Social Sciences

New research by a group of economists and psychology researchers at the University of Warwick reveals that our rank position within an organisation has a bigger effect on our happiness within that job than the happiness generated by our actual level of pay. In short being top dog makes us happier than simply getting top dollar.

The researchers, University of Warwick Economists Professor Andrew Oswald and Dr Jonathan.Gardner (Joanthan now with Watson Wyatt) and University of Warwick psycholo

Girls who go through puberty earlier than their peers are more likely to be involved in delinquency, but not for the reasons often suspected, according to a new study.

Researchers had long speculated that early-developing girls were nudged into delinquency because they had more older friends, and more male friends.

But, instead, new research suggests that the key factors appear to be the fact that these girls are dating and that they have more friends – regardless of age – w

Twelve-month-old infants can use previous observations as a basis to understand new interactions, although five-month-olds cannot, according to a Yale study.

“This finding shows not only that one-year-old infants are paying attention to the actions of others, but that they can focus on a behavior in one scene and use that information to interpret behavior in a different scene,” said Valerie Kuhlmeier, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Psychology and lead author of the study

Allowing sex selection for social reasons would be highly unlikely to skew the gender balance – at least in Germany and the UK – according to new research published today (Thursday 25 September) in Europe’s leading reproductive medicine journal Human Reproduction[1].

Surveys of more than 1,000 men and women in each country did reveal differences between the two countries, with the British expressing stronger gender preferences and the Germans being more relaxed about the sex of their

Using a video game featuring a yellow taxi, virtual city and human players with electrodes embedded in their memory banks, neuroscientists at UCLA and Brandeis University have discovered how three types of brain cells interact to help people navigate the real world.

Published in the Sept. 11 edition of the peer-reviewed journal Nature, the findings offer unique information about how human memory works and present new avenues of investigation for treatment of memory disorders such as Alzheim

Both fathers and mothers have distressing thoughts after the birth of a baby, according to a new Mayo Clinic study published in the Sept. 3 issue of the Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings.

In a survey mailed to 300 childbearing women and their partners, participants were asked to report distressing thoughts, such as “My baby is going to die from SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome)” or “What if I drown my baby while bathing her?” Overall, seven categories of thoughts were st