Feature Channels: Behavioral Science

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Exercise has been shown to reduce anxiety and stress, but it may not be enough for the levels caused by COVID-19.

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Over the long-term, what one partner in a two-person relationship wishes to avoid, so too does the other partner - and what one wants to achieve, so does the other.

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The Behavioral Health Bridge, a Sanford/UND collaboration, is a series of online modules aimed at helping individuals experiencing common behavioral health conditions related to COVID-19 and promoting behavioral health treatment to address the current needs of people in the community. The partnership’s new website and its associated modules are a free online service. The service is meant to offer scientific and clinically valid information – collected by the partnership team – to members of the community, giving them reliable tips and resources for managing behavioral health concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic. New resources and modules will be added as the partnership continues to grow.

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People who own guns and those living with gun owners are substantially less worried about the risk of firearm injuries than individuals living in homes without guns, says a new study by violence prevention experts at UC Davis Health.

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When looking at humanity from a macroscopic perspective, there are numerous examples of people cooperating to form various groupings. Yet at the basic two-person level, people tend to betray each other, as found in games like the prisoner’s dilemma, even though people would receive a better payoff if they cooperated among themselves. The topic of cooperation and how and when people start trusting one another has been studied numerically, and in a paper in Chaos, researchers investigate what drives cooperation analytically.

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A new study finds that experiences with racism are associated with increased social consciousness and social justice activism in Black youth.

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While acetaminophen is helping you deal with your headache, it may also be making you more willing to take risks, a new study suggests. People who took acetaminophen rated activities like “bungee jumping off a tall bridge” as less risky than people who took a placebo.

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As the COVID-19 pandemic persists, children across the country are facing social isolation. With many school districts in the U.S. choosing remote learning, students are likely to consume more mass media. You might be wondering, should parents be concerned?

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The murders of George Floyd and Jacob Blake are part of a continuum of police brutality toward Black individuals, which too often ends with murder. Sociologists study how this issue of police violence is related to class, race, and inequality.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred a remarkable number of psychologists across the United States to shift to delivering mental health care to patients remotely, according to a national study led by researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University.

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New research provides some of the first solid evidence that people who watch a virtual job interview rate the candidate substantially lower than those who watch the same interview in person.Researchers at Missouri S&T published a study with their findings in the International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction called “Just Sit Back and Watch: Large Disparities between Video and Face-to-face Interview Observers in Applicant Ratings.

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People enjoy witnessing extraordinary individuals – from athletes to CEOs –extend long runs of dominance in their fields, but they aren’t as interested in seeing similar streaks of success by teams or groups, according to new research from Cornell University.

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While 'trolls' have been around almost as long as the Internet, 'Incels' are a more recent and distinctly different cyber sub-culture which warrants more study says a QUT researcher.

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Performing acts of kindness and helping other people can be good for people’s health and well-being, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. But not all good-hearted behavior is equally beneficial to the giver. The strength of the link depends on many factors, including the type of kindness, the definition of well-being, and the giver’s age, gender and other demographic factors.

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he COVID-19 pandemic has illuminated three main pathologies of American voting rights, according to Richard Hasen. The pandemic has revealed the lack of systematic and uniform protection of voting rights in the United States, as described in the peer-reviewed Election Law Journal.

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Brief interventions can potentially reduce incarcerated women’s alcohol use when they leave jail, according to a new study.

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Adolescents who perceive their parents to be loving and supportive are less likely to engage in cyberbullying, according to a new study by researchers at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing.

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Research published in the journal Clinical Psychological Science, however, offers a relatively simple technique to resist temptations and make better food choices: Talk to yourself in the third person.

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Newspaper coverage of COVID-19 is at least as politicized and polarized as climate change coverage, say University of Michigan researchers.

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Florida State University's College of Social Work recently launched a new level in its successful Professional Certification in Trauma and Resilience online series.

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According to a linguist from RUDN University, the number of COVID-19 cases in a country might be related to the existence of aspirated consonants in its main language of communication.

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A new study of sleep, religious affiliation, and perceptions of heaven found that atheists and agnostics are significantly more likely to be better sleepers than Catholics and Baptists.

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Research from Indiana University found that more attractive people are more likely to be givers, and givers are rated as more attractive.

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People enjoy witnessing extraordinary individuals – from athletes to CEOs – extend long runs of dominance in their fields, a new study suggests. But they aren’t as interested in seeing similar streaks of success by teams or groups.

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Beginning in May 2020, after the police killing of George Floyd, a Black American man, 'Black Lives Matter' demonstrations and riots engulfed the United States, the United Kingdom, and several European countries.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has dominated the news cycle for the better part of 2020. As guidelines are continually updated to reflect changes in our understanding of how the virus spreads, it is critical people receive accurate, credible information that encourages prevention. Understanding the factors that influence these messages' effectiveness is crucial.

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While speakers of English and other Western languages prefer using suffixes more than prefixes, a new study reveals that this preference is not as universal as once thought. These findings stress the need for more diverse populations in language research and may shed light on human cognition

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Feelings of panic when a person is away from their smartphone could be connected to general feelings of inadequacy and inferiority, a new study of young people in Portugal suggests.

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Incumbent Edward Markey has opened up a double-digit lead over challenger U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy III one week before the Democratic primary in the race for U.S. Senate, according to a new poll of Massachusetts voters released today.

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Although most voters say they believe that voting will be safe and that their ballot will be counted despite the coronavirus pandemic, those who question election safety and some who question election integrity appear less likely to vote, according to a new RAND Corporation survey.

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"One day at a time" is a mantra for recovering alcoholics, for whom each day without a drink builds the strength to go on to the next. A new brain imaging study by Yale researchers shows why the approach works.

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Social media addicted teenagers are not the only people who experience the Fear of Missing Out also known as FoMO.

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Tribal behaviour on social media widened the gulf between Remain and Leave voters in the United Kingdom's debate whether to leave the European Union, re-aligned the UK's political landscape, and made people increasingly susceptible to disinformation campaigns, new research from the University of Bath shows.

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Almost all Americans want to change their work life when the COVID-19 pandemic ends, with large percentages ready to shift to a permanent home office, according to a study by the USC Center for the Digital Future.

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The mass media's coverage of the pandemic health crisis carries an important responsibility to offer balanced messaging about COVID-19 and public behaviour, Flinders University public health researchers says.

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A novel approach to getting physically separated fish to interact with each other, led to insights about what kinds of cues influence social behavior. “Behavioral teleporting” transfers the complete inventory of behaviors and actions (ethogram) of a live zebrafish onto a remotely located robotic replica

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The first talk in Wichita State’s Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences “Perspectives on the Pandemics: Part II” series will feature Dinorah Azpuru. A professor of political science, Azpuru researches issues related to democracy. Her talk, “Democracy in the world in times of COVID-19,” will explore how the pandemic has affected democratic societies globally.

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Voters who express prejudice against minorities and women are still more likely to support candidates who most closely align with their ideologies, regardless of the race or sex of such candidates, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

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Using a simple 'thermometer scale survey' to measure public attitudes towards people with autism could help improve public understanding and acceptance, say researchers.

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Creeped out by cooties? Grossed out by germs? Squeamish about sickness?

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MITRE and The Harris Poll will present findings from a new nationwide survey exploring the public’s perception of how industry, including health insurance companies and employers, may collect and use data generated by an individual’s purchasing, membership, or online activity.

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When it comes to worrying about the COVID-19 pandemic, a new study demonstrates that people are more concerned about whether their family members could contract the virus or if they are unknowingly spreading the virus themselves than they are with contracting it. The study, conducted by researchers from the Lifespan Brain Institute (LiBI) of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, also shows how increased resilience is able to reduce rates of anxiety and depression during the pandemic.

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A recent study from IUPUI found risk factors for substance use disorder affect age groups differently and proposes a primary prevention strategy for substance use disorder that is individualized for people within defined age groups.

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Variations in a gene called CD38, which is involved in attachment behaviour in non-human animals, may be associated with human romantic relationship dynamics in daily life, according to a study published in Scientific Reports.

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Girls with anorexia nervosa can have stunted growth and may not reach their full height potential, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

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We make decisions based on not only our own learning experience, but also learning from others. But with the presence of other people’s choices, how do we learn from them to better inform our own learning? Is social learning processed differently from direct learning? In a new study, published in "Science Advances", neuroscientist Lei Zhang of the University of Vienna provides empirical evidence that there are parallel computations for direct learning and social learning and they are carried out in distinct but interacting regions in the brain.

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In spite of efforts to re-open the nation’s economy during the COVID-19 pandemic, most Americans are not comfortable resuming daily life outside the home, and one-quarter say they will do nothing in public until a vaccine is found, reports a new study by the USC Center for the Digital Future.

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Researchers for years have understood how attitudes held with certainty might predict behavior, but a series of new studies led by a University at Buffalo psychologist suggest there may be a more general disposition at work that predicts the certainty of newly formed evaluations, just as they do for pre-existing opinions.

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The female reproductive tract has the final say in human mate choice, according to new research from the University of Eastern Finland.