EurekAlert! News by Subject: Social & Behavior

Social & Behavior

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 21-Jun-2026 03:16 ET (21-Jun-2026 07:16 GMT/UTC)

3-Feb-2026

Education matters more than income to reduce premature adult mortality in India

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
Peer-Reviewed Publication

IIASA researchers explored why mortality among adults of working age remains high in India alongside rapid economic growth, finding that education – at both individual and community levels – is more strongly associated with lower premature mortality than income or household wealth.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

3-Feb-2026

The possible applications of olive pomace: a study reveals the most sustainable option

University of Córdoba
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The extraction of olive pomace oil is cited as the most sustainable alternative for the recovery of the olive oil industry’s byproducts, according to a methodology developed by the UCO that considers economic, environmental and social indicators.

Journal: Business Strategy and the Environment

3-Feb-2026

Psilocybin shows context-dependent effects on social behavior and inflammation in female mice modeling anorexia

Genomic Press
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers discovered that psilocybin produces subtle, context-dependent effects on social behavior and IL-6 mediated inflammation in female mice. Activity-based anorexia (ABA) mice exhibited heightened novelty-seeking distinct from food restriction alone.

Journal: Psychedelics
Funder: National Health and Medical Research Council, Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute Graduate Scholarship (MBio)

3-Feb-2026

Mental health crisis: Global surveys expose who falls through the cracks and how to catch them

Genomic Press
Reports and Proceedings

Dr. Ronald C. Kessler of Harvard Medical School explores his leadership of global psychiatric epidemiology. His surveys across 30+ countries established frameworks that guide mental health policy worldwide.

Journal: Genomic Psychiatry

3-Feb-2026

Landmark study to explore whether noise levels in nurseries affect babies’ language development

University of East London
Business Announcement

Nearly two million children in the UK experience early language delays, with rates significantly higher among children from disadvantaged backgrounds. A major new research project led by the University of East London’s Institute for the Science of Early Years, supported by the Nuffield Foundation, will investigate whether background noise in nurseries is a hidden but critical factor affecting early language development. Using wearable technology to track children’s communication in real time, the first-of-its-kind study will explore how everyday nursery sound environments influence learning and test simple, low-cost interventions to improve outcomes. The research aims to inform Early Years practice, nursery design, workforce training, and national policy—helping to give every child the best possible start in life.

Funder: Nuffield Foundation

2-Feb-2026

Does artificial intelligence understand word impressions like humans do?

The University of Osaka
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers from The University of Osaka compared psychological ratings of various words from humans and large language models (LLMs) along different dimensions in order to compare the ways in which they conceptualize words. Human and LLM ratings aligned closely for some attributes (such as concreteness) but diverged significantly for others (such as iconicity). This work reveals which linguistic features may be reliably estimated using LLMs.

Journal: Behavior Research Methods
Funder: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science

2-Feb-2026

Study finds banning energy disconnections shouldn’t destabilise markets

RMIT University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Approaches by some European countries and Australia to protect energy consumers could help countries worldwide phase out harmful electricity disconnections without destabilising power markets, new research has found.

Journal: Energy Research & Social Science
Funder: Energy Consumers Australia, Instituto Ramón y Cajal de Investigación Sanitaria