Social Psychology News

November 20, 2024

Top Headlines

How Children Learned for 99% of Human History

Nov. 19, 2024 — Unlike kids in the United States, hunter-gatherer children in the Congo Basin have often learned how to hunt, identify edible plants and care for babies by the tender age of six or seven. This rapid learning is facilitated by a unique social ...

Traditional Mayan Practices Have Long Promoted Unique Levels of Family Harmony: But What Effect Is Globalization Having?

Nov. 16, 2024 — A new study shows that the past 30 years of globalization have brought fundamental shifts in some aspects of family interaction among Indigenous people in Guatemala. But families have still ...

'Jekyll and Hyde' Leaders Do Lasting Damage, New Research Shows

Nov. 16, 2024 — Employees struggle when supervisors swing between good and bad ...

Social Isolation, Loneliness and Frailty in Older Adults Have a Complex and Sometimes Mutually Reinforcing Relationship

Nov. 14, 2024 — A new article examines how social isolation, loneliness and frailty affect one another and the bidirectional relationship they exert as an individual gets older. hey found that physical frailty can ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:03pm EST

Time Alone Heightens 'Threat Alert' in Teenagers -- Even When Connecting on Social Media

Nov. 12, 2024 — Scientists detect a heightened 'threat vigilance' reaction in adolescents after a few hours of isolation, which socializing online doesn't appear to ...

Cognitive Decline and Loneliness Linked in Older Adults Over Short Time Periods

Nov. 12, 2024 — Loneliness and cognitive performance were related in the short term for older adults, according to a new ...

'Emotional Contagion' a Factor in Seniors' Mental Health

Nov. 11, 2024 — A new study finds that seniors who tend to mirror other people's feelings are more likely to show signs of being anxious or depressed ...

New Study Challenges Social Media's Mental Health Impact

Nov. 6, 2024 — A new study has challenged the perception heavy social media use has a significant impact on mental health, finding little to no relationship between the two. In fact, not only does the research ...

What Happens in Your Brain While You Watch a Movie

Nov. 6, 2024 — By scanning the brains of people while they watched movie clips, neuroscientists have created the most detailed functional map of the brain to date. The fMRI analysis shows how different brain ...

The Dangerous Pursuit of Muscularity in Men and Adolescent Boys

Oct. 30, 2024 — Men and adolescent boys are increasingly at risk of resorting to the dangerous use of anabolic steroids in a bid to achieve the desired muscular build modeled on social media, warn body image ...

Oct. 30, 2024 — In common marmosets, the brain regions that process social interactions develop very slowly, extending until early adulthood, like in humans. During this time, all group members are involved in ...

'With a Grain of Salt': How Humans Learn from Others

Oct. 23, 2024 — When we make decisions, we are often guided by the opinions and experiences of those around us. Yet we actually have quite different preferences, tastes and goals. A research team investigated how we ...

Barriers Prevent Everyone Enjoying Nature Equally

Oct. 25, 2024 — A major international study involving 56,968 adults, aged 18 to 99, has found that levels of nature connectedness and nature exposure are associated with several socioeconomic and demographic ...

Young People's Moods Directly Affected by Social Media 'Likes'

Oct. 24, 2024 — Young people today are growing up in a social media-saturated world where technology plays a central role in shaping most of their experiences. And the rapid rise of social media use has consequently ...

Texting Abbreviations Makes Senders Seem Insincere, Study Finds

Nov. 14, 2024 — If you want to seem sincere and receive more responses to your texts, spell out words instead of abbreviating them, according to new ...

How to Reduce Social Media Stress by Leaning in Instead of Logging Off

Nov. 13, 2024 — Young people's mental health may depend on how they use social media, rather than how much time they spend using it. Psychology researchers tried an experiment with three groups. They asked one ...

The Harmful Frequency and Reach of Unhealthy Foods on Social Media

Oct. 31, 2024 — An analysis of social media posts that mention food and beverage products finds that fast food restaurants and sugar sweetened beverages are the most common, with millions of posts reaching billions ...

An Individual's Reward-Seeking Strategy Reflects Responses to Nicotine

Oct. 24, 2024 — Individualistic reward-seeking strategies predict responses to nicotine among mice living in a micro-society, according to a new ...

New Study Finds Partner's Happiness Linked to Lower Stress Hormone Levels in Older Couples

Oct. 22, 2024 — Having happy intimate partners might not only lift our moods, but it also helps us manage stress, especially as we age, according to new research. When comparing individuals' self-reported ...

Workplace Culture and Social Relationships Are Associated With Workplace Bullying

Oct. 22, 2024 — Workplace bullying poses a serious threat to employees' health and well-being. A study sheds new light on the impact of social relationships on workplace bullying. Focusing on the dynamics of ...

Crucial Role of Cerebellum in Social and Cognitive Functioning

Oct. 22, 2024 — Scientists shed light on the often-overlooked role of the cerebellum in both motor and social-cognitive processes. His research contributes to a growing shift in the field of neuroscience, which has ...

The Transformative Power of Movies

Oct. 21, 2024 — Docudrama can lead people to be more empathetic toward people who are stigmatized in society, a new study ...

Research Team Connects Loneliness With Heightened Risk of Dementia in Largest Study of Its Kind

Oct. 21, 2024 — New research quantified the association between loneliness and dementia by analyzing data from more than 600,000 people around the world. The meta-analysis of 21 longitudinal studies showed that ...

People Sympathize With Bullied AI Bots

Oct. 17, 2024 — In a new study, humans displayed sympathy towards and protected AI bots who were excluded from ...

Fearful Memories of Others Seen in Mouse Brain

Oct. 16, 2024 — Researchers have revealed that the CA1 and CA2 regions in the brain respectively encode the locations and individuals linked with a threatening experience. The results show that, beyond simply ...

Elucidating the Neural Basis of Reduced Sexual Receptivity in Female Mice During the Non-Estrus Phase

Oct. 16, 2024 — Researchers investigated the neural mechanisms underlying the behavioral transition from the sexually receptive estrus stage to the non-receptive phase, as part of the hormone-dependent behavioral ...

How Do We Recognize Other People's Emotions?

Oct. 11, 2024 — For recognizing people's emotions, facial expressions do play an important role. However, they are not the only crucial ...

Asking a Person to Talk About Their Parents in Therapy Can Distort Memories of Childhood Emotions

Oct. 11, 2024 — New research suggests a person's feelings towards a parent can be significantly changed when they are asked to evaluate them during talking therapy, even when the question isn't ...

In Studying the Mating Rituals of Fruit Flies, Scientists May Have Learned Something About How Brains Evolve

Oct. 9, 2024 — Researchers have identified how the architecture of brain circuits helps different species flexibly adapt to new mating signals across evolutionary ...

Are Ideas Contagious?

Oct. 9, 2024 — As flu season approaches, researchers are discovering that the flu and fake news have far more in common than we may ...

One-Time Cooperation Decisions Unaffected by Increased Benefits to Society

Oct. 8, 2024 — Until now, it was considered certain that people are more likely to cooperate if the benefits from cooperation are higher. A recently published, large-scale study has now called this finding into ...

Childhood Social Interactions Can Combat Stereotypes

Oct. 7, 2024 — Prior research has found that exposure to social diversity in early life, such as through day care, influences how people communicate. Those early social experiences can also moderate tendencies ...

Medical and Psychological Harms of Obesity Depend on Where You Live, Study Indicates

Oct. 2, 2024 — Researchers collected archival data on more than 3.4 million people living in the United States and United Kingdom. They found evidence that obesity tends to spur lighter medical and psychological ...

Satisfying Friendships Could Be Key for Young, Single Adults' Happiness

Oct. 2, 2024 — A new analysis assesses the heterogeneity of factors linked with happiness among single Americans who are just entering adulthood, highlighting a particularly strong link between happiness and ...