New research suggests that the desire for a psychologically rich life, one filled with varied and perspective-altering experiences, is a significant driver behind why people choose activities that are intentionally unpleasant or challenging. The series of studies, published in the journal Psychology & Marketing, indicates that this preference is largely fueled by a motivation for personal growth.

Researchers have long been interested in why people sometimes opt for experiences that are not traditionally pleasurable, such as watching horror movies, eating intensely sour foods, or enduring grueling physical challenges. This behavior, known as counterhedonic consumption, seems to contradict the basic human drive to seek pleasure and avoid pain. While previous explanations have pointed to factors like sensation-seeking or a desire to accumulate a diverse set of life experiences, researchers proposed a new motivational framework to explain this phenomenon.

They theorized that some individuals are driven by a search for psychological richness, a dimension of well-being distinct from happiness or a sense of meaning. A psychologically rich life is characterized by novelty, complexity, and experiences that shift one’s perspective. The researchers hypothesized that this drive could lead people to embrace discomfort, not for the discomfort itself, but for the personal transformation and growth such experiences might offer.

To investigate this idea, the researchers conducted a series of ten studies involving a total of 2,275 participants. In an initial study, participants were presented with a poster for a haunted house pass and asked how likely they would be to try it. They also completed questionnaires measuring their desire for a psychologically rich life, as well as their desire for a happy or meaningful life and their tendency toward sensation-seeking.

The results showed a positive relationship between the search for psychological richness and a preference for the haunted house experience. This connection remained even when accounting for the other factors.

To see if this finding extended beyond fear-based activities, a subsequent study presented participants with a detailed description of an intensely sour chicken dish. Again, individuals who scored higher on the scale for psychological richness expressed a greater likelihood of ordering the dish.

A third study solidified these findings in a choice-based scenario, asking participants to select between a “blissful garden” experience and a “dark maze” designed to be disorienting. Those with a stronger desire for psychological richness were more likely to choose the dark maze, a finding that held even after controlling for general risk-taking tendencies.

Having established a consistent link, the research team sought to determine causality. In another experiment, they temporarily prompted one group of participants to focus on psychological richness by having them write about what it means to make choices based on a desire for interesting and perspective-changing outcomes. A control group wrote about their daily life. Afterward, both groups were asked about their interest in a horror movie streaming service.

The group primed to think about psychological richness showed a significantly higher preference for the service, suggesting that this mindset can directly cause an increased interest in counterhedonic experiences.

The next step was to understand the psychological process behind this link. The researchers proposed that a focus on self-growth was the key mechanism. One study tested this by again presenting the sour food scenario and then asking participants to what extent their choice was motivated by a desire for self-discovery and personal development. A statistical analysis revealed that the desire for self-growth fully explained the connection between a search for psychological richness and the preference for the sour dish.

To ensure self-growth was the primary driver, another study tested it against an alternative explanation: the desire to create profound memories. While a rich life might involve creating interesting stories to tell, the results showed that self-growth was the significant factor explaining the choice for the sour dish, whereas the desire for profound memories was not.

Further strengthening the causal claim, another experiment first manipulated participants’ focus on psychological richness and then measured their self-growth motivation. The results showed that the manipulation increased a focus on self-growth, which in turn increased the preference for the counterhedonic food item.

A final, more nuanced experiment provided further support for the self-growth mechanism. In this study, the researchers manipulated self-growth motivation directly. One group was asked to write about making choices that foster personal growth, while a control group was not. In the control condition, the expected pattern emerged: people higher in the search for psychological richness were more interested in the sour dish.

However, in the group where self-growth was made salient, preferences for the sour dish increased across the board. This effectively reduced the predictive power of a person’s baseline level of psychological richness, indicating that when the need for self-growth is met, the underlying trait becomes less of a deciding factor.

The research has some limitations. Many of the studies relied on hypothetical scenarios and self-reported preferences, which may not perfectly reflect real-world consumer behavior. The researchers suggest that future work could use field experiments to observe actual choices in natural settings. They also note that cultural differences could play a role, as some cultures may place a higher value on experiences of discomfort as a pathway to wisdom or personal development. Exploring these boundary conditions could provide a more complete picture of this motivational system.

The study, “The Allure of Pain: How the Quest for Psychological Richness Drives Counterhedonic Consumption,” was authored by Sarah Su Lin Lee, Ritesh Saini, and Shashi Minchael.

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An analysis of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study data found that individuals with more severe depressive symptoms tend to report higher levels of social isolation at a later time point. In turn, individuals who are more socially isolated tend to report slightly worse cognitive functioning. Analyses showed that social isolation mediates a small part of the link between depressive symptoms and worse cognitive functioning. The paper was published in the Journal of Affective Disorders.

Depression is a mental health disorder characterized by persistent sadness, loss of interest or pleasure, and feelings of hopelessness that interfere with daily functioning. It adversely affects the way a person thinks, feels, and behaves. It can lead to difficulties in work, relationships, and self-care.

People with depression may experience fatigue, changes in appetite, and sleep disturbances. Concentration and decision-making can become harder, reducing productivity and motivation. Physical symptoms such as pain, headaches, or digestive issues may also appear without clear medical causes.

Depression can diminish the ability to enjoy previously pleasurable activities, leading to social withdrawal. This isolation can worsen depressive symptoms, creating a cycle of loneliness and despair. Social isolation itself is both a risk factor for developing depression and a common consequence of it.

Study author Jia Fang and her colleagues note that depressed individuals also tend to show worse cognitive functioning. They conducted a study aiming to explore the likely causal direction underpinning the longitudinal association between depressive symptoms and cognitive decline, and a possible mediating role social isolation has in this link among Chinese adults aged 45 years and above. These authors hypothesized that social isolation mediates the association between depressive symptoms and cognitive function.

Study authors analyzed data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). CHARLS is a nationally representative longitudinal survey of Chinese residents aged 45 and above. This analysis used CHARLS data from three waves in 2013, 2015, and 2018, including a total of 9,220 participants. 51.4% were women. Participants’ average age was 58 years.

The authors of the study used data on participants’ depressive symptoms (the 10-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale), social isolation, and cognitive function (assessed with tests of contextual memory and mental integrity). A social isolation score was calculated based on four factors: being unmarried (single, separated, divorced, or widowed), living alone, having less than weekly contact with children (in person, via phone, or email), and not participating in any social activities in the past month.

Results showed that depressive symptoms were associated with subsequent social isolation. Social isolation, in turn, was associated with subsequent worse cognitive functioning. Further analyses showed that social isolation partially mediated the link between depressive symptoms and cognitive functioning, explaining 3.1% of the total effect.

The study authors concluded that the association between depressive symptoms and cognitive function is partially mediated by social isolation. They suggest that public health initiatives targeting depressive symptoms in older adults could reduce social isolation and help maintain cognitive health in middle-aged and older adults in China.

The study sheds light on the nature of the link between depressive symptoms and cognitive functioning. However, it should be noted that the design of the study does not allow definitive causal inferences to be derived from these results. Additionally, social isolation was assessed through self-reports, leaving room for reporting bias to have affected the results. Finally, the reported mediation effect was very modest in size, indicating that the link between depression and cognitive functioning depends much more on factors other than social isolation.

The paper, “Social isolation mediates association between depressive symptoms and cognitive function: Evidence from China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study,” was authored by Jia Fang, Wencan Cheng, Huiyuan Li, Chen Yang, Ni Zhang, Baoyi Zhang, Ye Zhang, and Meifen Zhang.

A new study finds that single adults in both the United States and Japan report lower well-being than their married peers. The research suggests that the influence of family support and strain on this health and satisfaction gap differs significantly between the two cultures. The findings were published in the journal Personal Relationships.

Researchers conducted this study to better understand the experiences of single adults outside of Western contexts. Much of the existing research has focused on places like the United States, where singlehood is becoming more common and accepted. In these individualistic cultures, some studies suggest single people may even have stronger connections with family and friends than married individuals.

However, in many Asian cultures, including Japan, marriage is often seen as a more essential part of life and family. This can create a different set of social pressures for single people. The researchers wanted to investigate whether these cultural differences would alter how family relationships, both positive and negative, are connected to the well-being of single and married people in the U.S. and Japan.

“I’ve always been curious about relationship transitions and singlehood lies in this awkward space where people are unsure if it really counts as an actual ‘relationship stage’ per se,” said study author Lester Sim, an assistant professor of psychology at Singapore Management University.

“Fortunately, the field is starting to recognize singlehood as an important period and it’s becoming more common, yet people still seem to judge singles pretty harshly. I find that kind of funny in a way, because it often reflects how we judge ourselves through others. Coming from an Asian background, I also wondered if these attitudes toward singlehood might play out differently across cultures, especially since family ties are so central in Asian contexts. That curiosity really sparked this project.”

To explore this, the research team analyzed data from two large, nationally representative studies: the Midlife in the U.S. (MIDUS) study and the Midlife in Japan (MIDJA) study. The combined sample included 4,746 participants who were 30 years of age or older. The researchers focused specifically on individuals who identified as either “married” or “never married,” and they took additional steps to exclude participants who were in a cohabiting or romantic relationship despite being unmarried.

Participants in both studies answered questions at two different points in time. The first wave of data included their marital status, their perceptions of family support, and their experiences of family strain. Family support was measured with items asking how much they felt their family cared for them or how much they could open up to family about their worries. Family strain was assessed with questions about how often family members criticized them or let them down.

At the second wave of data collection, participants reported on their well-being. This included rating their overall physical health on a scale from 0 to 10 and their satisfaction with life through a series of six questions about different life domains. The researchers then used a statistical approach to see how marital status at the first time point was related to well-being at the second time point, and whether family support and strain helped explain that relationship.

Across the board, the results showed that single adults in both the United States and Japan reported poorer physical health and lower life satisfaction compared to their married counterparts. This finding aligns with a large body of previous research suggesting that marriage is generally associated with better health outcomes.

When the researchers examined the role of family dynamics, they found distinct patterns in each country. For American participants, being married was associated with receiving more family support and experiencing less family strain. Both of these family factors were, in turn, linked to higher well-being. This suggests that for Americans, the well-being advantage of being married is partially explained by having more supportive and less tense family relationships.

The pattern observed in the Japanese sample was quite different. Single Japanese adults did report experiencing more family strain than married Japanese adults. Yet, this higher level of family strain did not have a significant connection to their physical health or life satisfaction later on.

“Family relationships matter a lot for everyone, whether you’re single or married, but in different ways across cultures,” Sim told PsyPost. “We found that singles in both the US and Japan reported lower well-being, in part because they experienced more family strain and less support (differentially across cultures). So even though singlehood is becoming more common, it still carries social and emotional costs. I think this shows how important it is to build more inclusive environments where singles feel equally supported and valued.”

Another notable finding from the Japanese sample was that there was no significant difference in the amount of family support reported by single and married individuals. While family support did predict higher life satisfaction for Japanese participants, it did not serve as a pathway explaining the well-being gap between single and married people in the way it did for Americans.

“I honestly thought the patterns would differ more across cultures,” Sim said. “I expected singles in Western countries to feel more accepted, and singles in Asia to rely more on family support and report greater strain; but neither of the latter findings turned out to be the case. It seems that, across the board, social norms around marriage still shape how people experience singlehood and well-being.”

The researchers acknowledged some limitations of their work. The definition of “single” was based on available survey questions and could be refined in future studies with more direct inquiries about relationship status.

“We focused only on familial support and strain because family is such a big part of East Asian culture,” Sim noted. “But singlehood is complex: friendships, loneliness, voluntary versus involuntary singlehood, and how satisfied people feel being single all matter too. We didn’t examine these constructs in the current study because there is existing work on this topic, so I wanted to bring more focus onto the family (especially with the cross-cultural focus). Future work should dig into those other layers and examine how they interact to shape the singlehood experience.”

It would also be beneficial to explore these dynamics across different age groups, as the pressures and supports related to marital status may change over a person’s lifespan. Such work would help create a more comprehensive picture of how singlehood is experienced around the world.

“I want to keep exploring how culture shapes the meanings people attach to relationships and singlehood,” Sim explained. “Long term, I hope this work helps shift the narrative away from the idea that marriage is the default route to happiness, and shift toward recognizing that there are many valid ways to live a good life.”

“Being single isn’t a problem to be fixed. It’s a meaningful, often intentional part of many people’s lives. The more we understand that, the closer we get to supporting well-being for everyone, not just those who are married.”

The study, “Cross-Cultural Differences in the Links Between Familial Support and Strain in Married and Single Adults’ Well-Being,” was authored by Lester Sim and Robin Edelstein.

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A new clinical trial has found that adding repeated intravenous ketamine infusions to standard care for hospitalized patients with serious depression did not provide a significant additional benefit. The study, which compared ketamine to a psychoactive placebo, suggests that previous estimates of the drug’s effectiveness might have been influenced by patient and clinician expectations. These findings were published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.

Ketamine, originally developed as an anesthetic, has gained attention over the past two decades for its ability to produce rapid antidepressant effects in individuals who have not responded to conventional treatments. Unlike standard antidepressants that can take weeks to work, a single infusion of ketamine can sometimes lift mood within hours. A significant drawback, however, is that these benefits are often short-lived, typically fading within a week.

This has led to the widespread practice of administering a series of infusions to sustain the positive effects. A central challenge in studying ketamine is its distinct psychological effects, such as feelings of dissociation or detachment from reality. When compared to an inactive placebo like a saline solution, it is very easy for participants and researchers to know who received the active drug, potentially creating strong expectancy effects that can inflate the perceived benefits.

To address this, the researchers designed their study to use an “active” placebo, a drug called midazolam, which is a sedative that produces noticeable effects of its own, making it a more rigorous comparison.

“Ketamine has attracted a lot of interest as a rapidly-acting antidepressant but it has short-lived effects. Therefore, its usefulness is quite limited. Despite this major limitation, ketamine is increasingly being adopted as an off-label treatment for depression, especially in the USA,” said study author Declan McLoughlin, a professor at Trinity College Dublin.

“We hypothesized that repeated ketamine infusions may have more sustained benefit. So far this has been evaluated in only a small number of trials. Another problem is that few ketamine trials have used an adequate control condition to mask the obvious dissociative effects of ketamine, e.g. altered consciousness and perceptions of oneself and one’s environment.”

“To try address some of these issues, we conducted an independent investigator-led randomized trial (KARMA-Dep 2) to evaluate antidepressant efficacy, safety, cost-effectiveness, and quality of life during and after serial ketamine infusions when compared to a psychoactive comparison drug midazolam. Trial participants were randomized to receive up to eight infusions of either ketamine or midazolam, given over four weeks, in addition to all other aspects of usual inpatient care.”

The trial, conducted at an academic hospital in Dublin, Ireland, aimed to see if adding twice-weekly ketamine infusions to the usual comprehensive care provided to inpatients could improve depression outcomes. Researchers enrolled adults who had been voluntarily admitted to the hospital for moderate to severe depression. These participants were already receiving a range of treatments, including medication, various forms of therapy, and psychoeducation programs.

In this randomized, double-blind study, 65 participants were assigned to one of two groups. One group received intravenous ketamine infusions twice a week for up to four weeks, while the other group received intravenous midazolam on the same schedule. The doses were calculated based on body weight. The double-blind design meant that neither the patients, the clinicians rating their symptoms, nor the main investigators knew who was receiving which substance. Only the anesthesiologist administering the infusion knew the assignment, ensuring patient safety without influencing the results.

The primary measure of success was the change in participants’ depression scores, assessed using a standard clinical tool called the Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale. This assessment was conducted at the beginning of the study and again 24 hours after the final infusion. The researchers also tracked other outcomes, such as self-reported symptoms, rates of response and remission, cognitive function, side effects, and overall quality of life.

After analyzing the data from 62 participants who completed the treatment phase, the study found no statistically significant difference in the main outcome between the two groups. Although patients in both groups showed improvement in their depressive symptoms during their hospital stay, the group receiving ketamine did not fare significantly better than the group receiving midazolam. The average reduction in depression scores was only slightly larger in the ketamine group, a difference that was small and could have been due to chance.

Similarly, there were no significant advantages for ketamine on secondary measures, including self-reported depression symptoms, cognitive performance, or long-term quality of life. While the rate of remission from depression was slightly higher in the ketamine group (about 44 percent) compared to the midazolam group (30 percent), this difference was not statistically robust. The treatments were found to be generally safe, though ketamine produced more dissociative experiences during the infusion, while midazolam produced more sedation.

“We found no significant difference between the two groups on our primary outcome measure (i.e. depression severity assessed with the commonly used Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS)),” McLoughlin told PsyPost. “Nor did we find any difference between the two groups on any other secondary outcome or cost-effectiveness measure. Under rigorous clinical trial conditions, adjunctive ketamine provided no additional benefit to routine inpatient care during the initial treatment phase or the six-month follow-up period.”

A key finding emerged when the researchers checked how well the “blinding” had worked. They discovered that it was not very successful. From the very first infusion, the clinicians rating patient symptoms were able to guess with high accuracy who was receiving ketamine.

Patients in the ketamine group also became quite accurate at guessing their treatment over time. This functional unblinding complicates the interpretation of the results, as the small, nonsignificant trend favoring ketamine could be explained by the psychological effect of knowing one is receiving a treatment with a powerful reputation.

“Our initial hypothesis was that repeated ketamine infusions for people hospitalised with depression would improve mood outcomes,” McLoughlin said. “However, contrary to our hypothesis, we found this not to be the case. We suspect that functional unblinding (due to its obvious dissociative effects) has amplified the placebo effects of ketamine in previous trials. This is a major, often unacknowledged, problem with many recent trials in psychiatry evaluating ketamine, psychedelic, and brain stimulation therapies. Our trial highlights the importance of reporting the success, or lack thereof, of blinding in clinical trials.”

The study’s authors acknowledged some limitations. The research was unable to recruit its planned number of participants, partly due to logistical challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic. This smaller sample size reduced the study’s statistical power, making it harder to detect a real, but modest, difference between the treatments if one existed. The primary limitation, however, remains the challenge of blinding.

The results from this trial suggest that when tested under more rigorous conditions, the antidepressant benefit of repeated ketamine infusions may be smaller than suggested by earlier studies that used inactive placebos. The researchers propose that expectations for both patients and clinicians may play a substantial role in ketamine’s perceived effects. This highlights the need to recalibrate expectations for ketamine in clinical practice and for more robustly designed trials in psychiatry.

Looking forward, the researchers emphasize the importance of reporting negative or null trial results to provide a balanced view of a treatment’s capabilities. They also expressed concern about a separate in the field: the promotion of ketamine as an equally effective alternative to electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT.

“Scrutiny of the scientific literature shows that this includes methodologically flawed trials and invalid meta-analyses,” McLoughlin said. “We discuss this in some detail in a Comment piece just published in Lancet Psychiatry. Unfortunately, such errors have been accepted as scientific evidence and are already creeping into international clinical guidelines. There is a thus a real risk of patients and clinicians being steered towards a less effective treatment, particularly for patients with severe, sometimes life-threatening, depression.”

The study, “Serial Ketamine Infusions as Adjunctive Therapy to Inpatient Care for Depression: The KARMA-Dep 2 Randomized Clinical Trial,” was authored by Ana Jelovac, Cathal McCaffrey, Masashi Terao, Enda Shanahan, Emma Whooley, Kelly McDonagh, Sarah McDonogh, Orlaith Loughran, Ellie Shackleton, Anna Igoe, Sarah Thompson, Enas Mohamed, Duyen Nguyen, Ciaran O’Neill, Cathal Walsh, and Declan M. McLoughlin.

A new study suggests that higher levels of psychopathic traits are associated with lower relationship satisfaction in romantic couples. The research indicates that a person’s perception of their partner’s traits is a particularly strong predictor of their own discontent within the relationship. The findings were published in the Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy.

The research team was motivated by the established connection between personality and the quality of romantic relationships. While traits like agreeableness and conscientiousness are known to support relationship satisfaction, maladaptive traits, such as those associated with psychopathy, are understood to be detrimental. Psychopathy is not a single trait but a combination of characteristics, including interpersonal manipulation, a callous lack of empathy, an erratic lifestyle, and antisocial tendencies.

Previous studies have shown that individuals with more pronounced psychopathic traits tend to prefer short-term relationships, are more likely to be unfaithful, and may engage in controlling or destructive behaviors. Yet, much of this research did not simultaneously account for the perspectives of both partners in a relationship. The researchers aimed to provide a more nuanced understanding by examining how both a person’s own traits and their partner’s traits, as viewed by themselves and by their partner, collectively influence relationship satisfaction.

To investigate these dynamics, the researchers recruited a sample of 85 heterosexual couples from the Netherlands. The participants were predominantly young adults, many of whom were students. Each member of the couple independently completed a series of online questionnaires. The surveys were designed to measure their own psychopathic traits, their perception of their partner’s psychopathic traits, and their overall satisfaction with their relationship.

For measuring psychopathic traits, the study used a well-established questionnaire that assesses three primary facets: Interpersonal Manipulation (e.g., being charming but deceptive), Callous Affect (e.g., lacking guilt or empathy), and Erratic Lifestyle (e.g., impulsivity and irresponsibility). A fourth facet, Antisocial Tendencies, was excluded from the final analysis due to statistical unreliability within this specific sample. Participants completed one version of this questionnaire about themselves and a modified version about their romantic partner.

The researchers used a specialized statistical technique called the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model to analyze the data. This method is uniquely suited for studying couples because it can distinguish between two different kinds of influence. “Actor effects” refer to the association between an individual’s own characteristics and their own outcomes. For example, it can measure how your self-rated manipulativeness relates to your own relationship satisfaction. “Partner effects” describe the association between an individual’s characteristics and their partner’s outcomes, such as how your self-rated manipulativeness relates to your partner’s satisfaction.

Before conducting the main analysis, the researchers examined how partners’ ratings related to one another. They found very little “actual similarity,” meaning that a man’s level of psychopathic traits was not significantly related to his female partner’s level. However, they did find moderate “perceptual accuracy,” which means that how a person rated their partner was generally in line with how that partner rated themselves. There was also strong “perceptual similarity,” indicating that people tended to rate their partners in a way that was similar to how they rated themselves.

One notable preliminary finding was that both men and women tended to rate their partners as having lower levels of psychopathic traits than their partners reported for themselves. This could suggest a positive bias, where individuals maintain a more charitable view of their partner, or it may indicate that certain maladaptive traits are not easily observable to others in a relationship.

The central findings of the study emerged from the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model. The most consistent result was a negative actor effect related to partner perception. When an individual rated their partner higher on psychopathic traits, that same individual reported lower satisfaction with the relationship. This connection was present for both men and women and held true across the total psychopathy score and its specific facets.

The study also identified other significant associations. For both men and women, rating oneself higher on Interpersonal Manipulation was linked to lower satisfaction in one’s own relationship. This suggests that a manipulative style may be unfulfilling even for the person exhibiting it.

A partner effect was observed for the trait of Callous Affect. When a person was perceived by their partner as being more callous, unemotional, and lacking in empathy, that partner reported lower relationship satisfaction. This highlights the direct interpersonal damage that a lack of emotional connection can inflict on a relationship.

In an unexpected turn, the analysis revealed one positive association. When women rated themselves as higher in Callous Affect, their male partners reported slightly higher levels of relationship satisfaction. The researchers propose that this could be related to gender stereotypes, where traits that might be labeled as callous in a clinical sense could be interpreted differently, perhaps as toughness or independence, in women by their male partners.

The study has some limitations that the authors acknowledge. The sample consisted of young, primarily student-based, heterosexual couples in relatively short-term relationships, which may not represent the dynamics in older, married, or more diverse couples. Because the study captured data at a single point in time, it cannot establish causality; it shows an association, not that psychopathic traits cause dissatisfaction. The sample size also meant the study was better equipped to detect medium-to-large effects, and smaller but still meaningful associations might have been missed.

Future research could build on these findings by studying larger and more diverse populations over a longer period. Following couples over time would help clarify how these personality dynamics affect relationship quality and stability as the relationship matures. A longitudinal approach could also determine if these traits predict relationship dissolution.

The study, “Psychopathic Traits and Relationship Satisfaction in Intimate Partners: A Dyadic Approach,” was authored by Frederica M. Martijn, Liam Cahill, Mieke Decuyper, and Katarzyna (Kasia) Uzieblo.

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