Social Psychology News

December 5, 2023

Top Headlines

Dec. 5, 2023 — While anger and aggression are instinctive behaviors found across many species, leaving these emotions unchecked can lead to conflict and violence. In a recent study, researchers demonstrated that neuronal-glial interactions in the cerebellum ...

The World Needs More Empathy -- Here Is How Science Can Harness It

Dec. 1, 2023 — In a world grappling with deep-seated division and social upheaval, empathy has become more critical than ever. But science suggests when it comes to evoking empathy, our imagination is more powerful than we previously thought. A new study reveals ...

Early Body Contact Develops Premature Babies' Social Skills

Nov. 30, 2023 — Skin-to-skin contact between parent and infant during the first hours after a very premature birth helps develop the child's social skills. The study also shows that fathers may play a more important role than previous research has ...

What Makes Sustainable Consumption So Difficult

Nov. 30, 2023 — When it comes to self-discipline, psychological research traditionally focuses on individual responsibility. Some researchers believe this is too short-sighted. Self-discipline doesn't work without effective ...

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updated 11:03pm EST

Psychological Science Can Help Counter Spread of Misinformation

Nov. 29, 2023 — Debunking, 'prebunking,' nudging and teaching digital literacy are several of the more effective ways to counter misinformation, according to a new ...

Researchers Find Neurons Work as a Team to Process Social Interactions

Nov. 27, 2023 — Researchers have discovered that a part of the brain associated with working memory and multisensory integration may also play an important role in how the brain processes social cues. Previous ...

Genes Influence Whether Infants Prefer to Look at Faces or Non-Social Objects

Nov. 27, 2023 — Whether infants at five months of age look mostly at faces or non-social objects such as cars or mobile phones is largely determined by genes. The ...

A New Diagnostic Tool to Identify and Treat Pathological Social Withdrawal, Hikikomori

Nov. 22, 2023 — Hikikomori is a pathology characterized by social withdrawal for a period exceeding six months. While first defined in Japan, the pathology is ...

How We Play Together

Nov. 21, 2023 — Psychologists are using EEG to research what games reveal about our ability to ...

Big-Data Study Explores Social Factors Affecting Child Health

Nov. 20, 2023 — Researchers have used an AI-based approach to uncover underlying patterns among the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age, termed social determinants of health (SDoH), and ...

When Languages Collide, Which Survives?

Nov. 14, 2023 — Researchers incorporate language ideologies, along with the impact of interaction between individuals with opposing preferences, on the language shift process. The team chose a quantitative approach ...

Early-Life Stress Changes More Genes in Brain Than a Head Injury

Nov. 13, 2023 — A surprising thing happened when researchers began exploring whether early-life stress compounds the effects of a childhood head injury on health and behavior later in life: In an animal study, ...

Guilt Not as Persuasive If Directly Tied to Personal Responsibility

Nov. 7, 2023 — Invoking a sense of guilt -- a common tool used by advertisers, fundraisers and overbearing parents everywhere -- can backfire if it explicitly holds a person responsible for another's suffering, a ...

Research Team Discovers New Role of Cerebellum in Coordinating the Brain Network Essential for Social Recognition Memory

Nov. 6, 2023 — Researchers discovered the cerebellum coordinates the brain network essential for social recognition ...

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Headlines

Aussie Teens Are Not Actually Selfie-Obsessed, Study Finds

Nov. 28, 2023 — A new study zooming in on how smartphones influence our photography habits found Australians aged 20 to 40 years old take more selfies than teenagers and older ...

Nostalgia and Memories After Ten Years of Social Media

Nov. 20, 2023 — As possibilities have changed and technology has advanced, memories and nostalgia are now a significant part of our use of social ...

Do Pets Make You Happier? Study Shows They Didn't During the Pandemic

Nov. 10, 2023 — There is a general understanding that pets have a positive impact on one's well-being. A new study found that although pet owners reported pets improving their lives, there was not a reliable ...

Social-Behavioral Findings Can Be Highly Replicable, Six-Year Study by Four Labs Suggests

Nov. 9, 2023 — Roughly two decades ago, a community-wide reckoning emerged concerning the credibility of published literature in the social-behavioral sciences, especially psychology. Several large scale studies ...

Researchers Examine the Relationship Between Loneliness and Being Alone

Nov. 1, 2023 — A new study finds that solitary time does not closely correlate with feelings of loneliness -- unless a person spends 75% of their time ...

Marijuana Use May Damage Brain Immune Cells Vital to Adolescent Development, Study Suggests

Oct. 31, 2023 — In a mouse study designed to explore the impact of marijuana's major psychoactive compound, THC, on teenage brains, researchers say they found changes to the structure of microglia, which are ...

Canine Cuddles Can Comfort Equally Across All Genders

Oct. 30, 2023 — While there are a number of studies demonstrating that dog therapy programs can improve a person's social and emotional wellbeing, many typically have a disproportionate number of female ...

Want to Achieve Your Goals? Get Angry

Oct. 30, 2023 — While often perceived as a negative emotion, anger can also be a powerful motivator for people to achieve challenging goals in their lives, according to new ...

How Adults Understand What Kids Are Saying

Oct. 26, 2023 — Adult listening abilities are critical to the ability to understand children's early linguistic efforts, according to new ...

A Sustainable Future Is Based on a Learning Society

Oct. 25, 2023 — A holistic transformation is needed for the planet to accommodate people's pursuit of well-being. A new study explores a Theory of Planetary Social Pedagogy as a driver of a transformative ...

For Relationship Maintenance, Accurate Perception of Partner's Behavior Is Key

Oct. 20, 2023 — Married couples and long-term romantic partners typically engage in a variety of behaviors that sustain and nourish the relationship. These actions promote higher levels of commitment, which benefits ...

'I'd Rather Not Know': Why We Choose Ignorance

Oct. 19, 2023 — When given the choice to learn how their actions will affect someone else, 40% of people will choose ignorance, often in order to have an excuse to act selfishly, according to new ...

Familiarity Breeds Contempt for Moral Failings

Oct. 17, 2023 — People judge members of their own circles more harshly than they judge individuals from other groups for the same transgressions, new research has ...

How to Tell If Your Boss Is a 'Corporate Psychopath'

Oct. 16, 2023 — New research considers how the financial industry can identify, manage and, if necessary, remove these ...

The Emotional Function of Dreams Is Not the Same Everywhere

Oct. 16, 2023 — Why do we dream? A product of our brain's neurophysiology, dreaming is a complex experience that can take on many emotional tones and simulate reality to varying degrees. As a result, there is ...

Early Behavioral Health Problems Need Earlier Interventions

Oct. 16, 2023 — Data from more than 15,000 lower-income children ages 2 to 6 reveals higher-than-expected levels of significant behavioral dysfunction. Co-authors urge increased screening, prevention programs in ...

Honey Bees May Inherit Altruistic Behavior from Their Mothers

Oct. 12, 2023 — True altruism is rare behavior in animals, but a new study has found that honey bees display this trait. Additionally, they found that an evolutionary battle of genetics may determine the parent they ...

Study Reveals Shyness Could Impact Young Children's Performance on Language Tests

Oct. 12, 2023 — Shyness can influence a child’s performance in language assessments, depending on the level of social interaction required to complete the ...

Fruit Fly Serenade: Neuroscientists Decode Their Tiny Mating Song

Oct. 11, 2023 — An extremely supportive atmosphere for new ideas laid the foundation for an 'Aha moment' about a toggle-switch in the fruit fly brain. Do humans have one, ...

Study Links Selfies to Higher Ratings of Slimness

Oct. 11, 2023 — In a new study, participants tended to rate women's bodies as slimmer when viewed in selfie photographs than in photographs taken from other ...

Tuesday, November 28, 2023