Which is better, giving more food to a few hungry people or letting some food go to waste so that everyone gets a share? A study appearing this week in Science finds that most people choose the latter, and that the brain responds in unique ways to inefficiency and inequity.

The first national study of Asians living in the United States shows that for some individuals, strong ties to their ethnicity can guard against the negative effects of racism. For others, strong ties to ethnicity can actually make the negative effects of discrimination worse. And the mental health effects of such discrimination may shift over a lifetime as Asian-Americans continue to examine their ethnic ties, say researchers.

For children of divorce, what happens after their parents split up may be just as important to their long-term well-being as the divorce itself.A new study found that children who lived in unstable family situations after their parents divorced fared much worse as adults on a variety of measures compared to children who had stable post-divorce family situations.

Pregnant women may still face judgment and obstacles to getting jobs, shows two recent studies by George Mason University and Rice University professors.The studies, co-written by Eden King of Mason, Michelle Hebl of Rice and their collaborators, explored different interpersonal reactions that pregnant women face in their daily lives. It was recently published in the Journal of Applied Psychology.

The University of Leicester is leading on a national study to calculate the number of adults with autism, it has been announced. Professor Terry Brugha, Professor of Psychiatry in the Department of Health Sciences is spearheading the study in conjunction with a team of research experts including the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), Research Autism and Professor Simon Baron-Cohen of the Autism Research Centre. It will report in 2009.