https://phys.org/science-news/social-sciences en-us The latest news on social sciences, history, political science, psychology and sociology The stats don't lie—the overwhelming majority of start-up companies fail. So, what makes the seemingly lucky few not only survive, but thrive? https://phys.org/news/2023-10-founder-personality-start-up-success.html Social Sciences Economics & Business Wed, 18 Oct 2023 08:28:05 EDT news616836482 Social media marketers sharing photos of people vacationing in exotic locales or attending events at exclusive venues may actually be driving new customers away, according to a recently published Tulane University study. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-social-media-photos-customers.html Social Sciences Economics & Business Tue, 17 Oct 2023 14:23:04 EDT news616771379 New research has found even modest interventions, such as encouraging consumers to reflect on their choices before they submit their order, could reduce the emissions associated with the production of their food by more than 50%. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-online-menus-prompt-people-healthier.html Social Sciences Economics & Business Mon, 16 Oct 2023 12:48:03 EDT news616679281 It doesn't take a scientist to know that a Facebook post bursting with party popper emojis or angry face symbols gets more reactions and shares than a flat, factual account of a child's graduation or an airline's villainous customer service. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-tracking-emotions-social-media-viral.html Social Sciences Fri, 13 Oct 2023 11:14:03 EDT news616414441 Language researchers have studied how mothers speak to their infants, to their pets, and to other adults. Mothers speak slowly and clearly to their infants, hyperarticulating speech to teach language. What this research did not examine was the positive valence, or emotion of a mother's speech. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-incorporating-puppies-language-insight.html Social Sciences Thu, 12 Oct 2023 13:26:31 EDT news616335988 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 "The Queen's Gambit" miniseries portrayed the life of a fictional chess prodigy, Beth Harmon, who is continuously underestimated in male-dominated competitions. A team of New York University psychology researchers has now found some "real-life" evidence of what Harmon faced as a younger player: Parents and coaches of youth chess players peg the highest potential rating of girl players to be lower than that of boy players. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-chess-gender-bias-parents-shortchange.html Social Sciences Thu, 05 Oct 2023 12:38:41 EDT news615728313 Researchers show in a new study that a short reflection exercise to boost self confidence increases job search success. This holds true even for the long-term unemployed and people over 50. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-values-success-job.html Social Sciences Economics & Business Tue, 03 Oct 2023 10:08:03 EDT news615546477 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 study by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) found that those who say they are tired or overwhelmed by social media are likelier to believe in misinformation and share it online. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-social-media-fatigue-narcissism-linked.html Social Sciences Mon, 02 Oct 2023 10:10:09 EDT news615460201 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 A project mapping medieval England's known murder cases has now added Oxford and York to its street plan of London's 14th century slayings, and found that Oxford's student population was by far the most lethally violent of all social or professional groups in any of the three cities. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-students-oxford-capital-late-medieval.html Archaeology Social Sciences Wed, 27 Sep 2023 19:00:05 EDT news615060001 In a new study, participants tended to judge faces appearing against backgrounds featuring houseplants or bookcases as more trustworthy and competent than faces with a living space or a novelty image behind them. Gender and facial expression also appeared to influence judgments. The research led by Paddy Ross, Abi Cook and Meg Thompson at Durham University, UK has been published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-background.html Social Sciences Wed, 27 Sep 2023 14:00:01 EDT news615022445 It's been almost exactly 15 years since Lehmann Brothers declared bankruptcy, marking the height of the financial crisis. Since then, we've entered the era of the "polycrisis"—where several catastrophic events are happening at once. We're dealing with the aftermath of a pandemic, a war in Ukraine, extreme weather events, rising inflation and a food and energy crisis. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-stereotyping-economic-crises.html Social Sciences Economics & Business Wed, 27 Sep 2023 12:32:47 EDT news615036764 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 It seems there's a five-letter word describing what many players of the wildly popular Wordle puzzle do daily as they struggle to find a target word within six tries. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-wordle-users-mathematics-expert.html Mathematics Social Sciences Mon, 25 Sep 2023 15:40:01 EDT news614874725 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 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 Africa is the birthplace of modern humans and the continent with the highest level of genetic diversity. While ancient DNA studies are revealing some aspects of the genetic structure of Africa before the spread of food production, issues concerning DNA preservation have limited the insights from ancient DNA. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-deep-genetic-africa-reveals-unique.html Archaeology Social Sciences Fri, 22 Sep 2023 14:00:01 EDT news614590929 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 Imprisonment for unpaid debts might seem Dickensian, a relic of harsher times. But thousands of people serve jail time each year in the U.S. for failure to pay fines, fees, and other court costs, often resulting from lower-level violations such as traffic tickets. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-common-debt-imprisonment-today.html Social Sciences Economics & Business Wed, 20 Sep 2023 11:09:13 EDT news614426950 Researchers from The University of Queensland have found people who believe in manifesting financial success are more likely to make risky investments and end up bankrupt. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-belief-manifesting-financial-success-risky.html Social Sciences Economics & Business Tue, 19 Sep 2023 14:51:34 EDT news614353892 Consumers are not always predictable when it comes to choosing products online—a concept that lies at the core of Cornell's latest research in consumer psychology. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-consumers-online-choices-mouse.html Social Sciences Economics & Business Fri, 15 Sep 2023 14:29:11 EDT news614006947 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 Overconfidence has long been recognized as a critical problem in judgment and decision making. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-knowledge-great-confidence-reveals-relationship.html Social Sciences Education Thu, 14 Sep 2023 12:17:03 EDT news613912621 When people feel that their resources are scarce—that they don't have enough money or time to meet their needs—they often make decisions that favor short-term gains over long-term benefits. Because of that, researchers have argued that scarcity pushes people to make myopic, impulsive decisions. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-money-financial-scarcity-doesnt-poor.html Social Sciences Economics & Business Thu, 14 Sep 2023 09:00:01 EDT news613840995 So much for the powerful feminist messaging in the new Barbie movie. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-kids-gender-roles-preschool.html Social Sciences Education Tue, 12 Sep 2023 12:30:01 EDT news613740337 Experiences of anti-Asian racism and feelings of invisibility are common among Asian American medical students, according to a Yale-led study based on interviews with students at more than a dozen schools in the U.S. The experiences, say the researchers, highlight the need to establish a more inclusive medical school learning environment. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-anti-asian-racism-medical-students.html Social Sciences Education Mon, 11 Sep 2023 13:04:15 EDT news613656251