Social Sciences

New ASU study examines the factors that contribute toward children becoming overweight or obese in early adulthood

Parents have a strong influence over whether or not their children will become overweight or obese, and it’s not just their genes that they pass on.

Most significantly, when children grow up in families with bad eating habits and sedentary lifestyles dominated by television watching and video games, they are 33.3 percent more likely to become overweight or

Disaster research presented at the American Sociological Association Centennial Meeting

While it has long been assumed in the disaster research community that individuals with fewer resources are more likely to suffer in a disaster–and it is true that non-whites, the poor, and females often suffer more than their counterparts–the race-class-and-gender trinity of variables does not capture the entire spectrum in which disaster affects society. At the 2005 American Sociological A

Speakers Can Avoid Confusion for Listeners, Researchers Find

If someone told you to “put the apple in the basket on the table,” what would you do? Depending on how many apples and baskets are in your kitchen, it might not be clear. Would you move the apple in the basket to the table, or move the apple to the basket on the table? Had the speaker included the word “that’s” after the word “apple,” it would have eliminated any confusion. But people often fail to avoid such ambi

Working parents rely on a network of caregivers – a source of positive bonds, stress when childcare is insufficient or inflexible

Despite the long-cherished belief that the nuclear family is independent and self-sustaining, most families with working parents depend on a network of care to manage work and family demands, according to research by Brandeis University sociologist Karen Hansen. More than half of all U.S. households with young children have two employed parents.

If men thought they were frittering away money wining and dining a girl to win her hand, they should think again. Dr Peter Sozou and Professor Robert Seymour from University College London (UCL) have developed a mathematical model that shows how expensive but worthless gifts may help facilitate courtship.

Reporting in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B they analysed the function of a courtship gift and what the characteristics of a ‘good’ gift are.

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How alike are you and your husband or wife — or, you and your best friend? Probably more alike than you realize. A study of twins shows that people’s spouses and best friends are much more similar to them than was previously recognized — about as close as brothers and sisters. The research also suggested that the preference for partners who are similar to us is partly due to our genes.

The research was conducted by J. Philippe Rushton and Trudy Ann Bons of the University