Social Psychology News

June 13, 2025

Top Headlines

Guardrails, Education Urged to Protect Adolescent AI Users

June 3, 2025 — The effects of artificial intelligence on adolescents are nuanced and complex, according to a new report that calls on developers to prioritize features that protect young people from exploitation, manipulation and the erosion of real-world ...

Attachment Theory: A New Lens for Understanding Human-AI Relationships

June 2, 2025 — Human-AI interactions are well understood in terms of trust and companionship. However, the role of attachment and experiences in such relationships is not entirely clear. In a new breakthrough, researchers from Waseda University have devised a ...

Horses 'Mane' Inspiration for New Generation of Social Robots

May 28, 2025 — Interactive robots should not just be passive companions, but active partners -- like therapy horses who respond to human emotion -- say ...

Mother's Warmth in Childhood Influences Teen Health by Shaping Perceptions of Social Safety

May 28, 2025 — Parental warmth and affection in early childhood can have life-long physical and mental health benefits for children, and new research points to an important underlying process: children's sense of ...

Overimitation Begins in Infancy but Is Not Yet Linked to in-Group Preference

May 22, 2025 — A new study examines the emergence of overimitation in infants aged between 16 and 21 months to see if and how it is linked to social affiliation and other forms of imitation. The researchers found ...

Why We Trust People Who Grew Up With Less

May 22, 2025 — When deciding whom to trust, people are more likely to choose individuals who grew up with less money over those who went to private schools or vacationed in Europe, according to new ...

Social Connection Is Still Underappreciated as a Medically Relevant Health Factor

May 22, 2025 — New studies reveal that both the public and healthcare providers often overlook social connection as a key factor in physical health, even though loneliness rivals smoking and obesity in health ...

Thinking Peers Drink More Drives Risky Behavior

May 20, 2025 — The study explores how social influences, particularly peer pressure, impact substance use -- and misuse -- among young adults. A confidential online survey on alcohol use was given to 524 students at a large public university (not ...

Depression Linked to Physical Pain Years Later

May 20, 2025 — Middle-aged and older adults who experience pain are more likely to have had worsening symptoms of depression up to eight years before the pain began, according to a new ...

Emotional Expressions Shape How Help Is Received in the Workplace

May 21, 2025 — The way people express emotions while helping others can influence whether their assistance is welcomed, resented, or reciprocated, according to new ...

Study Sheds Light on How Autistic People Communicate

May 14, 2025 — There is no significant difference in the effectiveness of how autistic and non-autistic people communicate, according to a new study, challenging the stereotype that autistic people struggle to connect with ...

Evidence of Mother-Offspring Attachment Types in Wild Chimpanzees

May 12, 2025 — A team of researchers has identified distinct mother-offspring attachment types in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus). Drawing parallels with human psychology, the study provides compelling evidence that wild chimpanzee infants, like human ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:25pm EDT

Addressing Hearing Loss May Reduce Isolation Among the Elderly

May 12, 2025 — Providing hearing aids and advice on their use may preserve social connections that often wane as we age, a new study shows. Its authors say that this approach could help ease the loneliness epidemic ...

Nature Visits Can Improve Well-Being Disparities Among Urban Dwellers

May 8, 2025 — How relatedness-to-nature is linked to well-being is determined by district-level socioeconomic status. A new analysis is based on survey results from two major Japanese metropolitan ...

Social Media Platform Tailoring Could Support More Fulfilling Use, Study Finds

May 7, 2025 — Redesigning social media to suit different needs of users could make their time online more focused, according to new ...

What's a Healthy Amount of Sleep? It Differs from One Country to Another

May 6, 2025 — Your optimal amount of sleep may depend on where you live, new research has found. An analysis of sleep data and health outcomes for nearly 5,000 people in 20 countries revealed that the hours of ...

Non-Inherited Genes Affect Children's Development

May 7, 2025 — Parents' genes -- even when not directly inherited by a child -- may play a role in their educational and mental health outcomes, finds a new ...

Losing a Parent May Increase Children's Risk of Being Bullied

May 7, 2025 — A new study surveyed 21,000 children in China and found that the association between parental bereavement and school bullying varied by sex of the child and deceased parent, age when the death ...

Birds Form Bonds That Look a Lot Like Friendship

May 7, 2025 — A study of starlings in Africa shows that they form long-term social bonds similar to human ...

Social Drinking Also a Well-Worn Path to Alcohol Use Disorder

May 6, 2025 — When picturing a 'typical' alcoholic, people tend to imagine a person drinking at home alone. But that focus overlooks the social origins of many serious alcohol ...

Parent Coaching Sparks Major Communication Growth in Infants With Social and Communication Delays

May 6, 2025 — A study found that targeted coaching for caregivers of infants as young as 8 months significantly enhances babies' communication and cognitive ...

Neighborhood Stress May Impact Kids' Brains -- And Increase Depression Risk

May 5, 2025 — Children who grow up in disadvantaged neighborhoods -- areas with higher levels of crime and deprivation, and lower access to community resources -- are at risk of developing depression, and new ...

Gorilla Study Reveals Complex Pros and Cons of Friendship

May 5, 2025 — Friendship comes with complex pros and cons -- possibly explaining why some individuals are less sociable, according to a new study of ...

Spanking and Other Physical Discipline Lead to Exclusively Negative Outcomes for Children in Low And Middle-Income Countries

May 5, 2025 — Physically punishing children in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) has exclusively negative outcomes -- including poor health, lower academic performance, and impaired social-emotional ...

Teens With Mental Health Conditions Use Social Media Differently Than Their Peers, Study Suggests

May 5, 2025 — One of the first studies in this area to use clinical-level diagnoses reveals a range of differences between young people with and without mental health conditions when it comes to social media -- ...

Mechanism by Which the Brain Weighs Positive Vs. Negative Social Experience Is Revealed

Apr. 30, 2025 — Researchers have identified the neural mechanisms in the brain that regulate both positive and negative impressions of a social encounter, as well as how an imbalance between the two could lead to ...

Study Suggests Dance and Lullabies Aren't Universal Human Behaviors

Apr. 29, 2025 — Social singing and dance are often assumed to be hard-wired into the human condition; studies have supported the conclusion that these are common across cultures. But new research from an ...

Personality Traits Shape Our Prosocial Behavior

Apr. 28, 2025 — Why do some people do more for the community than others? A new study now shows that personality traits such as extraversion and agreeableness correlate with volunteering and charitable ...

Awkward. Humans Are Still Better Than AI at Reading the Room

Apr. 24, 2025 — Humans are better than current AI models at interpreting social interactions and understanding social dynamics in moving scenes. Researchers believe this is because AI neural networks were inspired ...

Empathy Might Be Retained in Alzheimer's Disease

Apr. 23, 2025 — People with Alzheimer's disease may retain their ability to empathize, despite declines in other social abilities, finds a new ...

Father's Mental Health Can Impact Children for Years

Apr. 19, 2025 — Five-year-olds exposed to paternal depression are more likely to have behavioral issues in grade school, researchers ...

Environmental Variability Promotes the Evolution of Cooperation Among Humans: A Simulation-Based Analysis

Apr. 18, 2025 — Researchers have demonstrated that intensified environmental variability (EV) can promote the evolution of cooperation through simulation based on evolutionary game theory. This result offers a new ...

Finding Friendship at First Whiff: Scent Plays Role in Platonic Potential

Apr. 17, 2025 — Two women meeting for the first time can judge within minutes whether they have the potential to be friends -- guided as much by smell as any other sense, research on friendship formation ...

Nurturing Now, Thriving Later: The Lasting Power of Affectionate Mothering

Apr. 16, 2025 — Affectionate mothering in childhood may have a lasting impact on important personality traits, potentially influencing life outcomes such as educational achievement, economic success, and health and ...

Nature-Based Activity Is Effective Therapy for Anxiety and Depression, Study Shows

Apr. 16, 2025 — Researchers evaluating a nature-based program of activities for patients with mild to moderate mental health conditions have shown that improvements in mood and anxiety levels can be seen in as ...

How Does Our Brain Regulate Generosity?

Apr. 14, 2025 — Are there areas of the brain, which regulate prosocial, altruistic behavior? Researchers have studied a very special group of patients and established that the 'basolateral amygdala' (part ...

Lip Sync: Study Reveals Gender Differences in Preference for Lip Size

Apr. 9, 2025 — Shifting cultural perceptions of beauty could drive 'lip dysmorphia', so psychologists tested the response of 32 people to altered images of lips to see how they responded. The results were ...

Even Under Stress, Male-Female Pairs Had Each Other's Backs

Apr. 8, 2025 — When faced with a potential threat, mice often freeze in place. Moreover, when two animals are together, they typically freeze at the same time, matching each other's periods of immobility. In a ...

Childhood Experiences Shape the Brain's White Matter With Cognitive Effects Seen Years Later

Apr. 7, 2025 — Investigators have linked difficult early life experiences with reduced quality and quantity of the white matter communication highways throughout the adolescent brain. This reduced connectivity is ...

Fear of Rejection Influences How Children Conform to Peers

Apr. 4, 2025 — The fear of rejection -- familiar to many children and adults -- can significantly impact how kids behave in their peer groups, according to new ...

Balance Between Two Competing Nerve Proteins Deters Symptoms of Autism in Mice

Apr. 1, 2025 — In mice, autism symptoms arise when a certain pair of competing nerve proteins falls out of equilibrium, according to a new ...

My Robot Therapist: The Ethics of AI Mental Health Chatbots for Kids

Mar. 31, 2025 — AI mental health apps may offer a cheap and accessible way to fill the gaps in the overstretched U.S. mental health care system, but ethics experts warn that we need to be thoughtful about how we use ...