A new analysis (of data from the General Social Survey) suggests sex is like income: people are generally happy when they keep pace with the Joneses and they’re even happier if they get a bit more. The work, by sociologist Tim Wadsworth at the University of Colorado Boulder, appears in Social Indicators Research. Analyzing the […]
A new Virginia Tech study highlights the unexpected and dramatic consequences subtle social signals in group settings can have on individual cognitive functioning, especially for women. The researchers say settings such as juries, parties, business meetings and classrooms all have the potential to derail our cognitive skills. “You may joke about how committee meetings make […]
Scientists say that the nicotine receptors in the brain play an important role in social interactions and the ability to choose between competing motivations. Writing in the FASEB Journal, the French researchers explain how the nicotinic receptors in the prefrontal cortex are essential for social interaction in mice and that this area of the brain […]
An alarming new study by University of Leeds psychologists provides compelling evidence that online chat rooms and social networking sites can have a serious impact on mental health, sometimes leading to moderate to severe depression in users. “The Internet now plays a huge part in modern life, but its benefits are accompanied by a darker […]
Ten years after graduation, high-school students who had been rated as conscientious and cooperative by their teachers were earning more than classmates who had similar test scores but fewer social skills, a new University of Illinois (UI) study has found. The study’s findings, appearing in the journal Social Science Research, challenge the notion that racial, […]
Using single-photon emission computed tomography; Dutch researchers were able to detect biochemical differences in the brains of individuals with generalized social anxiety disorder (social phobia), providing evidence of a long-suspected biological cause for the dysfunction. Reported in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine, the study compared densities of elements of the serotonin and dopamine neurotransmitter systems […]
