Each month our editorial team sifts through hundreds of papers and curates notable findings—for practitioners and informed readers who want to stay current with the evidence. Subscribe to the monthly Research Digest for expert analysis and concise summaries of key papers.
This paper explains Somatic Experiencing (SE), a form of trauma therapy that focuses on guiding a person's attention to internal body sensations (like heartbeat, breathing, muscle feeling) instead of mainly talking about thoughts or memories. The authors describe how SE claims these bodily sensations can help complete interrupted defensive responses…
This study surveyed 426 Filipino adults online during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic to see if perceived stress helps explain links between social support and mental health. Using standard questionnaires, the researchers found that lower perceived stress was linked to more positive feelings and less anxiety and depression when…
Anxiety has long been linked to worse performance in evaluative social settings such as sex, sport, and stage. This paper asks three main questions: how each field understands anxiety and performance, what they can learn from one another, and how they could share useful ideas. The authors review existing models…
Researchers followed people who used psychedelics in real life and signed up online. They asked them about their personality and how connected they felt to others before the experience, two weeks after, and four weeks after. On average, people reported feeling less emotional instability, becoming more friendly and cooperative, and…
This study tested 60 healthy adults (30 women, 30 men) to see how two types of narcissism — vulnerable and grandiose — relate to emotion regulation. Researchers used questionnaires and a lab task that asked people to either feel naturally or use reappraisal (change how they think) while viewing sad…
This is a teaching manual (December 2020) about how to do mediation and moderation analyses with SPSS and the free PROCESS macro. It explains the basic models, the regression equations used to estimate effects, the assumptions needed for causal claims, and common tests for indirect effects (like Sobel and bootstrap).…
Researchers surveyed mainly young university students about how hunger feels just before a main meal and then retested many about 1 month later. They found hunger sensations fit 11 different dimensions, that people differ in which sensations they report, and that those reports were stable over time. Although there was…
Researchers tested 269 people (about 76% female, median age 21) using a virtual ball-tossing game that simulated social rejection. They measured two kinds of pathological narcissism (vulnerable and grandiose), adult attachment style, and emotional reactivity before and after the rejection. People higher in vulnerable narcissism tended to feel more insecure…
This study looked at people who were left by a partner in the past 6 months (136 people, mean age 30.4). It asked about short-term “dysfunctional” behaviors after a breakup, such as persistent calls or messages, threats, sending unwanted objects, and attempts to defame an ex. People with a secure…
This small experiment tested whether training people to use positive rumination during counselor-led expressive writing would help their mood and working memory. Nineteen undergraduates took part: 10 maladaptive ruminators had five weeks of the training and 9 were in a control group. After training, the trained group showed better psychological…
This was a small, preliminary study that tested two short mindfulness setups: (a) an audio-only guided practice and (b) a multisensory experience (smell, sound, light) followed by a biofeedback display of the user’s heartbeat. Sixty-eight people took part. Heart-rate variability (HRV) data showed an increase in parasympathetic activity after the…
Researchers analyzed survey and symptom data from 14,219 people who entered a virtual intensive outpatient mental health program (May 2023–Mar 2024). They found that people who are sexual or gender minorities were more likely to say they were neurodivergent. The study showed that neurodivergent identity interacted with gender to relate…
