Author: dispatchtimes news

A new, large-scale analysis of psychology research suggests that rising earnings can nudge a person’s personality, even as personality traits themselves may steer future pay. The study, published in Psychological Bulletin, finds that increases in income are followed by small shifts toward greater conscientiousness and emotional stability, alongside declines in agreeableness and extraversion, with openness largely unaffected. It also shows the reverse: changes in certain personality traits can predict future income, indicating a two-way relationship between money and who we are. At the centre of the investigation are the Big Five personality traits — conscientiousness, emotional stability, agreeableness, extraversion, and…

A UK study has found that people who are more socially mindful show a weaker egocentric bias when making quick decisions, with the effect observable in how fast and how accurately they identify objects linked to themselves versus a friend. The research, published in Consciousness and Cognition, points to the nuanced ways consideration for others can shape everyday decision-making. Self-bias, or self-prioritisation, is the tendency for information tied to the self to be processed more rapidly and accurately than similar information related to others. This bias can extend to objects we own, even if they are only trivially linked to…

A Brazilian study published in Evolution and Human Behavior finds that people’s attraction to antisocial traits largely mirrors their own personalities. Those with higher levels of Dark Triad traits rate such traits as more desirable in a potential partner, while a profile combining dark characteristics with physical assault remains highly unattractive. The researchers also found that adding fame, wealth, or good looks did not improve the appeal of a violent criminal profile. The study tested two ideas about why someone might be drawn to such partners: assortative mating, or homogamy, and the so-called desirability by-product hypothesis. In evolutionary terms, lasting…

A study led by Christian Rominger at the University of Graz in Austria has found that a person’s physiological state immediately before a creative task may influence the kind of ideas they produce. The research, conducted with 157 university students (average age about 23; 103 women) and published in Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, suggests lower heart rate variability is linked to more original verbal ideas, while higher variability predicts more original visual or figural ideas. Participants wore portable ECG sensors for five days and were prompted to complete creativity tasks throughout the day. They received twelve prompts…

A study published in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging reveals that the wide range of sensory experiences reported by autistic individuals maps onto distinct patterns of information exchange in the brain. Researchers analysed 146 autistic children and adolescents aged three to twenty-one and found that specific functional connections between cortical and subcortical regions can predict a child’s sensory profile. The work was led by Western University researchers Matthew Kolisnyk and senior author Ryan Stevenson. Differences in sensory processing are a defining feature for up to 87 percent of autistic people, with sights, sounds, textures, smells or tastes perceived at…

Columbia University researchers have pinpointed a biological mechanism that could explain why some carriers of the APOE ε4 Alzheimer’s risk variant stay mentally sharp into their eighties, suggesting a rare FN1 genetic mutation may shield the brain’s blood vessels and protect the blood-brain barrier. The discovery potentially opens a new path toward treatments for a disease that remains a major UK and global health challenge. The study, published in Nature Aging, builds on prior work linking the APOE ε4 gene variant—widely associated with heightened Alzheimer’s risk—with a rare protective mutation in the fibronectin (FN1) gene. Fibronectin forms part of the…

A new eye-tracking study published in Evolution and Human Behavior has found striking differences in how men and women allocate their attention to attractive faces. The research suggests men linger longer on faces that match their sexual orientation, while women spend more time viewing attractive faces regardless of the other person’s sex. The pattern emerges during deliberate, sustained looking rather than the first instant of automatic attention, and being in a committed relationship does not reliably curb such eyeing. Attentional bias describes the tendency for our eyes to prioritise certain stimuli over others. Facial attractiveness acts as a powerful lure…

A large international genetic study has concluded that men and women share much of the same risk for anxiety, but that distinct genetic pathways operate in each sex. Researchers identified sex-specific routes that could help explain why anxiety manifests and is reported differently by females and males. The work is published in Psychological Medicine. The study analysed genetic and health data from 455,487 individuals of European ancestry drawn from the UK Biobank and the All of Us programmes. In a first combined analysis, the team compared people with a history of anxiety to those without mental distress and identified 56…

Researchers have published a two-study examination of self-rated attractiveness, uncovering consistent links between high self-perceived looks and certain demographics, beliefs and workplace personality traits. The work, led by Adrian Furnham and David S. Semmelink, suggests that being male, holding a university degree, and possessing high levels of optimism and emotional stability are associated with higher self-ratings of physical beauty. It also finds a surprising negative tie between cognitive ability and self-assessed attractiveness. Self-rated attractiveness refers to how good-looking a person believes they are, assessed on a simple numerical scale rather than by external judgment. The researchers describe it as a…

A Swedish randomised trial has found that a single 25-mg dose of psilocybin produced rapid antidepressant effects in adults with moderate to severe recurrent major depressive disorder, with self-reported symptoms improving as early as day two and lasting beyond three months. By contrast, the main clinician-rated measure showed the advantage over placebo diminishing by the end of the first year. The study was published in JAMA Network Open. Depression, or major depressive disorder, is a mental health condition characterised by persistent low mood, loss of interest or pleasure, and other emotional, cognitive, and physical symptoms that can substantially interfere with…