Life News (Social & Behavioral Sciences)

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Smoking rates among secondary school students have started to turn downward.

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University of Michigan scientists conclude in their 1998 national survey that illicit drug use by this population is finally heading down after six years of steady increases.

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While members of the U.S. Senate struggle with what to do with the impeachment papers Congress passed on, one politics professor says the Clinton affair is small stuff compared to Watergate and Iran-Contra.

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Two thirds of Lutheran social ministry agencies nationwide report increased requests for services in the wake of government welfare reform. Those are among the conclusions of a report, "The Impact of Welfare Reform on Lutheran Social Ministry Organization."

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Johns Hopkins political scientist and constitutional law scholar Joel Grossman is available to comment on impeachment proceedings.

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Johns Hopkins graduate students completing a 13-week study recommend urban revitalization strategies and better data collection to Baltimore officials.

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A four-year, $19 million project will study the impact of welfare reform on children and their families.

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Increased punishment of juveniles reduces the amount of crime they commit in a way similiar to the impact punishment has for adults, according to a new paper by a University of Chicago economist.

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A University at Buffalo study, the first to use Positron Emission Tomography (PET) to compare the cognitive functions of men and women has found definitive evidence that although in many respects male and female brains operate in much the same way, they function differently when performing complex linguistic tasks.

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While an occasional bout of anxiety is normal, people who are particularly sensitive to anxiety symptoms run a greater risk of developing psychological problems or even physical illness, new research at Ohio State suggests.

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Contrary to common belief, most youths who refuse offers to join a gang do so without suffering serious physical harm, according to a new Ohio State study of gangs in four cities (Denver and Aurora, Colo., Broward Co., Fla. and Cleveland, Ohio.)

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Adolescent reproductive behavior cannot be understood and modified without an understanding of the social pressures that shape it--the societal and familial forces that pressure girls into involuntary and unprotected sexual relations and early childbearing. "The Uncharted Passage: Girls' Adolescence in the Developing World" explores these gender issues.

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Staring and squirming by infants might not be as random or meaningless as they seem, says a Cornell University developmental psychologist. Rather, the link between the two could prevent infants from getting visually stuck, and allow them to "visually forage" the environment.

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University academic programs typically build slowly, one steady step at a time. The Jewish studies program at the University of Illinois started typically enough nearly 20 years ago, but in the last year it has made a "great leap forward."

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Women may have been saying it for years but two male clinical psychologists have written the book that also says it loud and clear: Let's Face It, Men Are @$$#%¢$.

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On Jan. 1, 1999, thousands of welfare recipients are scheduled to be taken off the rolls as the impacts of welfare reform begin to be felt nationwide. This is a list of Johns Hopkins University experts on various aspects of the welfare reform story.

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As new governors and elected officials prepare to take office at the beginning of the year, people may notice that many have new outlooks on politics that vary from the conventional attitudes politicians have had in the past. They are part of a new political culture, detailed in a new book, The New Political Culture, by Terry Nichols Clark, Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago.

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Ever found yourself buying more in the store than you intended to? You can blame the music. Did you know that a Christmas card might say more about you than you intend? Here are some story ideas for the Holiday season from the University of Kansas.

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The holiday season may be the first opportunity that some parents get to see first-year students who have left for college. While sharing presents and catching up on family news, parents may want to look for signs of health problems their students may have, say campus health officials at Southern Methodist University.

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Why is Calista Flockhart, star of the television show Ally McBeal so thin? While only she knows for sure, part of the reason her waif-like thinness is "in" can be traced to a strong American hostility toward fat, says a social historian at Carnegie Mellon University who is the author of "Fat History."

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The vast majority of working people are not satisfied with the amount of money they expect to have for retirement, according to research by a Purdue University expert.

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One of the hottest new academic fields can now "go by the book" -- the textbook, that is. The first documentary history of gender in the United States has hit the bookstores.

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You think you're just giving a gift, right? A simple act, no big deal. Researchers have news for you: It is a big deal. That gift could make or break your relationship with the recipient -- depending on the quality of the relationship at the time the gift is offered.

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Current U.S. immigration policies threaten fundamental democratic principles, say the contributors to a new book who assert that immigrants--both legal and undocumented--are entitled to basic civil rights when they cross the border into the United States.

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Last year George Soros' Open Society Institute gave a three-year, $600,000 grant to Emory University's Barkley Forum debate program to serve as a model and mentor for inner city school debate programs around the country in an effort to prevent youth violence and boost academic.

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Students taking part in "The Poverty Project" in a Wake Forest University sociology class were assigned fictional families of different socioeconomic classes, from a two-parent,upper-income family to a single-parent, welfare family. They had to find jobs, housing and day care for their families. and day care for their families.

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As holidays with their emphasis on families approach, a new poll finds support for Covenant marriages growing. Respondents believe covenant marriages strengthen families, are better for children and last longer.

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Self-beliefs play a critical role in academic success, according to an assistant professor of educational studies at Emory University. Also the co-author of the forthcoming book "Self-Beliefs and School Success," he offers the following advice for parents and students to maximize success.

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Sexual abuse of boys appears to be underrecognized, underreported, and undertreated, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

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A new nationwide study at Ohio State University refutes the theory that children in single-mother households are disadvantaged because they lack the presence of a father.

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Violent television programming impedes the viewer's memory of the commercial messages run during the program, according to new research in the December issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, published by the American Psychological Association.

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A major illness or disability often not only changes everything for an individual who has gone through such and event. It also can likely disrupt that person's relationships, according to research at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

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Copycat offenders rarely have a political message when they commit an act such as the recent anthrax letter scares, according to a Ball State University professor.

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Giving a puppy or kitten to a child as a Christmas present is not in the best interest of the youngster or the animal, says a Ball State University psychologist.

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An archivist at the University at Buffalo, speaks for an international network of archivists when he says that because of the explosion in information technologies, the late 20th century will be one of the worst-documented periods in history.

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Prejudice strikes most people as a learned behavior, but a study of grade school kids exposes prejudice as a much cagier beast, waiting to rear its head at the slightest provocation, according to a UW-Madison psychology professor.

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New research finds that HIV-positive gay men who find meaning from the death of a partner or close friend to AIDS may have improved immune functioning and live longer than HIV-positive gay men who are less successful in coping with this type of loss, according to UCLA researchers.

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The University of Chicago has received a $5 million endowment gift from Irving B. Harris to establish the Center for Human Potential and Public Policy.

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In contrast to research saying that parents are not important in determining teens' behavior,a new study shows a strong connection between teens' relationship with their parents and how they interact with peers. Teens who do not feel close to their parents do not respond to firm discipline, the study also shows.

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A little change in attitude can calm the butterflies in your stomach before a job interview or business presentation, says a Purdue communications professor.

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A series of experiments that a professor of psychology at the University of Connecticut, has conducted suggest that very often first impressions have a surprising degree of validity.

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Temple University has a number of faculty experts who are available to comment on the developing crisis in the Middle East.

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The aggressive marketing and promotion of infant formula in this country and worldwide violate a basic human right of mothers and babies to give and receive breastmilk, and endangers health of infants worldwide, says Michael Latham, M.D., MPH, professor of nutritional sciences at Cornell University. He called for legislation to curb industry marketing practices to promote formula and to institute warning labels outlining the major hazards related to not breastfeeding.

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The brutal murders of a gay man in Wyoming and an African-American man in Texas earlier this year are forcing many states to expand or add anti-hate crimes laws, says a Ball State University educator.

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The woman who arranged Oscar Schindler's emigration to Argentina and who herself was intimately involved in some of the earliest efforts to aid victims of the Nazis has written a history of what she considers to be the greatest communal humanitarian effort in the history of Anglo-Jewry. Marked by heroism, generosity and grinding hard work, the effort "resulted in the saving of thousands of lives," writes Amy Zahl Gottlieb.

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Convited sexual offenders who are in their 40s, married and who earn at least $11 per hour are most likely to make it through half-way house treatment programs.

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A recent study of 400 divorcing couples contains a number of surprising findings about divorce, among them the conclusion that there is little difference in how fathers and mothers fare economically after divorce, contradicting earlier studies. A new book, Divorced Dads: Shattering the Myths claims to correct past data errors.

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Middle and high school students who participate in sports express less hostility toward their classmates and are more likely to graduate from high school and go on to college, according to the preliminary results of an ongoing national study.

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American children spend 1.3 hours a week reading, 1.7 hours studying, and 12 hours a week---one- quarter of their free time---watching television, according to a University of Michigan study that provides the first look since 1981 at how U.S. children spend their time.

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People who feel as if their hearts are beating louder than thunder with every severe storm watch and warning may have help in dealing with their fear of severe weather, thanks to a unique project that teams a University of Iowa professor and a noted Iowa meteorologist.