Aging stereotypes, language development, empathy, politics, and more research

Love rarely spills over the political aisle, suggests a study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Researchers analyzed data from 4,584 adults (including 526 couples) in the United States collected between 2020 and 2022. Participants fell roughly equally into three groups: Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. Overall, around 6% of Democratic participants had a partner who was a Republican, while around 8% of Republicans had a Democratic partner. Independents were the most likely to be in politically dissimilar relationships, with 41% having a Democratic or Republican partner. Participants with politically similar partners tended to be more religious, politically extreme, older, married or engaged, and more prone to experiencing negative emotions. Individuals in relationships with politically dissimilar partners rated their relationship quality slightly lower than those with politically similar partners.
DOI: 10.1037/pspi0000467opens in new window

Research in Psychology and Aging indicates that both younger and older people experience stereotype threat—the concern about being reduced to a negative stereotype—at work. Researchers asked 190 older employees (between 50 and 70 years old) and 113 younger employees (between 18 and 30 years old) in Australia to fill out a daily diary for 10 workdays. Events in the workplace that made the older and younger employees think about their age (e.g., being overlooked for training or development opportunities, feeling excluded from informal socializing) led to feelings of age-based stereotype threat. In addition, on the days when employees experienced greater feelings of stereotype threat, they also experienced poorer outcomes, such as higher stress and lower sense of belonging.
DOI: 10.1037/pag0000839opens in new window

When people feel ostracized, they tend to react by withdrawing rather than trying to connect with others, according to research in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Across two studies, researchers asked 595 online participants in the United States and the United Kingdom to note over a 14-day period whenever they experienced ostracism, who excluded them (e.g., friend, colleague), and where (e.g., home, social media). Participants also completed a questionnaire assessing their response to each ostracism event: behave prosocially, talk to others, engage in social media use, behave aggressively, or withdraw. The researchers found that ostracism occurs in a range of contexts and relationships on average two to three times per week and is accompanied by a feeling of intense threat to one’s psychological needs. Moreover, the higher the threat to participants’ psychological needs, the more likely they are to react with avoidance and antisocial intentions (though not behavior) rather than approach behavior (e.g., talking with others, connecting via social media).
DOI: 10.1037/pspi0000471opens in new window

Long-established therapies are more effective than antidepressants in the long term, suggests a meta-analysis reported in American Psychologist. A researcher analyzed more than 1,000 randomized studies of psychological treatment of depression. He found that therapies, regardless of the format (provided a human was involved in delivering them), are as effective as antidepressants in the short term but more effective in the long term. In addition, combined treatment is more effective than either alone in the short and long term. However, not all therapies are effective in every patient, and, in general, most therapies are somewhat less effective in children, adolescents, primary-care patients (compared with those who received specialized outpatient mental health treatment), and in patients with comorbid substance use disorder. Additionally, no therapy introduced over the past 50 years was found to be more effective than treatments that came before. Based on these findings, the researcher cautioned against adopting new therapies too quickly and recommended other innovations resulting in better outcomes, such as sequential treatments, increased session frequency, and better matching between patient need and therapist expertise.
DOI: 10.1037/amp0001387opens in new window

Language development is stronger in children whose mothers consistently respond quickly to them, suggests research in Developmental Psychology. Observing dialogues between 64 mother-child dyads in the United States, researchers assessed the millisecond timing of the mothers’ responses to their 3-year-old children. They found that consistently and predictably timed maternal responses were a better predictor of the children’s vocabulary scores than the content or quantity of the language itself, especially when the mother’s speech was grammatically complex. The researchers suggest that mothers’ more consistently quick responses may boost language development by helping the child connect their mother’s words to their own behavior.
DOI: 10.1037/dev0001819opens in new window

People feel less empathy toward others’ distress in the future compared with the present, according to research in Emotion. Across four online studies, researchers asked 4,698 participants to report their level of empathy in response to various hypothetical situations taking place in the present or future. They found that participants felt less empathy toward another person’s suffering in the future compared with the present despite predicting that the same amount of pain would be felt. However, imagining another person’s future distress did lead them to place greater value on future generations’ welfare. The researchers also found that reduced empathy for others’ future hardships led the participants to donate less money to a future-oriented charity than a present-oriented charity. Finally, the empathy gap vanished after asking the participants to imagine the future in vivid detail.
DOI: 10.1037/emo0001402opens in new window

People are better than chance at determining if a piece of text was written by a human or an artificial intelligence (AI) system, according to a study in the Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition. Researchers asked 101 online participants to rate five randomly selected narratives as either human- or AI-generated and explain their choices. Participants chose correctly 65% of the time and were more accurate at identifying human-generated narratives than AI-generated narratives. When participants relied on grammar and writing to make their decisions, they were highly accurate, but when they relied on emotional expression, their performance dropped to chance levels.
DOI: 10.1037/mac0000187opens in new window

Gentrification—the process in which an economically disadvantaged urban neighborhood experiences an influx of wealthier individuals, leading to the displacement of the original inhabitants—is associated with worse mental health for affected children in families with low socioeconomic status (SES), indicates a study in Developmental Psychology. Researchers surveyed 1,045 youth ages 10 to 15 from low-SES families in the United States between 2014 and 2015. Participants lived in neighborhoods that census data and community surveys in 2010 suggested were “gentrifiable.” The researchers found that compared with living in a nongentrifying neighborhood, living in a gentrifying neighborhood was linked to later heightened psychological distress among low-SES youth, which, in turn, was associated with lower math test scores 1 year later. The link between gentrification and increased psychological distress was strongest among low-SES Black youth, who may face both heightened racism and classism-related social stressors in gentrifying neighborhoods.
DOI: 10.1037/dev0001812opens in new window

When women disclose negative things about themselves on dates, they tend to reveal moral transgressions, while men tend to admit to poor hygiene, according to research in Telematics and Informatics. Researchers asked 1,017 participants in the United States and Poland to engage in a dating game where they were given several options for revealing positive and negative information about themselves. The positive traits included physical attractiveness, wealth, health, kindness, and artistic ability. The negative traits were categorized into three types of disgust: pathogenic (e.g., body odor, physical repulsiveness, illness), sexual (e.g., inappropriate sexual behavior), and moral (e.g., lying, stealing, manipulating). Women were more likely to admit to morally questionable behaviors and artistic abilities, while men more frequently chose to reveal characteristics related to poor hygiene and kindness.
DOI: 10.1016/j.tele.2024.102159opens in new window

People tend to favor working with higher paid peers as collaboration partners but avoid hiring people with higher pay histories as subordinates, according to research in American Psychologist. In the first two of four studies, researchers explored the collaboration preferences of 360 participants in the United States. They found that the participants preferred partnering with higher paid peers unless explicitly told that their potential collaborators’ knowledge, skills, abilities, and experience were similar to theirs, suggesting that they viewed pay as a signal for competence. In the third study, with 287 participants, researchers observed that participants sought to work alongside higher paid colleagues even when the participants were familiar with their potential coworkers. A fourth study, with 138 participants, focused on hiring decisions. Participants were less likely to hire a candidate with a higher salary history for a junior position on their team.
DOI: 10.1037/amp0001397opens in new window

People’s morals shift with the seasons, suggests research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers analyzed survey responses from 232,975 adults in the United States from 2011 to 2020. The survey measured participants’ endorsement of five moral values: loyalty, authority, purity, care, and fairness. Loyalty, authority, and purity are examples of binding values, which encourage conformity to group norms. They also align closely with modern political conservatism. Care and fairness are considered more liberal values. The researchers found that respondents endorsed binding values more strongly in spring and fall than in summer and winter—a pattern that was remarkably consistent over 10 years. They linked this strong seasonal embrace to anxiety levels, which also spike during those seasons. Additionally, the researchers found evidence for a larger summer dip in alignment with binding moral values in regions that experience more extreme seasonal climate differences.
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2313428121opens in new window

Children who exhibit neurodivergent traits, such as those associated with autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), are twice as likely to experience chronic disabling fatigue (CDF) by age 18, suggests a study in BMJ Open. Researchers tracked 14,541 children born in the United Kingdom between April 1991 and December 1992. The researchers performed assessments when the children were 7 and 9 years old, receiving 8,115 responses at the 7-year mark and 8,036 responses at the 9-year milestone. At age 18, the children performed a final self-report evaluation. Children with autistic or ADHD traits at age 7 or 9 were found to have a two-fold increased risk of CDF by age 18. At 9 years old, higher IL-6 levels, reflective of excessive inflammation, were associated with 1.5 times greater risk of experiencing CDF at 18. The researchers indicate that stress, which neurodivergent children experience at higher levels, may be a culprit in the increase in inflammation.
DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2024-084203opens in new window

Lonely people tend to have more nightmares, finds research in The Journal of Psychology. Researchers analyzed data from 827 online participants in the United States, including measures of loneliness, nightmare frequency, and stress levels over the prior month. A second survey of 782 online participants expanded on the first study by including measures for both the frequency and intensity of nightmares, as well as episodes of hyperarousal and rumination. In the first study, loneliness predicted the frequency of nightmares, a relationship that was mediated by stress. The second study replicated these findings and demonstrated that loneliness also predicted the intensity of nightmares. Furthermore, hyperarousal and rumination (but not stress) mediated the relationship between loneliness and both the frequency and intensity of nightmares.
DOI: 10.1080/00223980.2024.2378418opens in new window

Playing video games can improve mental health, suggests a study in Nature Human Behaviour. During the Covid-19 pandemic, high demand led to a shortage of video game consoles in Japan. Researchers studied the demographics, mental health, video game ownership, and time spent gaming over the prior month of 8,192 participants in Japan who entered a lottery to purchase either a Nintendo Switch or PlayStation 5 (PS5). Participants who won the lottery and subsequently purchased either console experienced a decline in psychological distress and reported greater life satisfaction than participants who did not win the lottery. For those who purchased a console, playing for an extra hour a day led to further improvement in mental health. However, these positive effects tapered off among players who spent more than 3 hours each day gaming. The mental health benefits of owning a PS5 (but not a Switch) were more pronounced among men, hardcore gamers, and those without children. Owning a Switch (but not a PS5) offered a greater boost in well-being for less experienced gamers and those with families.
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-024-01948-yopens in new window

Research in Nature suggests that a brain network linked to attention appears to be twice as large in most people with depression. Researchers analyzed fMRI brain scans of 141 individuals with depression and 37 healthy controls. They found that a brain network called the frontostriatal salience network was twice as large in depressed individuals. This network, which is involved in reward processing and filtering external stimuli, covered 73% more cortical surface area, on average, in participants with depression. To learn more about the network’s development, the researchers analyzed neuroimaging data of 57 children ages 10 to 12 without depression but who developed symptoms within 2 years. These children had, on average, 36% larger frontostriatal salience networks than a group of 57 similarly aged children who did not go on to develop depression. The size of the network stayed stable over time in both groups, suggesting that a larger frontostriatal salience network is not the result of depression. Instead, it precedes depression.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07805-2opens in new window

People on the autism spectrum are almost 3 times more likely to die by suicide compared with nonautistic people, indicates a study in Psychiatry Research. Researchers conducted a systematic review of 10 research papers reporting the risk of suicide mortality or suicide attempt among autistic individuals, covering 10.4 million people across seven countries. They found that suicide mortality for autistic individuals was 2.86 times higher than that of the general population. Autistic females experienced a greater relative risk of suicide (3.85 times higher risk) than autistic males (2.13 times higher risk). The relative risk for suicide was 5.04 for autistic individuals without intellectual disability, compared with 1.03 for autistic individuals with intellectual disability. The relative risk for suicide mortality did not vary significantly by age. The relative risk for suicide attempts for all autistic individuals was 3.82.
DOI: 10.1016/j.psychres.2024.116150opens in new window