Social Sciences
- Home
- Social Sciences
- In modern social research, sociological questions are increasingly being answered with the help of experiments; for example, whether employers discriminate in personnel selection, whether immigrants are treated less well in social situations, or whether counseling programs help to overcome educational inequalities.
- To ensure more food reaches communities in need, a team of researchers collaborated with VolunteerMatch and Feeding America to enhance their algorithms, making volunteer distribution more efficient and equitable.
- To better understand how young children experiencing trauma are supported in early learning settings, Adelaide University researchers examined the role of teacher self-efficacy—the confidence teachers have in their knowledge and abilities—in creating safe, responsive learning environments.
- Languages and human DNA both capture aspects of human diversity. But how are they related? A new international study led by the University of Zurich finds a clear but counterintuitive pattern: regions with high genetic diversity tend to have more similar languages, while isolated populations with low genetic diversity show greater linguistic diversity. The research is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
- Eighty-one years after Adolf Hitler died by his own hand in a Berlin bunker, a viral video on TikTok shows an AI-generated vision of the Nazi dictator standing in Antarctica, shoulders broad and face smiling, sipping a White Monster Energy drink while Men at Work's iconic song Down Under plays.
- If you've decided to separate from your partner, and you have kids together, it's normal to worry about the potential impact on them.
- Everyone on Earth takes a private vote by pressing a red or blue button. If more than 50% of people press the blue button, everyone survives. If less than 50% of people press the blue button, only the people who pressed the red button survive. Which button would you press? BE HONEST.
- More than a third of Americans have lost relationships with friends, family members, romantic partners, or others due to political differences, according to a study. Mertcan Güngör and Peter Ditto examined survey data from thousands of American adults to explore the interpersonal consequences of political polarization in the United States. The findings are published in the journal PNAS Nexus.
- Why do so many people lose control over their internet use? While age limits for social media are being debated, many adults also spend hours online every day. For some, this becomes a burden, affecting mental health, daily life and relationships. A new study led by Professor Matthias Brand (University of Duisburg-Essen) now sheds light on why it is so difficult to disengage from the screen.
- If you're registered to vote in the United States and you're not among the richest of the rich, political scientist Peter K. Enns has a message for you: Your voice still matters. So does data analysis methodology.
- For women in their 50s experiencing homelessness, daily life means far more than finding a place to sleep. It means navigating dangerous shelter environments, managing serious health conditions without adequate support, and fighting to maintain dignity in a system that was never designed for them. A new study led by Boston University School of Social Work (BUSSW) Professor Judith Gonyea puts their experiences at the center.
- Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, is experimenting with a policy that has drawn national attention and local skepticism: providing cash compensation to people confined in the Allegheny County Jail in the city of Pittsburgh. The funds include monthly disbursements to all those incarcerated and additional pay tied to work assignments and participation in educational programming.
- The Netherlands prohibits gambling advertising from targeting young people under age 24. Using Meta's ad library, we found a minority of ads published by both online (7.3%) and offline (29.8%) Dutch gambling licensees that broke this rule, including the state-owned Holland Casino (which quickly admitted to and fixed the mistake upon notification).
- About 1 in 4 elementary students in the United States reports being bullied at least once during a given school year. Children who are frequently bullied are more likely to struggle in school, experience poorer physical health and face higher risks of depression, anxiety and substance use as they age. These effects can persist into adulthood, contributing to unemployment and financial instability.
- Much has been written about Denmark's consistently high scores in global happiness rankings, so it might not come as a surprise that Denmark is also rated the best place to raise children, according to U.S. News and World Report. The small Scandinavian nation also scores near the top for child well-being, a measure of physical health, mental health, education and social relationships.
- The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated and brought into focus the ongoing disproportionate burden on mothers when it comes to household logistics, child care and financial inequity. It also revealed just how deeply embedded and structurally reinforced that burden is.
- There is an assumption that social media use is mainly habitual or driven by addiction-like mechanisms, but findings published in the International Journal of Electronic Marketing and Retailing suggest that engagement with such platforms might be better explained in terms of a person's structured response to distinct psychological and social needs. The work could have implications for how the platforms, policymakers, and users themselves interpret their time spent online.
- Hair and beauty salons are spaces where we go to look and feel good. We have a bad day, a bad week, a bad breakup—we go to the salon. But ask any hair or beauty worker about what their job involves and they'll tell you the work to help clients feel good goes well beyond cutting hair or painting nails.
- As "Michael," a major biographical film on Michael Jackson, hits cinemas more than a decade and a half after the singer's death, a new study shows that dead artists' brands remain powerful long after they are gone.
- Humans tend to be captured by things around them that they perceive as pleasurable and aesthetically pleasing. This "sense of beauty" has been widely studied extensively, mostly in experiments that involved adult participants.
Photographer: