https://phys.org/science-news/social-sciences en-us The latest news on social sciences, history, political science, psychology and sociology A study from Queen Mary University of London reveals that the music and soundscapes used in toy commercials are reinforcing rigid gender norms, shaping the way children perceive masculinity and femininity. The research uncovers how gender stereotypes are not only conveyed through visuals and language but are also deeply embedded in the sound and music used in advertisements targeted at children. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-soundtracks-toy-ads-gender-stereotypes.html Social Sciences Wed, 06 Nov 2024 14:00:01 EST news650108867 University of Michigan researchers have added a new dimension to the mathematics used to predict the outcomes of all manner of competitions, including sports, games and social hierarchies in both humans and animals. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-shallow-sports-deep-social-hierarchies.html Mathematics Social Sciences Wed, 06 Nov 2024 14:00:01 EST news650106241 Researchers from Stockholm University, Bocconi University, and the Rockwool Foundation have studied poverty's lasting impact across generations in wealthy countries. By examining the United States, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Germany, the team found that welfare systems play a significant role in whether children born into poverty will remain poor as adults. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-multi-country-significant-differences-poverty.html Social Sciences Economics & Business Wed, 06 Nov 2024 11:38:03 EST news650115482 An international survey involving over 1,600 biomedical researchers has shed light on the perceived causes of irreproducibility in research results. The survey, which included participants from various countries and research institutions, aimed to identify the factors that contribute to the lack of reproducibility in scientific studies. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-survey-highlights-publish-perish-culture.html Social Sciences Education Tue, 05 Nov 2024 14:00:01 EST news650010781 New research reveals a strong link between higher female education and lower fertility rates in sub-Saharan Africa. Educated women are driving a shift toward smaller families and even influencing less educated peers. This new forecasting model offers policymakers valuable insights into how women's education shapes population trends, aiding sustainable development efforts. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-women-fertility-saharan-africa.html Social Sciences Education Tue, 05 Nov 2024 07:25:04 EST news650013901 Missing a deadline has more complex consequences than you might think. Researchers at the University of Toronto found that if you submit a piece of work late, people will think it's lower in quality than if you were to submit the exact same work on time or early. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-deadline-bigger-impact.html Social Sciences Economics & Business Tue, 05 Nov 2024 07:19:04 EST news650013542 There's a certain allure to the notion that some of the world's brightest stars burn out at the age of 27. The so-called 27 Club has captivated the public imagination for half a century. Its members include legendary musicians Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse. The idea is as seductive as it is tragic: a convergence of talent, fame and untimely death at a singular age. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-club-isnt-true-real-sociologist.html Social Sciences Tue, 05 Nov 2024 07:10:06 EST news650013001 Research by the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) reveals an unbalanced distribution of the impacts generated by the exploitation of two blocks in the Amazon. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-great-degree-ecuadorian-oil-profits.html Social Sciences Economics & Business Tue, 05 Nov 2024 03:59:28 EST news650001556 With recent box office hits like Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, The Little Mermaid and Everything Everywhere All at Once, the average viewer might assume that the casts of Hollywood films are more diverse now than they were 10 or 20 years ago. But verifying these perceptions can be tricky. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-facial-recognition-technology-hollywood-diverse.html Social Sciences Mon, 04 Nov 2024 17:09:06 EST news649962542 A popular new strategy for combating misinformation doesn't by itself help people distinguish truth from falsehood but improves when paired with reminders to focus on accuracy, finds new Cornell University-led research supported by Google. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-psychological-inoculation-combining-simple-tools.html Social Sciences Political science Mon, 04 Nov 2024 05:00:01 EST news649685401 For many years, the conventional wisdom was that only highly biased, less educated media consumers would put partisanship over truth—in other words, they would believe news that confirmed their worldview, regardless of whether it was true. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-news-consumers-political-alignment-truth.html Social Sciences Political science Fri, 01 Nov 2024 13:17:04 EDT news649685821 The beliefs someone holds and the environment where they live and work shape how much economic inequality people report seeing, according to new research from the University at Buffalo School of Management. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-reveal-factors-mask-economic-inequality.html Social Sciences Economics & Business Fri, 01 Nov 2024 08:57:03 EDT news649670221 Does a candidate's appearance affect how we vote? There's growing evidence that suggests the answer may be yes. In a recent study published on the preprint server bioRxiv, neuroscientists at the University of Pennsylvania and the Champalimaud Center for the Unknown in Portugal had monkeys look at pictures of political candidates from past U.S. races. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-monkeys-presidential-candidates.html Social Sciences Political science Thu, 31 Oct 2024 12:24:04 EDT news649596241 Compared with just before the COVID-19 pandemic, people are spending nearly an hour less a day doing activities outside the home, behavior that researchers say is a lasting consequence of the pandemic. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-decline-home-pandemic.html Social Sciences Economics & Business Thu, 31 Oct 2024 00:00:01 EDT news649500000 A study led by Prof. Dr. Hitoshi Yamamoto (Rissho University) and his collaborators from Soka University, Koriyama Women's College, and the RINRI Institute has made significant strides in the field of indirect reciprocity: a key mechanism for sustaining cooperation in human societies. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-simulation-robust-social-norms-sustain.html Social Sciences Tue, 29 Oct 2024 10:10:39 EDT news649415435 A new study published today (Oct. 29) details the ways in which the 2020 U.S. election not only incited new hate content in online communities but also how it brought those communities closer together around online hate speech. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-online-speech-surged-election.html Social Sciences Political science Tue, 29 Oct 2024 09:35:13 EDT news649413309 A recent study published in Nature Communications uncovers how human social interactions evolve in group settings, providing a perspective on the dynamic nature of social networks. By analyzing how university students and preschool children form and dissolve groups in different environments, the research sheds light on the subtle, yet structured patterns that underlie human social behavior. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-social-interactions-evolve-schools-reveals.html Social Sciences Education Mon, 28 Oct 2024 15:23:03 EDT news649347781 We can use them to alter lighting, smooth out our complexion and even change our hair color, but now researchers have found that AI facial filters, when used in real time, could even have the power to influence who we are attracted to. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-reveals-ai-filters.html Social Sciences Mon, 28 Oct 2024 15:00:01 EDT news649328504 Magic is one of the oldest forms of entertainment, and much of its enchantment is said to rely on the audience not knowing how the tricks are done. However, while magicians swear to keep their secrets forever when they embark on their profession, they are happy to share the tricks of their trade in certain circumstances, a new study shows. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-complex-considerations-magicians-exposing.html Social Sciences Education Sun, 27 Oct 2024 19:00:01 EDT news649068968 It feels like narcissism is everywhere these days: politics, movies and TV, sports, social media. You might even see signs of it at work, where it can be particularly detrimental. Is it possible to keep a workplace free of destructive, manipulative egotists? https://phys.org/news/2024-10-tool-narcissism-job-candidates.html Social Sciences Economics & Business Sat, 26 Oct 2024 06:09:02 EDT news649141735 At one point or another, you may have gone online looking for a specific bit of information and found yourself "going down the Wiki rabbit hole" as you discover wholly new, ever-more fascinating related topics—some trivial, some relevant—and you may have gone so far down the hole it's difficult to piece together what brought you there to begin with. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-dancer-curiosity-style-wikipedia-browsing.html Social Sciences Sat, 26 Oct 2024 04:04:45 EDT news649134269 Misinformation, incorrect or false information shared unintentionally, can be extremely damaging. Its climate change-denying sort can make taking much-needed action against global warming more difficult. It can be even deadly, for example, if it encourages refusing vaccines against fatal diseases. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-misinformation-disinformation-prebunking-debunking.html Social Sciences Political science Fri, 25 Oct 2024 10:04:04 EDT news649069441 Traditionally-crafted news articles are more comprehensible than articles produced with automation. This was the finding of a Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) study that was recently published in the journal Journalism: Theory, Practice, and Criticism. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-ai-generated-news-harder.html Social Sciences Thu, 24 Oct 2024 16:20:45 EDT news649005636 A theory that's been around for more than a decade describes a person's subjective well-being—"happiness"—as having a U-shape throughout the course of one's life. If plotted on a graph, the shape would be concave, revealing high happiness levels throughout one's youth, declining and bottoming out at middle age—the so-called "midlife crisis"—until happiness, somewhat counterintuitively, rises again. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-happiness-universal-rural-subsistence-populations.html Social Sciences Thu, 24 Oct 2024 11:33:04 EDT news648988381 A team of social scientists at the Social Change Lab, in the U.K., working with a sociologist from the University of South Carolina, has found evidence to support what has come to be known as "the positive radical flank effect"—where protests by radical groups lead to more support for less radical groups. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-disruptive-protests-fringe-groups-moderate.html Social Sciences Political science Thu, 24 Oct 2024 11:09:32 EDT news648986966 Rising numbers of houses and flats listed as short-term lets on Airbnb are associated with higher rates of crimes such as burglaries and street robberies right across London, according to the most detailed study of its kind. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-airbnb-rentals-linked-crime-london.html Social Sciences Economics & Business Wed, 23 Oct 2024 19:00:01 EDT news648917810 Imagine you are visiting a new city for the first time, and dinner time rolls around. How do you choose a restaurant? You could just check reviews and go to the highest-rated option. But how can you be sure that the reviewers share your food preferences, your spice tolerance, or your budget? And how do humans in general manage to learn from others when preferences can vary quite substantially between individuals? https://phys.org/news/2024-10-grain-salt-online-video-game.html Social Sciences Wed, 23 Oct 2024 13:17:04 EDT news648908221 When X (formerly Twitter) changed its verification system in 2022, many foresaw its potential to impact the spread of political opinions on the platform. In a modeling study published October 22 in iScience, researchers show that having verified users whose posts are prioritized by the platform's algorithms can result in increased polarization and trigger the formation of echo chambers. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-users-social-media-networks-polarization.html Social Sciences Political science Tue, 22 Oct 2024 11:00:02 EDT news648806042 The extent to which "civilization" heightens or lessens the likelihood of violent conflict throughout human history has remained one of the most enduring questions among anthropologists. But a new collaborative study of archaeological groups from the Andes region of South America suggests that being part of a centrally organized state society is only part of the equation. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-society-agitating-pacifying-ancient-andes.html Archaeology Social Sciences Tue, 22 Oct 2024 10:27:03 EDT news648811622 A new study has found that after watching a docudrama about the efforts to free a wrongly convicted prisoner on death row, people were more empathetic toward formerly incarcerated people and supportive of criminal justice reform. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-docudrama-empathy-people-stigmatized-society.html Social Sciences Political science Mon, 21 Oct 2024 15:00:01 EDT news648719426