http://phys.org/science-news/social-sciences/ en-us Phys.Org provides the latest news on social sciences, history, political science, psychology and sociology If you have just seen a play that you privately think is drivel, will you keep silent when everyone around you demands an encore? http://phys.org/news290829409.html Other Sciences - Social Sciences Wed, 19 Jun 2013 02:57:20 EST news290829409 (Phys.org) —TED Talks, the most popular conference and events website in the world with over 1 billion informational videos viewed, provides academics with increased popular exposure but does nothing to boost citations of their work by peers, new research led by Indiana University has found. http://phys.org/news290782811.html Other Sciences - Social Sciences Tue, 18 Jun 2013 14:00:18 EST news290782811 A new language has been discovered in a remote Indigenous community in northern Australia that is generated from a unique combination of elements from other languages. Light Warlpiri has been documented by University of Michigan linguist Carmel O'Shannessy, in a study on "The role of multiple sources in the formation of an innovative auxiliary category in Light Warlpiri, a new Australian mixed language," to be published in the June, 2013 issue of the scholarly journal Language. http://phys.org/news290711446.html Other Sciences - Social Sciences Tue, 18 Jun 2013 00:00:07 EST news290711446 A new statistical analysis shows the world population could reach nearly 11 billion by the end of the century, according to a United Nations report issued June 13. That's about 800 million, or about 8 percent, more than the previous projection of 10.1 billion, issued in 2011. http://phys.org/news290340685.html Other Sciences - Social Sciences Thu, 13 Jun 2013 11:11:35 EST news290340685 (Phys.org) —From a qualitative perspective, it's relatively easy to define a good researcher as one who publishes many good papers. But quantitatively measuring these papers is more complicated, since they can be measured in several different ways. In the past few years, several different metrics have been proposed that determine an individual's scientific caliber based on the quantity and quality of the individual's peer-reviewed publications. However, most of these metrics assume that all authors contribute equally when a paper has multiple authors. In a new study, researchers have argued that this assumption causes bias in these metrics, and they have proposed a new metric that accounts for the relative contributions of all coauthors, resulting in a rational way to capture a researcher's scientific impact. http://phys.org/news290329872.html Other Sciences - Social Sciences Thu, 13 Jun 2013 09:00:01 EST news290329872 Language is formed by giving meaning to sounds and stringing together these meaningful expressions to communicate feelings and ideas. Until recently most linguists believed that the relationship between the structure of language and the natural world was mainly the influence of the environment on vocabulary. Now, a new study published in the June 12 edition of PLOS ONE shows that there is a link between geographical elevation and the way language is spoken. http://phys.org/news290273914.html Other Sciences - Social Sciences Wed, 12 Jun 2013 17:00:02 EST news290273914 Whether it's an effort to increase recycling rates, reduce energy usage or cut carbon emissions, the conventional wisdom says that the best way to get people to do the right thing is to make it worth their while with cold, hard cash. http://phys.org/news290094971.html Other Sciences - Social Sciences Mon, 10 Jun 2013 15:00:05 EST news290094971 Facebook and other social networking web sites have revolutionized the way people create and maintain relationships. However, new research shows that Facebook use could actually be damaging to users' romantic relationships. Russell Clayton, a doctoral student in the University of Missouri School of Journalism, found that individuals who use Facebook excessively are far more likely to experience Facebook–related conflict with their romantic partners, which then may cause negative relationship outcomes including emotional and physical cheating, breakup and divorce. http://phys.org/news289739138.html Other Sciences - Social Sciences Thu, 06 Jun 2013 12:05:55 EST news289739138 In 2010, in the journal Nature, a pair of physicists at the Santa Fe Institute showed that when the population of a city doubles, economic productivity goes up by an average of 130 percent. Not only does total productivity increase with increased population, but so does per-capita productivity. http://phys.org/news289562026.html Other Sciences - Social Sciences Tue, 04 Jun 2013 11:00:01 EST news289562026 With so much on the line for job seekers in this difficult economic climate, a lot of new hires might be wondering how—or whether at all—to negotiate salary when offered a new position. A recently published study on the art of negotiation by two professors at Columbia Business School could help these new hires—and all negotiators—seal a stronger deal than before. http://phys.org/news289256786.html Other Sciences - Social Sciences Fri, 31 May 2013 22:06:35 EST news289256786 (Phys.org) —The drop of Detroit's population is well documented, but a Michigan Technological University researcher says there is a surprising kernel of information in the decline. http://phys.org/news289117184.html Other Sciences - Social Sciences Thu, 30 May 2013 07:40:03 EST news289117184 (Phys.org) —Ultimately, our ability to convincingly lie to each other may have evolved as a direct result of our cooperative nature. http://phys.org/news287910486.html Other Sciences - Social Sciences Thu, 16 May 2013 08:08:26 EST news287910486 (Phys.org) —Samuel Bowles of the Santa Fe Institute and Jung-Kyoo Choib of Kyungpook National University have published a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences theorizing that farming developed along with property rights. They suggest that the development of property rights caused early humans to farm during a time when it was less productive than hunting and gathering. http://phys.org/news287746275.html Other Sciences - Social Sciences Tue, 14 May 2013 10:31:27 EST news287746275 (Phys.org) —Can you "click" with someone after only four minutes? That's the question at the heart of new research by Stanford scholars Dan McFarland and Dan Jurafsky that looks at how meaningful bonds are formed. http://phys.org/news287134999.html Other Sciences - Social Sciences Tue, 07 May 2013 09:10:01 EST news287134999 (Phys.org) —A team of linguistics experts from the U.S., Great Britain and New Zealand has found evidence that suggests a core group of words used in a common language thousands of years ago has survived to this day. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers claim that some core words used in modern languages are related to some spoken 15,000 years ago. http://phys.org/news287136451.html Other Sciences - Social Sciences Tue, 07 May 2013 09:08:04 EST news287136451 Despite the popular image of the rich older man or woman supporting an attractive younger spouse, a new study shows those married to younger or older mates have on average lower earnings, lower cognitive abilities, are less educated and less attractive than couples of similar ages. http://phys.org/news287060463.html Other Sciences - Social Sciences Mon, 06 May 2013 12:02:16 EST news287060463 (Phys.org) —A team made up of American anthropologists and zoologists along with a demographer from Bangladesh has been comparing various models that have been developed over the years to explain population growth, and has found that those based on economics appear to be the most reliable. In their paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team explains that by examining data collected through various studies and interviewing women in Bangladesh, they've found that economic fertility models appear to best reflect the reality of population growth. http://phys.org/news286524421.html Other Sciences - Social Sciences Tue, 30 Apr 2013 07:50:01 EST news286524421 University of Leicester-led research has shown that university students behave very differently when using social media as part of their academic learning. http://phys.org/news286455067.html Other Sciences - Social Sciences Mon, 29 Apr 2013 11:51:16 EST news286455067 (Phys.org) —That Homo sapiens exhibits both cooperative and competitive behavior is a topic that continues to be the subject of ongoing discussion. In terms of cooperation, altruism (a selfless type of prosocial behavior in which an organism acts to benefit another at a cost to itself), has received significant attention from evolutionary biologists, neuroscientists, economists, psychologists, philosophers, social scientists, game theorists, and computer scientists. In particular, altruistic punishment – in which individuals who, at no apparent benefit (or even at a cost) to themselves, punish someone who has treated another unfairly – has been demonstrated in a range of studies. Recently, however, scientists at the University of Miami posited that the evidence for these results is possibly affected by experimental artifacts, and is therefore questionable. To address their hypothesis, the researchers designed and performed an experiment without such artifacts, finding that while victims punished offenders, witnesses did not – and moreover reacted with envy for ill-gotten gains rather than moralistic anger. In addition, a second experiment showed that previous evidence was due to what is known as affective forecasting error (inaccurate estimations of reactions to hypothetical situations). The scientists concluded that evidence supporting human altruistic punishment has been overstated. http://phys.org/news286186391.html Other Sciences - Social Sciences Fri, 26 Apr 2013 09:13:40 EST news286186391 (Phys.org) —It's no accident that money obtained through dishonest or illegal means is called "dirty money." A new study from the University of California, Berkeley, suggests that when people perceive money as morally tainted, they also view it as having less value and purchasing power. http://phys.org/news285955653.html Other Sciences - Social Sciences Tue, 23 Apr 2013 17:07:41 EST news285955653 (Phys.org) —Partha Dasgupta an economist with the University of Cambridge and Paul Ehrlich, a conservation biologist at Stanford University have published a paper in the journal Science in which they suggest that peer pressure and a desire to keep up with others can lead to unsustainable population growth. They use data from several sources to compare population growth rates between people in African—where population growth is exploding in some areas—with others where it is not, to show that when people experience peer pressure to have large families and also feel pressure to keep up with the consumption habits of other people where they live, the result can be explosive population growth. http://phys.org/news285583115.html Other Sciences - Social Sciences Fri, 19 Apr 2013 10:30:01 EST news285583115 America's K-12 teachers are not fully prepared to meet a new set of science standards, a Michigan State University education scholar argues in Science. http://phys.org/news285510457.html Other Sciences - Social Sciences Thu, 18 Apr 2013 14:00:20 EST news285510457 (Phys.org) —Rachel Franz has read more than her share of books to young children growing up next to a daycare center, babysitting neighborhood children and working as a nanny. It didn't take long for the environmental studies major to notice a disturbing trend: continual reinforcement of materialistic behavior and consumerism. http://phys.org/news285486363.html Other Sciences - Social Sciences Thu, 18 Apr 2013 06:46:49 EST news285486363 The larger the group, the smaller the chance of forming interracial friendships, a new University of Michigan study shows.Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study examines how the size of a community affects the realization of people's preferences for friends. U-M researchers Siwei Cheng and Yu Xie tested their theoretical model using both simulated and real data on actual friendships among 4,745 U.S. high school students. http://phys.org/news285261169.html Other Sciences - Social Sciences Mon, 15 Apr 2013 16:13:30 EST news285261169 The first large-scale study of U.S. science faculty with education specialties (SFES) concludes that their training and funding vary considerably depending on their college or university. http://phys.org/news285240351.html Other Sciences - Social Sciences Mon, 15 Apr 2013 15:00:07 EST news285240351 (Phys.org) —A unique study carried out by researchers from the U.K., Australia and Canada has revealed that babies born to blind mothers don't appear to suffer degraded communication skills compared to babies born to sighted mothers. In their paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the researchers found that not only did the babies of blind mothers perform as well as did babies born to sighted mother's on standard communication tests, but appeared to develop some advantages as well. http://phys.org/news284883544.html Other Sciences - Social Sciences Thu, 11 Apr 2013 07:19:32 EST news284883544 (Phys.org) —Cognitive scientists at Lund University in Sweden have found that prospective voters in political elections are perhaps more open to opposing views than political pundits have claimed. The team describes in their paper published in PLOS ONE, how they rigged questionnaires filled out by random prospective voters to slant away from their stated political views and found that in many cases those that filled out the questionnaire were willing to agree with the forged results. http://phys.org/news284879389.html Other Sciences - Social Sciences Thu, 11 Apr 2013 06:10:35 EST news284879389 Imagine you have a choice to make. In one scenario, you'd get $8 and somebody else—a stranger – would get $8 too. In the other, you'd get $10; the stranger would get $12. http://phys.org/news284206047.html Other Sciences - Social Sciences Wed, 03 Apr 2013 11:07:45 EST news284206047 Anyone who has spent more than a few minutes watching some of the more partisan "news" networks lurking in the bowels of cable television is aware that America has grown more polarized in recent years. What's not so certain is why. In a paper published online March 27 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a team of researchers at Stanford has devised a mathematical model that helps demonstrate what's behind the growing rift. http://phys.org/news284029988.html Other Sciences - Social Sciences Mon, 01 Apr 2013 10:13:26 EST news284029988 Students perform better when their instructors use hand gestures – a simple teaching tool that could yield benefits in higher-level math such as algebra. http://phys.org/news283776325.html Other Sciences - Social Sciences Fri, 29 Mar 2013 11:46:49 EST news283776325