New research identifies the types of dishonesty that occur in a relationship – and their consequences

New research from the University of Copenhagen shows that while dishonesty between partners often fuels distrust and resentment, it may also, in some cases, help couples solve issues and repair their bond.

University of Copenhagen

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Psychologist Rachele Mazzini, author of the PhD thesis Dishonesty in Romantic Relationships.

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Credit: Photo: Katrine Biune, University of Copenhagen

Most people will say that honesty is the foundation of a healthy romantic relationship. Yet very few people can say that they haven’t, at some point, hidden information, told a white lie, or avoided a difficult truth with a partner.

Based on three studies that combine qualitative interviews, large surveys, and daily diary data from couples, a new PhD thesis from the University of Copenhagen identifies the types of dishonesty that occur between romantic partners and suggests why dishonesty does not always have the same consequences for couples.

“My research shows that dishonesty often leads to doubt and distrust that are harmful to a relationship. But also, paradoxically, that dishonesty has the potential to become an opportunity for learning and growth,” Rachele Mazzini, author of the PhD thesis, explains.

“What is really important to understand is that dishonesty doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It is embedded in the dynamics of a specific relationship and is often the result of recurring relational patterns rather than isolated acts,” she adds.

Frameworks and patterns of dishonesty

In one study from the PhD thesis, Rachele Mazzini and her collaborators asked 656 American participants to describe an incident involving dishonesty to their current or former partner. Based on an analysis of the answers, the researchers were able to establish a comprehensive framework for understanding dishonesty in romantic relationships, detailing the forms, content, dominant motives, and consequences of dishonesty.

The framework helped the researchers identify patterns that tend to appear when partners are dishonest with each other.

One common pattern is the so-called “vicious cycle” in which participants describe how they take revenge on their partners’ dishonesty by being dishonest themselves – and vice versa – or they need to go on being dishonest to cover for a previous act of dishonesty (e.g., a lie) .

“Another pattern is what we call ”The Slowburn” where participants tell that being dishonest with their partner initially made them feel excited but, as time passed, they would develop feelings of shame and guilt. This negatively influenced both their own and their partner’s well-being,” Rachele Mazzini notes and suggests:

“Even though we haven’t tested them in professional contexts, we think that identification of these patterns may prove useful for therapists who work with couples experiencing problems in their relationship.”

Positive dishonesty

The framework of dishonesty also points to the fact that some forms of dishonesty may be motivated by self‑protection or by a desire to protect the partner.

“People often assume that dishonesty is always destructive. But our findings suggest that some forms of so‑called prosocial dishonesty may function as a way to maintain the relationship, for example by avoiding unnecessary conflict or emotional harm,” Rachele Mazzini points out.

And not only can dishonesty be rooted in positive motives – it can also prove to be a crucial turning point for a couple:

“In some cases, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, couples actually experience the dishonesty as a wake-up call which prompts them to work out their problems, which they would not have done otherwise.”

Can partners detect dishonesty?

In another study that is part of Rachele Mazzini’s PhD thesis, 120 couples from five countries reported daily for a week on whether they had been dishonest and whether they believed their partner had been dishonest. Dishonesty turned out to be relatively rare in everyday life for most couples, occurring on fewer than 20 per cent of days.

Partners were overall good at assessing whether there was dishonesty in their relationships, but mainly because most days involved no dishonesty at all. When dishonesty did occur, partners were often poor at detecting it, either missing it entirely or falsely suspecting it.

“Interestingly, couples that were already experiencing dishonesty when the study began differed from other couples, and they reported lower trust and higher perceived deception even before specific incidents of dishonesty had taken place,” Rachele Mazzini explains.

“This confirms the idea that dishonesty is not just about single events and does not happen in a vacuum. It will often reflect deeper relational dynamics that distinguish some couples from others.”

 

About the research

Rachele Mazzini defended her PhD thesis Dishonesty in Romantic Relationships 7 May at the University of Copenhagen.

The thesis consists of three studies, which explore dishonesty in romantic relationships through qualitative interviews, large surveys, and daily diary data from couples.

The study “Dishonesty in Romantic Relationships: A Framework of Forms, Content, Dominant Motives, and Consequences” has already been published in the peer-reviewed journal Personal Relationships.

The second study, “Development and Validation of the Dishonesty in Intimate Relationships Scale (DIRS)” has been submitted for publication and is currently under review.

The third study “Dishonesty in Romantic Relationships: A Dyadic Longitudinal Study” is still in a manuscript form.

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People

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Dishonesty in Romantic Relationships

 

New discoveries on titanosaur remains from the Lo Hueco site in Spain

Analysis of insect-made holes in bone remains reveals that these Cretaceous dinosaurs, which lived around 70 million years ago, were not rapidly buried, as previously been thought.

University of Barcelona

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Excavation of titanosaur remains at the Late Cretaceous site of Lo Hueco, in Fuentes (Cuenca, Spain). 

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Credit: Francisco Ortega, UNED

Traces or perforations caused by living organisms after the animal’s death can be found on various dinosaur bone remains. These perforations, known as bioerosion structures, provide information that helps us understand the relationships between living organisms in the past, reconstruct palaeoecosystems and improve our understanding of the fossilization process. Now, a study published in the journal Earth-Science Reviews has identified this type of perforation in bones and, for the first time, also in pieces of dermal armour (osteoderms) from titanosaurs at the Lo Hueco site (Cuenca, Spain), dating from the Late Cretaceous.

The results indicate that the titanosaur carcasses from Lo Hueco were not rapidly buried, as had previously been suggested, but remained exposed long enough to allow specialized insects (mainly necrophages and saprophages) to bore into them. The study revises the palaeoecological reconstruction of the Late Cretaceous at the Lo Hueco site, offering a new interpretation of its sedimentary, ecological and environmental dynamics.

Furthermore, the study shows that a detailed ichnological analysis — that is, of fossilised traces or footprints — of bioerosion structures at sites with abundant preserved skeletal remains could be very useful for gaining a precise understanding of the process by which the remains accumulated and the palaeoenvironmental conditions under which this occurred.

In addition to expanding the fossil record of insect-induced bioerosion in dinosaur fossils, thanks to the exceptional preservation of the Lo Hueco site, the study has helped to consolidate the validity of the ichnogenus Cubiculum (which includes the identified perforations). Specifically, this ichnogenus is characterized by boreholes with a hemispherical or pouch-like shape which, when compared with modern analogues, have been attributed to the bioerosive activity of dermestid beetles.

The study is led by Professor Zain Belaústegui, from the Faculty of Earth Sciences and the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio) at the University of Barcelona. The study also involves experts from the National University of Distance Education (UNED), which leads the national research project that has funded this study, as well as forensic entomologists from the University of Alcalá (UAH).

A site rich in titanosaur fossils

At the Lo Hueco site, one of the most important in the European Late Cretaceous, there are not only more or less isolated bone remains, but also relatively complete skeletons of large titanosaur sauropods that lived 70 million years ago.

“Studying the fossil record of bioerosion caused by insects on different types of bone tissue (bones, horns or osteoderms) can be very useful for gaining insight into the taphonomic process undergone by these skeletal remains, whether they are isolated (bones) or articulated (more or less complete skeletons),” explains Zain Belaústegui, from the Department of Earth and Ocean Dynamics at the UB. “In any case, this suggests that these remains were exposed for long enough for these scavenging organisms to bore into these skeletal structures.”

A unique palaeoecological window onto the past

Based on ichnological research — the discipline that studies the fossilized traces or footprints left by the activity of organisms in the past — “the question arises as to whether the carcass of a large vertebrate could sustain an entire community of scavengers, necrophages and saprophages for a relatively long period”, explains the expert, who adds: “Therefore, if the skeletal remains are fossilized with traces of bioerosion, they may be highly indicative of a specific palaeoenvironmental condition.”

Insect borings provide key information on how long the carcasses were exposed before being buried. Experiments with larvae of the modern beetle Dermestes frischii, which is capable of producing similar bioerosion structures to those found in the ichnogenus Cubiculum, show that these structures can form over periods of at least 240 hours, and even much longer under natural conditions. “The more taphonomic information we can obtain, the more palaeoecological and palaeoenvironmental data we will have on the skeletal remains under study,” notes the researcher.

The team has developed a much more accurate taphonomic interpretation, as the abundance of insect borings suggests that the carcasses were exposed for a longer period of time. “This would indicate a longer biostratigraphic stage for the two main fossil-bearing levels at Lo Hueco (G1 and G2), ruling out the rapid burial of the titanosaur carcasses that had previously been inferred,” explains Belaústegui.

The study also includes a comprehensive review of more than 140 references on insect bioerosion of bone tissue, ranging from the Middle Triassic to the Holocene. However, only one of these references relates to the Iberian Peninsula, highlighting the significance of the new study and the need for further research in this area.

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Journal

Earth-Science Reviews

DOI

10.1016/j.earscirev.2026.105561 

Article Title

The fossil record of insect bone bioerosion: Insights from titanosaur remains at Lo Hueco (Late Cretaceous, Spain) and implications for continental ichnofacies

Article Publication Date

27-Jun-2026

 

Identification phase of bioerosion structures on titanosaur remains at the Museum of Palaeontology of Castilla-La Mancha, in Cuenca (Spain).

Cultivation of dermestid beetles on fragments of modern bones to generate bioerosion structures, which are used as reference material

View of bioerosion structures on titanosaur bones from the Lo Hueco site.

View of bioerosion structures on a dermal bone of a titanosaur at the Lo Hueco site.

Detail of a cast of the bioerosion structures found in the titanosaur remains from Lo Hueco. Scale bar: 10 mm.

Credit

Zain Belaústegui - UNIVERSITY OF BARCELONA

  

Using DNA to save Nature: Europe's next biodiversity frontier

A landmark alliance of DNA experts across Europe signals the start of an unprecedented effort to build a continent-wide system that applies genomics for protecting European biodiversity

Pensoft Publishers

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Credit: Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

That Europe's biodiversity faces unprecedented challenges is nothing new: species are vanishing, ecosystems are degrading, and the policy-makers crafting the policies to address these challenges depend on data that is, at times, scarce. 

What is probably less known is that biodiversity genomics - the one that focuses not on humans, but on other living organisms, like animals and plants - is living a revolution that may well provide just the right knowledge that policy-makers need. Never before has DNA-based science been able to identify species, monitor ecosystems, and understand genetic diversity as cheaply, efficiently, and at scale as it can now.

The European Reference Genome Atlas (ERGA), the International Barcode of Life Europe (iBOL Europe), and the Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities (CETAF) have signed a historic agreement for biodiversity genomics in Europe. These three large scientific communities have committed to building a coordinated European infrastructure for biodiversity genomics: one that will allow experts to work in a connected system of shared resources, technology, and data. 

The vision has taken shape through the Biodiversity Genomics Europe plus (BGE+) project, and aligns with the environmental goals of the European Commission, which has welcomed steps in this direction. In fact, Costas Kadis, EU Commissioner for fisheries and oceans, recently weighed in on the need for common protocols and comparable data, and pointed to the possibility of achieving this goal through an improved and dedicated biodiversity genomics infrastructure for Europe.

"We are entering a new phase", says Dimitris Koureas, director of BGE+. "Europe already has extraordinary expertise in taxonomy, genomics, bioinformatics, biodiversity collections, and environmental monitoring. The challenge now is bringing these strengths together in a way that allows us to work at scale in an interconnected system, beyond geographic and political limitations".

The initiative emphasises one of the biggest challenges for efficient biodiversity research today: scale. Although more than two million species have been formally described worldwide, scientists estimate that millions more remain unknown, and we all know what this means: we cannot protect what we do not know. But understanding and monitoring biodiversity at the speed required by today's environmental challenges demands new approaches that boost scientific collaboration and interoperability. Initiatives like BGE+ show the way ahead.

In the words of Gabriela Dankova, BGE+ project manager:

 Tackling current biodiversity challenges requires effective collaboration of our communities across Europe, open knowledge exchange, solid technical infrastructure, harmonised processes, and, above all, a shared vision. BGE+ brings these elements together, enabling and amplifying the work of biodiversity genomics communities in Europe and beyond.

Scientists know that discovering and documenting all species is only part of the work. They also need to understand how species adapt to environmental change. That is the reason why BGE+ brings together two different strands of genomics. DNA barcoding allows scientists to identify species quickly and accurately. Genome sequencing provides deeper insights into adaptation, evolution, and resilience. Combined with taxonomic expertise and advanced data systems, these tools are creating entirely new possibilities for understanding and protecting nature.

BGE+’s long-term ambition is to establish the services, standards, capacity, and infrastructure needed for biodiversity genomics to become a routine part of how Europe studies, monitors, manages, and restores nature. The stakes could not be higher.

About Pensoft Publishers

Pensoft is an independent, open-access scholarly publisher and technology provider with over 40 biodiversity journals, and an active consortium member and communication partner in 30+ EU projects. A pioneer in semantic enrichments and data interoperability since 2010, Pensoft has long developed tools and workflows designed to make scientific outputs more findable, accessible, and reusable. Central to this is the company's proprietary, end-to-end ARPHA Publishing Platform, which handles the entire editorial process: from manuscript submission and peer review to final publication in PDF, XML, and semantically enhanced HTML.

Within BGE+, Pensoft plays a leading role knowledge sharing, skills development, and open publishing, by integrating articles with datasets and metadata through the ARPHA Writing Tool to support FAIR principles and policy-relevant evidence, while supporting iBOL Europe's community engagement and capacity building through training, network collaboration, distributed DNA barcoding facilities, and the growth of a European DNA barcode reference library.

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Naturalis Biodiversity Center

By saving ecosystems, environmental regulations help prevent biodiversity loss

Conservation policies associated with improved water quality, study finds

Ohio State University

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COLUMBUS, Ohio – Long-term conservation policies may help restore freshwater ecosystems and prevent extreme species loss, new research suggests.

As emerging threats such as warming temperatures, pollution and other cumulative stressors put pressure on freshwater populations and contribute to global biodiversity crises, experts have sought to assess how effective environmental protections are at curbing this decline. 

Now, researchers have revealed that long-term improvements in water quality, as well as the increased occurrence of certain aquatic species, are likely associated with the implementation of broad environmental regulations such as the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.

“Rivers provide a lot of cultural, recreational and ecosystem services, and we also depend on fresh and clean water to survive,” said Casey Pennock, senior author of the study and an assistant professor in the aquatic ecology laboratory at The Ohio State University. “That’s really the motivation behind these conservation policies, to ensure that the natural environment is usable for both wildlife and all other things we care about.”

Aside from negatively impacting local biodiversity, contaminated water can destroy fishing industries and damage human health. It’s thanks to widespread environmental protections that water quality in the U.S. is better today than it was only a few decades ago, said Pennock. His team’s newfound evidence for this claim stems from water quality and aquatic species data collected between 1970 and 2023 across seven major river basins in Ohio. 

By using that data to analyze how fish, insects and freshwater mussel communities changed over time, the team’s findings showed that lower levels of pollutants in rivers — such as zinc, ammonia and lead — corresponded to increases in range for many aquatic species. These findings suggest the affected groups were those with heightened sensitivity to poor water quality.

Their observations indicated that as water quality improved, 71 fish species and 171 insect groups became more common across the state of Ohio, large river basins, with only a few species decreasing. Freshwater mussels, however, experienced mixed responses over time, with nine species increasing and 10 decreasing in occurrence. The composition of fish, aquatic insects and freshwater mussels also changed significantly over time in all seven river basins researchers studied.  

“Ecological communities are not static; they’re dynamic systems,” said Pennock. “Monitoring them is important to assessing how their trajectories change as new contaminants come online.” 

The study was recently published in the journal Ecological Indicators.

Despite how critical freshwater diversity is to the health of all of Earth’s ecosystems, it can be difficult for people to link the issue of conservation to the benefits they reap from it – such as protection from infectious diseases and a safe drinking water supply – in their everyday lives, said Lindsey Bruckerhoff, a co-author of the study and an assistant professor in the aquatic ecology laboratory at Ohio State. 

“Our work revolves around trying to prevent further declines of imperiled species and keep diversity on the landscape,” she said. “So extensive research like this that highlights the positive effects of those systems on humans is incredibly rare.”

Additionally, as a lack of broad-scale monitoring efforts has made it difficult for researchers to document species-specific responses to prolonged environmental changes, this study, which compiles observations from numerous archives, is a vital addition to future conservation efforts.  

“We now have a dataset where we can actually analyze long-term biodiversity trends,” said Bruckerhoff. “It’s really exciting to be able to chart success in that way.”

According to the study, implementing nationwide policies also motivates municipalities to upgrade their own conservation initiatives. In response to the Clean Water Act, for example, Columbus instituted a $200 million municipal wastewater upgrade initiative for the Scioto River, leading to significant declines in levels of ammonia and heavy metals that continue to decrease today.

Overall, their results suggest that policies that promote conservation gains for animals like fish and insects and, by extension, protect human health, should remain in place, the researchers say. These outcomes also provide evidence of the benefits derived from environmental regulations. 

“This work shows there’s still more work to do,” said Pennock. “It tells us that if we deregulate or allow more pollution to happen, then those gains could reverse themselves, to our detriment.” 

This study was supported by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Ohio Biodiversity Conservation Partnership. Other Ohio State co-authors include Seth Drake and Nathaniel Shoobs, as well as Robert Miltner from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.

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Journal

Ecological Indicators

DOI

10.1016/j.ecolind.2026.115034 

Article Title

Water quality improvements correspond with increased human use and occurrence of fish, aquatic insects, and freshwater mussels

 

Slower forest growth, reduced carbon storage not accounted for in current climate models

Cornell University

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ITHACA, N.Y. - Forests and land play an important role in absorbing carbon dioxide emissions, but current models and forecasts don’t incorporate a new and surprising ecological discovery: Despite more available carbon, climate change and warmer temperatures are slowing forest growth.

A new study from Cornell University, published in Geological Research Letters, considers for the first time the impact of the discovery on climate models, finding that one of the most-used land models for determining the impacts of climate change may overestimate forests’ future potential for carbon storage by as much as 30%.

“Knowing how well the land will be able to keep taking up carbon in the future is really important for knowing how much CO2 you’ll have in the atmosphere, and how much warming you’ll have,” said first author and postdoctoral researcher Brendan Clark. “But the land models are probably underestimating the effects of hotter, drier air on actual growth.”

The land currently absorbs approximately 27% of the carbon dioxide produced from the burning of fossil fuels, with the ocean taking up another 25% and the rest staying in the atmosphere, leading to warming. Slower forest growth could reduce the land’s capacity for carbon storage, accelerating warming and its impacts in a way that’s not currently captured in climate models.

“The more we look, the clearer it becomes that with further warming it will become harder for nature to keep up,” said senior author Daniele Visioni, assistant professor of earth and atmospheric sciences.

Clark and his team used recent research from forests in Switzerland that measured the growth rate of both broadleaf and coniferous tree species over eight years, finding that drier, hotter weather led to reduced growth. Ecologists have found that the slower growth, which has now been documented across North America, may be due to lower turgor pressure, or the amount of water in the tree’s cells.

With the data from Switzerland, Clark built a statistical model that predicts tree growth and carbon storage through 2069 and compared it to simulations from an open-source, widely used land surface model. Clark found that the land model simulations may overestimate tree growth by a factor of 2 for broadleaf trees and a factor of 3 for coniferous trees.

The discrepancy between the two models signals the importance of incorporating the processes that slow growth in modeling more broadly – and could partly account for land models’ inaccuracy to date.

“There can be a disconnect between ecologists and modelers,” Clark said. “It’s important to bring them together, to bring this new idea in the ecology world to the land-modeling community, because I think this is going to be something we need to think about.”

For additional information, read this Cornell Chronicle story.

Cornell University has dedicated television and audio studios available for media interviews.

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Journal

Geophysical Research Letters