EurekAlert! News by Subject: Social & Behavior

Social & Behavior

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 23-Oct-2026 11:17 ET (23-Oct-2026 15:17 GMT/UTC)

22-Sep-2026

Social media offers little substitute for real-life emotional support, research suggests

Oregon State University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Research suggests that social media may do little to substitute for the emotional support people receive from in-person relationships, and that the timing of social media use may matter for a person’s mental health.

Journal: Journal of General Internal Medicine

22-Sep-2026

How amateur naturalists are helping scientists track what everything eats

North Carolina State University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

An interdisciplinary team of researchers has created an open-source website to learn what different organisms eat, and what eats them. The site – called Who Eats Whom – draws on data from a worldwide citizen science platform and serves as both a valuable resource for ecological research and an educational tool to advance public understanding of the global food web.

Journal: PLOS Biology

22-Sep-2026

Molecular biologist and neuroscientist Catherine Dulac wins the 2026 Pearl Meister Greengard Prize

Rockefeller University
Grant and Award Announcement

Catherine Dulac, whose research has revealed the neural circuits underlying instinctive behaviors such as mating, parenting, and aggression and transformed scientific understanding of their biological roots, has been selected as the 2026 recipient of the Pearl Meister Greengard Prize. Awarded annually by Rockefeller University, the prize is the preeminent international award recognizing outstanding women scientists.

22-Sep-2026

Lonely? Socially isolated? It may cost you six healthy years of life.

Tulane University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Loneliness and social isolation are linked to a range of serious health problems, but their overall toll on healthy life has been hard to quantify until now. In a first-of-its-kind study published in Nature Communications, Tulane University researchers analyzed data from 277,489 UK Biobank adults tracked for more than a decade. They found men experiencing both loneliness and social isolation lost up to six years free from depression and anxiety. Women, meanwhile, lost roughly four fewer years.

Journal: Nature Communications

22-Sep-2026

High speed, low light conditions tied to unbuckled driving

University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Drivers were less likely to wear seatbelts at night, at higher speeds and on shorter trips, suggesting safety campaigns may be more effective when they target the situations in which people are most likely to skip buckling up.

Journal: Traffic Injury Prevention
Funder: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

22-Sep-2026

Emory Goizueta Brain Health Institute part of nationwide NIH study on links between environmental factors and Alzheimer's disease

Emory Health Sciences
Grant and Award Announcement

Emory is helping lead a $30.9 million NIH-funded study examining how lifelong environmental and social exposures influence Alzheimer’s disease, unlocking new paths for prevention and brain health.

22-Sep-2026

In House primaries, organized groups matter more than voters, new book finds

Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania
Book Announcement

With the vast majority of the 435 U.S. House seats considered safe for one party or the other, the primary is the election that usually determines who goes to Congress — and it is the election Americans know the least about. A new book finds that voters are rarely the most important influence on the outcome. "Parties on the Ground: A Study of Nominations for the House of Representatives" (University of Chicago Press, September 2026) finds that the organized groups anchoring each party’s coalition do the work of vetting candidates, coordinating behind them, and supplying the money and volunteers a nomination requires. Their goal, the authors find, is not ideological purity but reliable representation: a nominee who will faithfully represent their interests.