“Neither stigma nor social support — but rather age, economic status, number of children, and religiosity — are the key predictors of LGB parents’ desire to expand their families.” A new study led by Dr. Geva Shenkman-Lachberg of the Dina Recanati School of Medicine at Reichman University, in collaboration with Yuval Shaia of Reichman University and Dr. Kfir Ifrah of Ruppin Academic Center, found that only sociodemographic factors — including the parent’s age, number of current children, economic status, and level of religiosity — predict the desire and intention to have more children among lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) parents. In contrast to the findings of previous studies, experiences of discrimination, stigma, and social support were not found to have a significant impact on parental aspirations. The researchers now aim to further explore the reasons behind these findings.

A study from the Media Innovation Lab (miLAB) at Reichman University’s School of Communications explored how a robotic dog can influence leadership dynamics between humans. The study revealed that simple gestures of affection from a robot can encourage people to take charge and assume leadership roles, even without explicit guidance. The article on the study won the Best Paper Award in the Behavioral Research in Human-Robot Interaction category at the prestigious HRI2025 robotics conference held this week in Melbourne, Australia.