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Maternal depression’s link to child outcomes is strongest with high ADHD

✇PsyPost – Psychology News
By:Karina Petrova

A new study suggests that when mothers experience both depressive symptoms and symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, their two-year-old children may face a heightened risk of developing their own depressive symptoms and attention difficulties. The combination of these maternal conditions appears to create a compounded challenge for early child development. The findings were published in the journal Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology.

Researchers have long understood that a mother’s mental health can influence her child’s development. Conditions like depression and ADHD have been studied independently, with each showing links to certain challenges in parenting and child outcomes. However, these two conditions frequently occur together in individuals, creating a more complex set of difficulties. The combined impact of these co-occurring symptoms on very young children has not been well explored.

This gap in knowledge prompted the study led by Michal Levy and a team of researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. They wanted to understand how maternal depression and ADHD symptoms might jointly predict a child’s emotional and attentional development. The researchers focused on the period from pregnancy through the first two years of a child’s life. This early stage is a time of rapid brain growth and development, where a child is highly dependent on caregivers for emotional regulation and support, making it a particularly sensitive period.

To investigate this, the researchers conducted a longitudinal study, following a group of families over an extended period. The study began with 156 mothers and their children, who were recruited during the second trimester of pregnancy. Data was collected at three different times: during pregnancy, when the infants were three months old, and again when the children reached two years of age. This multi-wave approach allowed the researchers to track how symptoms and behaviors changed over time.

During the pregnancy assessment, mothers completed questionnaires to report on their symptoms of ADHD . They also reported on their own depressive symptoms at all three time points: during pregnancy, at three months postpartum, and at the two-year follow-up. When the children were two years old, their development was assessed in two ways. First, mothers filled out a standardized checklist to report on any depressive symptoms their child might be exhibiting, such as sadness, irritability, or loss of interest in play.

Second, the children’s ability to sustain attention was measured directly through a structured play session. Each two-year-old was brought into a lab setting and given a set of colorful blocks to play with independently for up to four minutes. An experimenter was present but did not interact with the child. These play sessions were video-recorded. Later, trained research assistants watched the recordings and coded the child’s level of focused attention in five-second intervals. High attention was marked by a steady gaze and active, engaged play with the blocks, while low attention was noted by off-task glances and passive handling of the toys.

The analysis of the data revealed a complex interplay between the two maternal conditions. The most significant developmental difficulties in children at age two were seen when mothers reported high levels of both ADHD symptoms and depressive symptoms. The findings showed that a mother’s depressive symptoms were associated with worse outcomes for her child, but primarily when her ADHD symptoms were also elevated.

Specifically, the researchers found that higher maternal depressive symptoms at three months after birth were associated with more depressive symptoms in their two-year-old children. However, this connection was only statistically significant for mothers who also had moderate to high levels of ADHD symptoms. For mothers with low levels of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms, their level of depression did not show a significant link to their child’s depressive symptoms.

A similar pattern emerged when looking at the children’s focused attention. The study found that a mother’s depressive symptoms at three months were linked to lower focused attention in her two-year-old during the block-playing task. Again, this relationship was only present when the mother reported high levels of ADHD symptoms. The presence of both conditions in the mother appeared to create a dual risk factor that amplified the potential for challenges in the child.

The study also noted that depressive symptoms reported by mothers at three months postpartum were a stronger predictor of child outcomes than depressive symptoms reported during pregnancy. The authors suggest that this may point to the importance of the postnatal caregiving environment. After a child is born, disruptions in mother-child interactions caused by maternal mental health challenges may have a more direct effect on a child’s emerging emotional and attentional skills.

The researchers acknowledge some limitations in their work. The assessment of children’s depressive symptoms was based on reports from their mothers, which could be influenced by the mothers’ own mental state. Future research could benefit from including observations from other caregivers or clinicians to get a more comprehensive picture of the child’s emotional state.

Additionally, the study did not directly measure parenting behaviors. While it is likely that the combination of maternal depression and ADHD affects children through disruptions in parenting, such as inconsistent routines or reduced emotional availability, this study did not observe those mechanisms. Future studies could include observations of parent-child interactions to better understand how these maternal symptoms translate into behaviors that shape child development. Finally, maternal ADHD symptoms were only measured once, during pregnancy.

Despite these limitations, the research provides important insights into the compounded risks associated with co-occurring maternal mental health conditions. The findings suggest that the combination of maternal depression and ADHD symptoms may create a uniquely challenging environment for a young child. This highlights a need for more integrated approaches to maternal mental health screening and support, recognizing that addressing one condition without considering the other may not be enough to promote optimal child development.

The study, “The Interplay between Maternal Depression and ADHD Symptoms in Predicting Emotional and Attentional Functioning in Toddlerhood,” was authored by Michal Levy, Andrea Berger, Alisa Egotubov, Avigail Gordon-Hacker, Eyal Sheiner, and Noa Gueron-Sela.

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Mould, mice and rooms with strangers: Inside migrant hotels that government claims are ‘luxury’

✇The Independent
By:Shaheena Uddin

This week, the prime minister’s official spokesperson suggested migrant hotels are ‘luxury’ places to live. But with rodent and slug infestations, substandard food and large families packed into single rooms, those living there have a very different story to tell. They talk to Shaheena Uddin about the reality of life for migrants in Britain

© PA Wire

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For young Republicans and men, fear of mass shootings fuels opposition to gun control

✇PsyPost – Psychology News
By:Karina Petrova

A new study suggests that while a majority of young American adults worry about mass shootings, their shared fear does not unite them on the issue of gun control. Instead, for certain groups, higher levels of fear are linked to stronger opposition to firearm restrictions, a finding that complicates predictions about the nation’s future gun policy. The research was published in the journal Social Science Quarterly.

“This is a generation of people who live with significant fear and anxiety over mass violence,” said senior author Jillian Turanovic, associate professor of sociology. “But we found that those shared fears do not unite them in attitudes on gun policy. In fact, they polarize them.”

The researchers sought to investigate a common assumption about the generation of Americans aged 18 to 29. Often called the “massacre generation,” these emerging adults grew up in an era defined by high-profile school shootings and constant media coverage of mass violence. Given these formative experiences, many observers have predicted that as this generation gains political power, they will form a unified front in favor of stricter gun legislation. The research team wanted to examine if this belief held up to scrutiny, or if shared anxiety over mass violence might produce more complex and even contradictory outcomes.

To explore this question, the scientists conducted a survey of 1,674 emerging adults from all 50 states in May 2023. The survey was designed to measure participants’ attitudes toward gun control by asking their level of agreement with statements about firearm access, such as whether owning more guns enhances safety or if guns should be allowed on college campuses.

Separately, the survey assessed their fear of mass shootings by asking how much they worried about an attack occurring in different public settings, including schools, shopping malls, and large events. The researchers then used statistical analysis to determine the relationship between fear and gun policy sentiment, while also accounting for other factors like political affiliation, gender, race, education, and personal experiences with crime.

The study confirmed that fear of mass shootings is widespread among this age group, with more than 60 percent of respondents reporting that they worry a mass shooting will affect their lives. In general, the researchers found a modest connection between higher levels of fear and greater support for gun control policies. This overall trend, however, masked deep divisions within the generation.

When the researchers analyzed the data by political identity, a starkly different pattern emerged. For young adults who identified as Republicans or conservatives, experiencing greater fear of mass shootings was associated with less support for gun control. This finding suggests that for these individuals, the fear of violence may reinforce a belief in armed self-defense, often described as the “good guy with a gun” perspective, rather than a desire for more government regulation of firearms.

A similar polarizing effect was observed among young men. While men and women with low levels of fear had similar views on gun policy, the gap between them widened as fear increased. Among young men, higher levels of fear were connected to increased opposition to gun restrictions. This may reflect cultural ideas that link masculinity with the roles of protector and provider, where owning a firearm is seen as a tool for ensuring personal and family safety.

The researchers also looked at whether the relationship between fear and gun attitudes differed by region. They found an unexpected pattern in the Northeast. In contrast to other parts of the country where fear tended to increase support for gun control, in the Northeast, higher levels of fear were associated with a slight decrease in support for such policies. The authors speculate this could be because some of the nation’s strictest gun laws are already in place in the Northeast, and high-profile attacks in the region may lead some residents to question the effectiveness of these laws.

The study did not find that race, ethnicity, or educational attainment significantly altered the relationship between fear of mass shootings and views on gun control. This indicates that political ideology and gender may be more powerful drivers of gun policy attitudes within this generation, at least when it comes to responding to the threat of mass violence.

The authors note some limits to their work. The survey provides a snapshot in time and cannot establish whether fear directly causes a shift in policy attitudes or if pre-existing attitudes shape how individuals react to fear. Because the sample, while diverse, was not perfectly representative of all young adults in the U.S., the findings should be seen as exploratory.

Future research could track individuals over time to better understand how their views evolve, particularly after they experience a mass shooting event in their community. Additional studies could also examine a broader range of specific gun policies, such as waiting periods or red flag laws, to get a more detailed picture of young adults’ preferences.

Ultimately, the research indicates that the political future of gun legislation is not as straightforward as some might assume. The shared experience of growing up under the shadow of mass shootings does not automatically create a consensus on solutions. For policymakers and advocates, these findings suggest that addressing gun violence will require acknowledging the deep-seated ideological divides that persist even within America’s youngest generation of voters.

The study, “Fear of Mass Shootings and Gun Control Sentiment: A Study of Emerging Adults in Contemporary America,” was authored by Jillian J. Turanovic, Kristin M. Lloyd, and Antonia La Tosa.

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A major psychology study finds the U-shape of happiness has been turned on its head

✇PsyPost – Psychology News
By:Alex Bryson · David Blanchflower · and Xiaowei Xu

For years now, research studies across the world looking at happiness across our lifetimes have found a U-shape: happiness falls from a high point in youth, and then rises again after middle age. This has been mirrored in studies on unhappiness, which show a peak in middle age and a decline thereafter.

Our new research on ill-being, based on data from 44 countries including the US and UK, shows this established pattern has changed. We now see a peak of unhappiness among the young, which then declines with age. The change isn’t due to middle-aged and older people getting happier, but to a deterioration in young people’s mental health.

A closer look at data from the US shows this clearly. We used publicly available health data, which surveys more than 400,000 people each year, to identify the percentage of people in the US in despair between 1993 and 2024. Those we define as being in despair were the people who had answered that their mental health was not good every day in the 30 days preceding the survey.

Across most of the period, among both men and women, levels of despair were highest among the oldest age group (45-70) and higher for the middle-aged (25-44) than the young (18-24). However, the percentage of young people in despair has risen rapidly. It’s more than doubled for men, from 2.5% in 1993 to 6.6% in 2024, and almost trebled for women – from 3.2% to 9.3%.

Despair also rose markedly among the middle-aged, but less rapidly. It’s gone up from 4.2% to 8.5% for women and from 3.1% to 6.9% for men. The percentage of older men and women in despair rose only a little over the period.

As a result, by 2023-24 relative levels of despair across age groups were reversed for women. The youngest age group has the highest levels of despair, and the oldest age group the lowest. For men, the level of despair was similar for the youngest and middle-aged groups, and lowest for the oldest age group.

These trends have resulted in a very different relationship between age and ill-being over time in the US.

Between 2009 and 2018, despair is hump-shaped in age. However, the rapid rise in despair before the age of 45, and especially before the mid-20s, has fundamentally changed the lifecycle profile of despair. This means that the hump-shape is no longer apparent between 2019 and 2024.

Despair rose the most for the youngest group but also rose for those up to age 45; it remained unchanged for those aged over 45.

Our study found similar trends for Britain, based on analyses of despair in the UK Household Longitudinal Survey and anxiety in the Annual Population Survey. It also shows that the percentage in despair declines with age in another 42 countries between 2020 and 2025, based on analyses of data from the Global Minds Project.

Investigating causes

Research into the reasons for these changes is underway but remains inconclusive. The growth in despair predates the COVID pandemic by a number of years, although COVID may have contributed to an increasing rate of deterioration in young people’s mental health.

There is a growing body of evidence that identifies a link between the rise in ill-being of the young and heavy use of the internet and smartphones. Some research suggests that smartphone use is indeed a cause of worsening youth mental health. Research that limited access to smartphones found significant improvements in adults’ self-reported wellbeing.

However, even if screen time is a contributory factor, it is unlikely to be the sole or even the chief reason for the rising despair among the young. Our very recent research, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, points to a reduction in the power of paid work to protect young people from poor mental health. While young people in paid work tend to have better mental health than those who are unemployed or unable to work, the gap has been closing recently as despair among young workers rises.

Although the causes of the changes we describe have yet to be fully understood, it would be prudent for policymakers to place the issue of rising despair among young people at the heart of any wellbeing strategy.The Conversation

 

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Two weeks of paternity leave linked to improved child development

✇PsyPost – Psychology News
By:Eric W. Dolan

A study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family examined the connection between fathers taking paternity leave and the developmental progress of their young children in Singapore. The researchers found that when fathers took two weeks or more of paternity leave, it was associated with increased involvement in childcare, stronger father-child bonds, and improved family dynamics. These factors, in turn, were linked to better academic performance and fewer behavioral challenges in children as they grew from preschool into early primary school.

Previous research , mostly from Western countries, has found that paternity leave was connected to fathers being more involved in childcare and to stronger family ties. However, there was less understanding of how this policy directly influenced the development of young children, especially over a longer period. This gap in knowledge was particularly notable in Asian societies, where paternity leave policies are often newer and offer shorter durations compared to European nations.

In Asia, many regions have only recently introduced paternity leave policies, or they do not have them at all. The length of leave available to fathers in these countries is generally shorter. For example, some countries offer only a few days, while others, like South Korea and Japan, have expanded leave to up to a year.

“Many Asian societies, including Singapore, are facing the challenges of raising fertility rates and the related issues of gender inequality within the family. Some western governments (especially Nordic countries) had introduced longer parental leave to alleviate parents’ work-life conflict and encourage fathers’ participation in childcare decades ago,” said study author Wei-Jun Jean Yeung, a professor and chair of the Family, Children, and Youth Research Cluster at the National University of Singapore.

“In Asian countries, while maternity leave has been widely provided, paternity leave is either relatively short compared to Nordic countries, or non-existing. We believe paternity leave is very important because it helps fathers build stronger bonds with their children and improve couples’ relationships, which could indirectly reduce gender inequality and potentially affect couples’ intention to have a child.”

“However, no study has comprehensively examined how paternity leave affects family relationships and early childhood development. This gap led us to start our research on the topic. This paper is our second study, following our first one published in 2022. We believe the results will be useful for Singapore and other Asian countries, particularly East Asian countries such as South Korea, Japan, and China, which also shares more prevalent patriarchal norms and ‘ultra-low’ fertility levels.”

The research was guided by two main theoretical perspectives: family systems theory and social capital theory. Family systems theory suggests that a family operates as a connected unit, where the actions and experiences of one member, such as a father’s involvement in childcare, can influence other parts of the family, including children’s development and the relationships between parents.

Social capital theory posits that strong relationships and bonds within a family, such as those between parents and children, contribute positively to a child’s development. Paternity leave is seen as a way to enhance this family social capital by giving fathers time to become more competent and involved caregivers.

The researchers analyzed data from the Singapore Longitudinal Early Development Study (SG-LEADS), which collected information from a large, representative sample of Singaporean children and their primary caregivers in two waves: 2018/2019 and 2021. The study focused on children who were born after May 1, 2013, which is when Singapore’s paternity leave policy began.

The final sample included 3895 children who lived with two parents and whose primary caregiver was their mother. For analyses focusing on developmental outcomes, the sample was further narrowed to children aged three and above who had reported data on both behavioral problems and academic achievements in both waves.

To measure children’s development, the study used the Children’s Behavior Problems Index (BPI) for children aged three and above, which assesses externalizing behaviors like aggression and internalizing behaviors like anxiety. Academic achievements were measured using test scores for letter-word identification and applied problems from the Woodcock-Johnson Test of Achievement. The key independent variable was paternity leave-taking, categorized based on whether fathers took no leave, one week of leave, or two weeks or more of leave, as reported by the mothers.

The researchers also examined several factors as potential intermediaries. Fathers’ involvement was measured by mothers’ reports of how much fathers participated in childcare activities like bathing, changing diapers, and playing. Father-child closeness was assessed by mothers’ statements about how close their child felt to their father. Family dynamics was a broader concept encompassing family conflict, marital satisfaction, and parenting aggravation, all reported by mothers.

The results showed that taking two weeks or more of paternity leave was associated with higher scores in children’s letter-word identification when they were three to six years old, and again when they were five to eight years old. This suggests a direct and lasting benefit for verbal skills.

For children’s applied problems, which measure numeracy skills, taking two weeks or more of leave was positively related to scores when children were three to six years old. Taking one week of leave was linked to better applied problems scores when children were five to eight years old, after accounting for earlier scores. This indicates some direct benefits for numerical abilities as well.

The researchers also found positive connections between paternity leave and the intermediary factors. Specifically, taking two weeks or more of paternity leave was linked to greater fathers’ involvement in childcare activities, stronger father-child closeness, and more positive family dynamics.

Fathers’ involvement, in turn, was positively related to father-child closeness, and both of these were associated with better family dynamics. While fathers’ involvement and father-child closeness did not directly influence children’s verbal academic scores, father-child closeness was directly related to children’s applied problems scores when they were three to six years old.

For children’s behavioral outcomes, paternity leave did not have a direct effect. Instead, its impact was entirely indirect. Taking two weeks or more of paternity leave was associated with fewer behavioral problems in children when they were three to six years old, and also later when they were five to eight years old, primarily through improved family dynamics. This suggests that paternity leave helps reduce children’s behavioral challenges by fostering a more supportive and cohesive family environment.

“Paternity leave is good for family relations and for children’s development,” Yeung told PsyPost. “It has the potential to improve spousal relations and parent-child relation. Our results show that 2 weeks or longer paternity leave was linked to greater fathers’ involvement in childcare, closer father-child relationships, and enhanced family dynamics (i.e, family members have fewer conflicts, mothers have higher marital satisfaction and feel less stressed about raising children). It can also have long-term benefits for children’s cognitive development and social-emotional well-being during early childhood.

“However, paternity leave should be at least two weeks or longer. We found one-week paternity leave does not have a positive impact on family dynamics and child development. It is possible that one week is too short for fathers to build a routine, learn the many new skills needed to care for a baby, and figure out how to work together with the mother. Two weeks gives fathers and mothers more time to adjust emotionally and practically, and to enjoy time with their new baby.”

“We should encourage countries to provide government-subsidized paternity leave that is at least two weeks long, and enable fathers to take paternity leave, because of its potential benefits to family and child well-being.”

The researchers controlled for a range of other influences, such as parents’ education, income, age, children’s age and gender, and household living arrangements, including the presence of domestic helpers or grandparents.

“A common misinterpretation of the results is that fathers who are more likely to take paternity leave are of higher socioeconomic status (SES), and it is the higher SES that makes their children do better cognitively and behaviorally,” Yeung said. “In our study, we have used rigorous methodology to address this selectivity issue, including using data from a nationally representative longitudinal study and taking into account a large number of parents’ and family characteristics to “isolate” the net impact of paternity leave taking on children’s developmental outcomes. ”

But there are still some limitations to consider. The study did not have information on fathers’ gender attitudes or their involvement before the child’s birth, which could influence their decision to take leave and their subsequent parenting behaviors. The measures for fathers’ involvement and family relationships were based on mothers’ reports, which might introduce some bias.

Future research could benefit from including perspectives from both parents. The measure of fathers’ involvement could also be expanded to include engagement in children’s educational and social activities more broadly. The researchers also acknowledge that while they used robust methods to account for pre-existing differences between fathers who took leave and those who did not, it cannot definitively prove a causal link due to the potential for unmeasured factors to play a role.

The study, “Paternity leave-taking and early childhood development: A longitudinal analysis in Singapore,” was authored by Nanxun Li and Wei-Jun Jean Yeung.

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US government allowed and even helped US firms sell tech used for surveillance in China, AP finds

✇The Independent
By:Garance Burke · Dake Kang and Byron Tau
Even while warning about national security and human rights abuse, the U.S. government across five Republican and Democratic administrations has repeatedly allowed and even actively helped American firms to sell technology to Chinese police, government and surveillance companies, an Associated Press investigation has found

© Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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Dark personality traits are linked to poorer family functioning

✇PsyPost – Psychology News
By:Eric W. Dolan

A new study has found that young adults who exhibit higher levels of manipulative, self-centered, and callous personality traits tend to report having lower quality family interactions. The research, published in the Journal of Professional & Applied Psychology, suggests a distinct connection between these so called “Dark Triad” traits and the health of family dynamics.

Researchers have long been interested in how personality develops, often focusing on widely recognized models of personality. Recently, attention has shifted toward understanding the less socially desirable aspects of human nature, collectively known as the Dark Triad, which includes Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy. These traits are associated with behaviors that can strain social bonds, yet their specific impact within the family unit has been a less explored area.

The study’s authors wanted to examine this connection in a specific cultural and demographic context. They focused on young adults in Pakistan, a country where a large portion of the population falls within the 18 to 25 age range. This period is a formative time when an individual’s personality and perspective are still evolving, heavily influenced by their immediate environment, especially the family. By investigating this group, the researchers aimed to add a non-Western perspective to a field of study that has predominantly been centered on European and North American populations.

“The motivation for this study stemmed from the fact that this area remains largely understudied in Pakistan, leaving a significant research gap,” said study author Quratul Ain Arshad, who is currently a Bachelor of Laws student at the University of London.

“This topic represents a real-world issue that has not received the attention it deserves. I have personally observed several families affected by these dark traits, struggling to cope due to a lack of awareness and understanding. Through this research, I aimed to shed light on this issue so that individuals can better recognize what is happening to them and those around them and seek the help and guidance they need.”

To conduct their investigation, the researchers recruited a sample of 300 young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 from various universities and corporate offices in Lahore, Pakistan. Participation was voluntary, and the confidentiality of the responses was protected. Each participant completed two self-report questionnaires designed to measure different psychological constructs.

The first questionnaire was the Short Dark Triad scale, which assesses the three core traits. Machiavellianism is characterized by a manipulative and cynical worldview, narcissism involves a sense of grandiosity and entitlement, and psychopathy is marked by impulsivity and a lack of empathy. The second questionnaire was a modified version of the Family Assessment Device, which measures the quality of family interactions across several dimensions. These dimensions include problem solving, communication, assigned roles, emotional responsiveness, emotional involvement, and behavior control.

After collecting the data, the research team performed a statistical analysis to determine if there was a relationship between the scores for Dark Triad traits and the scores for family functioning. This type of analysis reveals whether two variables tend to move together, either in the same direction or in opposite directions. The study specifically tested four hypotheses about these potential connections.

The primary finding confirmed the researchers’ main prediction. There was a clear negative relationship between overall scores on the Dark Triad scale and the overall quality of family interaction. This indicates that as an individual’s levels of Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy increased, their reported level of healthy family functioning tended to decrease. This suggests that these aversive personality traits are indeed connected to difficulties within the family environment.

When the researchers examined the traits individually, the results were more nuanced. The connection between Machiavellianism and a family’s general functioning was found to be very weak and not statistically meaningful. This suggests that a person’s tendency toward manipulation may not have a direct, measurable link to their perception of the family’s overall effectiveness.

A different pattern emerged for psychopathy. This trait was found to have a modest but statistically significant negative relationship with what is known as “affective responsiveness,” which is a family’s capacity to respond to situations with appropriate emotions. In simple terms, young adults with higher psychopathy scores were more likely to come from families they perceived as being less emotionally attuned.

The final hypothesis looked at the link between narcissism and “affective involvement,” which refers to the extent to which family members show interest and care for one another. Much like the finding for Machiavellianism, this connection was also very weak and not considered statistically significant. This outcome suggests that a person’s level of narcissism may not be directly tied to the degree of emotional investment they perceive within their family.

“The key takeaway from this study is the importance of self-awareness,” Arshad told PsyPost. “Every individual should strive to understand their own personality traits and reflect on their behaviors. By doing so, they can not only improve themselves but also better support those around them who may exhibit these traits.”

The study did have some limitations. The findings are based on self-report questionnaires, which means participants’ responses could have been influenced by a desire to present themselves or their families in a positive light. The sample was also drawn exclusively from one city in Pakistan and was limited to young adults, which means the results might not be generalizable to other age groups or cultures.

For future research, the authors suggest that longitudinal studies, which follow individuals over a long period, could provide deeper insight into how Dark Triad traits and family dynamics influence each other over time. Using multiple methods of assessment, beyond just self-reports, could also help create a more complete picture of these complex interactions. Such work could help in designing interventions aimed at improving family relationships and promoting healthier personality development.

“The size of the sample used in this study is not big enough to represent the total young adult population in Pakistan, but this study is significant in understanding how these traits shape interactions on a microlevel,” Arshad said. “The effect of this study is such that it will help researchers dig towards the developmental aspects of these traits and also conduct longitudinal studies in future to understand the implications of the Dark Triad traits in both older and younger populations than young adults.”

The study, “The Relationship Between Dark Triad and Quality of Family Interaction among Young Adults,” was authored by Quratul Ain Arshad, Uzma Ashiq, and Khadija Malik.

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Emotional intelligence predicts success in student teamwork

✇PsyPost – Psychology News
By:Eric W. Dolan

A new study has found that a student team’s collective emotional intelligence is a significant predictor of its success in collaborative problem-solving. Specifically, the abilities to understand and manage emotions were linked to both better teamwork processes and a higher quality final product. The findings, which also examined the role of personality, were published in the Journal of Intelligence.

While individual intelligence and personality traits like conscientiousness are known to predict individual success, much less is understood about what drives performance when students are required to work together in teams. This form of learning, known as collaborative problem solving, is increasingly common in modern education, prompting a need to identify the skills and dispositions that help groups succeed.

The study’s authors aimed to investigate how two sets of characteristics, emotional intelligence and the Big Five personality traits, might influence the performance of high school students working in small groups.

“This study was actually part of a larger project, called PEERSolvers, in which we were looking for scientifically supported ways to enhance the quality of students’ collaborative problem solving,” said study author Ana Altaras, a full professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Belgrade.

“This naturally led us to explore the role played by emotional intelligence and personality in student collaborations. Having previously conducted two systematic reviews (Altaras et al., 2025; Jolić Marjanović et al., 2024), we knew that both emotional intelligence and the Big Five personality traits indeed act as ‘deep-level composition variables’ shaping the processes and outcomes of teamwork in higher-education and professional contexts.”

“We also knew that both variable sets contribute to the prediction of individual students’ school performance. However, we also saw an obvious research gap when it comes to exploring their joint effects on the performance of student teams in high school. Hence, we digged into this topic.”

The researchers recruited 162 tenth-grade students from twelve secondary schools. The students first completed assessments to measure their emotional intelligence and personality. Emotional intelligence was evaluated using the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test, a performance-based test that measures a person’s actual ability to perceive, use, understand, and manage emotions. Personality was assessed with the Big Five Inventory, a questionnaire that measures neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness.

Following the initial assessments, the students were organized into 54 teams of three. Each team was then tasked with solving a complex social problem over a 2.5-hour session. The problems were open-ended and required creative thinking, covering topics such as regulating adolescent media use or balancing economic development with ecological protection. The entire collaborative session for each team was video-recorded, and each team submitted a final written solution.

Trained observers analyzed the video recordings to rate the quality of each team’s collaborative processes. They assessed four distinct aspects of teamwork: the exchange of ideas and information, the emotional atmosphere and level of respect, how the team managed its tasks and time, and how it managed interpersonal relationships and conflicts. In a separate analysis, a different set of evaluators rated the quality of the team’s final written solution based on criteria like realism, creativity, and the strength of its arguments.

The researchers found that emotional intelligence was a strong predictor of team performance. Teams with higher average scores in understanding and managing emotions showed superior teamwork processes. This improvement in collaboration, in turn, was associated with producing a better final solution. The ability to understand emotions also appeared to have a direct positive effect on the quality of the written solution. This suggests that knowledge about human emotions was directly applicable to solving the complex social problems presented in the task.

“Looking at the results of our study, emotional intelligence–particularly its ‘strategic branches’ or the ability to understand and manage emotions–had a lot to do with students’ performance in collaborative problem solving,” Altaras told PsyPost. “Student teams with higher team-average emotional intelligence engaged in a more constructive exchange of ideas, had a friendlier way of communicating, and were more efficient in managing both task and relationship-related challenges throughout the problem-solving process. Ultimately, these teams also came up with better solutions to the problems at hand. In sum, students’ emotional intelligence seems to contribute substantially to the quality of their collaborative problem solving.”

The role of personality traits was more nuanced and produced some unexpected results. As expected, the personality trait of openness to experience was positively associated with the quality of the final solution. This connection is likely due to the creative and open-ended nature of the problem-solving task.

But teams with a higher average level of neuroticism, a trait associated with anxiety and stress, were actually better at managing their tasks. The researchers propose that a tendency toward distress may have prompted these teams to plan their approach more diligently. In contrast, teams with higher average extraversion were less effective at relationship management, perhaps because they were less inclined to formally address group tensions.

“Contrary to our expectations, we found only few statistically significant associations between the Big Five personality traits and the quality of students’ collaboration,” Altaras said. “Moreover, the effects that did surface as significant–a positive effect of neuroticism on task management and a negative effect of extraversion on relationship management–seem counterintuitive in terms of their direction.”

When the researchers examined emotional intelligence and personality together in a combined model, emotional intelligence emerged as the more consistent and powerful predictor of overall performance. The contribution of personality was largely limited to the link between neuroticism and task management, suggesting emotional skills were more influential in this context.

As with all research, the study does have some limitations. The sample size was relatively small due to the intensive nature of analyzing hours of video footage. The teams were also composed of students of the same gender, which might not fully represent the dynamics of mixed-gender groups common in schools. Additionally, the study did not measure the students’ general academic intelligence, which could also be a factor in their performance.

“In our defense, emotional intelligence has already been shown to have incremental predictive value in so many instances–including the prediction of students’ individual school performance–that we would not expect it to lose much of its predictive weight when analyzed concurrently with academic abilities,” Altaras noted. “Still, the picture would be more complete had we been able to also test participants’ academic intelligence and include this variable as another potential predictor of their performance in collaborative problem solving.”

For future research, the authors suggest exploring these dynamics in larger and more diverse student groups. It would also be informative to see if these findings hold when teams are faced with different kinds of problems, such as those that are less social and more technical in nature. Examining these factors could provide a more complete picture of the interplay between ability, personality, and group success in educational settings.

“Within the PEERSolvers project, we have already developed a training (PDF) that targets, among other things, students’ emotional intelligence abilities and knowledge of personality differences, hoping to enhance the quality of their collaborative problem solving in this manner,” Altaras said. “In an experimental study, the training was shown to make a difference–i.e., to have a positive effect on students’ performance in collaborative problem solving (Krstić et al., 2025)–and we are now looking forward to having it more widely implemented in schools. When it comes to further research, we will certainly continue to explore the role of emotional intelligence abilities in the educational context, considering the performance and well-being of both students and teachers.”

The study, “Emotional Intelligence and the Big Five as Predictors of Students’ Performance in Collaborative Problem Solving,” was authored by Ana Altaras, Zorana Jolić Marjanović, Kristina Mojović Zdravković, Ksenija Krstić, and Tijana Nikitović.

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Virtual reality training improves the body’s ability to regulate stress

✇PsyPost – Psychology News
By:Karina Petrova

A new study has demonstrated that a virtual reality game can successfully teach people a breathing technique to regulate their physiological stress responses. This training led to improved biological markers of stress regulation during a tense virtual experience, suggesting such games could be a practical way to practice stress management skills. The research was published in the journal Psychophysiology.

While physiological regulation strategies like paced breathing are known to be effective, they are typically learned and practiced in calm, controlled environments. This setting is very different from the high-stress situations where such techniques are most needed, which may make it difficult for people to apply their training in real life. The study authors proposed that virtual reality could offer a unique solution by providing an immersive platform to both teach a regulation skill and then immediately create a stressful context in which to practice it.

The project involved two separate studies. The first study was designed as a proof of concept to see if the approach was feasible. Researchers recruited healthy adult participants and first recorded their baseline heart rate, heart rate variability, and breathing rate while they sat quietly. Heart rate variability is a measure of the variation in time between consecutive heartbeats, with higher variability often indicating better physiological regulation and a greater capacity to cope with stress.

Following the baseline recording, participants put on a virtual reality headset and played a training game. In this game, they found themselves on a boat in a calm sea and were guided through a slow, paced breathing exercise. On-screen prompts instructed them to inhale for five seconds, hold for five seconds, and exhale for five seconds, with the goal of achieving a slow breathing rate of four breaths per minute. Immediately after this training, they were immersed in a stressful game set in a dark dungeon. The objective was to avoid being detected by a creature that could supposedly hear their heartbeats.

A biofeedback display, visible at all times, showed participants a simplified “stress score” based on their heart rate. A green light indicated they were safe, while amber and red lights signaled increasing danger of being discovered. To succeed, participants had to use the breathing technique they had just learned to keep their heart rate down.

The study found that participants were able to apply the breathing technique effectively. Their breathing rate during the stressful dungeon game was significantly lower than their initial resting rate, showing they were following the training. Although their heart rate naturally increased from the stress of the game, their heart rate variability also increased compared to their baseline levels. This suggested an enhanced state of physiological regulation, likely driven by the controlled breathing.

The second study was designed to more formally test the effectiveness of the training by comparing a trained group to an untrained control group. Both groups attended two sessions, separated by about a week. In the first session, all participants experienced an initial stressful virtual reality scenario involving an intruder in a house. This was done to establish a baseline measure of each person’s stress reactivity. After this initial stressor, only the training group played the boat game twice to learn the breathing technique.

When they returned for the second session, the training group received a refresher by playing the boat game two more times. Then, both the trained and untrained groups played the same stressful dungeon game from the first study. The results showed a clear effect of the training. During the dungeon game, the trained group had a significantly lower breathing rate and a significantly higher heart rate variability compared to the untrained control group.

When the researchers compared physiological responses across the two different stressors, they found a notable interaction. The trained group showed a significant improvement in their heart rate variability from the pre-training “intruder” stressor to the post-training “dungeon” stressor. This pattern of improvement was not observed in the control group, providing stronger evidence that the breathing training was responsible for the effect.

An unexpected observation was that participants in the trained group reported feeling subjectively more stressed than the control group. The authors speculate this could be related to a sense of performance anxiety, as the trained group was aware their application of the technique was being evaluated.

The researchers acknowledged some limitations in their work. The first study was affected by technical issues with the respiratory measurement equipment, which led to the loss of some data. Additionally, a minor coding error in the training game meant that the boat’s speed was incorrectly linked to heart rate, though the authors believe this was unlikely to have affected the learning of the breathing pattern.

Future research could explore the surprising finding that physiological regulation did not align with subjective feelings of stress. It may also examine whether skills learned in an unrealistic game scenario can be generalized to manage stress in real-world situations.

The study, “Using a virtual reality game to train biofeedback-based regulation under stress conditions,” was authored by Lucie Daniel-Watanabe, Benjamin Cook, Grace Leung, Marino Krstulović, Johanna Finnemann, Toby Woolley, Craig Powell, and Paul Fletcher.

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Why a quest for a psychologically rich life may lead us to choose unpleasant experiences

✇PsyPost – Psychology News
By:Eric W. Dolan

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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