Feature Channels: Behavioral Science

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People may lie to appear honest if events that turned out in their favor seem too good to be true, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

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New brain networks come 'online' during adolescence, allowing teenagers to develop more complex adult social skills, but potentially putting them at increased risk of mental illness, according to new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

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Who -- or what -- is to blame for the xenophobia, political intolerance and radical political parties spreading through Germany and the rest of Europe?

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Results suggest social interaction success for autistic adults revolves around partner compatibility, not just participant skill set. “If autistic people were inherently poor, you’d expect two autistic people to struggle more than an autistic and non-autistic person. That’s not what we found.”

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Lifetime history of exposure to a traumatic event and self-reported lifetime and current depression are predictive of recent suicide ideation in deployed soldiers, according to a new JAMA Network Open study published January 29, 2020. Researchers suggest that attention to deployment experiences that increase suicide ideation in soldiers with past trauma and major depressive disorder can assist clinicians and leadership in identifying and treating Soldiers at increased risk for suicide.

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To improve behavior in class, teachers should focus on praising children for good behavior, rather than telling them off for being disruptive, according to a new study published in Educational Psychology.

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Data show that young adult women in the United States have high rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) that increase their risk of HIV. Though epidemiologic and behavioral factors for risk have been studied, we know very little about brain factors that may be linked to STI/ HIV sexual risk.

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According to a doctoral thesis completed by Nadia Valentina Tapia Navarro, victims of mass atrocities are often portrayed as disempowered, passive, defenceless and docile in discourses pertaining to international law.

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Algorithms based on artificial intelligence do better at supporting educational and clinical decision-making, according to a new study.

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Rutgers researchers have found that a test widely used to diagnose whether children have autism is less reliable than previously assumed.

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Finnish research team maps neural activity in response to watching horror movies. A study conducted by the University of Turku shows the top horror movies of the past 100 years, and how they manipulate brain activity.

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It has never been safer to fly on commercial airlines, according to a new study by an MIT professor that tracks the continued decrease in passenger fatalities around the globe.

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A new study shows how even minor changes to available infrastructure can trigger tipping points in the collective adoption of sustainable behaviors.

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With less that a week to go until the start of a new school year, parents are preparing themselves for the inevitable back-to-school rush. But amid the dash for backpacks, books and last-minute haircuts, children’s sleep routines must also be high on the agenda if parents want to start kids off on the right foot.

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We live in an era of self-empowerment. But when it comes to quitting smoking, going it alone isn’t the best approach. Read on for effective strategies from Penn State Health experts.

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Your choice of clothing could affect the behavioral habits of wildlife around you, according to a study conducted by a team of researchers, including faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York.

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On Monday, January 20th, Dr. Francine Conway, Dean and Distinguished Professor for Rutgers University, Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology (GSAPP) and President of the National Council of Schools and Programs of Professional Psychology (NCSPP) will host psychology professionals from across the country at the NCSPP Mid-Winter Conference.

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Power in the workplace does not stop women's exposure to sexual harassment. On the contrary, women with supervisory positions are harassed more than women employees.

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A massive experiment that deployed regular police patrols on platforms in the London Underground has shown that four 15-minute patrols a day in some of the capital's most crime-ridden stations reduced reported crime and disorder by 21%.

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Stay-at-home parents are likely to tweet anti-spanking beliefs and desires, but those 280-character messages may not always convey what's happening in homes.

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The goal of the survey is to collect data that will help experts develop interventions to support musicians.

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Using novel imaging technologies, researchers produce first whole-brain atlas at single-cell resolution, revealing how alcohol addiction and abstinence remodel neural physiology and function in mice.

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The idea of food addiction is a very controversial topic among scientists. Researchers from Aarhus University have delved into this topic and examined what happens in the brains of pigs when they drink sugar water.

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New research from the WORLD Policy Analysis Center at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health (WORLD) shows that the United States is falling behind its global peers when it comes to guarantees for key constitutional rights. Researchers identified key gaps in the U.S. including guarantees of the right to health, gender equality, and rights for persons with disabilities.

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Autistic mothers are more likely to report post-natal depression compared to non-autistic mothers, according to a new study of mothers of autistic children carried out by researchers at the University of Cambridge.

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To better understand how motivational control processes help maximize performance when faced with task challenges, researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and provide fascinating insights into the role of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) as a component network of brain regions that support motivated behavior. They have unified conflicting findings by discovering that the single mechanism of surprise best accounts for activity in dACC during a task requiring motivated control.

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Alcohol misuse among college students remains a major public health concern. Students’ perceptions of how much their peers are drinking, and of peers’ attitudes to alcohol, are known to be a key influence on their own alcohol use. Two distinct types of social norms that can shape students’ drinking are recognized – ‘injunctive’ norms, namely perceptions of peers’ attitudes about how much a college student should drink, and ‘descriptive’ norms, which are perceptions of how much their peers do drink.

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Binge drinking is a common and harmful pattern of alcohol use, often defined as consuming at least four (for women) or five (for men) drinks in one drinking episode. However, some people drink well beyond this, consuming two or even three times the binge threshold, putting them at very high risk of acute harm. Previous research on such ‘high-intensity drinking’, or ‘HID’, has been mostly limited to college-age youth, with less known about HID in the mid-adult age group. A new study published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research has evaluated the prevalence, consequences, and influences of HID among Australian adults of working age.

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Rates of heavy drinking and alcohol use disorder peak in the late adolescent and early adult age-group (19-25 years), before decreasing from around age 26. This supports the notion that many young people ‘mature out’ of heavier drinking behavior. However, changes in young adults’ alcohol consumption vary widely, and depend on a range of factors including role transitions (e.g. marriage, parenthood), social networks, and personality. Dr. Michael Windle from Emory University, Georgia, assessed the variation in ‘maturing out’ by evaluating trajectories of alcohol use from adolescence through young adulthood, up to around 33 years of age. The study, published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, also explored whether different alcohol use trajectories were associated with other indicators of young-adult functioning, relating to health, sleep, and social and occupational functioning.

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In a little over two weeks, more than three million Australian students will return to school, ready to start a new year. But, amid the packed lunches and book bags, many may also be returning with a sense of anxiety and confusion in the aftermath of Australia’s devastating bushfires.

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New research into the biology of depression, along with new and evolving technologies, provides the basis for developing the next generation of treatments for major depressive disorder (MDD), according to the special January/February issue of Harvard Review of Psychiatry. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.

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Report led by experts at Cincinnati Children's, published today in Pediatrics, urges pediatricians to increase support for parents of children with chronic conditions.

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Highlighting female achievements in the workplace makes capable women significantly more likely to want to be the boss, a study shows.

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More than 3,300 people in the mental health population of the Los Angeles County jail are appropriate candidates for diversion into programs where they would receive community-based clinical services rather than incarceration, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

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Self-esteem is a valuable resource for undergraduate international students trying to socialize with their domestic counterparts at American universities, but new research by a University at Buffalo psychologist suggests that while self-esteem predicts better socialization with domestic students, it is curiously unrelated to how international students socialize with other internationals.

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The UCI School of Medicine, in partnership with Chenega Healthcare Services, LLC and MedCognition, was awarded a $1.2 million contract through the Medical Technology Enterprise Consortium to examine the psychological effects of augmented reality (AR) medical simulation training.

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Here's a resolution we can all keep: Make 2020 the year you decide never to set a resolution again. Instead, consider following some of the sage advice about living wisely and well from CSU faculty experts in psychology, gerontology and palliative care. Here's how they say you can make the most of 2020 or any year.

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A collaboration of researchers at Louisiana State University, University of Missouri, and University of Tennessee found that peer victimization is associated with adverse psychological and behavioral problems

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A team of researchers have found that dogs and wolves are equally good at cooperating with partners to obtain a reward. When tested in same-species pairs, dogs and wolves proved equally successful and efficient at solving a given problem.

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University of Kentucky research to examine and improve women’s sleep habits sheds light on insomnia among middle-aged women in Appalachian Kentucky. It also highlights a promising non-pharmaceutical intervention that could help them get a good night’s rest.

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A university-wide social norms marketing campaign has reduced high-risk drinking and adverse outcomes of drinking, according to a new study from Michigan State University in the Journal of American College Health. MSU's social norms campaign was created to educate MSU students about actual drinking behavior on campus. When misperceptions are corrected, behavior will change to be more consistent with the actual norm, said Dennis Martell, director of MSU Health Promotion.

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While the average American woman's waist circumference and dress size has increased over the past 20 years, Victoria's Secret fashion models have become more slender, with a decrease in bust, waist, hips and dress size, though their waist to hip ratio (WHR) has remained constant.

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In the months after separating from military service, most veterans are less satisfied with their health than with their work or social relationships, found a study by Veterans Affairs researchers.

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Washington, DC - Gay men and lesbian women have often been the targets of prejudice and even violence in society.

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Tim Bono offers sound advice about where people go wrong when setting New Year’s resolutions.Wait a few months, said Bono, assistant dean for assessment in Student Affairs and lecturer in Psychological & Brain Sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.People tend to see resolutions a black or white, he said, forgetting that change is incremental; being “happier” is a better resolution than being “happy,” for instance.

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Teach a chimpanzee to fish for insects to eat, and you feed her for a lifetime. Teach her a better way to use tools in gathering prey, and you may change the course of evolution.For most wild chimpanzees, tool use is an important part of life — but learning these skills is no simple feat. Wild chimpanzees transfer tools to each other, and this behavior has previously been shown to serve as a form of teaching.