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Stress, Poverty, and Ethnicity Linked Among Young Parents
An avalanche of chronic stress — driven by concerns ranging from parenting to discrimination — disproportionately affects poor mothers and fathers, according to the first results from a comprehensive multi-state study. "Those who are poor have much higher stress than those who are not. In fact, being poor was associated with more of almost every kind of stress," said lead researcher Chris Dunkel Schetter, a professor of psychology in UCLA's College of Letters and Science. The report found that although people with higher incomes have lower levels of stress overall, stress levels aren't reduced as much for higher-income African-Americans as they are for higher-income whites.
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Women Find Sexually Explicit Ads Unappealing — Unless the Price Is Right
Sexual imagery is often used in magazine and TV ads, presumably to help entice buyers to purchase a new product. But new research suggests that women tend to find ads with sexual imagery off-putting, unless the advertised item is priced high enough. The findings, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, reveal that women’s otherwise negative attitudes about sexual imagery can be softened when the images are paired with a product that connotes high worth.
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Our Pupils Adjust as We Imagine Bright and Dark Scenes
Conjuring up a visual image in the mind -- like a sunny day or a night sky -- has a corresponding effect on the size of our pupils, as if we were actually seeing the image, according to new research. These findings, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggest that the size of our pupils is not simply a mechanistic response, but one that also adjusts to a subjective sense of brightness. “Visual imagery is a private and subjective experience which is not accompanied by strongly felt or visible physiological changes,” explains psychological scientist and lead researcher Bruno Laeng of the University of Oslo.
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To Boost Concern for the Environment, Emphasize a Long Future, Not Impending Doom
Researchers find that one strong way to encourage environmentally-friendly behavior is to emphasize the long life expectancy of a nation, and not necessarily its imminent downfall.
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New Research From Clinical Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Clinical Psychological Science: The Geography of Intimate Partner Abuse Experiences and Clinical Responses Anne P. DePrince, Susan E. Buckingham, and Joanne Belknap Studies examining the effects of intimate-partner abuse (IPA) often focus specifically on the victim; fewer studies examine the effect of ecological factors in victims' responses to IPA. Ethnically diverse women who had been the victims in police-reported IPA cases were assessed for incident severity, incident-related fear, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. The researchers also collected information characterizing the communities in which the IPA incidents occurred.
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Experiencing Awe Increases Belief in the Supernatural
Awe-inspiring moments -- like the sight of the Grand Canyon or the Aurora Borealis -- might increase our tendency to believe in God and the supernatural, according to new research. The new findings -- published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science -- suggest that awe-inspiring sights increase our motivation to make sense of the world around us, and may underlie a trigger of belief in the supernatural.
