Psychology

The latest research shows disconnection in couples begins slowly and quietly. ((The Quiet Beginning of Disconnection in a Relationship, Psychology Today))

A major longitudinal study finds a clear transition point before breakups. ((Terminal decline of satisfaction in romantic relationships, ResearchGate summary))
The study shows slow decline years before a rapid drop near separation. ((Transition point in romantic relationships, Phys.org))

This news matters to Thai couples and families. ((The Quiet Beginning of Disconnection in a Relationship, Psychology Today))
Thailand has seen rising family stress and more registered divorces recently. ((Statistical Yearbook Thailand 2023, National Statistical Office))

The viral interest in the Type B personality matters for Thai readers. (Laid back, unreliable, free-spirited: the ‘type B’ personality is having a moment)

Short videos now label many people as Type B. (Laid back, unreliable, free-spirited: the ‘type B’ personality is having a moment)

The label comforts users who resist hustle culture. (Laid back, unreliable, free-spirited: the ‘type B’ personality is having a moment)

Researchers say personality works as traits rather than fixed types. (Laid back, unreliable, free-spirited: the ‘type B’ personality is having a moment)

A new roundup of relationship research highlights 11 subtle, everyday behaviours through which married men often express love — actions their wives may not always notice or interpret as affection. The list draws on psychological studies that show men and women express care in overlapping but sometimes different ways, and experts say better recognition of these small acts could reduce resentment and improve marital satisfaction in Thailand as well as globally (YourTango feature summarising recent studies).

A fresh set of experiments suggests the urge to finish sub‑tasks immediately — known as precrastination — is real but fragile: people will grab and complete a near task even when it means extra effort, but only while that extra cost stays small. The new paper replicated the original “bucket” finding and then showed that increasing physical effort and travel distance progressively eliminates the effect, while a standard measure of impulsivity did not predict who precrastinates. The work sharpens our understanding of why people sometimes hurry to “tick off” small chores, with implications for decision making, workplace design and mental health in Thailand and beyond (BPS Research Digest summary).

Thai office workers and university students often exhibit a puzzling behavior that contradicts logical efficiency: they grab nearby tasks and complete them immediately even when this choice requires more physical effort and time than waiting for better opportunities. New psychological research has finally quantified this phenomenon called “precrastination”—the tendency to finish subtasks prematurely—revealing it represents a genuine cognitive bias that emerges only when extra effort remains minimal. The findings carry significant implications for Thai workplaces, educational institutions, and mental health services where cultural values emphasizing prompt task completion may inadvertently increase physical and psychological strain.

Thai marriage counselors observe a recurring pattern in their practice: wives often feel unloved despite their husbands’ consistent caring behaviors, while husbands feel unappreciated for gestures they consider meaningful expressions of devotion. Recent relationship psychology research reveals this disconnect stems from fundamentally different communication styles between spouses, with men frequently expressing love through subtle daily actions that women may not immediately recognize as affection. Understanding these overlooked expressions could transform marriages across Thailand, where family harmony remains a cornerstone of social stability and personal wellbeing.

A groundbreaking exploration of intuition reveals why that flutter in your stomach might actually be your brain’s sophisticated early warning system — but Thai health experts urge caution before abandoning logic for gut feelings.

Picture this familiar scenario: You’re walking through Bangkok’s crowded Chatuchak Market when suddenly your heart races and you feel an inexplicable urge to step aside. Seconds later, a motorcycle taxi speeds past exactly where you were standing. Was this mystical intuition, or something your brain detected before your conscious mind caught up?

A new popular book argues that intuition — the quick, bodily sense that “something will happen” — is not mystical but a form of biological prediction: the body feels small, fast-changing signals that precede an external event and so seems to “see” the future. The claim sits at the crossroads of mainstream neuroscience (predictive brain models and interoception), contentious laboratory work on physiological “presentiment,” and centuries of cultural advice to “listen to your body.” For Thai readers wondering whether to trust a flutter in the stomach or a sudden sense of dread, the short answer is: sometimes your body gives useful advance information, but the science is complex and contested, and anxiety can mimic intuition. (The Times overview of the book and its thesis is the immediate media prompt for renewed interest) (How your body predicts the future — The Times).

A viral quip — “my primary hobby is sending TikToks to my roommate” — has re‑ignited an old question about whether modern life has hollowed out hobbies and face‑to‑face pastimes or merely transformed them. The observation, made in a recent YourTango column, captures a wider debate that links rising social‑media use, economic pressure and burnout to shifts in how people spend free time and how they connect with one another (Are People Just More Boring Now? — YourTango). This matters because leisure patterns are tied to mental health, social cohesion and the informal networks that sustain community life.

A new study finds the human imagination can reliably simulate the path of a single invisible moving object but struggles to keep track of two at the same time, a result that surprises researchers and has practical implications for teaching, safety and design in Thailand. The experiments, described in Nature Communications, used short animations of bouncing balls that vanished from view and asked participants to predict where and when those objects would hit; people performed well with one disappeared ball but fell to near chance with two, supporting a serial “one-at-a-time” model of mental simulation rather than a parallel one (Nature Communications PDF). The finding suggests that while our eyes and attention can monitor a handful of visible moving objects, the mind’s eye has a much narrower working capacity when it must continue motion after objects drop out of view (Harvard Gazette report).

A new systematic review and meta-analysis of 33 randomized trials finds that structured laughter interventions — from laughter yoga to therapeutic clowns and comedy sessions — produce measurable reductions in anxiety and meaningful increases in life satisfaction across diverse adult populations. The global analysis pooled data from 2,159 participants and reported a large overall effect on anxiety and a similarly large effect on life satisfaction, with consistent benefits in clinical and community settings. The findings add weight to calls for low‑cost, low‑risk mental health tools that can be scaled into hospitals, schools and workplaces in Thailand and beyond (The Role of Laughter Therapy in Adults: Life Satisfaction and Anxiety Control — Journal of Happiness Studies).

A new study of more than 800 U.S. adults finds that people who feel lonely do not only view others and their social world more negatively — they also tend to judge themselves as giving less and being more of a strain on close relationships, especially with family. The paper reports that a physiological marker of emotional flexibility, high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV), showed a modest buffering effect: people with higher resting HF-HRV were somewhat less likely to link their loneliness with feeling burdensome to family members (Psychophysiology article). The findings highlight how loneliness can reshape self-perception and suggest practical pathways — from breathing-based exercises to community outreach — that could help break cycles of withdrawal and isolation.

In an age where sending TikTok videos has become our primary hobby, Thailand finds itself at the epicenter of a profound transformation in how we spend our free time and forge meaningful relationships.

The observation struck a nerve across social media platforms worldwide: “My primary hobby is sending TikToks to my roommate.” This seemingly innocent quip, which rapidly gained viral status, has ignited a deeper conversation about whether modern life has fundamentally altered our relationship with leisure, creativity, and human connection.

New research reveals that lonely individuals don’t just feel disconnected from others—they often view themselves as burdens on family relationships, creating a destructive cycle that Thai mental health professionals are working to address.

A groundbreaking study examining over 800 American adults has uncovered a troubling pattern: people experiencing loneliness don’t merely perceive others negatively, but increasingly judge themselves as contributing less value to close relationships while causing more strain, particularly within family dynamics.

Groundbreaking research reveals a startling limitation in human mental simulation that has profound implications for education, safety, and technology design across Thailand.

Thai drivers navigating Bangkok’s complex traffic patterns, lifeguards monitoring Phuket’s crowded beaches, and teachers demonstrating physics principles in classrooms all rely on a fundamental cognitive ability: mentally tracking where moving objects will be when they disappear from view. New research from Harvard University reveals a surprising constraint in this mental capacity that could transform how Thailand approaches safety training, educational methods, and technology design.

A comprehensive global analysis of laughter-based interventions reveals measurable reductions in anxiety and increases in life satisfaction, offering Thailand a culturally aligned and cost-effective tool for addressing its growing mental health crisis.

Thailand faces a mental health emergency that demands innovative, accessible solutions. With nearly 9% of the population at risk of depression and over 5,000 suicide deaths annually—approximately 15 per day—the Kingdom urgently needs evidence-based interventions that can be implemented at scale without overwhelming already stretched healthcare resources.

Revolutionary research reveals that people with ADHD don’t just use background music more frequently than their neurotypical peers—they make fundamentally different musical choices that appear to optimize their brain function for focus and productivity. A comprehensive study of 434 young adults demonstrates that individuals screening positive for ADHD consistently prefer stimulating, upbeat music during both cognitive tasks and physical activities, while neurotypical individuals gravitate toward relaxing, familiar instrumental tracks. Despite these contrasting preferences, both groups report similar improvements in concentration and mood when listening to their preferred musical styles.

A growing movement among mental health professionals warns that widespread use of “trauma” language to describe ordinary life difficulties may be preventing genuine healing and recovery. Leading clinicians argue that while increased trauma awareness has brought important benefits, applying trauma labels too broadly risks pathologizing normal human distress, creating self-limiting identity narratives, and directing people toward intensive treatments they don’t need while missing those who require specialized care. This critique carries particular relevance for Thailand, where mental health burdens have increased significantly and culturally sensitive approaches to psychological distress remain essential for effective care.

Revolutionary research from MIT reveals that conversational artificial intelligence can do far more than provide incorrect information—it can actively implant false memories into human minds, increase confidence in those fabricated recollections, and maintain these distortions for weeks after brief interactions. A controlled study of 200 participants found that people who interacted with generative chatbots were misled about critical details at rates reaching 36 percent—roughly three times higher than participants receiving no intervention—while reporting increased confidence in their false memories compared to those using pre-scripted systems or simple surveys.

A new international study suggests a clear psychological pathway from childhood maltreatment to compulsive sexual behaviour in adulthood: early abuse and neglect predict higher scores on a Sexual Narcissism scale, and that sexual narcissism in turn strongly predicts hypersexual or compulsive sexual behaviour, together explaining roughly 60% of the variation in compulsive-sex measures in the sample (sample n = 118) (Neuroscience News summary; original article in Archives of Sexual Behavior) (Springer link). This finding frames compulsive sexual behaviour disorder (CSBD) not simply as uncontrolled impulses but as a trauma-shaped interaction between early experience and specific sexual attitudes that clinicians can target.

A large new analysis finds structured laughter sessions can substantially reduce anxiety and raise life satisfaction, offering a low-cost, low-risk tool that Thai health services, workplaces and community groups could use to ease rising mental-health pressures. The systematic review and meta-analysis pooled 33 randomized controlled trials and more than 2,100 adult participants worldwide and reported large, clinically meaningful reductions in anxiety and increases in life-satisfaction scores after laughter interventions such as laughter yoga, guided group laughter and therapeutic clowning (Journal article; summary).

A new study from researchers at the MIT Media Lab finds that conversational artificial intelligence can do more than make factual errors: generative chatbots powered by large language models can actively implant false memories in human users, increase confidence in those false recollections and leave them intact for at least a week after a brief (10–20 minute) interaction (MIT Media Lab study). In controlled experiments simulating witness interviews, participants who interacted with a generative chatbot were misled on critical details at a rate of 36.4% — roughly three times the rate for people who had no post-event intervention — and reported higher confidence in those false memories compared with people who answered a plain survey or spoke to a pre-scripted chatbot (MIT Media Lab study). The finding raises urgent questions for Thai institutions that already rely on digital tools, from law enforcement to schools and hospitals, about how to guard people’s memories and decisions against AI-driven misinformation.

New research suggests that sleep can amplify a tendency among anxious children and young adolescents to generalise negative experiences, meaning that a single upsetting event may be more likely to cast a wider shadow over similar, harmless situations after a night’s sleep. In a controlled experiment of 34 participants aged 9–14, higher clinician-rated anxiety was associated with a greater chance of falsely recognising new-but-similar negative images as previously seen — but only in the group that slept between learning and test (PsyPost coverage; Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry abstract) (PsyPost, PubMed record).

Groundbreaking research reveals that sleep—typically considered restorative and healing—may actually strengthen negative memory biases in anxious children, potentially explaining why some young people develop persistent worry patterns that spread across multiple life situations. A controlled study of 34 participants aged 9-14 found that children with higher clinician-rated anxiety showed increased tendency to falsely recognize new-but-similar negative images as previously seen, but only after sleeping between learning and testing sessions. This discovery suggests that sleep-dependent memory consolidation processes may selectively strengthen threatening associations in anxious youth, creating a neurological pathway through which single negative experiences expand into generalized fears.