Research Roundup 21

“To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.”

– Marilyn vos Savant

According to the exhaustive research and writings of Dr Iain McGilchrist, the left and right hemispheres of the human brain don’t perform different functions, but rather the same functions in different ways.¹

For instance, while genuine empathy is processed predominantly within the right hemisphere of the brain, the left hemisphere has its own cognitive ‘version’ of empathy too – a kind of simulation of empathy. When we encounter what seems like insincere empathy or the mock empathy of a manipulative narcissist, this is likely what they’re drawing upon.

So the two sides of the brain aren’t doing entirely different things – they’re just doing things differently.

The right hemisphere tends towards seeing the bigger picture. It is associated with wisdom because it sees how things fit together in context.

On the other… hemisphere, the left side of the brain is wonderful at processing detail but not so hot at putting the detail together, at understanding its greater significance and relevance. A beautiful example of this is the way bureaucratic, ‘red tape’ rules can often cause things to run less efficiently, not more.

The left hemisphere is a fantastic servant (or, in McGilchrist’s metaphor, emissary), but a lousy, overly bureaucratic, context-missing master.

But why am I chuntering on about this?

Surviving the flood

We’re deluged with titillating research findings almost every day in the media. A flood of information washes over us, drowning us in facts.

Search the news media and you’ll find a wealth of psychological findings, titbits and sound bites, but a dearth of speculation as to how these findings might fit into the greater pattern of what it means to be human. We smile, nod in recognition (or shake our heads in bafflement!), and turn the page or click away.

And that’s where my Research Roundups come in! (Forgive my hyperbole!)

In these occasional pieces I take five findings from psychological science, explain what they are, then give my ideas as to what they might actually mean in the lives of you and me. How they might fit into the puzzle of the human condition.

So what have I got in store for you this time?

This month’s gems

This month we’re going to take a look at:

• Whether ‘doomscrolling’ can trigger an existential crisis
• How moving house during childhood affects the risk of depression in later life
• The modulating effect of PTSD on chronic pain among older veterans
• The different ways narcissism may present in men and women
• How uncertainty builds anxiety.

So let’s get on with it!

Research piece one: Can ‘doomscrolling’ trigger an existential crisis?

Doomscrolling involves spending excessive time looking at distressing news about events like shootings, terrorism, and conspiracies online, sometimes to the extent that it becomes an addiction.

A recent study out of Flinders University in Australia explores the existential impact of doomscrolling, warning that regularly consuming distressing news on social media can alter our perceptions of humanity and life’s meaning.²

Lead author Reza Shabahang, from the College of Education, Psychology, and Social Work, said, “Doomscrolling can have some dire consequences on our mental health and wellbeing, leaving us feeling stress, anxiety, despair, and questioning the meaning of life.”

My take?

In the study, doomscrolling was associated with existential anxiety, deeper cynicism, misanthropy, anxiety, and depressive thinking.

Looking for (and being fed by the algorithms) scary and depressing news stories sets up a confirmation bias in the mind. In other words, we find what we’re looking for and see what we expect.

This is why doomscolling makes people overestimate threats and underestimate the prevalence of peace and goodwill in the world.

For example, take flying. Of the roughly 100,000 flights a day, the enormous majority don’t crash – but that, of course, is not news.

Peace, goodwill, and smooth running do not make great news material. I asked one frightened flyer to imagine watching a news bulletin featuring all the flights on which nothing unexpected happened. “I’d have no time to do anything else!” he laughed.

So we need to give our attention to both good and bad aspects of reality in order to balance our perspective.

When we pay a great deal of attention to the vanishingly rare incidents of plane crashes (for instance), we can come to feel that planes in general are unsafe. When we focus on violent men, we can start to feel that most or even all men are abusive, and so on.

I sometimes set my more negatively biased clients the behavioural task of purposefully looking out for 10 positive news stories between sessions. Simply asking someone to look out for something else can change their bias.

So doomscrolling can cause negative bias – the feeling that most or all of life is bad – and confuse possibility (however rare) with probability.

But doomscolling carries a further risk.

We have long known of the existence of ‘vicarious traumatization’ among health care professionals exposed to others’ traumas, but more recently it has been found that our brains can be traumatized even by witnessing traumatic events in the media.

Viewing a high volume of traumatic media can lead to anxiety, feelings of fear and helplessness, and even PTSD.³ Certainly, many people reported feeling traumatized after repeatedly watching the footage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers in New York.

Doomscrolling, like any compulsive behaviour, needs to be understood as an addictive behaviour, and the bias it creates with regard to the nature of existence needs to be appreciated as well I think.

Of course, there are plenty of other ways in which a negative mindset can be conditioned into us – especially during childhood.

A recent study shows that children who move homes once between the ages of 10 and 15 are 41% more likely to be diagnosed with depression as adults, with the risk rising to 61% for those moving twice or more during this critical period.⁴

The research examined the residential histories of nearly 1.1 million people born in Denmark between 1981 and 2001 who remained in the country during their first 15 years. Tracking these individuals into adulthood, the study found that over 35,000 of them had later been medically diagnosed with depression.

My take?

Of course children can be highly robust and resilient, and there may be terrible downsides to overcoddling of children (as well as adults). For example, some parentified children (children who had to grow up early because of the need to parent their own parents) may develop many skills, including a certain toughness and self-reliance.

But on the other hand, constant insecurity, broken friendships, and always being the ‘new kid on the block’ can lead to a sense of always being ‘on the outside’.

We can trace the results of this research back to the principle of basic human emotional needs.

Constantly moving during childhood may block the completion of the needs for a sense of safety and security, connection to a wider group, and even status, as the ‘newbie’ is often at the bottom of the social pile in schools and neighbourhoods.

In a sea of arbitrary change, the development of a sense of intimacy with close friends and the feeling of control and autonomy in one’s life may also be compromised severely.

And the more basic emotional needs are compromised, the greater the risk of depression.

This is why understanding the human needs is of such critical importance. We all have these needs, and we need to understand them fully if we are to fulfil them healthily.

A desultory childhood may imbue a child with a sense of pessimism and learned helplessness that may carry over into adulthood.

It’s important to remember that a childhood with multiple moves didn’t lead to depression in all or even most people. If a child’s home life is strong, they may potentially even be strengthened by many moves, learning to adapt and act with independence.

But a life of thwarted fulfilment of the basic emotional needs, especially, perhaps, during childhood, may have long-term impacts.

Talking of long-term emotional impacts…

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Research piece three: Confronting trauma alleviates chronic pain among older veterans

A recent study revealed that chronic pain can be significantly alleviated by psychotherapy that helps address past trauma and stress-related emotions.⁵

The study compared the effects of emotional awareness and expression therapy (EAET) to those of traditional cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) in treating chronic pain and mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, and PTSD among older veterans.

It was found that EAET reduced pain by at least 30% in 63% of veterans, while CBT achieved this for only 17% of veterans. Six months after treatment, 41% of EAET participants had sustained their pain reduction, versus only 14% of CBT patients.

Additionally, EAET patients reported greater improvements in anxiety, depression, PTSD, and life satisfaction.

Lead author Brandon Yarns noted that most people with chronic pain consider treatments like medications, injections, or surgery rather than psychotherapy.

While CBT has traditionally been the ‘gold standard’ for treating chronic pain among veterans, it typically offers modest benefits and is aimed more at helping patients cope with pain rather than actually alleviating it. In contrast, EAET focuses on experiencing, expressing, and releasing emotions, demonstrating that stress-related emotions affect the brain’s perception of pain.

Unlike CBT, which aims to assist individuals in managing their pain and adapting to a chronic condition, EAET considers centralized pain to be at least partially reversible through significant changes in emotions and relationships.

My take?

This is no surprise to me. We know that stress increases inflammation in the body, and inflammation in turn contributes to pain. Many things can contribute to stress, of course, but for veterans, interpersonal relationships and attitude to pain are two of the biggest influences.

We also know that pain is mutable through psychological influences and methods.⁶ This, of course, is not to suggest that someone’s pain is ‘all in their head’ but rather that emotions, stress, and expectation all have an inevitable effect on pain.

For example, if I believe my pain to be chronic (that is, long-lasting or even permanent), my feelings about the pain may be worlds apart from how I might feel about pain I know will be short-lived (acute pain). In each case my perspective on the pain is different. The first version is seen as here to stay, the second may hurt like hell but will, I expect, at some point be gone.

Likewise, the source or context of the pain matters. If my pain was caused by a lifesaving operation, then my relationship with and therefore experience of that pain will differ from the pain of recovering from a mindless mugging.

So if emotional awareness and expression therapy can address difficult relationships and other elements of stress in life, then that should help lower inflammation and therefore pain, at least in some people. What’s more, if the aim of CBT is simply to manage pain while EAET seeks to actively lessen pain, then that positive aim may in itself produce a powerful placebo response.

It makes absolute sense that stress management and positive expectation, when successfully applied, may help modify and diminish physical pain.

For me, this always means incorporating the use of hypnosis to help manage pain.⁷ Any comprehensive approach to pain management should aim to help people not just cognitively but also hypnotically, because there is so much scientific evidence of the efficacy of hypnosis for treating pain⁸ and even speeding up post-operative healing.⁹

In line with the results of this study, I’ve also personally noticed that physical pain, if it was connected to a trauma, will tend to diminish as a kind of ‘happy side effect’ of using the Rewind Technique to decondition the traumatic memory. I put it down to a dramatic decrease in stress in the mind and body immediately after effective Rewind.

Next, is there a difference in the way male and female narcissism presents?

Research piece four: Narcissism may present differently in men and women

Narcissistic tendencies, largely shaped by our upbringing, significantly contribute to violence and bullying in adult relationships. However, the causes and effects of these behaviours can differ between men and women.

Recent research has revealed gender differences in the way narcissism presents.¹⁰ It was found that narcissistic tendencies are more likely to appear in vulnerable and subtle ways in women, in contrast to the stereotypical male manifestations of narcissism, which are typically grandiose and overt.

My take?

These days it can seem like we’re supposed to treat men and women as equal in every way, with any differences being totally a result of societal moulding. However, there may well be innate, biological differences (as well as cultural ones) that determine the way certain traits manifest.¹¹

This research shows that male narcissism tends to be more overt than female narcissism, which may be more covertly controlling and less obviously perfidious.

Whether it’s nature or nurture (or a bit of both), I think these results are very interesting. We’ve long recognized two different manifestations of narcissism, but this is the first time we’ve documented a clear gender bias in their expression.

Grandiose narcissism is characterized by overt arrogance, entitlement, and dominant, exploitative behaviour. Individuals with this type often display high self-confidence and a lack of empathy.

In contrast, vulnerable narcissism is marked by hypersensitivity, insecurity, and a defensiveness that can lead to passive-aggressive behaviour.

Despite these differences, both types share an underlying self-centeredness, a preoccupation with maintaining a positive self-image and a need for admiration, and a projection of blame and responsibility onto other people. And it’s certainly possible, I think, for one and the same person to exhibit both forms of narcissistic behaviour on different occasions.

But we now know that women are much more likely to exhibit the vulnerable variant, while men are more likely to exhibit the grandiose variant.

Why?

It might bethat traditionally women have been the nurturers and therefore perhaps have developed a greater attunement to relationships and feelings than men have (yes, yes, I know – not all women and not all men!).

So female manipulative behaviours might leverage the more subtle interplay of relationships through:

• Sympathy seeking
• Guilt tripping
• Attempts at reputational damage through spreading rumours and so on
• Status raising through more subtle ‘humble bragging’ online, or inverse status-raising strategies such as demanding to be seen as a ‘bigger victim’ than others.

Conversely, men hunting in hierarchies might have developed a more overt form of narcissism, manifested as:

• Self-confident ‘showing off’
• Flashing the cash
• Shouting down dissent
• Attempts at status raising by ‘knowing all the right people’ or having a greater wealth of experience than anyone else. They may have ‘been there, done that’ and ‘know everything about everything’.

Narcissism, despite the origins of the term, doesn’t necessarily relate to feeling one is more physically beautiful than everyone else but rather a sense that the world does and should revolve completely around the narcissist.

Before we move on, I also want to quickly acknowledge another piece of research from the two lead authors, published at the same time. The researchers found that the gender differences in the way narcissism presents also seems to equate with differences in how men and women bully.¹² Which, of course, is also a classic narcissistic behaviour.

Speaking about the original study, lead researcher Dr Green said:

“We found that grandiose narcissism in men was associated with greater perpetration of psychological partner violence, whilst vulnerable narcissism in women was linked with greater perpetration of physical, sexual, and psychological partner violence.”

So partner abuse dished out by male or female narcissists may be pretty similar in some ways.

But in the second study, when the researchers studied bullying in friendship groups, they found male bullying was much more overly confrontational while female bullying was much more covert and subtle. So maybe it’s in public that the manifestations of narcissism between the genders are more variable.

Lastly, let’s look at the art of staying cool with not knowing.

Research piece five: How uncertainty builds anxiety

“There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.”

– Alfred Hitchcock

We know that uncertainty around when something negative might happen causes more anxiety than if we are certain about when it will happen, but the reasons behind this have previously been unclear.

The authors of a 2024 study investigating this question recognized the need to quantify uncertainty more precisely.¹³ They showed that when anticipating a bad event, the perception of hazard can vary significantly depending on the dynamics of the scenario, even if the overall probability of the event remains constant.

For instance, imagine you are told you will receive an electric shock in the next 10 seconds. If you know the shock will occur at the end of the 10 seconds, the hazard rate (defined as the “outcome’s probability … given that it has not yet occurred”) is low (actually, zero) until the countdown ends. However, if the shock could occur at any moment within those 10 seconds, the hazard rate increases over time.

The authors of the study placed volunteers in a virtual environment where they were subjected to 50 shocks according to different temporal patterns, then informed that they would receive a cash reward if they stayed for further shocks.

Those who had been subjected to a pattern associated with a higher hazard rate were more likely to leave than those who had experienced lower hazard rates, consistent with the researchers’ hypothesis that higher hazard rates would correlate with higher anxiety and avoidance behaviour.

My take?

Not knowing can be worse than knowing. Some people even report a kind of relief in getting a diagnosis after a long period of waiting and not knowing, even if the prognosis isn’t a great one!

Ancient humanity felt the need to explain the stars, the thunder, and many other natural phenomena. Science recognizes that uncertainty has to precede knowledge. In other words, we have to acknowledge and accept that we don’t know when there is insufficient information.

And yet we love certainties, to know where we stand, to let the light in, to banish and vanquish the shadows of our doubts.

Striving to know is wonderful. But often life is ambiguous, or we have to wait to find out. And how well we deal with these times can have a huge impact on our mental health.

Psychotherapists sometimes talk in terms of the importance of clients developing the capacity to hold a meaning vacuum in their minds. Holding a calm meaning vacuum means ‘sitting pretty’ with not knowing something… yet.

We can all be too quick to fill a meaning vacuum (a situation in which we don’t actually know what is happening or will happen) with made-up meaning, thereby satiating our thirst to feel we understand. We fill it with our imaginings, then start to believe what we imagine.

This happens with jealousy and anxiety conditions:

• “I can see she’s online but she hasn’t replied to my message! She must be chatting to someone else!”
• “He’s 20 minutes late home. He’s had a fatal crash! That ambulance I heard must be for him! Oh my God!”

You see how in both cases an ambiguous and uncertain situation is ‘filled in’ through the imagination.

Learning to accept that one just doesn’t know can be a wonderful way of starting to tame self-destructive fantasy.

To quote one Benjamin Franklin:

“Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.”

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About Mark Tyrrell

Psychology is my passion. I've been a psychotherapist trainer since 1998, specializing in brief, solution focused approaches. I now teach practitioners all over the world via our online courses.

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