Each month our editorial team sifts through hundreds of papers and curates notable findings—for practitioners and informed readers who want to stay current with the evidence. Subscribe to the monthly Research Digest for expert analysis and concise summaries of key papers.
79 papers
Researchers gave the new Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and the older Rutter questionnaires to parents and teachers of 403 children from dental and psychiatric clinics. SDQ scores were highly correlated with Rutter scores, and parent-teacher agreement was similar or sometimes better for the SDQ. Both tools were about equally…
Emotional intelligence (EQ) is a set of skills for noticing, understanding and managing your own feelings and other people’s feelings. Employers and experts say EQ helps at work by improving relationships, morale and productivity, and the Covid-19 pandemic made these skills more important. A Gallup survey reported that the share…
This meta-analysis combined results from 213 school-based, universal social and emotional learning (SEL) programs involving 270,034 kindergarten-through-high-school students. Compared with control groups, students in SEL programs showed better social and emotional skills, attitudes, and behavior, and their school achievement was higher by about 11 percentile points. Regular school teaching staff…
This meta-analysis combined 241 effect sizes from 114 studies to test how six habitual emotion-regulation strategies relate to symptoms of anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and substance-related problems. Rumination showed the strongest (large) link with symptoms. Avoidance, problem solving, and suppression showed medium-to-large links, while reappraisal and acceptance showed smaller (small-to-medium)…
This paper reviews research on procrastination and runs a meta-analysis of 691 correlations. It finds that some personality traits (neuroticism, rebelliousness, sensation seeking) have only weak links to procrastination. Strong and consistent predictors include task aversiveness, task delay, low self-efficacy, impulsiveness, and low conscientiousness (including poor self-control, distractibility, poor organization,…
This research found that writing about important personal experiences in an emotional way for as little as 15 minutes on three separate days was linked to better mental and physical health. The results were seen across ages, genders, cultures, social classes, and personality types. Computer text analysis showed that people…
Postpartum depression can affect fathers too. Research summarized in this article says about 10% of men experience clinical paternal postpartum depression, often during pregnancy or in the first year after birth (with the highest risk in the first 3–6 months). The article lists common symptoms, risk factors like a partner’s…
This review looked at 13 studies of attachment in people with borderline personality disorder (BPD) or BPD traits. Every study found a strong link between BPD and insecure attachment. The insecure types most often seen were labeled unresolved, preoccupied, and fearful. The authors note that differences in how attachment was…
Using long-term data from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study, the authors show that physical health, thinking skills, and well-being in midlife can change in different directions for different people. They describe these changes as multidirectional (some things get better, some worse), variable between people, and plastic (open…
Putting feelings into words, called affect labeling, can reduce how strong emotions feel. It often does not feel like a deliberate way to control feelings. The review finds that affect labeling shows effects similar to a deliberate strategy called reappraisal across people's experience, bodily responses, brain activity, and behavior. The…
This paper says midlife (roughly ages 40–60) is an important, understudied life stage with both new opportunities and new challenges. The authors review evidence that some common ideas—like a widespread "midlife crisis"—are misleading, and they show that middle age often involves balancing many roles, linking younger and older generations, and…
The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) is a self-report test made by Hans J. Eysenck and Sybil B. G. Eysenck to measure four personality scales: Extraversion (E), Neuroticism (N), Psychoticism (P), and a Lie or social-desirability scale (L). It is based on Eysenck's theory that temperament has biological and genetic roots,…
