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Baby-Mother Bonds Affect Future Adult Relationships, Study Finds
LiveScience: A mother lode of bonding – or a lack thereof – between moms and young children can predict kids' behavior in romantic relationships decades later, a new study suggests. Adding to evidence that even preverbal memories are firmly imprinted on young psyches, researchers found that children who had been more securely attached to their mothers, now grown, did better at resolving relationship conflicts, recovering from those conflicts and enjoying stable, satisfying ties with their romantic partners in early adulthood. "It's often very difficult to find the lingering effects of early life being related to adult behavior, because life circumstances change," said study author Jeffry A.
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Sexual Cues: All It Takes Is A Smile?
Huffington Post: This just in: According to a study by WIlliams College psychologist Carin Perrilloux -- the results of which will be published in a forthcoming issue of Psychological Science -- men really aren't on to how the other sex thinks. Perilloux and her co-authors studied 200 heterosexual college students who were evenly split between the sexes and with an average age of 19 to gauge how each gender read the other's sexual cues. Here are their surprising findings: 1. The more attractive the woman was to the guy the more likely he was to rate her as interested in him! 2.
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Going through some hard times may make people tougher
Los Angeles Times: During the holidays people can experience an enormous amount of stress, even more so these days with a bad economy thrown in. But a study finds that having some adverse experiences in the past may make you mentally tougher. A meta-analysis of studies that looked at how traumatic events affect mental health and well-being found a pattern: The number of adverse experiences may determine whether someone becomes more resilient and better able to handle what life throws at him or her.
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How Pregnancy Changes a Woman’s Brain
We know a lot about the links between a pregnant mother’s health, behavior, and moods and her baby’s cognitive and psychological development once it is born. But how does pregnancy change a mother’s brain? “Pregnancy is a critical period for central nervous system development in mothers,” says psychologist Laura M. Glynn of Chapman University. “Yet we know virtually nothing about it.” Glynn and her colleague Curt A. Sandman, of University of the California Irvine, are doing something about that.
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Estimates in the Balance
The Wall Street Journal: Body posture can influence how we estimate such things as age and size, a study shows. Thirty-three undergraduates stood on a Wii Balance Board, a videogame-system accessory. Researchers surreptitiously manipulated the subjects' stances, slightly tilting them, though an onscreen measure misled the students into thinking they were evenly balanced. In each stance, students answered 13 questions, including the height of the Eiffel Tower, the size of the Netherlands and the life expectancy of a parrot. On average, participants gave smaller estimates when they leaned left than when they stood straight or leaned right—stances producing virtually identical results.
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Are Americans crazy for treating our pets like kids?
USA Today: The shopping frenzy has begun. Sweaters, toys and cushy new beds. All for "other" family members. The pets. The season of giving inevitably prompts pet lovers (53% of dog owners and 38% of cat owners) to gift their animals, often lavishly, says a survey by the American Pet Products Association. It also prompts the question: Is there something, well, weird about that? According to a Kelton Research survey commissioned by Milo's Kitchen pet treats: •81% regard their pets as full members of the family. •58% call themselves their pets' "mommy" or "daddy." •77% buy pets birthday gifts. •More than half say they talk about pets more than politics or sex. Read the full story: USA Today