Relationships News

May 1, 2025

Top Headlines

Listeners Use Gestures to Predict Upcoming Words

Apr. 22, 2025 — In face-to-face conversations, speakers use hand movements to signal meaning. But do listeners actually use these gestures to predict what someone might say next? In a study using virtual avatars, scientists show that listeners used the avatar's ...

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 by the infrastructure of the part of the brain that ...

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 of the limbic system) plays an important role in ...

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 them, especially with ...

Latest Headlines

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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 ...

PTSD Can Undermine Healthy Couple Communication When People Fear Their Emotions

Mar. 31, 2025 — Fear of emotions among couples with PTSD is associated with unproductive communication, according to a new ...

Can Online Games Be an Effective Intervention to Help Adolescents Reduce Substance Abuse?

Mar. 19, 2025 — For adolescents struggling with substance abuse, traditional in-person interventions such as counseling are not always effective, and rural areas ...

Why It's Good to Be Nostalgic: Study Suggests You May Have More Close Friends

Mar. 13, 2025 — Do you have lots of close friends -- and work hard to keep it that way? If you've answered 'yes', you are probably ...

How the Brain Uses 'Building Blocks' to Navigate Social Interactions

Mar. 12, 2025 — Our brains use basic 'building blocks' of information to keep track of how people interact, enabling us to navigate complex social interactions, finds a new ...

Retiring Abroad Puts Older Adults at Risk for Loneliness

Mar. 13, 2025 — Many people dream of retiring to a warmer, less expensive country. But retirees who move abroad may be at greater risk of loneliness than those who stay in their home country, according to new ...

Butterflies Choose Mates Because They Are More Attractive, Not Just Easier to See

Mar. 11, 2025 — A simple neural change alters mating preferences in male butterflies, aiding rapid behavioral evolution, researchers ...

Nearly 4 of 10 Americans Report Sports-Related Mistreatment

Mar. 4, 2025 — Nearly 40% of adult Americans say they've experienced some type of sport-related mistreatment in their lives, a new study shows. Mistreatment ranged from psychological and emotional to physical and ...

How Parenthood May Help Keep Your Brain Young

Feb. 26, 2025 — Researchers find that parents show patterns of brain connectivity that oppose age-related ...

Socially Dominant Individuals Are More Confident but Not Necessarily More Competent

Feb. 19, 2025 — Research has found that people who strive for dominance, whether in personal or professional life, are more confident in their decision-making but ...

Study Explores How Characteristics of Communications Networks Affect Development of Shared Social Identity, Group Performance

Mar. 25, 2025 — Researchers explored how the characteristics of communication networks in groups (i.e., density and centralization) affected the development of shared social identity and, as a result, group ...

Dating Is Not Broken, but the Trajectories of Relationships Have Changed

Feb. 12, 2025 — Surveys of college students conducted in 2012 and in 2022 found many similarities in their expectations about romantic relationships; however, they are now taking diverse paths through those ...

Ready (or Not) for Love? Your Friends Likely Agree

Feb. 10, 2025 — A new study found that friends significantly agreed on who was ready for committed relationships -- and who ...

The Truth May Hurt, but for Couples, It's Worth It

Feb. 5, 2025 — I LOVE YOU, YOU'RE PERFECT, NOW CHANGE: A new study of more than 200 couples finds that being honest when expressing a desire for change leads to greater personal and relationship well-being for ...

Being Social May Delay Dementia Onset by Five Years

Jan. 30, 2025 — Being more social by visiting friends, attending parties and going to church may help keep your brain healthy, according to new ...

Risk of Domestic Abuse Increases Over Time for Those Exposed to Childhood Maltreatment

Jan. 6, 2025 — The risk of experiencing intimate partner violence may accumulate over time among people who experienced childhood maltreatment when they were younger, finds a new ...

Loneliness Linked to Higher Risk of Heart Disease and Stroke and Susceptibility to Infection

Jan. 3, 2025 — Interactions with friends and family may keep us healthy because they boost our immune system and reduce our risk of diseases such as heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes, new research suggests. ...

Singles Differ in Personality Traits and Life Satisfaction Compared to Partnered People

Dec. 26, 2024 — New research finds that lifelong singles have lower life satisfaction scores compared to those in ...

Tracking Other People's Minds in Communication

Dec. 18, 2024 — Language and social cognition are fundamental to human communication. But how do these capacities interact? In a review paper, researchers show how language and social cognition are integrated in ...

Research Shows Solitude Is Better for Your Health When It's Not Too Intense

Dec. 17, 2024 — Hiking by yourself deep in a forest and similar episodes of intense solitude are not as likely to restore energy and enhance social connectedness as less complete forms of solitude, such as reading ...

Breaking Barriers: Study Uses AI to Interpret American Sign Language in Real-Time

Dec. 16, 2024 — A study is the first-of-its-kind to recognize American Sign Language (ASL) alphabet gestures using computer vision. Researchers developed a custom dataset of 29,820 static images of ASL hand ...

Emoji Use May Depend on Emotional Intelligence and Attachment Style

Dec. 6, 2024 — Higher emotional intelligence is linked to more emoji use with friends, while avoidant attachment is associated with less emoji use with friends and dating or romantic partners, according to a new ...

Language Used by Mothers Affects Oxytocin Levels of Infants

Nov. 25, 2024 — Infants whose mothers regularly use language to describe what their child is thinking or feeling, have higher levels of the hormone oxytocin, finds a new ...

Social Networked Friendship Quality Can Be Means of Combating Loneliness

Nov. 25, 2024 — Spending too much time social networking appears to be a key driver in loneliness, but a new article suggests motivated uses of social networking sites for connecting with people and feeling ...

Social Isolation, Loneliness and Frailty in Older Adults Have a Complex and Sometimes Mutually Reinforcing Relationship

Nov. 14, 2024 — A new article examines how social isolation, loneliness and frailty affect one another and the bidirectional relationship they exert as an individual gets older. hey found that physical frailty can ...

Depression Rates in LGBTQIA+ Students Are Three Times Higher Than Their Peers, New Research Suggests

Nov. 13, 2024 — New findings uncover an alarming rise in depression rates among all higher education students in the United States, but especially among sexual and gender ...

Stress Is Contagious -- For Animals, Too

Nov. 13, 2024 — What happens to animals when their friends are stressed? Is it possible to document the spread of stress within groups of ...

How to Reduce Social Media Stress by Leaning in Instead of Logging Off

Nov. 13, 2024 — Young people's mental health may depend on how they use social media, rather than how much time they spend using it. Psychology researchers tried an experiment with three groups. They asked one ...

Oct. 30, 2024 — In common marmosets, the brain regions that process social interactions develop very slowly, extending until early adulthood, like in humans. During this time, all group members are involved in ...

New Study Finds Partner's Happiness Linked to Lower Stress Hormone Levels in Older Couples

Oct. 22, 2024 — Having happy intimate partners might not only lift our moods, but it also helps us manage stress, especially as we age, according to new research. When comparing individuals' self-reported ...