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...

Rats exposed in utero to phthalates–chemicals common in plastics–later showed differences in brain structure and some cognitive deficits compared to rats without the chemical exposure, finds research in JNeurosci. Researchers exposed pregnant rats to an amount of phthalates proportionally...

Standard autism assessments may not accurately measure the severity of the disorder in girls, suggests a study in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. Researchers studied 228 boys and girls, matched for IQ and age, who had similar diagnoses of autism. They found...

Women who take prenatal multivitamin supplements may reduce their infants’ risk of developing autism, suggests a study in JAMA Psychiatry. Researchers followed more than 45,000 children born in Israel from 2003 to 2007, and gathered data from prescription records...

Marijuana causes more harm to the adolescent brain than alcohol does, suggests a study in The American Journal of Psychiatry. Researchers followed 3,826 students in Montreal for four years, beginning when they were age 12 or 13. Each year, the students took a...

The more toddlers are exposed to complex and rich conversation, the better cognitive and language skills they develop in later childhood, finds a study in Pediatrics. Researchers used computer software to analyze six months of recordings from the homes...

Cancer patients with depression who receive mental health treatment incur fewer health-care costs than those who receive no treatment, suggests a study in Health Psychology. Researchers analyzed the medical records of 182 cancer patients at the University of California, San...