news 2021

Research that requires participants to estimate their own digital screen time cannot provide reliable information on mental health impact. Last updated on Thursday 20 May 2021 Research that requires participants to estimate their own digital screen time cannot provide reliable information on mental health impact, concludes a major international review.

Whilst the rise in emotional problems in teenagers and young adults since the pandemic has become clearer, little is known about the emotional response of pre-school and primary school aged children. Using data tracking children's emotional development at multiple ages before and during the pandemic, the research team were able to explore differences in trajectories of emotional difficulties in children before and during the pandemic.

New research has found that 78% of women prisoners in Scotland have a history of significant head injury - most of which occurred in the context of domestic abuse that often lasted over periods of several years. The University of Glasgow-led study - funded by the Scottish Government and published today in the Lancet Psychiatry - also found 66% of women prisoners had suffered repeat head injuries for many years.

A new nationally representative birth cohort study launching in England in the coming year will deliver valuable insights into child development, led by UCL researchers and commissioned and funded by the Department for Education. The Children of the 2020s Study will include babies born in April, May, and June 2021.

New psychology research suggests adults are more compassionate and donate more to charity when they are in the presence of children. Last updated on Wednesday 5 May 2021 Adults are more compassionate and are up to twice as likely to donate to charity when children are present, according to a new study from psychologists.

The remains of a partial skeleton dating back 78,000 years have been recovered from a pit in Kenya and are believed to be the earliest evidence of human burial in Africa, according to an international team including academics from UCL. Named 'Mtoto' - meaning child in Swahili - the remains were found to be of a 2.5 to 3-year-old infant, and were discovered by a team of scientists in a shallow grave at Panga ya Saldi, a cave site in the tropical upland coast of Kenya.

Nearly one-quarter (23.6%) of children and adolescents admitted to psychiatric hospital were admitted involuntarily, finds a new review of evidence from 11 countries, led by UCL researchers, which also uncovered substantial racial disparities. The study, the first systematic analysis social and clinical factors associated with admission, was published in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health journal.

Experiencing bullying and forms of aggression in late adolescence and early adulthood is linked to a marked increase in the likelihood of having daydreams or fantasies about hurting or killing people, according to a new study. It's the difference between conditions that make people angry and upset, and those that make people vengeful Manuel Eisner While research has shown that significant numbers of people fantasise about inflicting harm, little is known about the processes behind such "violent ideations".

Substance use and antisocial behaviour are more likely to go hand-in-hand with poor mental health for generation Z teens compared to millennial adolescents growing up a decade earlier, finds a new UCL study. Researchers from the Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS) at the UCL Social Research Institute and the University of Liverpool analysed data collected from two cohorts, born a decade apart, when they were 14 years old.

When it comes to friendships and rivalries, male dolphins know who the good team players are. New findings, published by University of Bristol researchers, reveal that male dolphins form a social concept of team membership based on cooperative investment in the team. The Bristol researchers, with colleagues from the University of Zurich and University of Massachusetts, used 30 years of observational data from a dolphin population in Shark Bay , Western Australia, and sound playback experiments to assess how male dolphins responded to the calls of other males from their alliance network.

More young people may choose to study foreign languages to GCSE if they are encouraged to 'identify' with languages at school, rather than just learning vocabulary and grammar, new research suggests.

Heavier social media use is associated with more frequent alcohol consumption among young people in the UK, according to a new UCL study. Published today in the journal Addiction , the study found that those aged 10-15 who used social media more regularly were more likely to drink alcohol. The researchers also found a link between heavier social media use and more frequent binge drinking among young adults aged 16-19.

Researchers from the University of Kent, King's College London and the University of Birmingham have developed a class calculator to explore the cultural and social world of the 16 th and 17 th Century England. The calculator will allow individuals to see where they would have sat on the social scale during the period of 1560 - 1660 and can be used as a research tool to identify the status of historic figures.

Older adults are more willing to make an effort to help others than younger adults, according to new research from the University of Birmingham. The study, led by researchers in the University's School of Psychology, is the first to show how effortful 'prosocial' behaviour - intended to benefit others - changes as people get older.

A consistent number of young people are having energy drinks daily, despite an overall drop in the consumption of sugary beverages over time, new research has found. Academics at Cardiff University analysed the responses of more than 176,000 secondary school children aged 11 to 16. They found between 2013 to 2017, when their use began to be recorded, the proportion of young people consuming energy drinks daily remained stable (6%), while weekly consumption decreased from 23% to 15%.

A new observational study is the first to examine suicides occurring during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in multiple countries and finds that suicide numbers largely remained unchanged or declined in the pandemic's early months. The study, led by an international team including University of Bristol researchers, is published in The Lancet Psychiatry journal.

The suspicion that gender stereotypes could lead doctors to underestimate women's pain has been confirmed by research which found healthcare staff, both men and women, often discount women's pain, says Professor Amanda Williams (UCL Clinical, Education & Health Psychology). When a man consults a doctor about pain, he will hope to be taken seriously: to convince the doctor that the pain is real, and a problem that needs addressing.

Sleep experts have developed a new tool to help more accurately measure young people's ability to disengage from social media before bed. The University of Glasgow researchers who developed the Index of Nighttime Offline Distress, or iNOD, believe it is the first psychological measurement tool of its kind, which reflects the realities of how young people interact with each other in an online world.

New guidance, authored by Dr Jeremy Dixon for the Department of Health & Social Care, aims to improve supported decision-making for adults with dementia. Last updated on Friday 16 April 2021 Fresh guidance published by the Department of Health & Social Care, authored by the University of Bath, aims to protect people living with dementia suffering or at risk of abuse, by involving them more actively in their care plans.

Teenagers are more likely than younger children to ignore advice, but only when the advice is bad, because adolescents are better at judging their own decisions, finds a new study led by UCL researchers. The researchers found that between the ages of nine and 12, young people improve their ability to make decisions independently by learning when they should or shouldn't trust their own judgements.