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Michele W. Berger
Science News Officer
mwberger@upenn.edu
Psychology
Bigger brains are smarter, but not by much
Using a large dataset and controlling for a variety of factors, including sex, age, height, socioeconomic status, and genetic ancestry, Gideon Nave of the Wharton School and Philipp Koellinger of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam found that people with larger brains rated higher on measures of intelligence, but only accounts for two percent of the variation in smarts.
Social scientists trade academic silos for shared workspace
Faculty and grad students in the new Social and Behavioral Sciences Initiative have access to two state-of-the-art labs, grants, and a collaborative environment aimed at creating a vibrant research community.
Social media use increases depression and loneliness
Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram may not be great for personal well-being. For the first time, an experimental study shows a causal link between time spent on these social media and increased depression and loneliness.
New scholars named to promote research into the influence of gender on health
Melanie Kornides of the School of Nursing, Jennifer Lewey of the Perelman School of Medicine, and C. Alix Timko of Medicine and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia are pursuing research that examines the role of sex and gender on health, supported by the Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health program.
Linguistic red flags from Facebook posts can predict future depression diagnoses
The language people use in these social media posts can make these predictions as accurately as the tools clinicians use in medical settings to screen for the disease.
How parenting affects antisocial behaviors in children
In a recent study of the parental caregiving environment, psychologist Rebecca Waller found that within identical twin pairs, the child who experienced harsher behavior and less parental warmth was at a greater risk for developing antisocial behaviors.
How do stereotypes affect what people think is fair?
Stereotypes systematically affect what people think is fair, according to new research from psychologist Anna Jenkins. The findings make it possible to predict how people will treat members of different social groups.
Exploring the human propensity to cooperate
Working with a nomadic group in Tanzania, one of the last remaining nomadic hunter-gatherer populations, Penn psychologists show that cooperation is flexible, not fixed.
For the first time, a neural link between altruism and empathy toward strangers
Studying the brain activity of people who have donated a kidney to a stranger, psychologist Kristin Brethel-Haurwitz found a clear link between real-world altruism and empathy, particularly in regard to the pain and fear of strangers.
A squirmy, slimy, crunchy new potential staple of the American diet
Psychologist Paul Rozin discusses how it’s possible to get past the ick factor of eating bugs (the key is exposure), and how the insects actually taste. It’s all part of his research focusing on the emotion of disgust as it relates to food.
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In the News
Newsweek
What UFO ‘Encounters’ Can Tell Us About Fake News and Climate Change Denial
School of Arts and Sciences doctoral candidate Kate Dorsch’s research on the tensions between UFO witnesses and scientists speaks to contemporary challenges to confirmation biases.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
Racially-charged Situations Topic at Black History Month Event
Howard Stevenson of the Graduate School of Education gave a lecture on racial literacy and outlined steps for coping with racially charged conversations and situations.
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