https://phys.org/science-news/political-science en-us The latest news on political science A new EPFL developed tool, Quotebank, has helped researchers provide the first large-scale data-driven evidence of a drastic shift towards a more negative political tone beginning at the start of Donald Trump's primary campaign in June 2015. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-tool-shift-negative-political-tone.html Political science Thu, 19 Oct 2023 12:47:04 EDT news616938421 New research by Valentina Bosetti (Department of Economics) and Italo Colantone (Department of Social and Political Sciences) suggests that Western policymakers wanting to make progress on climate action should address the distributional consequences of international trade. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-green-vote-import-competition-people.html Economics & Business Political science Wed, 18 Oct 2023 10:16:04 EDT news616842961 New research published by a team at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania finds that experiencing days in which the temperature exceeds previous highs for that time of year affects people's perception of weather trends. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-experiencing-record-breaking-days-affects-perception.html Social Sciences Political science Wed, 11 Oct 2023 12:48:03 EDT news616247281 Whether or not people choose to attend a climate protest partly depends on its expected size. When they expect a larger protest, they are less likely to take part—as Universität Hamburg's Cluster of Excellence for climate research (CLICCS) shows in a publication in the journal Nature Climate Change. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-climate-protests-size.html Social Sciences Political science Tue, 10 Oct 2023 11:37:16 EDT news616156633 The absence of sexually related injuries cannot be used in court to infer that rape victims are "making it up," a new study reveals. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-lack-sexually-injuries-rape-victim.html Social Sciences Political science Fri, 06 Oct 2023 14:03:03 EDT news615819781 Allowing eyewitnesses to dynamically explore digital faces using a new interactive procedure can significantly improve identification accuracy compared to the video lineup and photo array procedures used by police worldwide, a new study reveals. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-usual-interactive-lineup-boosts-eyewitness.html Social Sciences Political science Mon, 02 Oct 2023 15:00:02 EDT news615468264 A pair of civil rights researchers with the University of California has found evidence suggesting that ceasing one practice that violated citizen rights in Chicago may have led to the initiation of another. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, David Hausman and Dorothy Kronick describe how they analyzed traffic and pedestrian stops in Chicago following new rules that made it much more difficult for police officers to conduct stop-and-frisk searches in the city. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-stop-and-frisk-chicago-minority-traffic.html Social Sciences Political science Mon, 02 Oct 2023 09:50:01 EDT news615458512 As much of the U.S. broils under record-setting temperatures, battles wildfires and is rocked by fierce storms, a new study suggests that the science learning standards for many public schools are not preparing young people to understand and respond to problems such as climate change that will dramatically impact their lives and those of millions of people around the globe. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-state-politics-industry-planetary-health.html Education Political science Wed, 27 Sep 2023 17:07:05 EDT news615053222 An ecological theory may help to explain why segregation is so widespread and persistent in US cities, according to a paper published today in Buildings and Cities. The new way of framing segregation's endurance may provide a useful tool to study and address systemic racism, and could ultimately reveal novel ways of breaking the cycle. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-ecological-theory-segregation-persists.html Social Sciences Political science Tue, 26 Sep 2023 11:59:47 EDT news614948291 An international study, published in Nature Human Behaviour, analyzed millions of tweets by members of Congress over the last decade. Its findings showed both Republican and Democratic politicians were increasingly sharing their beliefs and opinions as well as evidence-based information. But among Republicans, their expression of honestly-held beliefs and opinions was strongly linked to less trustworthy information sources. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-links-misinformation-republican-politicians-perception.html Social Sciences Political science Mon, 25 Sep 2023 11:00:01 EDT news614854151 A study titled "Factors Assessing Science's Self-Presentation model and their effect on conservatives' and liberals' support for funding science" published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) identifies five factors that Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) researchers say reflect public assessments of science and are associated with public support for increasing funding of science and support for federal funding of basic research. These factors are whether science and scientists are perceived to be credible and prudent, and whether their work is perceived to be untainted by bias, self-correcting, and beneficial. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-factors-well-being-science-funding.html Economics & Business Political science Mon, 25 Sep 2023 10:43:46 EDT news614857422 A team of behavioral scientists using big data and a simulation-based model to analyze social media "tweets" around the 2020 presidential election found that the spread of voter fraud conspiracy theories on Twitter (now called X) was boosted by a negativity bias. Led by Mason Youngblood, Ph.D., a post-doctoral fellow in the Institute for Advanced Computational Science at Stony Brook University, the findings are published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-negative-retweets-voter-fraud-conspiracy.html Social Sciences Political science Fri, 22 Sep 2023 14:30:05 EDT news614611802 Not through courts and not through prisons. The only way to reduce violence in Mexico is to cut off recruitment. Increasing incapacitation instead leads to both more homicides and cartel members, researcher Rafael Prieto-Curiel from the Complexity Science Hub and colleagues show in a study published in Science. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-curbing-violence-mexico-disrupting-cartel.html Social Sciences Political science Thu, 21 Sep 2023 14:00:01 EDT news614508312 The first comprehensive analysis of the relationship between campaign donations and the issues legislators prioritize with congressional speech is published in the open access journal PLOS ONE this week. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-political-donations-policy-issues-prioritized.html Political science Wed, 20 Sep 2023 14:00:01 EDT news614420644 Biomedical research aimed at improving human health is particularly reliant on publicly funded basic science, according to a new analysis boosted by artificial intelligence. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-machine-analysis-citations-highlights-importance.html Education Political science Tue, 19 Sep 2023 11:44:03 EDT news614342641 As misinformation flourished online during the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of platforms announced policies and practices aimed at combating the spread of misinformation. Did those efforts work? https://phys.org/news/2023-09-facebook-unable-misinformation.html Social Sciences Political science Fri, 15 Sep 2023 14:00:01 EDT news613986049 Spanish conquerors did not themselves bring inequality to the Aztec lands they invaded, they merely built on the socio-economic structure that was already in place, adapting it as it suited their plans. This is the subject of an article by Guido Alfani of Bocconi's Department of Social and Political Sciences and Alfonso Carballo of NEOMA Business School in France. Their article, "Income and inequality in the Aztec Empire on the eve of the Spanish conquest," has just been published in Nature Human Behaviour. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-economic-relationships-pre-columbian-mexico-aztec.html Archaeology Political science Wed, 13 Sep 2023 13:26:13 EDT news613830369 One might think that people living in more violent neighborhoods see the world as less safe, or that those whose socioeconomic status improved see the world as getting better, or that chronic pain patients view the world as significantly less pleasurable. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-positive-worldview-privilege.html Social Sciences Political science Thu, 07 Sep 2023 11:02:27 EDT news613303340 As part of an innovative prison reform program, the Oregon State Penitentiary created a healing garden on its grounds to provide some respite from the concrete and resemble the outside world. One incarcerated man who had spent most of the past two decades in solitary confinement described going to the garden as, "the first time I walked on grass in 20 years." https://phys.org/news/2023-08-norway-humanity-prisons.html Social Sciences Political science Wed, 30 Aug 2023 11:35:04 EDT news612614101 For years, scholars, advocates and journalists have highlighted the ongoing racism and segregation in the housing market, yet a segment of the housing market—government-subsidized housing—has been overlooked until now. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-unequal-subsidized-housing-exacerbates-inequality.html Social Sciences Political science Mon, 28 Aug 2023 15:14:16 EDT news612454450 While social media is often blamed for exacerbating incivility and partisan polarization, research led by Duke University scholars found that anonymous online conversations using a mobile chat platform they developed can reduce political polarization. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-depolarize-political-toxicity-social-media.html Social Sciences Political science Tue, 22 Aug 2023 11:07:03 EDT news611921221 With mass shootings happening randomly every year in the United States, it may seem that there is no way to predict where the next horrific event is most likely to occur. In a new study published by the journal Risk Analysis, scientists at Iowa State University calculate the annual probability of a mass shooting in every state and at public places such as shopping malls and schools. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-scientists-method-annual-probability-mass.html Mathematics Political science Tue, 22 Aug 2023 10:30:02 EDT news611915977 A new Stanford study reveals how meat and dairy industry lobbying has influenced government regulations and funding to stifle competition from alternative meat products with smaller climate and environmental impacts. The analysis, published Aug. 18 in One Earth, compares innovations and policies related to plant-based meat alternatives and lab-grown meat in the U.S. and European Union. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-meat-dairy-sector-resists-competition.html Economics & Business Political science Fri, 18 Aug 2023 11:00:02 EDT news611567545 In a new study, the attitudes of non-Muslim American participants towards Muslim Americans who identified strongly with both parts of their dual identity—Muslim and American—were just as positive as their attitudes towards Muslim Americans who identified only as American. In addition, exposure to dual-identified Muslim Americans was linked to more positive attitudes towards non-American Muslims. The same was also found in the American-Mexican context. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-indirect-impact-dual-identification-attitudes.html Social Sciences Political science Wed, 16 Aug 2023 14:00:01 EDT news611396961 The attitudes of European people towards specific types of asylum seeker have been stable over time, research in Nature suggests. The study identifies attributes of refugees that people are more likely to view favorably and suggests that Ukrainians displaced by the Russian invasion in 2022 were welcomed because they fit this profile. The findings may help us to understand the factors that drive support for refugees, which could be used by policymakers to respond to pressures on the asylum system. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-reveals-european-attitudes-refugees-stable.html Social Sciences Political science Thu, 10 Aug 2023 05:10:04 EDT news610862992 Search-and-rescue operations of boats carrying migrants across the central Mediterranean Sea did not appear to affect the rate of crossing attempts between 2011 and 2020, according to a modeling study published in Scientific Reports. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-search-and-rescue-migrant-central-mediterranean.html Social Sciences Political science Thu, 03 Aug 2023 11:00:01 EDT news610270252 Around the world, political violence increased by 27% last year, affecting 1.7 billion people. The numbers come from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), which collects real-time data on conflict events worldwide. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-scientists-method-armed-conflicts.html Mathematics Political science Tue, 01 Aug 2023 12:26:35 EDT news610111592 The Social Media Archive at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research has released data focusing on the impact of Facebook and Instagram on key political attitudes during the U.S. 2020 elections. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-facebook-instagram-presidential-election.html Social Sciences Political science Thu, 27 Jul 2023 14:00:01 EDT news609672171 The United States has more than 10 times the number of mass shooting incidents than other developed countries, yet little research has shown the distribution and types of shootings, geographically. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-mass-states.html Social Sciences Political science Wed, 26 Jul 2023 11:00:01 EDT news609579701 Organized crime casts a long shadow, driving violence and an illicit economy. But our research, published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, has uncovered some more subtle dimensions to its influence, too. We've found that organized crime can undermine the civic honesty of ordinary, law abiding people. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-mafia-threatens-democracy-ordinary-people.html Social Sciences Political science Tue, 25 Jul 2023 11:18:03 EDT news609502681