Healthy older people living with a partner feel they have the highest quality of life, whilst those in residential homes are likely to report the poorest, according to new research funded by the Economic & Social Research Council as part of its Growing Older Programme.
A three-year-long study of residents aged between 65 and 98 in the London Borough of Wandsworth was carried out by a team led by Professor Graham Beaumont and Dr Pamela Kenealy of the University of Surrey Roehampton and the R
The bereaved family and friends of cancer patients who die by euthanasia have less grief symptoms and post-traumatic stress reactions than the bereaved of comparable cancer patients who die a natural death, finds a study in this week’s BMJ.
Researchers from the Netherlands assessed 189 bereaved family members and close friends of terminally ill cancer patients who died by euthanasia and 316 bereaved family members and close friends of comparable cancer patients who died a natural dea
People are becoming more tolerant of the use of cannabis, but there are still clear limits to what is acceptable in the area of illegal drug-taking, according to new research funded by the ESRC.
Views about cannabis have shifted considerably over the past two decades, with 41 per cent of Britons now supporting its legalisation – up from just 12 per cent in 1983. However, very few (eight per cent) endorse the view that adults should be free to take any drugs they wish, says the report into
Sexual jokes, suggestive glances, and other forms of gender and sexual harassment may be funny to writers, producers and viewers of workplace-based situation comedies, but Penn State researcher Beth Montemurro says they are far from a laughing matter.
Montemurro, assistant professor of sociology, studied five such programs on the NBC television network – Veronica’s Closet, News Radio, Working, Just Shoot Me and Suddenly Susan – during 1997 and 1998 to see just how prevalent gender and sexua
When you nod your head to signal approval or shake your head to show disapproval, it’s not just sending a message to others – you may also be influencing yourself.
A new study showed that these simple movements influenced people’s agreement with an editorial they heard while nodding or shaking their head. Researchers found that other body movements – such as writing with a non-dominant hand – can also influence attitudes, even about important issues such as self-esteem.
And
Policies like the London Plan, which are designed to shape the cities of the future, are based on outdated assumptions about the way people live and work, according to research funded by the Economic & Social Research Council.
“There is a great deal of talk about ‘joined-up thinking’’ about transport, housing and other policies,” says project leader Dr Helen Jarvis, “but in practice householders are having to fire-fight in a climate where planners and policymakers are not up to date.”
MGH imaging study finds differences in brain area responsible for vigilance
A key area in the brains of people who displayed an inhibited temperament as toddlers shows a greater response to new faces than does the same brain area in adults who were uninhibited early in life, according to a study by researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). The imaging studies of the amygdala – a part of the brain that responds to events requiring extra vigilance – appear in the June 20 i
People facing economic hard times are more likely to vote when they believe government is at fault
Contrary to previous research indicating that people who are enduring financial hardship are less likely to vote, a study at Rice University suggests this is not always the case.
“Data from the American National Election Studies demonstrate that those facing economic adversity are more likely to vote when they blame the government for economic outcomes,” said Kevin Arceneaux, a poli
Three decades of research on men’s sexual arousal show patterns that clearly track sexual orientation — gay men overwhelmingly become sexually aroused by images of men and heterosexual men by images of women. In other words, men’s sexual arousal patterns seem obvious.
But a new Northwestern University study boosts the relatively limited research on women’s sexuality with a surprisingly different finding regarding women’s sexual arousal.
In contrast to men, both heterosexual and
UC Riverside Sociologists Say Men Likely to Have Better Behaved Children and Wives Who Find Them More Sexually Attractive
Dads deserve a day off on Sunday, June 15. But on every other day they should know that when they do housework with their children, their kids turn out to be better adjusted and more socially aware. And, their wives find them more attractive.
Sociologists Scott Coltrane and Michele Adams of the University of California, Riverside, looked at national surv
Men are from Mars and women are from Venus, or so we’ve been told, and when it comes to jealousy this is especially true. Men, psychologists have long contended, tend to care more about sexual infidelity while women usually react more strongly to emotional infidelity. This view has long been espoused by evolutionary psychologists who attribute these gender differences to natural selection, which, they say, encouraged the sexes to develop different emotional reactions to jealousy.
However, a
With the flexibility to check e-mail at home, get the kids ready for school, call your boss on the way to work, and text message your next appointment, the nature of work has changed. However, contrary to popular opinion, people who integrate their work and families are not always happier, Michigan State University researchers say.
Instead, Ellen Kossek, an MSU professor of Labor and Industrial Relations, found that people who establish boundaries between work and family are actually more
Television news programmes may be contributing to current political apathy, according to a new report funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. An in-depth study of more than 5600 TV news reports in both Britain and the US between September 2001 and February 2002 reveals that the news media may be encouraging a disengaged citizenry by representing the public as generally passive and apolitical.
“This study was prompted by growing concern about the poor and declining voter turnout
Children who frequently change schools are more likely than those who don’t to have behavioral health problems, according to a new Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center study.
The study, to be presented Sunday, May 4, at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies in Seattle, shows that school mobility is an independent predictor of behavioral problems – regardless of one’s race, income, maternal education level or any other factor measured in the study.
“Transit
Data compares blue collar workers and white collar workers
Men who work in female-dominated professions, such as clerks and classroom aides, are 47 percent more likely to lash out in violence against wives or live-in girlfriends than a control group of white-collar managers, according to a recent study by a sociologist at the University of California, Riverside.
That is just one of the surprises found by Scott Melzer, a postgraduate researcher, who used a national data set
People who live in neighborhoods where stores, schools and homes are within walking or cycling distance from each other make almost twice as many weekly trips on foot as residents of less “walkable” neighborhoods, according to new research.
And all that car-free traveling can add up to better health: One or two extra walking trips a week can burn off enough calories to drop nearly two pounds in a year, which is about how much weight American adults gain annually.
If a large propo
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