Curated News: Featured: LifeWire

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If there is a reasonable chance of increasing wealth in the parents’ environment then no difference is made between one’s own children and stepchildren.

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Personality research shows outright requests, rather than the Door-in-the-Face strategy may be more effective for fundraisers.

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For the first time, Arizona State University researchers have discovered that at least in ants, animals can change their decision-making strategies based on experience. They can also use that experience to weigh different options.

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Math video games can enhance students’ motivation to learn, but it may depend on how students play, researchers at New York University and the City University of New York have found in a study of middle-schoolers.

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There’s good news and there’s bad news. Which do you want to hear first? That depends on whether you are the giver or receiver of bad news, and if the news-giver wants the receiver to act on the information, according to researchers at the University of California, Riverside.

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UC San Diego sociologist's analysis of interactions on OkCupid.com finds that race still matters in internet dating but also that “racial boundaries are more fragile than we think.”

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A unique collaboration between a University of California, Riverside sociologist and the Indio Police Department has produced a computer model that predicts, by census block group, where burglaries are likely to occur.

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As American schools struggle with issues of race, diversity and achievement, a new study in the American Sociological Review has split the difference in the ongoing discussion of resegregation. Yes, black, white and Hispanic students were less likely to share classrooms in 2010 than in 1993, but no, that increase in segregation is usually not the result of waning efforts to reduce it.

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A new study by UNL psychologists Sarah Gervais and Mike Dodd used eye-tracking technology to map the visual behavior of men and women as they looked at images of women with different body types.

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Communication researchers who interviewed childless individuals for a study recently published online in the National Communication Association’s Journal of Applied Communication Research found that expanding definitions of family often don't embrace people without children. These individuals felt that work and family discussions isolated or belittled them, and that sometimes they were expected to fill in for absent workers because of more liberal attitudes toward parents.

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The language a child speaks affects the rate at which they learn number words, and hearing number words in natural conversation – not just in counting routines – is a critical part of learning the meaning of numbers.

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Halloween have you avoiding black cats, bats and more? A psychologist says superstitions are behaviors that people perform in an attempt to affect or control their future.

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Evolutionary biologist W.D. Hamilton predicted that organisms ought to evolve the ability to discriminate degrees of kinship so as to refine their ability to direct help to individuals with whom they shared the most genes. But two WUSTL biologists point out that there seem to be many cases where “a veil of ignorance” prevents organisms from gaining this kind of information, forcing them to consider a situation from the perspective of all members of their group instead of solely from their own perspective or that of their close kin.

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Psychology researchers find people with similar personality types are so likely to cluster in certain areas of the United States.

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Effective classroom arts integration can reduce or eliminate educational achievement gaps for economically disadvantaged students, according to a Mississippi State University research report.

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People who have had what they believe to be supernatural experiences are more likely to be “religious givers,” with their behavior based on cost-benefit principles that work in other transactions — whether that be through Amazon.com or an auto repair shop, according to a Baylor University study.

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Whether it’s simply waking up on the wrong side of the bed, or a bad week at work, feeling down is a form of depression and should be addressed.

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Americans with similar temperaments are so likely to live in the same areas that a map of the country can be divided into regions with distinct personalities, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

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When financial gain depends on cooperation, we might expect that people would put aside their differences and focus on the bottom line. But new research suggests that people’s racial biases make them more likely to leave money on the table when a windfall is not split evenly between groups.

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Men with low-pitched voices have an advantage in attracting women, even though women know they’re not likely to stick around for long. Researchers at McMaster University have found that women were more attracted to men with masculine voices, at least for short-term relationships. Those men were also seen as more likely to cheat and unsuitable for a longer relationship, such as marriage.

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A new study of women ages 50 and older examines the 12.2 percent who say they are satisfied with their body size to unlock the secrets of body satisfaction. This minority of midlife women who report being satisfied with their body size appears to exert considerable effort to achieve and maintain this satisfaction.

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Paying extra bucks to “go green” in a hybrid car may pay off in self-esteem and image for older drivers, as well as give a healthy boost to the environment, according to a Baylor University study.

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Turning to the Internet to find out what ails you is common, but for folks who have trouble handling uncertainty, “cyberchondria” – the online counterpart to hypochondria – worsens as they seek answers, according to a Baylor University researcher.

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A 2,700-year-old portico was discovered this summer on the site of the ancient city of Argilos in northern Greece, following an archaeological excavation led by Jacques Perreault, Professor at the University of Montreal’s Centre of Classical Studies and Zisis Bonias, an archaeologist with the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports.

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Brain training games, apps, and websites are popular and it’s not hard to see why – who wouldn’t want to give their mental abilities a boost? New research suggests that brain training programs might strengthen your ability to hold information in mind, but they won’t bring any benefits to the kind of intelligence that helps you reason and solve problems.

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According to a new study, only 30 percent of the world’s youth population between the ages of 15 and 24 years old has been active online for at least five years. In South Korea, 99.6 percent of young people are active, the highest percentage in the world. The least? The Asian island of Timor Leste with less than 1 percent.

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Humans rely on non-facial cues, such as body shape and build, to identify people in challenging viewing conditions, such as poor lighting. Interestingly, people still think they are relying on the faces to make the identifications.

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The controversy and legal battles surrounding the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act have led to a new – and worrisome – legal concept: the idea of a “corporate conscience,” warns Elizabeth Sepper, who teaches at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis.

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New research by Albright College finds that men and women alter their voices when speaking to lovers versus friends and that such variations can potentially be used to detect infidelity.

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In response to past economic crises such as the Great Depression, Americans demanded government policy solutions to widespread unemployment and rising income insecurity. But a new study found that public support for government efforts to address social problems actually declined in the wake of the 2008 economic crisis.

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If telecommuting – or working from home – is an available option, one University of Alabama at Birmingham expert says its perks go beyond working in pajamas.

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Most people think of a glass of wine as one serving, but in reality it could be two or three. Just how much one pours is influenced by a variety of factors, researchers at Iowa State and Cornell discovered, and that could lead to overconsumption.

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An unprecedented study of preterm birth suggests that only some of the problems previously associated with preterm birth are actually caused by preterm birth itself.

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Mixed-income neighborhoods help improve the safety and wellbeing of low-income residents, but cannot relieve deeply entrenched poverty or provide upward mobility without additional social services and supports, say Peabody and University of Chicago researchers.

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The state of New Hampshire experienced the largest increase in child poverty of any state in the country from 2011 to 2012, according to new research from the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire.

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Although slavery was abolished 150 years ago, its political legacy is alive and well, according to researchers who performed a new county-by-county analysis of census data and opinion polls of more than 39,000 southern whites.

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New UT-Austin psychology study shows even preschool children are quick to conform to ritualistic behavior while learning.

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A new study finds that young women are more likely to have disordered eating attitudes when their mothers often communicate criticism and are over-involved. The study, “Family Interactions and Disordered Eating Attitudes: The Mediating Roles of Social Competence and Psychological Distress,” was published online today in the National Communication Association’s journal Communication Monographs.

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Employees who have a sense of unjustified entitlement are more likely to say that their bosses are abusive and mistreat them than their less entitlement-minded coworkers, according to new research from the University of New Hampshire.

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The overwhelming urge that drives many pregnant women to clean, organize and get life in order—otherwise known as nesting—is not irrational, but an adaptive behaviour stemming from humans’ evolutionary past.

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Reading with your child is the key to building a child’s literacy skills. Emergent literacy begins at birth and continues through preschool and kindergarten. Learning is unbelievably powerful in early childhood development, according to Bradford Wiles, Kansas State University early childhood development assistant professor.

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Imagine if you were wrongly accused of a crime. Would you be stressed? Iowa State University researchers found the innocent are often less stressed than the guilty. And that could put them at greater risk to admit to a crime they didn’t commit.

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After a period of relative calm during the 1990s, rapid changes in American families began anew during the 2000s, a new analysis suggests.

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The story of the Uruguayan rugby team, whose airplane crashed in the Andes Mountains in 1972 and had to resort to cannibalism to survive until their rescue, has strong roots in the history of human evolution, according to a Southeastern Louisiana University psychology professor.

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UT Dallas study analyzed teens’ texts throughout the ninth grade and collected behavioral assessments to reveal that students who texted about antisocial behaviors, such as fighting or drug use, were more likely to engage in the activities by the end of the year.

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People who get away with cheating when they believe no one is hurt by their dishonesty are more likely to feel upbeat than remorseful afterward, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

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Being in the minority in an ethnically diverse crowd is distressing, regardless of your ethnicity, unless you have a sense of purpose in life, reports a Cornell University developmental psychologist.

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A suicide prevention expert has called for the term "homicide bomber" to replace the widely used "suicide bomber", because he says people who kill themselves while murdering others have few similarities to actual suicide victims.

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Deep down, men may not bask in the glory of their successful wives or girlfriends. While this is not true of women, men’s subconscious self-esteem may be bruised when their spouse or girlfriend excels, says a study published by the American Psychological Association.

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While some researchers have claimed that war between nations is in decline, a new analysis suggests we shouldn’t be too quick to celebrate a more peaceful world.