EurekAlert! News by Subject: Social & Behavior - News by Subject: Social & Behavior

Social & Behavior

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 15-Nov-2025 12:11 ET (15-Nov-2025 17:11 GMT/UTC)

Short fasts do not impair thinking ability in healthy adults

American Psychological Association
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Skipping breakfast or practicing intermittent fasting is unlikely to cloud most adults’ thinking in the short term, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

Journal: Psychological Bulletin

Professor Agnes Binagwaho receives Cameron Award for Population Health

RCSI
Business Announcement

RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences has presented the Cameron Award for Population Health to Professor Agnes Binagwaho, co-founder and former Vice Chancellor of the University of Global Health Equity (UGHE) in Rwanda.

The amount of time students spend on the school bus affects their academic engagement with the school, their classmates and their teachers

Universitat Jaume I
Peer-Reviewed Publication

According to data from the National Statistics Institute, 24 million school transport journeys take place in Spain every year. A team of professors from the Universitat Jaume I of Castelló has conducted a study showing that the time students spend traveling to their schools, especially on long bus rides, can negatively affect their academic engagement. This lower engagement can also have emotional and social consequences.

The data revealed that students who spend more time commuting report lower engagement than those who arrive sooner. Engagement is understood as the student’s involvement or connection with their academic goals, and it comprises three different but interrelated dimensions: affective-emotional, cognitive and behavioral. In the case of secondary and upper secondary students, it is important to consider that they face numerous challenges, which require developing skills and competencies that enhance their learning, an aspect closely linked to academic engagement.

“We believe they experience a more negative relationship with their place of study, which may affect their interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers (affective-emotional engagement), their psychological involvement in the teaching and learning process—such as motivation to learn, expectations, or the effort to understand complex ideas and skills (cognitive engagement)—and their overall participation and effort (behavioral engagement)”, the researchers explain.

How HIV disrupts sleep across Africa

University of the Witwatersrand
Peer-Reviewed Publication

HIV can throw the body clock off balance, leaving many people living with the virus in a constant state of “jet lag,” according to a new study in The Lancet HIV involving Wits University researchers.

The study—co-authored by Professors Xavier Gómez-Olivé and Karine Scheuermaier—found that people living with HIV (PLWHIV) experience higher rates of fragmented, non-restorative sleep even when their virus is well controlled. These disruptions are linked to increased risks of heart disease, depression, and cognitive decline. The study identifies biological and social contributors—from immune activation and treatment side effects to stress, stigma, and unsafe environments—and proposes a four-step clinical pathway that any healthcare provider can apply.

Journal: The Lancet HIV

Painting memory: Lithuanian researchers explore how street art shapes urban identity

Kaunas University of Technology
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) linguists have analysed murals in Lithuania’s second-largest city as elements of a “linguistic landscape” – a concept that views language as both visual and spatial. Their study reveals that street art in Kaunas acts as a form of cultural activism and collective memory, blending languages, images, and historical narratives.

Journal: Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

The sense and nonsense of food supplements

BfR Federal Institute for Risk Assessment
Reports and Proceedings

Doctor’s offices, friends or social media – does it make a difference where consumers obtain information about food supplements? According to a recent survey by the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), people who obtain information via social media take a greater number of different supplements and rate them more positively overall than people who obtain information from other sources. The study on the use and perception of food supplements in the context of social media is one of numerous articles published as part of the main topic “Micronutrients” in the current issue of the Federal Health Gazette (Bundesgesundheitsblatt). The magazine provides science-based insights into food supplements, among other things, and explains the complex relationships between their benefits and possible risks in an understandable way. “Social media also plays an important role in health communication nowadays, but the information found there is not always technically accurate,” says BfR President Professor Andreas Hensel. “For example, the majority of respondents mistakenly assume that food supplements are over-the-counter medicines, and almost half believe that they are tested for safety before they go on sale.” The special issue summarises the current state of scientific knowledge and provides important guidance in this complex subject area.

Social interactions help to form lasting memories, NUS Medicine study finds

National University of Singapore, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine
Peer-Reviewed Publication

New findings underscore the importance of regular social interactions in life, shedding light on the strong link between loneliness and sustained social isolation to memory decline and conditions such as dementia, and why social and memory impairments often co-occur in psychiatric disorders.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

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