News by Subject Social & Behavior

Older men may be at greater risk of contracting COVID-19 because they worry less about catching or dying from it, according to a new study by researchers at Georgia State University. This is a concern because older men are already more at risk of severe or fatal COVID-19 infections, and the study participants who were most worried about COVID-19 were also the most likely to have implemented protective behavior changes.

Professor Hannes Lohi's research group at the University of Helsinki has identified a new genomic region and anxiety-related candidate genes associated with fearfulness in dogs. Findings support their hypothesis that fearfulness and anxiety are hereditary traits in dogs, and there may be shared factors underlying anxiety in both humans and dogs.

A UC Davis MIND Institute study found that around 30% of young children with autism have less severe autism symptoms at age 6 than they did at age 3, with some children losing their autism diagnoses entirely. It also found that girls tend to show greater reduction and less rise in their autism symptom severity than boys with autism. Children with higher IQs were more likely to show a reduction in their symptoms.

A new study by researchers from Syracuse University and SUNY Upstate Medical University shows that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) are more likely to die from COVID-19 than those without IDD. The disparity -- 1,800 more deaths per 100,000 people diagnosed with COVID-19 -- is likely related to a higher prevalence of comorbid diseases among those with IDD, and/or a higher percentage of people with IDD are living in congregate residential settings.

Early exposure to anesthetics may make adolescents more susceptible to developing alcohol use disorder (AUD), according to new research from Binghamton University, State University of New York.

Symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety and insomnia among health care workers in Italy during the COVID-19 pandemic are reported in this observational study.

People who believe more strongly that depression is biologically caused also tend to think it is more severe and long lasting, compared to those who see less of a role for biological causes, a new Rutgers study finds.

Empowering people to intervene when they witness unacceptable behaviour can help to prevent domestic violence and abuse, a new study has found.

Yale researchers have found a neural home of the feeling of stress people experience, an insight that may help people deal with the debilitating sense of fear and anxiety that stress can evoke, Yale researchers report May 27 in the journal Nature Communications.