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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/brain-wave-monitoring-reveals-how-psychopathic-traits-disrupt-trust-and-reward-i/" 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 wave monitoring reveals how psychopathic traits disrupt trust and reward in social scenarios</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 18th 2026, 10:00</div>
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<p><p>People who score high in psychopathic traits are less likely to trust strangers and show distinct brain activity when evaluating social risks and financial rewards. An experiment using brain wave recordings suggests these individuals experience intense cognitive conflict when suppressing cooperative behavior and feel outsized disappointment when their expectations of a payout are violated. The research was published in the journal <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-025-02965-w"><em>BMC Psychology</em></a>.</p>
<p>While popular media often portrays psychopathy as a trait exclusive to violent criminals, psychologists recognize it as a continuous spectrum present in the general population. Psychopathic traits include manipulativeness, a lack of empathy, a preference for self-interest, and impulsivity. Because these traits heavily impact how a person interacts with others, researchers frequently study how individuals on the higher end of this spectrum navigate social decision-making.</p>
<p>Social interactions often rely heavily on generalized trust. Trusting a stranger is essentially a social gamble. If the other person honors the trust, both parties might benefit. If the other person acts selfishly, the trusting party might suffer a loss. Understanding how the brain weighs these outcomes provides a window into the biological mechanisms of human cooperation.</p>
<p>To observe this process, a team of researchers led by Fengbo Guo at Guangdong Medical University in China designed an experiment utilizing the Trust Game. The Trust Game is a classic tool in behavioral economics used to measure interpersonal trust and reciprocity.</p>
<p>The mechanics of the game are straightforward. A participant, acting as the “trustor,” receives an initial sum of virtual money. They must decide whether to keep the money or transfer it to an anonymous “trustee.” If they keep it, the round ends. If they transfer the money, the amount is multiplied, and the trustee then decides whether to split the larger pot evenly or keep it all for themselves. Providing the money demonstrates trust, while holding onto it demonstrates distrust.</p>
<p>The researchers screened over 300 healthy undergraduate students using a standard questionnaire designed to measure subclinical psychopathic traits. From this broad pool, they selected 44 participants. Half of these individuals scored in the top tier for psychopathic traits, while the other half scored in the bottom tier.</p>
<p>The participants played 150 rounds of the Trust Game while hooked up to an electroencephalogram, a device that monitors electrical activity in the brain. The participants were told they were interacting with human partners, but the trustees’ responses were actually fixed by a computer program. The game was designed so that transferring money would result in a fair split exactly half the time and a total loss the other half of the time.</p>
<p>Behaviorally, the participants with high psychopathic traits chose to trust their partners much less often than those with low psychopathic traits. The high psychopathic trait group chose to share their money about 53 percent of the time, compared to nearly 62 percent for the low psychopathic trait group. This aligns with past behavioral research characterizing psychopathic traits as predominantly self-centric and risk-averse in cooperative settings.</p>
<p>An unpredictable pattern emerged when the researchers looked at what happened immediately after a participant experienced a betrayal. The individuals with low psychopathic traits did not notably change their behavior after losing money. The participants with high psychopathic traits, on the other hand, chose to trust their subsequent partners more often right after being betrayed.</p>
<p>The authors propose that individuals with elevated psychopathic traits might view the game as a series of manipulative transactions. They might recognize that continuous betrayals are statistically unlikely, or they might attempt to recover their losses by gambling on a future payout.</p>
<p>The brain wave data captured during the decision-making stage offered clues about the mental effort required to navigate these choices. The researchers focused on a specific brain wave pattern called the N2 component. This electrical signal typically spikes in the frontal-central regions of the brain about 200 to 350 milliseconds after a person detects a conflict or exerts cognitive control.</p>
<p>In the participants with high psychopathic traits, choosing to distrust a partner generated a much stronger negative N2 signal compared to choosing to trust. The participants with lower psychopathic traits showed no such electrical difference between their choices.</p>
<p>This suggests that individuals with high psychopathic traits experience intense cognitive friction when making uncooperative decisions. Humans generally recognize cooperation as a standard social norm. The researchers suggest that people with high psychopathic traits understand this expectation completely, but they use mental effort to override the urge to conform to the norm in favor of securing an immediate personal advantage.</p>
<p>When the participants found out whether their trust had been validated or betrayed, their brains generated another set of distinctive signals. The researchers looked at a brain wave tied to reward prediction, which typically spikes when an expected reward does not materialize. This expectation-related signal is generated in the brain regions responsible for evaluating wins and losses.</p>
<p>Participants with high psychopathic traits exhibited a vastly stronger brain response to the outcomes. When their trust resulted in a fair split, their brains processed it with high emotional significance. When they were betrayed, the deviation between what they expected and what they received triggered a massive electrical response.</p>
<p>Psychopathic traits are consistently linked to a high sensitivity to rewards. People with these traits are heavily driven by the prospect of gaining an advantage. The brain data reflects this sensitivity, indicating that they experience the disappointment of a missed payout far more acutely than the average person.</p>
<p>The authors noted a few limitations to the experiment. The sample size of 44 individuals was relatively small, and the participants were all healthy college students rather than individuals with clinical psychopathy diagnoses. The results represent subclinical variations in personality rather than severe psychiatric conditions.</p>
<p>Future studies will need to expand the participant pool to see if these patterns hold up in broader demographics. Researchers also hope to separate the specific facets of psychopathy, such as antisocial lifestyle factors versus emotional deficits, to see how each distinct element influences the choice to collaborate with others.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-025-02965-w">How psychopathic traits affect individuals’ trust decisions and outcome evaluations: preliminary ERP evidence</a>,” was authored by Fengbo Guo, Xiuying Zheng, Leru Zhong, Li Gu, and Xiuling Liang.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/psychologists-identify-a-key-reason-conversations-with-your-partner-might-be-turning-negative/" 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;">Psychologists identify a key reason conversations with your partner might be turning negative</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 18th 2026, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in <em>Communication Research</em> suggests that when romantic partners feel uncertain about their relationship, they tend to experience more negative emotions during everyday conversations. The research provides evidence that a partner’s helpfulness fosters happiness and positive communication, while doubts about the relationship can lead to annoyance and negative interactions. These findings help explain how underlying relationship dynamics shape the way couples talk and connect on a daily basis.</p>
<p>Scientists Kellie St.Cyr Brisini and Ningyang “Ocean” Wang conducted the study to understand how underlying relationship qualities affect the emotions couples feel during regular conversations. Past studies on this topic have relied heavily on survey data. In those older studies, participants simply answered questionnaires about how they typically communicate with their partners.</p>
<p>Brisini and Wang wanted to observe couples in real time. They hoped to see exactly how relationship characteristics influence emotions and communication styles during actual conversations.</p>
<p>“We (relationship scholars) have a lot of evidence that doubts about your relationship and the feeling that your partner gets in the way of your goals can influence communication between dating partners, but most of that research comes from surveys and recalled conversations,” said Brisini, an associate professor of communication studies at Louisiana State University. “We were interested in testing the influence of those relationship experiences on actual conversations between partners when they had to work together to achieve a goal.”</p>
<p>To do this, the authors focused on a concept called relational turbulence theory. This theory suggests that relationships go through rocky periods driven by two main factors. The first factor is relational uncertainty. This involves doubts about the relationship’s future, questions about one’s own commitment, or confusion about a partner’s feelings. When people are unsure about where they stand, they lack a secure framework to interpret their partner’s behavior.</p>
<p>The second factor is partner interdependence. This concept refers to how much partners affect each other’s daily routines. Interdependence can take the form of interference, which happens when a partner hinders or disrupts someone’s personal goals. It can also take the form of facilitation, which occurs when a partner actively helps someone achieve their goals.</p>
<p>The researchers designed the study to test specific claims of this theory in a laboratory setting. They aimed to determine whether disruptions to a couple’s routines intensify all emotions or simply trigger specific positive or negative feelings. They also wanted to know if feeling uncertain or interrupted changes how actively a person engages in a conversation.</p>
<p>To test these ideas, the authors recruited 71 different-gender romantic couples, totaling 142 individuals. The participants were mostly college students with an average age of about 19 years. Most of the couples were dating, and they had been together for an average of 17 months.</p>
<p>When the couples arrived at the laboratory, they first completed a survey about their relationship. This survey measured their current levels of relationship uncertainty. It also measured how much they felt their partner interfered with their daily activities and how much their partner facilitated, or helped, them get things done.</p>
<p>Next, the couples participated in two collaborative planning activities. Each activity lasted exactly 10 minutes. In the first task, the partners sat on a couch in a room designed to look like a living room. They used a laptop to plan a hypothetical spring break vacation. The program required them to make decisions about transportation, lodging, and meals while staying within a strict budget of 1,800 dollars.</p>
<p>For the second task, the couples sat at a conference table with a map. They received a list of hypothetical errands and were told they had only 90 minutes to gather party supplies. They had to work together to find the fastest walking route on the map to complete their errands within the time limit.</p>
<p>After completing each task, the participants filled out another brief survey. This questionnaire asked them to report the emotions they experienced during the conversation. They specifically focused on rating their feelings of happiness and annoyance.</p>
<p>The researchers video-recorded the entire process. Later, a team of trained external observers watched the videos to rate the couples on their communication. The observers scored how engaged the partners were in the conversation. They also evaluated the tone of the communication. They noted the presence of positive behaviors, such as smiling and agreeing, as well as negative behaviors, such as criticizing or rolling the eyes.</p>
<p>The findings suggest that relational uncertainty plays a major role in shaping emotions. When men reported feeling uncertain about their relationship, they and their partners were less likely to feel happy during the planning activities. In addition, men’s relationship uncertainty increased the likelihood that both they and their partners would experience annoyance. This provides evidence that men’s doubts about a relationship can cast a shadow over routine interactions for both partners.</p>
<p>The study also sheds light on how a partner’s helpfulness impacts emotions. When participants, especially women, felt that their partner generally helped them achieve their daily goals, they were more likely to experience happiness during the lab tasks. This sense of facilitation was also linked to a lower chance of feeling annoyed.</p>
<p>“Previous research suggests that the perception that a partner interferes with your goals has a stronger influence on your emotions and communication than positive perceptions of your partner,” Brisini told PsyPost. “In this study, the perception that a partner helps you achieve your goals was a stronger predictor of emotion and communication during conversations between dating partners. This may be due to the nature of the conversation (planning and problem-solving).”</p>
<p>These emotional experiences, in turn, guided how the couples communicated. When participants felt happy, outside observers rated their communication as much more positive and constructive. For men, happiness also coincided with higher levels of engagement in the conversation. They were more involved and attentive when they felt joyful.</p>
<p>On the other hand, annoyance led to more negative communication. When men felt annoyed, observers noted higher levels of negative communication from both the men and the women.</p>
<p>Brisini noted that these patterns are intriguing but require a measured interpretation. “This study did find some interesting gender effects,” Brisini said, pointing out that “men’s relationship experience spilled over onto women’s emotion/communication, but women’s really didn’t spill over onto men.” She cautioned against making broad generalizations, noting that popular media often exaggerates these types of differences. More research is needed to fully understand why this specific spillover occurred in this particular laboratory setting.</p>
<p>Overall, the data points to a strong link between a person’s inner relationship evaluations and their outward behaviors. “How you feel about your romantic relationship at the moment (especially if you’re having doubts) colors your emotions during conversations with your partner, and in turn, the way you communicate,” Brisini said.</p>
<p>Interestingly, feeling annoyed did not cause participants to disengage or withdraw from the conversation. The researchers initially predicted that annoyed partners would pull away from the discussion. Instead, annoyance changed the tone of the conversation without causing the partners to stop talking entirely.</p>
<p>While this study provides an insightful look into how relationships function, there are a few limitations to keep in mind. The couples engaged in hypothetical planning activities, which were fairly low stakes. Because the tasks were relatively stress-free, they did not produce a wide range of intense emotions. Most participants reported high levels of happiness and very low levels of annoyance.</p>
<p>“The dating couples in this study were having low-stakes conversations, participating in planning activities,” Brisini noted. “The results may be different in high-stakes conversations, such as arguments or relationship talk. In addition, this was a relatively small sample of college dating couples. Follow-up studies are needed to confirm these patterns.”</p>
<p>This lack of emotional variety might explain why annoyance did not lead to conversational disengagement. A mild irritation over a fake errand route might not be enough to make a person withdraw. A real argument about finances or household chores might produce a completely different reaction.</p>
<p>Future research could explore these dynamics during emotional conflicts, where feelings run higher. Scientists could also examine whether uncertainty directly changes a person’s emotions or if it first alters how they interpret a partner’s behavior. By exploring more intense interactions, researchers can continue to map out exactly how relationship doubts and daily support shape human connection.</p>
<p>“Our goal is to continue examining how evaluations of the romantic relationship influence partners’ communication and to test communication interventions that help partners prevent/cope with relational uncertainty and develop positive patterns of relating,” Brisini said.</p>
<p>The study, “The Role of Relationship Parameters in Emotion Experiences During Interactions Between Romantic Partners: Testing Relational Turbulence Theory in a Dyadic, Lab Study,” was authored by Kellie St.Cyr Brisini and Ningyang “Ocean” Wang.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/liberals-hesitate-to-share-progressive-causes-framed-with-conservative-moral-language/" 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;">Liberals hesitate to share progressive causes framed with conservative moral language</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 18th 2026, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2026.104893" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Journal of Experimental Social Psychology</a></em> suggests that the specific moral language used to promote a political cause can affect whether people are willing to share it on social media. The findings indicate that liberals are less likely to publicly support a cause they agree with if the messaging relies on values typically associated with conservatives. In contrast, conservatives appear to focus more on the underlying cause itself and share messages consistently regardless of the moral phrasing used.</p>
<p>Social media platforms have vastly expanded the reach of social movements. They allow individuals to advocate for important political and social causes with the click of a button. In this digital environment, promoting a cause is a public statement that can shape perceptions, direct discourse, and catalyze actual policy changes. Because of this high visibility, the specific rhetoric attached to a particular cause may carry significant weight for everyday users.</p>
<p>The authors of the new research wanted to better understand how individuals navigate situations where they support a movement’s goal but feel disconnected from the moral language used to promote it. Monica Gamez-Djokic, an assistant professor at Purdue University, noted the inspiration for the work. “We became interested in how people navigate political expression online, especially in highly visible environments like social media,” Gamez-Djokic said.</p>
<p>“Prior research on ‘moral reframing’ suggests that people can sometimes make arguments more persuasive by framing them using the moral values of the opposing political side,” she said. “But most of that work focused on private attitudes rather than public advocacy.” The authors wanted to understand how these dynamics play out when actions are visible to others.</p>
<p>“We wondered whether people would actually be willing to publicly share messages that use moral language associated with the opposing political camp, even when they agree with the underlying cause itself,” Gamez-Djokic said. “Social media creates a particularly interesting context for this because sharing a message is not just about agreement; it can also signal values and identities to others.”</p>
<p>To test these ideas, the scientists drew upon a psychological framework that divides human moral judgments into two main categories: individualizing values and binding values. Individualizing values focus on fairness, equality, and preventing harm to individuals. Binding values emphasize group loyalty, respect for authority, and protecting purity or sanctity. Past research indicates that liberals tend to prioritize individualizing values almost exclusively, while conservatives tend to endorse both individualizing and binding values more equally.</p>
<p>The researchers conducted a series of five online experiments to examine how these moral frameworks influence sharing behavior. In the first set of experiments, involving 378 participants in one group and 392 participants in another, the scientists focused on the highly polarizing issue of abortion. The participants read a message from a hypothetical local organization.</p>
<p>One group read a message supporting abortion rights, a stance generally favored by liberals. The other group read a message opposing abortion rights, a stance generally favored by conservatives. The researchers randomly assigned participants to read a version of the message framed with either individualizing language or binding language.</p>
<p>The individualizing frame focused on autonomy, rights, and minimizing harm to individuals. The binding frame focused on the sanctity of the family, social order, and spiritual purity. After reading the assigned text, participants rated their willingness to share the organization’s entire message on their personal social media accounts.</p>
<p>The results showed a distinct asymmetry between the political groups. Liberals were significantly less willing to share the pro-abortion rights message when it used binding moral rhetoric compared to when it used individualizing rhetoric. Conservatives did not show this sensitivity to moral framing, as their willingness to share the anti-abortion rights message remained high and relatively stable regardless of the framing.</p>
<p>“One surprising aspect was how asymmetric the pattern was,” Gamez-Djokic told PsyPost. “We expected both liberals and conservatives might be reluctant to promote rhetoric associated with the opposing political side, but the effect was much more consistent among liberals. Conservatives appeared relatively willing to support causes aligned with their views regardless of the specific moral framing used.”</p>
<p>To see if this pattern held true across different issues, the researchers conducted two more experiments focusing on immigration. These studies involved much larger samples, with 1,468 participants evaluating a liberal-aligned cause and 922 participants evaluating a conservative-aligned cause. The liberal-aligned message advocated against the separation of immigrant families. The conservative-aligned message advocated for stronger border control.</p>
<p>The messages were framed using either individualizing language, like compassion and human rights, or binding language, like authority and national integrity. In these studies, the scientists also added a visibility condition. Some participants were asked how willing they would be to share the message publicly on social media, where thousands could see it, while others were asked if they would endorse the message privately on an anonymous advocacy platform.</p>
<p>“Another interesting finding was that these effects were especially apparent in public sharing contexts, such as social media, where endorsements are visible to others,” Gamez-Djokic said. The findings replicated the initial asymmetry. Liberals were much more willing to support the message against family separation when it used individualizing rhetoric rather than binding rhetoric, and there was some statistical evidence that this reluctance was slightly stronger in the public sharing condition.</p>
<p>Conservatives were largely unaffected by the moral framing of the border control message. They reported high willingness to support the cause across both public and private conditions, regardless of the rhetoric used. The researchers noted that conservatives might view both moral frameworks as compatible with their worldview, making them less sensitive to framing differences.</p>
<p>In a final experiment involving 389 participants, the scientists explored the underlying mechanism behind the liberals’ reluctance. They wanted to test if ideological signaling played a role. Ideological signaling refers to the idea that people use public actions to broadcast their beliefs and show allegiance to a specific political group.</p>
<p>Participants read about a company engaging in either environmentally harmful practices or dismissive responses to sexual harassment allegations. These scenarios were paired with either individualizing or binding moral arguments. Participants then rated whether sharing the message would help spread liberal or conservative moral values to their social networks.</p>
<p>The authors found that liberals perceived binding rhetoric as strongly associated with conservative values. This perception was directly linked to their lower willingness to share the message. The researchers used a statistical model to show that these beliefs about ideological implications acted as a bridge, explaining why liberals held back.</p>
<p>“Our findings suggest that the way a message is morally framed can shape whether people are willing to publicly promote it online,” Gamez-Djokic said. “Across several studies, liberals were less willing to share messages supporting causes they agreed with when those messages used ‘binding’ moral rhetoric, language emphasizing values like purity, loyalty, authority, or tradition, which are often associated with conservatism.”</p>
<p>“Importantly, this did not necessarily mean liberals disagreed with the cause itself,” she said. “Instead, they appeared concerned about publicly amplifying rhetoric they perceived as ideologically associated with political opponents. Conservatives, by contrast, were generally less sensitive to whether messages used binding or individualizing moral language.”</p>
<p>As with all research, there are a few potential limitations to consider. “One important limitation is that much of the research relied on hypothetical message-sharing decisions rather than real-world behavior, although we also included an observational study using Twitter/X data,” Gamez-Djokic said.</p>
<p>“In addition, some of the evidence regarding the psychological mechanisms involved is correlational, meaning future work is needed to more definitively establish why these effects occur,” she noted.</p>
<p>Another limitation is the use of online convenience samples, which tend to lean slightly more liberal than the general United States population. The researchers note that testing a broader, more representative sample of highly conservative individuals might yield different sensitivities to moral framing. The study also focused exclusively on individuals in the United States, meaning the results might not apply to other political cultures or multiparty systems.</p>
<p>The authors also acknowledge that conservatives might simply prioritize championing their key causes over shaping the broader moral discourse surrounding a topic. Future research could separate religious wording from binding moral concepts to see exactly what triggers the reluctance to share. Scientists might also explore whether conservatives ever show a similar sensitivity to framing under different conditions or with different political issues.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2026.104893" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Navigating ideological divides in digital spaces: How political ideology and moral rhetoric shape the promotion of causes online</a>,” was authored by Monica Gamez-Djokic, Marlon Mooijman, Matthew D. Rocklage, and Maryam Kouchaki.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/how-daylight-exhaustion-secretly-fuels-endless-nighttime-scrolling/" 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;">Poor sleep and endless video scrolling form a predictable behavioral loop</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 17th 2026, 20:00</div>
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<p><p>Scrolling through endless feeds of short videos can disrupt a good night of sleep, but poor sleep might also fuel the drive to keep scrolling in a continuous loop. Researchers found that daytime tiredness acts as a gateway symptom, making individuals more vulnerable to losing control over their video consumption. The study was published in the journal <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2025.113625"><i>Personality and Individual Differences</i></a>.</p>
<p>Short-form media platforms have changed how people consume digital content. Applications feature brief clips paired with advanced recommendation codes that learn exactly what users want to watch. This specific design lowers the mental barrier to entry and promotes continuous viewing. Viewers often experience a state of deep absorption and completely lose track of time. </p>
<p>Medical manuals do not officially recognize short video consumption as a formal psychiatric disorder. Mental health professionals instead describe excessive, uncontrolled viewing habits as a behavioral problem. People report feelings of mental withdrawal when separated from the applications. They also use the content as a method of escapism, dodging daily responsibilities in favor of an easily accessible digital distraction. </p>
<p>A healthy sleep cycle maintains physical endurance, regulates emotions, and keeps mental functions sharp. College students around the world frequently struggle to maintain consistent resting schedules. Excessive screen time before bed provides mental stimulation that disrupts these natural rest cycles. The light emitted by phones and the highly engaging content tend to delay the onset of sleep. </p>
<p>Xiaoqiong Li, a psychology researcher at South China Normal University, led a team to investigate how specific viewing habits and sleep issues influence one another over time. Prior research often treated video consumption and sleep as broad, single categories. Li and colleagues wanted to break down these large concepts into individual, specific symptoms. They aimed to map exactly which parts of a sleep disorder lead to specific video habits. </p>
<p>The research team recruited a large sample of college students in central China. They surveyed 6,691 students at two different points in time. The two surveys were spaced exactly three months apart. This three-month interval aligns with standard medical criteria for diagnosing chronic resting issues, as opposed to temporary bouts of insomnia. </p>
<p>The students answered questions about their short video viewing habits and any signs of insomnia. The sleep questions covered nighttime struggles like waking up too early, as well as daytime issues like bad moods and sluggishness. The video questions evaluated feelings of anxiety when offline, using applications to relieve loneliness, and drops in personal productivity. </p>
<p>The researchers analyzed the survey data using a specialized statistical mapping technique. Instead of giving each student a single total score for sleep or video use, they treated every individual symptom as a point in a web. They examined how tightly connected each point was to the others across the three-month gap. This approach allowed them to spot the specific symptoms that pushed the entire network forward over time. </p>
<p>The analysis showed a two-way street between video applications and insomnia. Problematic viewing habits predicted an increase in sleep troubles three months later. Students who reported a drop in personal efficiency due to their screen habits later experienced shorter sleep durations. Extended viewing sessions simply crowd out the hours normally reserved for resting. </p>
<p>The reverse relationship proved to be much stronger. Suffering from certain insomnia symptoms made students highly susceptible to problematic video viewing later on. The researchers identified daytime mood and daytime body functions as the core bridges connecting the two conditions. Students who felt mentally exhausted during the day were much more likely to report feeling anxious or restless when they could not watch videos. </p>
<p>The daytime consequences of bad sleep turned out to fuel a reliance on the applications. Models of psychology help explain exactly why this cycle occurs. A lack of high-quality sleep severely impairs cognitive executive functions. Executive functions are the advanced mental skills needed to control impulses and stay focused on long-term goals. </p>
<p>When people are tired, their ability to resist immediate rewards drops rapidly. Short videos offer quick, passive bursts of entertainment that require almost zero mental effort to consume. The applications provide a highly accessible way to regulate negative emotions or fight off boredom. Watching the fast-paced clips activates reward centers in the brain, offering temporary relief from physical fatigue. </p>
<p>Experiencing this relief creates a negative feedback loop. Tired individuals seek out easy stimulation during the day, which then keeps them awake later into the night. Difficulty falling asleep at the start of the night emerged as a major driving force in the symptom maps. Struggling to initiate rest often cascades into a chronic pattern of fragmented sleeping. </p>
<p>The researchers noted that daytime sleepiness functioned as a very specific bridge symptom. Reduced daytime wakefulness prompted students to use digital media as an artificial way to stay alert during classes or studying periods. The application algorithms then fed them an endless personalized stream. This constant feed created a trance-like state where users continually underestimated how long they had been scrolling. </p>
<p>Breaking this reciprocal cycle requires highly targeted strategies. The study suggests that treating specific sleep symptoms might naturally reduce problematic screen time. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia is a structured program that helps people build healthier resting habits. This therapy involves sleep education, relaxation techniques, and completely restructuring a person’s bedtime routine. </p>
<p>Addressing the root causes of nighttime wakefulness could restore the daytime energy needed to resist digital distractions. The authors suggest other practical ways to combat the negative spiral. Spending time outdoors in natural environments can improve working memory and reduce everyday anxiety. Engaging in offline social activities with friends and family can directly alleviate feelings of isolation. </p>
<p>Building stronger real-world support networks improves psychological resilience. Participating in peer sports or family gatherings lessens the quiet moments of loneliness. These activities provide robust emotional regulation. Connecting with others in the physical world reduces the baseline need to turn to a personalized algorithmic feed for temporary comfort. </p>
<p>The study has some limitations that require consideration. All the participants were students at a single university, so the results may not apply to older adults or different demographic groups. The data relied entirely on self-reported surveys. People are not always accurate when estimating their own screen time or sleep duration. </p>
<p>Relying on personal memory can introduce bias into the answers. The statistical mapping model used in the study cannot definitively prove that one symptom directly causes another in all situations. It only shows that levels of one symptom predict later changes in the network. The model also does not perfectly separate long-term personality traits from temporary daily changes. </p>
<p>Some individuals might naturally be prone to both restless sleeping and heavy internet use because of underlying personality factors. Future research should track symptoms on a daily basis over longer periods of time. Tracking real-time usage data directly from smartphones would provide a more objective measure. These updates would help clarify exactly how exhaustion and digital media interact in the real world. </p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2025.113625">Exploring longitudinal relationships between problematic short-form video use and insomnia symptoms: A cross-lagged panel network analysis</a>,” was authored by Xiaoqiong Li, Meng Bai, and Xueqi Yang.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/how-racial-resentment-relates-to-political-conservatism-across-different-white-religious-groups/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">How racial resentment relates to political conservatism across different White religious groups</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 17th 2026, 18:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.70053" target="_blank">Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion</a></em> suggests that racial resentment plays a major role in driving conservative political beliefs among White Americans who are not religiously conservative. While White religious conservatives tend to support right-leaning policies regardless of their racial attitudes, harboring racial resentment provides evidence of a conservative political shift among White religious moderates, liberals, and nonreligious individuals.</p>
<p><a href="https://soc.unl.edu/person/philip-schwadel/" target="_blank">Philip Schwadel</a>, a sociology professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, conducted the new study to explore how racial attitudes influence the political leanings of different religious groups. “The research and popular discourse on racism/racial resentment, religion, and politics focuses on how views of race connect white evangelical Christians to conservative politics and the Republican party,” Schwadel said. </p>
<p>“While it is true that white evangelicals and political conservatives are both relatively likely to express racial resentment, that does not mean non-evangelical whites express no racial resentment,” Schwadel told PsyPost. “So, I thought it would be informative to examine how racial resentment explains differences in political affiliations/orientations among various white religious groups, not just evangelicals/conservative Christians.”</p>
<p>To understand this relationship, it helps to look at how experts define modern prejudice. Racial resentment, sometimes called symbolic racism, differs from older forms of discrimination that rely on false ideas of biological inferiority. Instead, this concept describes a belief system suggesting that non-White Americans are solely responsible for their social standing and should overcome disadvantages without any special assistance. </p>
<p>To test his ideas, Schwadel analyzed data from the General Social Survey, a nationally representative questionnaire of adults living in the United States. He focused on responses collected between the years 2002 and 2022 to ensure the data reflected the contemporary political and religious landscape. After filtering the data to include only White respondents and removing incomplete responses, the final sample size included exactly 8,048 individuals. </p>
<p>The researcher measured political orientation using a seven-point scale ranging from extremely liberal to extremely conservative. He also tracked whether participants identified as Republicans. To ensure accuracy, the analysis controlled for many outside factors that might influence voting habits, such as religious service attendance, age, gender, household income, education level, marital status, region of the country, and city size. </p>
<p>To gauge religious conservatism, Schwadel looked at two main factors. First, he examined religious tradition, categorizing participants as evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants, Catholics, affiliates of other religions, or unaffiliated with any religion. Second, he assessed views of the Bible by grouping individuals based on whether they believed the text to be the literal word of God, the inspired word of God, or a book of ancient fables. </p>
<p>To measure racial resentment, the study used a combination of four specific survey questions. These questions asked whether Black Americans should have to overcome prejudice without special favors, whether a lack of motivation causes racial inequality, and whether discrimination is to blame for racial disparities. A final question asked participants to rate how hardworking or lazy they perceived different racial groups to be. </p>
<p>The data revealed that White evangelical Protestants and those who view the Bible as the literal word of God tend to be highly politically conservative. “White evangelicals are highly likely to be politically conservative, so much so that there is little difference in the likelihood of being politically conservative between those with higher and lower levels of racial resentment,” Schwadel said. “We refer to this as a ceiling effect.”</p>
<p>“In other words, racial resentment cannot explain differences in the likelihood of being politically conservative among white evangelicals because they are almost all politically conservative,” Schwadel noted. For non-evangelical White Americans, the pattern looks quite different. </p>
<p>“Non-evangelical white Americans, on the other hand, are not particularly likely to be politically conservative,” Schwadel explained. “But, non-evangelical whites with higher levels of racial resentment are far more likely to be politically conservative than non-evangelical whites with lower levels of racial resentment.”</p>
<p>The study provides evidence that among White mainline Protestants, Catholics, affiliates of other religions, and nonreligious individuals, racial resentment is a strong predictor of conservative political views. “Looking at it another way, among those with low levels of racial resentment, white evangelicals are far more likely than white non-evangelicals to be politically conservative,” Schwadel added. </p>
<p>“Among those with high levels of racial resentment, there is little to no difference in the likelihood of being politically conservative between white evangelical and non-evangelical Americans,” Schwadel said. When people in moderate or liberal religious categories express high levels of racial prejudice, their political orientation closely matches the conservatism of evangelical Protestants. </p>
<p>Readers should not misinterpret these findings to mean that White religious conservatives are free from racial resentment. “I want to be clear that white evangelicals are considerably more likely than white non-evangelicals to express racial resentment,” Schwadel said. “It is just that racial resentment doesn’t explain political differences among white evangelicals like it does among other white Americans.”</p>
<p>One limitation is that the study relies on survey data taken at specific points in time. This makes it difficult to determine the exact chain of cause and effect. It remains unknown whether changes in a person’s religious affiliation lead to changes in their racial attitudes over time, or if shifting political or racial beliefs prompt people to leave or join certain religious communities. </p>
<p>Future research should examine participants over longer periods to see how these beliefs evolve over a lifetime. Tracking individuals as they age would help scientists understand the pathways that link faith, prejudice, and voting behavior. Researchers could also benefit from using alternative measures of racism to see if the same patterns hold true across different forms of prejudice. </p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.70053" target="_blank">White Religion, Politics, and Racial Resentment in the United States</a>,” was authored by Philip Schwadel.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/mapping-the-varied-brain-structures-linked-to-schizophrenia-and-severe-violence/" 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;">Anatomical brain mapping separates structural deviations of violent psychosis from non-violent schizophrenia</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 17th 2026, 16:00</div>
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<p><p>Researchers have mapped how the physical structures of individual brains differ from a baseline norm in people who have a history of severe violence and schizophrenia. This analytical approach highlights individual differences rather than simple group averages, offering a potential path toward personalized psychiatric treatments. The findings were published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-025-03343-1"><i>Translational Psychiatry</i></a>.</p>
<p>Forensic psychiatry attempts to understand why some individuals with severe mental health conditions commit violent acts. Finding biological patterns in the brain can help doctors provide better care and improve clinical evaluations in high-security settings.</p>
<p>Previous brain imaging research has searched for structural abnormalities related to aggression. These older studies often grouped many patients together and compared their average brain structures to the averages of healthy people.</p>
<p>A statistical group average can easily hide the wide variety of differences that exist from person to person. Two individuals with the identical psychiatric diagnosis might exhibit completely different physical brain alterations. </p>
<p>Unn K. Haukvik, a researcher at the University of Oslo and the Centre for Research and Education in Forensic Psychiatry at Oslo University Hospital, led a team to approach this anatomical diversity differently. The researchers wanted to map the specific brain characteristics of single individuals instead of relying on a pooled statistical average.</p>
<p>To do this, the team used a statistical technique called normative modeling. This mathematical method works exactly like a pediatric growth chart in a doctor’s office.</p>
<p>Just as a pediatrician plots a child’s height against a massive database of typical growth trajectories, normative modeling maps a person’s brain anatomy against a vast reference population. This allows researchers to identify exactly how and where an individual’s brain deviates from the typical aging path.</p>
<p>The study involved adult men from the Oslo area. The researchers focused heavily on 38 men who had been diagnosed with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder and also had a documented hospital or court record of a severely violent episode. </p>
<p>Severe violence was defined strictly as homicide, attempted homicide, or physical or sexual violence directed toward another person. These specific participants were being held in high-security hospital wards as part of their mandated psychiatric care.</p>
<p>For comparison, the study included 138 men with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder but no history of violence. The study sample also included 20 men serving preventive detention sentences for severe violence who did not have a psychotic disorder.</p>
<p>A final group of 196 healthy men with no history of violence or severe mental illness served as a baseline control. The researchers only included male subjects because of the extreme scarcity of eligible women residing within the participating high-security units and prisons.</p>
<p>The researchers took magnetic resonance imaging scans of all the participants’ brains. Magnetic resonance imaging uses strong magnetic fields to create incredibly detailed, three-dimensional images of bodily tissues. </p>
<p>With these high-resolution images, the team measured three specific anatomical features. They looked at cortical thickness, which measures the depth of the brain’s wrinkled outer layer of tissue.</p>
<p>They also measured the total surface area of that outer layer, known as the cerebral cortex. Finally, they calculated the physical volume of deeper, subcortical brain structures beneath the outer surface.</p>
<p>The team then compared these individual structural measurements to a pre-existing normative model built from the brain scans of nearly 59,000 individuals from around the world. This massive reference set allowed them to pinpoint specific regions where a participant’s brain structure was either significantly larger or smaller than expected for their biological age.</p>
<p>The researchers found that the patterns of brain deviation were highly diverse across the participants. No single brain region was uniformly altered across all the individuals with a history of violence and psychosis.</p>
<p>Nearly 90 percent of the participants with both schizophrenia and a violent history had at least one extreme deviation in their brain structure. Overall, the clinical groups had a higher number of extreme negative deviations than the healthy participants did.</p>
<p>A negative deviation means that a specific brain region was unusually small or thin compared to the typical growth chart baseline. The men with both schizophrenia and a violent history showed extreme negative deviations most frequently in the basal temporal-occipital lobes.</p>
<p>The cerebral cortex is folded into a complex series of hills and valleys. A gyrus is one of the raised hills, while a sulcus is a shallow groove or valley dropping between them. </p>
<p>The differences in this violent group were clustered tightly around the collateral transverse sulcus and the lingual gyrus. These specific brain tissues are located near the bottom and back of the brain and are primarily involved in processing visual information.</p>
<p>Visual perception areas help people recognize physical objects and integrate visual memories. Alterations in these visual processing hubs have been linked in past studies to the formation of delusions, which are intensely held false beliefs that do not match reality.</p>
<p>This violent patient group also exhibited extreme negative deviations in the cortex of the cerebellum. The cerebellum is a densely packed structure at the base of the skull originally thought to only control physical movement.</p>
<p>Modern scientific research indicates that the cerebellum is also heavily involved in higher cognitive functions, social cognition, and executive control. Unusual physical variations in the cerebellum have been associated with aggressive behavior in other patient groups.</p>
<p>The pattern of brain differences in the violent schizophrenia group differed quite a bit from the other test cohorts. The men with schizophrenia who had no history of violence showed their most frequent deviations in the parieto-occipital area.</p>
<p>This parieto-occipital region sits higher up in the back of the head. It is known to be involved in spatial navigation and the coordination of hand and eye movements.</p>
<p>In contrast, the men who had committed violent acts but did not suffer from schizophrenia showed entirely different deviations. Their most frequent negative deviations occurred in the middle frontal areas of the brain, a region often associated with emotional regulation and inhibitory control.</p>
<p>The researchers also tested whether anatomical brain structures correlated with standardized measurements of psychopathy. Psychopathy involves a specific cluster of personality traits like a lack of empathy and a tendency toward antisocial behavior.</p>
<p>They found no statistically significant associations between psychopathy scores and the patterns of brain deviation. The data presented an extremely diverse array of anatomical differences that did not tightly map onto psychopathic trait severity.</p>
<p>The study has a few limitations that researchers must address in future investigations. The number of participants with a history of severe violence was relatively small, making it difficult to fully generalize the results to broader clinical populations.</p>
<p>The investigation was also cross-sectional, meaning it only captured a single diagnostic snapshot in time. A cross-sectional design cannot determine if these anatomical brain irregularities were present from early childhood or if they developed much later in life.</p>
<p>It is also difficult to entirely separate the physical effects of schizophrenia from external environmental factors. Cumulative exposure to required antipsychotic medications and past illicit substance use can both alter physical brain structures over time.</p>
<p>Future research should follow individuals longitudinally, tracking structural brain changes across many years. Observing how these deviations shift as people naturally age could clarify how the physical brain responds to psychiatric therapies.</p>
<p>Highlighting individual deviations instead of group averages offers a different way to understand the biological roots of severe mental health conditions. By focusing on personal anatomical differences, researchers hope to eventually provide clinicians with specific physical data that can better guide personalized psychiatric care.</p>
<p>The study, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-025-03343-1">“Individual-level deviations from normative brain morphology in violence, psychosis, and psychopathy,”</a> was authored by Unn K. Haukvik, Thomas Wolfers, Natalia Tesli, Christina Bell, Gabriela Hjell, Thomas Fischer-Vieler, Nina Bang, Ingrid Melle, Ole A. Andreassen, Kirsten Rasmussen, Ingrid Agartz, Lars T. Westlye, Christine Friestad, and Jaroslav Rokicki.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/new-study-reveals-distinct-differences-in-how-different-drugs-relate-to-criminal-behavior/" 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 reveals distinct differences in how different drugs relate to criminal behavior</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 17th 2026, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>A study published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/02698811261436577" target="_blank">Journal of Psychopharmacology</a></em> suggests that different substances have vastly different associations with criminal behavior and police arrests. The research indicates that while some psychedelics like psilocybin tend to be associated with lower rates of arrest, other substances like PCP and GHB show strong links to violent and non-violent crimes. These findings provide evidence that the influence of drugs on society is not uniform and depends heavily on the specific substance being used.</p>
<p>Jesse J. Norris, an associate professor of criminal justice at the State University of New York at Fredonia, conducted this research to examine the role of substances that scientists do not often study in relation to crime. He noticed that much research focuses on common drugs like alcohol or cannabis but rarely looks at chemicals like phencyclidine, which is also known as PCP. He wanted to explore how these less common substances relate to both police arrests and crimes that people report themselves.</p>
<p>Norris explained that two specific motivations led him to explore this topic. “First, PCP is stereotypically associated with extreme violence, and there are certainly some anecdotes to support that, in which people under the influence of PCP committed cannibalism or beheaded someone, for example,” Norris said. He realized there was very little systematic research on PCP and no broad agreement about its association with violence.</p>
<p>Since the National Survey on Drug Use and Health collects data on criminal activity and PCP use, he decided to test for associations between the two. This survey is a nationally representative study, which means it is a survey of tens of thousands of Americans designed to reflect the demographics of the whole country. Norris intended to see if the violent stories associated with PCP were reflected in a large group of people.</p>
<p>The second reason for the study involved recent evidence suggesting that psilocybin use is associated with a lower chance of being arrested for various offenses. While these findings are interesting, Norris thought the logical next step was to conduct a broader analysis. This analysis would incorporate all psychedelic drugs and all available measures of criminal activity.</p>
<p>“Therefore, in this study, which is based on the responses of over 500,000 US residents from 10 years of NSDUH data, I examined associations between each psychedelic drug and various outcomes, including arrest for several different offenses, and self-reported criminal activity like attacking other people and repeated thefts,” Norris explained. </p>
<p>He noted that this kind of research is important because psychedelics are becoming more popular among researchers and the public. He believes we need to have a good evidence base for understanding the potential impacts of psychedelics on people’s behavior.</p>
<p>The researcher used data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health collected between 2014 and 2023. This resulted in a total sample size of 544,740 people. The survey asks participants about their drug use at different times, such as within the last month, the last year, or at any point in their lives. It also asks if they have been arrested for various crimes, including assault, theft, or driving under the influence. </p>
<p>Additionally, the survey includes questions where people admit to committing crimes, such as selling drugs or attacking someone, even if they were never caught. To analyze this information, Norris used a method called multivariable logistic regression. This is a statistical tool used to predict the likelihood of an event, like an arrest, based on many different factors.</p>
<p>In this study, the results are often presented as adjusted odds ratios. An odds ratio is a way to compare whether the probability of a certain event is higher or lower for one group than another. If the odds ratio is above one, it suggests an increased likelihood. If it is below one, it suggests a decreased likelihood. The word “adjusted” means the researchers accounted for factors like age, gender, income, and education level to ensure those variables did not distort the results.</p>
<p>The findings provides evidence that PCP was strongly associated with violence. “This study found that people who have used PCP in the last month have over 10 times the odds of having been arrested for a serious violence offense in the last year,” Norris said. Serious violent offenses include major crimes like murder, rape, or aggravated assault. </p>
<p>“Recent PCP users are also much more likely to be arrested for a sex offense or admit attacking several people in the last year,” Norris told PsyPost. While the researchers do not know whether PCP is causing these behaviors, these findings suggest a close association between PCP use and violent offending. Although PCP use is fairly rare, and most violent crime has nothing to do with PCP, the author suggests it is worth exploring whether interventions with PCP users might prevent some violence.</p>
<p>Another rarely used substance, GHB, also showed a strong link to criminal activity. GHB is a central nervous system depressant that is sometimes used as a club drug. The study suggests that GHB users were much more likely to be arrested for crimes like arson, robbery, burglary, and fraud.</p>
<p>One result regarding GHB was particularly unexpected for the researcher. “I didn’t expect the associations between certain drugs and certain crimes to be so strong,” Norris admitted. “For example, women who have used GHB in the last year have more than 100 times the odds of being arrested for a sex offense, compared to non-GHB users.” However, he noted that some of these effect sizes may be misleadingly large due to the small numbers of users in the study.</p>
<p>When looking at psychedelics, the findings were more varied than in previous research. Psilocybin was associated with a lower likelihood of several different types of arrests. People who had used psilocybin at some point in their lives had reduced odds of being arrested for assault, robbery, theft, and fraud. </p>
<p>“Many people today are optimistic about the ability of psychedelic drugs like psilocybin to have positive effects on people’s emotions and behaviors,” Norris observed. “But my study’s mixed results on psychedelics suggest that this optimism may be premature, at least when it comes to psychedelics’ impact on criminal behavior.” While psilocybin showed protective associations, other psychedelics with very similar effects on the brain had very different results.</p>
<p>For example, a group of drugs called tryptamines, which includes DMT and a synthetic drug nicknamed “Foxy” (5-MeO-DiPT), were associated with an increased risk of arrest. Users of these drugs were much more likely to be arrested for arson or burglary. Other drugs, like LSD and a plant called Salvia divinorum, showed mixed results, where they were linked to higher odds of some crimes but lower odds of others.</p>
<p>“Like previous studies, my study found that psilocybin was often associated with a lower odds of arrest,” Norris explained. “However, other psychedelics with very similar effects on the brain had very different results, either increasing the odds of arrest across the board or increasing the odds of some offenses while reducing the odds of others.” He suggested that factors like the type of people who use these drugs and the social context in which they are used might be driving these results, rather than the effects of the substances themselves.</p>
<p>Social context refers to the environment, the people, and the culture surrounding drug use. This is often called the “setting.” Norris pointed out that even though the study accounts for variables like education and income, residual socioeconomic confounding might be present. Socioeconomic confounding refers to differences in economic status and social position that the study did not measure.</p>
<p>“For example, it is possible that psilocybin causes psychological changes that reduce criminal behavior,” Norris stated. “But it is also possible that psilocybin does not have such an effect, and psilocybin users simply tend to be the type of people who were unlikely to get arrested to begin with.” This means the drug might not be the cause of the lower arrest rate; instead, the people who choose to use it might already be less likely to commit crimes.</p>
<p>The study also looked at how these patterns changed for younger people under the age of 18. For these youth, the protective effects of psychedelics were almost entirely absent. Instead of being associated with fewer arrests, psychedelic use among minors was often linked to a higher risk of being arrested or committing violence.</p>
<p>“In addition, the fact that psilocybin is associated with a reduced odds of arrest for adults but not for juveniles, and for whites but not for African-Americans, suggests that it may not be psilocybin itself that is influencing people’s behavior,” Norris said. This finding regarding race is consistent with prior research suggesting that minorities are less likely to benefit from psychedelics. This is often attributed to structural racism and different social pressures rather than biological differences.</p>
<p>One of the most notable results involved cannabis. “While cannabis was not the focus of the study, I was surprised by how consistently cannabis use was associated with a higher odds of arrest and self-reported criminal behavior,” Norris noted. Cannabis use measures had some of the highest odds ratios for many types of crime, which provides evidence against the idea that cannabis use is unrelated to criminal activity.</p>
<p>There are some important caveats readers should keep in mind to avoid misinterpretation. “It’s important to point out that statistically-significant associations between a certain drug and a certain crime, and even large associations like a tenfold increase in odds, do not necessarily imply that the drug is causing the criminal behavior,” Norris cautioned. “More research is needed whether that is the case.”</p>
<p>The study relies on surveys, which have limits because people may not always remember or report their behavior accurately. It is also difficult to know if the drug use happened before or after the crime. Norris noted that the next logical step for this research is to conduct similar analyses with more fine-grained variables about psychedelic use. This would include looking at how recently or frequently the participants have used each psychedelic.</p>
<p>“I’m working on one such project now involving a single psychedelic drug,” Norris shared regarding his future plans. This future work may help scientists understand if the timing and frequency of drug use change how they relate to crime. For now, the current study highlights that the relationship between substances and the law is highly complex and depends on many social and chemical factors.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/02698811261436577" target="_blank">Substance use predictors of arrest and self-reported criminal behavior in the United States: The role of psychedelics and rarely used drugs</a>,” was authored by Jesse J. Norris.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/how-jealousy-shapes-our-goals-and-subtly-reshapes-our-romantic-relationships/" 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;">This common reaction to feeling threatened can trap you in a jealousy loop</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 17th 2026, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>When romantic partners feel threatened by a potential rival, they tend to prioritize defending their bond over routinely nurturing it. Over time, this defensive focus can feed a loop of escalating jealousy and declining relationship satisfaction. These behavioral patterns were outlined in a recent paper published in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/02654075261417383"><i>Journal of Social and Personal Relationships</i></a>.</p>
<p>Everyday efforts to keep a relationship functioning take several forms. Motivation experts frequently categorize human behavior as either chasing a positive reward or avoiding a negative outcome. A newer framework divides human motivation into three distinct categories. These include maintenance goals, protection goals, and progress goals. </p>
<p>Maintenance goals involve actions that keep a current situation stable without addressing an immediate problem. In a romantic relationship, this might look like regular date nights, dividing household chores evenly, asking a partner about their day, or consistently providing emotional support. Old psychological models assumed that people were either running toward something good or running away from something bad. But keeping things exactly as they are requires its own targeted type of energy.</p>
<p>Protection goals are actions taken to ward off an anticipated loss or fend off an external threat. In romance, protective behaviors might involve monitoring a partner’s social interactions, limiting contact with attractive peers, or minimizing conversation topics that act as triggers. Progress goals refer to attempts to improve or deepen the relationship. This could involve resolving long-standing issues or working together to build new shared interests.</p>
<p>University of Cologne psychologist Yael Ecker and her colleagues wanted to understand how feelings of jealousy alter these specific relationship goals. Jealousy is a highly targeted emotional experience driven by the anticipated loss of a mate to a rival. Because it revolves around a threat, the researchers suspected that jealousy would systematically push people toward protective behaviors at the expense of regular maintenance. They also wanted to test if altering these daily habits would eventually feed back into how much jealousy a person typically experiences.</p>
<p>According to life history theory, a person only has a limited amount of mental energy to direct at any given time. If a person redirects their attention toward monitoring a romantic partner, they have less time and energy left for open communication. The researchers hypothesized that redirecting energy from routine maintenance to active protection might make the relationship feel less stable overall.</p>
<p>To test these hypotheses, Ecker and her team organized three separate investigations. The first was an experimental setup involving 401 participants from the United Kingdom. Half of the participants were asked to write about a time they felt jealous in their current relationship, focusing on how they felt and what they said. The other half recalled a typical, everyday moment with their partner, serving as a control group.</p>
<p>After the writing exercise, the participants rated how motivated they were to invest energy into their relationship in the coming months. Those who recalled a jealous memory reported lower motivation to do routine relationship maintenance compared to the control group. Their motivation to protect the relationship against negative changes, however, remained exactly the same as the control group. Because their desire to maintain the bond fell while protective instincts stayed flat, the jealousy exercise created a relative shift in focus toward relationship defense.</p>
<p>The second investigation tracked how these dynamics unfold in daily life. The researchers followed 299 employed adults in the United States over two months. Each week, the participants reported how often they felt jealous. They also estimated how much effort they put into maintaining, protecting, or improving their relationship since the previous check in.</p>
<p>This longitudinal data allowed the team to look at individual changes from week to week. When a person reported feeling more jealous than their usual baseline, they were likely to report increased efforts to protect the relationship the following week. In this dataset, a spike in jealousy did not result in any subsequent changes in routine maintenance efforts.</p>
<p>Looking at chronic behavior over the entire two months showed an additional pattern. People who consistently spent more energy on relationship protection reported increased feelings of jealousy over time. This suggests that an ongoing focus on warding off threats might actually heighten a person’s sensitivity to those threats, creating a self-reinforcing loop. Conversely, those who regularly engaged in maintenance chores reported decreased jealousy over time.</p>
<p>The third investigation looked at these patterns within couples to see if emotions transferred between partners. The team recruited 142 heterosexual couples in the United Kingdom. Both partners completed surveys three times a week for a month. They reported on their own jealousy, the specific goals they were prioritizing, and their general relationship satisfaction.</p>
<p>This setup confirmed the earlier predictive patterns within the individuals. People who reported greater jealousy over the month showed an increased focus on protection goals later on. The data showed that these effects were highly individualized. One partner’s jealousy did not predict changes in the other partner’s relationship goals, suggesting that these emotional calculations happen mostly internally without spilling over.</p>
<p>The couple survey also revealed contrasting effects regarding relationship satisfaction. In the short term, putting extra effort into relationship protection was actually associated with a brief boost in satisfaction a few days later. The researchers theorize that defensive behaviors, like frequent messaging, might be interpreted as signs of care or commitment in the moment. </p>
<p>Over the long term, these satisfaction trends completely reversed. Individuals who chronically engaged in routine relationship maintenance showed higher and more stable relationship satisfaction over the course of the month. Conversely, those who chronically focused on relationship protection or progress goals experienced declining satisfaction over time. Occasional protective actions might provide temporary psychological reassurance, but relying on them as a primary relational strategy appears to erode the quality of the bond.</p>
<p>The researchers note that the participants in these studies reported very low levels of jealousy overall. More than half of the individuals in the datasets reported no jealousy at all during the measurement periods. When jealousy was reported, it was usually at the lowest intensity level. Using the explicit word “jealousy” in the surveys may have caused people to underreport their true feelings due to social stigma.</p>
<p>Because the reported jealousy was so mild, the day-to-day behavioral shifts might have been muted. Mild jealousy is sometimes seen as a normal relational quirk, whereas intense jealousy is typically disruptive. The team notes that finding ways to measure jealousy without using expected terminology could yield richer data in the future. Surveys could measure feelings of insecurity or thoughts about potential rivals directly without explicitly labeling them.</p>
<p>The demographic makeup of the participants also presents limitations, as all participants lived in Western, industrialized nations. The findings may not translate universally, as cultural norms dictate how jealousy is expressed and how romantic partners are expected to behave. Future work could expand this framework beyond romance entirely. The researchers theorize that similar dynamics might govern behavior in friendships or workplace settings, where envy and threat might pull people away from healthy maintenance routines.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/02654075261417383">Maintain the relationship or protect it from threat? Jealousy shapes distinct types of goal striving in romantic relationships</a>,” was authored by Yael Ecker, Jens Lange, and Corey L. Cook.</p></p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
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