In The News: Department of Psychology

Jezebel

“These findings indicate that men who perceive the #tradwife movement favorably believe that they rely on women for intimacy and simultaneously resent that this is the case,” Rachael Robnett, one of the report’s authors, told PsyPost. “This mentality could put tradwives in a precarious position considering the amount of control–both financial and otherwise–that they yield to their husbands.”

The Times (UK)

A growing online trend encourages women to quit their jobs, run the home and defer to their husbands. This “tradwife” movement urges a return to traditional roles and, when researchers in the US recently set out to examine what kind of men support it, they expected to find a cohort fond of old-fashioned chivalry. The reality, they say, was rather different.

Wonkette

The feminist scientific journal Psychology of Women Quarterly recently put out a whole issue centered entirely on the #tradwife phenomenon, and it is fascinating.

New Scientist

In his latest book A World Appears: A journey into consciousness, Pollan charts the work of scientists and philosophers, weaving in literary perspectives along the way. He spoke to New Scientist about the value of writing a book where you know less at the end than before you started.

Armchair Expert Podcast

Michael Pollan (A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness) is a science and environmental journalist. Michael returns to the Armchair Expert to discuss why choosing surrender is liberating in both psychedelics and life, what the “hard problem” of consciousness is and how we get to it, and how sentience serves homeostasis in living beings. Michael and Dax talk about asking what the world would be like without consciousness, the remarkable fact that plants can see, hear, and fight, and experimental evidence via the ginger test that disgust originates in the gut. Michael explains the qualitative redness of red, that there’s so much more going on in consciousness besides computation, and what strange places to visit our minds are.

PsyPost

A recent study published in Psychology of Women Quarterly suggests that young men who favor the internet subculture known as the tradwife movement tend to hold hostile and patronizing sexist attitudes. The findings provide evidence that the appeal of this lifestyle for men is rooted in a desire for traditional power dynamics rather than a simple preference for a stay-at-home partner.

CBS 58

Earlier this month, Wisconsin lawmakers passed a bill that would expand sports betting in the state by allowing people to make wagers online. Governor Tony Evers will soon have to decide whether to sign the bill into law. Evers has said his decision will hinge on whether the state's 11 tribes with gaming compacts can agree on how to offer online sports betting throughout Wisconsin. In the meantime, a multitude of questions still exist around what online sports betting could mean for Wisconsin.

New York Times

Pollan, a science writer, spent five years trying to understand how consciousness worked. The more he learned, the weirder things got.

ScienceBlog

The image is carefully curated: sourdough cooling on a scrubbed wooden counter, a woman in a floral apron, a husband greeted at the door. The #tradwife movement has attracted millions of followers across TikTok and YouTube since it began gathering momentum during the pandemic lockdowns of 2020, and it presents itself as a domestic idyll, a nostalgic retreat from the grinding complexity of modern life. You might reasonably reckon the men drawn to it are the chivalrous sort. The ones who believe women deserve protecting, cherishing, putting on a pedestal. Turns out, no.

Las Vegas Weekly

The pay gap—or the difference in earnings between men and women—persists throughout the U.S., with full-time working women earning just 81 cents for every dollar earned by men in 2024. A recent business.com analysis of U.S. Census data shows Nevada’s full-time workforce faring better than all but Vermont, but Henderson remains a major outlier. The city had the 15th largest gap in the study, with an average female resident earning $19,645 less than her male counterpart. That’s about 2.5 times greater than Las Vegas’ $8,172 and Nevada’s $7,805, and consistent with a 2024 UNLV Lincy Institute and Brookings Mountain West study ranking it 21st. Let’s take a closer look at these trends in honor of Equal Pay Day on March 26.

Guardian

Why is it like something to be ourselves and how do physical processes create our subjective experience? These questions get to the heart of the knotty problem of consciousness, and they provided the spark for the latest book from award-winning author and journalist Michael Pollan.

North Carolina Health News

Sports betting is now just a tap away — and experts say it’s easier than ever for it to spiral out of control. If you’re concerned about yourself or someone you love, here are some practical steps to regain control and get help.