Author: dispatchtimes news

Male managers who become fathers to their first daughter tend to hire more women, boosting the share of female staff and their earnings within the firms they run, a study reported in The Review of Economic Studies has found. The research, led by Maddalena Ronchi of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and Nina Smith of Aarhus University, analysed Danish registry data spanning 1992 to 2017 and focused on single-manager businesses that accounted for the vast majority of Danish firms. The researchers describe the phenomenon as the “daughter effect,” a sociological notion that fathering a daughter can make men more…

A new study in mice from Korea University researchers has revealed how receptors for dopamine and insulin act together in the brain’s central amygdala to regulate compulsive eating. The findings, published in Molecular Psychiatry, point to a cellular mechanism that prevents overconsumption of sugary and fatty foods and may shed light on why certain eating disorders and metabolic conditions often co-occur. Compulsive eating involves an intense drive to consume highly palatable foods despite potential health risks and shares behavioural traits with substance addiction. Repeated overconsumption of fat- and sugar-rich foods can contribute to obesity and diseases such as diabetes, the…

Scientists in Japan have demonstrated that delivering stimulation to the vagus nerve after training can bolster long-term motor learning in mice, suggesting the body’s signals to the brain help determine how lasting new skills become. The work, conducted at Tohoku University, and published in iScience on August 25, 2026, points to a role for body-to-brain communication in solidifying learning. The brain–body link behind lasting learning The vagus nerve serves as a major information highway between the brain and the body. It carries signals from internal organs to the brain while also transmitting commands from the brain back to those organs.…

A pair of experiments conducted in San Francisco indicate that exposure to videos depicting local crime can nudge liberal voters toward tougher, more conservative positions on crime policy at the municipal level, without shifting their broader political identities. The research focused on California’s Proposition 47 and was conducted by a team led by University of San Francisco psychologist Violet Cheung-Blunden. The researchers frame their work within terror management theory, which suggests that reminders of death or existential threat provoke anxiety. To cope, individuals may seek comfort in structured, predictable and historically conservative worldviews. Across decades of study, terror management theory…

New research published in Psychological Reports suggests that people who strongly admire celebrities tend to be more deferential to authority and attached to traditional norms, even after accounting for their general political views. The study was led by Ho Phi Huynh, a senior lecturer at the Australian National University, and explored how different dimensions of celebrity worship relate to right-wing attitudes. Parasocial connections with famous figures are common and can bring a sense of community, but intense celebrity admiration has been linked to negative outcomes in some cases. A 2021 study covered by PsyPost indicated that higher obsession with celebrities…

A new study from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that children who experienced severe psychosocial deprivation early in life show lasting differences in how their brain activity develops during adolescence, with these altered neural dynamics linked to poorer performance on a task requiring attention and self-control. Adolescence is a major period of brain development. During these years, young people generally become faster and more accurate at controlling their attention, managing distractions, and responding to changing demands. Brain networks mature partly through synaptic pruning, a process in which weaker connections…

A new study into disinformation during the 2024 United States presidential election, conducted by researchers Alba Córdoba-Cabús and Andreu Casero-Ripollés of Universitat Jaume I in Spain, identifies who spread hoaxes and who were targeted, offering a fresh view of modern political communication. The project analysed 374 false messages verified by PolitiFact between January 2024 and the presidential inauguration in January 2025, focusing on the United States race. The researchers sought to categorise the spreaders of political hoaxes, known as issuers, and the subjects of those hoaxes, known as recipients. For each verified hoax, the team recorded the channel, topic and…

A new systematic review and meta-analysis of 111 samples has found that problematic pornography use is linked to a range of psychological traits, with cravings and sexual shame producing the strongest associations. The research was led by Sonay Sheikhi of Kharazmi University in Tehran and published in Addictive Behaviors Reports. Problematic pornography use is not a formal psychiatric diagnosis. It is an umbrella term for self-reported difficulties such as a perceived loss of control, preoccupation with pornography, or distress about use, rather than a straightforward measure of how often pornography is viewed. Researchers note that a constellation of factors has…

A new study analysing political science job-market outcomes for the 2023–2024 cycle finds that 26 per cent of candidates on the market ultimately secured tenure-track professorships, challenging the idea that graduating from a top-tier university guarantees an academic post. Published in PS: Political Science & Politics, the analysis flags a number of factors as better predictors of success, including a strong publication record, entry into a high-demand field, and being a woman or an underrepresented minority candidate. Historically, a rigid prestige hierarchy has shaped perceptions of academic hiring. Previous research suggested that elite universities supply the bulk of professors, and…