TL;DR: A 2025 study in Evolution and Human Behavior found that both men and women reported the strongest romantic jealousy when a partner actively gave most of a money allocation to an opposite-sex rival. Key Findings Partner investment was the strongest trigger: Jealousy rose most when participants saw their partner give 75% of the available …
TL;DR: A 2026 study in Social Psychology found that a female professor and a male professor produced almost identical obedience in a modern Milgram-style replication, suggesting professional authority mattered more than the authority figure’s gender. Key Findings Authority gender: 88% of participants obeyed every instruction from a female professor, versus 90% with a male professor. …
TL;DR: A 2024 study in Journal of Political Ideologies linked perceived grievance, a belief that society is structured around group-based oppression, with left-wing authoritarianism through psychological distress and individualizing moral concerns. Key Findings Grievance link: Perceived grievance was the strongest direct predictor of left-wing authoritarianism in the tested model. Distress pathway: Depression, anxiety, and stress …
TL;DR: A 2026 study in Journal of Macromarketing found that middle-aged women who were more satisfied with available clothing options reported better mental well-being, partly because they were less likely to avoid social situations over appearance distress. Key Findings Study sample: 252 UK women ages 38 to 67 completed surveys on clothing satisfaction, well-being, aging …
TL;DR: A 2026 study in Journal of Applied Social Psychology found that women with strong feminist identification criticized idealized beauty images more sharply, but that critique did not protect their momentary body satisfaction after seeing the images. Key Findings Media exposure: 433 women viewed either 15 idealized model images or a matched set of more …
TL;DR: A 2026 longitudinal study in Acta Sociologica found that partnered fathers who perceived a higher risk of divorce showed greater declines in political trust over time, especially when the worry persisted. Key Findings Father-specific link: Perceived divorce risk predicted declining political trust among partnered men with children. No broad effect: The same pattern was …
TL;DR: A 2026 study in Evolutionary Psychological Science linked more conservative social attitudes with a slightly higher reported number of biological children across 72 countries, with stronger patterns for women on some attitude measures. Key Findings Cross-national sample: the final analytic sample covered 78,754 adults from 72 countries after missing-data and country-size exclusions. Conservative attitude …
TL;DR: A 2026 mouse study in Communications Biology found that activating parvalbumin (PV) interneurons, inhibitory nerve cells in the orbitofrontal cortex, reduced default mode network connectivity and decreased normal social approach and sniffing behavior. Key Findings PV interneurons were targeted: Researchers used PV-Cre mice and a chemogenetic DREADD receptor to activate inhibitory PV interneurons in …
TL;DR: A 2026 study in The Journal of Sex Research found that teenage daughters’ own humor during sexuality conversations was linked to more open mother-daughter communication and higher sexual well-being, while mothers’ humor was linked to less openness from daughters. Key Findings 98 mother-daughter pairs: Researchers analyzed confidential survey data from Israeli mothers and teenage …
TL;DR: A 2026 MIDUS mediation study in Brain, Behavior, & Immunity – Health found that social asymmetry was associated with greater chronic disease burden, while chronic disease burden mediated links between social asymmetry and episodic memory and executive function, while allostatic load did not. Key Findings Study type: a structural equation modeling study of social …
