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Social & Behavior

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 12-May-2026 00:15 ET (12-May-2026 04:15 GMT/UTC)

Concern over harmful medical advice from social media influencers

BMJ Group
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Biased or misleading medical advice shared by social media influencers can cause harm and requires coordinated action by governments and platforms to protect the public, argue experts in The BMJ today.

Journal: The BMJ

To make AI more fair, tame complexity

University of Texas at Austin
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Biases in AI’s models and algorithms can actively harm some of its users and promote social injustice. Documented biases have led to different medical treatments due to patients’ demographics and corporate hiring tools that discriminate against female and Black candidates.

New research from Texas McCombs suggests both a previously unexplored source of AI biases and some ways to correct for them: complexity.

Journal: MIS Quarterly

Scores of dinosaurs walked and swam along a Bolivian shoreline

PLOS
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A fossil site in Bolivia preserves thousands of traces of dinosaurs who walked, ran, and swam along an ancient coastline, according to a study published December 3, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS One by Raúl Esperante of the Geoscience Research Institute, California, U.S., and colleagues.

Journal: PLOS One

Captive bottlenose dolphins vary vocalizations during enrichment activities

PLOS
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Dolphins produce a range of vocalizations used for echolocation and communication. These vocalizations vary with social context, environmental conditions, and external stimuli, communication, reflecting their cognitive and behavioral complexity. A study published in PLOS One on December 3, 2025 by Francesco Di Nardo at Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy and colleagues suggests that the frequency and duration of captive dolphin vocalizations may indicate engagement with structured activities.

Journal: PLOS One

Adults who want children favor older-looking partners (but not for their money), study suggests

PLOS
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Participants in a study who self-reported a stronger desire to have children showed a weaker preference for younger faces compared to those with a weaker desire to have children, according to a study published December 3, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS One by Jingheng Li and colleagues from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, U.K. The preference was unrelated to the potential partners’ perceived wealth or parental prowess.

Journal: PLOS One

Authoritative parenting styles are associated with better mental health and self-esteem among adolescents, while authoritarian parenting styles are associated with depression and lower self-esteem and permissive parenting styles are associated with stress

PLOS
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Authoritative parenting styles are associated with better mental health and self-esteem among adolescents, while authoritarian parenting styles are associated with depression and lower self-esteem and permissive parenting styles are associated with stress, according to Nepalese study of 583 adolescents

Journal: PLOS One

A rose by any other name? Not necessarily—how words sound aesthetically correlates with their memorability, study finds

PLOS
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A rose by any other name? Not necessarily—how words sound aesthetically correlates with their memorability, study finds

Journal: PLOS One