Social Behavior

Online Social Networks and Smoking Cessation: A Scientific Research Agenda|Background: Smoking remains one of the most pressing public health problems in the United States and internationally. The concurrent evolution of the Internet, social network science, and online communities offers a potential target for high-yield interventions capable of shifting population-level smoking rates and substantially improving public health. Objective: Our objective was to convene leading practitioners in relevant discip

Short Message Service (SMS) Applications for Disease Prevention in Developing Countries|Background: The last decade has witnessed unprecedented growth in the number of mobile phones in the developing world, thus linking millions of previously unconnected people. The ubiquity of mobile phones, which allow for short message service (SMS), provides new and innovative opportunities for disease prevention efforts. Objective: The aim of this review was to describe the characteristics and outcomes of SMS interven

Neuropsychopharmacology, the official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, publishing the highest quality original research and advancing our understanding of the brain and behavior.

reports suggests the drug dramatically increases the risk of suicide and suicide-related behavior compared with other cessation medications. ... Substantially more reports of suicidal behavior in patients taking varenicline have been submitted to the US

Archives of Neurology, a monthly professional medical journal published by the American Medical Association, publishes original, peer-reviewed scientific research on the nervous system

An outbred rat model of novelty-seeking phenotype has predictive value for the expression of locomotor sensitization to nicotine. When experimentally nave rats are exposed to a novel environment, some display high rates of locomotor reactivity (HRs, scores ranking at top 1/3rd of the population), whereas some display low rates (LRs, scores ranking at bottom 1/3rd of the population). Basally, HRs display lower anxiety-like behavior compared to LRs along with higher neuropeptide Y (NPY) mRNA in the amygdala and the hippocampus. Following an intermittent behavioral sensitization to nicotine regimen and 1 wk of abstinence, HRs show increased social anxiety-like behavior in the social interaction test and robust expression of locomotor sensitization to a low dose nicotine challenge. These effects are accompanied by a deficit in NPY mRNA levels in the medial nucleus of the amygdala and the CA3 field of the hippocampus, and increases in Y2R mRNA levels in the CA3 field and corticotropin

Research has demonstrated the environmentally conscious behavior of parents and caregivers acts as a social influence that produces environmentally conscious behavior in their children, and also has an effect on their children's cost-benefit evaluations and social norm evaluations. The present study examined the personal norms for producing continuous environmentally conscious behavior, and two social norms that form the personal norms, which are categorized as descriptive and subjective norms. The results of this study suggest that the subjective norm formed the personal norm. Furthermore, the parents' normative social influences affected the personal norm through the subjective norm, and the parents' behavior affected their children's environmentally conscious behavior through the descriptive norm.

Using a multicomponent, process-oriented approach, the links between social information processing during the preschool years and (a) sociodemographic risk and (b) behavior problems in preschool were examined in a community sample of 196 children. Findings provided support for our initial hypotheses that aspects of social information processing in preschool are related to both sociodemographic risk and behavior problems in preschool. Response evaluation and in particular the positive evaluation of an aggressive response were related to both sociodemographic risk and children's aggressive behavior and partially mediated the links between sociodemographic risk and aggressive behavior in preschool.

The aim of this study was to identify the frequency and causative factors of physical child abuse and any correlations with other domestic violence types. In a representative sample of 15-49-year-old married women living in Edirne chosen with stratified cluster sampling, 275 women were interviewed face-to-face in their residence or places of employment. The questionnaire used included any violent behavior of the women or their husbands toward their children as well as demographic features, habits, Marriage Relation Scales, Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, history of partner abuse, and childhood violence exposition. The physical child abuse rate was 61.1% among the women and 20.7% among the husbands according to the women's declarations. Social support was not associated with child abuse rates. Child abuse rate among the women was increased 2.7 times in the presence of the partner's child abuse, 1.6 times with each additional child, 3.1 times in the presence of a

Tremendous progress has been made in our understanding of the ultimate and proximate mechanisms underlying social behavior, yet an integrative evolutionary analysis of its underpinnings has been difficult. In this review, we propose that modern genomic approaches can facilitate such studies by integrating four approaches to brain and behavior studies: (1) animals face many challenges and opportunities that are ecologically and socially equivalent across species; (2) they respond with species-specific, yet quantifiable and comparable approach and avoidance behaviors; (3) these behaviors in turn are regulated by gene modules and neurochemical codes; and (4) these behaviors are governed by brain circuits such as the mesolimbic reward system and the social behavior network. For each approach, we discuss genomic and other studies that have shed light on various aspects of social behavior and its underpinnings and suggest promising avenues for future research into the evolution of