yanru Liu, Yalun Zhang, Zhenglian Su, Liyun Hua, Yajun Zhao, and Jingguang Li.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/does-romantic-rejection-hurt-more-than-platonic-rejection-a-new-study-says-no/" 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;">Does romantic rejection hurt more than platonic rejection? A new study says no</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 12th 2026, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>Most people assume that rejection by a potential romantic partner is far more painful than rejection by a prospective friend. However, new research published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.70066" target="_blank">European Journal of Social Psychology</a></em> suggests that, when rejection is actually experienced, the emotional impact is remarkably similar regardless of whether it comes from a romantic or a platonic source.</p>
<p>Romantic rejection is often seen as uniquely devastating, in part because modern societies place heavy emotional expectations on romantic relationships. However, researchers have long noted that humans are broadly motivated by a fundamental need for belonging. Social rejection tends to hurt across all contexts because it threatens shared psychological needs, such as feeling valued, in control, and meaningful.</p>
<p>What has been less clear is whether rejection by a potential romantic partner is more painful than rejection in a friendship context. Given the intense expectations placed on romantic relationships—which are often expected to fulfill a wide range of emotional and personal needs—it has seemed plausible that being denied such a relationship would be especially distressing.</p>
<p>To examine these assumptions, researchers conducted three related studies. In the first, 1,500 American adults were asked which type of rejection they believed would be more painful: being turned down by a potential romantic partner or by a potential friend. The responses largely reflected common intuitions: approximately half expected romantic rejection to be worse, compared with roughly a quarter who anticipated greater pain from platonic rejection, while the remaining participants believed both would be equally distressing.</p>
<p>Led by Natasha R. Wood of Leiden University in the Netherlands, the team then tested real‑time responses to rejection in a controlled experimental setting. In Study 2, 934 single adults aged 18 to 29 (57.9% women; average age 23.4) were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: accepted or rejected by either a potential romantic partner or a potential platonic friend. </p>
<p>Participants engaged with a simulated app environment, designed to resemble dating or social networking platforms, and received either positive or negative feedback from profiles purportedly representing other users. Afterward, they reported how they felt across a range of measures capturing their sense of belonging, self-worth, and emotional wellbeing.</p>
<p>The researchers found that rejection reliably reduced wellbeing, and acceptance reliably enhanced it, but the type of relationship framing—romantic versus platonic—had no effect on emotional outcomes. The team also tested whether feelings of romantic instrumentality (seeing a partner as someone who would help you achieve more of your goals in life) or self-blame might explain any romantic-versus-platonic difference in pain. Neither emerged as a meaningful driver.</p>
<p>In a third study involving 477 participants (73.6% women; average age 20.3), predicted emotional reactions were compared with actual emotional experiences. The researchers also added a “stranger control” group, in which participants were told there was no expectation of forming a relationship of any kind. </p>
<p>Participants were asked to forecast how they would feel before receiving feedback, then report how they felt afterward. Once again, relationship type did not meaningfully influence emotional responses; rejection by a stranger hurt just as much as rejection by a potential date. Furthermore, participants consistently overestimated the intensity of both outcomes, particularly the pain of rejection.</p>
<p>Wood and colleagues put it simply: “It seems the experience of being accepted is so positive and the experience of being rejected is so negative that it does not matter who is doing so.”</p>
<p>There are, however, important caveats to keep in mind. For example, the study was conducted exclusively with American participants, which limits how far the findings can be generalised across different cultures where romantic and platonic relationships may be valued differently. Furthermore, the simulated app environment may not perfectly capture the intense emotions of an in-person rejection. </p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.70066" target="_blank">What Could Have Been: Predicted and Actual Exclusion by Potential Romantic Partners and Platonic Friends</a>,” was authored by Natasha R. Wood, Sydney G. Wicks, Adam J. Beam, Elijah P. Mudryk, Ellie Bray, and Andrew H. Hales.</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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