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New Research From Clinical Psychological Science
A sample of research on text messages and suicide prevention, reminders of trauma, trigger warnings, parental vs. job burnout, and attachment representations and anxiety.
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Five Years Ago, Love Won. Here’s How Research Helped Make That Progress Possible.
Five years ago today, the Supreme Court allowed same-sex marriage to become the law of the land when it struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as between one man and one woman. It was a victory built on generations of tireless advocacy, election day disappointments, and spurts of progress across the country. One of the key elements to winning this battle was research, notably that of UCLA psychologist Evelyn Hooker. In the 1940s and 50s, when gay men could be arrested just for being gay, Hooker bucked the norms of her era and studied them like any other subject. Her groundbreaking work showed that being gay was not a mental illness. It started with a friendship.
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The World’s Getting Better. Here’s Why Your Brain Can’t Believe It.
Life has improved for most people around the world over the past generation, temporary pandemics aside. The rub is that you can’t get anyone to believe the good news. And the result is a toxic political environment—and the potential collapse of democratic norms if too few people feel that a stressed system is worth saving. Those on the right tend to be certain that crime and unauthorized immigration are growing out of control, in the face of statistics showing the opposite.
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It’s an Angry Time, but It Can Also Be Energizing
... It’s an angry time, all right, with political polarization at record levels, cable news and social media monetizing outrage, and the pandemic, unemployment and fury over racial injustice heating the toxic emotional stew. Mental health experts worry about rising domestic violence and drug and alcohol abuse, warning that Americans urgently need better tools to calm emotional storms. Abundant research supports the adage that holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die. Study after study links simmering aggression with heart disease — the No. 1 killer of Americans before the pandemic.
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Women and Men Still Look for the Same Things in a Partner — 30 Years Later
New European research has found that despite the change in times, men and women all around the world still look for the same things when seeking a partner that they did three decades ago. Carried out by researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, the new study asked 14,399 heterosexual participants from 45 different countries to investigate how people select their partners. The researchers wanted to see if, after 30 years of social changes in equality and attitudes, the findings of a previous study carried out back in the 1980s by one of the team, psychologist David Buss, still held up.
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Worried About Your Kids’ Social Skills Post-Lockdown?
Before the coronavirus pandemic began, Michael Munson’s 3-year-old son saw a group of close friends at his preschool at least a few times a week. When he wasn’t in school, he and his 1-year-old sister often played with other kids at the park. But ever since much of the world shut down to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, the kids have been home with Munson and his wife, both lawyers, who take turns watching them while the other works. They have tried to connect their preschooler to friends through video chats hosted by his teacher, but his response was usually to withdraw, throw tantrums or run away from the screen.
