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The Remarkable Power of Holding Hands With Someone You Love
Q: I’m curious why humans hold hands. Is there a biological reason it’s such a common part of relationships across so many cultures? A: Holding hands exerts striking effects on our emotional state, especially when it’s with a romantic partner: It can help lower blood pressure, reduce pain and buffer stressful experiences. A 2021 experiment confirmed the soothing effect of holding a spouse’s hand while watching scenes from horror films such as “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” The simple gesture can limit the impact stress has on our autonomic nervous system, which regulates unconscious bodily functions such as pupil dilation.
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We All Love to Be Loved, But Women May Experience Love More Frequently than Men
Conventional wisdom holds that men and women approach romance differently. But new research suggests that love is important for well-being regardless of gender—and the differences that do exist may hint at the evolutionary basis of love.
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Seven Early-Career Researchers Honored With 2024 APS Janet Taylor Spence Award
The seven recipients are honored for cutting-edge research on topics ranging from self-regulation to collective emotions to multicultural experiences.
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Community Engagement in Psychological Research
Podcast: As experts in the field, Patricia Rodriguez Espinosa and Luz Garcini share their ideas and best practices about how to center community voices in psychological research.
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Finding It Tough to Motivate Yourself? These Strategies Can Help.
Many people think that motivation is the key to changing habits — and that you either have it or you don’t. But motivation is not a psychological trait or personality characteristic. It’s something you can cultivate. “It’s about setting yourself up for success,” said behavioral scientist Katy Milkman, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and author of the book “How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be.” “Create an environment that’s conducive to making the choices you want to make.
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Love Languages Are Fake, Scientists Say
The concept of "love languages," first theorized by a Baptist preacher in the early 90s, has had a vice grip on pop psychology for decades — but now, some scientists are calling bull. In a new paper published in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science, researchers from the University of Toronto Mississauga took on the public's "obsession with love languages." They found, per their close reading of ten relationship science studies, that there just isn't a lot of "strong empirical support" for the theory. ...
