By Martin Graff, Senior Lecturer in Psychology of Relationships, University of South Wales
As Valentine’s Day approaches, restaurant bookings fill up and couples exchange cards, flowers and carefully chosen gifts. For some, it’s a day of closeness and connection. For others, it can bring anxiety, disappointment or emotional distance.
These different reactions may feel deeply personal. But in terms of psychology, they may reflect something much deeper – how we learned to attach to other people in childhood.
Attachment theory offers a powerful way of understanding why romantic relationships…
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By Henry Somers-Hall, Professor of Philosophy, Royal Holloway, University of London
Let’s begin with a story from the beginnings of western philosophy that doesn’t sit well with existentialist thought.
In Plato’s Symposium, a character called Aristophanes gives an account of love. He tells us that human beings originally had doubled bodies, with two heads, four arms and four legs. As a punishment for threatening the gods, however, Zeus cut each of them in half.
Now, these half humans,…
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By Travis Van Isacker, Senior Research Associate, School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies, University of Bristol
The deaths of at least 31 people in the Channel on November 24 2021 were “avoidable”, an independent inquiry has found. The final report of the Cranston inquiry highlights known problems at HM Coastguard that were not resolved, calling them a “significant, systemic failure on the part of government”, which led to this crossing becoming Britain’s deadliest small boat disaster.
The report…
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By Thomas Keegan, Senior Lecturer in Epidemiology, Lancaster University
A whistleblower has raised safety concerns about working inside Porton Down, which has a long history of conducting dangerous biochemical research.
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By Eric Yttri, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University
At the Winter Olympics, skiers, bobsledders, speedskaters and many other athletes all have to master one critical moment: when to start. That split second is paramount during competition because when everyone is strong and skilled, a moment of hesitation can separate gold from silver. A competitor who hesitates too much will be left behind – but moving too early will get them disqualified.
Though the circumstances are…
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By Filippo Menczer, Professor of Informatics and Computer Science, Indiana University
A simulation shows that social media bots powered by today’s AI can infiltrate human networks on social media and influence what people believe.
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By Tucker J. Gregor, Doctoral Candidate in Religious Studies, University of Iowa
Love and hate seem like obvious opposites. Love, whether romantic or otherwise, involves a sense of warmth and affection for others. Hate involves feelings of disdain. Love builds up, whereas hate destroys.
However, this description of love and hate treats them as merely emotions. As a religious ethicist, I am interested in the role love plays in our moral lives: how and why it can help us live well together. How does our understanding of the love-hate relationship change if we imagine love not as…
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By Emma Fenske, Addiction Medicine Fellow and Internal Medicine Physician, Oregon Health & Science University
Addiction is one of the most common and consequential chronic medical conditions in the United States. Nationwide, more than 46 million people met the criteria for a substance abuse disorder as of 2021, the most recent data available.
Decades of evidence show that addiction is a chronic, relapsing disease…
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By Michael Paarlberg, Associate Professor, Political Science, Virginia Commonwealth University
As protest and military action raised the prospect of regime change in Iran and Venezuela, the voices of both countries’ diasporas were heard loud and clear through the media of their host nations.
Venezuelan exiles in the U.S. were, according to the popular narrative, broadly…
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By Tim Swift, Professor of Management, St. Joseph's University
For the past decade I have volunteered at St. Francis Inn, a soup kitchen in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia.
Kensington, for those not from Philly, has long had a reputation for potent but affordable street drugs. Interstate 95 and the Market-Frankford elevated commuter train line provide easy access to the neighborhood for buyers and sellers, and abandoned…
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