News

Black parents in the U.S. who see others experience racial discrimination, such as news coverage involving violence against Black people, are more likely to talk with their children about race and discrimination, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have found. Such conversations between parents and their children have been shown to improve young people's behavior and school outcomes.

Vicarious racial discrimination that leads to these conversations can be experienced in many different ways. Examples include watching news coverage of high-profile killings by police, such as those of George Floyd or Breonna Taylor; watching a video posted on social media of a Black person being mistreated; or seeing a friend, family member or stranger being called slurs in public.

The old saying, "Home is where the heart is," has some new science to back it up. A study has found photos of a person's living space can accurately point at personality traits and the mood of the people who live there, especially as a person gets older.

For the study, scientists at The University of Texas at Austin studied 286 people over the age of 65. They took photographs of the rooms where the subjects spent the most time (typically the living room) and found that certain characteristics of a person's personality were reflected in core elements of room décor. Applying the findings could help lead to happier lives, including for older adults with frailty or cognitive impairment that has led them to be transferred from their homes to long-term care facilities.

A conclusive narrative review has found physical punishment of children is not effective in preventing child behavior problems or promoting positive outcomes and instead predicts increases in behavior problems and other poor outcomes over time. The study by an international group of scientists including a researcher from The University of Texas at Austin was published today in The Lancet.

Caregivers in many parts of the world use physical punishment as a response to children's perceived misbehavior: 63% of children between the ages of 2 and 4 worldwide – approximately 250 million children – are regularly subjected to physical punishment by caregivers.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit during the winter of 2020, locking down entire countries and leaving people isolated in their homes without outside contact for weeks at a time, many relationship experts wondered what that kind of stress would do to romantic couples. What they found was that when couples blamed the pandemic for their stress, they were happier in their relationships.

The findings are outlined in a paper out today in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science. 

Previous research has shown that romantic partners tend to be more critical toward each other when experiencing common stress — what researchers call stress spillover — but major events such as natural disasters are not always associated with poor relationship functioning. Because these significant stressors are more noticeable than routine situations, people may be more aware that stress is affecting them and spilling over into the relationship.