Signs of Trouble Daniel Dashnaw Signs of Trouble Daniel Dashnaw

Is Your Family Trading Down?

Family life in 2025 is becoming increasingly difficult because, financial strain is often an uninvited yet influential partner.

When economic pressures mount, families may find themselves "trading down," adjusting their lifestyles to accommodate reduced means.

This phenomenon extends beyond mere dollars and cents, deeply influencing the emotional and relational dynamics within the family system.

I

n this post, I’ll delve into the social science of financial belt-tightening, so we can uncover the multifaceted impacts on family relationships, and explore evidence-based interventions to foster resilience and cohesion.

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Sexual Shame: The Hidden Barrier to Women’s Intimacy and Fulfillment

Sexual intimacy is often idealized as a source of pleasure, connection, and fulfillment. Yet, for many women, it is also entangled with a powerful, often unspoken force—sexual shame.

A new review published in Sexes suggests that sexual shame can suppress sexual arousal and desire, leading to diminished sexual functioning and overall relationship dissatisfaction (Graziani & Chivers, 2024).

Rooted in a complex web of biological, psychological, and cultural influences, sexual shame can profoundly impact a woman’s self-perception, sense of worth, and ability to experience intimacy.

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A Look at the Dark-Ego Link Between Psychopathy, Narcissism, and Antisemitism

An interesting recent study published in Current Psychology forces us to confront a disquieting reality: certain personality traits—namely, narcissism and psychopathy—can fuel antisemitic beliefs.

Researchers Ann Krispenz and Alex Bertrams from the University of Bern identify these beliefs as 'dark-ego vehicles,' meaning they serve as outlets for self-centered needs like dominance, aggression, and moral posturing.

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Boobs, Brands, and Banality: How Everything Super Bowl Became Softcore

Ladies and Gentlemen, Children of the Algorithm, gather 'round!

Did you enjoy your Super Bowl? The touchdowns, the beers, the commercials selling your greatest insecurities back to you?

Well, let's talk about the real MVP—breasts.

Novartis, our friendly pharmaceutical overlord, brought you a bouncing, cantaloupe-colored PSA: 'Get screened for breast cancer, you degenerates! You stare at boobs all day anyway!'

An excellent cause, yes.

But the delivery? Pure Cinemax After Dark, raising the question: how does blending a health message with softcore aesthetics affect public trust?

When health campaigns become indistinguishable from soft porn, is the message amplified—or trivialized?

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Is Hatred of Scientists Becoming a Thing?

Because I was one of the founders of what is perhaps the largest science-based couples therapy practice in the world, I enjoy many scientists and researchers as clients. Many have entered therapy to manage their social anxiety.

Why? So, it turns out some people hate scientists.

Not just the kind of hate where you roll your eyes at some nerd in a lab coat, but the kind of hate that gets scientists harassed, threatened, and, in at least one case, nearly mobbed in Amsterdam.

Why? Because of science cynicism, which is just a fancy way of saying, "I don’t trust those guys because they seem smart and therefore must be up to something."

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Phubbing and Aggression in Relationships: How Ignoring Your Partner for a Phone Wrecks Romance

A new study in Frontiers in Psychology suggests that staring at your phone while your partner is trying to connect with you—what many call "phubbing"—can lead to some nasty relationship behaviors.

In plain English, ignoring your partner in favor of doomscrolling might make them more likely to lash out.

The study found that people who feel snubbed by a screen get aggressive in ways that mess with emotional intimacy.

And for women, the gap between how much support they want from their partner and how much they get plays a big role in that aggression.

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Dating While Colorblind: The Paradox of Post-Racial Love

Once upon a time, in a world where people sincerely believed that love conquers all—and yet kept making dating apps with increasingly complex algorithms to help people avoid the wrong kind of love—some researchers decided to study romantic attraction through the lens of racial ideology.

Because, you see, humans are strange creatures.

They want to believe in free will but also prefer to be shackled to patterns they don’t even notice.

One such pattern, known to the social sciences as homogamy but to your Aunt Cheryl as “birds of a feather flock together,” is the tendency to be romantically drawn to people who resemble us in some fundamental way.

Same hobbies, same religious upbringing, same favorite childhood TV show. And yes, same race.

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The Less You Notice, The More You Bed: A Curious and Clumsy Study on Mood Swings, Mindfulness, and the Numbers Game

Let’s start with the obvious: life is a chaotic mess.

Some people manage the chaos by meditating.

Others do it by impulse-buying decorative candles.

And some, according to a new study published in Sexes, do it by having more sexual partners.

That’s right.

Researchers have taken a long, hard look at how women navigate rapid emotional highs and lows and whether their tendency to observe their own thoughts (or not) influences their romantic statistics.

The findings?

If you tend to oscillate between euphoria and despair faster than a stock market crash, and if you don’t really notice your thoughts much, you might just have more sex partners.

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The Hidden Cost of Wildfires: How Smoke Exposure Increases Dementia Risk

As wildfires become more frequent and severe due to climate change, a new and alarming consequence is coming to light: exposure to wildfire smoke may significantly increase the risk of dementia.

A recent study published in JAMA Neurology found that folks exposed to wildfire-generated fine particulate matter (PM2.5) faced an 18% higher risk of developing dementia—far greater than the risk posed by other air pollutants (Elser et al., 2024).

This finding raises serious concerns about how environmental factors, particularly air quality, shape long-term brain health.

It also underscores the disproportionate burden of pollution-related health risks on vulnerable communities, making it an urgent issue for public health, environmental justice, and dementia prevention.

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Are We In a Meta-Crisis?

Esther Perel’s concept of the metacrisis is an ambitious attempt to describe the convergence of multiple existential challenges—climate instability, political upheaval, economic precarity, and technological alienation—that are reshaping not only society at large but the very fabric of our interpersonal relationships.

It is an idea that acknowledges the deeply intertwined nature of crises rather than treating them as isolated problems.

However, while her framework is thought-provoking, it warrants deeper scrutiny, both in terms of its explanatory power and its limitations.

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How Weight Loss Drugs Can Affect Your Marriage: The Emotional and Relationship Changes No One Talks About

Losing weight—especially with the help of medications like Ozempic or Wegovy, or through bariatric surgery—can be a game-changer for health and self-confidence.

But what happens to your relationship when one partner undergoes such a major transformation? While the health benefits are clear, the emotional and relational impacts can be more complicated than you’d expect.

Research shows that these changes can bring couples closer or create unexpected tension (Svensson et al., 2018).

The Emotional Shifts That Come with Weight Loss

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The Lasting Impact of Childhood Trauma: How Romantic Breakups Can Shape the Brain

Heartbreak is never easy, but for those who have experienced childhood maltreatment, the emotional toll of a romantic breakup may run deeper than we realize.

A recent study published in the European Journal of Neuroscience explores the link between early-life adversity, the end of a romantic relationship, and brain structure—offering new insights into how past wounds can shape our ability to navigate loss and resilience in adulthood.

Researchers found that folks who endured childhood maltreatment and later went through a romantic breakup had smaller hippocampal volumes—a crucial brain region involved in memory processing and emotional regulation—compared to those who had similar early-life experiences but had not experienced a breakup.

This suggests that the stress of losing a significant relationship may intensify the lasting effects of childhood trauma, leading to observable changes in brain structure.

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