News

Nicole Perry, an assistant professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin, has been named the winner of the 2022 Victoria S. Levin Award. 

Stress can cause romantic couples to focus on their partner's most annoying bad habits, according to a new study from Lisa Neff, a University of Texas at Austin associate professor of human development and family sciences, whose work was featured in several prominent media publications.

he study was published in September in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.

"We found that individuals who reported experiencing more stressful life events outside of their relationship, such as problems at work, were especially likely to notice if their partner behaved in an inconsiderate manner," Neff said.

A new study by The University of Texas at Austin and the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law finds younger LGBQ adults are physically healthier but have worse psychological health than older LGBQ people.

Researchers examined a representative sample of LGBQ people in the United States from three age groups—young (18-25), middle (34-41), and older (52-59)—to assess how physical and mental health differed among the three generations. Researchers compared several indicators, including alcohol and drug abuse, general and physical health, mental health and psychological distress and positive well-being.

Results showed no difference among the groups in substance abuse or positive well-being. However, several differences were noted when data were analyzed by sexual minority subgroups and gender. Bisexual people were more likely to report drug abuse and have less happiness, social well-being, and life satisfaction compared with gay and lesbian people. Nonbinary people reported worse general health, more psychological distress, and less positive well-being compared to women.

Pride Month is a time of celebration every June. This year's commemoration also comes at a time of heightened attention to the mental health concerns of young LGBTQ people. Recent research has shown these youth may be experiencing more concerns than older LGBTQ people. 

We spoke with Stephen Russell, who leads the SOGI (sexual orientation and gender identity) Health and Rights Laboratory at UT Austin. A professor and chair of the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, Director of the School of Human Ecology and its Amy Johnson McLaughlin Chair, Russell is one of the foremost experts on the development of LGBTQ young people. In conversation, he shared what everyone needs to know about supporting younger members of the LGBTQ community.

The University of Texas at Austin has joined the Age-Friendly University (AFU) Global Network, which consists of institutions of higher education around the world who have committed themselves to including adults of all ages in their programs and policies.

"Being recognized as an Age-Friendly University means that UT Austin is an inclusive environment providing education to midlife- and older adults as well as to young adults," says Karen Fingerman, professor of human development and family sciences, research director of the Center on Aging & Population Sciences and director of the Texas Aging & Longevity Center (TALC). "As an institution of higher education, we have sought to respond to the educational interests of adults in midlife, and the growing older population. UT is also at the cutting edge of research on adult development and aging, with strong community involvement with older populations."

Two early-career faculty members in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences have been named Rising Stars by the Association for Psychological Science, one of the top honors in the field.

The recognition was awarded to Hannah Williamson and Elizabeth Muñoz, both assistant professors of human development and family sciences at UT Austin. Each year, only a handful of scholars worldwide — people making extensive impact in psychology early in their careers — get chosen to be APS Rising Stars.

Rapid weight gain in the first and final months of a pregnancy may play a key role in the development of excess fat tissue in children and adolescents – at least if those children are girls, according to a new study from researchers at The University of Texas at Austin.

In the study, published today in the journal Obesity, nutritional sciences researchers looked at more than 300 pregnant women and followed their children from 5 to 14 years old. The researchers connected patterns of weight change in pregnancy to patterns of their children's body mass index (BMI), waist circumference and body fat percentage changes during childhood and early adolescence.

Although natural disasters can cause horrific damage to homes and infrastructure, they can bring married couples closer together, at least temporarily. That's according to a first-of-its-kind study from researchers at The University of Texas at Austin that looked at couples in the Houston area before and after Hurricane Harvey.

The study, published this week in the journal Psychological Science, has implications for how best to help families as they navigate different types of stressors.

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.

​Harsh parenting practices, not genetics, are linked to higher levels of behavior problems in children, according to a new study in the March 2021 volume of Psychological Science, which studied pairs of twins whose parents disciplined them differently.

Among identical twins whose genes match perfectly but whose parents punished each twin differently, the children who were spanked or yelled at more were more likely to show antisocial behavior.

Getting children to eat their vegetables can seem like an insurmountable task, but nutrition researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have found one way: school gardens and lessons on using what's grown in them.

Researchers worked with 16 elementary schools across Central Texas to install vegetable gardens and teach classes to students and parents about nutrition and cooking. In a study recently published in the International Journal for Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, the team describes specifically targeting schools with a high percentage of students on the free and reduced-price lunch program to understand how nutrition programs affect low-income groups. Each school was studied for one academic year.

For older adults living alone during the pandemic, in-person visits bring benefits to emotional wellbeing distinct from what they experience from phone calls or electronic communication, University of Texas at Austin researchers have found.

In a study out this month in the Journals of Gerontology Series B: Social Science, researchers surveyed 226 people age 69 and up in May and June 2020 to determine the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the lives of older adults. Of those surveyed, 81 lived alone and 145 lived with spouses, family or other people. Nearly all the older adults were taking safety precautions, sheltering in place and avoiding contact with people outside their home.

A new study performed by University of Texas at Austin researcher Heather Leidy found that snacking on hummus in the afternoon can improve diet quality, curb hunger and desire to eat, and even improve alertness throughout the day when compared to consuming high sugar snacks or eating no snack at all.

The paper, out today in the Journal of Nutrition, looked at adults who were given afternoon snacks of either red pepper hummus and pretzel crisps, a granola bar, or no snack for 7 days each. Both types of snacks had 240 kcals – the amount that is typically consumed by most Americans.

For about 100 years, scientists have known about the Reissner Fiber, an enigmatic structure inside the spinal canal of vertebrates. What they didn't know was exactly what role the Reissner Fiber played in the formation of the spine during different life stages and what influence it had on spinal conditions like scoliosis, a condition displaying atypical curvatures in the spine.

In a recent paper, researchers from The University of Texas at Austin have identified a genetic mechanism behind the formation of the Reissner Fiber and have been able to link the absence of the fiber to scoliosis in zebrafish.

Aprile Benner, associate professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, has received the Mid-Career Award for Research Excellence from the Society for Research on Adolescence.

Benner's research focuses on low-income youth and young people from racial and ethnic minority groups, investigating how social contexts influence experiences of marginalization and discrimination, school transitions, and developmental outcomes during adolescence.

Kendra Scott and The University of Texas at Austin have established a new female leadership program at the university, which will open to all students in Spring 2020.

Elizabeth Gershoff, professor of human development and family sciences in the School of Human Ecology at the University of Texas at Austin, has been named the winner of a national award recognizing the outstanding work of psychologists in the field of child advocacy and policy.

A long-time researcher of the impact of spanking and corporal punishment on children, Gershoff received the 2019 Nicholas Hobbs Award from the American Psychological Association's Society for Child and Family Policy and Practice. The award, given at the APA's conference in Chicago this month, recognizes psychologists who are dedicated to advocacy and policy that affect the lives of children.