Life News (Social & Behavioral Sciences)

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Young adult men who viewed alcohol warning labels experienced a lower activation of the reward circuits in their brains when the warnings were larger and involved pictures, compared to more familiar small-text warnings, in a first-of-its-type study. The findings could inform more effective messaging on alcohol-containing beverages and advertisements. Despite recommendations from the World Health Organization and European Commission that warning labels be included on alcoholic products, few countries have implemented alcohol warning policies comparable to their approach to tobacco. Alcohol warnings are typically small, text-only messages. Research has been equivocal about their impact on drinking and whether incorporating pictures would increase their effectiveness, in part because most studies have relied on participants’ self-reported reactions. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has demonstrated variations in brain activation in response to varying types of tobacco warnings

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Video game performers in Hollywood voted to go on strike against gaming companies on Thursday, putting voice acting, motion-capture work, stunts and more that appear in video games to a halt.

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Antidepressants may reduce the risk of relapse in people with alcohol use disorder—but only if the antidepressants are effective in reducing their depression symptoms. People whose depression symptoms do not improve with antidepressant treatment may have an increased risk for relapse into problem alcohol use.

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Dr. Madhukar Trivedi from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center highlights the need to notice small changes in behavior, mood, and daily activities that might signal the start of depression or other mental health issues.

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Indigenous people brought a native potato to southern Utah, adding to the list of culturally significant plant species that pre-contact cultures domesticated in the Southwestern U.S. Genetic analysis revealed Solanum jamesii had been collected, transported and traded throughout the Colorado Plateau.

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New study demonstrates an effective way of curbing the spread of misinformation online. ...

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Children who try alcohol may experience mental health and personality effects as they transition to early adolescence. An analysis of alcohol sampling behavior in children ages 9 to 14, published in Alcohol: Clinical and Experimental Research, found that children who had poor response inhibition and increased alcohol sipping behaviors might be more likely to have accelerated changes in personality traits and depression scores over time. The study suggests that even minimal alcohol experimentation in early adolescence may influence later alcohol use as well as personality and mental health issues.

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People don’t experience food insecurity the same way. Often, it's the mothers who first change their eating habits when food runs low to shield others, especially children, from its effects. To find out what is needed to help everyone have enough to eat, Virginia Tech researchers conducted a study with low-income moms and caregivers.

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New research* from the University of South Australia shows that people who have suffered child abuse or neglect are three times more likely to access government income support payments in early adulthood, underlining the costly and long-term effects of adverse early life experiences.

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In a first-of-its-kind study from the University of California San Diego Rady School of Management, researchers have identified comprehensive insights into the positive and negative impacts of online gambling legalization on tax revenue and gambling behaviors in the U.S.

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39% of U.S. adults say they worry most or all of the time that their family’s income won’t be enough to meet expenses, which is up from 28% in December of 2021. ...

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As a discipline, psychology prides itself on helping people improve their lives. However, the field of psychology has had a long history of committing harm against people of color, and psychologists must work to dismantle racism within the field, according to a special issue of the American Psychological Association’s journal American Psychologist.