applied-psychology

When users express delusions, artificial intelligence chatbots tend to validate their unusual thoughts rather than offering help. A new JAMA Psychiatry study provides evidence that these tools pose serious risks for people experiencing severe mental illness.

A new study shows that listening to your own favorite workout music can dramatically boost endurance. Cyclists exercising with self-selected songs lasted nearly 20% longer than when riding in silence, yet they didn’t feel more exhausted at the end. Researchers say music may help people stay in the “pain zone” longer without increasing perceived strain.

A study establishes that "social ties" — a fancy way of saying being nice to other, even those you don't know — has benefits. A teacher asked her students to test the thesis in real life.

_The Psychologist_ (TBC [Online First]):TBC [Online First]. 2026This article, published in The Psychologist (British Psychological Society) online on 8 May 2026, explores how dominant masculine norms shape men’s experiences of trauma, emotional distress, and therapeutic engagement. Drawing on over a decade of qualitative and ethnographic research in male-dominated environments, the article examin…

Children exhibiting high ADHD traits often face psychological distress into middle age. A recent study in Nature Mental Health suggests this ongoing burden is not inevitable but is heavily influenced by lifelong experiences of societal exclusion.

Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 07 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02454-z A brief digital CBT self-help programme paired with screening improved mental health and service use among college students, offering a scalable way to support diverse populations and reduce symptoms across multiple conditions.

Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 06 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02427-2 In this individual participant data meta-analysis, and across 321,345 smartphone-ratings of affective well-being and nearly 1 million hours of physical activity measurement, Rehder et al. clarify the nature and extent of activity–well-being relations and document their relevance in humans’ everyday life.

For many people who smoke, quitting is not just a matter of willpower. It is a tug-of-war in the brain – between the pull of reward and the ability to resist.

Nature, Published online: 08 May 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-01449-0 The Make America Healthy Again movement asserts that over-prescription of drugs for mental-health conditions is rife in the United States.

This paper examines freedom, control, conditioning, obedience, rebellion, and internalized authority through the Structural Intelligence framework. Its central claim is that leaving a controlling family, institution, religion, workplace, or social environment does not by itself produce freedom, because the governing pattern often survives inside the person as internalized control. The paper argue…

I gave myself a 30-day challenge: only touch my wife the way she wanted. What I discovered changed how I understand touch, men, and why women slowly stop wanting to be touched.

An angry programmer was fired from every job he’d had, but transformed his life through humility, hard work, and powerful psychological tools—he later became a CEO.

Why does the same habit advice work for some people and not others? Because behavior runs on a personalized algorithm. Here's how to audit yours.

When performance issues look like people problems, they’re often really system problems—and this post shows how to spot the difference before you try to fix the wrong thing.

This note examines a psychological and intellectual phenomenon characterized by intense future-oriented self-development driven by a highly specialized form of fear of missing out (FOMO). Unlike conventional social FOMO, the phenomenon described here is rooted in anticipated future regret regarding unrealized educational, linguistic, intellectual, and personal potential.

ObjectivesIn contemporary society, shyness has become increasingly prevalent. Short video addiction, a distinct and highly prevalent form of internet overuse, remains underexplored in relation to shyness, despite established links between shyness and broader internet addiction. Accordingly, further investigation is needed to understand the mechanisms through which shyness influences short video a…

Psychologist, Jeremy Dean, PhD is the founder and author of PsyBlog. He holds a doctorate in psychology from University College London and two other advanced degrees in psychology. He has been writing about scientific research on PsyBlog since 2004. View all posts by Dr Jeremy Dean

One of the key characteristics of most psychopaths is their need for excitement. Impulsive thrill-seeking or excitement-seeking without regard to others may indicate psychopathy.

Public mental health has become an increasing concern over recent decades, accompanied by a rapid expansion of public awareness campaigns aimed at improving population mental well-being. We argue that while psychiatric interpretations of distress promoted by these campaigns may be beneficial for individuals with clinically significant mental disorders, emerging evidence suggests that the same int…