#psychiatry — Public Fediverse posts

DATE: September 25, 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: Why sex differences in throwing cannot be explained by socialization alone

URL: https://www.psypost.org/why-sex-differences-in-throwing-cannot-be-explained-by-socialization-alone/

Sex differences in overhand throwing cannot be explained by socialization alone, according to a commentary published in Evolutionary Psychological Science that argues biological predispositions and experience work together across development.

Scientists generally reject a simple choice between nature and nurture. Research in evolutionary biology, behavioral genetics, and psychology instead treats behavior as the product of ongoing interactions among genes, hormones, development, learning, and the social environment. Nevertheless, explanations attributing differences between women and men entirely to socialization remain influential in some areas of sex and gender research.

Robert O. Deaner and Michael P. Lombardo examine this tension through a debate about the pronounced sex difference in overhand throwing. This difference is exceptionally large—reaching roughly two standard deviations or more by adulthood, a gap comparable in magnitude to the adult sex difference in height. Their commentary responds to developmental biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling’s critique of their earlier proposal that throwing ability partly reflects adaptations shaped by stronger ancestral selection on males.

Fausto-Sterling argues that differences in children’s early social experiences and opportunities for ball play can account for the development of the throwing gap. Deaner and Lombardo contend that this explanation overlooks relevant evolutionary, anatomical, hormonal, cross-cultural, and performance evidence.

The authors adopt an interactionist framework in which evolved predispositions and environmental influences are complementary rather than competing explanations. Their central hypothesis is that ancestral males experienced stronger selection for forceful and accurate overhand throwing, particularly because males were more frequently involved in violent conflict and warfare.

Hunting and confrontational scavenging (stealing kills from other predators) may have provided additional selection pressures. Over many generations, these recurring demands could have favored anatomical, physiological, and behavioral traits that support throwing performance.

These evolved differences would not need to be fully formed at birth. Like walking or language, throwing develops through the interaction of biological capacities with experience, practice, and social input. Children may receive different levels of encouragement to play with balls, while preexisting differences in interests or physical capacities may also influence the activities they seek out and the responses they receive from caregivers. Socialization can therefore cultivate or amplify an evolved predisposition without having created it entirely.

The authors first dispute the claim that their evolutionary account depends principally on the traditional image of “Man the Hunter.” They say their primary proposed selection pressure is conflict between ancestral groups, especially warfare, with hunting serving as a complementary influence. They also argue that the anthropological evidence continues to show a substantial sexual division of hunting labor. Although women hunt in some societies, quantitative data indicate that men generally hunt more often, pursue larger animals, and obtain considerably more meat. In the authors’ view, such patterns make it plausible that males faced stronger selection for throwing-related abilities.

The authors next argue that the evidence extends well beyond childhood throwing studies. They point to an unusually large performance difference between male and female javelin throwers; differences in throwing accuracy and targeting; research connecting prenatal androgen exposure (levels of male sex hormones experienced in the womb) with male-typical propulsive behavior; and anatomical differences in the shoulder and arm that generally favor male throwing performance.

Large differences have also been observed among children in societies where both sexes receive substantial throwing opportunities or where neither receives much practice, while training improves girls’ performance without consistently eliminating the gap.

Finally, Deaner and Lombardo maintain that Fausto-Sterling’s observations of ten infants (five boys and five girls) cannot establish that maternal interaction caused the children’s differing engagement with balls, particularly because the study did not examine the mature, forceful overhand throw addressed by their hypothesis. More broadly, they argue that presenting developmental experience as an alternative to evolution misunderstand evolutionary theory: adaptations must emerge through developmental processes, and evidence that social experience contributes to a trait does not demonstrate that experience fully accounts for it.

The authors acknowledge that some lines of evidence supporting their account, including evidence concerning targeting, come from only one or a few studies. They also note that available quantitative hunting data may not represent all foraging societies.

By applying an interactionist framework to overhand throwing, the commentary argues that a complete explanation of behavioral sex differences must examine how biological predispositions and social experience jointly shape development.

The paper, “Sex Differences in Overhand Throwing are Completely Due to Socialization: A Blank Slate ‘Hypothesis’ Unconstrained by Evidence,” was authored by Robert O. Deaner and Michael P. Lombardo.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/why-sex-differences-in-throwing-cannot-be-explained-by-socialization-alone/

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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #SexDifferences #OverhandThrowing #EvolutionaryPsychology #BiologyMeetsEnvironment #NatureNurtureInteraction #EvolutionaryBiology #AnatomicalDifferences #PrenatalAndrogens #ThrowingPerformance #GenderDifferences

DATE: September 25, 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: Why sex differences in throwing cannot be explained by socialization alone

URL: https://www.psypost.org/why-sex-differences-in-throwing-cannot-be-explained-by-socialization-alone/

Sex differences in overhand throwing cannot be explained by socialization alone, according to a commentary published in Evolutionary Psychological Science that argues biological predispositions and experience work together across development.

Scientists generally reject a simple choice between nature and nurture. Research in evolutionary biology, behavioral genetics, and psychology instead treats behavior as the product of ongoing interactions among genes, hormones, development, learning, and the social environment. Nevertheless, explanations attributing differences between women and men entirely to socialization remain influential in some areas of sex and gender research.

Robert O. Deaner and Michael P. Lombardo examine this tension through a debate about the pronounced sex difference in overhand throwing. This difference is exceptionally large—reaching roughly two standard deviations or more by adulthood, a gap comparable in magnitude to the adult sex difference in height. Their commentary responds to developmental biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling’s critique of their earlier proposal that throwing ability partly reflects adaptations shaped by stronger ancestral selection on males.

Fausto-Sterling argues that differences in children’s early social experiences and opportunities for ball play can account for the development of the throwing gap. Deaner and Lombardo contend that this explanation overlooks relevant evolutionary, anatomical, hormonal, cross-cultural, and performance evidence.

The authors adopt an interactionist framework in which evolved predispositions and environmental influences are complementary rather than competing explanations. Their central hypothesis is that ancestral males experienced stronger selection for forceful and accurate overhand throwing, particularly because males were more frequently involved in violent conflict and warfare.

Hunting and confrontational scavenging (stealing kills from other predators) may have provided additional selection pressures. Over many generations, these recurring demands could have favored anatomical, physiological, and behavioral traits that support throwing performance.

These evolved differences would not need to be fully formed at birth. Like walking or language, throwing develops through the interaction of biological capacities with experience, practice, and social input. Children may receive different levels of encouragement to play with balls, while preexisting differences in interests or physical capacities may also influence the activities they seek out and the responses they receive from caregivers. Socialization can therefore cultivate or amplify an evolved predisposition without having created it entirely.

The authors first dispute the claim that their evolutionary account depends principally on the traditional image of “Man the Hunter.” They say their primary proposed selection pressure is conflict between ancestral groups, especially warfare, with hunting serving as a complementary influence. They also argue that the anthropological evidence continues to show a substantial sexual division of hunting labor. Although women hunt in some societies, quantitative data indicate that men generally hunt more often, pursue larger animals, and obtain considerably more meat. In the authors’ view, such patterns make it plausible that males faced stronger selection for throwing-related abilities.

The authors next argue that the evidence extends well beyond childhood throwing studies. They point to an unusually large performance difference between male and female javelin throwers; differences in throwing accuracy and targeting; research connecting prenatal androgen exposure (levels of male sex hormones experienced in the womb) with male-typical propulsive behavior; and anatomical differences in the shoulder and arm that generally favor male throwing performance.

Large differences have also been observed among children in societies where both sexes receive substantial throwing opportunities or where neither receives much practice, while training improves girls’ performance without consistently eliminating the gap.

Finally, Deaner and Lombardo maintain that Fausto-Sterling’s observations of ten infants (five boys and five girls) cannot establish that maternal interaction caused the children’s differing engagement with balls, particularly because the study did not examine the mature, forceful overhand throw addressed by their hypothesis. More broadly, they argue that presenting developmental experience as an alternative to evolution misunderstand evolutionary theory: adaptations must emerge through developmental processes, and evidence that social experience contributes to a trait does not demonstrate that experience fully accounts for it.

The authors acknowledge that some lines of evidence supporting their account, including evidence concerning targeting, come from only one or a few studies. They also note that available quantitative hunting data may not represent all foraging societies.

By applying an interactionist framework to overhand throwing, the commentary argues that a complete explanation of behavioral sex differences must examine how biological predispositions and social experience jointly shape development.

The paper, “Sex Differences in Overhand Throwing are Completely Due to Socialization: A Blank Slate ‘Hypothesis’ Unconstrained by Evidence,” was authored by Robert O. Deaner and Michael P. Lombardo.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/why-sex-differences-in-throwing-cannot-be-explained-by-socialization-alone/

-------------------------------------------------

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-------------------------------------------------

#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #SexDifferences #OverhandThrowing #EvolutionaryPsychology #BiologyMeetsEnvironment #NatureNurtureInteraction #EvolutionaryBiology #AnatomicalDifferences #PrenatalAndrogens #ThrowingPerformance #GenderDifferences

DATE: September 25, 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: Why sex differences in throwing cannot be explained by socialization alone

URL: https://www.psypost.org/why-sex-differences-in-throwing-cannot-be-explained-by-socialization-alone/

Sex differences in overhand throwing cannot be explained by socialization alone, according to a commentary published in Evolutionary Psychological Science that argues biological predispositions and experience work together across development.

Scientists generally reject a simple choice between nature and nurture. Research in evolutionary biology, behavioral genetics, and psychology instead treats behavior as the product of ongoing interactions among genes, hormones, development, learning, and the social environment. Nevertheless, explanations attributing differences between women and men entirely to socialization remain influential in some areas of sex and gender research.

Robert O. Deaner and Michael P. Lombardo examine this tension through a debate about the pronounced sex difference in overhand throwing. This difference is exceptionally large—reaching roughly two standard deviations or more by adulthood, a gap comparable in magnitude to the adult sex difference in height. Their commentary responds to developmental biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling’s critique of their earlier proposal that throwing ability partly reflects adaptations shaped by stronger ancestral selection on males.

Fausto-Sterling argues that differences in children’s early social experiences and opportunities for ball play can account for the development of the throwing gap. Deaner and Lombardo contend that this explanation overlooks relevant evolutionary, anatomical, hormonal, cross-cultural, and performance evidence.

The authors adopt an interactionist framework in which evolved predispositions and environmental influences are complementary rather than competing explanations. Their central hypothesis is that ancestral males experienced stronger selection for forceful and accurate overhand throwing, particularly because males were more frequently involved in violent conflict and warfare.

Hunting and confrontational scavenging (stealing kills from other predators) may have provided additional selection pressures. Over many generations, these recurring demands could have favored anatomical, physiological, and behavioral traits that support throwing performance.

These evolved differences would not need to be fully formed at birth. Like walking or language, throwing develops through the interaction of biological capacities with experience, practice, and social input. Children may receive different levels of encouragement to play with balls, while preexisting differences in interests or physical capacities may also influence the activities they seek out and the responses they receive from caregivers. Socialization can therefore cultivate or amplify an evolved predisposition without having created it entirely.

The authors first dispute the claim that their evolutionary account depends principally on the traditional image of “Man the Hunter.” They say their primary proposed selection pressure is conflict between ancestral groups, especially warfare, with hunting serving as a complementary influence. They also argue that the anthropological evidence continues to show a substantial sexual division of hunting labor. Although women hunt in some societies, quantitative data indicate that men generally hunt more often, pursue larger animals, and obtain considerably more meat. In the authors’ view, such patterns make it plausible that males faced stronger selection for throwing-related abilities.

The authors next argue that the evidence extends well beyond childhood throwing studies. They point to an unusually large performance difference between male and female javelin throwers; differences in throwing accuracy and targeting; research connecting prenatal androgen exposure (levels of male sex hormones experienced in the womb) with male-typical propulsive behavior; and anatomical differences in the shoulder and arm that generally favor male throwing performance.

Large differences have also been observed among children in societies where both sexes receive substantial throwing opportunities or where neither receives much practice, while training improves girls’ performance without consistently eliminating the gap.

Finally, Deaner and Lombardo maintain that Fausto-Sterling’s observations of ten infants (five boys and five girls) cannot establish that maternal interaction caused the children’s differing engagement with balls, particularly because the study did not examine the mature, forceful overhand throw addressed by their hypothesis. More broadly, they argue that presenting developmental experience as an alternative to evolution misunderstand evolutionary theory: adaptations must emerge through developmental processes, and evidence that social experience contributes to a trait does not demonstrate that experience fully accounts for it.

The authors acknowledge that some lines of evidence supporting their account, including evidence concerning targeting, come from only one or a few studies. They also note that available quantitative hunting data may not represent all foraging societies.

By applying an interactionist framework to overhand throwing, the commentary argues that a complete explanation of behavioral sex differences must examine how biological predispositions and social experience jointly shape development.

The paper, “Sex Differences in Overhand Throwing are Completely Due to Socialization: A Blank Slate ‘Hypothesis’ Unconstrained by Evidence,” was authored by Robert O. Deaner and Michael P. Lombardo.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/why-sex-differences-in-throwing-cannot-be-explained-by-socialization-alone/

-------------------------------------------------

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-------------------------------------------------

#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #SexDifferences #OverhandThrowing #EvolutionaryPsychology #BiologyMeetsEnvironment #NatureNurtureInteraction #EvolutionaryBiology #AnatomicalDifferences #PrenatalAndrogens #ThrowingPerformance #GenderDifferences

DATE: September 25, 2026 at 04:42PM
SOURCE: HEALTHCARE INFO SECURITY

Direct article link at end of text block below.

Stop Waiting for Someone Else to Make AI Safe: Forget #AI Doomsday. Defend Against the Agent Already Jimmying the Locks https://t.co/3QmBf3IfLm

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DATE: September 25, 2026 at 04:42PM
SOURCE: HEALTHCARE INFO SECURITY

Direct article link at end of text block below.

Stop Waiting for Someone Else to Make AI Safe: Forget #AI Doomsday. Defend Against the Agent Already Jimmying the Locks https://t.co/3QmBf3IfLm

Here are any URLs found in the article text:

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DATE: September 25, 2026 at 04:42PM
SOURCE: HEALTHCARE INFO SECURITY

Direct article link at end of text block below.

Stop Waiting for Someone Else to Make AI Safe: Forget #AI Doomsday. Defend Against the Agent Already Jimmying the Locks https://t.co/3QmBf3IfLm

Here are any URLs found in the article text:

https://t.co/3QmBf3IfLm

Articles can be found by scrolling down the page at https://www.healthcareinfosecurity.com/ under the title "Latest"

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Healthcare security & privacy posts not related to IT or infosec are at @HIPAABot . Even so, they mix in some infosec with the legal & regulatory information.

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DATE: September 25, 2026 at 04:42PM
SOURCE: HEALTHCARE INFO SECURITY

Direct article link at end of text block below.

Stop Waiting for Someone Else to Make AI Safe: Forget #AI Doomsday. Defend Against the Agent Already Jimmying the Locks https://t.co/3QmBf3IfLm

Here are any URLs found in the article text:

https://t.co/3QmBf3IfLm

Articles can be found by scrolling down the page at https://www.healthcareinfosecurity.com/ under the title "Latest"

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DATE: September 25, 2026 at 09:32AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY PSYCHIATIRY FEED

TITLE: This “rare” autism-linked genetic disorder may be far more common than scientists thought

URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260924020405.htm

A major analysis suggests Phelan-McDermid syndrome, a genetic disorder closely linked to autism, may affect about 1 in 7,300 people and more than 45,000 Americans. Researchers warn that thousands of cases may remain hidden because genetic testing is often not performed, even as targeted treatments move into clinical trials.

URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260924020405.htm

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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PhelanMcDermidSyndrome #AutismGenetics #RareDisease #GeneticTesting #AutismAwareness #ClinicalTrials #DisorderAwareness #HealthStatistics #Genomics #NeurodevelopmentalDisorders

DATE: September 25, 2026 at 09:32AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY PSYCHIATIRY FEED

TITLE: This “rare” autism-linked genetic disorder may be far more common than scientists thought

URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260924020405.htm

A major analysis suggests Phelan-McDermid syndrome, a genetic disorder closely linked to autism, may affect about 1 in 7,300 people and more than 45,000 Americans. Researchers warn that thousands of cases may remain hidden because genetic testing is often not performed, even as targeted treatments move into clinical trials.

URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260924020405.htm

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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PhelanMcDermidSyndrome #AutismGenetics #RareDisease #GeneticTesting #AutismAwareness #ClinicalTrials #DisorderAwareness #HealthStatistics #Genomics #NeurodevelopmentalDisorders

DATE: September 25, 2026 at 09:32AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY PSYCHIATIRY FEED

TITLE: This “rare” autism-linked genetic disorder may be far more common than scientists thought

URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260924020405.htm

A major analysis suggests Phelan-McDermid syndrome, a genetic disorder closely linked to autism, may affect about 1 in 7,300 people and more than 45,000 Americans. Researchers warn that thousands of cases may remain hidden because genetic testing is often not performed, even as targeted treatments move into clinical trials.

URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260924020405.htm

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🧠 🌊 Your #Consciousness surfs on #Reality

Is consciousness an isolated, “special” #function of individual #brain regions? Or is there a deeper, fundamental #principle behind it?

🎧 Listen now & learn more!

https://open.spotify.com/episode/09V2KVFLqdjg5PAlygemfS?si=4LQlgSGrQym26zhyXaR4gw

#GeorgNorthoff #ConsciousnessResearch #Neurophilosophy #TTC #CommonCurrency #BrainAndMind #Neuroscience #Zoomposium #BrainResearch #PhilosophyOfMind #Subjectivity #SpaceTimeDynamics #Psychiatry #Science #PodcastTip

🧠 🌊 Your #Consciousness surfs on #Reality

Is consciousness an isolated, “special” #function of individual #brain regions? Or is there a deeper, fundamental #principle behind it?

🎧 Listen now & learn more!

https://open.spotify.com/episode/09V2KVFLqdjg5PAlygemfS?si=4LQlgSGrQym26zhyXaR4gw

#GeorgNorthoff #ConsciousnessResearch #Neurophilosophy #TTC #CommonCurrency #BrainAndMind #Neuroscience #Zoomposium #BrainResearch #PhilosophyOfMind #Subjectivity #SpaceTimeDynamics #Psychiatry #Science #PodcastTip

🧠 🌊 Your #Consciousness surfs on #Reality

Is consciousness an isolated, “special” #function of individual #brain regions? Or is there a deeper, fundamental #principle behind it?

🎧 Listen now & learn more!

https://open.spotify.com/episode/09V2KVFLqdjg5PAlygemfS?si=4LQlgSGrQym26zhyXaR4gw

#GeorgNorthoff #ConsciousnessResearch #Neurophilosophy #TTC #CommonCurrency #BrainAndMind #Neuroscience #Zoomposium #BrainResearch #PhilosophyOfMind #Subjectivity #SpaceTimeDynamics #Psychiatry #Science #PodcastTip

🧠 🌊 Your #Consciousness surfs on #Reality

Is consciousness an isolated, “special” #function of individual #brain regions? Or is there a deeper, fundamental #principle behind it?

🎧 Listen now & learn more!

https://open.spotify.com/episode/09V2KVFLqdjg5PAlygemfS?si=4LQlgSGrQym26zhyXaR4gw

#GeorgNorthoff #ConsciousnessResearch #Neurophilosophy #TTC #CommonCurrency #BrainAndMind #Neuroscience #Zoomposium #BrainResearch #PhilosophyOfMind #Subjectivity #SpaceTimeDynamics #Psychiatry #Science #PodcastTip

🧠 🌊 Your #Consciousness surfs on #Reality

Is consciousness an isolated, “special” #function of individual #brain regions? Or is there a deeper, fundamental #principle behind it?

🎧 Listen now & learn more!

https://open.spotify.com/episode/09V2KVFLqdjg5PAlygemfS?si=4LQlgSGrQym26zhyXaR4gw

#GeorgNorthoff #ConsciousnessResearch #Neurophilosophy #TTC #CommonCurrency #BrainAndMind #Neuroscience #Zoomposium #BrainResearch #PhilosophyOfMind #Subjectivity #SpaceTimeDynamics #Psychiatry #Science #PodcastTip

DATE: September 25, 2026 at 05:02AM
SOURCE:
NEW YORK TIMES PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGISTS FEED

TITLE: Brain Science Shows Why 18 Is Too Young for the Death Penalty

URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/opinion/death-penalty-young-brain-development.html

Our brains don’t finish developing until we’re well into our 20s. That matters when deciding who gets the death penalty.

URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/opinion/death-penalty-young-brain-development.html

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DATE: September 25, 2026 at 05:02AM
SOURCE:
NEW YORK TIMES PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGISTS FEED

TITLE: Brain Science Shows Why 18 Is Too Young for the Death Penalty

URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/opinion/death-penalty-young-brain-development.html

Our brains don’t finish developing until we’re well into our 20s. That matters when deciding who gets the death penalty.

URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/opinion/death-penalty-young-brain-development.html

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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #DeathPenalty #JuvenileJustice #BrainDevelopment #CriminalJustice #RuleOfLaw #YouthInjustice #Neuroscience #MentalMaturity #PolicyReform #PublicSafety

DATE: September 25, 2026 at 05:02AM
SOURCE:
NEW YORK TIMES PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGISTS FEED

TITLE: Brain Science Shows Why 18 Is Too Young for the Death Penalty

URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/opinion/death-penalty-young-brain-development.html

Our brains don’t finish developing until we’re well into our 20s. That matters when deciding who gets the death penalty.

URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/opinion/death-penalty-young-brain-development.html

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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #DeathPenalty #JuvenileJustice #BrainDevelopment #CriminalJustice #RuleOfLaw #YouthInjustice #Neuroscience #MentalMaturity #PolicyReform #PublicSafety

DATE: September 25, 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: Disgust predicts conservative views most strongly in people with low bodily awareness

URL: https://www.psypost.org/disgust-predicts-conservative-views-most-strongly-in-people-with-low-bodily-awareness/

People who are easily disgusted tend to hold more conservative political views, but a new study indicates that this connection depends heavily on how well individuals tune into their own bodily sensations. The research suggests that the link between feeling disgust and identifying as a conservative is strongest in those who are less aware of their internal physical states. The findings were published in Politics and the Life Sciences.

To understand these findings, it helps to look at two psychological concepts: disgust sensitivity and interoceptive sensibility. Disgust sensitivity refers to how intensely and easily a person experiences disgust in response to things like germs, taboo sexual acts, or moral violations like lying. Interoceptive sensibility is a person’s conscious awareness of their internal bodily signals. For instance, it involves noticing a racing heartbeat, a tense stomach, or shallow breathing during an emotional moment.

Early studies in political psychology suggested that visceral reactions to threat and disgust drive conservative political beliefs. A 2008 study reported that people with stronger involuntary physical reactions to startling or disturbing images leaned more politically conservative. Following this line of thought, research covered by PsyPost in 2019 found a psychological association in which higher self-reported disgust sensitivity predicted higher endorsement of conservative political beliefs.

Later large-scale replications challenged the biological aspect of this narrative, failing to find a dependable link between physical reactions and political ideology. A 2019 replication study found no evidence that conservatives and liberals actually differ in their automatic physiological responses to threats. Three studies covered by PsyPost in 2020 also failed to reproduce the idea that conservatives exhibit stronger physical threat responses.

This created a puzzle in the field of political psychology. Why do self-reported feelings of disgust consistently predict political ideology, even when automatic bodily reactions do not? The study was conducted by Mariana von Mohr, now a lecturer in social and affective neuroscience at the University of Kent, and Manos Tsakiris at the Centre for the Politics of Feelings. The researchers sought to address this stalemate by testing whether a person’s conscious awareness of their internal bodily signals explains why the connection appears in some people but not others.

“There is a long-standing idea that political attitudes are linked to emotional responses such as disgust, but this relationship has been surprisingly inconsistent across studies,” von Mohr told PsyPost. “We wondered whether interoception might help explain why.”

To explore this, the researchers recruited 632 adults from the United States through an online survey platform. The sample was evenly split by design, featuring 321 participants who identified as Democrats and 311 who identified as Republicans. The participants completed a series of questionnaires designed to measure their bodily awareness, their disgust triggers, and their political leanings.

To measure interoceptive sensibility, participants answered questions about how often they notice changes in their body, whether they trust their physical sensations, and how they use bodily cues to regulate their emotions. To measure disgust sensitivity, the researchers used a scale that divides disgust into three domains. These domains included pathogen disgust (like stepping on dog waste), sexual disgust (like hearing strangers engage in sexual acts), and moral disgust (like deceiving a friend).

Finally, the participants reported their political ideology on a seven-point scale ranging from very liberal to very conservative. They also confirmed their political party affiliation. The researchers then used statistical models to see how disgust sensitivity, bodily awareness, and political ideology interacted with one another.

Overall, the results confirmed past findings: higher overall disgust sensitivity was associated with a greater likelihood of identifying as a Republican and holding a conservative ideology. However, the researchers found that interoceptive sensibility changed the strength of this relationship. The connection between disgust and conservatism was most prominent among individuals who reported low awareness of their bodily sensations.

Among people with low interoceptive sensibility, those who were highly sensitive to disgust were highly likely to identify as Republicans. Statistical estimates showed that a person with high disgust sensitivity and low bodily awareness had a 64.1% probability of identifying as a Republican. They also scored on the more conservative end of the ideology scale.

In contrast, this relationship weakened among people who were highly attuned to their bodily signals. For individuals with high interoceptive sensibility, having high disgust sensitivity resulted in only a 55.4% probability of identifying as a Republican. For this group, the link between feeling easily disgusted and holding conservative views was not statistically significant after certain data corrections were applied.

When the researchers looked at the three specific domains of disgust, they found that moral disgust was the primary driver of these results. Pathogen disgust and sexual disgust did not show the same interaction with bodily awareness. The tendency for low bodily awareness to strengthen the link between disgust and conservatism was specific to situations involving moral violations and broken social norms.

“The main takeaway is that the relationship between disgust and political orientation may be more conditional than is often assumed,” von Mohr noted. “More broadly, our findings suggest that understanding the link between emotions and political attitudes may require looking not only at what people feel, but also at how much they attend to the bodily signals accompanying those feelings.”

The authors suggest that when people are less tuned into their actual physical sensations, they might rely more on socially acquired meanings to interpret their feelings. Disgust is a complex emotion shaped by culture, and conservative political frameworks often place a heavy emphasis on moral purity.

“One possibility is that people who pay less attention to their internal bodily signals may rely more on socially learned expectations to interpret what they are feeling, including ideas about what is disgusting, inappropriate, or morally wrong,” von Mohr explained. “In other words, when bodily cues are less salient, contextual and socially learned information may play a greater role in shaping how an emotion is interpreted.”

If a person is not closely monitoring their internal physical state, they might lean on these cultural scripts to make sense of what they are feeling. On the other hand, individuals who are highly attuned to their internal signals might ground their emotional experiences more in their actual biology. Because they rely more on their direct physical sensations to figure out how they feel, social and political framing might play a smaller role in their emotional interpretations. This could explain why their feelings of disgust do not map as strongly onto their political party or ideology.

There are a few things to keep in mind about this research. The data is based entirely on self-reported surveys at a single point in time, which means the study cannot determine whether feeling disgusted causes someone to become conservative, or vice versa.

“It is important not to interpret these findings as showing that bodily processes determine someone’s political beliefs, or that people with one political orientation are simply more or less ‘in touch’ with their bodies,” von Mohr clarified. She emphasized that the idea that people with lower interoceptive sensibility may rely more on socially learned interpretations is just one possible explanation for the pattern they observed, rather than something they directly tested.

The researchers also note that the direction of this relationship might depend heavily on the specific culture being studied. In a different society where liberals moralize a different set of disgust triggers, the ideological pattern might look different. Additionally, the study did not measure actual physiological responses, such as heart rate or skin conductance. The researchers measured how aware people thought they were of their bodies, rather than their objective ability to detect physical changes.

“The next step is to test the mechanism more directly,” von Mohr said. “A particularly important direction is to incorporate physiological measures, for example by examining autonomic responses such as heart rate or skin conductance while people are exposed to disgust-evoking stimuli.”

“This would allow us to distinguish more clearly between the bodily response itself, how accurately or strongly people perceive that response, and how they subsequently interpret it,” she added. “Ultimately, the broader goal is to understand how physiological responses, awareness of those responses, and socially learned meanings interact in shaping political attitudes, rather than treating emotion, physiology, and ideology as separate influences.”

The study, “The embodied roots of ideology: Interoceptive sensibility moderates the link between disgust sensitivity and political orientation,” was authored by Mariana Von Mohr and Manos Tsakiris.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/disgust-predicts-conservative-views-most-strongly-in-people-with-low-bodily-awareness/

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DATE: September 25, 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: Disgust predicts conservative views most strongly in people with low bodily awareness

URL: https://www.psypost.org/disgust-predicts-conservative-views-most-strongly-in-people-with-low-bodily-awareness/

People who are easily disgusted tend to hold more conservative political views, but a new study indicates that this connection depends heavily on how well individuals tune into their own bodily sensations. The research suggests that the link between feeling disgust and identifying as a conservative is strongest in those who are less aware of their internal physical states. The findings were published in Politics and the Life Sciences.

To understand these findings, it helps to look at two psychological concepts: disgust sensitivity and interoceptive sensibility. Disgust sensitivity refers to how intensely and easily a person experiences disgust in response to things like germs, taboo sexual acts, or moral violations like lying. Interoceptive sensibility is a person’s conscious awareness of their internal bodily signals. For instance, it involves noticing a racing heartbeat, a tense stomach, or shallow breathing during an emotional moment.

Early studies in political psychology suggested that visceral reactions to threat and disgust drive conservative political beliefs. A 2008 study reported that people with stronger involuntary physical reactions to startling or disturbing images leaned more politically conservative. Following this line of thought, research covered by PsyPost in 2019 found a psychological association in which higher self-reported disgust sensitivity predicted higher endorsement of conservative political beliefs.

Later large-scale replications challenged the biological aspect of this narrative, failing to find a dependable link between physical reactions and political ideology. A 2019 replication study found no evidence that conservatives and liberals actually differ in their automatic physiological responses to threats. Three studies covered by PsyPost in 2020 also failed to reproduce the idea that conservatives exhibit stronger physical threat responses.

This created a puzzle in the field of political psychology. Why do self-reported feelings of disgust consistently predict political ideology, even when automatic bodily reactions do not? The study was conducted by Mariana von Mohr, now a lecturer in social and affective neuroscience at the University of Kent, and Manos Tsakiris at the Centre for the Politics of Feelings. The researchers sought to address this stalemate by testing whether a person’s conscious awareness of their internal bodily signals explains why the connection appears in some people but not others.

“There is a long-standing idea that political attitudes are linked to emotional responses such as disgust, but this relationship has been surprisingly inconsistent across studies,” von Mohr told PsyPost. “We wondered whether interoception might help explain why.”

To explore this, the researchers recruited 632 adults from the United States through an online survey platform. The sample was evenly split by design, featuring 321 participants who identified as Democrats and 311 who identified as Republicans. The participants completed a series of questionnaires designed to measure their bodily awareness, their disgust triggers, and their political leanings.

To measure interoceptive sensibility, participants answered questions about how often they notice changes in their body, whether they trust their physical sensations, and how they use bodily cues to regulate their emotions. To measure disgust sensitivity, the researchers used a scale that divides disgust into three domains. These domains included pathogen disgust (like stepping on dog waste), sexual disgust (like hearing strangers engage in sexual acts), and moral disgust (like deceiving a friend).

Finally, the participants reported their political ideology on a seven-point scale ranging from very liberal to very conservative. They also confirmed their political party affiliation. The researchers then used statistical models to see how disgust sensitivity, bodily awareness, and political ideology interacted with one another.

Overall, the results confirmed past findings: higher overall disgust sensitivity was associated with a greater likelihood of identifying as a Republican and holding a conservative ideology. However, the researchers found that interoceptive sensibility changed the strength of this relationship. The connection between disgust and conservatism was most prominent among individuals who reported low awareness of their bodily sensations.

Among people with low interoceptive sensibility, those who were highly sensitive to disgust were highly likely to identify as Republicans. Statistical estimates showed that a person with high disgust sensitivity and low bodily awareness had a 64.1% probability of identifying as a Republican. They also scored on the more conservative end of the ideology scale.

In contrast, this relationship weakened among people who were highly attuned to their bodily signals. For individuals with high interoceptive sensibility, having high disgust sensitivity resulted in only a 55.4% probability of identifying as a Republican. For this group, the link between feeling easily disgusted and holding conservative views was not statistically significant after certain data corrections were applied.

When the researchers looked at the three specific domains of disgust, they found that moral disgust was the primary driver of these results. Pathogen disgust and sexual disgust did not show the same interaction with bodily awareness. The tendency for low bodily awareness to strengthen the link between disgust and conservatism was specific to situations involving moral violations and broken social norms.

“The main takeaway is that the relationship between disgust and political orientation may be more conditional than is often assumed,” von Mohr noted. “More broadly, our findings suggest that understanding the link between emotions and political attitudes may require looking not only at what people feel, but also at how much they attend to the bodily signals accompanying those feelings.”

The authors suggest that when people are less tuned into their actual physical sensations, they might rely more on socially acquired meanings to interpret their feelings. Disgust is a complex emotion shaped by culture, and conservative political frameworks often place a heavy emphasis on moral purity.

“One possibility is that people who pay less attention to their internal bodily signals may rely more on socially learned expectations to interpret what they are feeling, including ideas about what is disgusting, inappropriate, or morally wrong,” von Mohr explained. “In other words, when bodily cues are less salient, contextual and socially learned information may play a greater role in shaping how an emotion is interpreted.”

If a person is not closely monitoring their internal physical state, they might lean on these cultural scripts to make sense of what they are feeling. On the other hand, individuals who are highly attuned to their internal signals might ground their emotional experiences more in their actual biology. Because they rely more on their direct physical sensations to figure out how they feel, social and political framing might play a smaller role in their emotional interpretations. This could explain why their feelings of disgust do not map as strongly onto their political party or ideology.

There are a few things to keep in mind about this research. The data is based entirely on self-reported surveys at a single point in time, which means the study cannot determine whether feeling disgusted causes someone to become conservative, or vice versa.

“It is important not to interpret these findings as showing that bodily processes determine someone’s political beliefs, or that people with one political orientation are simply more or less ‘in touch’ with their bodies,” von Mohr clarified. She emphasized that the idea that people with lower interoceptive sensibility may rely more on socially learned interpretations is just one possible explanation for the pattern they observed, rather than something they directly tested.

The researchers also note that the direction of this relationship might depend heavily on the specific culture being studied. In a different society where liberals moralize a different set of disgust triggers, the ideological pattern might look different. Additionally, the study did not measure actual physiological responses, such as heart rate or skin conductance. The researchers measured how aware people thought they were of their bodies, rather than their objective ability to detect physical changes.

“The next step is to test the mechanism more directly,” von Mohr said. “A particularly important direction is to incorporate physiological measures, for example by examining autonomic responses such as heart rate or skin conductance while people are exposed to disgust-evoking stimuli.”

“This would allow us to distinguish more clearly between the bodily response itself, how accurately or strongly people perceive that response, and how they subsequently interpret it,” she added. “Ultimately, the broader goal is to understand how physiological responses, awareness of those responses, and socially learned meanings interact in shaping political attitudes, rather than treating emotion, physiology, and ideology as separate influences.”

The study, “The embodied roots of ideology: Interoceptive sensibility moderates the link between disgust sensitivity and political orientation,” was authored by Mariana Von Mohr and Manos Tsakiris.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/disgust-predicts-conservative-views-most-strongly-in-people-with-low-bodily-awareness/

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DATE: September 25, 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: Disgust predicts conservative views most strongly in people with low bodily awareness

URL: https://www.psypost.org/disgust-predicts-conservative-views-most-strongly-in-people-with-low-bodily-awareness/

People who are easily disgusted tend to hold more conservative political views, but a new study indicates that this connection depends heavily on how well individuals tune into their own bodily sensations. The research suggests that the link between feeling disgust and identifying as a conservative is strongest in those who are less aware of their internal physical states. The findings were published in Politics and the Life Sciences.

To understand these findings, it helps to look at two psychological concepts: disgust sensitivity and interoceptive sensibility. Disgust sensitivity refers to how intensely and easily a person experiences disgust in response to things like germs, taboo sexual acts, or moral violations like lying. Interoceptive sensibility is a person’s conscious awareness of their internal bodily signals. For instance, it involves noticing a racing heartbeat, a tense stomach, or shallow breathing during an emotional moment.

Early studies in political psychology suggested that visceral reactions to threat and disgust drive conservative political beliefs. A 2008 study reported that people with stronger involuntary physical reactions to startling or disturbing images leaned more politically conservative. Following this line of thought, research covered by PsyPost in 2019 found a psychological association in which higher self-reported disgust sensitivity predicted higher endorsement of conservative political beliefs.

Later large-scale replications challenged the biological aspect of this narrative, failing to find a dependable link between physical reactions and political ideology. A 2019 replication study found no evidence that conservatives and liberals actually differ in their automatic physiological responses to threats. Three studies covered by PsyPost in 2020 also failed to reproduce the idea that conservatives exhibit stronger physical threat responses.

This created a puzzle in the field of political psychology. Why do self-reported feelings of disgust consistently predict political ideology, even when automatic bodily reactions do not? The study was conducted by Mariana von Mohr, now a lecturer in social and affective neuroscience at the University of Kent, and Manos Tsakiris at the Centre for the Politics of Feelings. The researchers sought to address this stalemate by testing whether a person’s conscious awareness of their internal bodily signals explains why the connection appears in some people but not others.

“There is a long-standing idea that political attitudes are linked to emotional responses such as disgust, but this relationship has been surprisingly inconsistent across studies,” von Mohr told PsyPost. “We wondered whether interoception might help explain why.”

To explore this, the researchers recruited 632 adults from the United States through an online survey platform. The sample was evenly split by design, featuring 321 participants who identified as Democrats and 311 who identified as Republicans. The participants completed a series of questionnaires designed to measure their bodily awareness, their disgust triggers, and their political leanings.

To measure interoceptive sensibility, participants answered questions about how often they notice changes in their body, whether they trust their physical sensations, and how they use bodily cues to regulate their emotions. To measure disgust sensitivity, the researchers used a scale that divides disgust into three domains. These domains included pathogen disgust (like stepping on dog waste), sexual disgust (like hearing strangers engage in sexual acts), and moral disgust (like deceiving a friend).

Finally, the participants reported their political ideology on a seven-point scale ranging from very liberal to very conservative. They also confirmed their political party affiliation. The researchers then used statistical models to see how disgust sensitivity, bodily awareness, and political ideology interacted with one another.

Overall, the results confirmed past findings: higher overall disgust sensitivity was associated with a greater likelihood of identifying as a Republican and holding a conservative ideology. However, the researchers found that interoceptive sensibility changed the strength of this relationship. The connection between disgust and conservatism was most prominent among individuals who reported low awareness of their bodily sensations.

Among people with low interoceptive sensibility, those who were highly sensitive to disgust were highly likely to identify as Republicans. Statistical estimates showed that a person with high disgust sensitivity and low bodily awareness had a 64.1% probability of identifying as a Republican. They also scored on the more conservative end of the ideology scale.

In contrast, this relationship weakened among people who were highly attuned to their bodily signals. For individuals with high interoceptive sensibility, having high disgust sensitivity resulted in only a 55.4% probability of identifying as a Republican. For this group, the link between feeling easily disgusted and holding conservative views was not statistically significant after certain data corrections were applied.

When the researchers looked at the three specific domains of disgust, they found that moral disgust was the primary driver of these results. Pathogen disgust and sexual disgust did not show the same interaction with bodily awareness. The tendency for low bodily awareness to strengthen the link between disgust and conservatism was specific to situations involving moral violations and broken social norms.

“The main takeaway is that the relationship between disgust and political orientation may be more conditional than is often assumed,” von Mohr noted. “More broadly, our findings suggest that understanding the link between emotions and political attitudes may require looking not only at what people feel, but also at how much they attend to the bodily signals accompanying those feelings.”

The authors suggest that when people are less tuned into their actual physical sensations, they might rely more on socially acquired meanings to interpret their feelings. Disgust is a complex emotion shaped by culture, and conservative political frameworks often place a heavy emphasis on moral purity.

“One possibility is that people who pay less attention to their internal bodily signals may rely more on socially learned expectations to interpret what they are feeling, including ideas about what is disgusting, inappropriate, or morally wrong,” von Mohr explained. “In other words, when bodily cues are less salient, contextual and socially learned information may play a greater role in shaping how an emotion is interpreted.”

If a person is not closely monitoring their internal physical state, they might lean on these cultural scripts to make sense of what they are feeling. On the other hand, individuals who are highly attuned to their internal signals might ground their emotional experiences more in their actual biology. Because they rely more on their direct physical sensations to figure out how they feel, social and political framing might play a smaller role in their emotional interpretations. This could explain why their feelings of disgust do not map as strongly onto their political party or ideology.

There are a few things to keep in mind about this research. The data is based entirely on self-reported surveys at a single point in time, which means the study cannot determine whether feeling disgusted causes someone to become conservative, or vice versa.

“It is important not to interpret these findings as showing that bodily processes determine someone’s political beliefs, or that people with one political orientation are simply more or less ‘in touch’ with their bodies,” von Mohr clarified. She emphasized that the idea that people with lower interoceptive sensibility may rely more on socially learned interpretations is just one possible explanation for the pattern they observed, rather than something they directly tested.

The researchers also note that the direction of this relationship might depend heavily on the specific culture being studied. In a different society where liberals moralize a different set of disgust triggers, the ideological pattern might look different. Additionally, the study did not measure actual physiological responses, such as heart rate or skin conductance. The researchers measured how aware people thought they were of their bodies, rather than their objective ability to detect physical changes.

“The next step is to test the mechanism more directly,” von Mohr said. “A particularly important direction is to incorporate physiological measures, for example by examining autonomic responses such as heart rate or skin conductance while people are exposed to disgust-evoking stimuli.”

“This would allow us to distinguish more clearly between the bodily response itself, how accurately or strongly people perceive that response, and how they subsequently interpret it,” she added. “Ultimately, the broader goal is to understand how physiological responses, awareness of those responses, and socially learned meanings interact in shaping political attitudes, rather than treating emotion, physiology, and ideology as separate influences.”

The study, “The embodied roots of ideology: Interoceptive sensibility moderates the link between disgust sensitivity and political orientation,” was authored by Mariana Von Mohr and Manos Tsakiris.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/disgust-predicts-conservative-views-most-strongly-in-people-with-low-bodily-awareness/

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TRIGGER WARNING: Military Psychology

DATE: September 23, 2026 at 09:30PM
SOURCE: MILIARY PSYCHOLOGY JOURNAL: APA DIVISION 19

TITLE: Treatment retention profiles for combat veterans in individual and group therapy following the October 7th War

URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08995605.2026.2737914?af=R

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URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08995605.2026.2737914?af=R

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DATE: September 24, 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: Plant-based meat labels make food seem less masculine, study finds

URL: https://www.psypost.org/plant-based-meat-labels-make-food-seem-less-masculine-study-finds/

A new study indicates that simply labeling a dish as a plant-based meat alternative makes meat-eaters view it as less masculine, leading to more negative evaluations. This resistance to plant-based options tends to be strongest among people who hold hostile sexist beliefs. The findings were published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Animal farming places a heavy burden on the environment and raises broad ethical and public health concerns. Plant-based meat alternatives, which are foods made from textured plant protein designed to imitate the taste, appearance, and texture of real meat, offer a way to reduce this impact. But many meat-eaters remain highly resistant to these alternatives. The divide is heavily gendered. For example, a 2024 study covered by PsyPost found that vegetarianism has grown steadily among women over a 15-year period, while rates among men have barely budged.

Researchers suspect this resistance is tied to the cultural symbolism of food. A 2012 study demonstrated that people across multiple cultures subconsciously associate meat with maleness and masculinity. Because meat is symbolically linked to strength and power, cutting it out of a diet can feel like a loss of status. Building on this idea, a 2023 paper conceptualized giving up meat as a direct threat to a man’s sense of manhood, which triggers psychological resistance.

More recently, scientists have noticed that these dietary choices are linked to broader beliefs about social dominance. A 2020 study provided empirical evidence that hostile sexist attitudes are strongly tied to the belief that humans should dominate animals and the natural world. Hostile sexism involves negative evaluations of women and femininity, along with the belief that women are inferior to men.

“There is now quite a lot of evidence that meat is culturally associated with masculinity, and that vegetarians and vegans (particularly vegan men) can be perceived as less masculine,” Kristof Dhont, a reader in psychology at the University of Kent and director of the SHARK Lab, told PsyPost.

“We wanted to find out whether these associations also have implications for perceptions and evaluations of plant-based meat alternatives themselves, even when they closely resemble conventional meat,” Dhont said. “In this sense, the symbolic meaning attached to ‘plant-based’ food could be a barrier to its acceptance.”

The research, led by Alina Salmen alongside Dhont, aimed to see if merely labeling a dish as plant-based alters how people perceive its masculinity and appeal. They also wanted to test whether hostile sexism would amplify these effects, making people who endorse male dominance the most likely to reject feminine-coded alternatives.

To test this, the researchers conducted two experiments. In the first experiment, they recruited 216 university students in the United Kingdom who eat meat. Participants viewed nine images of food, such as burgers, meatballs, and tacos. The images were exactly the same for everyone, but the text labels accompanying them were randomly rotated.

A third of the participants saw a specific dish labeled as “regular meat,” another third saw it labeled as “plant-based meat,” and the final third saw it labeled as “cultured meat.” Cultured meat is real animal tissue grown in a lab from cell cultures, eliminating the need for animal slaughter. Participants rated each dish’s appeal, expected smell, expected taste, and their likelihood of eating it on a 7-point scale. They also rated the perceived masculinity of each dish on a scale ranging from extremely feminine to extremely masculine, and they completed a questionnaire measuring their endorsement of hostile sexism.

Even though the food images were identical, dishes labeled as plant-based were rated as less masculine than dishes labeled as regular meat. The plant-based label also led to worse evaluations in terms of expected taste, smell, and overall appeal. Cultured meat was also evaluated more negatively than regular meat.

When the researchers looked closer, they found that lower masculinity ratings were linked to these negative evaluations, but only for participants who scored higher in hostile sexism. Those with lower levels of sexism did not evaluate the food worse just because they perceived it as less masculine.

In the second experiment, the research team recruited a larger sample of 1,182 adults in the United States, evenly split between men and women, all of whom were meat-eaters. Participants viewed six identical food images, with the labels rotated between “regular meat” and “plant-based meat.” They rated the same qualities as in the first experiment, but the researchers also added a measure of “food distancing.” Participants indicated how much they agreed with statements like, “I would not want to be seen eating this dish in public.”

The second experiment replicated the findings of the first. On a 7-point scale, the average overall evaluation dropped from 5.64 for regular meat to 4.74 for plant-based meat. The perceived masculinity dropped from an average of 4.40 to 3.96. The participants also indicated a stronger desire to distance themselves from the dishes labeled as plant-based.

The researchers identified a psychological chain reaction in the data. The plant-based label led people to view the dish as less masculine, which prompted a desire to distance themselves from the food. This urge to avoid being associated with the dish then predicted a worse overall evaluation.

Hostile sexism played a powerful role in this chain reaction. People with higher levels of hostile sexism were especially likely to distance themselves from dishes they viewed as lacking masculinity, driving their negative evaluations.

“It is perhaps worth highlighting that the effects of the plant-based label were clearly observed not only among men but also among women,” Dhont noted. Both men and women in the study showed this pattern, suggesting that hostile sexism shapes food choices across genders.

“The size of these shifts clearly differs between people,” Dhont explained. “For the overall evaluations the effect was roughly twice the size among those higher in sexism compared with those lower in sexism. The gap between people higher and lower in sexism was even larger when it came to how strongly the label affected perceived masculinity and self-distancing.”

The findings align with research covered by PsyPost in 2023, which found that men who identify as more masculine consume more meat and are highly resistant to adopting plant-based diets. It is worth noting, however, that the 2023 study measured men’s personal masculine identities, whereas the new study focused on the perceived masculinity of the food itself and the observer’s sexist beliefs.

“One key takeaway is that our evaluations of food are not determined only by the food itself,” Dhont said. “The societal stigma surrounding plant-based diets and veganism, including the perceived lack of masculine value, can negatively affect evaluations of plant-based meat alternatives.”

As with all research, there are some caveats to consider. First, the researchers measured perceived masculinity rather than actively manipulating it in a controlled way. This means they cannot say for sure that the loss of masculine symbolism directly caused the negative evaluations. Masculinity and femininity were also measured on a single continuous scale. It is possible that food can hold both masculine and feminine associations at the same time, which future studies might try to measure separately.

There are a few things to keep in mind regarding the participants’ past experiences. Some people might have had prior bad experiences eating actual plant-based meats, which could have influenced their ratings of the images.

“These were judgments of images rather than actual purchasing or eating behavior, so the size of the effect in real-world food choices remains an important question for future research,” Dhont said.

“It would be interesting to see how such findings play out when people actually taste the food or in actual consumption and purchasing behavior,” he added. “For example, we could let people taste plant-based products while experimentally varying how they are labeled, or observe behavioral choices and purchases when people select items from a menu or buffet.”

To successfully promote plant-based diets, marketing strategies might need to account for these psychological barriers. The authors suggest that framing meat alternatives in ways that appeal to modern, flexible ideals of masculinity might help overcome the stigma associated with vegan and vegetarian options.

“Another big question is how we can change the symbolism surrounding meat versus plant-based products, and in turn people’s perceptions and reactions to them,” Dhont said. “What strategies can increase openness to plant-based alternatives without simply reinforcing traditional gender stereotypes?”

The study, “Masculinity Perceptions and Hostile Sexism Shape Evaluations of Plant-Based Meat Alternatives,” was authored by Alina Salmen, Nadira S. Faber, Victoria C. Krings, and Kristof Dhont.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/plant-based-meat-labels-make-food-seem-less-masculine-study-finds/

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DATE: September 24, 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: Plant-based meat labels make food seem less masculine, study finds

URL: https://www.psypost.org/plant-based-meat-labels-make-food-seem-less-masculine-study-finds/

A new study indicates that simply labeling a dish as a plant-based meat alternative makes meat-eaters view it as less masculine, leading to more negative evaluations. This resistance to plant-based options tends to be strongest among people who hold hostile sexist beliefs. The findings were published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Animal farming places a heavy burden on the environment and raises broad ethical and public health concerns. Plant-based meat alternatives, which are foods made from textured plant protein designed to imitate the taste, appearance, and texture of real meat, offer a way to reduce this impact. But many meat-eaters remain highly resistant to these alternatives. The divide is heavily gendered. For example, a 2024 study covered by PsyPost found that vegetarianism has grown steadily among women over a 15-year period, while rates among men have barely budged.

Researchers suspect this resistance is tied to the cultural symbolism of food. A 2012 study demonstrated that people across multiple cultures subconsciously associate meat with maleness and masculinity. Because meat is symbolically linked to strength and power, cutting it out of a diet can feel like a loss of status. Building on this idea, a 2023 paper conceptualized giving up meat as a direct threat to a man’s sense of manhood, which triggers psychological resistance.

More recently, scientists have noticed that these dietary choices are linked to broader beliefs about social dominance. A 2020 study provided empirical evidence that hostile sexist attitudes are strongly tied to the belief that humans should dominate animals and the natural world. Hostile sexism involves negative evaluations of women and femininity, along with the belief that women are inferior to men.

“There is now quite a lot of evidence that meat is culturally associated with masculinity, and that vegetarians and vegans (particularly vegan men) can be perceived as less masculine,” Kristof Dhont, a reader in psychology at the University of Kent and director of the SHARK Lab, told PsyPost.

“We wanted to find out whether these associations also have implications for perceptions and evaluations of plant-based meat alternatives themselves, even when they closely resemble conventional meat,” Dhont said. “In this sense, the symbolic meaning attached to ‘plant-based’ food could be a barrier to its acceptance.”

The research, led by Alina Salmen alongside Dhont, aimed to see if merely labeling a dish as plant-based alters how people perceive its masculinity and appeal. They also wanted to test whether hostile sexism would amplify these effects, making people who endorse male dominance the most likely to reject feminine-coded alternatives.

To test this, the researchers conducted two experiments. In the first experiment, they recruited 216 university students in the United Kingdom who eat meat. Participants viewed nine images of food, such as burgers, meatballs, and tacos. The images were exactly the same for everyone, but the text labels accompanying them were randomly rotated.

A third of the participants saw a specific dish labeled as “regular meat,” another third saw it labeled as “plant-based meat,” and the final third saw it labeled as “cultured meat.” Cultured meat is real animal tissue grown in a lab from cell cultures, eliminating the need for animal slaughter. Participants rated each dish’s appeal, expected smell, expected taste, and their likelihood of eating it on a 7-point scale. They also rated the perceived masculinity of each dish on a scale ranging from extremely feminine to extremely masculine, and they completed a questionnaire measuring their endorsement of hostile sexism.

Even though the food images were identical, dishes labeled as plant-based were rated as less masculine than dishes labeled as regular meat. The plant-based label also led to worse evaluations in terms of expected taste, smell, and overall appeal. Cultured meat was also evaluated more negatively than regular meat.

When the researchers looked closer, they found that lower masculinity ratings were linked to these negative evaluations, but only for participants who scored higher in hostile sexism. Those with lower levels of sexism did not evaluate the food worse just because they perceived it as less masculine.

In the second experiment, the research team recruited a larger sample of 1,182 adults in the United States, evenly split between men and women, all of whom were meat-eaters. Participants viewed six identical food images, with the labels rotated between “regular meat” and “plant-based meat.” They rated the same qualities as in the first experiment, but the researchers also added a measure of “food distancing.” Participants indicated how much they agreed with statements like, “I would not want to be seen eating this dish in public.”

The second experiment replicated the findings of the first. On a 7-point scale, the average overall evaluation dropped from 5.64 for regular meat to 4.74 for plant-based meat. The perceived masculinity dropped from an average of 4.40 to 3.96. The participants also indicated a stronger desire to distance themselves from the dishes labeled as plant-based.

The researchers identified a psychological chain reaction in the data. The plant-based label led people to view the dish as less masculine, which prompted a desire to distance themselves from the food. This urge to avoid being associated with the dish then predicted a worse overall evaluation.

Hostile sexism played a powerful role in this chain reaction. People with higher levels of hostile sexism were especially likely to distance themselves from dishes they viewed as lacking masculinity, driving their negative evaluations.

“It is perhaps worth highlighting that the effects of the plant-based label were clearly observed not only among men but also among women,” Dhont noted. Both men and women in the study showed this pattern, suggesting that hostile sexism shapes food choices across genders.

“The size of these shifts clearly differs between people,” Dhont explained. “For the overall evaluations the effect was roughly twice the size among those higher in sexism compared with those lower in sexism. The gap between people higher and lower in sexism was even larger when it came to how strongly the label affected perceived masculinity and self-distancing.”

The findings align with research covered by PsyPost in 2023, which found that men who identify as more masculine consume more meat and are highly resistant to adopting plant-based diets. It is worth noting, however, that the 2023 study measured men’s personal masculine identities, whereas the new study focused on the perceived masculinity of the food itself and the observer’s sexist beliefs.

“One key takeaway is that our evaluations of food are not determined only by the food itself,” Dhont said. “The societal stigma surrounding plant-based diets and veganism, including the perceived lack of masculine value, can negatively affect evaluations of plant-based meat alternatives.”

As with all research, there are some caveats to consider. First, the researchers measured perceived masculinity rather than actively manipulating it in a controlled way. This means they cannot say for sure that the loss of masculine symbolism directly caused the negative evaluations. Masculinity and femininity were also measured on a single continuous scale. It is possible that food can hold both masculine and feminine associations at the same time, which future studies might try to measure separately.

There are a few things to keep in mind regarding the participants’ past experiences. Some people might have had prior bad experiences eating actual plant-based meats, which could have influenced their ratings of the images.

“These were judgments of images rather than actual purchasing or eating behavior, so the size of the effect in real-world food choices remains an important question for future research,” Dhont said.

“It would be interesting to see how such findings play out when people actually taste the food or in actual consumption and purchasing behavior,” he added. “For example, we could let people taste plant-based products while experimentally varying how they are labeled, or observe behavioral choices and purchases when people select items from a menu or buffet.”

To successfully promote plant-based diets, marketing strategies might need to account for these psychological barriers. The authors suggest that framing meat alternatives in ways that appeal to modern, flexible ideals of masculinity might help overcome the stigma associated with vegan and vegetarian options.

“Another big question is how we can change the symbolism surrounding meat versus plant-based products, and in turn people’s perceptions and reactions to them,” Dhont said. “What strategies can increase openness to plant-based alternatives without simply reinforcing traditional gender stereotypes?”

The study, “Masculinity Perceptions and Hostile Sexism Shape Evaluations of Plant-Based Meat Alternatives,” was authored by Alina Salmen, Nadira S. Faber, Victoria C. Krings, and Kristof Dhont.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/plant-based-meat-labels-make-food-seem-less-masculine-study-finds/

-------------------------------------------------

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-------------------------------------------------

#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PlantBasedMeat #MasculinityInFood #PlantBasedLunch #MeatlessMonday #SustainableEating #HostileSexism #FoodMarketing #VeganMeat #EnvironmentallyFriendly #FoodPsychology

DATE: September 24, 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: Plant-based meat labels make food seem less masculine, study finds

URL: https://www.psypost.org/plant-based-meat-labels-make-food-seem-less-masculine-study-finds/

A new study indicates that simply labeling a dish as a plant-based meat alternative makes meat-eaters view it as less masculine, leading to more negative evaluations. This resistance to plant-based options tends to be strongest among people who hold hostile sexist beliefs. The findings were published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Animal farming places a heavy burden on the environment and raises broad ethical and public health concerns. Plant-based meat alternatives, which are foods made from textured plant protein designed to imitate the taste, appearance, and texture of real meat, offer a way to reduce this impact. But many meat-eaters remain highly resistant to these alternatives. The divide is heavily gendered. For example, a 2024 study covered by PsyPost found that vegetarianism has grown steadily among women over a 15-year period, while rates among men have barely budged.

Researchers suspect this resistance is tied to the cultural symbolism of food. A 2012 study demonstrated that people across multiple cultures subconsciously associate meat with maleness and masculinity. Because meat is symbolically linked to strength and power, cutting it out of a diet can feel like a loss of status. Building on this idea, a 2023 paper conceptualized giving up meat as a direct threat to a man’s sense of manhood, which triggers psychological resistance.

More recently, scientists have noticed that these dietary choices are linked to broader beliefs about social dominance. A 2020 study provided empirical evidence that hostile sexist attitudes are strongly tied to the belief that humans should dominate animals and the natural world. Hostile sexism involves negative evaluations of women and femininity, along with the belief that women are inferior to men.

“There is now quite a lot of evidence that meat is culturally associated with masculinity, and that vegetarians and vegans (particularly vegan men) can be perceived as less masculine,” Kristof Dhont, a reader in psychology at the University of Kent and director of the SHARK Lab, told PsyPost.

“We wanted to find out whether these associations also have implications for perceptions and evaluations of plant-based meat alternatives themselves, even when they closely resemble conventional meat,” Dhont said. “In this sense, the symbolic meaning attached to ‘plant-based’ food could be a barrier to its acceptance.”

The research, led by Alina Salmen alongside Dhont, aimed to see if merely labeling a dish as plant-based alters how people perceive its masculinity and appeal. They also wanted to test whether hostile sexism would amplify these effects, making people who endorse male dominance the most likely to reject feminine-coded alternatives.

To test this, the researchers conducted two experiments. In the first experiment, they recruited 216 university students in the United Kingdom who eat meat. Participants viewed nine images of food, such as burgers, meatballs, and tacos. The images were exactly the same for everyone, but the text labels accompanying them were randomly rotated.

A third of the participants saw a specific dish labeled as “regular meat,” another third saw it labeled as “plant-based meat,” and the final third saw it labeled as “cultured meat.” Cultured meat is real animal tissue grown in a lab from cell cultures, eliminating the need for animal slaughter. Participants rated each dish’s appeal, expected smell, expected taste, and their likelihood of eating it on a 7-point scale. They also rated the perceived masculinity of each dish on a scale ranging from extremely feminine to extremely masculine, and they completed a questionnaire measuring their endorsement of hostile sexism.

Even though the food images were identical, dishes labeled as plant-based were rated as less masculine than dishes labeled as regular meat. The plant-based label also led to worse evaluations in terms of expected taste, smell, and overall appeal. Cultured meat was also evaluated more negatively than regular meat.

When the researchers looked closer, they found that lower masculinity ratings were linked to these negative evaluations, but only for participants who scored higher in hostile sexism. Those with lower levels of sexism did not evaluate the food worse just because they perceived it as less masculine.

In the second experiment, the research team recruited a larger sample of 1,182 adults in the United States, evenly split between men and women, all of whom were meat-eaters. Participants viewed six identical food images, with the labels rotated between “regular meat” and “plant-based meat.” They rated the same qualities as in the first experiment, but the researchers also added a measure of “food distancing.” Participants indicated how much they agreed with statements like, “I would not want to be seen eating this dish in public.”

The second experiment replicated the findings of the first. On a 7-point scale, the average overall evaluation dropped from 5.64 for regular meat to 4.74 for plant-based meat. The perceived masculinity dropped from an average of 4.40 to 3.96. The participants also indicated a stronger desire to distance themselves from the dishes labeled as plant-based.

The researchers identified a psychological chain reaction in the data. The plant-based label led people to view the dish as less masculine, which prompted a desire to distance themselves from the food. This urge to avoid being associated with the dish then predicted a worse overall evaluation.

Hostile sexism played a powerful role in this chain reaction. People with higher levels of hostile sexism were especially likely to distance themselves from dishes they viewed as lacking masculinity, driving their negative evaluations.

“It is perhaps worth highlighting that the effects of the plant-based label were clearly observed not only among men but also among women,” Dhont noted. Both men and women in the study showed this pattern, suggesting that hostile sexism shapes food choices across genders.

“The size of these shifts clearly differs between people,” Dhont explained. “For the overall evaluations the effect was roughly twice the size among those higher in sexism compared with those lower in sexism. The gap between people higher and lower in sexism was even larger when it came to how strongly the label affected perceived masculinity and self-distancing.”

The findings align with research covered by PsyPost in 2023, which found that men who identify as more masculine consume more meat and are highly resistant to adopting plant-based diets. It is worth noting, however, that the 2023 study measured men’s personal masculine identities, whereas the new study focused on the perceived masculinity of the food itself and the observer’s sexist beliefs.

“One key takeaway is that our evaluations of food are not determined only by the food itself,” Dhont said. “The societal stigma surrounding plant-based diets and veganism, including the perceived lack of masculine value, can negatively affect evaluations of plant-based meat alternatives.”

As with all research, there are some caveats to consider. First, the researchers measured perceived masculinity rather than actively manipulating it in a controlled way. This means they cannot say for sure that the loss of masculine symbolism directly caused the negative evaluations. Masculinity and femininity were also measured on a single continuous scale. It is possible that food can hold both masculine and feminine associations at the same time, which future studies might try to measure separately.

There are a few things to keep in mind regarding the participants’ past experiences. Some people might have had prior bad experiences eating actual plant-based meats, which could have influenced their ratings of the images.

“These were judgments of images rather than actual purchasing or eating behavior, so the size of the effect in real-world food choices remains an important question for future research,” Dhont said.

“It would be interesting to see how such findings play out when people actually taste the food or in actual consumption and purchasing behavior,” he added. “For example, we could let people taste plant-based products while experimentally varying how they are labeled, or observe behavioral choices and purchases when people select items from a menu or buffet.”

To successfully promote plant-based diets, marketing strategies might need to account for these psychological barriers. The authors suggest that framing meat alternatives in ways that appeal to modern, flexible ideals of masculinity might help overcome the stigma associated with vegan and vegetarian options.

“Another big question is how we can change the symbolism surrounding meat versus plant-based products, and in turn people’s perceptions and reactions to them,” Dhont said. “What strategies can increase openness to plant-based alternatives without simply reinforcing traditional gender stereotypes?”

The study, “Masculinity Perceptions and Hostile Sexism Shape Evaluations of Plant-Based Meat Alternatives,” was authored by Alina Salmen, Nadira S. Faber, Victoria C. Krings, and Kristof Dhont.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/plant-based-meat-labels-make-food-seem-less-masculine-study-finds/

-------------------------------------------------

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-------------------------------------------------

#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PlantBasedMeat #MasculinityInFood #PlantBasedLunch #MeatlessMonday #SustainableEating #HostileSexism #FoodMarketing #VeganMeat #EnvironmentallyFriendly #FoodPsychology

DATE: September 24, 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: New study reveals that fluctuating—not just intense—brain signals play a hidden role in overeating

URL: https://www.psypost.org/fluctuating-brain-signals-linked-to-higher-body-weight-and-erratic-eating/

A recent study found that people with higher body mass index and tendencies toward disinhibited eating experience more fluctuating brain responses to food rewards. The findings, published in Translational Psychiatry, suggest that inconsistent reward signals in the brain may play a role in overweight and overeating. Meanwhile, individuals with binge eating disorder showed specific inconsistencies in how much they consciously desired food from moment to moment.

Binge eating disorder involves recurrent episodes of eating large quantities of food while experiencing a loss of control. People with this condition frequently experience high rates of overweight and obesity. Previous research into eating disorders has primarily focused on the average strength of brain signals when people encounter food cues.

One major psychological theory suggests that repeated exposure to highly rewarding foods sensitizes the brain’s motivational pathways. Over time, this sensitization could cause food cues to trigger heightened arousal and cravings. However, hunger and satiety naturally fluctuate.

If eating for pleasure repeatedly overrides the body’s natural fullness signals, a person’s response to food might become highly variable rather than uniformly strong. Instead of just looking at average brain activity, researchers suspected that fluctuations in these signals from moment to moment might better explain erratic eating patterns. To test this idea, cognitive neuroscientist Nils B. Kroemer, psychology researcher Mechteld M. van den Hoek Ostende, and their colleagues at the University of Tübingen in Germany investigated whether variability in reward processing is higher in people with binge eating disorder.

The researchers focused on the nucleus accumbens, a region deep in the brain that plays a central role in processing rewards, anticipating pleasure, and driving motivation. They also looked at the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a brain area involved in cognitive control, impulse regulation, and weighing the costs and benefits of a potential action.

The researchers recruited 79 women for the study. The sample included 35 participants diagnosed with binge eating disorder, 21 with subsyndromal binge eating disorder who experienced less frequent episodes, and 23 control participants with no history of binge eating. The groups were matched so that their average body mass index was similar, allowing the researchers to separate the effects of the eating disorder from the effects of body weight.

During the first session, participants completed a behavioral experiment called a grip force effort allocation task. They were asked to squeeze a specialized handgrip device to earn either monetary rewards or small snack foods. The researchers calibrated the task to each person’s maximum grip strength.

This calibration ensured that the relative effort required was identical for everyone, regardless of their baseline physical fitness. In some trials, the required effort was explicitly shown on a screen, making the physical cost obvious. In other trials, the difficulty was hidden to create uncertainty.

After each round, participants rated how much they subjectively wanted the reward and how much effort they felt they had exerted. The points earned during the task were later exchanged for actual cash or snack calories. This allowed the researchers to quantify the physical effort participants would exert for a specific prize.

The researchers found that participants with binge eating disorder showed higher variability in their trial-by-trial ratings of wanting food. Their conscious desire for the food fluctuated widely from one moment to the next, especially during the uncertain trials. This high variability in subjective desire was not seen when they played for money.

However, their actual physical effort to obtain the rewards did not vary in the same way. The researchers noted that this disconnect might mean people with binge eating disorder rely more on external cues or habitual responses to decide how much effort to expend. This could cause their physical behavior to remain steady even while their internal feelings of desire fluctuate.

For the second phase of the study, 59 of the women returned to the laboratory after an overnight fast. They completed a similar version of the handgrip task while lying inside a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner. This machine tracks blood flow in the brain, providing an indirect measure of neural activity in real time.

The researchers specifically measured the brain’s activity during the anticipation phase, which occurred exactly when the participants first saw the reward cue but before they started squeezing the handgrip. They calculated how much the neural signals in the nucleus accumbens and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex fluctuated across the trials.

Trial-by-trial fluctuations in the nucleus accumbens were positively associated with a higher body mass index. Across all groups, participants with higher body weight exhibited more variable reward signals in this brain region. Participants who reported higher levels of disinhibited eating on a standard eating behavior questionnaire also displayed greater variability in the nucleus accumbens.

The researchers found a similar pattern in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. A higher body mass index was linked to more fluctuating activity in this cognitive control region. To ensure these fluctuations were not just random brain noise, the researchers checked control regions in the temporal lobe that are not involved in reward processing.

Those control regions did not show the same variability, indicating the effect was specific to the reward and control centers. The results for binge eating disorder specifically were less definitive. While participants with the disorder showed slightly elevated variability in the nucleus accumbens compared to the control group, the evidence was not statistically significant.

The highly variable brain responses were more closely tied to overall body weight and a general tendency to eat without restraint, rather than a clinical diagnosis of the eating disorder. The study’s design includes several limitations that affect how the results can be applied. The research only included female participants, meaning the observed patterns might not generalize to men.

Sex hormones can influence eating behaviors and reward processing, which the study could not account for. The laboratory setting also tightly controlled when participants ate and minimized changes in their mood. Real-world binge eating episodes are often triggered by shifting emotional states and metabolic changes, which the sterile experimental environment was designed to eliminate.

Additionally, the researchers did not measure actual food consumption during the experiment. The study measured the willingness to work for food and the brain’s anticipation of it, rather than how much participants actually ate. Future studies tracking daily food intake would be needed to link these fluctuating brain signals directly to binge eating episodes.

Finally, slight head movements inside a brain scanner can sometimes look like variable neural activity. People with higher body weight sometimes move slightly more in scanners. While the researchers used mathematical models to correct for head movement, imaging experts often view residual motion artifacts as a potential complication in imaging research.

The study, “Obesity is associated with greater variability of reward signals in the nucleus accumbens,” was authored by Mechteld M. van den Hoek Ostende, Anne Kühnel, Monja P. Neuser, Thomas Dresler, Jennifer Svaldi, and Nils B. Kroemer.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/fluctuating-brain-signals-linked-to-higher-body-weight-and-erratic-eating/

-------------------------------------------------

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-------------------------------------------------

#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #Overeating #BingeEatingDisorder #RewardSignals #NucleusAccumbens #DLPFC #BrainVariability #FoodCues #ObesityResearch #EatingBehavior #TranslationalPsychiatry

DATE: September 24, 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: New study reveals that fluctuating—not just intense—brain signals play a hidden role in overeating

URL: https://www.psypost.org/fluctuating-brain-signals-linked-to-higher-body-weight-and-erratic-eating/

A recent study found that people with higher body mass index and tendencies toward disinhibited eating experience more fluctuating brain responses to food rewards. The findings, published in Translational Psychiatry, suggest that inconsistent reward signals in the brain may play a role in overweight and overeating. Meanwhile, individuals with binge eating disorder showed specific inconsistencies in how much they consciously desired food from moment to moment.

Binge eating disorder involves recurrent episodes of eating large quantities of food while experiencing a loss of control. People with this condition frequently experience high rates of overweight and obesity. Previous research into eating disorders has primarily focused on the average strength of brain signals when people encounter food cues.

One major psychological theory suggests that repeated exposure to highly rewarding foods sensitizes the brain’s motivational pathways. Over time, this sensitization could cause food cues to trigger heightened arousal and cravings. However, hunger and satiety naturally fluctuate.

If eating for pleasure repeatedly overrides the body’s natural fullness signals, a person’s response to food might become highly variable rather than uniformly strong. Instead of just looking at average brain activity, researchers suspected that fluctuations in these signals from moment to moment might better explain erratic eating patterns. To test this idea, cognitive neuroscientist Nils B. Kroemer, psychology researcher Mechteld M. van den Hoek Ostende, and their colleagues at the University of Tübingen in Germany investigated whether variability in reward processing is higher in people with binge eating disorder.

The researchers focused on the nucleus accumbens, a region deep in the brain that plays a central role in processing rewards, anticipating pleasure, and driving motivation. They also looked at the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a brain area involved in cognitive control, impulse regulation, and weighing the costs and benefits of a potential action.

The researchers recruited 79 women for the study. The sample included 35 participants diagnosed with binge eating disorder, 21 with subsyndromal binge eating disorder who experienced less frequent episodes, and 23 control participants with no history of binge eating. The groups were matched so that their average body mass index was similar, allowing the researchers to separate the effects of the eating disorder from the effects of body weight.

During the first session, participants completed a behavioral experiment called a grip force effort allocation task. They were asked to squeeze a specialized handgrip device to earn either monetary rewards or small snack foods. The researchers calibrated the task to each person’s maximum grip strength.

This calibration ensured that the relative effort required was identical for everyone, regardless of their baseline physical fitness. In some trials, the required effort was explicitly shown on a screen, making the physical cost obvious. In other trials, the difficulty was hidden to create uncertainty.

After each round, participants rated how much they subjectively wanted the reward and how much effort they felt they had exerted. The points earned during the task were later exchanged for actual cash or snack calories. This allowed the researchers to quantify the physical effort participants would exert for a specific prize.

The researchers found that participants with binge eating disorder showed higher variability in their trial-by-trial ratings of wanting food. Their conscious desire for the food fluctuated widely from one moment to the next, especially during the uncertain trials. This high variability in subjective desire was not seen when they played for money.

However, their actual physical effort to obtain the rewards did not vary in the same way. The researchers noted that this disconnect might mean people with binge eating disorder rely more on external cues or habitual responses to decide how much effort to expend. This could cause their physical behavior to remain steady even while their internal feelings of desire fluctuate.

For the second phase of the study, 59 of the women returned to the laboratory after an overnight fast. They completed a similar version of the handgrip task while lying inside a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner. This machine tracks blood flow in the brain, providing an indirect measure of neural activity in real time.

The researchers specifically measured the brain’s activity during the anticipation phase, which occurred exactly when the participants first saw the reward cue but before they started squeezing the handgrip. They calculated how much the neural signals in the nucleus accumbens and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex fluctuated across the trials.

Trial-by-trial fluctuations in the nucleus accumbens were positively associated with a higher body mass index. Across all groups, participants with higher body weight exhibited more variable reward signals in this brain region. Participants who reported higher levels of disinhibited eating on a standard eating behavior questionnaire also displayed greater variability in the nucleus accumbens.

The researchers found a similar pattern in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. A higher body mass index was linked to more fluctuating activity in this cognitive control region. To ensure these fluctuations were not just random brain noise, the researchers checked control regions in the temporal lobe that are not involved in reward processing.

Those control regions did not show the same variability, indicating the effect was specific to the reward and control centers. The results for binge eating disorder specifically were less definitive. While participants with the disorder showed slightly elevated variability in the nucleus accumbens compared to the control group, the evidence was not statistically significant.

The highly variable brain responses were more closely tied to overall body weight and a general tendency to eat without restraint, rather than a clinical diagnosis of the eating disorder. The study’s design includes several limitations that affect how the results can be applied. The research only included female participants, meaning the observed patterns might not generalize to men.

Sex hormones can influence eating behaviors and reward processing, which the study could not account for. The laboratory setting also tightly controlled when participants ate and minimized changes in their mood. Real-world binge eating episodes are often triggered by shifting emotional states and metabolic changes, which the sterile experimental environment was designed to eliminate.

Additionally, the researchers did not measure actual food consumption during the experiment. The study measured the willingness to work for food and the brain’s anticipation of it, rather than how much participants actually ate. Future studies tracking daily food intake would be needed to link these fluctuating brain signals directly to binge eating episodes.

Finally, slight head movements inside a brain scanner can sometimes look like variable neural activity. People with higher body weight sometimes move slightly more in scanners. While the researchers used mathematical models to correct for head movement, imaging experts often view residual motion artifacts as a potential complication in imaging research.

The study, “Obesity is associated with greater variability of reward signals in the nucleus accumbens,” was authored by Mechteld M. van den Hoek Ostende, Anne Kühnel, Monja P. Neuser, Thomas Dresler, Jennifer Svaldi, and Nils B. Kroemer.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/fluctuating-brain-signals-linked-to-higher-body-weight-and-erratic-eating/

-------------------------------------------------

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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 #Overeating #BingeEatingDisorder #RewardSignals #NucleusAccumbens #DLPFC #BrainVariability #FoodCues #ObesityResearch #EatingBehavior #TranslationalPsychiatry

DATE: September 24, 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: New study reveals that fluctuating—not just intense—brain signals play a hidden role in overeating

URL: https://www.psypost.org/fluctuating-brain-signals-linked-to-higher-body-weight-and-erratic-eating/

A recent study found that people with higher body mass index and tendencies toward disinhibited eating experience more fluctuating brain responses to food rewards. The findings, published in Translational Psychiatry, suggest that inconsistent reward signals in the brain may play a role in overweight and overeating. Meanwhile, individuals with binge eating disorder showed specific inconsistencies in how much they consciously desired food from moment to moment.

Binge eating disorder involves recurrent episodes of eating large quantities of food while experiencing a loss of control. People with this condition frequently experience high rates of overweight and obesity. Previous research into eating disorders has primarily focused on the average strength of brain signals when people encounter food cues.

One major psychological theory suggests that repeated exposure to highly rewarding foods sensitizes the brain’s motivational pathways. Over time, this sensitization could cause food cues to trigger heightened arousal and cravings. However, hunger and satiety naturally fluctuate.

If eating for pleasure repeatedly overrides the body’s natural fullness signals, a person’s response to food might become highly variable rather than uniformly strong. Instead of just looking at average brain activity, researchers suspected that fluctuations in these signals from moment to moment might better explain erratic eating patterns. To test this idea, cognitive neuroscientist Nils B. Kroemer, psychology researcher Mechteld M. van den Hoek Ostende, and their colleagues at the University of Tübingen in Germany investigated whether variability in reward processing is higher in people with binge eating disorder.

The researchers focused on the nucleus accumbens, a region deep in the brain that plays a central role in processing rewards, anticipating pleasure, and driving motivation. They also looked at the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a brain area involved in cognitive control, impulse regulation, and weighing the costs and benefits of a potential action.

The researchers recruited 79 women for the study. The sample included 35 participants diagnosed with binge eating disorder, 21 with subsyndromal binge eating disorder who experienced less frequent episodes, and 23 control participants with no history of binge eating. The groups were matched so that their average body mass index was similar, allowing the researchers to separate the effects of the eating disorder from the effects of body weight.

During the first session, participants completed a behavioral experiment called a grip force effort allocation task. They were asked to squeeze a specialized handgrip device to earn either monetary rewards or small snack foods. The researchers calibrated the task to each person’s maximum grip strength.

This calibration ensured that the relative effort required was identical for everyone, regardless of their baseline physical fitness. In some trials, the required effort was explicitly shown on a screen, making the physical cost obvious. In other trials, the difficulty was hidden to create uncertainty.

After each round, participants rated how much they subjectively wanted the reward and how much effort they felt they had exerted. The points earned during the task were later exchanged for actual cash or snack calories. This allowed the researchers to quantify the physical effort participants would exert for a specific prize.

The researchers found that participants with binge eating disorder showed higher variability in their trial-by-trial ratings of wanting food. Their conscious desire for the food fluctuated widely from one moment to the next, especially during the uncertain trials. This high variability in subjective desire was not seen when they played for money.

However, their actual physical effort to obtain the rewards did not vary in the same way. The researchers noted that this disconnect might mean people with binge eating disorder rely more on external cues or habitual responses to decide how much effort to expend. This could cause their physical behavior to remain steady even while their internal feelings of desire fluctuate.

For the second phase of the study, 59 of the women returned to the laboratory after an overnight fast. They completed a similar version of the handgrip task while lying inside a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner. This machine tracks blood flow in the brain, providing an indirect measure of neural activity in real time.

The researchers specifically measured the brain’s activity during the anticipation phase, which occurred exactly when the participants first saw the reward cue but before they started squeezing the handgrip. They calculated how much the neural signals in the nucleus accumbens and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex fluctuated across the trials.

Trial-by-trial fluctuations in the nucleus accumbens were positively associated with a higher body mass index. Across all groups, participants with higher body weight exhibited more variable reward signals in this brain region. Participants who reported higher levels of disinhibited eating on a standard eating behavior questionnaire also displayed greater variability in the nucleus accumbens.

The researchers found a similar pattern in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. A higher body mass index was linked to more fluctuating activity in this cognitive control region. To ensure these fluctuations were not just random brain noise, the researchers checked control regions in the temporal lobe that are not involved in reward processing.

Those control regions did not show the same variability, indicating the effect was specific to the reward and control centers. The results for binge eating disorder specifically were less definitive. While participants with the disorder showed slightly elevated variability in the nucleus accumbens compared to the control group, the evidence was not statistically significant.

The highly variable brain responses were more closely tied to overall body weight and a general tendency to eat without restraint, rather than a clinical diagnosis of the eating disorder. The study’s design includes several limitations that affect how the results can be applied. The research only included female participants, meaning the observed patterns might not generalize to men.

Sex hormones can influence eating behaviors and reward processing, which the study could not account for. The laboratory setting also tightly controlled when participants ate and minimized changes in their mood. Real-world binge eating episodes are often triggered by shifting emotional states and metabolic changes, which the sterile experimental environment was designed to eliminate.

Additionally, the researchers did not measure actual food consumption during the experiment. The study measured the willingness to work for food and the brain’s anticipation of it, rather than how much participants actually ate. Future studies tracking daily food intake would be needed to link these fluctuating brain signals directly to binge eating episodes.

Finally, slight head movements inside a brain scanner can sometimes look like variable neural activity. People with higher body weight sometimes move slightly more in scanners. While the researchers used mathematical models to correct for head movement, imaging experts often view residual motion artifacts as a potential complication in imaging research.

The study, “Obesity is associated with greater variability of reward signals in the nucleus accumbens,” was authored by Mechteld M. van den Hoek Ostende, Anne Kühnel, Monja P. Neuser, Thomas Dresler, Jennifer Svaldi, and Nils B. Kroemer.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/fluctuating-brain-signals-linked-to-higher-body-weight-and-erratic-eating/

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DATE: September 24, 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: Humor makes taboo words less distracting

URL: https://www.psypost.org/humor-makes-taboo-words-less-distracting/

Taboo words slowed people’s ability to identify font colors, but this distraction was reduced when the words were also funny, according to research published in Cognition & Emotion.

Taboo words—including profanity, insults, slurs, and sexual terms—can interfere with language processing. In the “taboo Stroop effect” (a variation of the standard Stroop effect, a psychological phenomenon where reading a word interferes with naming its ink color), people take longer to identify the font color of a taboo word than that of a neutral word. Researchers have generally attributed this delay to emotional arousal (a state of heightened physiological and psychological activity). Taboo words capture attention or make it harder to disengage from their meaning, leaving fewer attentional resources available for identifying their color.

However, taboo words are not exclusively offensive or unpleasant; some are also perceived as humorous. Because humor can itself be arousing but may help people shift attention more flexibly, Lise Abrams and colleagues examined whether humor would intensify or lessen the distracting effect of taboo words.

Experiment 1 involved 59 participants recruited via Prolific (an online platform used to recruit research subjects) after exclusions. Eligible participants were native English speakers living in the United States, between ages 18-29 years, and did not report color blindness, dyslexia, or ADHD. Participants saw 48 taboo and 48 neutral words, selected using previous nine-point ratings of tabooness, humor, and arousal. Each word appeared once in red, blue, green, and yellow, producing 384 randomly intermixed trials. Participants pressed one of four keys to identify the font color as quickly and accurately as possible, after completing color-key training and 40 practice trials. They also completed a demographic questionnaire.

Experiment 2 included 102 Prolific participants using the same eligibility criteria. The researchers selected 32 words divided into four groups based on the same nine-point norms: high-taboo/high-humor, high-taboo/low-humor, low-taboo/high-humor, and low-taboo/low-humor. The words were presented in separate blocks, along with neutral filler blocks, for a total of 256 trials. Participants again identified each word’s font color by keypress, and the researchers measured response time and accuracy.

In Experiment 1, participants identified the colors of taboo words more slowly than those of neutral words, demonstrating the taboo Stroop effect. This interference was strongest during the first set of trials and diminished with repeated exposure, suggesting that participants gradually became accustomed to the taboo words. Words rated as more taboo produced slower responses, but humor did not independently predict response speed or alter the effect of tabooness when taboo and neutral words were intermixed.

Experiment 2 again showed that taboo words slowed color identification. This time, however, humor changed the size of the effect: highly taboo words interfered with performance whether they were high or low in humor, but the interference was significantly smaller for the more humorous taboo words. Humor alone did not affect response times, suggesting that it did not simply make color identification easier; instead, it specifically reduced how strongly taboo content captured attention when words were presented in separate blocks.

The limited number of suitable words made it difficult to match the four word categories on characteristics such as emotional valence (the intrinsic positive or negative quality of a stimulus) and arousal. The young, US-based online sample and presentation of isolated words also limit how readily the findings can be generalized to other populations, cultures, or real-world language contexts.

Overall, the findings suggest that people’s responses to taboo language depend not only on how offensive a word is but also on whether it is funny, revealing a more complex relationship among humor, arousal, and attention.

The research, “When an F-bomb bonks your funny bone: humor attenuates the taboo Stroop effect,” was authored by Lise Abrams, Lori E. James, Maria-Elisabeth Lootus, and Meredith A. Shafto.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/humor-makes-taboo-words-less-distracting/

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DATE: September 24, 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: Humor makes taboo words less distracting

URL: https://www.psypost.org/humor-makes-taboo-words-less-distracting/

Taboo words slowed people’s ability to identify font colors, but this distraction was reduced when the words were also funny, according to research published in Cognition & Emotion.

Taboo words—including profanity, insults, slurs, and sexual terms—can interfere with language processing. In the “taboo Stroop effect” (a variation of the standard Stroop effect, a psychological phenomenon where reading a word interferes with naming its ink color), people take longer to identify the font color of a taboo word than that of a neutral word. Researchers have generally attributed this delay to emotional arousal (a state of heightened physiological and psychological activity). Taboo words capture attention or make it harder to disengage from their meaning, leaving fewer attentional resources available for identifying their color.

However, taboo words are not exclusively offensive or unpleasant; some are also perceived as humorous. Because humor can itself be arousing but may help people shift attention more flexibly, Lise Abrams and colleagues examined whether humor would intensify or lessen the distracting effect of taboo words.

Experiment 1 involved 59 participants recruited via Prolific (an online platform used to recruit research subjects) after exclusions. Eligible participants were native English speakers living in the United States, between ages 18-29 years, and did not report color blindness, dyslexia, or ADHD. Participants saw 48 taboo and 48 neutral words, selected using previous nine-point ratings of tabooness, humor, and arousal. Each word appeared once in red, blue, green, and yellow, producing 384 randomly intermixed trials. Participants pressed one of four keys to identify the font color as quickly and accurately as possible, after completing color-key training and 40 practice trials. They also completed a demographic questionnaire.

Experiment 2 included 102 Prolific participants using the same eligibility criteria. The researchers selected 32 words divided into four groups based on the same nine-point norms: high-taboo/high-humor, high-taboo/low-humor, low-taboo/high-humor, and low-taboo/low-humor. The words were presented in separate blocks, along with neutral filler blocks, for a total of 256 trials. Participants again identified each word’s font color by keypress, and the researchers measured response time and accuracy.

In Experiment 1, participants identified the colors of taboo words more slowly than those of neutral words, demonstrating the taboo Stroop effect. This interference was strongest during the first set of trials and diminished with repeated exposure, suggesting that participants gradually became accustomed to the taboo words. Words rated as more taboo produced slower responses, but humor did not independently predict response speed or alter the effect of tabooness when taboo and neutral words were intermixed.

Experiment 2 again showed that taboo words slowed color identification. This time, however, humor changed the size of the effect: highly taboo words interfered with performance whether they were high or low in humor, but the interference was significantly smaller for the more humorous taboo words. Humor alone did not affect response times, suggesting that it did not simply make color identification easier; instead, it specifically reduced how strongly taboo content captured attention when words were presented in separate blocks.

The limited number of suitable words made it difficult to match the four word categories on characteristics such as emotional valence (the intrinsic positive or negative quality of a stimulus) and arousal. The young, US-based online sample and presentation of isolated words also limit how readily the findings can be generalized to other populations, cultures, or real-world language contexts.

Overall, the findings suggest that people’s responses to taboo language depend not only on how offensive a word is but also on whether it is funny, revealing a more complex relationship among humor, arousal, and attention.

The research, “When an F-bomb bonks your funny bone: humor attenuates the taboo Stroop effect,” was authored by Lise Abrams, Lori E. James, Maria-Elisabeth Lootus, and Meredith A. Shafto.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/humor-makes-taboo-words-less-distracting/

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DATE: September 24, 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: Humor makes taboo words less distracting

URL: https://www.psypost.org/humor-makes-taboo-words-less-distracting/

Taboo words slowed people’s ability to identify font colors, but this distraction was reduced when the words were also funny, according to research published in Cognition & Emotion.

Taboo words—including profanity, insults, slurs, and sexual terms—can interfere with language processing. In the “taboo Stroop effect” (a variation of the standard Stroop effect, a psychological phenomenon where reading a word interferes with naming its ink color), people take longer to identify the font color of a taboo word than that of a neutral word. Researchers have generally attributed this delay to emotional arousal (a state of heightened physiological and psychological activity). Taboo words capture attention or make it harder to disengage from their meaning, leaving fewer attentional resources available for identifying their color.

However, taboo words are not exclusively offensive or unpleasant; some are also perceived as humorous. Because humor can itself be arousing but may help people shift attention more flexibly, Lise Abrams and colleagues examined whether humor would intensify or lessen the distracting effect of taboo words.

Experiment 1 involved 59 participants recruited via Prolific (an online platform used to recruit research subjects) after exclusions. Eligible participants were native English speakers living in the United States, between ages 18-29 years, and did not report color blindness, dyslexia, or ADHD. Participants saw 48 taboo and 48 neutral words, selected using previous nine-point ratings of tabooness, humor, and arousal. Each word appeared once in red, blue, green, and yellow, producing 384 randomly intermixed trials. Participants pressed one of four keys to identify the font color as quickly and accurately as possible, after completing color-key training and 40 practice trials. They also completed a demographic questionnaire.

Experiment 2 included 102 Prolific participants using the same eligibility criteria. The researchers selected 32 words divided into four groups based on the same nine-point norms: high-taboo/high-humor, high-taboo/low-humor, low-taboo/high-humor, and low-taboo/low-humor. The words were presented in separate blocks, along with neutral filler blocks, for a total of 256 trials. Participants again identified each word’s font color by keypress, and the researchers measured response time and accuracy.

In Experiment 1, participants identified the colors of taboo words more slowly than those of neutral words, demonstrating the taboo Stroop effect. This interference was strongest during the first set of trials and diminished with repeated exposure, suggesting that participants gradually became accustomed to the taboo words. Words rated as more taboo produced slower responses, but humor did not independently predict response speed or alter the effect of tabooness when taboo and neutral words were intermixed.

Experiment 2 again showed that taboo words slowed color identification. This time, however, humor changed the size of the effect: highly taboo words interfered with performance whether they were high or low in humor, but the interference was significantly smaller for the more humorous taboo words. Humor alone did not affect response times, suggesting that it did not simply make color identification easier; instead, it specifically reduced how strongly taboo content captured attention when words were presented in separate blocks.

The limited number of suitable words made it difficult to match the four word categories on characteristics such as emotional valence (the intrinsic positive or negative quality of a stimulus) and arousal. The young, US-based online sample and presentation of isolated words also limit how readily the findings can be generalized to other populations, cultures, or real-world language contexts.

Overall, the findings suggest that people’s responses to taboo language depend not only on how offensive a word is but also on whether it is funny, revealing a more complex relationship among humor, arousal, and attention.

The research, “When an F-bomb bonks your funny bone: humor attenuates the taboo Stroop effect,” was authored by Lise Abrams, Lori E. James, Maria-Elisabeth Lootus, and Meredith A. Shafto.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/humor-makes-taboo-words-less-distracting/

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DATE: September 24, 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: Psilocybin restores social drive in an autism mouse model even under anesthesia

URL: https://www.psypost.org/psilocybin-restores-social-drive-in-an-autism-mouse-model-even-under-anesthesia/

New research provides evidence that a single dose of psilocybin can durably increase social behavior in mice with genetic traits related to autism. The findings indicate that these behavioral benefits occur even if the mice are anesthetized during the drug’s acute effects, which suggests the subjective psychedelic experience is not strictly required. The study was published in Nature Communications.

Psilocybin is the primary psychoactive compound found in certain species of hallucinogenic mushrooms. In recent years, medical research has explored its potential to treat conditions like depression, anxiety, and addiction. Some experts also wonder if it could improve sociability, which refers to the innate drive and capacity to interact with others.

Reduced sociability is a prominent characteristic of autism spectrum disorder. It is also a feature sometimes observed in other conditions, such as schizophrenia and major depressive disorder. When considering how psychedelics alter brain function, scientists sometimes look at the idea of physiological set points. According to a 2026 review, psychedelics can push brain activity away from a rigid set point, making neural pathways more adaptable even after the drug wears off. This perspective suggests that psilocybin might help shift an out-of-balance behavioral state toward a more typical one.

Another ongoing debate in psychiatric research revolves around the psychedelic trip itself. The intense sensory and emotional alterations induced by psilocybin can be challenging to manage in clinical settings and sometimes provoke adverse psychological reactions. It has remained unknown whether this conscious experience is biologically necessary to achieve the drug’s long-lasting behavioral effects.

“We wanted to examine the lasting effects of a single dose of psilocybin beyond its established effect on depression as previously reported in the human literature,” Chenchen Song, a principal investigator at Nanyang Technological University Singapore, told PsyPost. Song led the research alongside Thomas Knöpfel, director of the JC STEM Laboratory for Neuronal Circuit Dynamics at Hong Kong Baptist University. “We conduct basic preclinical research, so we examined the lasting effects using a mouse model of altered sociability; the model was established by other labs and used by many independent labs internationally.”

“A long-standing debate in the psychedelic field is whether an awake subjective experience is required during the acute psychedelic phase (commonly known as a ‘psychedelic trip’) to achieve the therapeutic effects,” the researchers explained. “Since bad psychedelic trips have been linked to unfavorable behavioral outcomes, understanding this may have real-world implications for how psychedelic-assisted therapies are delivered.”

The researchers utilized a well-established group of mice bred without the Cntnap2 gene. In humans, variations in this gene are associated with autism. Mice lacking this gene naturally display lower levels of social interaction, hyperactivity, and repetitive behaviors. The team injected 30 adult mice with a single dose of either psilocybin or a saline solution to serve as a baseline comparison.

“We use social behavior as a behavioral readout of altered brain state,” the researchers noted. “Therefore we needed a mouse model that show altered social behavior that can potentially show an improvement in behavior, if any, upon treatment. It is for this reason that we used an established mouse model of autism which is known to show altered social behavior in the hands of many independent laboratories internationally.”

They emphasized that their focus was on understanding brain flexibility, not discovering a cure for a specific human condition. “The goal of this study is not to find a therapeutic intervention for autism per se, and we are not suggesting that autism, in and of itself, should be treated,” the team added.

The team assessed the animals’ social behavior using a standard three-chamber test. This behavioral measure records how much time a mouse chooses to spend near a cup containing an unfamiliar mouse compared to an empty cup. The psilocybin-treated mice displayed an increased preference for the social cup compared to the saline-treated mice. This enhanced social drive was detectable one day after the injection and lasted for at least two weeks.

“The sociability promoting effect of psilocybin in mice that show a low baseline sociability was an original discovery of our lab (first in the prenatal valproate exposure mouse model of autism and now in a genetic model of reduced sociability),” Song pointed out.

The differences in the total amount of time the mice spent exploring both cups and their overall movement around the testing area were not statistically significant. This indicates that the drug specifically improved the animals’ social motivation rather than merely increasing their general desire to explore. To ensure the animals were not just learning how to navigate the test over time, the researchers tested a separate group of 19 mice for the very first time two weeks after treatment and observed the same social enhancements.

To determine if psilocybin acts as a universal social enhancer, the researchers repeated the exact same procedure with 18 isogenic wild-type mice. These are genetically identical control mice that possess normal Cntnap2 genes and exhibit typical social behaviors. In these animals, a single dose of psilocybin did not increase sociability. In fact, the treated control mice showed a tendency toward reduced social behavior one day after the injection.

“Even though we observed therapeutic effects in the model mice (of altered social behavior), we observed a lack of beneficial effects in control mice that do not have a deficit to begin with,” the researchers explained. “We therefore think that psychedelic use in the absence of behavioral alterations have limited beneficial effects.”

“Further, given that a significant portion of preclinical psychedelic research is done using wild-type mice, we should highlight that we think it important that the therapeutic effects of psychedelics should be examined using models of altered states as different effects/mechanisms may be involved,” they added.

The team also looked at other behaviors associated with this genetic model, specifically repetitive self-grooming and hyperactivity. During the observation periods, mice lacking the Cntnap2 gene groomed themselves much more frequently and traveled greater distances than the typical control mice. Psilocybin treatment did not alter these specific behaviors. The hyperactive and repetitive actions remained at the same elevated levels one day and one week after the drug was administered.

Psilocybin is known to exert its primary effects by activating a specific serotonin receptor in the brain, known as the 5HT2A receptor. To confirm this biological pathway, the researchers gave a group of mice a drug that blocks 5HT2A receptors fifteen minutes before administering the psilocybin. The blocking agent completely prevented the long-term increases in sociability.

The blocking agent also stopped the mice from exhibiting head twitches, which are rapid side-to-side head movements that scientists use as an indicator of a psychedelic hallucination in rodents. Interestingly, the frequency of a mouse’s head twitches right after receiving psilocybin had no correlation with how much its sociability improved weeks later. This hint led the researchers to a final, more definitive test.

To directly test if an active, awake experience is necessary for the long-term benefits, the researchers designed an experiment where mice were given psilocybin while unconscious. The animals were placed under light isoflurane anesthesia, maintaining a steady breathing rate with no movement or conscious awareness, for two hours. During this window, the animals received their injection and experienced the entirety of the drug’s acute chemical effects without an awake psychological trip.

When these anesthetized mice were later tested awake, they still exhibited the exact same long-lasting increases in sociability as the mice treated while awake. This provides evidence that the drug’s ability to rewire social behaviors is driven by basic chemical receptor interactions, rather than profound psychological realizations.

“Our observations suggest that psilocybin even when given under anesthetized state can have long-term therapeutic potential,” the researchers noted. However, they cautioned that “our preclinical work is no substitute for human studies. As far as we are aware of, human studies at various institutions are also underway for examining the therapeutic effects when psychedelics are given under anesthesia, for different psychedelic compounds.”

These animal findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in 2025, which found that autistic adults often reported increased social engagement and reduced distress after impactful psychedelic experiences. However, that previous study relied on human self-reporting, whereas the current research measured physical approach behaviors in an animal model.

As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. Animal models cannot perfectly replicate complex human conditions like autism spectrum disorder. Additionally, the three-chamber test relies on measuring the physical time an animal spends near another mouse, but it cannot reveal the nuance of that interaction, meaning researchers cannot easily tell if an approach is driven by friendly interest or territorial aggression.

“The lasting effects of psychedelics remain understudied, especially at the mechanistic level,” Song said. “Nevertheless there is overwhelming evidence for the existence of lasting effects across species and across components of behavior. This is something that one should be generally aware of, especially with the increase of recreational psychedelic use.”

“Next we hope to look more mechanistically at how the lasting effects are achieved/sustained,” the researchers concluded. “Our preliminary observations suggest that epigenetic mechanisms are involved.”

The study, “Psilocybin enhances sociability only in altered behavioural state and does not need an awake experience to be effective,” was authored by Chenchen Song, Tinya Chang, Tobias Buchborn, and Thomas Knöpfel.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/psilocybin-restores-social-drive-in-an-autism-mouse-model-even-under-anesthesia/

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DATE: September 24, 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: Psilocybin restores social drive in an autism mouse model even under anesthesia

URL: https://www.psypost.org/psilocybin-restores-social-drive-in-an-autism-mouse-model-even-under-anesthesia/

New research provides evidence that a single dose of psilocybin can durably increase social behavior in mice with genetic traits related to autism. The findings indicate that these behavioral benefits occur even if the mice are anesthetized during the drug’s acute effects, which suggests the subjective psychedelic experience is not strictly required. The study was published in Nature Communications.

Psilocybin is the primary psychoactive compound found in certain species of hallucinogenic mushrooms. In recent years, medical research has explored its potential to treat conditions like depression, anxiety, and addiction. Some experts also wonder if it could improve sociability, which refers to the innate drive and capacity to interact with others.

Reduced sociability is a prominent characteristic of autism spectrum disorder. It is also a feature sometimes observed in other conditions, such as schizophrenia and major depressive disorder. When considering how psychedelics alter brain function, scientists sometimes look at the idea of physiological set points. According to a 2026 review, psychedelics can push brain activity away from a rigid set point, making neural pathways more adaptable even after the drug wears off. This perspective suggests that psilocybin might help shift an out-of-balance behavioral state toward a more typical one.

Another ongoing debate in psychiatric research revolves around the psychedelic trip itself. The intense sensory and emotional alterations induced by psilocybin can be challenging to manage in clinical settings and sometimes provoke adverse psychological reactions. It has remained unknown whether this conscious experience is biologically necessary to achieve the drug’s long-lasting behavioral effects.

“We wanted to examine the lasting effects of a single dose of psilocybin beyond its established effect on depression as previously reported in the human literature,” Chenchen Song, a principal investigator at Nanyang Technological University Singapore, told PsyPost. Song led the research alongside Thomas Knöpfel, director of the JC STEM Laboratory for Neuronal Circuit Dynamics at Hong Kong Baptist University. “We conduct basic preclinical research, so we examined the lasting effects using a mouse model of altered sociability; the model was established by other labs and used by many independent labs internationally.”

“A long-standing debate in the psychedelic field is whether an awake subjective experience is required during the acute psychedelic phase (commonly known as a ‘psychedelic trip’) to achieve the therapeutic effects,” the researchers explained. “Since bad psychedelic trips have been linked to unfavorable behavioral outcomes, understanding this may have real-world implications for how psychedelic-assisted therapies are delivered.”

The researchers utilized a well-established group of mice bred without the Cntnap2 gene. In humans, variations in this gene are associated with autism. Mice lacking this gene naturally display lower levels of social interaction, hyperactivity, and repetitive behaviors. The team injected 30 adult mice with a single dose of either psilocybin or a saline solution to serve as a baseline comparison.

“We use social behavior as a behavioral readout of altered brain state,” the researchers noted. “Therefore we needed a mouse model that show altered social behavior that can potentially show an improvement in behavior, if any, upon treatment. It is for this reason that we used an established mouse model of autism which is known to show altered social behavior in the hands of many independent laboratories internationally.”

They emphasized that their focus was on understanding brain flexibility, not discovering a cure for a specific human condition. “The goal of this study is not to find a therapeutic intervention for autism per se, and we are not suggesting that autism, in and of itself, should be treated,” the team added.

The team assessed the animals’ social behavior using a standard three-chamber test. This behavioral measure records how much time a mouse chooses to spend near a cup containing an unfamiliar mouse compared to an empty cup. The psilocybin-treated mice displayed an increased preference for the social cup compared to the saline-treated mice. This enhanced social drive was detectable one day after the injection and lasted for at least two weeks.

“The sociability promoting effect of psilocybin in mice that show a low baseline sociability was an original discovery of our lab (first in the prenatal valproate exposure mouse model of autism and now in a genetic model of reduced sociability),” Song pointed out.

The differences in the total amount of time the mice spent exploring both cups and their overall movement around the testing area were not statistically significant. This indicates that the drug specifically improved the animals’ social motivation rather than merely increasing their general desire to explore. To ensure the animals were not just learning how to navigate the test over time, the researchers tested a separate group of 19 mice for the very first time two weeks after treatment and observed the same social enhancements.

To determine if psilocybin acts as a universal social enhancer, the researchers repeated the exact same procedure with 18 isogenic wild-type mice. These are genetically identical control mice that possess normal Cntnap2 genes and exhibit typical social behaviors. In these animals, a single dose of psilocybin did not increase sociability. In fact, the treated control mice showed a tendency toward reduced social behavior one day after the injection.

“Even though we observed therapeutic effects in the model mice (of altered social behavior), we observed a lack of beneficial effects in control mice that do not have a deficit to begin with,” the researchers explained. “We therefore think that psychedelic use in the absence of behavioral alterations have limited beneficial effects.”

“Further, given that a significant portion of preclinical psychedelic research is done using wild-type mice, we should highlight that we think it important that the therapeutic effects of psychedelics should be examined using models of altered states as different effects/mechanisms may be involved,” they added.

The team also looked at other behaviors associated with this genetic model, specifically repetitive self-grooming and hyperactivity. During the observation periods, mice lacking the Cntnap2 gene groomed themselves much more frequently and traveled greater distances than the typical control mice. Psilocybin treatment did not alter these specific behaviors. The hyperactive and repetitive actions remained at the same elevated levels one day and one week after the drug was administered.

Psilocybin is known to exert its primary effects by activating a specific serotonin receptor in the brain, known as the 5HT2A receptor. To confirm this biological pathway, the researchers gave a group of mice a drug that blocks 5HT2A receptors fifteen minutes before administering the psilocybin. The blocking agent completely prevented the long-term increases in sociability.

The blocking agent also stopped the mice from exhibiting head twitches, which are rapid side-to-side head movements that scientists use as an indicator of a psychedelic hallucination in rodents. Interestingly, the frequency of a mouse’s head twitches right after receiving psilocybin had no correlation with how much its sociability improved weeks later. This hint led the researchers to a final, more definitive test.

To directly test if an active, awake experience is necessary for the long-term benefits, the researchers designed an experiment where mice were given psilocybin while unconscious. The animals were placed under light isoflurane anesthesia, maintaining a steady breathing rate with no movement or conscious awareness, for two hours. During this window, the animals received their injection and experienced the entirety of the drug’s acute chemical effects without an awake psychological trip.

When these anesthetized mice were later tested awake, they still exhibited the exact same long-lasting increases in sociability as the mice treated while awake. This provides evidence that the drug’s ability to rewire social behaviors is driven by basic chemical receptor interactions, rather than profound psychological realizations.

“Our observations suggest that psilocybin even when given under anesthetized state can have long-term therapeutic potential,” the researchers noted. However, they cautioned that “our preclinical work is no substitute for human studies. As far as we are aware of, human studies at various institutions are also underway for examining the therapeutic effects when psychedelics are given under anesthesia, for different psychedelic compounds.”

These animal findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in 2025, which found that autistic adults often reported increased social engagement and reduced distress after impactful psychedelic experiences. However, that previous study relied on human self-reporting, whereas the current research measured physical approach behaviors in an animal model.

As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. Animal models cannot perfectly replicate complex human conditions like autism spectrum disorder. Additionally, the three-chamber test relies on measuring the physical time an animal spends near another mouse, but it cannot reveal the nuance of that interaction, meaning researchers cannot easily tell if an approach is driven by friendly interest or territorial aggression.

“The lasting effects of psychedelics remain understudied, especially at the mechanistic level,” Song said. “Nevertheless there is overwhelming evidence for the existence of lasting effects across species and across components of behavior. This is something that one should be generally aware of, especially with the increase of recreational psychedelic use.”

“Next we hope to look more mechanistically at how the lasting effects are achieved/sustained,” the researchers concluded. “Our preliminary observations suggest that epigenetic mechanisms are involved.”

The study, “Psilocybin enhances sociability only in altered behavioural state and does not need an awake experience to be effective,” was authored by Chenchen Song, Tinya Chang, Tobias Buchborn, and Thomas Knöpfel.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/psilocybin-restores-social-drive-in-an-autism-mouse-model-even-under-anesthesia/

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DATE: September 24, 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: Psilocybin restores social drive in an autism mouse model even under anesthesia

URL: https://www.psypost.org/psilocybin-restores-social-drive-in-an-autism-mouse-model-even-under-anesthesia/

New research provides evidence that a single dose of psilocybin can durably increase social behavior in mice with genetic traits related to autism. The findings indicate that these behavioral benefits occur even if the mice are anesthetized during the drug’s acute effects, which suggests the subjective psychedelic experience is not strictly required. The study was published in Nature Communications.

Psilocybin is the primary psychoactive compound found in certain species of hallucinogenic mushrooms. In recent years, medical research has explored its potential to treat conditions like depression, anxiety, and addiction. Some experts also wonder if it could improve sociability, which refers to the innate drive and capacity to interact with others.

Reduced sociability is a prominent characteristic of autism spectrum disorder. It is also a feature sometimes observed in other conditions, such as schizophrenia and major depressive disorder. When considering how psychedelics alter brain function, scientists sometimes look at the idea of physiological set points. According to a 2026 review, psychedelics can push brain activity away from a rigid set point, making neural pathways more adaptable even after the drug wears off. This perspective suggests that psilocybin might help shift an out-of-balance behavioral state toward a more typical one.

Another ongoing debate in psychiatric research revolves around the psychedelic trip itself. The intense sensory and emotional alterations induced by psilocybin can be challenging to manage in clinical settings and sometimes provoke adverse psychological reactions. It has remained unknown whether this conscious experience is biologically necessary to achieve the drug’s long-lasting behavioral effects.

“We wanted to examine the lasting effects of a single dose of psilocybin beyond its established effect on depression as previously reported in the human literature,” Chenchen Song, a principal investigator at Nanyang Technological University Singapore, told PsyPost. Song led the research alongside Thomas Knöpfel, director of the JC STEM Laboratory for Neuronal Circuit Dynamics at Hong Kong Baptist University. “We conduct basic preclinical research, so we examined the lasting effects using a mouse model of altered sociability; the model was established by other labs and used by many independent labs internationally.”

“A long-standing debate in the psychedelic field is whether an awake subjective experience is required during the acute psychedelic phase (commonly known as a ‘psychedelic trip’) to achieve the therapeutic effects,” the researchers explained. “Since bad psychedelic trips have been linked to unfavorable behavioral outcomes, understanding this may have real-world implications for how psychedelic-assisted therapies are delivered.”

The researchers utilized a well-established group of mice bred without the Cntnap2 gene. In humans, variations in this gene are associated with autism. Mice lacking this gene naturally display lower levels of social interaction, hyperactivity, and repetitive behaviors. The team injected 30 adult mice with a single dose of either psilocybin or a saline solution to serve as a baseline comparison.

“We use social behavior as a behavioral readout of altered brain state,” the researchers noted. “Therefore we needed a mouse model that show altered social behavior that can potentially show an improvement in behavior, if any, upon treatment. It is for this reason that we used an established mouse model of autism which is known to show altered social behavior in the hands of many independent laboratories internationally.”

They emphasized that their focus was on understanding brain flexibility, not discovering a cure for a specific human condition. “The goal of this study is not to find a therapeutic intervention for autism per se, and we are not suggesting that autism, in and of itself, should be treated,” the team added.

The team assessed the animals’ social behavior using a standard three-chamber test. This behavioral measure records how much time a mouse chooses to spend near a cup containing an unfamiliar mouse compared to an empty cup. The psilocybin-treated mice displayed an increased preference for the social cup compared to the saline-treated mice. This enhanced social drive was detectable one day after the injection and lasted for at least two weeks.

“The sociability promoting effect of psilocybin in mice that show a low baseline sociability was an original discovery of our lab (first in the prenatal valproate exposure mouse model of autism and now in a genetic model of reduced sociability),” Song pointed out.

The differences in the total amount of time the mice spent exploring both cups and their overall movement around the testing area were not statistically significant. This indicates that the drug specifically improved the animals’ social motivation rather than merely increasing their general desire to explore. To ensure the animals were not just learning how to navigate the test over time, the researchers tested a separate group of 19 mice for the very first time two weeks after treatment and observed the same social enhancements.

To determine if psilocybin acts as a universal social enhancer, the researchers repeated the exact same procedure with 18 isogenic wild-type mice. These are genetically identical control mice that possess normal Cntnap2 genes and exhibit typical social behaviors. In these animals, a single dose of psilocybin did not increase sociability. In fact, the treated control mice showed a tendency toward reduced social behavior one day after the injection.

“Even though we observed therapeutic effects in the model mice (of altered social behavior), we observed a lack of beneficial effects in control mice that do not have a deficit to begin with,” the researchers explained. “We therefore think that psychedelic use in the absence of behavioral alterations have limited beneficial effects.”

“Further, given that a significant portion of preclinical psychedelic research is done using wild-type mice, we should highlight that we think it important that the therapeutic effects of psychedelics should be examined using models of altered states as different effects/mechanisms may be involved,” they added.

The team also looked at other behaviors associated with this genetic model, specifically repetitive self-grooming and hyperactivity. During the observation periods, mice lacking the Cntnap2 gene groomed themselves much more frequently and traveled greater distances than the typical control mice. Psilocybin treatment did not alter these specific behaviors. The hyperactive and repetitive actions remained at the same elevated levels one day and one week after the drug was administered.

Psilocybin is known to exert its primary effects by activating a specific serotonin receptor in the brain, known as the 5HT2A receptor. To confirm this biological pathway, the researchers gave a group of mice a drug that blocks 5HT2A receptors fifteen minutes before administering the psilocybin. The blocking agent completely prevented the long-term increases in sociability.

The blocking agent also stopped the mice from exhibiting head twitches, which are rapid side-to-side head movements that scientists use as an indicator of a psychedelic hallucination in rodents. Interestingly, the frequency of a mouse’s head twitches right after receiving psilocybin had no correlation with how much its sociability improved weeks later. This hint led the researchers to a final, more definitive test.

To directly test if an active, awake experience is necessary for the long-term benefits, the researchers designed an experiment where mice were given psilocybin while unconscious. The animals were placed under light isoflurane anesthesia, maintaining a steady breathing rate with no movement or conscious awareness, for two hours. During this window, the animals received their injection and experienced the entirety of the drug’s acute chemical effects without an awake psychological trip.

When these anesthetized mice were later tested awake, they still exhibited the exact same long-lasting increases in sociability as the mice treated while awake. This provides evidence that the drug’s ability to rewire social behaviors is driven by basic chemical receptor interactions, rather than profound psychological realizations.

“Our observations suggest that psilocybin even when given under anesthetized state can have long-term therapeutic potential,” the researchers noted. However, they cautioned that “our preclinical work is no substitute for human studies. As far as we are aware of, human studies at various institutions are also underway for examining the therapeutic effects when psychedelics are given under anesthesia, for different psychedelic compounds.”

These animal findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in 2025, which found that autistic adults often reported increased social engagement and reduced distress after impactful psychedelic experiences. However, that previous study relied on human self-reporting, whereas the current research measured physical approach behaviors in an animal model.

As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. Animal models cannot perfectly replicate complex human conditions like autism spectrum disorder. Additionally, the three-chamber test relies on measuring the physical time an animal spends near another mouse, but it cannot reveal the nuance of that interaction, meaning researchers cannot easily tell if an approach is driven by friendly interest or territorial aggression.

“The lasting effects of psychedelics remain understudied, especially at the mechanistic level,” Song said. “Nevertheless there is overwhelming evidence for the existence of lasting effects across species and across components of behavior. This is something that one should be generally aware of, especially with the increase of recreational psychedelic use.”

“Next we hope to look more mechanistically at how the lasting effects are achieved/sustained,” the researchers concluded. “Our preliminary observations suggest that epigenetic mechanisms are involved.”

The study, “Psilocybin enhances sociability only in altered behavioural state and does not need an awake experience to be effective,” was authored by Chenchen Song, Tinya Chang, Tobias Buchborn, and Thomas Knöpfel.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/psilocybin-restores-social-drive-in-an-autism-mouse-model-even-under-anesthesia/

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DATE: September 24, 2026 at 09:28AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY PSYCHOLOGY FEED

TITLE: When what you see doesn’t make sense, your brain does something remarkable

URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260923035929.htm

The brain may have a built-in way to quickly settle disagreements between regions processing the same scene. Researchers found that matching signals between two visual areas lasted longer, while conflicting signals rapidly faded away. This “consensus building” mechanism could help explain how the brain turns many specialized inputs into one unified view of the world.

URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260923035929.htm

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DATE: September 24, 2026 at 09:28AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY PSYCHOLOGY FEED

TITLE: When what you see doesn’t make sense, your brain does something remarkable

URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260923035929.htm

The brain may have a built-in way to quickly settle disagreements between regions processing the same scene. Researchers found that matching signals between two visual areas lasted longer, while conflicting signals rapidly faded away. This “consensus building” mechanism could help explain how the brain turns many specialized inputs into one unified view of the world.

URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260923035929.htm

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DATE: September 24, 2026 at 09:28AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY PSYCHOLOGY FEED

TITLE: When what you see doesn’t make sense, your brain does something remarkable

URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260923035929.htm

The brain may have a built-in way to quickly settle disagreements between regions processing the same scene. Researchers found that matching signals between two visual areas lasted longer, while conflicting signals rapidly faded away. This “consensus building” mechanism could help explain how the brain turns many specialized inputs into one unified view of the world.

URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260923035929.htm

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DATE: September 24, 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: Personal hardship and online isolation predict support for white nationalism

URL: https://www.psypost.org/personal-hardship-and-online-isolation-predict-support-for-white-nationalism/

About 5 percent of white American adults express support for the core ideas of the white nationalist movement, with rates rising to over 13 percent among young white men. The research indicates that personal hardships and isolated online social lives predict this support, rather than changing local racial demographics. The findings were published in Nature.

White nationalism is an ideology based on the belief that white people are under threat in the United States and that the white race must ensure its survival. According to this worldview, white people should hold more political and economic power than other groups, maintain a demographic majority, and treat white culture as superior to all other cultures. The movement operates through informal online networks, paramilitary groups, and public rallies. Until recently, public opinion researchers had not directly measured how many Americans explicitly endorse these exact principles.

Previous research has shown that white Americans hold distinct in-group racial identities, which sets the stage for understanding their political behavior. For instance, a 2019 study showed that many white Americans possess a strong sense of white racial solidarity. Other studies have explored what might cause these group-based attitudes to turn hostile.

A 2014 study indicated that learning about the country’s growing non-white population tends to make white Americans feel threatened and adopt more conservative views. Additionally, a study covered by PsyPost in 2020 found that people holding extreme white identitarian attitudes tend to score lower in personality traits related to politeness and openness to new experiences.

“We observed white nationalist ideas becoming more visible in American public life—in marches and rallies, on the internet and social media, and even in election campaigns,” Patrick J. Egan, a professor of politics and public policy and director of the Berkley Institute for Civil Discourse & Civic Solutions at New York University, told PsyPost.

“That led us to wonder the extent to which white nationalism appeals to the broader public, and who is most likely to support it,” Egan explained. “It turned out no academic study had directly measured support for the white nationalist movement before, and so we decided to investigate these questions ourselves.”

Egan and his colleagues suspected that explicit support for white nationalism might actually be driven by personal economic hardship or online radicalization, rather than local demographic changes. They also wanted to measure support directly by providing respondents with an accurate definition of the movement, reducing the chance that people would misunderstand the label.

To explore this, the researchers conducted three national surveys of non-Hispanic white adults in the United States. In the first study, conducted in 2021, the team surveyed 3,227 people using an online panel matched to national demographics. To test whether people truly understood what white nationalism meant, the researchers ran an experiment. Half of the participants were asked if they supported the movement, while the other half were given a short, factual description of its core beliefs about white power and cultural superiority before being asked the same question.

Providing the definition increased expressed support from 3.8 percent to 7.6 percent. When people were informed about the movement’s actual goals, their answers aligned more closely with their other racial attitudes, such as their sense of white identity and their opposition to minority groups holding power. This suggests that some white Americans agree with the movement’s ideas but are unfamiliar with the term white nationalism until it is explained to them.

Using the fully informed responses, the researchers then looked for demographic predictors. They found that support for white nationalism was 15 percentage points higher among people without a high school diploma compared to those with postgraduate degrees. It was also higher among conservatives, Republicans, frequent church attenders, people who believe in political conspiracies, and those who feel disconnected from politics entirely.

The researchers then tested the competing theories about what drives these beliefs. They found evidence supporting the idea that social and economic strain plays a role. People who had experienced three or more personal hardships in the past year, such as job loss or divorce, were 4 percentage points more likely to support white nationalism than those who experienced none. Living in a county with high levels of social distress, measured by poverty and unemployment rates, also predicted higher support.

However, the researchers found no evidence that changing local demographics drive white nationalist support. Living in a county with a large non-white population or a rapidly shrinking white population was not associated with endorsing the movement. The researchers note that these findings challenge the common assumption that everyday exposure to racial diversity fuels white nationalist grievance.

“One finding that is somewhat unexpected is that white people living in areas that are becoming more racially diverse were not more likely to support white nationalism,” Egan said. “This is in contrast to what we would expect from status-threat theories, which hold that demographic change can spark backlash and resentment.”

“Of course, we don’t have causal evidence in either direction here: our null findings regarding status threat may in part stem from suppressor bias introduced by whites’ residential sorting into preferred ethnoracial environments,” he added. In other words, if white Americans who dislike diversity simply move to neighborhoods that match their preferred racial makeup, it could mask the true relationship between demographic changes and nationalist views.

The study also explored the role of the internet. General social media use did not predict support for white nationalism. Instead, the nature of a person’s social ties mattered. Support was 13 percentage points higher among respondents who said all three of their closest friends were people they only knew online, compared to those whose closest friends were all known in real life.

In 2024, the researchers conducted a second study to confirm these patterns using a probability-based sample of 2,114 non-Hispanic white adults. This method is generally considered more accurate for estimating how common a belief is in the general population. This second survey replicated the main demographic findings, including the strong link between lower education, lower income, and higher support for white nationalism.

Based on this second sample, the researchers estimated that 4.9 percent of white American adults support the white nationalist movement once its tenets are explained to them. Support was highest among young men. The data showed that 13.5 percent of white men aged 18 to 29 endorsed the movement. The researchers noted that young men today spend vast amounts of time online and face unique social and economic challenges, potentially making them more receptive to grievance narratives.

A third survey, involving 2,548 white adults in late 2024 and early 2025, was designed to rule out statistical errors. The researchers tested whether respondents were just clicking a button to agree with whatever the survey asked, a phenomenon known as acquiescence bias. They also checked if asking about racial attitudes earlier in the survey primed people to express more extreme views. The results held up against these checks, confirming that the measurement of white nationalist support was robust.

The findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in 2025, which found that exposing white Americans to news about a growing non-white population did not actually increase their feelings of racial threat or worsen their attitudes toward minorities. The new study builds on this by showing that even real-world, local demographic trends fail to predict explicit support for white nationalism.

As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The study relies on observational data taken at specific points in time, meaning it cannot strictly determine cause and effect. Unmeasured factors, such as underlying personality traits or mental health challenges, might make someone more likely to experience personal hardships and also more susceptible to extreme political views.

The connection between online friendships and white nationalism is also complex. While isolated people might fall into online extremism, it is equally possible that holding extreme, unconventional political views makes it difficult for someone to maintain offline friendships. This dynamic could force individuals to seek out like-minded communities entirely on the internet.

Finally, the researchers noted that their study focuses strictly on ideological agreement rather than behavior. “We want to emphasize that we are only asking about endorsement of white nationalist views,” Egan noted. “We do not measure organizational affiliation with the white nationalist movement, nor do we measure support for its tactics.”

“We hope that researchers—whether that be ourselves, or other scholars—use our measure on future surveys to determine whether support for white nationalism is changing over time,” Egan said. “This will help us know if the rising visibility of white nationalism in the US is being accompanied by rising support for its ideas in the mass public.”

The study, “Predictors and prevalence of support for white nationalism in the United States,” was authored by Patrick J. Egan, James Bisbee, and Joshua A. Tucker.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/personal-hardship-and-online-isolation-predict-support-for-white-nationalism/

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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #WhiteNationalism #OnlineIsolation #SocialDistancingFromDiversity #WhiteIdentity #PoliticalConspiracyBeliefs #SocioeconomicHardship #OnlineFriendsOnly #RaceRelations #PublicOpinion #NatureStudy

DATE: September 24, 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: Personal hardship and online isolation predict support for white nationalism

URL: https://www.psypost.org/personal-hardship-and-online-isolation-predict-support-for-white-nationalism/

About 5 percent of white American adults express support for the core ideas of the white nationalist movement, with rates rising to over 13 percent among young white men. The research indicates that personal hardships and isolated online social lives predict this support, rather than changing local racial demographics. The findings were published in Nature.

White nationalism is an ideology based on the belief that white people are under threat in the United States and that the white race must ensure its survival. According to this worldview, white people should hold more political and economic power than other groups, maintain a demographic majority, and treat white culture as superior to all other cultures. The movement operates through informal online networks, paramilitary groups, and public rallies. Until recently, public opinion researchers had not directly measured how many Americans explicitly endorse these exact principles.

Previous research has shown that white Americans hold distinct in-group racial identities, which sets the stage for understanding their political behavior. For instance, a 2019 study showed that many white Americans possess a strong sense of white racial solidarity. Other studies have explored what might cause these group-based attitudes to turn hostile.

A 2014 study indicated that learning about the country’s growing non-white population tends to make white Americans feel threatened and adopt more conservative views. Additionally, a study covered by PsyPost in 2020 found that people holding extreme white identitarian attitudes tend to score lower in personality traits related to politeness and openness to new experiences.

“We observed white nationalist ideas becoming more visible in American public life—in marches and rallies, on the internet and social media, and even in election campaigns,” Patrick J. Egan, a professor of politics and public policy and director of the Berkley Institute for Civil Discourse & Civic Solutions at New York University, told PsyPost.

“That led us to wonder the extent to which white nationalism appeals to the broader public, and who is most likely to support it,” Egan explained. “It turned out no academic study had directly measured support for the white nationalist movement before, and so we decided to investigate these questions ourselves.”

Egan and his colleagues suspected that explicit support for white nationalism might actually be driven by personal economic hardship or online radicalization, rather than local demographic changes. They also wanted to measure support directly by providing respondents with an accurate definition of the movement, reducing the chance that people would misunderstand the label.

To explore this, the researchers conducted three national surveys of non-Hispanic white adults in the United States. In the first study, conducted in 2021, the team surveyed 3,227 people using an online panel matched to national demographics. To test whether people truly understood what white nationalism meant, the researchers ran an experiment. Half of the participants were asked if they supported the movement, while the other half were given a short, factual description of its core beliefs about white power and cultural superiority before being asked the same question.

Providing the definition increased expressed support from 3.8 percent to 7.6 percent. When people were informed about the movement’s actual goals, their answers aligned more closely with their other racial attitudes, such as their sense of white identity and their opposition to minority groups holding power. This suggests that some white Americans agree with the movement’s ideas but are unfamiliar with the term white nationalism until it is explained to them.

Using the fully informed responses, the researchers then looked for demographic predictors. They found that support for white nationalism was 15 percentage points higher among people without a high school diploma compared to those with postgraduate degrees. It was also higher among conservatives, Republicans, frequent church attenders, people who believe in political conspiracies, and those who feel disconnected from politics entirely.

The researchers then tested the competing theories about what drives these beliefs. They found evidence supporting the idea that social and economic strain plays a role. People who had experienced three or more personal hardships in the past year, such as job loss or divorce, were 4 percentage points more likely to support white nationalism than those who experienced none. Living in a county with high levels of social distress, measured by poverty and unemployment rates, also predicted higher support.

However, the researchers found no evidence that changing local demographics drive white nationalist support. Living in a county with a large non-white population or a rapidly shrinking white population was not associated with endorsing the movement. The researchers note that these findings challenge the common assumption that everyday exposure to racial diversity fuels white nationalist grievance.

“One finding that is somewhat unexpected is that white people living in areas that are becoming more racially diverse were not more likely to support white nationalism,” Egan said. “This is in contrast to what we would expect from status-threat theories, which hold that demographic change can spark backlash and resentment.”

“Of course, we don’t have causal evidence in either direction here: our null findings regarding status threat may in part stem from suppressor bias introduced by whites’ residential sorting into preferred ethnoracial environments,” he added. In other words, if white Americans who dislike diversity simply move to neighborhoods that match their preferred racial makeup, it could mask the true relationship between demographic changes and nationalist views.

The study also explored the role of the internet. General social media use did not predict support for white nationalism. Instead, the nature of a person’s social ties mattered. Support was 13 percentage points higher among respondents who said all three of their closest friends were people they only knew online, compared to those whose closest friends were all known in real life.

In 2024, the researchers conducted a second study to confirm these patterns using a probability-based sample of 2,114 non-Hispanic white adults. This method is generally considered more accurate for estimating how common a belief is in the general population. This second survey replicated the main demographic findings, including the strong link between lower education, lower income, and higher support for white nationalism.

Based on this second sample, the researchers estimated that 4.9 percent of white American adults support the white nationalist movement once its tenets are explained to them. Support was highest among young men. The data showed that 13.5 percent of white men aged 18 to 29 endorsed the movement. The researchers noted that young men today spend vast amounts of time online and face unique social and economic challenges, potentially making them more receptive to grievance narratives.

A third survey, involving 2,548 white adults in late 2024 and early 2025, was designed to rule out statistical errors. The researchers tested whether respondents were just clicking a button to agree with whatever the survey asked, a phenomenon known as acquiescence bias. They also checked if asking about racial attitudes earlier in the survey primed people to express more extreme views. The results held up against these checks, confirming that the measurement of white nationalist support was robust.

The findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in 2025, which found that exposing white Americans to news about a growing non-white population did not actually increase their feelings of racial threat or worsen their attitudes toward minorities. The new study builds on this by showing that even real-world, local demographic trends fail to predict explicit support for white nationalism.

As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The study relies on observational data taken at specific points in time, meaning it cannot strictly determine cause and effect. Unmeasured factors, such as underlying personality traits or mental health challenges, might make someone more likely to experience personal hardships and also more susceptible to extreme political views.

The connection between online friendships and white nationalism is also complex. While isolated people might fall into online extremism, it is equally possible that holding extreme, unconventional political views makes it difficult for someone to maintain offline friendships. This dynamic could force individuals to seek out like-minded communities entirely on the internet.

Finally, the researchers noted that their study focuses strictly on ideological agreement rather than behavior. “We want to emphasize that we are only asking about endorsement of white nationalist views,” Egan noted. “We do not measure organizational affiliation with the white nationalist movement, nor do we measure support for its tactics.”

“We hope that researchers—whether that be ourselves, or other scholars—use our measure on future surveys to determine whether support for white nationalism is changing over time,” Egan said. “This will help us know if the rising visibility of white nationalism in the US is being accompanied by rising support for its ideas in the mass public.”

The study, “Predictors and prevalence of support for white nationalism in the United States,” was authored by Patrick J. Egan, James Bisbee, and Joshua A. Tucker.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/personal-hardship-and-online-isolation-predict-support-for-white-nationalism/

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DATE: September 24, 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: Personal hardship and online isolation predict support for white nationalism

URL: https://www.psypost.org/personal-hardship-and-online-isolation-predict-support-for-white-nationalism/

About 5 percent of white American adults express support for the core ideas of the white nationalist movement, with rates rising to over 13 percent among young white men. The research indicates that personal hardships and isolated online social lives predict this support, rather than changing local racial demographics. The findings were published in Nature.

White nationalism is an ideology based on the belief that white people are under threat in the United States and that the white race must ensure its survival. According to this worldview, white people should hold more political and economic power than other groups, maintain a demographic majority, and treat white culture as superior to all other cultures. The movement operates through informal online networks, paramilitary groups, and public rallies. Until recently, public opinion researchers had not directly measured how many Americans explicitly endorse these exact principles.

Previous research has shown that white Americans hold distinct in-group racial identities, which sets the stage for understanding their political behavior. For instance, a 2019 study showed that many white Americans possess a strong sense of white racial solidarity. Other studies have explored what might cause these group-based attitudes to turn hostile.

A 2014 study indicated that learning about the country’s growing non-white population tends to make white Americans feel threatened and adopt more conservative views. Additionally, a study covered by PsyPost in 2020 found that people holding extreme white identitarian attitudes tend to score lower in personality traits related to politeness and openness to new experiences.

“We observed white nationalist ideas becoming more visible in American public life—in marches and rallies, on the internet and social media, and even in election campaigns,” Patrick J. Egan, a professor of politics and public policy and director of the Berkley Institute for Civil Discourse & Civic Solutions at New York University, told PsyPost.

“That led us to wonder the extent to which white nationalism appeals to the broader public, and who is most likely to support it,” Egan explained. “It turned out no academic study had directly measured support for the white nationalist movement before, and so we decided to investigate these questions ourselves.”

Egan and his colleagues suspected that explicit support for white nationalism might actually be driven by personal economic hardship or online radicalization, rather than local demographic changes. They also wanted to measure support directly by providing respondents with an accurate definition of the movement, reducing the chance that people would misunderstand the label.

To explore this, the researchers conducted three national surveys of non-Hispanic white adults in the United States. In the first study, conducted in 2021, the team surveyed 3,227 people using an online panel matched to national demographics. To test whether people truly understood what white nationalism meant, the researchers ran an experiment. Half of the participants were asked if they supported the movement, while the other half were given a short, factual description of its core beliefs about white power and cultural superiority before being asked the same question.

Providing the definition increased expressed support from 3.8 percent to 7.6 percent. When people were informed about the movement’s actual goals, their answers aligned more closely with their other racial attitudes, such as their sense of white identity and their opposition to minority groups holding power. This suggests that some white Americans agree with the movement’s ideas but are unfamiliar with the term white nationalism until it is explained to them.

Using the fully informed responses, the researchers then looked for demographic predictors. They found that support for white nationalism was 15 percentage points higher among people without a high school diploma compared to those with postgraduate degrees. It was also higher among conservatives, Republicans, frequent church attenders, people who believe in political conspiracies, and those who feel disconnected from politics entirely.

The researchers then tested the competing theories about what drives these beliefs. They found evidence supporting the idea that social and economic strain plays a role. People who had experienced three or more personal hardships in the past year, such as job loss or divorce, were 4 percentage points more likely to support white nationalism than those who experienced none. Living in a county with high levels of social distress, measured by poverty and unemployment rates, also predicted higher support.

However, the researchers found no evidence that changing local demographics drive white nationalist support. Living in a county with a large non-white population or a rapidly shrinking white population was not associated with endorsing the movement. The researchers note that these findings challenge the common assumption that everyday exposure to racial diversity fuels white nationalist grievance.

“One finding that is somewhat unexpected is that white people living in areas that are becoming more racially diverse were not more likely to support white nationalism,” Egan said. “This is in contrast to what we would expect from status-threat theories, which hold that demographic change can spark backlash and resentment.”

“Of course, we don’t have causal evidence in either direction here: our null findings regarding status threat may in part stem from suppressor bias introduced by whites’ residential sorting into preferred ethnoracial environments,” he added. In other words, if white Americans who dislike diversity simply move to neighborhoods that match their preferred racial makeup, it could mask the true relationship between demographic changes and nationalist views.

The study also explored the role of the internet. General social media use did not predict support for white nationalism. Instead, the nature of a person’s social ties mattered. Support was 13 percentage points higher among respondents who said all three of their closest friends were people they only knew online, compared to those whose closest friends were all known in real life.

In 2024, the researchers conducted a second study to confirm these patterns using a probability-based sample of 2,114 non-Hispanic white adults. This method is generally considered more accurate for estimating how common a belief is in the general population. This second survey replicated the main demographic findings, including the strong link between lower education, lower income, and higher support for white nationalism.

Based on this second sample, the researchers estimated that 4.9 percent of white American adults support the white nationalist movement once its tenets are explained to them. Support was highest among young men. The data showed that 13.5 percent of white men aged 18 to 29 endorsed the movement. The researchers noted that young men today spend vast amounts of time online and face unique social and economic challenges, potentially making them more receptive to grievance narratives.

A third survey, involving 2,548 white adults in late 2024 and early 2025, was designed to rule out statistical errors. The researchers tested whether respondents were just clicking a button to agree with whatever the survey asked, a phenomenon known as acquiescence bias. They also checked if asking about racial attitudes earlier in the survey primed people to express more extreme views. The results held up against these checks, confirming that the measurement of white nationalist support was robust.

The findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in 2025, which found that exposing white Americans to news about a growing non-white population did not actually increase their feelings of racial threat or worsen their attitudes toward minorities. The new study builds on this by showing that even real-world, local demographic trends fail to predict explicit support for white nationalism.

As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The study relies on observational data taken at specific points in time, meaning it cannot strictly determine cause and effect. Unmeasured factors, such as underlying personality traits or mental health challenges, might make someone more likely to experience personal hardships and also more susceptible to extreme political views.

The connection between online friendships and white nationalism is also complex. While isolated people might fall into online extremism, it is equally possible that holding extreme, unconventional political views makes it difficult for someone to maintain offline friendships. This dynamic could force individuals to seek out like-minded communities entirely on the internet.

Finally, the researchers noted that their study focuses strictly on ideological agreement rather than behavior. “We want to emphasize that we are only asking about endorsement of white nationalist views,” Egan noted. “We do not measure organizational affiliation with the white nationalist movement, nor do we measure support for its tactics.”

“We hope that researchers—whether that be ourselves, or other scholars—use our measure on future surveys to determine whether support for white nationalism is changing over time,” Egan said. “This will help us know if the rising visibility of white nationalism in the US is being accompanied by rising support for its ideas in the mass public.”

The study, “Predictors and prevalence of support for white nationalism in the United States,” was authored by Patrick J. Egan, James Bisbee, and Joshua A. Tucker.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/personal-hardship-and-online-isolation-predict-support-for-white-nationalism/

-------------------------------------------------

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-------------------------------------------------

#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #WhiteNationalism #OnlineIsolation #SocialDistancingFromDiversity #WhiteIdentity #PoliticalConspiracyBeliefs #SocioeconomicHardship #OnlineFriendsOnly #RaceRelations #PublicOpinion #NatureStudy

DATE: September 24, 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: Personal hardship and online isolation predict support for white nationalism

URL: https://www.psypost.org/personal-hardship-and-online-isolation-predict-support-for-white-nationalism/

About 5 percent of white American adults express support for the core ideas of the white nationalist movement, with rates rising to over 13 percent among young white men. The research indicates that personal hardships and isolated online social lives predict this support, rather than changing local racial demographics. The findings were published in Nature.

White nationalism is an ideology based on the belief that white people are under threat in the United States and that the white race must ensure its survival. According to this worldview, white people should hold more political and economic power than other groups, maintain a demographic majority, and treat white culture as superior to all other cultures. The movement operates through informal online networks, paramilitary groups, and public rallies. Until recently, public opinion researchers had not directly measured how many Americans explicitly endorse these exact principles.

Previous research has shown that white Americans hold distinct in-group racial identities, which sets the stage for understanding their political behavior. For instance, a 2019 study showed that many white Americans possess a strong sense of white racial solidarity. Other studies have explored what might cause these group-based attitudes to turn hostile.

A 2014 study indicated that learning about the country’s growing non-white population tends to make white Americans feel threatened and adopt more conservative views. Additionally, a study covered by PsyPost in 2020 found that people holding extreme white identitarian attitudes tend to score lower in personality traits related to politeness and openness to new experiences.

“We observed white nationalist ideas becoming more visible in American public life—in marches and rallies, on the internet and social media, and even in election campaigns,” Patrick J. Egan, a professor of politics and public policy and director of the Berkley Institute for Civil Discourse & Civic Solutions at New York University, told PsyPost.

“That led us to wonder the extent to which white nationalism appeals to the broader public, and who is most likely to support it,” Egan explained. “It turned out no academic study had directly measured support for the white nationalist movement before, and so we decided to investigate these questions ourselves.”

Egan and his colleagues suspected that explicit support for white nationalism might actually be driven by personal economic hardship or online radicalization, rather than local demographic changes. They also wanted to measure support directly by providing respondents with an accurate definition of the movement, reducing the chance that people would misunderstand the label.

To explore this, the researchers conducted three national surveys of non-Hispanic white adults in the United States. In the first study, conducted in 2021, the team surveyed 3,227 people using an online panel matched to national demographics. To test whether people truly understood what white nationalism meant, the researchers ran an experiment. Half of the participants were asked if they supported the movement, while the other half were given a short, factual description of its core beliefs about white power and cultural superiority before being asked the same question.

Providing the definition increased expressed support from 3.8 percent to 7.6 percent. When people were informed about the movement’s actual goals, their answers aligned more closely with their other racial attitudes, such as their sense of white identity and their opposition to minority groups holding power. This suggests that some white Americans agree with the movement’s ideas but are unfamiliar with the term white nationalism until it is explained to them.

Using the fully informed responses, the researchers then looked for demographic predictors. They found that support for white nationalism was 15 percentage points higher among people without a high school diploma compared to those with postgraduate degrees. It was also higher among conservatives, Republicans, frequent church attenders, people who believe in political conspiracies, and those who feel disconnected from politics entirely.

The researchers then tested the competing theories about what drives these beliefs. They found evidence supporting the idea that social and economic strain plays a role. People who had experienced three or more personal hardships in the past year, such as job loss or divorce, were 4 percentage points more likely to support white nationalism than those who experienced none. Living in a county with high levels of social distress, measured by poverty and unemployment rates, also predicted higher support.

However, the researchers found no evidence that changing local demographics drive white nationalist support. Living in a county with a large non-white population or a rapidly shrinking white population was not associated with endorsing the movement. The researchers note that these findings challenge the common assumption that everyday exposure to racial diversity fuels white nationalist grievance.

“One finding that is somewhat unexpected is that white people living in areas that are becoming more racially diverse were not more likely to support white nationalism,” Egan said. “This is in contrast to what we would expect from status-threat theories, which hold that demographic change can spark backlash and resentment.”

“Of course, we don’t have causal evidence in either direction here: our null findings regarding status threat may in part stem from suppressor bias introduced by whites’ residential sorting into preferred ethnoracial environments,” he added. In other words, if white Americans who dislike diversity simply move to neighborhoods that match their preferred racial makeup, it could mask the true relationship between demographic changes and nationalist views.

The study also explored the role of the internet. General social media use did not predict support for white nationalism. Instead, the nature of a person’s social ties mattered. Support was 13 percentage points higher among respondents who said all three of their closest friends were people they only knew online, compared to those whose closest friends were all known in real life.

In 2024, the researchers conducted a second study to confirm these patterns using a probability-based sample of 2,114 non-Hispanic white adults. This method is generally considered more accurate for estimating how common a belief is in the general population. This second survey replicated the main demographic findings, including the strong link between lower education, lower income, and higher support for white nationalism.

Based on this second sample, the researchers estimated that 4.9 percent of white American adults support the white nationalist movement once its tenets are explained to them. Support was highest among young men. The data showed that 13.5 percent of white men aged 18 to 29 endorsed the movement. The researchers noted that young men today spend vast amounts of time online and face unique social and economic challenges, potentially making them more receptive to grievance narratives.

A third survey, involving 2,548 white adults in late 2024 and early 2025, was designed to rule out statistical errors. The researchers tested whether respondents were just clicking a button to agree with whatever the survey asked, a phenomenon known as acquiescence bias. They also checked if asking about racial attitudes earlier in the survey primed people to express more extreme views. The results held up against these checks, confirming that the measurement of white nationalist support was robust.

The findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in 2025, which found that exposing white Americans to news about a growing non-white population did not actually increase their feelings of racial threat or worsen their attitudes toward minorities. The new study builds on this by showing that even real-world, local demographic trends fail to predict explicit support for white nationalism.

As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The study relies on observational data taken at specific points in time, meaning it cannot strictly determine cause and effect. Unmeasured factors, such as underlying personality traits or mental health challenges, might make someone more likely to experience personal hardships and also more susceptible to extreme political views.

The connection between online friendships and white nationalism is also complex. While isolated people might fall into online extremism, it is equally possible that holding extreme, unconventional political views makes it difficult for someone to maintain offline friendships. This dynamic could force individuals to seek out like-minded communities entirely on the internet.

Finally, the researchers noted that their study focuses strictly on ideological agreement rather than behavior. “We want to emphasize that we are only asking about endorsement of white nationalist views,” Egan noted. “We do not measure organizational affiliation with the white nationalist movement, nor do we measure support for its tactics.”

“We hope that researchers—whether that be ourselves, or other scholars—use our measure on future surveys to determine whether support for white nationalism is changing over time,” Egan said. “This will help us know if the rising visibility of white nationalism in the US is being accompanied by rising support for its ideas in the mass public.”

The study, “Predictors and prevalence of support for white nationalism in the United States,” was authored by Patrick J. Egan, James Bisbee, and Joshua A. Tucker.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/personal-hardship-and-online-isolation-predict-support-for-white-nationalism/

-------------------------------------------------

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DATE: September 24, 2026 at 07:00AM
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: A specific narcissistic trait predicts aggression in socially anxious individuals

URL: https://www.psypost.org/the-hidden-link-between-social-anxiety-narcissism-and-aggression/

People with high social anxiety are typically expected to avoid conflict, yet some display surprisingly high levels of aggression. A recent study published in Aggressive Behavior suggests that a specific personality trait, narcissistic self-centeredness, helps explain this paradox. The research shows that when high social anxiety combines with a high degree of self-centeredness, individuals are much more likely to react to social threats with hostility rather than avoidance.

Social anxiety is commonly understood as an intense fear of negative evaluation in social situations. Psychologists historically viewed it as a condition defined by withdrawal and inhibition. Under this perspective, individuals who experience intense social anxiety try to protect themselves by shrinking away from potential embarrassment. They tend to suppress their emotions and avoid interactions that might lead to perceived failure.

Recent research has challenged this view by revealing that some socially anxious people respond to social threats with anger. The scientific literature contains contradictory findings on this topic. Some research links social anxiety to aggressive outbursts, while other studies find no such association.

Psychologists Reyihangu Tuerxun and Yanan Li, alongside their colleague Lixia Cui from Capital Normal University in China, aimed to resolve these contradictory findings. They suspected that aggression in socially anxious people is not uniform. Instead, it might depend on specific underlying personality traits.

The research team focused on a concept called vulnerable narcissism. Unlike grandiose narcissism, which involves overt arrogance and exhibitionism, vulnerable narcissism is characterized by fragile self-esteem, constant feelings of shame, and an extreme sensitivity to how others evaluate them.

Vulnerable narcissism contains two primary components. The first is a general hypersensitivity to rejection, and the second is a high degree of self-centeredness. Many socially anxious people are highly sensitive to rejection.

Self-centeredness brings a unique cognitive layer to the equation. Highly self-centered individuals tend to interpret minor social slights not just as awkward failures, but as direct, intolerable attacks on their self-worth. The researchers proposed that this specific appraisal of ego-threat shifts a person’s behavioral reaction from quiet avoidance to active, defensive hostility.

Psychologists evaluate aggression through several different lenses. The research team focused specifically on two distinct subtypes known as reactive and proactive aggression. Reactive aggression is an impulsive, angry response to a perceived provocation or threat, often happening in the heat of the moment.

Proactive aggression is a more calculated and instrumental behavior. People use proactive aggression deliberately to assert dominance, secure social resources, or intimidate others. The researchers wanted to see if self-centeredness was related to these specific types of aggression in different ways.

To investigate these dynamics, the researchers recruited 872 university students in China. Participants completed a series of online questionnaires designed to measure their levels of social interaction anxiety, social phobia, vulnerable narcissism, and both proactive and reactive aggression. After verifying the data with attention checks, the team analyzed the responses using two distinct statistical approaches.

First, the researchers used a technique called latent profile analysis. This statistical method groups individuals into naturally occurring categories based on their shared characteristics. By feeding the participants’ survey scores into the model, the team identified seven distinct personality profiles within the sample. These profiles ranged from individuals with low anxiety and low narcissism to those experiencing moderate and high levels of both traits.

One specific group, making up nearly ten percent of the participants, displayed high levels of both social anxiety and vulnerable narcissism. The researchers labeled this the vulnerable-defensive profile. When looking at the aggression scores, this vulnerable-defensive group reported the highest levels of both reactive and proactive aggression across all seven profiles.

The team then compared this vulnerable-defensive group to another specific profile: students who had high social anxiety but low vulnerable narcissism. Both groups experienced similarly high levels of social anxiety. However, the group with high vulnerable narcissism reported notably higher rates of reactive aggression and overall aggression.

This comparison indicates that a high level of self-centeredness acts as a distinguishing factor. It separates those who retreat from social threats from those who push back.

The analysis also revealed a large group of students who carried moderate levels of both social anxiety and vulnerable narcissism. This group made up nearly a quarter of the sample. Their aggression scores fell just below the highly vulnerable-defensive group. This finding suggests that multiple psychological vulnerabilities can stack up, resulting in elevated hostility even when neither trait reaches extreme levels individually.

Following the profile grouping, the researchers conducted a second analysis using moderated regression. This statistical technique looks at the entire sample as a continuous spectrum. It tests whether one variable changes the strength of the relationship between two other variables. In this case, the team tested whether self-centeredness changed the link between social anxiety and the two forms of aggression.

The regression analysis showed that self-centeredness did alter the relationship between social anxiety and proactive aggression. As self-centeredness increased across the participant pool, the positive association between social anxiety and calculated, proactive aggression grew stronger. Highly self-centered individuals with social anxiety were more willing to use deliberate aggression to protect their social standing.

When the team ran the same continuous analysis for reactive aggression, the interaction was not statistically significant. A gradual increase in self-centeredness across the general population did not smoothly predict higher reactive aggression.

The researchers note that this seemingly contradictory result actually highlights a threshold effect. Reactive, explosive aggression seems to occur primarily when both social anxiety and vulnerable narcissism reach extreme levels simultaneously, as seen in the vulnerable-defensive profile. It operates like a tipping point rather than a gradual incline.

The study relies entirely on cross-sectional data, meaning all measurements were taken at a single point in time. This design makes it impossible to determine the sequence of events. While self-centeredness might lead to aggression, aggressive behaviors could also lead to further social rejection, which in turn might heighten anxiety and defensive personality traits.

The data also comes entirely from self-reported questionnaires. Participants might alter their answers to appear more socially acceptable, which is a known issue when asking people to report their own aggressive behaviors. Proactive aggression, in particular, is often underreported in survey research.

The participant pool consisted entirely of university students. The findings might not reflect the psychological dynamics of older adults, clinical populations, or individuals from different cultural backgrounds. Expanding the demographic scope will help determine how universally these personality profiles apply.

Future studies could track individuals over time to see how the relationship between anxiety, narcissism, and aggression develops. The researchers also recommend incorporating different methods of measuring aggression, such as peer reports or behavioral observations. Finally, future work could look at passive aggression, a subtle form of hostility that may be particularly common among socially anxious individuals.

The study, “Aggression in Social Anxiety: Narcissistic Self-Centeredness as a Differentiator in Person-Centered and Variable-Centered Analyses,” was authored by Reyihangu Tuerxun, Yanan Li, and Lixia Cui.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/the-hidden-link-between-social-anxiety-narcissism-and-aggression/

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DATE: September 24, 2026 at 07:00AM
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: A specific narcissistic trait predicts aggression in socially anxious individuals

URL: https://www.psypost.org/the-hidden-link-between-social-anxiety-narcissism-and-aggression/

People with high social anxiety are typically expected to avoid conflict, yet some display surprisingly high levels of aggression. A recent study published in Aggressive Behavior suggests that a specific personality trait, narcissistic self-centeredness, helps explain this paradox. The research shows that when high social anxiety combines with a high degree of self-centeredness, individuals are much more likely to react to social threats with hostility rather than avoidance.

Social anxiety is commonly understood as an intense fear of negative evaluation in social situations. Psychologists historically viewed it as a condition defined by withdrawal and inhibition. Under this perspective, individuals who experience intense social anxiety try to protect themselves by shrinking away from potential embarrassment. They tend to suppress their emotions and avoid interactions that might lead to perceived failure.

Recent research has challenged this view by revealing that some socially anxious people respond to social threats with anger. The scientific literature contains contradictory findings on this topic. Some research links social anxiety to aggressive outbursts, while other studies find no such association.

Psychologists Reyihangu Tuerxun and Yanan Li, alongside their colleague Lixia Cui from Capital Normal University in China, aimed to resolve these contradictory findings. They suspected that aggression in socially anxious people is not uniform. Instead, it might depend on specific underlying personality traits.

The research team focused on a concept called vulnerable narcissism. Unlike grandiose narcissism, which involves overt arrogance and exhibitionism, vulnerable narcissism is characterized by fragile self-esteem, constant feelings of shame, and an extreme sensitivity to how others evaluate them.

Vulnerable narcissism contains two primary components. The first is a general hypersensitivity to rejection, and the second is a high degree of self-centeredness. Many socially anxious people are highly sensitive to rejection.

Self-centeredness brings a unique cognitive layer to the equation. Highly self-centered individuals tend to interpret minor social slights not just as awkward failures, but as direct, intolerable attacks on their self-worth. The researchers proposed that this specific appraisal of ego-threat shifts a person’s behavioral reaction from quiet avoidance to active, defensive hostility.

Psychologists evaluate aggression through several different lenses. The research team focused specifically on two distinct subtypes known as reactive and proactive aggression. Reactive aggression is an impulsive, angry response to a perceived provocation or threat, often happening in the heat of the moment.

Proactive aggression is a more calculated and instrumental behavior. People use proactive aggression deliberately to assert dominance, secure social resources, or intimidate others. The researchers wanted to see if self-centeredness was related to these specific types of aggression in different ways.

To investigate these dynamics, the researchers recruited 872 university students in China. Participants completed a series of online questionnaires designed to measure their levels of social interaction anxiety, social phobia, vulnerable narcissism, and both proactive and reactive aggression. After verifying the data with attention checks, the team analyzed the responses using two distinct statistical approaches.

First, the researchers used a technique called latent profile analysis. This statistical method groups individuals into naturally occurring categories based on their shared characteristics. By feeding the participants’ survey scores into the model, the team identified seven distinct personality profiles within the sample. These profiles ranged from individuals with low anxiety and low narcissism to those experiencing moderate and high levels of both traits.

One specific group, making up nearly ten percent of the participants, displayed high levels of both social anxiety and vulnerable narcissism. The researchers labeled this the vulnerable-defensive profile. When looking at the aggression scores, this vulnerable-defensive group reported the highest levels of both reactive and proactive aggression across all seven profiles.

The team then compared this vulnerable-defensive group to another specific profile: students who had high social anxiety but low vulnerable narcissism. Both groups experienced similarly high levels of social anxiety. However, the group with high vulnerable narcissism reported notably higher rates of reactive aggression and overall aggression.

This comparison indicates that a high level of self-centeredness acts as a distinguishing factor. It separates those who retreat from social threats from those who push back.

The analysis also revealed a large group of students who carried moderate levels of both social anxiety and vulnerable narcissism. This group made up nearly a quarter of the sample. Their aggression scores fell just below the highly vulnerable-defensive group. This finding suggests that multiple psychological vulnerabilities can stack up, resulting in elevated hostility even when neither trait reaches extreme levels individually.

Following the profile grouping, the researchers conducted a second analysis using moderated regression. This statistical technique looks at the entire sample as a continuous spectrum. It tests whether one variable changes the strength of the relationship between two other variables. In this case, the team tested whether self-centeredness changed the link between social anxiety and the two forms of aggression.

The regression analysis showed that self-centeredness did alter the relationship between social anxiety and proactive aggression. As self-centeredness increased across the participant pool, the positive association between social anxiety and calculated, proactive aggression grew stronger. Highly self-centered individuals with social anxiety were more willing to use deliberate aggression to protect their social standing.

When the team ran the same continuous analysis for reactive aggression, the interaction was not statistically significant. A gradual increase in self-centeredness across the general population did not smoothly predict higher reactive aggression.

The researchers note that this seemingly contradictory result actually highlights a threshold effect. Reactive, explosive aggression seems to occur primarily when both social anxiety and vulnerable narcissism reach extreme levels simultaneously, as seen in the vulnerable-defensive profile. It operates like a tipping point rather than a gradual incline.

The study relies entirely on cross-sectional data, meaning all measurements were taken at a single point in time. This design makes it impossible to determine the sequence of events. While self-centeredness might lead to aggression, aggressive behaviors could also lead to further social rejection, which in turn might heighten anxiety and defensive personality traits.

The data also comes entirely from self-reported questionnaires. Participants might alter their answers to appear more socially acceptable, which is a known issue when asking people to report their own aggressive behaviors. Proactive aggression, in particular, is often underreported in survey research.

The participant pool consisted entirely of university students. The findings might not reflect the psychological dynamics of older adults, clinical populations, or individuals from different cultural backgrounds. Expanding the demographic scope will help determine how universally these personality profiles apply.

Future studies could track individuals over time to see how the relationship between anxiety, narcissism, and aggression develops. The researchers also recommend incorporating different methods of measuring aggression, such as peer reports or behavioral observations. Finally, future work could look at passive aggression, a subtle form of hostility that may be particularly common among socially anxious individuals.

The study, “Aggression in Social Anxiety: Narcissistic Self-Centeredness as a Differentiator in Person-Centered and Variable-Centered Analyses,” was authored by Reyihangu Tuerxun, Yanan Li, and Lixia Cui.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/the-hidden-link-between-social-anxiety-narcissism-and-aggression/

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DATE: September 24, 2026 at 07:00AM
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: A specific narcissistic trait predicts aggression in socially anxious individuals

URL: https://www.psypost.org/the-hidden-link-between-social-anxiety-narcissism-and-aggression/

People with high social anxiety are typically expected to avoid conflict, yet some display surprisingly high levels of aggression. A recent study published in Aggressive Behavior suggests that a specific personality trait, narcissistic self-centeredness, helps explain this paradox. The research shows that when high social anxiety combines with a high degree of self-centeredness, individuals are much more likely to react to social threats with hostility rather than avoidance.

Social anxiety is commonly understood as an intense fear of negative evaluation in social situations. Psychologists historically viewed it as a condition defined by withdrawal and inhibition. Under this perspective, individuals who experience intense social anxiety try to protect themselves by shrinking away from potential embarrassment. They tend to suppress their emotions and avoid interactions that might lead to perceived failure.

Recent research has challenged this view by revealing that some socially anxious people respond to social threats with anger. The scientific literature contains contradictory findings on this topic. Some research links social anxiety to aggressive outbursts, while other studies find no such association.

Psychologists Reyihangu Tuerxun and Yanan Li, alongside their colleague Lixia Cui from Capital Normal University in China, aimed to resolve these contradictory findings. They suspected that aggression in socially anxious people is not uniform. Instead, it might depend on specific underlying personality traits.

The research team focused on a concept called vulnerable narcissism. Unlike grandiose narcissism, which involves overt arrogance and exhibitionism, vulnerable narcissism is characterized by fragile self-esteem, constant feelings of shame, and an extreme sensitivity to how others evaluate them.

Vulnerable narcissism contains two primary components. The first is a general hypersensitivity to rejection, and the second is a high degree of self-centeredness. Many socially anxious people are highly sensitive to rejection.

Self-centeredness brings a unique cognitive layer to the equation. Highly self-centered individuals tend to interpret minor social slights not just as awkward failures, but as direct, intolerable attacks on their self-worth. The researchers proposed that this specific appraisal of ego-threat shifts a person’s behavioral reaction from quiet avoidance to active, defensive hostility.

Psychologists evaluate aggression through several different lenses. The research team focused specifically on two distinct subtypes known as reactive and proactive aggression. Reactive aggression is an impulsive, angry response to a perceived provocation or threat, often happening in the heat of the moment.

Proactive aggression is a more calculated and instrumental behavior. People use proactive aggression deliberately to assert dominance, secure social resources, or intimidate others. The researchers wanted to see if self-centeredness was related to these specific types of aggression in different ways.

To investigate these dynamics, the researchers recruited 872 university students in China. Participants completed a series of online questionnaires designed to measure their levels of social interaction anxiety, social phobia, vulnerable narcissism, and both proactive and reactive aggression. After verifying the data with attention checks, the team analyzed the responses using two distinct statistical approaches.

First, the researchers used a technique called latent profile analysis. This statistical method groups individuals into naturally occurring categories based on their shared characteristics. By feeding the participants’ survey scores into the model, the team identified seven distinct personality profiles within the sample. These profiles ranged from individuals with low anxiety and low narcissism to those experiencing moderate and high levels of both traits.

One specific group, making up nearly ten percent of the participants, displayed high levels of both social anxiety and vulnerable narcissism. The researchers labeled this the vulnerable-defensive profile. When looking at the aggression scores, this vulnerable-defensive group reported the highest levels of both reactive and proactive aggression across all seven profiles.

The team then compared this vulnerable-defensive group to another specific profile: students who had high social anxiety but low vulnerable narcissism. Both groups experienced similarly high levels of social anxiety. However, the group with high vulnerable narcissism reported notably higher rates of reactive aggression and overall aggression.

This comparison indicates that a high level of self-centeredness acts as a distinguishing factor. It separates those who retreat from social threats from those who push back.

The analysis also revealed a large group of students who carried moderate levels of both social anxiety and vulnerable narcissism. This group made up nearly a quarter of the sample. Their aggression scores fell just below the highly vulnerable-defensive group. This finding suggests that multiple psychological vulnerabilities can stack up, resulting in elevated hostility even when neither trait reaches extreme levels individually.

Following the profile grouping, the researchers conducted a second analysis using moderated regression. This statistical technique looks at the entire sample as a continuous spectrum. It tests whether one variable changes the strength of the relationship between two other variables. In this case, the team tested whether self-centeredness changed the link between social anxiety and the two forms of aggression.

The regression analysis showed that self-centeredness did alter the relationship between social anxiety and proactive aggression. As self-centeredness increased across the participant pool, the positive association between social anxiety and calculated, proactive aggression grew stronger. Highly self-centered individuals with social anxiety were more willing to use deliberate aggression to protect their social standing.

When the team ran the same continuous analysis for reactive aggression, the interaction was not statistically significant. A gradual increase in self-centeredness across the general population did not smoothly predict higher reactive aggression.

The researchers note that this seemingly contradictory result actually highlights a threshold effect. Reactive, explosive aggression seems to occur primarily when both social anxiety and vulnerable narcissism reach extreme levels simultaneously, as seen in the vulnerable-defensive profile. It operates like a tipping point rather than a gradual incline.

The study relies entirely on cross-sectional data, meaning all measurements were taken at a single point in time. This design makes it impossible to determine the sequence of events. While self-centeredness might lead to aggression, aggressive behaviors could also lead to further social rejection, which in turn might heighten anxiety and defensive personality traits.

The data also comes entirely from self-reported questionnaires. Participants might alter their answers to appear more socially acceptable, which is a known issue when asking people to report their own aggressive behaviors. Proactive aggression, in particular, is often underreported in survey research.

The participant pool consisted entirely of university students. The findings might not reflect the psychological dynamics of older adults, clinical populations, or individuals from different cultural backgrounds. Expanding the demographic scope will help determine how universally these personality profiles apply.

Future studies could track individuals over time to see how the relationship between anxiety, narcissism, and aggression develops. The researchers also recommend incorporating different methods of measuring aggression, such as peer reports or behavioral observations. Finally, future work could look at passive aggression, a subtle form of hostility that may be particularly common among socially anxious individuals.

The study, “Aggression in Social Anxiety: Narcissistic Self-Centeredness as a Differentiator in Person-Centered and Variable-Centered Analyses,” was authored by Reyihangu Tuerxun, Yanan Li, and Lixia Cui.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/the-hidden-link-between-social-anxiety-narcissism-and-aggression/

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Encore un grand merci à celleux qui ont donné. J'ai pu ajouter la somme de 150€ reçues depuis ce week-end. Ce qui fait 222,30/400€ ! + 4,50€

Je suis sorti•e de l'hôpital hier, donc je ne n'augmente plus le #DonationGoal c'est normal 🤗🫶🫂

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Encore un grand merci à celleux qui ont donné. J'ai pu ajouter la somme de 150€ reçues depuis ce week-end. Ce qui fait 222,30/400€ ! + 4,50€

Je suis sorti•e de l'hôpital hier, donc je ne n'augmente plus le #DonationGoal c'est normal 🤗🫶🫂

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Encore un grand merci à celleux qui ont donné. J'ai pu ajouter la somme de 150€ reçues depuis ce week-end. Ce qui fait 222,30/400€ ! + 4,50€

Je suis sorti•e de l'hôpital hier, donc je ne n'augmente plus le #DonationGoal c'est normal 🤗🫶🫂

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DATE: September 24, 2026 at 05:01AM
SOURCE:
NEW YORK TIMES PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGISTS FEED

TITLE: Should I Reveal That My Partner Died by Suicide?

URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/24/well/mind/suicide-secrecy-partner-loss.html

Our Ask the Therapist columnist, Lori Gottlieb, advises a reader who believes her partner’s family secrets may have contributed to his death.

URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/24/well/mind/suicide-secrecy-partner-loss.html

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DATE: September 24, 2026 at 05:01AM
SOURCE:
NEW YORK TIMES PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGISTS FEED

TITLE: Should I Reveal That My Partner Died by Suicide?

URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/24/well/mind/suicide-secrecy-partner-loss.html

Our Ask the Therapist columnist, Lori Gottlieb, advises a reader who believes her partner’s family secrets may have contributed to his death.

URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/24/well/mind/suicide-secrecy-partner-loss.html

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