#counseling — Public Fediverse posts
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DATE: September 15, 2026 at 02:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Public treats risks for low intelligence and heart disease similarly when selecting embryos
People often report feeling more comfortable using genetic screening to avoid medical conditions than to select for non-medical traits. However, new research suggests that when prospective parents actually choose which embryo to implant, they tend to weigh non-medical traits just as heavily as medical ones. These findings, published in Nature Human Behaviour, indicate that the distinction between medical and non-medical traits becomes blurry when people make concrete reproductive choices.
Preimplantation genetic testing is a medical procedure used during in vitro fertilization. Before an embryo is transferred to a uterus, doctors extract a small number of cells and analyze the genetic material. Polygenic testing is a specific type of this analysis that looks at thousands of genetic variations at once.
Rather than identifying a single genetic mutation that causes a disease through a direct biological mechanism, polygenic testing relies on statistical models. It calculates a risk estimate by comparing an embryo’s DNA against population-level data. The resulting scores do not reveal an innate genetic predisposition or a fixed biological destiny. Instead, they provide a statistical estimate of the chances a person might develop complex characteristics, ranging from heart disease to intelligence.
Initial surveys established that the public is surprisingly open to screening embryos using these complex statistical scores. For instance, a 2023 study found that the American public is broadly willing to consider screening embryos for complex physical and behavioral traits.
Subsequent work revealed that non-Western populations might be even more accepting of selecting for non-medical traits. A 2025 survey indicated that people in Singapore were more receptive to using embryo screening for educational and cognitive outcomes than Americans were.
The new study takes the next step by testing whether people’s stated moral attitudes match how they act when weighing medical risks against personal traits. The research, led by Edmond Awad, a senior lecturer at the University of Exeter and senior research fellow at the University of Oxford, along with Julian Savulescu and Dominic Wilkinson, sought to understand if providing these statistical estimates shapes prospective parents’ choices, even if they initially express reluctance to test for non-medical traits.
“I have argued for a long time that when parents are choosing between embryos they have reason to choose the one expected to have the best life, and that the medical label is the wrong place to draw the line,” Savulescu, the Chen Su Lan centennial professor in medical ethics and director of the Centre for Biomedical Ethics at the National University of Singapore, told PsyPost. “This study was about what people actually do.”
“My hunch was that people would not sort attributes into medical and non-medical once a real choice was in front of them, and that they would go instead by how much an attribute would affect the child,” Savulescu explained. He noted that Awad had previously run the Moral Machine, which guided millions of people through online moral dilemmas about automated vehicles, making a similar approach ideal for this question. “Those pilots turned up a gap between what people said they wanted tested and what they did with the information once they had it.”
The authors noted a psychological phenomenon known as deliberate ignorance, where people might avoid learning about non-medical traits to sidestep ethical dilemmas. However, if a clinic provides that statistical information anyway, those same people might still use it to make reproductive decisions. The team recruited 1,467 adults in the United States for an online experiment. They focused on four specific attributes that a polygenic score might estimate. Two of these were medical conditions: heart disease and vision impairment. Two were non-medical traits: low cognitive ability and antisocial behavior.
The US participants were split into two separate groups. The first group was asked if they would be willing to use polygenic testing to calculate risk estimates for each of the four attributes. Participants simply answered whether they would say yes, no, or not sure to receiving this statistical information.
The results from this first group indicated that 66.7 percent of participants were willing to test for the medical conditions. A slightly lower portion, 61.4 percent, were willing to test for the non-medical traits. Though the preference for medical testing was higher, well over half of the participants still supported screening for intelligence and behavioral tendencies.
“This was a Registered Report. Our hypotheses and our analysis plan were reviewed and accepted by the journal in October 2025, before we collected any data, so the results could not be shaped after the fact,” Awad explained. “On the basis of our own pilot studies, and of other recent work, we registered a prediction that most people would not want testing for low IQ or antisocial behavior. The opposite happened. Sixty-one percent said they would.” He suggested this could be due to wording—asking about avoiding negative traits rather than selecting positive ones—or a general shift toward greater willingness to test.
The second group of US participants faced a different task. They were presented with hypothetical scenarios where genetic testing had already been completed on two viable embryos. The participants had to choose which embryo to implant based on statistical estimates for two of the four attributes. In these scenarios, the statistical models predicted that the embryos had either an average chance, a 5 percent above-average chance, or a 5 percent below-average chance of developing the assigned traits.
When forced to make a choice, participants avoided embryos with an above-average chance of undesirable non-medical traits just as strongly as they avoided those with medical conditions. “What we found was that in the US sample, an embryo with a higher-than-average chance of developing heart disease in later life was about 40 percentage points less likely to be chosen than one with an average chance,” said Wilkinson, a professor of medical ethics at the University of Oxford and consultant neonatologist. “For antisocial behavior the gap was 36 points, for low IQ 32 points, and for vision impairment 19 points.”
“In our studies we told participants that ‘above average’ meant 5 percentage points above the average chance,” Wilkinson added. “So a fairly small change in the odds for the future child produced a very large change in the choice. That will be familiar to anyone who counsels parents. People are not weighing probabilities the way a statistician would.” Savulescu agreed, noting that people care deeply about small probabilities when the stakes are high, and a “child’s life, how good it is, is a high stake.”
Participants penalized embryos for having a higher statistical risk of low intelligence or antisocial behavior to the same degree as a higher risk of heart disease. All three attributes were avoided much more strongly than a higher chance of vision impairment. The researchers also set up direct trade-off scenarios, forcing participants to choose between an embryo with a higher statistical risk for a medical condition and one with a higher statistical risk for a non-medical trait.
In these head-to-head comparisons, vision impairment was consistently tolerated more than any other attribute. Participants frequently chose to implant an embryo with a higher chance of vision issues if it meant avoiding a higher chance of low intelligence, antisocial behavior, or heart disease. The findings suggest that when genetic information is already available, the dividing line between medical and non-medical traits fades.
To see if these patterns held across different cultures, the researchers ran a similar experiment with 623 participants in China. These participants completed the embryo selection task without the initial willingness survey. The results were largely similar to the American group, demonstrating a widespread tendency to avoid non-medical traits when the statistical estimates are available. However, Chinese participants showed an even stronger aversion to embryos with a higher chance of low intelligence compared to the American group.
The researchers also asked participants to rate the four attributes on several dimensions, such as how controllable they are and how much they affect a person’s life. The team initially predicted that people would avoid traits that seemed harder to manage. Instead, the data suggests that perceived seriousness drove the decisions. If an attribute was seen as having a severe impact on a person’s life, participants avoided it, regardless of whether it was categorized as a medical condition or a non-medical trait.
“What people say they want tested does not tell you what they will do with the answer,” Savulescu said. “The label on an attribute is doing less work than people assume. What guided the choice was how serious the outcome seemed for the child. Doctors and regulators care about disease; people care about well-being, of their child and others.”
Wilkinson emphasized that this behavior shouldn’t be misconstrued: “This study does not show that people want designer babies,” he said. “What we found is that people want to avoid their children having genetic risk factors that might affect how well their life will go in the future. It is important to note that these were hypothetical scenarios and we don’t know what people would do in real life, especially when there are risks or financial costs involved.”
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The study relied on hypothetical scenarios that presented a flat 5 percent change in risk for all traits. In reality, polygenic scores for complex behavioral traits are currently less exact than scores for medical conditions. Presenting a uniform 5 percent shift in predictability might overstate the current capabilities of the technology for behavioral traits, making the choice seem simpler than it would be in a clinic.
“We do realize that our dilemmas are simplified versions of the trade-offs real parents face,” Awad said. “In a clinic the average chances differ from one attribute to the next, the numbers arrive with a margin of error, and how much each score is worth varies a great deal between attributes. We stripped all of that out on purpose, so that the only thing separating our four attributes was the attributes themselves rather than the way they were dressed up. That is what let us test the category question cleanly.”
Wilkinson also cautioned that “within a family, where the embryos share the same parents, polygenic prediction for behavioral traits such as cognitive ability is much weaker than our scenarios imply, so the real gains from selecting on them would be far smaller.”
Additionally, participants in the selection task were forced to make a decision based on the information provided to them. In a real clinical setting, prospective parents might choose not to look at certain genetic information at all. The act of opting out of genetic results could completely change the outcome of an embryo selection process. Future studies might explore how actual clinic patients navigate these decisions when they have the freedom to reject certain trait predictors.
“I’d like to note that one of the practical points is about consent,” Wilkinson said. “Some clinics today hand parents a panel of scores they never asked to see, laid out in a uniform way whatever each score is actually worth. It is important to be aware that the way that information is arranged may shape the decision that prospective parents make. Signing a consent form is not the same as making a considered choice.”
The research is part of ANTITHESES, a Wellcome Trust-funded project examining deep value disagreements. “We wanted to identify tools to reveal what people’s values are that drive disagreement,” Savulescu said. “What we saw was that people value some non-medical aspects of well-being nearly as much as they value medical aspects. This shows people do not draw a sharp line between medical conditions and non-disease traits.”
“What the public prefers does not settle what is right. Colleagues and I have argued before that public preferences are an input to ethical policy rather than a verdict on it,” Savulescu added. “What this study shows is that one of the categories the current rules are built on, medical against non-medical, does not describe how people actually reason when they have to choose. That is a reason to look again at the categories.”
To expand on these findings, Awad noted the team has launched Tinker Tots, an open online experiment that presents embryo selection dilemmas across a wider range of traits and countries. “After that we want to get closer to the clinic,” he added, “and study people who are actually going through IVF.”
The study, “Public perceptions of polygenic testing and embryo selection for non-medical traits,” was authored by Edmond Awad, Clara Colombatto, Joanna Demaree-Cotton, Brian D. Earp, Jim A. C. Everett, Peng Liu, G. Owen Schaefer, Ilina Singh, Dominic Wilkinson, and Julian Savulescu.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #polygenictesting #embryoselection #IVFethics #medicalvsnonmedicaltraits #geneticrisk #wellbeingoverlabels #ethicsinreproduction #intelligenceandhealth #deliberateignorance #polygenicscores
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DATE: September 15, 2026 at 12:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Researchers launch global tracking project to measure the daily mental health impacts of cannabis
A new global research initiative aims to track the real-time habits and health outcomes of both recreational and medicinal cannabis users over a two-year period. The project will map how local laws, individual mindsets, and daily routines shape the positive and negative effects of cannabis on the brain. The study protocol was recently published in Comprehensive Psychiatry.
As cannabis laws relax around the world, usage is rising. Many people consume the plant recreationally, but a growing number of individuals use it for medical reasons. Pain management and mental health symptom relief are common motivations for medicinal use. The actual effectiveness of cannabis for mental health remains a subject of intense debate among researchers. Some individuals report substantial benefits, noting that the drug eases their anxiety and stabilizes their mood. Others experience adverse reactions, including worsened depression, heightened paranoia, and the onset of cannabis use disorder.
Researchers want to understand why these outcomes vary so wildly from person to person. Part of the explanation likely involves the specific chemical makeup of the products being consumed. Cannabis contains different compounds, most notably tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, which produces the psychoactive high, and cannabidiol, or CBD, which does not. High doses of THC are generally linked to a greater risk of adverse mental health effects. At the same time, preexisting psychiatric conditions and biological vulnerabilities play a role in how a person reacts to the drug.
Past research on cannabis often viewed the drug through a narrow lens, focusing heavily on either its potential harms or its supposed benefits. Funding sources and disciplinary boundaries frequently restricted the scope of these investigations. The existing literature also tends to overlook the environmental and cultural contexts in which people consume the drug. The social stigma attached to cannabis, local law enforcement practices, and community norms can all influence an individual’s psychological relationship with the substance. Additionally, most medicinal users purchase and consume cannabis without any formal medical supervision, making their habits difficult to track in clinical settings.
To build a more complete picture of modern cannabis consumption, a team of scientists launched the “Blowing Minds” project. Nora de Bode, a researcher at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands, is the lead author of the study protocol. She collaborated with Erasmus University colleagues Emese Kroon, Jia Hua Hsieh, and Janna Cousijn.
The research team plans to recruit 1,800 participants between the ages of 18 and 65. To qualify, individuals must consume cannabis at least four times a week. The study compares people who use the drug recreationally with those who use it medicinally. Because the researchers want to measure the impact of different legal environments, they are recruiting subjects from a variety of regions. The initial rollout includes participants from the Netherlands, the United States, Canada, and Brazil, with plans to expand into parts of Asia and Africa.
The study takes place entirely online. Participants begin by completing an extensive series of baseline questionnaires. They report their preferred methods of consumption, such as smoking or vaping, and estimate the potency of the products they buy. They also answer questions about their physical health, sleep quality, and history of psychological trauma or mental illness. The surveys ask participants to reflect on how their friends, family, and local government view cannabis, which helps the researchers quantify the social pressure surrounding each user.
After finishing the surveys, the participants complete a battery of digital cognitive tests. These assessments measure memory, processing speed, general intelligence, and emotional perception. One specific test tracks how easily a participant’s attention is captured by images related to cannabis, which can serve as an indicator of addictive behavior.
Once the baseline measurements are established, the subjects begin a 14-day intensive tracking period using a mobile application. This technique, known as the experience sampling method, allows researchers to observe behavior in a natural setting rather than a laboratory. Every morning, the app asks the participants how well they slept and whether they used any substances the day before. Throughout the day, the app sends five random notifications. When prompted, the participants have one hour to log their current mood, stress levels, and cannabis cravings. They rate their feelings of happiness, anxiety, loneliness, and physical pain on a sliding scale.
In addition to the random prompts, the participants are instructed to open the app right before they consume cannabis. They log their intention to use the drug and record their immediate emotional state. By capturing mood and craving data right before consumption and comparing it to the random check-ins throughout the day, the researchers can see what emotional triggers prompt a person to use. They can also track how the drug alters the user’s mood in the hours that follow.
The project extends far beyond the initial two-week tracking period. The researchers will contact the participants again one and two years after their baseline assessments. The subjects will retake the digital cognitive tests and fill out the mental health questionnaires a second and third time. This longitudinal approach allows the team to map out long-term trajectories. They hope to identify whether certain habits, such as relying on highly potent products to cope with negative emotions, consistently lead to cognitive decline or worsening mental health over a multi-year period.
Running a remote, multi-year study presents distinct logistical challenges. Because the participants are paid for their time, the online format is vulnerable to fraudulent responses. People might try to enter the study multiple times or use automated software to complete the surveys. The researchers employ digital security measures to flag suspicious activity, manually check for contradictory demographic answers, and verify regional locations using internet routing data.
The daily tracking period also requires a high level of commitment from the participants. Being interrupted by phone notifications five times a day for two weeks can cause fatigue, leading some individuals to skip questions or provide rushed answers. In any multi-year study, a portion of the participants will inevitably drop out before the final follow-up. The research team uses statistical models designed to handle missing data to account for these dropouts.
By making their digital materials and anonymized data available to other scientists, the research team hopes to standardize how cannabis habits are measured globally. Sharing this framework will allow other laboratories to replicate the study in different countries or among specific age groups.
The study, “Blowing minds: A cross-cultural, longitudinal investigation to unravel the highs and lows of recreational and medicinal cannabis users,” was authored by Nora de Bode, Emese Kroon, Jia Hua Hsieh, and Janna Cousijn.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #CannabisResearch #BlowingMindsStudy #MentalHealth cannabis? should be without space; hashtags: #CannabisResearch #MentalHealth #CannabisUse #THC #CBD #ExperienceSampling #LongitudinalStudy #GlobalStudy #DigitalHealthResearch
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DATE: September 15, 2026 at 10:28AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: Scientists discover a major brain shift between ages 50 and 75
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260914102441.htm
Scientists have uncovered sweeping changes in how the human brain controls and organizes its genome beginning in midlife, offering new clues to why aging sharply increases the risk of Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. One of the biggest shifts occurred between about ages 50 and 75, when many of the brain’s original immune cells declined and were replaced by cells with more inflammatory characteristics. Researchers also found weakening of cells that help maintain the blood-brain barrier, along with widespread deterioration in the genome’s three-dimensional organization.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260914102441.htm
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #BrainShift #AgingResearch #MidlifeScience #AlzheimersAwareness #Neurodegeneration #ImmuneCells #BloodBrainBarrier #GenomeOrganization #AgingBrain #NeuroscienceResearch
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DATE: September 15, 2026 at 10:28AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: Scientists discover a major brain shift between ages 50 and 75
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260914102441.htm
Scientists have uncovered sweeping changes in how the human brain controls and organizes its genome beginning in midlife, offering new clues to why aging sharply increases the risk of Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. One of the biggest shifts occurred between about ages 50 and 75, when many of the brain’s original immune cells declined and were replaced by cells with more inflammatory characteristics. Researchers also found weakening of cells that help maintain the blood-brain barrier, along with widespread deterioration in the genome’s three-dimensional organization.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260914102441.htm
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #BrainShift #AgingResearch #MidlifeScience #AlzheimersAwareness #Neurodegeneration #ImmuneCells #BloodBrainBarrier #GenomeOrganization #AgingBrain #NeuroscienceResearch
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DATE: September 15, 2026 at 11:03AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: Smelling chocolate helped men complete more reps without feeling more tired
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260914102445.htm
Simply smelling chocolate helped men complete more leg extension repetitions without making the workout feel harder, with dark chocolate producing the strongest effect. The researchers think familiar food aromas may influence appetite and motivation by making the brain anticipate eating.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260914102445.htm
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #SmellingChocolate #ChocolateMotivation #ExercisePerformance #WorkoutBoost #LegExtensions #DarkChocolateBenefits #AromatherapyFitness #BrainFood #AppetiteCues #FitnessResearch
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DATE: September 15, 2026 at 10:28AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: Scientists discover a major brain shift between ages 50 and 75
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260914102441.htm
Scientists have uncovered sweeping changes in how the human brain controls and organizes its genome beginning in midlife, offering new clues to why aging sharply increases the risk of Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. One of the biggest shifts occurred between about ages 50 and 75, when many of the brain’s original immune cells declined and were replaced by cells with more inflammatory characteristics. Researchers also found weakening of cells that help maintain the blood-brain barrier, along with widespread deterioration in the genome’s three-dimensional organization.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260914102441.htm
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Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #BrainShift #AgingResearch #MidlifeScience #AlzheimersAwareness #Neurodegeneration #ImmuneCells #BloodBrainBarrier #GenomeOrganization #AgingBrain #NeuroscienceResearch
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DATE: September 15, 2026 at 10:17AM
SOURCE: PSYCHIATRIC TIMESDirect article link at end of text block below.
Lipocine has announced the initiation of the phase 3 Brexanolone Lifting Outcomes of Moms (BLOOM) study evaluating LPCN 1154 for postpartum depression. The first participant is expected to be dosed in early Q4 2026. https://t.co/RbStn272oy
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #psychotherapist #PostpartumDepression #BLOOMStudy #LPCN1154 #Brexanolone #Phase3ClinicalTrial
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DATE: September 15, 2026 at 10:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: New study challenges the core assumption behind the world’s most widely used implicit bias test
A new study suggests that the most widely used tool for measuring hidden prejudices might actually be capturing a person’s conscious effort to avoid making mistakes. By analyzing data from over a hundred thousand test sessions, researchers found that people’s tendency to slow down and be cautious is a stronger driver of their test scores than their underlying automatic associations. The research was published in Nature Human Behaviour.
Implicit biases are attitudes or stereotypes that can influence our understanding and decisions, often without our direct awareness. To detect these hidden attitudes, psychologists frequently use the Implicit Association Test, commonly known as the IAT. The test requires participants to quickly sort images and words into categories on a computer screen using two keyboard keys.
In a test examining racial bias, a person might first sort images of White faces and positive words using one key, and Black faces and negative words using another. The categories are later swapped, pairing White faces with negative words and Black faces with positive words. People usually take longer to respond during these swapped, or incompatible, pairings.
This delay in reaction time is typically calculated into a metric called a D-score, which researchers use to quantify the severity of a person’s implicit bias. The traditional interpretation of the IAT assumes that this delay happens because the swapped pairings conflict with a person’s automatic memory associations, a concept known as decision ease.
But the delay could also occur if participants simply adopt a more attentive strategy, slowing down to ensure they do not press the wrong key. This alternate mechanism is called response caution. While decision ease operates automatically based on memory, response caution is a conscious, strategic choice to prioritize accuracy over speed.
Pioneering mathematical modeling of the test concluded that bias is driven by how easily people process these associations rather than how cautiously they respond. For instance, a 2007 study broke the IAT into cognitive components and found that real bias lies in the ease of processing information, while response caution was treated as a background testing artifact. This assumption has shaped how bias interventions are evaluated.
Building on that idea, a 2020 study analyzed anti-bias programs by looking at how they altered decision ease versus caution, illustrating why understanding the true driver matters for real-world training.
The new study directly challenges this foundational view by investigating whether response caution is actually a more prominent factor in IAT results.
“The IAT is the most widely used tool for measuring implicit bias, and it’s usually interpreted as picking up on how easily a stereotype or attitude pops into someone’s mind,” lead author Kyle J. LaFollette, a postdoctoral principal researcher and statistical consultant at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business’s Roman Family Center for Decision Research, told PsyPost.
“But researchers have long wondered whether that’s the whole story,” LaFollette explained. “Some of what shows up in an IAT score might actually come from people being more careful or cautious in certain parts of the test, rather than from the strength of an automatic association. That distinction matters because caution is something people can control, while the automatic association process is supposed to be the part that’s harder to fake or consciously manage. We wanted to test how much of the IAT’s signal actually comes from each of these two things, using a large dataset and a modeling approach built for teasing them apart.”
To test their ideas, the researchers analyzed a massive dataset from the Ideology 2.0 Study, hosted on the Project Implicit website. The dataset included 109,417 unique test sessions spread across 39 different IAT topics. These topics ranged from race and sexuality to politics, age, and economic systems.
For each topic, participants completed the standard sorting tasks, and their choices and response times were recorded in milliseconds. Many participants also completed an explicit preference questionnaire. This allowed them to directly rate how much they liked or preferred one group or concept over another. The researchers then analyzed the data by focusing on the correct sorting choices, setting aside trials where participants made errors.
The research team applied a mathematical technique called a Racing Diffusion Model to the data. This model allowed them to separate the participants’ overall reaction times into three distinct cognitive mechanisms. The first mechanism is decision ease, which represents the automatic activation of mental associations.
The second mechanism is response caution, which captures how much mental evidence a person needs to gather before making a choice to ensure accuracy. The third is non-decision time, which accounts for the physical act of pressing a button or visually registering the stimulus.
The analysis indicated that all three mechanisms behaved differently depending on whether the participants were completing the compatible or incompatible sections of the test. However, the magnitude of these effects varied substantially. When looking at the final D-scores across the 39 topics, response caution emerged as a stronger predictor of a person’s score than decision ease or non-decision time.
Participants consistently slowed their responses down during the incompatible blocks to ensure they were categorizing the images and words correctly. This shift in strategy heavily influenced the final delay that the standard test calculates as bias. The standard D-score metric conflates all of these factors, meaning that the test may be grading people on how cautiously they completed the task rather than measuring their automatic prejudices.
“The role of caution was consistently greater than the role of automatic association, and that held true across almost every one of the 39 topics we looked at, using several different ways of scoring the test,” LaFollette said. “This wasn’t a small or one-off effect. It showed up again and again across very different kinds of topics, from race and age to more abstract ones like attitudes toward novelty.”
The researchers were particularly struck by the uniformity of the results. “We expected caution to matter, but seeing it come out on top across nearly every topic we tested, including some very different from one another, was more uniform than we expected going in,” LaFollette noted.
The team also examined how these cognitive mechanisms related to what people explicitly stated on the preference questionnaires. They found that a person’s stated preferences were reliably predicted by their level of response caution. In contrast, decision ease and non-decision time did not consistently predict these direct self-reports.
This suggests that the same conscious filtering that guides how people answer direct questions also dictates how cautiously they perform on the IAT. Rather than providing a pure window into automatic associations, the test seems to capture how individuals manage the conflict between speed and accuracy. By slowing down on tricky questions, test-takers are exerting conscious control over a measure that is supposed to bypass conscious thought.
“That cautious, more controllable behavior also lined up better with what people said they actually believed than the automatic process did,” LaFollette said. “It also did a better job predicting people’s stated attitudes, and it did so for about half the topics, compared to roughly 1 in 10 for the automatic process.”
“IAT scores aren’t as simple as they’re often made out to be,” he emphasized. “In short, an IAT score reflects a blend of factors, and part of that blend is more deliberate than the ‘implicit’ label suggests.”
As with all research, there are some caveats to consider. The study relies on mathematical models to infer cognitive processes from reaction times. While these models are well-established, they are still approximations of human thought and decision making.
“This isn’t a finding that implicit bias doesn’t exist or that the IAT is meaningless,” LaFollette clarified. “We absolutely find evidence for implicit bias on many topics. Rather, it’s a finding about what the score is actually made of.”
“Two people with the exact same underlying association could end up with different IAT scores just because one of them is being more careful on the harder parts of the test,” he explained. “So the score shouldn’t be treated as a pure window into someone’s unconscious mind. It’s a mix, and untangling that mix matters for how the test gets used and interpreted.”
Additionally, the dataset only recorded the final reaction time after a participant corrected a mistake, meaning the researchers could not model the reaction times of the initial errors. The data also comes from a platform where participants voluntarily choose to take bias tests online. This environment might attract a specific demographic that is highly motivated to monitor their own performance and avoid looking biased.
“At its broadest possible overview, I think this paper makes a serious attempt to grapple with a question that’s plagued us since the advent of the IAT: what are we really measuring?” Daniel J. Lee, an associate professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Delaware’s Book School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship who was not involved in the study, told PsyPost. “Indeed, this is something I (and many others) have tried to address in our own work as well.”
“So while I think in general this might be seen as challenging existing work, it actually fits very nicely within some open questions within the extant literature, for instance how does previous knowledge of implicit bias influence scores on future IATs?” Lee added. “As a hypothetical, if I don’t want some psychologist’s test telling me I harbor ill will towards another race, I might very well be more ‘response cautious’ while taking the test!”
This motivation could elevate the levels of response caution observed in the study compared to how people might react in other settings. Future research might explore how different sets of instructions affect these results. Telling participants to prioritize speed over accuracy, for example, could potentially reduce the influence of conscious strategy and isolate automatic memory associations more effectively.
“We’d like to see future (and retroactive re-analysis of past) IAT research separate out caution from automatic association rather than lumping them into one score,” LaFollette said. “The automatic-association piece looks like a promising candidate for a cleaner measure of implicit bias going forward, but it still needs more validation before it could replace the traditional score.”
“We’re also interested in extending this kind of analysis to mistakes people make on the test, and to other tools used to measure implicit attitudes,” he added. “Future research should also carefully consider the caution component, as caution may be more predictive of people’s real-world behaviors and therefore critical for understanding how people act on or suppress their biases.”
To help advance this work, the researchers have made their computational methods accessible to others.
“For researchers or readers interested in trying this kind of modeling themselves, I’d also point them to FlexDDM, a tool my lab have developed that makes fitting these diffusion models much more approachable,” LaFollette noted. “It’s also great for instruction. FlexDDM is available for free on the Microsoft store.”
The study, “Challenging the Mechanism for the Implicit Association Test,” was authored by Kyle J. LaFollette, Doroteja Rubez, Heath A. Demaree, and Amit Goldenberg.
-------------------------------------------------
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-
DATE: September 15, 2026 at 10:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: New study challenges the core assumption behind the world’s most widely used implicit bias test
A new study suggests that the most widely used tool for measuring hidden prejudices might actually be capturing a person’s conscious effort to avoid making mistakes. By analyzing data from over a hundred thousand test sessions, researchers found that people’s tendency to slow down and be cautious is a stronger driver of their test scores than their underlying automatic associations. The research was published in Nature Human Behaviour.
Implicit biases are attitudes or stereotypes that can influence our understanding and decisions, often without our direct awareness. To detect these hidden attitudes, psychologists frequently use the Implicit Association Test, commonly known as the IAT. The test requires participants to quickly sort images and words into categories on a computer screen using two keyboard keys.
In a test examining racial bias, a person might first sort images of White faces and positive words using one key, and Black faces and negative words using another. The categories are later swapped, pairing White faces with negative words and Black faces with positive words. People usually take longer to respond during these swapped, or incompatible, pairings.
This delay in reaction time is typically calculated into a metric called a D-score, which researchers use to quantify the severity of a person’s implicit bias. The traditional interpretation of the IAT assumes that this delay happens because the swapped pairings conflict with a person’s automatic memory associations, a concept known as decision ease.
But the delay could also occur if participants simply adopt a more attentive strategy, slowing down to ensure they do not press the wrong key. This alternate mechanism is called response caution. While decision ease operates automatically based on memory, response caution is a conscious, strategic choice to prioritize accuracy over speed.
Pioneering mathematical modeling of the test concluded that bias is driven by how easily people process these associations rather than how cautiously they respond. For instance, a 2007 study broke the IAT into cognitive components and found that real bias lies in the ease of processing information, while response caution was treated as a background testing artifact. This assumption has shaped how bias interventions are evaluated.
Building on that idea, a 2020 study analyzed anti-bias programs by looking at how they altered decision ease versus caution, illustrating why understanding the true driver matters for real-world training.
The new study directly challenges this foundational view by investigating whether response caution is actually a more prominent factor in IAT results.
“The IAT is the most widely used tool for measuring implicit bias, and it’s usually interpreted as picking up on how easily a stereotype or attitude pops into someone’s mind,” lead author Kyle J. LaFollette, a postdoctoral principal researcher and statistical consultant at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business’s Roman Family Center for Decision Research, told PsyPost.
“But researchers have long wondered whether that’s the whole story,” LaFollette explained. “Some of what shows up in an IAT score might actually come from people being more careful or cautious in certain parts of the test, rather than from the strength of an automatic association. That distinction matters because caution is something people can control, while the automatic association process is supposed to be the part that’s harder to fake or consciously manage. We wanted to test how much of the IAT’s signal actually comes from each of these two things, using a large dataset and a modeling approach built for teasing them apart.”
To test their ideas, the researchers analyzed a massive dataset from the Ideology 2.0 Study, hosted on the Project Implicit website. The dataset included 109,417 unique test sessions spread across 39 different IAT topics. These topics ranged from race and sexuality to politics, age, and economic systems.
For each topic, participants completed the standard sorting tasks, and their choices and response times were recorded in milliseconds. Many participants also completed an explicit preference questionnaire. This allowed them to directly rate how much they liked or preferred one group or concept over another. The researchers then analyzed the data by focusing on the correct sorting choices, setting aside trials where participants made errors.
The research team applied a mathematical technique called a Racing Diffusion Model to the data. This model allowed them to separate the participants’ overall reaction times into three distinct cognitive mechanisms. The first mechanism is decision ease, which represents the automatic activation of mental associations.
The second mechanism is response caution, which captures how much mental evidence a person needs to gather before making a choice to ensure accuracy. The third is non-decision time, which accounts for the physical act of pressing a button or visually registering the stimulus.
The analysis indicated that all three mechanisms behaved differently depending on whether the participants were completing the compatible or incompatible sections of the test. However, the magnitude of these effects varied substantially. When looking at the final D-scores across the 39 topics, response caution emerged as a stronger predictor of a person’s score than decision ease or non-decision time.
Participants consistently slowed their responses down during the incompatible blocks to ensure they were categorizing the images and words correctly. This shift in strategy heavily influenced the final delay that the standard test calculates as bias. The standard D-score metric conflates all of these factors, meaning that the test may be grading people on how cautiously they completed the task rather than measuring their automatic prejudices.
“The role of caution was consistently greater than the role of automatic association, and that held true across almost every one of the 39 topics we looked at, using several different ways of scoring the test,” LaFollette said. “This wasn’t a small or one-off effect. It showed up again and again across very different kinds of topics, from race and age to more abstract ones like attitudes toward novelty.”
The researchers were particularly struck by the uniformity of the results. “We expected caution to matter, but seeing it come out on top across nearly every topic we tested, including some very different from one another, was more uniform than we expected going in,” LaFollette noted.
The team also examined how these cognitive mechanisms related to what people explicitly stated on the preference questionnaires. They found that a person’s stated preferences were reliably predicted by their level of response caution. In contrast, decision ease and non-decision time did not consistently predict these direct self-reports.
This suggests that the same conscious filtering that guides how people answer direct questions also dictates how cautiously they perform on the IAT. Rather than providing a pure window into automatic associations, the test seems to capture how individuals manage the conflict between speed and accuracy. By slowing down on tricky questions, test-takers are exerting conscious control over a measure that is supposed to bypass conscious thought.
“That cautious, more controllable behavior also lined up better with what people said they actually believed than the automatic process did,” LaFollette said. “It also did a better job predicting people’s stated attitudes, and it did so for about half the topics, compared to roughly 1 in 10 for the automatic process.”
“IAT scores aren’t as simple as they’re often made out to be,” he emphasized. “In short, an IAT score reflects a blend of factors, and part of that blend is more deliberate than the ‘implicit’ label suggests.”
As with all research, there are some caveats to consider. The study relies on mathematical models to infer cognitive processes from reaction times. While these models are well-established, they are still approximations of human thought and decision making.
“This isn’t a finding that implicit bias doesn’t exist or that the IAT is meaningless,” LaFollette clarified. “We absolutely find evidence for implicit bias on many topics. Rather, it’s a finding about what the score is actually made of.”
“Two people with the exact same underlying association could end up with different IAT scores just because one of them is being more careful on the harder parts of the test,” he explained. “So the score shouldn’t be treated as a pure window into someone’s unconscious mind. It’s a mix, and untangling that mix matters for how the test gets used and interpreted.”
Additionally, the dataset only recorded the final reaction time after a participant corrected a mistake, meaning the researchers could not model the reaction times of the initial errors. The data also comes from a platform where participants voluntarily choose to take bias tests online. This environment might attract a specific demographic that is highly motivated to monitor their own performance and avoid looking biased.
“At its broadest possible overview, I think this paper makes a serious attempt to grapple with a question that’s plagued us since the advent of the IAT: what are we really measuring?” Daniel J. Lee, an associate professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Delaware’s Book School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship who was not involved in the study, told PsyPost. “Indeed, this is something I (and many others) have tried to address in our own work as well.”
“So while I think in general this might be seen as challenging existing work, it actually fits very nicely within some open questions within the extant literature, for instance how does previous knowledge of implicit bias influence scores on future IATs?” Lee added. “As a hypothetical, if I don’t want some psychologist’s test telling me I harbor ill will towards another race, I might very well be more ‘response cautious’ while taking the test!”
This motivation could elevate the levels of response caution observed in the study compared to how people might react in other settings. Future research might explore how different sets of instructions affect these results. Telling participants to prioritize speed over accuracy, for example, could potentially reduce the influence of conscious strategy and isolate automatic memory associations more effectively.
“We’d like to see future (and retroactive re-analysis of past) IAT research separate out caution from automatic association rather than lumping them into one score,” LaFollette said. “The automatic-association piece looks like a promising candidate for a cleaner measure of implicit bias going forward, but it still needs more validation before it could replace the traditional score.”
“We’re also interested in extending this kind of analysis to mistakes people make on the test, and to other tools used to measure implicit attitudes,” he added. “Future research should also carefully consider the caution component, as caution may be more predictive of people’s real-world behaviors and therefore critical for understanding how people act on or suppress their biases.”
To help advance this work, the researchers have made their computational methods accessible to others.
“For researchers or readers interested in trying this kind of modeling themselves, I’d also point them to FlexDDM, a tool my lab have developed that makes fitting these diffusion models much more approachable,” LaFollette noted. “It’s also great for instruction. FlexDDM is available for free on the Microsoft store.”
The study, “Challenging the Mechanism for the Implicit Association Test,” was authored by Kyle J. LaFollette, Doroteja Rubez, Heath A. Demaree, and Amit Goldenberg.
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ImplicitBias #IAT #ReactionTime #CognitivePsychology #ResponseCaution #DecisionEase #ImplicitAttitudes #MindfulTesting #NatureHumanBehaviour #BiasMeasurement
-
DATE: September 15, 2026 at 10:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: New study challenges the core assumption behind the world’s most widely used implicit bias test
A new study suggests that the most widely used tool for measuring hidden prejudices might actually be capturing a person’s conscious effort to avoid making mistakes. By analyzing data from over a hundred thousand test sessions, researchers found that people’s tendency to slow down and be cautious is a stronger driver of their test scores than their underlying automatic associations. The research was published in Nature Human Behaviour.
Implicit biases are attitudes or stereotypes that can influence our understanding and decisions, often without our direct awareness. To detect these hidden attitudes, psychologists frequently use the Implicit Association Test, commonly known as the IAT. The test requires participants to quickly sort images and words into categories on a computer screen using two keyboard keys.
In a test examining racial bias, a person might first sort images of White faces and positive words using one key, and Black faces and negative words using another. The categories are later swapped, pairing White faces with negative words and Black faces with positive words. People usually take longer to respond during these swapped, or incompatible, pairings.
This delay in reaction time is typically calculated into a metric called a D-score, which researchers use to quantify the severity of a person’s implicit bias. The traditional interpretation of the IAT assumes that this delay happens because the swapped pairings conflict with a person’s automatic memory associations, a concept known as decision ease.
But the delay could also occur if participants simply adopt a more attentive strategy, slowing down to ensure they do not press the wrong key. This alternate mechanism is called response caution. While decision ease operates automatically based on memory, response caution is a conscious, strategic choice to prioritize accuracy over speed.
Pioneering mathematical modeling of the test concluded that bias is driven by how easily people process these associations rather than how cautiously they respond. For instance, a 2007 study broke the IAT into cognitive components and found that real bias lies in the ease of processing information, while response caution was treated as a background testing artifact. This assumption has shaped how bias interventions are evaluated.
Building on that idea, a 2020 study analyzed anti-bias programs by looking at how they altered decision ease versus caution, illustrating why understanding the true driver matters for real-world training.
The new study directly challenges this foundational view by investigating whether response caution is actually a more prominent factor in IAT results.
“The IAT is the most widely used tool for measuring implicit bias, and it’s usually interpreted as picking up on how easily a stereotype or attitude pops into someone’s mind,” lead author Kyle J. LaFollette, a postdoctoral principal researcher and statistical consultant at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business’s Roman Family Center for Decision Research, told PsyPost.
“But researchers have long wondered whether that’s the whole story,” LaFollette explained. “Some of what shows up in an IAT score might actually come from people being more careful or cautious in certain parts of the test, rather than from the strength of an automatic association. That distinction matters because caution is something people can control, while the automatic association process is supposed to be the part that’s harder to fake or consciously manage. We wanted to test how much of the IAT’s signal actually comes from each of these two things, using a large dataset and a modeling approach built for teasing them apart.”
To test their ideas, the researchers analyzed a massive dataset from the Ideology 2.0 Study, hosted on the Project Implicit website. The dataset included 109,417 unique test sessions spread across 39 different IAT topics. These topics ranged from race and sexuality to politics, age, and economic systems.
For each topic, participants completed the standard sorting tasks, and their choices and response times were recorded in milliseconds. Many participants also completed an explicit preference questionnaire. This allowed them to directly rate how much they liked or preferred one group or concept over another. The researchers then analyzed the data by focusing on the correct sorting choices, setting aside trials where participants made errors.
The research team applied a mathematical technique called a Racing Diffusion Model to the data. This model allowed them to separate the participants’ overall reaction times into three distinct cognitive mechanisms. The first mechanism is decision ease, which represents the automatic activation of mental associations.
The second mechanism is response caution, which captures how much mental evidence a person needs to gather before making a choice to ensure accuracy. The third is non-decision time, which accounts for the physical act of pressing a button or visually registering the stimulus.
The analysis indicated that all three mechanisms behaved differently depending on whether the participants were completing the compatible or incompatible sections of the test. However, the magnitude of these effects varied substantially. When looking at the final D-scores across the 39 topics, response caution emerged as a stronger predictor of a person’s score than decision ease or non-decision time.
Participants consistently slowed their responses down during the incompatible blocks to ensure they were categorizing the images and words correctly. This shift in strategy heavily influenced the final delay that the standard test calculates as bias. The standard D-score metric conflates all of these factors, meaning that the test may be grading people on how cautiously they completed the task rather than measuring their automatic prejudices.
“The role of caution was consistently greater than the role of automatic association, and that held true across almost every one of the 39 topics we looked at, using several different ways of scoring the test,” LaFollette said. “This wasn’t a small or one-off effect. It showed up again and again across very different kinds of topics, from race and age to more abstract ones like attitudes toward novelty.”
The researchers were particularly struck by the uniformity of the results. “We expected caution to matter, but seeing it come out on top across nearly every topic we tested, including some very different from one another, was more uniform than we expected going in,” LaFollette noted.
The team also examined how these cognitive mechanisms related to what people explicitly stated on the preference questionnaires. They found that a person’s stated preferences were reliably predicted by their level of response caution. In contrast, decision ease and non-decision time did not consistently predict these direct self-reports.
This suggests that the same conscious filtering that guides how people answer direct questions also dictates how cautiously they perform on the IAT. Rather than providing a pure window into automatic associations, the test seems to capture how individuals manage the conflict between speed and accuracy. By slowing down on tricky questions, test-takers are exerting conscious control over a measure that is supposed to bypass conscious thought.
“That cautious, more controllable behavior also lined up better with what people said they actually believed than the automatic process did,” LaFollette said. “It also did a better job predicting people’s stated attitudes, and it did so for about half the topics, compared to roughly 1 in 10 for the automatic process.”
“IAT scores aren’t as simple as they’re often made out to be,” he emphasized. “In short, an IAT score reflects a blend of factors, and part of that blend is more deliberate than the ‘implicit’ label suggests.”
As with all research, there are some caveats to consider. The study relies on mathematical models to infer cognitive processes from reaction times. While these models are well-established, they are still approximations of human thought and decision making.
“This isn’t a finding that implicit bias doesn’t exist or that the IAT is meaningless,” LaFollette clarified. “We absolutely find evidence for implicit bias on many topics. Rather, it’s a finding about what the score is actually made of.”
“Two people with the exact same underlying association could end up with different IAT scores just because one of them is being more careful on the harder parts of the test,” he explained. “So the score shouldn’t be treated as a pure window into someone’s unconscious mind. It’s a mix, and untangling that mix matters for how the test gets used and interpreted.”
Additionally, the dataset only recorded the final reaction time after a participant corrected a mistake, meaning the researchers could not model the reaction times of the initial errors. The data also comes from a platform where participants voluntarily choose to take bias tests online. This environment might attract a specific demographic that is highly motivated to monitor their own performance and avoid looking biased.
“At its broadest possible overview, I think this paper makes a serious attempt to grapple with a question that’s plagued us since the advent of the IAT: what are we really measuring?” Daniel J. Lee, an associate professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Delaware’s Book School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship who was not involved in the study, told PsyPost. “Indeed, this is something I (and many others) have tried to address in our own work as well.”
“So while I think in general this might be seen as challenging existing work, it actually fits very nicely within some open questions within the extant literature, for instance how does previous knowledge of implicit bias influence scores on future IATs?” Lee added. “As a hypothetical, if I don’t want some psychologist’s test telling me I harbor ill will towards another race, I might very well be more ‘response cautious’ while taking the test!”
This motivation could elevate the levels of response caution observed in the study compared to how people might react in other settings. Future research might explore how different sets of instructions affect these results. Telling participants to prioritize speed over accuracy, for example, could potentially reduce the influence of conscious strategy and isolate automatic memory associations more effectively.
“We’d like to see future (and retroactive re-analysis of past) IAT research separate out caution from automatic association rather than lumping them into one score,” LaFollette said. “The automatic-association piece looks like a promising candidate for a cleaner measure of implicit bias going forward, but it still needs more validation before it could replace the traditional score.”
“We’re also interested in extending this kind of analysis to mistakes people make on the test, and to other tools used to measure implicit attitudes,” he added. “Future research should also carefully consider the caution component, as caution may be more predictive of people’s real-world behaviors and therefore critical for understanding how people act on or suppress their biases.”
To help advance this work, the researchers have made their computational methods accessible to others.
“For researchers or readers interested in trying this kind of modeling themselves, I’d also point them to FlexDDM, a tool my lab have developed that makes fitting these diffusion models much more approachable,” LaFollette noted. “It’s also great for instruction. FlexDDM is available for free on the Microsoft store.”
The study, “Challenging the Mechanism for the Implicit Association Test,” was authored by Kyle J. LaFollette, Doroteja Rubez, Heath A. Demaree, and Amit Goldenberg.
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ImplicitBias #IAT #ReactionTime #CognitivePsychology #ResponseCaution #DecisionEase #ImplicitAttitudes #MindfulTesting #NatureHumanBehaviour #BiasMeasurement
-
DATE: September 15, 2026 at 08:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Common antidepressants might help liver cells clear a dangerous type of cholesterol
Common antidepressants might help lower a stubborn, disease-causing type of cholesterol by helping liver cells absorb it from the bloodstream. This unintended side effect could eventually provide a dual-purpose treatment for patients facing both depression and an elevated risk of heart disease. The findings were published in the Journal of Lipid Research.
Lipoprotein(a) is a complex particle in the blood that carries fats and cholesterol throughout the body. It is structurally similar to low-density lipoprotein, commonly known as bad cholesterol. However, it contains an extra protein called apolipoprotein(a) that makes it particularly prone to causing blockages in arteries. High levels of this molecule are genetic and affect at least a fifth of the population of European descent.
Traditional cholesterol-lowering medications, such as statins, fail to reduce these specific particles in the blood. The lack of targeted clinical treatments leaves a major gap in preventing cardiovascular disease for many patients. Researchers are actively trying to understand exactly how the human body clears this molecule from circulation.
Cells absorb molecules from their environment through a process called endocytosis, which involves the cell membrane folding inward to swallow outside material. A specific type of endocytosis called macropinocytosis, or cellular drinking, handles the uptake of this particular cholesterol particle. During cellular drinking, the cell membrane extends outward to gulp large amounts of surrounding fluid and particles.
Researchers from the University of Otago and the University of New South Wales, led by Nikita Deo, Sally P. A. McCormick, and Gregory M. I. Redpath, wanted to map the mechanics of this cellular drinking. They sought to identify exactly what stimulates liver cells to absorb the particles.
The research team initially tested a drug called imipramine on human liver cells grown in a laboratory. Imipramine is an older tricyclic antidepressant that previous laboratory studies identified as a blocker of cellular drinking. The researchers treated the liver cells with the drug overnight and then introduced the cholesterol particles into the fluid bathing the cells.
After a short incubation period, the team measured how much of the substance the cells had absorbed. Instead of blocking the process, the drug caused the cells to absorb nearly three times as much of the cholesterol. The researchers confirmed this was an isolated effect by testing regular bad cholesterol, which the drug did not affect.
This unexpected outcome prompted the team to test newer, more frequently prescribed antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. These drugs treat depression by blocking a specific transport protein from pulling serotonin back into cells. This mechanism leaves more of the mood-regulating chemical active in the space outside the cells.
The researchers repeated the cell culture experiment using the common drugs citalopram, sertraline, and fluoxetine. Citalopram increased the cholesterol uptake in the liver cells to a degree similar to imipramine. Sertraline and fluoxetine did not alter the uptake levels. A later test with paroxetine showed it also boosted cellular absorption of the particles.
To figure out how imipramine and citalopram caused this effect, the researchers looked at the outer boundary of the liver cells. The cholesterol molecules must anchor to the cell surface before the cell can swallow them. The team cooled the cells to temporarily halt the swallowing process, added the cholesterol, and used fluorescent tags to measure how much stuck to the outside of the cells.
Both imipramine and citalopram roughly doubled the amount of cholesterol anchored to the cell surface. The drugs did not change the cells’ ability to bind to standard sugar molecules used as a control. This confirmed that the medications specifically enhanced the cell’s grip on this exact type of cholesterol.
Because these drugs increase the availability of serotonin outside the cells, the researchers hypothesized that serotonin itself might be driving the surface binding. They added pure serotonin to the liver cell cultures overnight and tracked the cholesterol particles. The serotonin treatment produced the same outcome as the medications.
The serotonin drastically increased both the amount of cholesterol sticking to the cell surface and the amount the cells eventually absorbed. This suggests the antidepressants enhance cholesterol absorption by increasing local serotonin levels. The serotonin then somehow alters the cell surface to make it more receptive to the passing cholesterol particles.
The team also explored why sertraline failed to enhance the absorption process despite being in the same class of drugs. Some forms of cellular drinking rely on a specific structural protein called dynamin. Dynamin acts like a lasso, pinching off the newly formed internal pouches so they can detach and drop into the cell interior.
Previous research shows sertraline can interfere with dynamin, preventing it from pinching off the pouches. The researchers tested this by tracking a different molecule known to require dynamin for absorption. Sertraline blocked this control molecule from entering the cells. Its interference with dynamin likely prevents it from enhancing cholesterol uptake.
To understand the mechanics of the surface binding, the researchers examined specific anchor proteins on the liver cells. They used fluorescent tags to measure the presence of a receptor known to grab the cholesterol particles. Treating the cells with imipramine or serotonin increased the amount of this receptor on the cell surface.
Citalopram did not increase this specific receptor. However, it did boost the presence of an accessory protein that helps orchestrate the swallowing process. The precise mechanism linking citalopram, serotonin, and this accessory protein requires further mapping.
Finally, the team tracked where the cholesterol went after the cells swallowed it. They used chemical markers to see if the cells sent the particles to internal compartments meant for degradation or compartments meant for recycling material back outside the cell. The cells treated with imipramine and citalopram routed the extra cholesterol into the recycling compartments.
The researchers suspect this recycling process strips the harmful lipid component from the particle before sending the harmless protein portion back into the bloodstream. If true, the overall impact would still be a reduction in cardiovascular risk.
This study relied exclusively on isolated cells in a laboratory. The behavior of these drugs and the cholesterol particles might differ inside a living human body. The liver interacts with many different tissues and chemical signals that a petri dish cannot replicate.
Additionally, the concentration of citalopram used in the main experiments was roughly twice the maximum dose prescribed to human patients. The serotonin levels tested were also much higher than typical biological conditions. While the paroxetine tests matched clinical doses, animal studies or human trials are needed to verify if these medications can safely lower this dangerous cholesterol in patients.
People suffering from depression often exhibit higher levels of this specific cholesterol, elevating their risk of heart attacks and strokes. Identifying an existing, affordable medication that manages both mood and cardiovascular risk could simplify treatment regimens for vulnerable patients.
The study, “Antidepressants stimulate lipoprotein(a) macropinocytosis via serotonin-enhanced cell surface binding,” was authored by Nikita Deo, Halima Siddiqui, Katie Peppercorn, Golnoush Madani, Alexandria Rutherford-Blyth, Malcolm Rutledge, Michael J. A. Williams, Sally P. A. McCormick, and Gregory M. I. Redpath.
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-
DATE: September 15, 2026 at 06:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Massive study of over a million people identifies hundreds of genetic variants linked to personality
A massive genetic analysis has identified hundreds of specific DNA variations tied to human personality. The findings suggest that the genetic basis of personality is highly consistent across different populations and is not heavily skewed by a person’s family environment. The research was published in Nature.
Personality is typically understood through the framework of the “Big Five” traits. These include extraversion (sociability and energy), agreeableness (compassion and trust), conscientiousness (organization and responsibility), neuroticism (anxiety and volatility), and openness to experience (curiosity and imagination). Decades of research show that these traits are relatively stable over a person’s life and influence major outcomes like physical health, career success, and mental well-being.
Scientists know that genetics play a role in shaping personality. However, the exact genetic mechanisms remain complex, and many previous studies have struggled to pin down how individual variations in our DNA correspond to specific traits. To find these links, researchers use a technique called a genome-wide association study, which scans the entire genetic code of many people to find common single-letter changes in DNA that appear more frequently in individuals with certain traits.
The research team, led by Ted Schwaba of Michigan State University alongside Michel G. Nivard and Elliot M. Tucker-Drob, wanted to test the robustness of these genetic associations. They specifically aimed to determine if the genetic markers linked to personality actually reflect direct biological inheritance. For example, a 2022 study indicated that genetic links for some social behaviors, such as educational achievement, tend to be inflated by the shared environment that parents create for their children. The authors sought to see if personality genetics suffer from this same type of environmental confounding.
The researchers gathered data from 46 different study cohorts spanning multiple countries. The total sample size ranged from roughly 611,000 to over 1.14 million participants for each of the Big Five traits. Participants provided DNA samples and completed validated surveys to assess their personalities.
By pooling this massive amount of data, the researchers identified 1,260 specific locations in the human genome that are associated with the Big Five traits. Of these locations, 824 had never been linked to personality variation before. Individually, each genetic variant has a tiny effect on a person’s character. Altogether, these common variants explain between 4.8 percent and 9.3 percent of the variance in personality across the population.
The genetic signals were highly consistent across different groups. The researchers found similar genetic patterns across populations in the United States, Europe, and Australia, as well as across different age groups. The genetic links also remained stable regardless of the specific survey used to measure personality, and even when a person’s traits were rated by a close friend instead of through self-report.
To test whether family environments were skewing the results, the scientists looked at genetic data from thousands of siblings. Because siblings share the same parents and similar upbringings, comparing siblings isolates the direct effect of their differing genes. The researchers found that the genetic associations for personality barely changed when looking within families. This provides evidence that the genetic architecture of personality is driven mostly by direct biological inheritance rather than the social environments parents create for their children.
The team also looked at whether people choose partners with similar genetics for personality. While a 2023 meta-analysis, a research method that combines data from many different studies to find common results, found that partners often share similar behavioral traits, this new study found only minimal genetic similarity for personality between spouses. This indicates that people do not typically sort themselves into relationships based on genetic profiles associated with the Big Five traits in any major way.
To understand how personality shapes the human experience, the researchers used a statistical technique that relies on genetic data to test for cause-and-effect relationships. They found evidence that personality traits have widespread effects on behaviors and physical health. For example, having genetic variants linked to higher conscientiousness was also associated with a lower body mass index and a reduced likelihood of starting smoking. Similarly, a genetic profile associated with higher neuroticism was linked to a lower chance of healthy aging.
The analysis also identified some effects working in the opposite direction. The results suggest that factors like educational attainment and changes in body mass index might cause shifts in a person’s average levels of certain personality traits. This supports the idea that life experiences and physical health continuously interact with our biology to shape who we are over time.
“To me it is incredibly exciting to see such a huge genome-wide association study of personality,” Jasmin Wertz, a researcher at the University of Edinburgh who was not involved in the study, told PsyPost. “Personality traits are some of the most fundamental psychological axes on which people differ, but until now we did not have such a large-scale genomic investigation of these traits, similar to what has already been done for other key traits and behaviors. I think it is also impressive from a team science perspective, because the study brings together so many investigators and cohorts to advance the science.”
“This paper offers a compelling illustration of how complex human traits, like personality, are shaped by many many genes, and each one makes a small contribution to a person’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors,” said Paul W. Eastwick, a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Davis who was not involved in the research. Eastwick, the author of Bonded by Evolution and host of the Love Factually podcast, added, “There is no single ‘gene for’ something as complex as personality; instead, genes play an important role in the aggregate.”
Wertz noted that the massive sample size and the inclusion of different measurement contexts give the results considerable weight. “The findings appear very robust,” she said. “The authors also add a within-family analysis, which shows that the genetics associated with personality are predictive even within siblings raised in the same family, and this analysis helps rule out many of the possible confounding influences that may be present when analyzing unrelated individuals.”
She also pointed out how the findings on romantic partners build on existing knowledge. “One notable finding was that assortative mating the tendency of people to pick romantic partners they resemble was very low in this study,” Wertz explained. “It doesn’t necessarily challenge previous findings, because the degree of spousal similarity in personality is not that high in other samples either, but it is an interesting extension using this unusually large genetic study.”
As with all research, there are some caveats to consider. The genetic scores used in this study cannot predict an individual person’s personality or future behavior. These genetic associations operate as probabilities across large groups of people, not as deterministic rules for any single individual.
“General readers often think of genetic influences as implying that something is set in stone, and that is certainly not the right takeaway from this, as well as other, genetic studies,” Wertz told PsyPost. “The genetic influences identified here, as well as in previous studies of personality, are far from 100%, leaving much room for non-genetic influences. In addition, even the genetic influences that have been observed likely interact with a person’s environment in shaping their personality.”
Indeed, the 4.8 to 9.3 percent heritability found here, a measure of how much of the differences in a trait between people can be explained by their genes, only accounts for common genetic variants. Previous research using different methods, such as studies involving identical twins, estimates that genetics overall account for roughly 40 to 60 percent of personality differences. This suggests that rare genetic variants and complex interactions between genes likely account for the remaining biological influence.
In the end, while the researchers found that genetic associations for personality are relatively unconfounded by the family environment, a person’s surroundings still play a massive role in their development. Going forward, Wertz is eager to see how these new genetic tools might help untangle that process. She specifically pointed to the potential of polygenic scores, which are single numbers that estimate how likely a person is to have a trait based on thousands of their genetic variants. “I’m excited to see the polygenic scores used from this GWAS in follow-on research, such as in research on how personality traits develop from childhood to adulthood, or in studies that examine why people’s personality traits are so strongly linked with important life outcomes, such as health and employment outcomes,” she said.
The study, “Robust inference and correlates from genetic associations with personality,” was authored by Ted Schwaba, Margaret L. Clapp Sullivan, Wonuola A. Akingbuwa, Kerli Ilves, Peter T. Tanksley, Camille M. Williams, Yavor Dragostinov, Travis T. Mallard, Justin D. Tubbs, Wangjingyi Liao, Lindsay S. Ackerman, Josephine C. M. Fealy, Gibran Hemani, Javier de la Fuente, George Davey Smith, Priya Gupta, Murray B. Stein, Joel Gelernter, Daniel F. Levey, Urmo Võsa, Liisi Ausmees, Anu Realo, the Estonian Biobank Research Team, Mariliis Vaht, Jüri Allik, Tõnu Esko, René Mõttus, Uku Vainik, Gudrun A. Jonsdottir, Gudmar Thorleifsson, Árni Freyr Gunnarsson, Gyda Bjornsdottir, Thorgeir E. Thorgeirsson, Hreinn Stefansson, Kari Stefansson, Rosa Cheesman, Qi Qin, Elizabeth C. Corfield, Helga Ask, Fartein Ask Torvik, Eivind Ystrom, Martin Tesli, Dorret I. Boomsma, Eco J. C. de Geus, Jouke-Jan Hottenga, Dener Cardoso Melo, Harold Snieder, Catharina A. Hartman, Charley Xia, Archie Campbell, Michelle Luciano, Ian J. Deary, W. David Hill, Seon-Kyeong Jang, Scott I. Vrieze, Gonçalo Abecasis, Michelle K. Lupton, Brittany L. Mitchell, Petra V. Viher, Lucía Colodro-Conde, Nicholas G. Martin, Sarah E. Medland, Eske M. Derks, Briar Wormington, Jaakko Kaprio, Karri Silventoinen, Teemu Palviainen, Agnieszka Musial, Kaili Rimfeld, Robert Plomin, Margherita Malanchini, Danielle M. Dick, Fazil Aliev, the COGA Collaborators, The Spit for Science Working Group, Laura W. Wesseldijk, Fredrik Ullén, Miriam A. Mosing, Henry R. Kranzler, Yaira Nunez, Sarah Beck, Renato Polimanti, Tobias Edwards, Alexandros Giannelis, Emily A. Willoughby, James J. Lee, Matt McGue, Antonio Terracciano, Michele Marongiu, Edoardo Fiorillo, Francesco Cucca, Angelina R. Sutin, Peter J. van der Most, Albertine J. Oldehinkel, Tina Kretschmer, Andrey A. Shabalin, Anna R. Docherty, Robert F. Krueger, Colin D. Freilich, Binisha H. Mishra, Terho Lehtimäki, Olli T. Raitakari, Mika Kähönen, Aino Saarinen, Henrik Dobewall, Liisa Keltikangas-Järvinen, Klaus Berger, Marisol Herrera-Rivero, Fabian Streit, Swapnil Awasthi, Stephanie H. Witt, Johanna Tuhkanen, Katri Räikkönen, Johan G. Eriksson, Jari Lahti, Gail Davies, Paul Redmond, Adele Taylor, Janie Corley, Tom C. Russ, Marina Ciullo, Teresa Nutile, Jun Ding, Yong Qian, Toshiko Tanaka, Luigi Ferrucci, Lea Zillich, Lea Sirignano, K. Paige Harden, Erhan Genç, Patrick D. Gajewski, Stephan Getzmann, Christoph Fraenz, Javier E. Schneider Peñate, Stefanie Lis, Alisha S. M. Hall, Christian Schmahl, Sabine C. Herpertz, Abdel Abdellaoui, Michel G. Nivard, and Elliot M. Tucker-Drob.
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DATE: September 15, 2026 at 05:02AM
SOURCE:
NEW YORK TIMES PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGISTS FEEDTITLE: 7 Books To Help You Cope With Failure and Move Forward
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/15/well/books-failure-experts-reccomendations.html
Psychologists and other experts share the works they recommend to people who are struggling with guilt, shame or questions of what comes next.
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/15/well/books-failure-experts-reccomendations.html
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DATE: September 14, 2026 at 06:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: A child’s genetic profile for ADHD can predict their parents’ risk of separation
Children with a higher polygenic index for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder tend to see a higher likelihood of their parents separating or divorcing, according to new research. The findings suggest that families are dynamic systems where a child’s inherited characteristics can actively shape the life trajectories of their parents. The research was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
Family research often focuses on how parents shape their children. A 2017 study demonstrated that parents’ genetic traits indirectly shape the home environment they create for their children. This progression in the literature has led scientists to ask whether the influence might operate in the opposite direction.
A polygenic index is a statistical construct scientists use to estimate the likelihood of a specific trait or condition. It is calculated by adding up the effects of many small genetic variations across a person’s DNA, weighted by how strongly they associate with a trait in large population samples. Rather than measuring an internal biological mechanism or an absolute predisposition waiting to be realized, a polygenic index is a risk estimate that depends heavily on the specific population and environment it was derived from. Evocative gene-environment correlation is the related concept that a person’s genetically influenced tendencies can provoke specific reactions from the people around them.
Researchers have started applying this concept to family dynamics. A 2024 study of adoptees indicated that children’s inherited traits can actively shape how warmly their parents treat them, providing evidence that children influence their own caregiving environment. This builds on research covered by PsyPost in early 2025, which found that early childhood traits related to attention and hyperactivity can alter family dynamics by increasing the likelihood of experiencing childhood maltreatment.
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by patterns of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. To understand how children might shape broader family structures, a research team led by Evelina T. Akimova at Purdue University and Torkild Hovde Lyngstad at the University of Oslo examined whether children’s polygenic indices predict major parental decisions. They set out to determine if a child’s statistical genetic risk estimates were associated with parental outcomes like having another baby, getting married, or ending a relationship.
The researchers analyzed data from the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study. They looked at genetic and administrative data from 40,000 genotyped family trios, consisting of a mother, a father, and a child. The data included genetic information derived from blood samples taken during pregnancy and at birth.
The team tracked family demographic changes through Norwegian administrative registers, which provided objective records of marriage, separation, and childbirth. By comparing the child’s polygenic indices for various physical and mental health traits against these family outcomes, the researchers could look for patterns. Importantly, they controlled for the polygenic indices of both parents, allowing them to isolate the specific influence of the child’s genetic associations on the family environment.
The researchers found that for most behavioral and physical health traits, the child’s genetic profile had no statistically significant impact on family demographic events. Traits like asthma, body mass index, and cognitive performance did not reliably predict whether parents would have another child, marry, or separate. The notable exception was the polygenic index for ADHD.
An increase in a child’s polygenic index for ADHD was reliably associated with an increased risk of parental partnership dissolution. Specifically, a one standard deviation increase in the child’s ADHD polygenic index predicted a 7 percent relative increase in the odds that their parents would separate or divorce. When the researchers broke the data down further, they found that this effect was highly specific to certain types of families.
The association between a child’s ADHD genetic index and parental separation was driven primarily by families with daughters. For girls, a one standard deviation increase in the ADHD polygenic index was associated with an 11 percent increase in the odds of parental dissolution. For boys, the increase was less than 4 percent, and the result was not statistically significant. The authors propose that because ADHD in girls often presents as issues with attention and emotion regulation rather than overt hyperactivity, it may be underdiagnosed, leading to unaddressed behavioral challenges that strain family relationships.
Socioeconomic status also played a moderating role. In families with above-average educational attainment, a one standard deviation increase in the child’s ADHD polygenic index was associated with a 15 percent increase in the odds of partnership dissolution. In families with below-average socioeconomic status, the effect was not statistically significant. The researchers suggest that behavioral difficulties might conflict more intensely with the rigid academic and developmental expectations often present in higher-status households.
Maternal age at the time of the first birth also altered the outcomes. In families where the mother was older than the median age at her first birth, an increase in the child’s ADHD genetic index predicted a 10 percent increase in the odds of parental separation. In these same older-mother families, the researchers also noted a separate effect regarding anxiety. A higher polygenic index for anxiety in the child was associated with a 10 percent increase in the odds that the parents would marry after the child’s birth, suggesting that older parents might respond to an anxious child with stabilizing commitments.
As with all research, there are some caveats to consider. The study is based entirely on data from Norway, a country with a universal welfare state, high levels of gender equality, and robust family support systems. The ways in which child traits evoke parental responses might look different in countries with less institutional support or different cultural norms regarding marriage and divorce.
There are a few other things to keep in mind regarding the data. The Norwegian cohort study relied on voluntary participation, which resulted in a sample that slightly overrepresents families with higher socioeconomic status. Families experiencing multiple extreme adversities are likely underrepresented, which could affect the prevalence estimates of certain family events.
The genetic measures themselves also have limits. Because polygenic indices are statistical models rather than direct biological pathways, their predictive accuracy heavily depends on the reference populations used to create them. The polygenic indices used in this study were derived from genetic studies of populations with European ancestry, meaning the findings may not generalize to people of other ancestral backgrounds. Additionally, current polygenic indices only capture a small fraction of the total genetic influence on a complex condition like ADHD.
The study, “When children shape their families: Evocative effects analysis of 40,000 trios from the Norwegian Mother-Father-and-Child Study,” was authored by Evelina T. Akimova, Agnes Fauske, Ruth Eva Jørgensen, Alexandra Havdahl, Elizabeth C. Corfield, Melinda C. Mills, and Torkild Hovde Lyngstad.
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ADHDgenetics #polygenicindex #familydynamics #parentaldivorce #childinfluence #evocativegeneenvironment #ADHDawareness #Norwaystudy #psychogenetics #familyresearch
-
DATE: September 14, 2026 at 06:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: A child’s genetic profile for ADHD can predict their parents’ risk of separation
Children with a higher polygenic index for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder tend to see a higher likelihood of their parents separating or divorcing, according to new research. The findings suggest that families are dynamic systems where a child’s inherited characteristics can actively shape the life trajectories of their parents. The research was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
Family research often focuses on how parents shape their children. A 2017 study demonstrated that parents’ genetic traits indirectly shape the home environment they create for their children. This progression in the literature has led scientists to ask whether the influence might operate in the opposite direction.
A polygenic index is a statistical construct scientists use to estimate the likelihood of a specific trait or condition. It is calculated by adding up the effects of many small genetic variations across a person’s DNA, weighted by how strongly they associate with a trait in large population samples. Rather than measuring an internal biological mechanism or an absolute predisposition waiting to be realized, a polygenic index is a risk estimate that depends heavily on the specific population and environment it was derived from. Evocative gene-environment correlation is the related concept that a person’s genetically influenced tendencies can provoke specific reactions from the people around them.
Researchers have started applying this concept to family dynamics. A 2024 study of adoptees indicated that children’s inherited traits can actively shape how warmly their parents treat them, providing evidence that children influence their own caregiving environment. This builds on research covered by PsyPost in early 2025, which found that early childhood traits related to attention and hyperactivity can alter family dynamics by increasing the likelihood of experiencing childhood maltreatment.
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by patterns of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. To understand how children might shape broader family structures, a research team led by Evelina T. Akimova at Purdue University and Torkild Hovde Lyngstad at the University of Oslo examined whether children’s polygenic indices predict major parental decisions. They set out to determine if a child’s statistical genetic risk estimates were associated with parental outcomes like having another baby, getting married, or ending a relationship.
The researchers analyzed data from the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study. They looked at genetic and administrative data from 40,000 genotyped family trios, consisting of a mother, a father, and a child. The data included genetic information derived from blood samples taken during pregnancy and at birth.
The team tracked family demographic changes through Norwegian administrative registers, which provided objective records of marriage, separation, and childbirth. By comparing the child’s polygenic indices for various physical and mental health traits against these family outcomes, the researchers could look for patterns. Importantly, they controlled for the polygenic indices of both parents, allowing them to isolate the specific influence of the child’s genetic associations on the family environment.
The researchers found that for most behavioral and physical health traits, the child’s genetic profile had no statistically significant impact on family demographic events. Traits like asthma, body mass index, and cognitive performance did not reliably predict whether parents would have another child, marry, or separate. The notable exception was the polygenic index for ADHD.
An increase in a child’s polygenic index for ADHD was reliably associated with an increased risk of parental partnership dissolution. Specifically, a one standard deviation increase in the child’s ADHD polygenic index predicted a 7 percent relative increase in the odds that their parents would separate or divorce. When the researchers broke the data down further, they found that this effect was highly specific to certain types of families.
The association between a child’s ADHD genetic index and parental separation was driven primarily by families with daughters. For girls, a one standard deviation increase in the ADHD polygenic index was associated with an 11 percent increase in the odds of parental dissolution. For boys, the increase was less than 4 percent, and the result was not statistically significant. The authors propose that because ADHD in girls often presents as issues with attention and emotion regulation rather than overt hyperactivity, it may be underdiagnosed, leading to unaddressed behavioral challenges that strain family relationships.
Socioeconomic status also played a moderating role. In families with above-average educational attainment, a one standard deviation increase in the child’s ADHD polygenic index was associated with a 15 percent increase in the odds of partnership dissolution. In families with below-average socioeconomic status, the effect was not statistically significant. The researchers suggest that behavioral difficulties might conflict more intensely with the rigid academic and developmental expectations often present in higher-status households.
Maternal age at the time of the first birth also altered the outcomes. In families where the mother was older than the median age at her first birth, an increase in the child’s ADHD genetic index predicted a 10 percent increase in the odds of parental separation. In these same older-mother families, the researchers also noted a separate effect regarding anxiety. A higher polygenic index for anxiety in the child was associated with a 10 percent increase in the odds that the parents would marry after the child’s birth, suggesting that older parents might respond to an anxious child with stabilizing commitments.
As with all research, there are some caveats to consider. The study is based entirely on data from Norway, a country with a universal welfare state, high levels of gender equality, and robust family support systems. The ways in which child traits evoke parental responses might look different in countries with less institutional support or different cultural norms regarding marriage and divorce.
There are a few other things to keep in mind regarding the data. The Norwegian cohort study relied on voluntary participation, which resulted in a sample that slightly overrepresents families with higher socioeconomic status. Families experiencing multiple extreme adversities are likely underrepresented, which could affect the prevalence estimates of certain family events.
The genetic measures themselves also have limits. Because polygenic indices are statistical models rather than direct biological pathways, their predictive accuracy heavily depends on the reference populations used to create them. The polygenic indices used in this study were derived from genetic studies of populations with European ancestry, meaning the findings may not generalize to people of other ancestral backgrounds. Additionally, current polygenic indices only capture a small fraction of the total genetic influence on a complex condition like ADHD.
The study, “When children shape their families: Evocative effects analysis of 40,000 trios from the Norwegian Mother-Father-and-Child Study,” was authored by Evelina T. Akimova, Agnes Fauske, Ruth Eva Jørgensen, Alexandra Havdahl, Elizabeth C. Corfield, Melinda C. Mills, and Torkild Hovde Lyngstad.
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ADHDgenetics #polygenicindex #familydynamics #parentaldivorce #childinfluence #evocativegeneenvironment #ADHDawareness #Norwaystudy #psychogenetics #familyresearch
-
DATE: September 14, 2026 at 06:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: A child’s genetic profile for ADHD can predict their parents’ risk of separation
Children with a higher polygenic index for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder tend to see a higher likelihood of their parents separating or divorcing, according to new research. The findings suggest that families are dynamic systems where a child’s inherited characteristics can actively shape the life trajectories of their parents. The research was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
Family research often focuses on how parents shape their children. A 2017 study demonstrated that parents’ genetic traits indirectly shape the home environment they create for their children. This progression in the literature has led scientists to ask whether the influence might operate in the opposite direction.
A polygenic index is a statistical construct scientists use to estimate the likelihood of a specific trait or condition. It is calculated by adding up the effects of many small genetic variations across a person’s DNA, weighted by how strongly they associate with a trait in large population samples. Rather than measuring an internal biological mechanism or an absolute predisposition waiting to be realized, a polygenic index is a risk estimate that depends heavily on the specific population and environment it was derived from. Evocative gene-environment correlation is the related concept that a person’s genetically influenced tendencies can provoke specific reactions from the people around them.
Researchers have started applying this concept to family dynamics. A 2024 study of adoptees indicated that children’s inherited traits can actively shape how warmly their parents treat them, providing evidence that children influence their own caregiving environment. This builds on research covered by PsyPost in early 2025, which found that early childhood traits related to attention and hyperactivity can alter family dynamics by increasing the likelihood of experiencing childhood maltreatment.
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by patterns of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. To understand how children might shape broader family structures, a research team led by Evelina T. Akimova at Purdue University and Torkild Hovde Lyngstad at the University of Oslo examined whether children’s polygenic indices predict major parental decisions. They set out to determine if a child’s statistical genetic risk estimates were associated with parental outcomes like having another baby, getting married, or ending a relationship.
The researchers analyzed data from the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study. They looked at genetic and administrative data from 40,000 genotyped family trios, consisting of a mother, a father, and a child. The data included genetic information derived from blood samples taken during pregnancy and at birth.
The team tracked family demographic changes through Norwegian administrative registers, which provided objective records of marriage, separation, and childbirth. By comparing the child’s polygenic indices for various physical and mental health traits against these family outcomes, the researchers could look for patterns. Importantly, they controlled for the polygenic indices of both parents, allowing them to isolate the specific influence of the child’s genetic associations on the family environment.
The researchers found that for most behavioral and physical health traits, the child’s genetic profile had no statistically significant impact on family demographic events. Traits like asthma, body mass index, and cognitive performance did not reliably predict whether parents would have another child, marry, or separate. The notable exception was the polygenic index for ADHD.
An increase in a child’s polygenic index for ADHD was reliably associated with an increased risk of parental partnership dissolution. Specifically, a one standard deviation increase in the child’s ADHD polygenic index predicted a 7 percent relative increase in the odds that their parents would separate or divorce. When the researchers broke the data down further, they found that this effect was highly specific to certain types of families.
The association between a child’s ADHD genetic index and parental separation was driven primarily by families with daughters. For girls, a one standard deviation increase in the ADHD polygenic index was associated with an 11 percent increase in the odds of parental dissolution. For boys, the increase was less than 4 percent, and the result was not statistically significant. The authors propose that because ADHD in girls often presents as issues with attention and emotion regulation rather than overt hyperactivity, it may be underdiagnosed, leading to unaddressed behavioral challenges that strain family relationships.
Socioeconomic status also played a moderating role. In families with above-average educational attainment, a one standard deviation increase in the child’s ADHD polygenic index was associated with a 15 percent increase in the odds of partnership dissolution. In families with below-average socioeconomic status, the effect was not statistically significant. The researchers suggest that behavioral difficulties might conflict more intensely with the rigid academic and developmental expectations often present in higher-status households.
Maternal age at the time of the first birth also altered the outcomes. In families where the mother was older than the median age at her first birth, an increase in the child’s ADHD genetic index predicted a 10 percent increase in the odds of parental separation. In these same older-mother families, the researchers also noted a separate effect regarding anxiety. A higher polygenic index for anxiety in the child was associated with a 10 percent increase in the odds that the parents would marry after the child’s birth, suggesting that older parents might respond to an anxious child with stabilizing commitments.
As with all research, there are some caveats to consider. The study is based entirely on data from Norway, a country with a universal welfare state, high levels of gender equality, and robust family support systems. The ways in which child traits evoke parental responses might look different in countries with less institutional support or different cultural norms regarding marriage and divorce.
There are a few other things to keep in mind regarding the data. The Norwegian cohort study relied on voluntary participation, which resulted in a sample that slightly overrepresents families with higher socioeconomic status. Families experiencing multiple extreme adversities are likely underrepresented, which could affect the prevalence estimates of certain family events.
The genetic measures themselves also have limits. Because polygenic indices are statistical models rather than direct biological pathways, their predictive accuracy heavily depends on the reference populations used to create them. The polygenic indices used in this study were derived from genetic studies of populations with European ancestry, meaning the findings may not generalize to people of other ancestral backgrounds. Additionally, current polygenic indices only capture a small fraction of the total genetic influence on a complex condition like ADHD.
The study, “When children shape their families: Evocative effects analysis of 40,000 trios from the Norwegian Mother-Father-and-Child Study,” was authored by Evelina T. Akimova, Agnes Fauske, Ruth Eva Jørgensen, Alexandra Havdahl, Elizabeth C. Corfield, Melinda C. Mills, and Torkild Hovde Lyngstad.
-------------------------------------------------
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ADHDgenetics #polygenicindex #familydynamics #parentaldivorce #childinfluence #evocativegeneenvironment #ADHDawareness #Norwaystudy #psychogenetics #familyresearch
-
DATE: September 14, 2026 at 05:30PM
SOURCE: PSYCHIATRIC TIMESDirect article link at end of text block below.
🎙️ One week to go!
The Psych Consult: Second Opinion, hosted by Claire Brandon, MD, launches September 21.
Get a first look at the new video-podcast series with our teaser: https://t.co/0qgabe8YxZ
Stay tuned!
#Psychiatry #ThePsychConsult https://t.co/QVnn8IsfIS
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DATE: September 14, 2026 at 05:30PM
SOURCE: PSYCHIATRIC TIMESDirect article link at end of text block below.
🎙️ One week to go!
The Psych Consult: Second Opinion, hosted by Claire Brandon, MD, launches September 21.
Get a first look at the new video-podcast series with our teaser: https://t.co/0qgabe8YxZ
Stay tuned!
#Psychiatry #ThePsychConsult https://t.co/QVnn8IsfIS
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DATE: September 14, 2026 at 05:30PM
SOURCE: PSYCHIATRIC TIMESDirect article link at end of text block below.
🎙️ One week to go!
The Psych Consult: Second Opinion, hosted by Claire Brandon, MD, launches September 21.
Get a first look at the new video-podcast series with our teaser: https://t.co/0qgabe8YxZ
Stay tuned!
#Psychiatry #ThePsychConsult https://t.co/QVnn8IsfIS
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DATE: September 14, 2026 at 03:46AM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: What to Know About Recent Dire AI Predictions and Calls for Safeguards
Source: PBS News Hour
New warnings from within the artificial intelligence industry have revived a long-running debate over whether advanced AI could threaten humanity's survival. Dario Amodei, CEO of AI company Anthropic, outlined a plan for companies and governments to ensure that increasingly capable AI models have fortified guardrails after two former Anthropic safety researchers publicly aired concerns about the existential threats AI might pose to humanity.
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DATE: September 14, 2026 at 03:46AM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Anthropic CEO Says "For Too Long the Industry Lied" About AI Risks
Source: CBS News - U.S. News
Speaking about about the development of artificial intelligence, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said in an interview on Sunday, "I think for too long the industry lied to people about the fact that this technology had risks." And the biggest risk could be the end of humanity, former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon warned on social media last Tuesday, saying Anthropic and OpenAI are "gambling with our lives" by developing self-improving...
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DATE: September 14, 2026 at 03:46AM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Anthropic CEO Says "For Too Long the Industry Lied" About AI Risks
Source: CBS News - U.S. News
Speaking about about the development of artificial intelligence, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said in an interview on Sunday, "I think for too long the industry lied to people about the fact that this technology had risks." And the biggest risk could be the end of humanity, former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon warned on social media last Tuesday, saying Anthropic and OpenAI are "gambling with our lives" by developing self-improving...
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-
DATE: September 14, 2026 at 03:46AM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Anthropic CEO Says "For Too Long the Industry Lied" About AI Risks
Source: CBS News - U.S. News
Speaking about about the development of artificial intelligence, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said in an interview on Sunday, "I think for too long the industry lied to people about the fact that this technology had risks." And the biggest risk could be the end of humanity, former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon warned on social media last Tuesday, saying Anthropic and OpenAI are "gambling with our lives" by developing self-improving...
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-
DATE: September 14, 2026 at 03:46AM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Donald Trump Dismisses Concerns About Dangers of AI
Source: DW- top stories
U.S. President Donald Trump has called concerns that artificial intelligence is progressing too quickly a "SICK conspiracy." His statement followed calls by tech leaders for more governmental regulation of AI following incidents showing that AI agents could go rogue. In response, Mr. Trump posted on his Truth Social account: "The only control or 'guardrails' that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in...
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-
DATE: September 14, 2026 at 03:46AM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Donald Trump Dismisses Concerns About Dangers of AI
Source: DW- top stories
U.S. President Donald Trump has called concerns that artificial intelligence is progressing too quickly a "SICK conspiracy." His statement followed calls by tech leaders for more governmental regulation of AI following incidents showing that AI agents could go rogue. In response, Mr. Trump posted on his Truth Social account: "The only control or 'guardrails' that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in...
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-
DATE: September 14, 2026 at 03:46AM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Donald Trump Dismisses Concerns About Dangers of AI
Source: DW- top stories
U.S. President Donald Trump has called concerns that artificial intelligence is progressing too quickly a "SICK conspiracy." His statement followed calls by tech leaders for more governmental regulation of AI following incidents showing that AI agents could go rogue. In response, Mr. Trump posted on his Truth Social account: "The only control or 'guardrails' that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in...
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-
DATE: September 14, 2026 at 03:46AM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: What to Know About Recent Dire AI Predictions and Calls for Safeguards
Source: PBS News Hour
New warnings from within the artificial intelligence industry have revived a long-running debate over whether advanced AI could threaten humanity's survival. Dario Amodei, CEO of AI company Anthropic, outlined a plan for companies and governments to ensure that increasingly capable AI models have fortified guardrails after two former Anthropic safety researchers publicly aired concerns about the existential threats AI might pose to humanity.
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-
DATE: September 14, 2026 at 03:45AM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Hidden Brain Wiring May Keep Thinking Sharp As Gray Matter Shrinks
Source: Science Daily - Top News
A new study has uncovered evidence that two neighboring types of brain tissue may work together to support thinking abilities later in life. Its findings suggest that the condition of the brain's local communication pathways could influence how strongly gray matter loss affects cognition. The study, published in Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association, was based on date from 459 adults aged 60 and older living in India.
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DATE: September 14, 2026 at 03:45AM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Hidden Brain Wiring May Keep Thinking Sharp As Gray Matter Shrinks
Source: Science Daily - Top News
A new study has uncovered evidence that two neighboring types of brain tissue may work together to support thinking abilities later in life. Its findings suggest that the condition of the brain's local communication pathways could influence how strongly gray matter loss affects cognition. The study, published in Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association, was based on date from 459 adults aged 60 and older living in India.
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DATE: September 14, 2026 at 03:45AM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Turkish Authorities Launch Anti-LGBTQ Raids, Detaining Dozens
Source: Al Jazeera
Turkish police have detained at least 63 people after conducting nationwide raids targeting LGBTQ organizations. Police swooped on gay bars, offices, and homes in major cities on Sunday, escalating Turkey's decade-long hostility towards LGBTQ groups. Justice Minister said in a social media post Sunday that prosecutors were investigating 162 suspects, 9 associations, and 13 businesses to "protect children, the institution of the family, and...
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-
DATE: September 14, 2026 at 03:45AM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Hidden Brain Wiring May Keep Thinking Sharp As Gray Matter Shrinks
Source: Science Daily - Top News
A new study has uncovered evidence that two neighboring types of brain tissue may work together to support thinking abilities later in life. Its findings suggest that the condition of the brain's local communication pathways could influence how strongly gray matter loss affects cognition. The study, published in Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association, was based on date from 459 adults aged 60 and older living in India.
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-
DATE: September 14, 2026 at 03:45AM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: White House Set to Remove Rules Curbing Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Source: PBS News Hour
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to repeal rules that limit planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from power plants fueled by coal and natural gas, an action that Administrator Lee Zeldin has said would remove billions of dollars in costs for the industry and help "unleash" American energy. At a speech to the United Nations last year, President Donald Trump called climate change "the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the...
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-
DATE: September 14, 2026 at 03:45AM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: White House Set to Remove Rules Curbing Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Source: PBS News Hour
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to repeal rules that limit planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from power plants fueled by coal and natural gas, an action that Administrator Lee Zeldin has said would remove billions of dollars in costs for the industry and help "unleash" American energy. At a speech to the United Nations last year, President Donald Trump called climate change "the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the...
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-
DATE: September 14, 2026 at 03:45AM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: White House Set to Remove Rules Curbing Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Source: PBS News Hour
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to repeal rules that limit planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from power plants fueled by coal and natural gas, an action that Administrator Lee Zeldin has said would remove billions of dollars in costs for the industry and help "unleash" American energy. At a speech to the United Nations last year, President Donald Trump called climate change "the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the...
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-
DATE: September 14, 2026 at 03:45AM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Minister Vows to Revoke Filmmakers' Citizenship Over Gaza Film
Source: Al Jazeera
Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar has said that he will move to revoke the citizenship of filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor after their documentary on Israel's genocide in Gaza, NAZA, won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival. In an X post on Sunday, Zohar called the documentary "vile" and its win at the film festival "shocking." He accused the filmmakers of harming the country "just to get applause from antisemites around...
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DATE: September 14, 2026 at 04:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Universal two-child policy linked to increased depression among Chinese women
URL: https://www.psypost.org/the-unexpected-psychological-cost-of-china-s-two-child-policy/
China’s transition to a universal two-child policy was associated with an unexpected increase in depressive symptoms among many married women of reproductive age. A recent analysis found that women exposed to the new policy faced a higher risk of moderate to severe depression, especially if they encountered conflicting family pressures or financial constraints. The research was published in the journal Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences.
The childbearing years between ages 20 and 40 represent a period of elevated vulnerability to mental health challenges for women. During this time, biological changes, career development, and shifting social identities can act as major stressors. The decision to have a child, or the inability to do so, deeply influences a person’s psychological well-being.
In China, the government has heavily regulated family planning for decades. The original one-child policy began in 1979 to curb fears of overpopulation. While it reduced maternal mortality, it also led to a skewed sex ratio and an aging population.
To address these demographic challenges, the government introduced a partial two-child policy in 2013. This specific rule allowed couples to have a second child if either parent was an only child. By late 2015, the government announced the universal two-child policy, granting all families the right to have two children starting in 2016.
Most prior public health research focused on how these policy shifts affected physical birth outcomes and economic trends. Less attention was given to the psychological consequences of the transition. While the relaxed rules might alleviate the stress of suppressed fertility desires, they could also introduce new burdens.
A return to multi-child families might increase the physical demands of childcare and reduce a woman’s career flexibility. It could also spark new disagreements between spouses or across generations regarding reproductive choices. Ruoxi Ding of Peking University Sixth Hospital and corresponding author Chao Guo led a team of researchers to investigate these potential mental health impacts.
The researchers analyzed data from the China Family Panel Study, a nationwide biennial survey. They extracted information from the 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2020 survey waves. The final dataset included 7,481 married women aged 20 to 40, making this a large study.
To isolate the effect of the policy change, the team used a quasi-experimental approach called a difference-in-difference analysis. This method compares changes over time between a group affected by a new event and a control group that remains unaffected.
The researchers categorized women who were restricted to one child before 2016 as the exposed group. This meant neither the woman nor her husband was an only child, and they only had one child at the time. The control group consisted of women who already qualified to have two children under the previous rules, or who already had two or more children.
To measure mental health, the surveys utilized established psychiatric questionnaires. In some years, participants answered the Kessler 6 Rating Scale, which asks how often a person experienced nervousness, agitation, or psychological fatigue over the past month. In other years, the surveys used items from the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, which tracks negative emotions over the past week.
Following the implementation of the universal two-child policy, women in the exposed group experienced a marked increase in depressive symptoms. The researchers calculated that these women faced a 45 percent higher odds of having moderate to severe depressive symptoms compared to the years before the policy took effect.
The team then separated the data by social and demographic factors to identify which groups were most affected. They found that the increase in depressive symptoms was prominent among women aged 30 to 40. Younger women did not show the same negative mental health impact.
The researchers suggest that older women might experience less flexibility in career planning and face higher physiological risks associated with pregnancy. This combination of factors could elevate their psychological stress when confronted with the sudden possibility of a second child.
Income and education also influenced the outcomes. Women with low educational backgrounds (primary school or below) and those living in households with a medium family income displayed a notable rise in depression scores. Education often correlates with personal empowerment and the ability to negotiate reproductive decisions or household duties with a spouse.
High-income families can often afford the costs of raising multiple children, and low-income families might view children as future economic support. Middle-income families, conversely, face the highest proportional financial strain when balancing childcare costs against their available resources.
Cultural pressures regarding the gender of children played a major role in the findings. The negative mental health impact was highly visible among women whose first child was a boy. In contrast, women who only had daughters prior to the policy did not show a similar increase in depression.
Traditional preferences for male heirs are common in many parts of the country, but raising sons often carries heavy financial expectations, such as helping them purchase a home for marriage. The researchers note that many women now experience a fear of having two sons because of these economic burdens.
The new policy may have created intense friction between a woman’s desire to avoid a second son and older generations’ traditional preference for more grandsons. For women who previously had only girls, the relaxed policy may have actually relieved stress by giving them a sanctioned opportunity to try for a boy.
The rise in depressive symptoms was heavily concentrated among women who did not actually give birth to a second child after the policy changed. This suggests that the distress may stem from an inability to conceive, or from ongoing family disputes over whether to expand the family against the mother’s wishes.
The study has several limitations regarding its data collection. The surveys relied on self-reported questionnaires to track depressive symptoms rather than formal clinical diagnoses by medical professionals. Self-reported responses can be influenced by a participant’s memory or a desire to avoid embarrassment.
The specific psychological scales used in the survey occasionally changed from year to year. While the researchers adjusted for this mathematically and verified their results with a consistent subset of questions, continuous use of a single measurement tool is generally preferred in longitudinal studies.
Future investigations will need to track subjective experiences, such as marital satisfaction and individual fertility desires, to map exactly how policy shifts translate into emotional distress. Tracking the mental health impacts of newer pronatalist initiatives, such as the more recent three-child policy, will help public health officials design better psychological support systems for parents.
The study, “China’s universal two-child policy and depressive symptoms among women at childbearing age: a difference-in-difference analysis based on the China Family Panel Study,” was authored by Ruoxi Ding, Dianqi Yuan, Xiaohan Zhu, Yushan Du, and Chao Guo.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/the-unexpected-psychological-cost-of-china-s-two-child-policy/
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #UniversalTwoChildPolicy #DepressionAmongWomen #ChinaFamilyPolicy #MentalHealthChina #ReproductiveHealth #WomenInWorkforce #GenderAndFamilyPressure #DepressiveSymptoms #PublicHealthResearch #FertilityPolicyImpact
-
DATE: September 14, 2026 at 04:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Universal two-child policy linked to increased depression among Chinese women
URL: https://www.psypost.org/the-unexpected-psychological-cost-of-china-s-two-child-policy/
China’s transition to a universal two-child policy was associated with an unexpected increase in depressive symptoms among many married women of reproductive age. A recent analysis found that women exposed to the new policy faced a higher risk of moderate to severe depression, especially if they encountered conflicting family pressures or financial constraints. The research was published in the journal Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences.
The childbearing years between ages 20 and 40 represent a period of elevated vulnerability to mental health challenges for women. During this time, biological changes, career development, and shifting social identities can act as major stressors. The decision to have a child, or the inability to do so, deeply influences a person’s psychological well-being.
In China, the government has heavily regulated family planning for decades. The original one-child policy began in 1979 to curb fears of overpopulation. While it reduced maternal mortality, it also led to a skewed sex ratio and an aging population.
To address these demographic challenges, the government introduced a partial two-child policy in 2013. This specific rule allowed couples to have a second child if either parent was an only child. By late 2015, the government announced the universal two-child policy, granting all families the right to have two children starting in 2016.
Most prior public health research focused on how these policy shifts affected physical birth outcomes and economic trends. Less attention was given to the psychological consequences of the transition. While the relaxed rules might alleviate the stress of suppressed fertility desires, they could also introduce new burdens.
A return to multi-child families might increase the physical demands of childcare and reduce a woman’s career flexibility. It could also spark new disagreements between spouses or across generations regarding reproductive choices. Ruoxi Ding of Peking University Sixth Hospital and corresponding author Chao Guo led a team of researchers to investigate these potential mental health impacts.
The researchers analyzed data from the China Family Panel Study, a nationwide biennial survey. They extracted information from the 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2020 survey waves. The final dataset included 7,481 married women aged 20 to 40, making this a large study.
To isolate the effect of the policy change, the team used a quasi-experimental approach called a difference-in-difference analysis. This method compares changes over time between a group affected by a new event and a control group that remains unaffected.
The researchers categorized women who were restricted to one child before 2016 as the exposed group. This meant neither the woman nor her husband was an only child, and they only had one child at the time. The control group consisted of women who already qualified to have two children under the previous rules, or who already had two or more children.
To measure mental health, the surveys utilized established psychiatric questionnaires. In some years, participants answered the Kessler 6 Rating Scale, which asks how often a person experienced nervousness, agitation, or psychological fatigue over the past month. In other years, the surveys used items from the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, which tracks negative emotions over the past week.
Following the implementation of the universal two-child policy, women in the exposed group experienced a marked increase in depressive symptoms. The researchers calculated that these women faced a 45 percent higher odds of having moderate to severe depressive symptoms compared to the years before the policy took effect.
The team then separated the data by social and demographic factors to identify which groups were most affected. They found that the increase in depressive symptoms was prominent among women aged 30 to 40. Younger women did not show the same negative mental health impact.
The researchers suggest that older women might experience less flexibility in career planning and face higher physiological risks associated with pregnancy. This combination of factors could elevate their psychological stress when confronted with the sudden possibility of a second child.
Income and education also influenced the outcomes. Women with low educational backgrounds (primary school or below) and those living in households with a medium family income displayed a notable rise in depression scores. Education often correlates with personal empowerment and the ability to negotiate reproductive decisions or household duties with a spouse.
High-income families can often afford the costs of raising multiple children, and low-income families might view children as future economic support. Middle-income families, conversely, face the highest proportional financial strain when balancing childcare costs against their available resources.
Cultural pressures regarding the gender of children played a major role in the findings. The negative mental health impact was highly visible among women whose first child was a boy. In contrast, women who only had daughters prior to the policy did not show a similar increase in depression.
Traditional preferences for male heirs are common in many parts of the country, but raising sons often carries heavy financial expectations, such as helping them purchase a home for marriage. The researchers note that many women now experience a fear of having two sons because of these economic burdens.
The new policy may have created intense friction between a woman’s desire to avoid a second son and older generations’ traditional preference for more grandsons. For women who previously had only girls, the relaxed policy may have actually relieved stress by giving them a sanctioned opportunity to try for a boy.
The rise in depressive symptoms was heavily concentrated among women who did not actually give birth to a second child after the policy changed. This suggests that the distress may stem from an inability to conceive, or from ongoing family disputes over whether to expand the family against the mother’s wishes.
The study has several limitations regarding its data collection. The surveys relied on self-reported questionnaires to track depressive symptoms rather than formal clinical diagnoses by medical professionals. Self-reported responses can be influenced by a participant’s memory or a desire to avoid embarrassment.
The specific psychological scales used in the survey occasionally changed from year to year. While the researchers adjusted for this mathematically and verified their results with a consistent subset of questions, continuous use of a single measurement tool is generally preferred in longitudinal studies.
Future investigations will need to track subjective experiences, such as marital satisfaction and individual fertility desires, to map exactly how policy shifts translate into emotional distress. Tracking the mental health impacts of newer pronatalist initiatives, such as the more recent three-child policy, will help public health officials design better psychological support systems for parents.
The study, “China’s universal two-child policy and depressive symptoms among women at childbearing age: a difference-in-difference analysis based on the China Family Panel Study,” was authored by Ruoxi Ding, Dianqi Yuan, Xiaohan Zhu, Yushan Du, and Chao Guo.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/the-unexpected-psychological-cost-of-china-s-two-child-policy/
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #UniversalTwoChildPolicy #DepressionAmongWomen #ChinaFamilyPolicy #MentalHealthChina #ReproductiveHealth #WomenInWorkforce #GenderAndFamilyPressure #DepressiveSymptoms #PublicHealthResearch #FertilityPolicyImpact
-
DATE: September 14, 2026 at 04:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Universal two-child policy linked to increased depression among Chinese women
URL: https://www.psypost.org/the-unexpected-psychological-cost-of-china-s-two-child-policy/
China’s transition to a universal two-child policy was associated with an unexpected increase in depressive symptoms among many married women of reproductive age. A recent analysis found that women exposed to the new policy faced a higher risk of moderate to severe depression, especially if they encountered conflicting family pressures or financial constraints. The research was published in the journal Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences.
The childbearing years between ages 20 and 40 represent a period of elevated vulnerability to mental health challenges for women. During this time, biological changes, career development, and shifting social identities can act as major stressors. The decision to have a child, or the inability to do so, deeply influences a person’s psychological well-being.
In China, the government has heavily regulated family planning for decades. The original one-child policy began in 1979 to curb fears of overpopulation. While it reduced maternal mortality, it also led to a skewed sex ratio and an aging population.
To address these demographic challenges, the government introduced a partial two-child policy in 2013. This specific rule allowed couples to have a second child if either parent was an only child. By late 2015, the government announced the universal two-child policy, granting all families the right to have two children starting in 2016.
Most prior public health research focused on how these policy shifts affected physical birth outcomes and economic trends. Less attention was given to the psychological consequences of the transition. While the relaxed rules might alleviate the stress of suppressed fertility desires, they could also introduce new burdens.
A return to multi-child families might increase the physical demands of childcare and reduce a woman’s career flexibility. It could also spark new disagreements between spouses or across generations regarding reproductive choices. Ruoxi Ding of Peking University Sixth Hospital and corresponding author Chao Guo led a team of researchers to investigate these potential mental health impacts.
The researchers analyzed data from the China Family Panel Study, a nationwide biennial survey. They extracted information from the 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2020 survey waves. The final dataset included 7,481 married women aged 20 to 40, making this a large study.
To isolate the effect of the policy change, the team used a quasi-experimental approach called a difference-in-difference analysis. This method compares changes over time between a group affected by a new event and a control group that remains unaffected.
The researchers categorized women who were restricted to one child before 2016 as the exposed group. This meant neither the woman nor her husband was an only child, and they only had one child at the time. The control group consisted of women who already qualified to have two children under the previous rules, or who already had two or more children.
To measure mental health, the surveys utilized established psychiatric questionnaires. In some years, participants answered the Kessler 6 Rating Scale, which asks how often a person experienced nervousness, agitation, or psychological fatigue over the past month. In other years, the surveys used items from the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, which tracks negative emotions over the past week.
Following the implementation of the universal two-child policy, women in the exposed group experienced a marked increase in depressive symptoms. The researchers calculated that these women faced a 45 percent higher odds of having moderate to severe depressive symptoms compared to the years before the policy took effect.
The team then separated the data by social and demographic factors to identify which groups were most affected. They found that the increase in depressive symptoms was prominent among women aged 30 to 40. Younger women did not show the same negative mental health impact.
The researchers suggest that older women might experience less flexibility in career planning and face higher physiological risks associated with pregnancy. This combination of factors could elevate their psychological stress when confronted with the sudden possibility of a second child.
Income and education also influenced the outcomes. Women with low educational backgrounds (primary school or below) and those living in households with a medium family income displayed a notable rise in depression scores. Education often correlates with personal empowerment and the ability to negotiate reproductive decisions or household duties with a spouse.
High-income families can often afford the costs of raising multiple children, and low-income families might view children as future economic support. Middle-income families, conversely, face the highest proportional financial strain when balancing childcare costs against their available resources.
Cultural pressures regarding the gender of children played a major role in the findings. The negative mental health impact was highly visible among women whose first child was a boy. In contrast, women who only had daughters prior to the policy did not show a similar increase in depression.
Traditional preferences for male heirs are common in many parts of the country, but raising sons often carries heavy financial expectations, such as helping them purchase a home for marriage. The researchers note that many women now experience a fear of having two sons because of these economic burdens.
The new policy may have created intense friction between a woman’s desire to avoid a second son and older generations’ traditional preference for more grandsons. For women who previously had only girls, the relaxed policy may have actually relieved stress by giving them a sanctioned opportunity to try for a boy.
The rise in depressive symptoms was heavily concentrated among women who did not actually give birth to a second child after the policy changed. This suggests that the distress may stem from an inability to conceive, or from ongoing family disputes over whether to expand the family against the mother’s wishes.
The study has several limitations regarding its data collection. The surveys relied on self-reported questionnaires to track depressive symptoms rather than formal clinical diagnoses by medical professionals. Self-reported responses can be influenced by a participant’s memory or a desire to avoid embarrassment.
The specific psychological scales used in the survey occasionally changed from year to year. While the researchers adjusted for this mathematically and verified their results with a consistent subset of questions, continuous use of a single measurement tool is generally preferred in longitudinal studies.
Future investigations will need to track subjective experiences, such as marital satisfaction and individual fertility desires, to map exactly how policy shifts translate into emotional distress. Tracking the mental health impacts of newer pronatalist initiatives, such as the more recent three-child policy, will help public health officials design better psychological support systems for parents.
The study, “China’s universal two-child policy and depressive symptoms among women at childbearing age: a difference-in-difference analysis based on the China Family Panel Study,” was authored by Ruoxi Ding, Dianqi Yuan, Xiaohan Zhu, Yushan Du, and Chao Guo.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/the-unexpected-psychological-cost-of-china-s-two-child-policy/
-------------------------------------------------
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #UniversalTwoChildPolicy #DepressionAmongWomen #ChinaFamilyPolicy #MentalHealthChina #ReproductiveHealth #WomenInWorkforce #GenderAndFamilyPressure #DepressiveSymptoms #PublicHealthResearch #FertilityPolicyImpact
-
DATE: September 14, 2026
SOURCE: SOCIALWORKER.COMTITLE: Reflections on My 42-Year Career in Social Work
“You’re too sensitive” was my family’s response when I informed them that I wanted to become a social worker. I assured them that I could handle it, and I did for a span of 42 years. These are my reflections.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #SocialWork #CareerReflection #42Years #SocialWorkerLife #Reflections #HelpingProfession #MentalHealthAdvocate #PublicService #CompassionInAction #CareerJourney
-
DATE: September 14, 2026
SOURCE: SOCIALWORKER.COMTITLE: Reflections on My 42-Year Career in Social Work
“You’re too sensitive” was my family’s response when I informed them that I wanted to become a social worker. I assured them that I could handle it, and I did for a span of 42 years. These are my reflections.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #SocialWork #CareerReflection #42Years #SocialWorkerLife #Reflections #HelpingProfession #MentalHealthAdvocate #PublicService #CompassionInAction #CareerJourney
-
DATE: September 14, 2026
SOURCE: SOCIALWORKER.COMTITLE: Reflections on My 42-Year Career in Social Work
“You’re too sensitive” was my family’s response when I informed them that I wanted to become a social worker. I assured them that I could handle it, and I did for a span of 42 years. These are my reflections.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #SocialWork #CareerReflection #42Years #SocialWorkerLife #Reflections #HelpingProfession #MentalHealthAdvocate #PublicService #CompassionInAction #CareerJourney
-
DATE: September 14, 2026 at 02:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Are gender differences really power differences? Large-scale analysis finds strong behavioral parallels
New research suggests that many psychological and behavioral differences between men and women might actually stem from differences in social power. The findings indicate that holding a high-power role produces behavioral effects strikingly similar to traits often associated with men, while low-power roles produce effects resembling traits often associated with women. This research was published in PNAS Nexus.
The origins of behavioral differences between men and women remain a topic of intense debate in the social sciences. Evolutionary theorists tend to trace these differences back to natural selection and biology. In this view, men and women developed distinct psychological attributes to adapt to different reproductive and survival roles in early human history.
Sociocultural theorists approach the issue differently, emphasizing how societal roles and social power shape behavior. They argue that hierarchical structures and unequal resource allocation reinforce gendered behaviors beyond any biological roots. A 2019 review indicated that human brains and hormonal systems are not strictly divided into two distinct categories, which supports the idea that many gender differences are shaped by culture rather than rigid biology.
At the center of this debate is the concept of social power, defined as the actual or perceived control over valuable resources. Across many areas of society, men tend to hold more power than women, occupying more leadership roles and controlling more financial assets. Because power differences are so frequently tied to gender, some researchers suspect that power dynamics might be the true source of many presumed gender differences.
Adam D. Galinsky of Columbia University and his colleagues set out to systematically test this idea. They wanted to see if the behaviors resulting from experimental manipulations of power would match up with known differences between men and women. By comparing these two separate areas of research, the team aimed to determine if power imbalances could provide a useful explanation for gender differences.
To conduct the analysis, the researchers first collected data from experiments that randomly assigned people to high-power or low-power roles. They performed a statistical check on 270 of these experiments to ensure the existing literature on power was reliable. From there, they identified 59 distinct psychological and behavioral outcomes that are genuinely affected by having or lacking power.
Next, the research team gathered 102 outcomes from meta-analyses of sex and gender differences. Meta-analyses are large-scale statistical reviews that combine data from many individual studies to find overall trends. The researchers then grouped the findings from both the power experiments and the gender meta-analyses into four broad categories for comparison.
These four categories included agency, communion, self-evaluation, and cognitive processes. Agency involves striving for independence, assertiveness, and control over one’s environment. Communion relates to social connection, empathy, and cooperating with others. Self-evaluation involves how people view their own abilities, and cognitive processes include attention, problem-solving, and spatial reasoning.
The comparison yielded a massive overlap. The researchers found that about 71 percent of the recorded gender differences were entirely consistent with the effects of power differences. In contrast, only about 8 percent of the gender differences showed the opposite pattern.
Sonya Xinyue Xiao, a developmental psychologist who directs the IBAY Lab and was not involved in the study, told PsyPost that her confidence in the results is “pretty high.”
“The method they used is very rigorous in testing their hypotheses that focus on whether power effects are aligned with sex/gender differences when there is a significant power effect,” she said.
Specifically, high-power individuals and men both tend to display higher agency, including traits like dominance and a willingness to take risks. They also both show more positive self-evaluations and display similar cognitive processing styles. On the other hand, low-power individuals and women both tend to display higher communion, exhibiting more interpersonal sensitivity and social cooperation.
To check if this alignment was unique to power, the researchers ran a similar comparison using the personality trait of extraversion. Extraversion is known to correlate with having power and influence, so the team wanted to see if it would also perfectly mirror gender differences. The results showed that it did not.
While extraverts and high-power individuals share some traits, they diverge in the area of communion. Extraverts tend to be highly communal and social, whereas high-power individuals and men tend to score lower on communion. This divergence provides evidence that social power has a specific and uniquely strong relationship with gender differences.
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The study relies on comparing two separate bodies of literature, meaning the link between power and gender is observational in this context. The researchers did not conduct a new experiment to see if giving women high-power roles would immediately erase the observed gender gaps in these specific traits.
“The gender differences in many constructs are very small, but power differences may be large; it is important to keep in mind that the findings are pointing at similarity in directions rather than magnitudes,” Xiao noted. “As the authors mentioned in their discussions, their findings do not actually prove causal relations between social power and sex/gender differences.”
Additionally, grouping dozens of distinct psychological concepts into broad categories requires subjective judgment. Although the researchers used independent experts to classify the traits, personal biases or cultural perspectives could have subtly influenced how the categories were organized. The authors note that their results do not mean power explains all behavioral differences between men and women, but rather that it is likely a major contributing factor.
Future studies could directly test these ideas by assigning men and women to high- and low-power roles in the same experiment. This would help clarify exactly how power shapes behavior across different genders in real time.
“As a developmental psychologist, I am curious to see research examining how the potential causal relation between social power and gender difference changes over time — perhaps the role of social power increases as we age,” Xiao said. “Because gender is highly salient during childhood, whereas one’s gendered experiences of social power may come later.”
The study, “Are many sex/gender differences really power differences?,” was authored by Adam D. Galinsky, Aurora Turek, Grusha Agarwal, Eric M. Anicich, Derek D. Rucker, Hannah R. Bowles, Nira Liberman, Chloe Levin, and Joe C. Magee.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PowerDifferences #GenderDifferences #SocialPower #AgencyVsCommunion #HighPowerTraits #LowPowerTraits #GenderResearch #BehavioralPsychology #PowerAndGender #PNASNexus
-
DATE: September 14, 2026 at 02:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Are gender differences really power differences? Large-scale analysis finds strong behavioral parallels
New research suggests that many psychological and behavioral differences between men and women might actually stem from differences in social power. The findings indicate that holding a high-power role produces behavioral effects strikingly similar to traits often associated with men, while low-power roles produce effects resembling traits often associated with women. This research was published in PNAS Nexus.
The origins of behavioral differences between men and women remain a topic of intense debate in the social sciences. Evolutionary theorists tend to trace these differences back to natural selection and biology. In this view, men and women developed distinct psychological attributes to adapt to different reproductive and survival roles in early human history.
Sociocultural theorists approach the issue differently, emphasizing how societal roles and social power shape behavior. They argue that hierarchical structures and unequal resource allocation reinforce gendered behaviors beyond any biological roots. A 2019 review indicated that human brains and hormonal systems are not strictly divided into two distinct categories, which supports the idea that many gender differences are shaped by culture rather than rigid biology.
At the center of this debate is the concept of social power, defined as the actual or perceived control over valuable resources. Across many areas of society, men tend to hold more power than women, occupying more leadership roles and controlling more financial assets. Because power differences are so frequently tied to gender, some researchers suspect that power dynamics might be the true source of many presumed gender differences.
Adam D. Galinsky of Columbia University and his colleagues set out to systematically test this idea. They wanted to see if the behaviors resulting from experimental manipulations of power would match up with known differences between men and women. By comparing these two separate areas of research, the team aimed to determine if power imbalances could provide a useful explanation for gender differences.
To conduct the analysis, the researchers first collected data from experiments that randomly assigned people to high-power or low-power roles. They performed a statistical check on 270 of these experiments to ensure the existing literature on power was reliable. From there, they identified 59 distinct psychological and behavioral outcomes that are genuinely affected by having or lacking power.
Next, the research team gathered 102 outcomes from meta-analyses of sex and gender differences. Meta-analyses are large-scale statistical reviews that combine data from many individual studies to find overall trends. The researchers then grouped the findings from both the power experiments and the gender meta-analyses into four broad categories for comparison.
These four categories included agency, communion, self-evaluation, and cognitive processes. Agency involves striving for independence, assertiveness, and control over one’s environment. Communion relates to social connection, empathy, and cooperating with others. Self-evaluation involves how people view their own abilities, and cognitive processes include attention, problem-solving, and spatial reasoning.
The comparison yielded a massive overlap. The researchers found that about 71 percent of the recorded gender differences were entirely consistent with the effects of power differences. In contrast, only about 8 percent of the gender differences showed the opposite pattern.
Sonya Xinyue Xiao, a developmental psychologist who directs the IBAY Lab and was not involved in the study, told PsyPost that her confidence in the results is “pretty high.”
“The method they used is very rigorous in testing their hypotheses that focus on whether power effects are aligned with sex/gender differences when there is a significant power effect,” she said.
Specifically, high-power individuals and men both tend to display higher agency, including traits like dominance and a willingness to take risks. They also both show more positive self-evaluations and display similar cognitive processing styles. On the other hand, low-power individuals and women both tend to display higher communion, exhibiting more interpersonal sensitivity and social cooperation.
To check if this alignment was unique to power, the researchers ran a similar comparison using the personality trait of extraversion. Extraversion is known to correlate with having power and influence, so the team wanted to see if it would also perfectly mirror gender differences. The results showed that it did not.
While extraverts and high-power individuals share some traits, they diverge in the area of communion. Extraverts tend to be highly communal and social, whereas high-power individuals and men tend to score lower on communion. This divergence provides evidence that social power has a specific and uniquely strong relationship with gender differences.
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The study relies on comparing two separate bodies of literature, meaning the link between power and gender is observational in this context. The researchers did not conduct a new experiment to see if giving women high-power roles would immediately erase the observed gender gaps in these specific traits.
“The gender differences in many constructs are very small, but power differences may be large; it is important to keep in mind that the findings are pointing at similarity in directions rather than magnitudes,” Xiao noted. “As the authors mentioned in their discussions, their findings do not actually prove causal relations between social power and sex/gender differences.”
Additionally, grouping dozens of distinct psychological concepts into broad categories requires subjective judgment. Although the researchers used independent experts to classify the traits, personal biases or cultural perspectives could have subtly influenced how the categories were organized. The authors note that their results do not mean power explains all behavioral differences between men and women, but rather that it is likely a major contributing factor.
Future studies could directly test these ideas by assigning men and women to high- and low-power roles in the same experiment. This would help clarify exactly how power shapes behavior across different genders in real time.
“As a developmental psychologist, I am curious to see research examining how the potential causal relation between social power and gender difference changes over time — perhaps the role of social power increases as we age,” Xiao said. “Because gender is highly salient during childhood, whereas one’s gendered experiences of social power may come later.”
The study, “Are many sex/gender differences really power differences?,” was authored by Adam D. Galinsky, Aurora Turek, Grusha Agarwal, Eric M. Anicich, Derek D. Rucker, Hannah R. Bowles, Nira Liberman, Chloe Levin, and Joe C. Magee.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PowerDifferences #GenderDifferences #SocialPower #AgencyVsCommunion #HighPowerTraits #LowPowerTraits #GenderResearch #BehavioralPsychology #PowerAndGender #PNASNexus
-
DATE: September 14, 2026 at 02:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Are gender differences really power differences? Large-scale analysis finds strong behavioral parallels
New research suggests that many psychological and behavioral differences between men and women might actually stem from differences in social power. The findings indicate that holding a high-power role produces behavioral effects strikingly similar to traits often associated with men, while low-power roles produce effects resembling traits often associated with women. This research was published in PNAS Nexus.
The origins of behavioral differences between men and women remain a topic of intense debate in the social sciences. Evolutionary theorists tend to trace these differences back to natural selection and biology. In this view, men and women developed distinct psychological attributes to adapt to different reproductive and survival roles in early human history.
Sociocultural theorists approach the issue differently, emphasizing how societal roles and social power shape behavior. They argue that hierarchical structures and unequal resource allocation reinforce gendered behaviors beyond any biological roots. A 2019 review indicated that human brains and hormonal systems are not strictly divided into two distinct categories, which supports the idea that many gender differences are shaped by culture rather than rigid biology.
At the center of this debate is the concept of social power, defined as the actual or perceived control over valuable resources. Across many areas of society, men tend to hold more power than women, occupying more leadership roles and controlling more financial assets. Because power differences are so frequently tied to gender, some researchers suspect that power dynamics might be the true source of many presumed gender differences.
Adam D. Galinsky of Columbia University and his colleagues set out to systematically test this idea. They wanted to see if the behaviors resulting from experimental manipulations of power would match up with known differences between men and women. By comparing these two separate areas of research, the team aimed to determine if power imbalances could provide a useful explanation for gender differences.
To conduct the analysis, the researchers first collected data from experiments that randomly assigned people to high-power or low-power roles. They performed a statistical check on 270 of these experiments to ensure the existing literature on power was reliable. From there, they identified 59 distinct psychological and behavioral outcomes that are genuinely affected by having or lacking power.
Next, the research team gathered 102 outcomes from meta-analyses of sex and gender differences. Meta-analyses are large-scale statistical reviews that combine data from many individual studies to find overall trends. The researchers then grouped the findings from both the power experiments and the gender meta-analyses into four broad categories for comparison.
These four categories included agency, communion, self-evaluation, and cognitive processes. Agency involves striving for independence, assertiveness, and control over one’s environment. Communion relates to social connection, empathy, and cooperating with others. Self-evaluation involves how people view their own abilities, and cognitive processes include attention, problem-solving, and spatial reasoning.
The comparison yielded a massive overlap. The researchers found that about 71 percent of the recorded gender differences were entirely consistent with the effects of power differences. In contrast, only about 8 percent of the gender differences showed the opposite pattern.
Sonya Xinyue Xiao, a developmental psychologist who directs the IBAY Lab and was not involved in the study, told PsyPost that her confidence in the results is “pretty high.”
“The method they used is very rigorous in testing their hypotheses that focus on whether power effects are aligned with sex/gender differences when there is a significant power effect,” she said.
Specifically, high-power individuals and men both tend to display higher agency, including traits like dominance and a willingness to take risks. They also both show more positive self-evaluations and display similar cognitive processing styles. On the other hand, low-power individuals and women both tend to display higher communion, exhibiting more interpersonal sensitivity and social cooperation.
To check if this alignment was unique to power, the researchers ran a similar comparison using the personality trait of extraversion. Extraversion is known to correlate with having power and influence, so the team wanted to see if it would also perfectly mirror gender differences. The results showed that it did not.
While extraverts and high-power individuals share some traits, they diverge in the area of communion. Extraverts tend to be highly communal and social, whereas high-power individuals and men tend to score lower on communion. This divergence provides evidence that social power has a specific and uniquely strong relationship with gender differences.
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The study relies on comparing two separate bodies of literature, meaning the link between power and gender is observational in this context. The researchers did not conduct a new experiment to see if giving women high-power roles would immediately erase the observed gender gaps in these specific traits.
“The gender differences in many constructs are very small, but power differences may be large; it is important to keep in mind that the findings are pointing at similarity in directions rather than magnitudes,” Xiao noted. “As the authors mentioned in their discussions, their findings do not actually prove causal relations between social power and sex/gender differences.”
Additionally, grouping dozens of distinct psychological concepts into broad categories requires subjective judgment. Although the researchers used independent experts to classify the traits, personal biases or cultural perspectives could have subtly influenced how the categories were organized. The authors note that their results do not mean power explains all behavioral differences between men and women, but rather that it is likely a major contributing factor.
Future studies could directly test these ideas by assigning men and women to high- and low-power roles in the same experiment. This would help clarify exactly how power shapes behavior across different genders in real time.
“As a developmental psychologist, I am curious to see research examining how the potential causal relation between social power and gender difference changes over time — perhaps the role of social power increases as we age,” Xiao said. “Because gender is highly salient during childhood, whereas one’s gendered experiences of social power may come later.”
The study, “Are many sex/gender differences really power differences?,” was authored by Adam D. Galinsky, Aurora Turek, Grusha Agarwal, Eric M. Anicich, Derek D. Rucker, Hannah R. Bowles, Nira Liberman, Chloe Levin, and Joe C. Magee.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PowerDifferences #GenderDifferences #SocialPower #AgencyVsCommunion #HighPowerTraits #LowPowerTraits #GenderResearch #BehavioralPsychology #PowerAndGender #PNASNexus
-
DATE: September 14, 2026 at 12:40PM
SOURCE: PSYCHIATRIC TIMESDirect article link at end of text block below.
The September issue of Psychiatric Times is now live! This month, we're debunking the top misleading claims about antidepressants.
Check out our exclusive digital issue now and follow along as articles are shared throughout the month. https://t.co/bZNsDZ960A https://t.co/ANmRCMCcu2
Here are any URLs found in the article text:
Articles can be found by scrolling down the page at Articles can be found at https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/news".
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #psychotherapist #PsychiatricTimes #Antidepressants #MentalHealthAwareness #DigitalIssue #PsychiatryNews
-
DATE: September 14, 2026 at 12:40PM
SOURCE: PSYCHIATRIC TIMESDirect article link at end of text block below.
The September issue of Psychiatric Times is now live! This month, we're debunking the top misleading claims about antidepressants.
Check out our exclusive digital issue now and follow along as articles are shared throughout the month. https://t.co/bZNsDZ960A https://t.co/ANmRCMCcu2
Here are any URLs found in the article text:
Articles can be found by scrolling down the page at Articles can be found at https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/news".
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #psychotherapist #PsychiatricTimes #Antidepressants #MentalHealthAwareness #DigitalIssue #PsychiatryNews
-
DATE: September 14, 2026 at 12:40PM
SOURCE: PSYCHIATRIC TIMESDirect article link at end of text block below.
The September issue of Psychiatric Times is now live! This month, we're debunking the top misleading claims about antidepressants.
Check out our exclusive digital issue now and follow along as articles are shared throughout the month. https://t.co/bZNsDZ960A https://t.co/ANmRCMCcu2
Here are any URLs found in the article text:
Articles can be found by scrolling down the page at Articles can be found at https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/news".
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
-------------------------------------------------
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DATE: September 14, 2026 at 12:40PM
SOURCE: PSYCHIATRIC TIMESDirect article link at end of text block below.
The September issue of Psychiatric Times is now live! This month, we're debunking the top misleading claims about antidepressants.
Check out our exclusive digital issue now and follow along as articles are shared throughout the month. https://t.co/bZNsDZ960A https://t.co/ANmRCMCcu2
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DATE: September 14, 2026 at 12:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Body roundness index linked to depression risk in older adults with dementia
New research indicates that a specific measurement of body fat distribution may help identify depression risk in older adults experiencing cognitive decline. Individuals with dementia who scored highest on the body roundness index were more than three times as likely to have depression compared to those with lower scores. The findings were published in the Journal of Health Psychology.
Dementia is a major global health concern characterized by objective cognitive deficits and functional impairment. Around 45 percent of dementia cases involve risk factors that people can theoretically modify. These modifiable risks include low educational attainment, sensory deficits, depression, and metabolic diseases.
Obesity has emerged as an especially prominent predictor of adverse cognitive outcomes in aging populations. Excess fat tissue can provoke chronic, low-grade systemic inflammation throughout the body. This persistent inflammation can disrupt normal neuronal activity and accelerate the physical deterioration of the brain.
Inflammation also increases oxidative stress and disrupts the body’s natural hormone response systems. These biological shifts are known to contribute to depressive symptoms in older populations.
Assessing body fat in older adults presents specific methodological challenges for medical professionals. The most common measurement is the body mass index, which is calculated by dividing a person’s weight by the square of their height. This traditional metric fails to distinguish between fat mass and lean muscle mass.
In older adults, muscle depletion and bone loss are common physical changes. As a result, calculating a standard body mass index might underestimate the true amount of fat tissue in a senior citizen, obscuring their actual metabolic health.
Waist circumference is another traditional metric used in medical clinics. It measures the distance around the abdomen but does not reliably indicate whether fat is sitting just beneath the skin or packed deep around the internal organs.
Clarissa Pacheco da Rocha Fernandes, a researcher at the D’Or Institute for Research and Education in Brazil, led the new investigation alongside corresponding author Felipe Kenji Sudo and their colleagues. The team wanted to evaluate alternative measurements that might better capture body fat distribution in older adults.
The researchers focused on newer metrics like the body roundness index. The body roundness index relies on a mathematical model that visualizes the human shape as an oval.
By combining a person’s height and waist circumference, the body roundness index estimates central fat accumulation more accurately than standard weight-to-height ratios. The researchers wanted to know if this specific index could predict mood disturbances in people experiencing cognitive decline.
The researchers designed an observational study involving 601 individuals aged 60 to 91. These participants were evaluated at a specialized memory clinic in Brazil between 2015 and 2024.
Medical professionals conducted standardized clinical interviews and physical examinations for every participant. They measured height, weight, and waist circumference to calculate the various body indices.
Trained neuropsychologists administered a battery of cognitive tests to assess memory, language, and executive function. Based on these standardized evaluations, 239 participants were formally diagnosed with dementia.
To measure mood, the participants completed a widely used 15-item questionnaire designed specifically to detect geriatric depression. The researchers also collected data on lifestyle habits, such as physical activity levels and alcohol consumption, alongside the participants’ medical histories.
The research team calculated several different body measurements for each person. They then ran statistical models to see if higher body fat measurements corresponded to higher rates of clinical depression.
In the total group of 601 older adults, none of the body measurements were associated with depression. The results across the general clinic population were not statistically significant.
When the researchers restricted their analysis to the 239 individuals diagnosed with dementia, they observed a distinct pattern. In this specific subgroup, the body roundness index was strongly linked to depression.
Individuals with dementia who scored in the highest quarter of the body roundness index had more than three times the odds of experiencing depression compared to those in the lowest quarter. This association remained mathematically robust even after adjusting for age, sex, education level, and general anxiety.
The models also accounted for medical conditions like hypertension, diabetes, and abnormal cholesterol levels. The body roundness index maintained its predictive power independent of these other health issues.
The traditional measurements did not perform as well in the analysis. Body mass index and waist circumference showed a non-linear relationship with depression in the dementia group.
Specifically, these traditional metrics displayed a U-shaped curve when plotted on a graph. Both the lowest and the highest measurements were associated with elevated odds of depression, which makes them less reliable as simple screening tools for mood disorders.
The researchers suspect the body roundness index performs better because it captures abdominal fat more precisely. Central adiposity is known to influence brain networks involved in attention and processing speed, which are often impaired in late-life depression.
Emerging evidence suggests that abdominal fat might alter specific genetic and molecular pathways in the brain. Obesity-related mechanisms can impair the brain’s ability to form new synaptic connections, potentially increasing a person’s vulnerability to mood disorders.
The study has a few limitations that readers should keep in mind. Because the research relied on a cross-sectional design, it represents a single snapshot in time.
This observational design cannot prove that abdominal fat causes depression in older adults with dementia. It can only demonstrate that the two conditions are present at the same time in this specific population.
The study took place at a specialized tertiary memory clinic, and the participants were all highly educated compared to the regional average. As a result, the findings might not fully represent the general population of older adults living in the wider community.
The doctors diagnosed dementia using clinical criteria and cognitive tests rather than biological markers. The study did not use brain imaging or spinal fluid analysis to confirm the specific underlying diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease or vascular dementia.
The body measurements are indirect estimates of fat tissue. They do not offer the precision of advanced imaging techniques, such as dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry or magnetic resonance imaging, which directly measure the volume of internal fat.
Future investigations should track patients over multiple years to see if changes in body shape precede the onset of mood disorders. Longitudinal tracking would help scientists map the exact biological pathways linking fat tissue to brain health.
Identifying depression risk is a high priority in geriatric care because mood disorders can accelerate cognitive decline in dementia patients. Simple, inexpensive screening tools like the body roundness index could eventually help doctors provide targeted preventative treatments.
The study, “Body roundness index as a predictor of depression in dementia: A cross-sectional study,” was authored by Clarissa Pacheco da Rocha Fernandes, Natalia Oliveira, Rejane Soares, Fernanda Rodrigues, Gabriel Bernardes, Raquel Quimas Molina da Costa, Naima Assuncao, Alina Teldeschi, Felippe Mendonca, Victor Calil, Andrea Silveira de Souza, Claudia Drummond, Fernanda Tovar-Moll, Paulo Mattos, and Felipe Kenji Sudo.
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DATE: September 14, 2026 at 10:23AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY PSYCHIATIRY FEEDTITLE: Hidden brain wiring may help keep the mind sharp as gray matter shrinks
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260913081921.htm
Scientists have discovered that the brain’s short-range wiring may help protect cognition even as gray matter shrinks with age. Healthier connections just beneath the brain’s surface were linked to better language skills and appeared to weaken the impact of gray matter loss.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260913081921.htm
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