News

Learning several new things at once increases cognitive abilities in older adults, according to new research from UC Riverside. UCR psychologist Rachel Wu says one important way of staving off cognitive decline is learning new skills as a child would. That is, be a sponge: seek new skills to learn...

You often hear it framed in a comic sense, though it’s a form of stereotyping, and even prejudice. “You all look alike to me.” To one race, the tired adage implies, people in other races are tough to differentiate from each other. Some call it the “other-race effect.” It’s something...

An induced feeling of awe, or state of wonder, may be the best strategy yet for alleviating the discomfort that comes from uncertain waiting. Kate Sweeny’s research explores the most excruciating form of waiting: the period during which one awaits uncertain news, the outcome of which is beyond one’s control...

The New York Times and Urban Institute compared similar colleges in determining which schools are exceeding student success expectations - and which schools aren't meeting them.

A shift from soccer to tennis jostled Kyle McCann's Irish footballer-father, but a storied UCR career affirms it was the right move.

A grant recently awarded to the Riverside Unified School District and UC Riverside will provide a high school curriculum that addresses air quality, in a region that is among the worst polluters in the country. The grant is for $1.19 million and is from the National Science Foundation, or NSF...

The gift from the mother-daughter philanthropists is tied for the largest ever to the university from individual donors

A first-of-its-kind UC Riverside study asserts that women don’t gossip negatively more often than men, lower income people don’t gossip more than more wealthy people, and younger people are more likely to gossip negatively than their older counterparts.

UC Riverside climbed 37 places in the most recent Forbes magazine rankings, from No. 64 to No. 27.

You don’t want Careen Khachatoorian for a sister. Not if you smoke, you don’t. Careen’s older brother is trying to conceive a child with his partner. A typical text to her smoker-brother includes a link to a sins-of-smoking article, and reads like this: “See? Pregnant mothers have a greater chance...

We’re often told we are responsible for our own happiness. But in challenging situations, a UC Riverside study not only demonstrates the benefits of positive reframing – finding a “silver lining” – but also suggests our partners can be more adept at finding that silver lining than we are. A...

A study of 18,000 people shows that fathers experience more well-being from parenthood than mothers. Past studies have considered whether people with children have greater well-being than people without children. They do. But few have considered the relative happiness of fathers and mothers. UCR psychologists and their colleagues analyzed three...

Courtney Baugh is planning her vegetable garden. Green beans, beets, definitely cucumbers. And she’d like to plant an orange tree, and an apple tree — the kind that yield fruit the moment they’re planted. She’s also going to install an 8-foot privacy fence in her back yard, to keep out...

The course is named “Seminar in Social Psychology,” but it could be “Wednesdays with Bob.” At 85, Robert Rosenthal is in his last year teaching at UC Riverside. Distinguished Professor David Funder — who first worked with Rosenthal at Harvard University in the early 1980s — urged Rosenthal to host...

Tetris could be the salve for a worried mind. The venerable video game was used in a recent experiment to create a state of “flow” – the term psychologists use to describe a state of mind so engaged it makes the rest of the world fall away, and time pass...

A new UC Riverside study finds children are sensitive to and suffer the impacts of discrimination as young as 7 years old. Previous studies have shown children can identify racism at that age, but the study from Tuppett Yates, a UC Riverside psychology professor, and Ana Marcelo, an assistant professor...

A UCR psychology researcher says the bar is too low for “functional independence” in older adults, and should be aligned with skills younger adults must conquer. The Activities of Daily Living, or ADL, questionnaire is a standard used by healthcare professionals to decide what services older adults need to remain...

A healthy relationship starts with the word “we.” Past research by UC Riverside psychologist Megan Robbins has emphasized the power of first-person personal pronouns such as “we” and “us” in relationships. “We-talk” is an indicator of interdependence, meaning partners affect one another’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. This is a shift...

Early 2017 was a nervous time on the UC Riverside campus. In 2015, California Gov. Jerry Brown negotiated with the University of California system a target of enrolling one new transfer student for every two new freshmen enrolled. By spring 2017, the governor put teeth in the mandate: he would...

Children less able to manage their emotions don't remember details of frightful events