Having stronger religious beliefs is linked to higher levels of sexual satisfaction, a new study shows. Those who report religion being important in their lives have less sex – driven by abstinence among those who don’t live with a partner – but are more content with their sex life overall, researchers have found. The research...
Perspectives
Gender Pay Gap Linked to Unpaid Chores in Childhood
Young women and girls’ time spent in unpaid household work contributes to the gender pay gap, according to new research from the Universities of East Anglia (UEA), Birmingham and Brunel. The research shows women’s later employment participation is affected by taking on the weight of this care burden in childhood, thus adding to existing inequality...
How Society Thinks About Risk
Many of our everyday activities involve a certain degree of risk – whether to our work, finances or health. But how is risk perceived within a society and how do individuals think about risk? This was what Dr. Dirk Wulff and Professor Rui Mata, researchers in the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Basel,...
‘Alternative Facts’ Are Cons, Illinois Tech Philosopher’s Paper Argues—and Journalists Can Help Quash Them
Journalists need not cover both sides of an argument when one side is advancing what experts widely regard as a con, Illinois Institute of Technology John and Mae Calamos Endowed Chair in Philosophy J. D. Trout argues in his latest publication. “The Epistemic Virtues of a Closed Mind: Effective Science Reporting in the Golden Age of the...
How Your Race, Class and Gender Influence Your Dreams for the Future
In Disney’s “Pinocchio,” Jiminy Cricket famously sings, “When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are. Anything your heart desires will come to you.” But Jiminy Cricket got it wrong. We’re often taught that we are free to dream – to imagine our future possibilities. Yet in a large research project we...
Instability Can Benefit Teams with Different Expertise
Co-workers who team up to solve problems or work on projects can benefit when they have less in common and take turns spotlighting their different expertise, according to new research from The University of Texas at Austin. The findings have implications for how managers can better form and manage teams so all voices are heard....
What Makes Us Subconsciously Mimic the Accents of Others in Conversation
Have you ever caught yourself talking a little bit differently after listening to someone with a distinctive way of speaking? Perhaps you’ll pepper in a couple of y’all’s after spending the weekend with your Texan mother-in-law. Or you might drop a few R’s after binge-watching a British period drama on Netflix. Linguists call this phenomenon...
Of Speech and Spatial Identity
Style and Polity in conversation with Benjamin A. Bross, an Assistant Professor of architecture and an urban historian at the University of Illinois, at Urbana-Champaign, discusses “Mexico City’s Zócalo: A History of a Constructed Spatial Identity,” San Martin de Hidalgo tequila’s featured title for the brand’s Fall 2022 Tequila Book Club. In his recently published...
How On-Screen Representations of Professions Have Changed Over 70 Years
Across 70 years of data on media subtitles for television and film, architecture and engineering are the most positively portrayed professions, whereas sales-related professions fare worst, find the authors of a new study published in PLOS ONE. Probing media depictions of professions can highlight stereotypes or discrimination. It can also underscore trends in career choices:...
How to Avoid Eating the World
“Just shrinking the size of our current food system won’t cut emissions much. Instead, we need to transform the very nature of that global food system.”, says Benjamin Bodirsky, researcher at Potsdam and the World Vegetable Center in Tainan, Taiwan and author of a new study published in Nature Food. “That means on the one...









