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

Social & Behavior

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 2-Jan-2026 18:11 ET (2-Jan-2026 23:11 GMT/UTC)

25-Nov-2025

Collaborating minds think alike, processing information in similar ways in a shared task

Whether great minds think alike is up for debate, but the collaborating minds of two people working on a shared task process information alike, according to a study published November 25^th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Denise Moerel and colleagues from Western Sydney University in Australia.

Journal: PLOS Biology

25-Nov-2025

Too sick to socialize: How the brain and immune system promote staying in bed

Picower Institute at MIT
Peer-Reviewed Publication

MIT researchers have discovered how an immune system molecule triggers neurons in a specific brain circuit to shut down social behavior in mice modeling infection

Journal: Cell
Funder: NIH/National Institutes of Health, Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative, Freedom Together Foundation

25-Nov-2025

When students belong, they’re more likely to earn a degree

Wake Forest University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Students are more likely to attain their degree when they report a stronger sense of belonging in their first year of college, according to a new study by Wake Forest University psychology professor Shannon Brady.

Journal: Educational Researcher

25-Nov-2025

Media, sentiment, power: New study on discrimination by public authorities

University of Konstanz
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In a recent study, researchers from the Cluster of Excellence "The Politics of Inequality" at the University of Konstanz demonstrate: Negative media coverage of certain migrant groups can lead to discrimination in the allocation of the Citizen's Benefit – especially in regions where migration is generally viewed with skepticism.

Journal: Comparative Political Studies

25-Nov-2025

How personalized algorithms lead to a distorted view of reality

Ohio State University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The same personalized algorithms that deliver online content based on your previous choices on social media sites like YouTube also impair learning, a new study suggests. Researchers found that when an algorithm controlled what information was shown to study participants on a subject they knew nothing about, they tended to narrow their focus and only explore a limited subset of the information that was available to them.

Journal: Journal of Experimental Psychology General

25-Nov-2025

Seeing rich people increases support for wealth redistribution

PNAS Nexus
Peer-Reviewed Publication

If people do not observe inequality, they are less likely to favor policies that redistribute wealth, such as taxation—but they are also more satisfied with their lot, according to online experiments involving 1,440 US-based participants.

Journal: PNAS Nexus

25-Nov-2025

Cross-national willingness to share

PNAS Nexus
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Vanessa Clemens and colleagues invited 6,182 participants from 25 nations to take part in a sharing game. Almost 90% of people shared more with people from their own country rather than with people from other countries. People also shared more with those from culturally similar nations than from less culturally similar nations. Overall, people were most likely to be generous toward people from Ghana and Kenya and least likely to share generously with people from the United Sates or China.

Journal: PNAS Nexus