Social Sciences

A psychologist and stress expert at the University at Buffalo says research on traumatic experiences pinpoints specific sources of stress that the trapped Chilean miners and their rescuers will need to manage in the weeks and months ahead, and offers ways of dealing with them.

Traditions surrounding childbirth are an intrinsic part of a culture, and when people emigrate and cultures intersect, fundamental beliefs surrounding labor and delivery can collide.

A University at Buffalo researcher will spend the next two years studying post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the long-term effects of Hurricane Katrina on police officers who worked during the disaster.

Five years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, James N. Jensen, PhD, University at Buffalo professor of civil, structural and environmental engineering, says that probably the biggest lesson learned from that disaster was that municipalities and citizens now take orders to evacuate much more seriously. Jensen was one of six UB researchers that visited the Gulf Coast soon after Katrina hit, as part of a National Science Foundation-funded reconnaissance mission organized by UB's Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research.

In the first study of its kind, researchers have found compelling evidence that our best and worst experiences in life are likely to involve not individual accomplishments, but interaction with other people and the fulfillment of an urge for social connection.

If you want to know how people become addicted and why they keep using drugs, ask the people who are addicted. Thirty-one of 75 patients hospitalized for opioid detoxification told University at Buffalo physicians they first got hooked on drugs legitimately prescribed for pain.

Two University at Buffalo researchers are challenging the "myth of the well-adjusted Asian American," detailing how members of one of the country's fastest-growing ethnic groups face crucial disadvantages preventing them from receiving quality health care taken for granted by other, more culturally assimilated Americans.

Mike Lisieski, a University at Buffalo psychology major, plans to earn an MD/PhD in neuroscience but for now he appears to be the web's chief "cephalover," using his blog cephalove to carefully analyze research about octopuses and related animals and post stunning photographs of them.

A simple morning walk to school could reduce stress reactivity in children during the school day, curbing increases in heart rate and blood pressure that can lead to cardiovascular disease later in life, according to a new University at Buffalo study.

A new study by researchers at the University at Buffalo and the University of California, Irvine, to be published in the September issue of the journal Pain, reveals that, for people with chronic back pain, having a little adversity in your life can be protective and beneficial.