The incidence of vaping among U.S teenagers has nearly doubled in the past year to more than one in five high school seniors, finds research in the New England Journal of Medicine. The researchers analyzed data from more than 13,000 participants in the...
Nonblack people have a hard time distinguishing genuine from fake smiles on black people’s faces, according to a study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. In six experiments with 425 total participants (mainly undergraduates), researchers asked participants to rate the happiness levels...
When lawmakers look for information to help them craft behavioral health policy, few of them turn to universities for the latest research, finds a study in Psychiatric Services. Researchers surveyed 475 state legislators from across the United States. They found...
Students who go to schools with more bullying are more likely to consider suicide, finds a study in The Journal of Pediatrics. Researchers analyzed survey data from more than 750,000 students at public high schools in California from 2009 to 2013. Overall,...
Widely varying psychiatric disorders may be more genetically similar than previously thought, suggests research in Science. Researchers analyzed RNA from the cerebral cortices of more than 700 deceased patients who had had autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression, alcoholism...
Children of religious parents are less likely to consider or attempt suicide, regardless of the children’s own self-reported religiosity, finds a study in JAMA Psychiatry. Researchers analyzed data from 214 children (ages 6 to 18) from 112 families that were...
Trying to “look on the bright side” of a bad situation can help reduce anxiety–but the strategy works better for people who make less money, finds a study in Emotion. Researchers analyzed data from a lab experiment with 112...
A widely used commercial software program is no better–and no less biased–than untrained human judges at predicting criminal recidivism rates, finds research in Science Advances. Researchers asked 400 online participants to read about a real criminal case, and using only...
Young children learn new words more easily when they are presented in more predictable ways, suggests a study in Current Biology. Researchers tested more than 100 2-year-olds. First, they showed the toddlers a video screen with four closed boxes. Then,...
Mothers who are stressed during pregnancy have daughters with more anxious behaviors as toddlers, finds a study in Biological Psychiatry. Researchers measured cortisol levels in 70 pregnant women at three points during their pregnancies. Then, the researchers used fMRI to...