Psychology
27 Mar 2026
‘Sometimes an adult should shut up and go away’: scientists reveal the qualities that kids need in play
For better play, give children space to choose and accessible games, scientists say
162 news posts in Psychology
Psychology
26 Mar 2026
Struggling to identify emotions may increase vulnerability to TikTok addiction
Research shows that problems with focus and identifying emotions may make young people more vulnerable to short video addiction, but mental training can help
Psychology
08 Dec 2025
Are you more likely to buy a one-star-reviewed item if it’s just for an acquaintance? Here are five articles you won’t want to miss
With less than one month before the holidays, many of us are gearing up for the annual Christmas shopping extravaganza. We’re highlighting five articles you won’t want to miss before hitting the shops.
Psychology
13 Aug 2025
Now you see me, now you don’t: how subtle ‘sponsored content’ on social media tricks us into viewing ads
Scientists find that people mostly avoid social media ads when they see them, but many ads blend in seamlessly.
Psychology
24 Jul 2025
Students more likely to pass oral exams at noon — and that might apply to job interviews, too
Physiological rhythms could explain why Italian university students were more likely to fail exams early or late in the day.
Psychology
07 May 2025
Humans prefer to put more effort into empathizing with groups than with individuals
Study participants asked to choose whether to empathize with or describe people preferred to empathize with groups, despite finding it difficult and distressing.
Psychology
28 Mar 2025
Those constantly distracted by their phone will just find other ways to procrastinate if it isn’t nearby
A researcher put physical distance between people and their phones and found that our devices may not be the cause of our distraction – it’s what we do with them.
Psychology
10 Feb 2025
Scientists find that a playful approach to life activates ‘lemonading’, which helps people cope with adversity
Highly playful people are realistic about their circumstances, scientists say, but they are more resilient in the present and more optimistic about the future.
Psychology
11 Oct 2024
Different types of teenage friendships critical to wellbeing as we age, scientists find
Scientists find that peer acceptance in young teenagers, and close friendships in older teenagers, predict low social anxiety and high life satisfaction in young adults.
Psychology
06 Jun 2024
How many days has it been since your last fit of laughter? Here are five Frontiers articles you won’t want to miss
At Frontiers, we bring some of the world’s best research to a global audience. But with tens of thousands of articles published each year, it’s impossible to cover all of them. Here are just five amazing papers you may have missed.
Psychology
19 Mar 2024
Is your partner’s disturbed sleep keeping you up at night? Letting go of unattainable dreams may keep you both happy in bed
Research has now shown that the habit of letting go of unattainable goals helps people to stay satisfied with their romantic relationship if their partner experiences sleep problems. Such ‘letting go’ could also be learned, for example through training by clinical psychologists. But the results also showed that being too ready to replace unattainable goals with alternatives can worsen mutual satisfaction with a relationship, perhaps because this prevents spouses from putting more time and effort into it.
Psychology
26 Jan 2024
Writing by hand may increase brain connectivity more than typing on a keyboard
New research has shown that writing by hand leads to higher brain connectivity than typing on a keyboard, highlighting the need to expose students to more handwriting activities
Psychology
11 Jan 2024
Watching others visibly dislike vegetables might make onlookers dislike them, too
New research shows that observing facial expressions of others eating raw broccoli can influence our own liking of the vegetable
Psychology
06 Oct 2023
Our sense of smell changes the colors we see, show scientists
By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer Crossmodal associations occur when people make unconscious but stereotypical connections between two or more senses. Here, scientists showed that associations between odors and colors can be particularly strong: powerful enough to distort our perception of colors. Our five senses bombard us with environmental input 24/7. One way our brain makes sense of this abundance of information is by combining information from two or more senses, such as between smells and the smoothness of textures, pitch, color, and musical dimensions. This sensory integration also causes us to associate higher temperatures with warmer colors, lower sound pitches with less elevated positions, and colors with the flavor of particular foods – for example, the taste of oranges with the color of the same name. Now, a study in Frontiers in Psychology has shown experimentally that such unconscious ‘crossmodal’ associations with our sense of smell can affect our perception of colors. “Here we show that the presence of different odors influences how humans perceive color,” said lead author Dr Ryan Ward, a senior lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University in Liverpool, UK. Sensory-deprived room Ward and colleagues tested for the existence and strength of odor-color associations in 24 […]
Psychology
07 Jun 2023
Science shows why our taste in music can’t be siloed into catch-all genres
By Deborah Pirchner, Frontiers science writer Image: Shutterstock.com Music genres have long been used to describe people’s musical taste. Now, a team of scientists has examined music tastes of a broad German sample and found that it is not sufficient to know what genres people like to describe their musical taste. The researchers also found certain musical tastes may be connected to specific socio-demographic and personality variables of people who like the same genres. Liking certain things or styles is an important aspect of people’s identities and social lives. Tastes can influence the ways humans act and judge. How to best describe musical taste reliably is – due to the ever-changing diversification and transformation of music – difficult and open to debate. Using an approach which also considered sub-genres, researchers in Germany surveyed more than 2,000 people on their musical taste and took a closer look at the fans of five genres: European classical music, electronic dance music (EDM), metal, pop, and rock. “Our analyses revealed that people who like the same genre can have very different tastes if asked which sub-genres they like,” said Anne Siebrasse, a doctoral student at Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics and lead author […]