Showing posts with label Sex and Relationships. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sex and Relationships. Show all posts

5/30/2012

Female Choice Key to Evolutionary Shift to Modern Family

It is a question that has puzzled evolutionary biologists for years: Why did we stop being promiscuous and decide to settle down to start families? Sergey Gavrilets, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, may have found the answer, and it lies in the power of female choice. The study reveals how females chose their mates played a critical role in human evolution by leading to monogamous relationships, which laid the foundation for the institution of the modern family. Using mathematical modeling, the associate director for scientific activities at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) at UT has discovered that the transformation may have occurred when...

5/21/2012

Stressed Men Are More Social

Freiburg researchers have refuted the common belief that stress always causes aggressive behavior. A team of researchers led by the psychologists and neuroscientists Prof. Markus Heinrichs and Dr. Bernadette von Dawans at the University of Freiburg, Germany, examined in a study how men react in stressful situations -- and have refuted a nearly 100-year-old doctrine with their results. According to this doctrine, humans and most animal species show the "fight-or-flight" response to stress. Only since the late 1990s have some scientists begun to argue that women show an alternate "tend-and-befriend" response to stress -- in other words, a protective ("tend") and friendship-offering ("befriend") reaction. Men, in contrast, were still assumed...

5/08/2012

The gifts we keep on giving

Birthdays, graduations, Christmas, baby showers, bridal showers, bar and bat mitzvahs, Mother's Day, Father's Day, first marriages (and second.. and third…), wedding anniversaries, the spontaneous friendship gesture, the occasional sorry-about-that gesture, hostess gifts and presents that don't even fall into a recognizable category. The year is filled with opportunities and obligations to give and receive. So who can blame someone for doing a little recycling, or as it is commonly known, regifting? Not the person who actually gave the original gift, despite what a regifter may think. In an article to be published in a forthcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, researchers from...

3/23/2012

Women happier in relationships when men feel their pain

Men like to know when their wife or girlfriend is happy while women really want the man in their life to know when they are upset, according to a new study published by the American Psychological Association.  The study involved a diverse sample of couples and found that men's and women's perceptions of their significant other's empathy, and their abilities to tell when the other is happy or upset, are linked to relationship satisfaction in distinctive ways, according to the article published online in the Journal of Family Psychology.  "It could be that for women, seeing that their male partner is upset reflects some degree of the man's investment and emotional engagement in the relationship, even during difficult times. This...

2/14/2012

Lust makes you smarter and seven deadly sins are good for you

Good news for lovers - the seven deadly sins, including Lust, are good for you. University of Melbourne social psychologist Dr Simon Laham uses modern research to make a compelling case for the virtues of living a sinful life in his latest book The Joy of Sin: The Psychology of the Seven Deadlies (And Why They Are So Good For You).  Dr Laham argues that human behavior is more complex than simple “good” or “evil” and shows us that Pride, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Envy, Sloth and Anger are not soul-condemning offenses, but ever-present and, if indulged wisely, are largely functional human tendencies.  In particular, for lovers intent on indulging in a bit of lust this Valentine’s Day, Dr Laham reveals:  Lust can make you smarter....

2/10/2012

What does love look like?

What does love look like? A dozen roses delivered on an ordinary weekday? Breakfast in bed? Or just a knowing glance between lovers?  While outward displays of love are fairly easy to discern, a researcher in the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences is taking a decidedly "inward" approach to documenting this most complex of human emotions.  Sandra Langeslag, an expert in biological psychology, is using brain-imaging tools such as electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to identify and assess the neurocognition of romantic love.  "I want to understand how the brain works when humans are attracted to one another," says Langeslag, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Laboratory...

2/02/2012

Men Behaving Nicely: Selfless Acts by Men Increase When Attractive Women Are Nearby

Men put on their best behaviour when attractive ladies are close by. When the scenario is reversed however, the behaviour of women remains the same. These findings were published February 2, 2012, in the British Psychological Society's British Journal of Psychology via the Wiley Online Library.  The research, which also found that the number of kind and selfless acts by men corresponded to the attractiveness of ladies, was undertaken by Dr Wendy Iredale of Sheffield Hallam University and Mark Van Vugt of the VU University in Amsterdam and the University of Oxford.  Two experiments were undertaken. For the first, 65 men and 65 women, all of an average age of 21, anonymously played a cooperation game where they could donate money...

1/05/2012

Sexual satisfaction in women increases with age

A new study of sexually active older women has found that sexual satisfaction in women increases with age and those not engaging in sex are satisfied with their sex lives. A majority of study participants report frequent arousal and orgasm that continue into old age, despite low sexual desire. The study appears in the January issue of the American Journal of Medicine.  Researchers from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System evaluated sexual activity and satisfaction as reported by 806 older women who are part of the Rancho Bernardo Study (RBS) cohort, a group of women who live in a planned community near San Diego and whose health has been tracked for medical...

12/13/2011

All it takes is a smile (for some guys)

Does she or doesn't she . . .? Sexual cues are ambiguous, and confounding. We—especially men—often read them wrong. A new study hypothesizes that the men who get it wrong might be the ones that evolution has favored. "There are tons of studies showing that men think women are interested when they're not," says Williams College psychologist Carin Perilloux, who conducted the research with Judith A. Easton and David M. Buss of University of Texas at Austin. "Ours is the first to systematically examine individual differences." The findings will appear in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science.  The research involved 96 male 103 female undergraduates, who were put through...

12/02/2011

Study shows Mediterranean diet improves sexual health in men

The Mediterranean diet has been in the headlines recently because a new study published on ‘Journal of Sexual Medicine’ shows that the diet is beneficial to help avoid strokes.  Recognized for its ability to help improve heart health, the Mediterranean Diet also can help kick-start a flagging libido in men with metabolic syndrome.  While studies show that the Mediterranean Diet can help overcome erectile dysfunction (ED), or impotence in men with metabolic syndrome, the Mediterranean Diet is a healthful diet for men with and without metabolic syndrome, and with or without sexual dysfunction.  For men with metabolic syndrome, about 400,000 Greek men, the diet helps to overcome erectile dysfunction (ED), or impotence.  In...

11/29/2011

Study debunks stereotype that men think about sex all day long

Men may think about sex more often than women do, but a new study suggests that men also think about other biological needs, such as eating and sleep, more frequently than women do, as well.  And the research discredits the persistent stereotype that men think about sex every seven seconds, which would amount to more than 8,000 thoughts about sex in 16 waking hours. In the study, the median number of young men's thought about sex stood at almost 19 times per day. Young women in the study reported a median of nearly 10 thoughts about sex per day.  As a group, the men also thought about food almost 18 times per day and sleep almost 11 times per day, compared to women's median number of thoughts about eating and sleep, at nearly...

11/15/2011

Adolescent sex linked to adult body, mood troubles... in hampsters

A new study suggests that sex during adolescence can have lasting negative effects on the body and mood well into adulthood, most likely because the activity occurs when the nervous system is still developing.  While the research used laboratory animals, the findings provide information that may be applicable to understanding human sexual development.  Researchers paired adult female hamsters with male hamsters when the males were 40 days old, the equivalent of a human's mid-adolescence. They found that these male animals with an early-life sexual experience later showed more signs of depressive-like behaviors as well as lower body mass, smaller reproductive tissues and changes to cells in the brain than did hamsters that were...

11/08/2011

Both sexism and racism are similar mental processes

Prejudiced attitudes are based on generalised suppositions about certain social groups and could well be a personality trait. Researchers at the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU) have confirmed the link between two types of discriminatory behaviour: sexism and racism. They also advise of the need for education in encouraging equality.  According to researchers at the UPV-EHU, encouraging equality and decreasing prejudices would have a positive effect in preventing violence in general [Credit: LUIS DEMANO/SINC] Maite Garaigordobil, professor of Psychological Testing at the UPV, is the co-author of this study which explores the link that sexism has with racism and other variables. She explains that "people who are highly sexist,...

11/03/2011

First-time divorce rate tied to education, race

New research from the National Center for Family and Marriage Research (NCFMR) at Bowling Green State University shows there is  substantial variation in the first-time divorce rate when it is broken down by race and education. But, there is also evidence that a college degree has a protective effect against divorce among all races.  The data for the family profile, “First Divorce Rate, 2010” were gathered by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2010. At that time, the rate of first divorce in the U.S. was 17.5 per 1,000 women 18 years old and older in a first marriage. According to the research, recent declines in the probability of divorce largely reflect an increase in marital stability among the more educated.  Among women in...

11/02/2011

The new old age – today's pensioners are very different to yesterday's

Old people today have more sex, are more likely to be divorced, are cleverer and feel better, reveals a long-term research project comparing what it is like to be old today with 30 years ago. "It's time to start talking about the 'new old age'," says researcher Ingmar Skoog.  The number of elderly is rising worldwide, and it is estimated that average life expectancy in Europe will reach 100 by the end of the century.  At the same time, old age and what we expect from it are changing. An extensive research project at the University of Gothenburg's Sahlgrenska Academy has spent a number of years comparing the elderly of the 1970s with those of today. The project, known as the H70 study, reveals that old age has changed drastically...

11/01/2011

Not your mother's birth control, same troubles

Today's hormonal forms of birth control are vastly different from those used by earlier generations of women, both with lower levels of hormones and with different means of delivery (not just a pill), but many of the same problems related to women's pleasure remain.  An Indiana University study that examined how newer forms of hormonal contraception affect things such as arousal, lubrication and orgasm, found that they could still hamper important aspects of sexuality despite the family planning benefits and convenience.  "Contraception in general is a wonderful way for women to plan their families," said lead researcher Nicole Smith, project coordinator at IU's Center for Sexual Health Promotion. "It's something women are...

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