Why Are Relationships So Hard? | Office Hours w/ Professor Jessica Stern YouTube video by Pomona College

Why are relationships so hard? And what does psychological science say about how to improve them?
Really enjoyed this interview with @pomonacollege.bsky.social as part of their new "Office Hours" series. www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z50...

How California Can Improve Access to Mental Health Services | Pomona College in Claremont, California - Pomona College Prof. Sara Masland examines existing barriers to accessing mental health services, the risks associated with using AI as a therapist and the importance of early intervention in the state’s new Mental ...

Prof. Sara Masland examines existing barriers to accessing mental health services, the risks associated with using AI as a therapist and the importance of early intervention.
www.pomona.edu/news/2026/04/13-how-cali...

Open-mindedness was the strongest predictor of *rejecting* conspiracy theories in a sample of 46,745 participants in 68 nations

In particular, participants who were threatened by people who disagree with them were the most likely to believe conspiracy theories.
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Excited for @pomonacollege.bsky.social students Jamila & Edwin to represent the FAM Lab at the SRA Biennial Meeting!🥳

Our lab's research examines how the effects of parenting practices on teen #mentalhealth vary by cultural orientation.

Check out their poster this Thurs! #sra2026

An Earthset, captured by the four astronauts of the Artemis II mission during Monday’s lunar flyby. See more photos released on Tuesday by NASA. nyti.ms/47IKYHQ

The psychological impacts of #climate change pose a global threat to #mentalhealth.
In our new research, we disentangle the links between climate emotions & mental health symptoms over time.
#Openaccess in the Journal of Affective Disorders. Led by @aadeneault.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1016/j.ja...

How to Navigate Toxic Masculinity When Parenting Young Boys Research shows that young boys are struggling to find connections in today’s society so experts Niobe Way, professor of developmental psychology and author of “Rebels With a Cause,” and Carlos Whitake...

Boys are struggling to find connections in today’s society

Niobe Way explains the root of the “crisis of connection”. The ability to connect with others is a real superpower in the modern world. Sadly, there is an industry trying to devalue these skills in boys
www.today.com/video/how-to...

Investigating the replicability of the social and behavioural sciences - Nature A large-scale study on the replicability of claims from social and behavioural science journals reports that about half of the results replicate in the same patterns as the original study.

New article in Nature!

Happy to have contributed (as one of the many co-authors)

Researchers could replicate the results of about half of the studies in various social science disciplines

This holds for various fields: pol sci, econ, sociology, & psychology

#science 🧪 @briannosek.bsky.social

And, more generally, we applied consistent terminology:

* Reproducibility = same data, same analysis
* Robustness = same data, different analyses
* Replicability = same question, different data

These are examples of repeatability, and are components of the broader concept of credibility.

Reliable research in the social and behavioural and sciences Sweeping new investigations probe the replication, robustness and reproducibility of results across the behavioural and social sciences.

The SCORE investigation of repeatability and credibility is a lot. There are a few ways to get your head around it.

1: The Nature collection includes 3 papers from SCORE, an amazing paper from @i4replication.bsky.social and several commentaries about the work.

www.nature.com/collections/...

1/

Are boys really in crisis? What the science says in the age of the manosphere Some data suggest that boys and young men are struggling with school, health and masculinity. But does talk of a male crisis further sideline women and girls?

Boys and young men tend to have fewer close connections and less emotional support than do girls and young women, and many feel under pressure to conform to stereotypical ideas of masculinity and body image

go.nature.com/4sH7xEV

UK parents urged to curb fast-paced screen content for small children – neuroscientist who advised government explains why Rapid movement, abrupt edits and dynamic sound capture attention automatically.

Rapid movement, abrupt edits and dynamic sound capture attention automatically.

A new paper in Science measured the prevalence of social sycophancy across 11 leading large language models. The model’s responses were nearly 50% more sycophantic than humans’, even when users engaged in unethical, illegal, or harmful behaviors.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

New paper in @acamh.bsky.social's JCPP! We found that early adversity doesn't affect positive emotions uniformly-- youth follow 4 distinct developmental trajectories. & This heterogeneity matters for understanding depression/anxiety risk.
🧵 1/5

📊 Paper: acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Pomona College to Host Gubernatorial Debate at Historic Bridges Auditorium | Pomona College in Claremont, California - Pomona College In a first for Pomona College, the top candidates for California governor will participate in a live debate Tuesday, April 28, at the historic Bridges Auditorium. Participants will be invited based on...

Pomona College is hosting a California governor’s debate at Bridges Auditorium next month. The College has partnered with CBS News California and Asian Pacific American Public Affairs (APAPA).
www.pomona.edu/news/2026/03/12-pomona-c...

.@Telegraph cites Prof. Jessica Stern in story on dealing with difficult people.
www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/condition...

A new study links difficult relationships in our social networks to faster biological ageing (Lee et al., 2026 @pnas.org).
I spoke with @drdavidcox.bsky.social @telegraph.co.uk about the findings — and what to do about it.
www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitne...

Diverse Books with Trailblazing Women | NEA In these selected titles you’ll find authors, artists, and architects; rulers and rebels; athletes and astronauts; musicians; mothers of invention; and many, many more famous and influential women.

This Women’s History Month, bring trailblazing women into your classroom. From artists and architects to astronauts and rebels, these titles spotlight influential women who shaped history and continue to inspire today.

🚨New research: Teens with more empathy for close friends in adolescence showed reduced neural activation in the sACC during social exclusion more than a decade later.
Led by the amazing @jingrunlin.bsky.social, with Jacob Moore, Nate Field, Joe Allen & @jimmycoan.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1017/S095...

Dealing with a difficult relationship? Here’s how psychology says you can shift the dynamic A bit of understanding – plus effort to regulate yourself and give compassionate feedback – can shift a stuck relationship into something more bearable, perhaps even meaningful.

Prof. Jessica Stern pens this piece in @ConversationUS.
theconversation.com/dealing-with-a-difficult...

Dealing With a Difficult Relationship? Here’s How Psychology Says You Can Shift the Dynamic | Flipboard Nice News - This article was written by Jessica A. Stern, an assistant professor of psychology at Pomona College, for The Conversation — a nonprofit news …

Difficult relationships often reflect differences in temperament and attachment styles, psychology professor Jessica A. Stern explains in an article for @us.theconversation.com — learn her strategies for managing emotions and giving better feedback.

Dealing with a difficult relationship? Here’s how psychology says you can shift the dynamic A bit of understanding – plus effort to regulate yourself and give compassionate feedback – can shift a stuck relationship into something more bearable, perhaps even meaningful.

Difficult relationships often trace back to insecure attachment. Early caregiving experiences shape how we connect — but a relationship scientist explains that there are ways to manage the emotions. buff.ly/dlJVZjr

Journal of Cognition and Development Child Development and Climate Change. Volume 27, Issue 1 of Journal of Cognition and Development

Glad to be a part of this important & timely special issue in JCD @cogdevsoc.bsky.social, "Child Development and Climate Change"🌍🔥
www.tandfonline.com/toc/hjcd20/2...
As leadership & policy backtrack on this issue, children are increasingly aware of the consequences for their generation.

Planting the Seeds of Sustainability: The Promise of Dynamic Norms Climate change poses an increasingly dangerous threat to human life, necessitating widespread behavior change to mitigate its effects. Thus, targeting children, whose habits and norms are still for...

📣📣 A recent paper by Lesenia R. Fish & Arber Tasimi at JCD:

Planting the Seeds of Sustainability: The Promise of Dynamic Norms

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

A recent paper by Jessica A. Stern et al. in JCD:
"Environmental Moral Cognition in Children and Adults: Journal of Cognition and Development"

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

@drmeltemyucel.bsky.social

Attachment security to mother is associated with lower trait expressive suppression among girls in middle childhood This study investigates links between children’s attachment security to their mother in middle childhood and two aspects of emotion regulation: (1) trait expressive suppression (ES), the dispositio...

New research: 9- to 10-year-old girls who are securely attached are less likely to suppress their emotions😄😢😠😨
Girls who feel secure in relationships with their mothers may feel more comfortable openly expressing how they feel.
@tandfresearch.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1080/1461...

It's time to remove laptops from classrooms.

24 experiments: Students learn more and get better grades after taking notes by hand than typing. It's not just because they're less distracted—writing enables deeper processing and more images.

The pen is mightier than the keyboard.

Most scientists don't understand how effect sizes work and are therefore far too quick to dismiss "small" effects.

A correlation of .03 between taking aspirin & prevention of future heart attacks implied the prevention of 85 attacks in a sample of 10,845 people
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

In this piece for the @spspnews.bsky.social Character & Context blog, I write about our recent research on the psychological factors underlying people's beliefs about criminal justice. spsp.org/news/charact...

📣Attending the @psychscience.bsky.social Global Summit?
Check out these stellar students presenting research from our lab! Their work explores how cultural attitudes shape social relationships & mental health among young adults.
Proud of all their hard work!👏
#APSglobal @pomona-psych.bsky.social