EurekAlert! News by Subject: Social & Behavior

Social & Behavior

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 28-Apr-2026 15:16 ET (28-Apr-2026 19:16 GMT/UTC)

19-Feb-2026

Justice after trauma? Race, red tape keep sexual assault victims from compensation

University of Michigan
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Bureaucratic hurdles and racial disparities restrict access to victim compensation for adult survivors of sexual assault, deepen justice system inequities and compound trauma.

Journal: Journal of Public Health

19-Feb-2026

Social media images help fill “major gaps” in global biodiversity data

German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new study published in Conservation Biology shows that geotagged social media photos can significantly improve biodiversity datasets, especially in regions underrepresented in global monitoring efforts. Led by scientists from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, and Monash University, the team integrated Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) occurrence records with public images of the tawny coster butterfly (Acraea terpsicore) from Flickr and Facebook, and saw a 35% increase in total observations.

Journal: Conservation Biology

19-Feb-2026

Mizzou study links ‘dark pool’ trading activity to stock price crashes and accounting manipulation

University of Missouri-Columbia
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A University of Missouri study shows that private, anonymous stock exchanges attract many inexperienced investors and allow companies to delay sharing bad news, making sudden stock price crashes more likely.

Journal: Journal of Business Finance &amp Accounting

19-Feb-2026

Food insecurity impacts employees’ productivity

American Psychological Association
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Food insecurity can increase anxiety and undermine employees at work, but workplace programs to address it can improve job outcomes, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

Journal: Journal of Applied Psychology

19-Feb-2026

Neighborhood factors may lead to increased COPD-related emergency department visits, hospitalizations

COPD Foundation
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Certain neighborhood characteristics, including higher poverty, more uninsured residents, and lower educational attainment, may lead to an increase in COPD-related emergency department visits and hospitalizations, according to a new study in the January 2026 issue of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases: Journal of the COPD Foundation, a peer-reviewed, open access journal.

Journal: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases Journal of the COPD Foundation

19-Feb-2026

Scientists discover a key mechanism regulating how oxytocin is released in the mouse brain

Universidad Miguel Hernandez de Elche
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A study led by the Institute for Neurosciences CSIC-UMH in Spain has identified an essential protein responsible for the slow and sustained release of oxytocin in the brain, a process that is fundamental for the regulation of social behavior. This work, published in Communications Biology, provides new insights into how the brain maintains basal levels of this hormone and how subtle adjustments in its release modulate sociability.

Journal: Communications Biology
Funder: Agencia Estatal de Investigación, Generalitat Valenciana, Ministerio de Ciencia

18-Feb-2026

Interplay of class and gender may influence social judgments differently between cultures

PLOS
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Certain markers of high status may more strongly boost attitudes towards women versus men, and low status markers may more strongly worsen attitudes towards men versus women—with both findings more pronounced in countries with more conservative gender norms. Marie Isabelle Weißflog of Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany, and the University of York, U.K., and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS One on February 18, 2026.

Journal: PLOS One