https://phys.org/science-news/social-sciences/ en-us The latest news on social sciences, history, political science, psychology and sociology Choosing friends may involve more than clicking with others who share our interests or outlooks. According to new research, people may select friends based on traits that made them valuable survival partners in our evolutionary past. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-friends-stone-age.html Social Sciences Tue, 14 Jul 2026 12:30:02 EDT news703250145 From precision medicine to personalized job training, customizing interventions for individuals is often assumed to produce better outcomes than a one-size-fits-all approach. But personalization also comes with costs: it can be more expensive, harder to implement reliably and may require more resources to design. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-statistical-personalization.html Mathematics Tue, 14 Jul 2026 10:00:08 EDT news703232999 In environmental, health and technology crises, Americans are more persuaded to take action by scientists and public consensus than by leaders in government and industry, according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by researchers at Boston College and Princeton University. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-scientists-citizens-persuasive-industry-mobilizing.html Social Sciences Mon, 13 Jul 2026 15:00:07 EDT news703140968 As we move closer to Election Day 2026, voting preferences are moving back into focus—and with them, analyses of what drives partisanship at the polls. However, less frequently asked is when Americans show evidence of partisan behavior: shortly or well after reaching the legal voting age? As teenagers? In elementary school? https://phys.org/news/2026-07-children-group-evidence-privacy-bias.html Social Sciences Fri, 10 Jul 2026 16:20:02 EDT news702833795 Research simulates real-life multitasking performance to assess potential differences between men and women. When coordinating five different tasks, men ignored the conversational task more than twice as often as women, while showing similar performance to women in all other tasks. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-multitasking-ability-differ-sex-youd.html Social Sciences Fri, 10 Jul 2026 13:40:08 EDT news702908063 Lovesickness was taken seriously as a distinct mental illness by physicians in the medieval Islamic world, new research shows. Islamic scholars considered lovesickness, which they called ʿishq, to be different from melancholy—unlike Galen and other physicians from ancient Greece. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-medieval-islamic-societies-lovesickness-distinct.html Archaeology Thu, 09 Jul 2026 17:01:16 EDT news702835250 What makes people change their minds or their behavior? Social scientists spend a lot of time thinking about this question, and experiments are one of the most powerful ways to answer it. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-ai-youll-survey.html Social Sciences Thu, 09 Jul 2026 09:20:06 EDT news702806835 Psychedelic drugs are known to make people highly sensitive to their surroundings. In other words, a user's mindset and immediate environment heavily shape the entire trippy experience. In a study published in the journal Psychedelic Medicine, scientists wanted to test a brand-new idea: whether an invisible backdrop of national culture, rather than just a person's local setting, could influence people's support for partisan violence after taking a psychedelic. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-fourth-july-celebrations-national-political.html Social Sciences Wed, 08 Jul 2026 14:30:01 EDT news702737327 A new study shows that relationships with artificial intelligence (AI) systems can evolve from casual conversations to bonds characterized by emotional intimacy, emotional dependence or experiences similar to a romantic breakup. The study is based on in-depth interviews with 17 people who were in romantic relationships with AI assistants, such as ChatGPT, and virtual dating platforms, such as Character.AI or Replika. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-romantic-relationships-ai-evolve-similar.html Social Sciences Wed, 08 Jul 2026 11:30:01 EDT news702728216 Images of faces created by artificial intelligence (AI) are seen as more trustworthy than images of genuine faces, researchers say, warning of the risks of online fraud and other harms. This is the first study to examine the trustworthiness of AI faces created by the latest diffusion technology. It was led by Alexis McGuire, with Paul Taylor and Sophie Nightingale from Lancaster University, Maty Bohacek from Stanford University, and Hany Farid from the University of California, Berkeley. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-ai-real-people.html Social Sciences Tue, 07 Jul 2026 11:00:09 EDT news702639116 Traumatic events from your childhood could have a lingering impact on your adult relationships, according to new research from the University of Georgia. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-childhood-relationships.html Social Sciences Mon, 06 Jul 2026 12:20:04 EDT news702551942 Why do people make the choices they do? Researchers from the Center Synergy of Systems (SynoSys) at TUD Dresden University of Technology, the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, and the University of Basel present their new approach to finding answers to that question. The approach combines observed choices with participants' own descriptions of their decision processes, allowing researchers to study human behavior in greater detail than is possible with behavioral data alone. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-free-text-llms-reveal-hidden.html Mathematics Fri, 03 Jul 2026 15:00:01 EDT news702136906 New research from the University of Kansas uses network science to determine why people make mistakes when lip-reading. Michael Vitevitch, professor of speech-language-hearing at KU, and his co-authors created a visual map of about 20,000 words in English, hoping to better grasp why some words are more difficult to lip-read than others. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-visual-words-reveals-lip-readers.html Mathematics Fri, 03 Jul 2026 09:20:06 EDT news702053517 Relationships are all about compromise. From deciding on where to eat dinner with a friend to negotiating chore lists at home, we often experience situations that require some flexibility. But what happens when we must work with others—especially people we don't know—to make a risky decision? That's what Caltech's Dean Mobbs, professor of cognitive neuroscience, and members of his lab set out to explore in a recent study. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-compromise-risky-decisions-biased-blame.html Social Sciences Thu, 02 Jul 2026 17:30:02 EDT news702230102 Imagine opening a difficult book in a quiet room. The first page is dense. You read one paragraph, then reread it. Nothing "clicks" yet. Your brain is doing what learning often requires: spending effort before the reward arrives. Then your phone lights up. One thumb movement, and the situation changes completely. A joke, a message, a clip, a tiny social reward: all available instantly, all requiring almost no effort. The book has not become harder and, definitely, your intelligence has not disappeared. But the book now feels more expensive, because another activity nearby offers a much better bargain: reward now, effort almost zero. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-instant-digital-rewards-hard-worthwhile.html Social Sciences Thu, 02 Jul 2026 16:40:01 EDT news702221821 During adolescence, young people become especially sensitive to peer influence—more so than at any other time in life. So how does this affect their mental health? https://phys.org/news/2026-07-friends-teens-mental-health.html Social Sciences Thu, 02 Jul 2026 11:26:05 EDT news702210297 AI-generated impersonations of political figures are judged by members of the public to be more authentic, relevant and coherent than the speakers' actual debate responses, according to a study appearing in PLOS One, written by Steffen Herbold of the University of Passau in Germany, and colleagues. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-ai-generated-debate-outscore-real.html Social Sciences Wed, 01 Jul 2026 14:00:18 EDT news702049502 The COVID-19 pandemic transformed the way people work, making remote and work-from-home (WFH) jobs far more common than ever before. Even after social distancing ended, many companies and employees chose to stick with this model because it offers greater flexibility. People can work from where they already live, avoid long commutes, and enjoy a better work-life balance. For primary caregivers in particular, remote work has made it easier to juggle professional and personal responsibilities. A recent study has found that WFH isn't all sunshine and roses. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-mismatched-worklife-boundaries-home-couples.html Social Sciences Wed, 01 Jul 2026 09:40:03 EDT news702116669 A new study led by the University of Portsmouth lifts the lid on the tactics used by call center fraudsters in India, while revealing the shocking scale of the industry within the country. Published in the Journal of White Collar and Corporate Crime the research uncovers the deceptive methods criminals use to target victims at scale—backed by more than 2.09 million confirmed fraud cases in the first half of 2025 alone. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-reveals-tactics-center-fraudsters.html Social Sciences Tue, 30 Jun 2026 13:20:05 EDT news702032983 One of football's most iconic moments—the penalty shootout—may be far more strategic than previously thought, with new research challenging the notion that the team kicking first holds a major advantage. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-world-cup-reveals-strategy-teams.html Mathematics Tue, 30 Jun 2026 06:38:59 EDT news702017102 The world is urbanizing fast. In 1975, about 11% of the global population lived in cities with more than 1 million inhabitants. "Today, we estimate that share to be about 24%," says Andrea Musso, junior fellow at the Complexity Science Hub (CSH) and Ph.D. student at ETH Zurich. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-urban-growth-big-cities-smaller.html Social Sciences Mon, 29 Jun 2026 17:40:06 EDT news701957521 When someone you love is upset, your first instinct may be to comfort them. To reassure them. To make them feel better. But what if that instinct isn't universal? https://phys.org/news/2026-06-cultural-values-comforting-real.html Social Sciences Mon, 29 Jun 2026 16:50:03 EDT news701967661 When does a child begin to reason? When do they develop self-control? Are some mental abilities present from birth, while others are acquired through experience? Questions like these have fascinated philosophers, educators and scientists for centuries. Yet surprisingly little is known about how ordinary people think about the development of the mind itself. Do people across cultures think about the mind in similar ways? https://phys.org/news/2026-06-people-worldwide-mental-abilities-inborn.html Social Sciences Mon, 29 Jun 2026 12:31:35 EDT news701955070 In the arid landscapes of southern Peru, around 1,100 years ago, someone carefully dug a small pit, laid down a woven mat and placed a young dog within as if sleeping, possibly wrapped in twine. Centuries later, the mummified remains would be one of only two intentionally buried mummified dogs from the Tiwanaku culture. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-mummified-dogs-reveal-tiwanaku-people.html Archaeology Mon, 29 Jun 2026 06:20:01 EDT news701690571 Pothole season, summer construction season or maybe bad weather. No matter the time of year, it's no surprise commuters who drive to work may start their day already feeling a bit on edge. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-commute-stress-fuel-workplace-conflict.html Social Sciences Thu, 25 Jun 2026 12:40:09 EDT news701600521 As young adults, many millennials feared growing up more than past generations. But they've come around to it as they age, research published in the journal Developmental Psychology has found. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-scary.html Social Sciences Thu, 25 Jun 2026 09:00:07 EDT news701508482 Australia's social media ban for under-16s has had little impact on teenagers' scrolling habits, researchers said Thursday in one of the first evaluations of the world-leading measures. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-australia-social-media-early-effect.html Social Sciences Thu, 25 Jun 2026 04:20:36 EDT news701580009 A research group led by Associate Professor Yoshihiro Nakata from the Graduate School of Informatics and Engineering at the University of Electro-Communications, Japan, in collaboration with researchers from Doshisha University and Otemon Gakuin University, has developed an edible agent capable of social interaction through vocalizations and movement. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-edible-robot-deepens-human-perception.html Social Sciences Wed, 24 Jun 2026 17:00:05 EDT news701528403 Over five decades, popular songs in the U.S. and Germany have become more self-focused—as indicated by the use of pronouns such as "I," "me" and "mine"—while no such trend was seen for the most popular songs in Japan and Hong Kong. Marius Golubickis of United Arab Emirates University and colleagues present these findings in PLOS One. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-song-lyrics-grew-focused-germany.html Social Sciences Wed, 24 Jun 2026 14:00:12 EDT news701423041 Popular music may be reflecting a growing culture of vices, according to new research from the Center for Digital Music at Queen Mary University of London. The analysis of musical evolution found that song lyrics have become increasingly negative over the past six decades, with declining references to moral virtues. This could provide an important indicator of a cultural shift in society. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-virtue-vice-morality-popular-music.html Social Sciences Wed, 24 Jun 2026 09:40:01 EDT news701511128