Author: dispatchtimes news

A new study published in Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice has found that maladaptive daydreaming is moderately linked to problematic social media use and hypersexual behaviour, with narcissistic personality traits acting as a potential bridge between these behaviours. Researchers Alessia Renzi and Rachele Mariani of Sapienza University of Rome, alongside Filippo Maria Nimbi of eCampus Telematics University, set out to explore how these intense daydreaming episodes relate to compulsive digital and sexual behaviours. Maladaptive daydreaming is not yet an official psychiatric diagnosis, but it shares features with behavioural addictions and obsessive‑compulsive and dissociative tendencies. People who experience it…

A cross-national study on internet diffusion and religious decline has found that as internet access grows within a country, religious affiliation and self-identification tend to fall. The research, published in Sociology of Religion: A Quarterly Review, was led by Miran Lavrič, a full professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Maribor, alongside Tibor Rutar. The team assembled data from 81 countries spanning 1990 to 2022, combining national internet usage statistics with six waves of the World Values Survey to track beliefs and values. Scholars have long debated the drivers of secularisation—the historical decline in the social and…

A Brazilian open‑label clinical study at Onofre Lopes University Hospital, affiliated with the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, found that treatment-resistant depression patients who improved after weekly subcutaneous esketamine reported higher levels of dissociation, particularly feelings that the world seemed unreal or distant, than those who did not respond. Treatment‑resistant depression is defined as depression that has not improved after at least two adequate trials of standard antidepressants. Esketamine, a form of ketamine, has emerged as a treatment option for some people with this condition. Ketamine was originally developed as an anaesthetic, but researchers later found that it…

A new study published in PLOS Biology shows that neurons born around birth in the olfactory bulb’s granule-cell layer are the ones that encode memories of childhood scents associated with happiness. A linked primer by Chloé Guillaume and Elisa Galliano discusses the same results. In the core experiment, juvenile mice exposed to appealing odours within an enriched, playful environment developed a stronger preference for those smells in adulthood than peers exposed in standard housing. Memories triggered by odours are often unusually vivid and emotionally potent, particularly when formed in childhood. They tend to be autobiographical and linked with positive emotions…

A new study suggests the relationship between using screens to soothe upset children and the development of their cognitive skills often runs in both directions, though the pattern varies from child to child. Published in the Journal of Communication, the research finds that for most youngsters, screen time and cognitive development influence one another over time, while a small minority show patterns in which media use drives cognitive outcomes more strongly. Executive functions, the mental skills that enable planning, sustained attention and juggling multiple tasks, are central to the study. Two core components—cognitive flexibility, the ability to shift thinking or…

A UK- and global-focused study published in Political Psychology concludes that exposure to conspiracy theories directly undermines belief in distributive justice—the idea that rewards and resources should be allocated fairly according to merit, equality and need. Led by Qi Zhao of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the research combines big‑data analysis with controlled experiments across the United States, China and a corporate workplace setting to test how conspiratorial thinking shapes views of social fairness. In the initial phase, the team examined data from the World Value Survey, drawing on 90,837 participants across 68 societies. They compared responses to election‑related conspiracy beliefs—such as…

A collaborative study involving researchers from McGill University, Utrecht University and INSEAD has tested how well indirect measures of hidden racial biases predict behavioural decisions when direct self-reports remain the strongest predictor. The project, designed as an adversarial collaboration, recruited more than two thousand White American adults to compare lab-based behavioural tasks with both indirect tests and direct attitude surveys. In psychology, direct and indirect measures of racial attitudes sit at opposite ends of a spectrum. Direct measures rely on conscious self-report surveys where respondents control their answers, while indirect measures aim to capture automatic associations that people may not…

A new study suggests that public health messages which reveal how many people from an opposing political group have been vaccinated can influence individuals’ plans to get a COVID-19 jab. The work, led by Brandyn F. Churchill of American University with Xiaoxue Sherry Gao and Rong Rong from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, studied how information shocks tied to partisan identity affect health decisions. The researchers note the findings emerge from a real experiment and are documented in the study titled “Partisan differences in healthcare decision-making: Evidence from a vaccine experiment.” Researchers began with a baseline survey in May 2024,…

A new analysis of public health and crime data has found that mass shootings and deaths by suicide in the United States follow a strikingly similar seasonal rhythm, both cresting in mid-summer and retreating in mid-winter. The findings, published in the Journal of Biological Rhythms, draw on national data and datasets from leading health and law enforcement sources. In this context, mass shootings are defined as incidents in which four or more people, excluding the shooter, are killed or injured by a firearm. Public health experts have long been searching for patterns that might explain when these tragedies occur, with…

New research indicates that the risk of developing amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, among United States veterans varies by military branch and rank, with higher rates observed in the Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard, and among officers compared with Army veterans and enlisted personnel. The study, published in Neurology, used a vast medical records dataset to explore these differences. Researchers analysed electronic health records from the Veterans Health Administration, focusing on care received between January 2000 and October 2024. To identify new ALS cases, they included only veterans with at least two years of medical history in the system…