Author: dispatchtimes news

A new study published in Psychology of Women Quarterly links early sexual objectification by family members to how young women view themselves as adults, and to downstream sexual experiences such as consent, communication of desires, and orgasm. Researchers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, led by Dawn M. Szymanski and Greta Hacker, suggest that messages about appearance in the home may condition women to see themselves as objects, complicating their sexual agency years later. Sexual objectification occurs when someone is valued primarily for their looks and treated as a sexual object rather than a whole person. The study notes that…

Immersive virtual reality headsets have been shown to reliably induce feelings traditionally associated with deep spiritual practice—or even psychedelics—according to a new study from Western University. The research, published in Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice, compares virtual reality experiences with a standard computer monitor to see which format more effectively prompts “mystical” states. A mystical experience, researchers explain, is a profound mental event marked by a sense of unity with the universe, altered perceptions of time and space, and intense positive emotions. The study notes that such experiences are often described as ineffable, and may involve a sense…

A study analysing the health records of 2.56 million children in the United States found no link between receiving the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine before the age of two and a later autism diagnosis. Published in The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, the research led by Todd L. Burstain of UW Medicine used a novel age-anchored landmark approach to compare vaccinated and unvaccinated children within defined age windows. Study design and key findings The researchers drew on Cosmos, a large electronic health record database spanning hospitals and clinics across the United States, and identified 2,560,035 children who had at least…

New research suggests that when people believe their social group is treated as unimportant by others, they tend to report more anger about their group’s treatment and more anxiety about its future. These feelings were in turn linked to involvement in collective action, support for strong leadership, and, among White Americans, support for punitive policies. The findings were published in European Journal of Social Psychology. The research explores collective anti-mattering, the belief that one’s social group does not count, is ignored, or is viewed as disposable by other groups or by society at large. It builds on personal anti-mattering, which…

A fresh line of experiments published in Political Psychology suggests that people often fail to notice when attitudes on social issues are shifting in both major parties, and that presenting these trends dynamically can foster a more hopeful view of cross-party cooperation. The research, led by Trystan Loustau, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Boston College, finds that recognising shared directionality in opinion change can nudge partisans toward warmer judgments of their opponents. Descriptive social norms—perceptions of what others believe or do—have long been used to explain political hostility, and perceptions in politics are frequently…

A major new synthesis of West Point admissions data finds that personality traits, especially conscientiousness, are the strongest predictors of cadet leadership performance, outstripping cognitive ability in forecasting who will lead effectively. The analysis draws on decades of data covering the academy’s intake and subsequent achievements, amounting to 29,102 cadets graduating from classes between 1949 and 2022. West Point’s admissions process is highly structured, weighing cognitive abilities, physical fitness and non-cognitive traits. The modern system uses a composite Whole Candidate Score that combines academic ability, leadership potential and physical ability to form a comprehensive profile of a candidate. Cadet progress…

A Zhejiang University-led study in China has compared the cognitive outcomes of children conceived through frozen embryo transfer using hormone replacement therapy with those conceived via natural cycle protocols. The retrospective cohort, drawn from a reproductive centre, followed 1,538 families and 790 singletons born between 2004 and 2017. It found no meaningful difference in early childhood IQ between the two uterine-preparation methods, but noted higher rates of unusually large babies and admissions to newborn care units in the hormone replacement therapy group. Researchers distinguished two ways of preparing the uterus for embryo transfer. The natural cycle method relies on the…

A study published in Autism Research suggests that autistic people possess a brain configured with a highly interconnected reward centre and social processing networks. Led by Chen Yang and Ai-Ping Sun, the team used resting-state brain imaging to analyse data from 646 participants, including 298 autistic individuals and 348 typically developing controls, to map how these networks communicate when the brain is at rest. The human brain handles social interactions through a distributed system known as the social brain, comprising four subnetworks that govern different facets of connection. The reward system encodes motivation and the pleasure attached to social stimuli,…

A new longitudinal analysis suggests that adolescents who begin using cannabis may experience a slower pace of cognitive development than their peers who do not use the drug. The study, published in Neuropsychopharmacology, draws on data from a large national project and finds that youths often start with marginally higher cognitive scores in late childhood, but their rate of improvement lags as they age. Adolescence is a period of rapid brain development when the organ undergoes major structural and functional changes, making it particularly susceptible to external chemical influences. Cannabis contains more than 120 cannabinoids, with delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) being the…

A small pilot study conducted at Johns Hopkins University examined the effects of psilocybin, delivered with psychological support, in 20 patients with post-treatment Lyme disease. Six months after two psilocybin sessions, participants reported a 40% reduction in overall symptom burden compared with the start of the study, and their health-related quality of life improved. The researchers emphasised that the trial had no control group. Lyme disease is caused by Borrelia bacteria and is transmitted via infected ticks. It can affect the skin, joints, nervous system and heart, with early signs typically including fever, fatigue, headache and a distinctive expanding rash.…