Author: dispatchtimes news

A new study from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that children who experienced severe psychosocial deprivation early in life show lasting differences in how their brain activity develops during adolescence, with these altered neural dynamics linked to poorer performance on a task requiring attention and self-control. Adolescence is a major period of brain development. During these years, young people generally become faster and more accurate at controlling their attention, managing distractions, and responding to changing demands. Brain networks mature partly through synaptic pruning, a process in which weaker connections…

A new study into disinformation during the 2024 United States presidential election, conducted by researchers Alba Córdoba-Cabús and Andreu Casero-Ripollés of Universitat Jaume I in Spain, identifies who spread hoaxes and who were targeted, offering a fresh view of modern political communication. The project analysed 374 false messages verified by PolitiFact between January 2024 and the presidential inauguration in January 2025, focusing on the United States race. The researchers sought to categorise the spreaders of political hoaxes, known as issuers, and the subjects of those hoaxes, known as recipients. For each verified hoax, the team recorded the channel, topic and…

A new systematic review and meta-analysis of 111 samples has found that problematic pornography use is linked to a range of psychological traits, with cravings and sexual shame producing the strongest associations. The research was led by Sonay Sheikhi of Kharazmi University in Tehran and published in Addictive Behaviors Reports. Problematic pornography use is not a formal psychiatric diagnosis. It is an umbrella term for self-reported difficulties such as a perceived loss of control, preoccupation with pornography, or distress about use, rather than a straightforward measure of how often pornography is viewed. Researchers note that a constellation of factors has…

A new study analysing political science job-market outcomes for the 2023–2024 cycle finds that 26 per cent of candidates on the market ultimately secured tenure-track professorships, challenging the idea that graduating from a top-tier university guarantees an academic post. Published in PS: Political Science & Politics, the analysis flags a number of factors as better predictors of success, including a strong publication record, entry into a high-demand field, and being a woman or an underrepresented minority candidate. Historically, a rigid prestige hierarchy has shaped perceptions of academic hiring. Previous research suggested that elite universities supply the bulk of professors, and…

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

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

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

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

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

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