Society

Generation Z men are less likely to vote for left-wing parties than women, and their political preferences can be linked to their sexist attitudes, a large-scale study has found. Research on 15,122 people in the UK and 23 other European countries found that politics is "increasingly a battle of the... Read more

From refusing to doff hats in court to resisting hat-snatching highway robbers, England's relationship with hats goes far deeper than fashion, new research shows.... Read more

New research from the University of Bath reveals that online influencers can mobilize followers and legitimize harmful behaviors without ever issuing explicit instructions, offering fresh insight into how digital platforms shape public attitudes, emotions and decision-making. The researchers found that far-right influencer Tommy Robinson (whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon)... Read more

Dropping out of high school has been linked to higher rates of delinquency and lower socioeconomic status, but thinking of high school dropouts collectively, as one group, is a flawed belief that could be affecting interventions. The paper is published in the journal Emerging Adulthood.... Read more

Online comments can shape how social media content about politics is perceived, even when people's opinions are hard to change, a new study shows. The new research suggests that while attitudes may be stable, the way people interpret political messages can still shift depending on the surrounding conversation online. Engaging... Read more

An Iran-linked hacktivist group recently claimed to have hacked into the private emails of Kash Patel, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, posting photos and documents online.... Read more

Differences of opinion on climate change among the Dutch have not increased over the past 40 years; in fact, they have decreased, according to a study conducted by sociologists Anuschka Peelen and Jochem Tolsma of Radboud University. The researchers also found no evidence that groups of Dutch people with different... Read more

Disinformation communicated by and on behalf of foreign powers is now part and parcel of digital statecraft in the information age, an expert from Cardiff University has said.... Read more

In just a few years, generative artificial intelligence (gen AI) has brought about significant changes in many industries, from health care to education, entertainment to finance, and even law.... Read more

If you've poured your heart out on social media about a political issue, it might have felt cathartic—but likely was not persuasive, Cornell research finds. Americans are skeptical of emotional comments they see in their news and social media feeds, political scientist Talbot Andrews and co-authors report in a new... Read more

When a natural disaster strikes a Latin American community, the damage doesn't stop at downed power lines and flooded streets. A new study finds that disasters trigger a 69% spike in public protests in affected districts, a social fallout that emergency planners rarely account for and that current disaster response... Read more

As governments worldwide explore how artificial intelligence can transform decision-making, a recent study from Sultan Qaboos University demonstrates how AI can uncover hidden connections within legal systems—offering a powerful tool to support smarter lawmaking. Published in The Journal of Engineering Research, the study applies natural language processing (NLP) and network... Read more

A major new study suggests people's direct experience with artificial intelligence has little impact on their views about its role in government decision-making—while factual information about the technology can significantly shift public opinion. Professor Yotam Margalit (King's College London) and Dr. Shir Raviv (Tel Aviv University) tracked the attitudes of... Read more

A new Rice University study offers one of the first national measures of a viewpoint called "racial realism" and considers how it fits into the broader spectrum of perspectives Black Americans hold about race relations.... Read more

Conventional weapons are generally presented as controllable, proportionate and morally acceptable, unlike weapons of mass destruction. It is this assumption that is challenged by research conducted by Julien Pomarède at the Centre for the Study of War and Violence at the University of Liège, based on American and French military... Read more

Governments cutting hundreds of millions of euros in pandemic funding, just a few years after a pandemic. Billions spent on compensation after a flood, rather than on prevention beforehand. Governments find it difficult to deal effectively with major, but not acute, risks. Why is this such a challenge? This was... Read more

The dark web is sometimes seen as a shadowy part of the internet, but it also has legitimate uses, including accessing censored information and sharing files securely. Its anonymity and privacy features, however, can make it appealing to those drawn to riskier or illicit online activity.... Read more

Politics are rife with emotions. But new research from the University of Georgia suggests emotions alone may not determine whether people are satisfied with democracy.... Read more

The brain? It has a flexible social perception. In interactions with people from different ethnic groups, it tends to respond more inclusively when a shared national identity is made salient. A study, by the University of Trento, Italy, and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), published in Proceedings of the... Read more

As the UK entered COVID-19 lockdown in March 2020, security services and counterterrorism officials warned of a new threat forming in young people's bedrooms. Superintendent Matthew Davison, head of Prevent North-East, cautioned that extremists were deliberately targeting isolated young people online, while Detective Superintendent Jim Hall in Wales warned of... Read more

Violence perpetrated by members of one's own ethnic group produces up to five times more trauma than violence from opposing groups. Joan Barceló and Keshana Ratnasingham examined mental health outcomes among Tamil civilians in postwar Sri Lanka by comparing exposure to violence perpetrated by ethnic outgroups versus violence perpetrated by... Read more

Established in 1868 with the ratification of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, birthright citizenship grants citizenship to all persons born on U.S. soil regardless of the parents' citizenship status. If birthright citizenship is ended, the number of children born without a defined legal status in the United States... Read more

Researchers at Murdoch University have developed a forensic intelligence tool which could help police link the victims of serial offenders by analyzing their facial appearance. The study, "Development of face similarity linkage for the attribution of intelligence links in unsolved sexually motivated serial homicide," is published in The Police Journal:... Read more

It is widely accepted that learning English is essential for many adult migrants who move to the UK. Yet in the last census, over 1 million residents in England and Wales reported not speaking English well or at all.... Read more

Body cameras, satellites and digital verification tools are generating more evidence of violence than ever before. But the institutions responsible for delivering justice still decide what counts as evidence—and what does not.... Read more

While immigration is often blamed for the rise of populism, it was cost of living and male job dissatisfaction that played a major role in the European surge in support for populist politics a decade ago, according to a University of Cambridge social scientist.... Read more

The practice of states revising standards for how their schools teach history is developing a storied and often contentious history of its own. A University of Kansas scholar has published new research arguing that history standards are prone to overt politicization, and that the best examples of how to handle... Read more

People's political persuasions can have a significant influence on their initial response to a global health crisis, according to new research. But while they do tend to respond to guidance issued or followed by their political leaders of choice, the study showed that people's behavior can be altered by targeted... Read more

When Bella Astrofsky, who's poised to graduate in May with a bachelor's degree in journalism, began digging through 19th-century newspapers, she did not expect to help inform how historians understand the end of Reconstruction in the United States. As co-author of a recently published study—an uncommon role for an undergraduate—Astrofsky... Read more

A new Northwestern study surveying federal judges across the U.S. on their use and outlook on artificial intelligence in and outside of the courtroom found that more than 60% of judges who responded reported using at least one AI tool in their judicial work. While judges reported broad adoption of... Read more

As artificial intelligence (AI) tools become more common across government, new research from the University at Albany's Center for Technology in Government (CTG UAlbany) examines how agencies are using chatbots and what those tools are actually changing in practice.... Read more

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has long been seen as a reliable engine of economic growth, bringing jobs, productivity gains and new technologies into host economies. But new research suggests the reality is far more complex, and far less predictable.... Read more

Since the United States and Israel launched their war against Iran in late February, Iran has retaliated by targeting commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, effectively shutting down the narrow channel of water.... Read more

Police violence is judged differently depending on who is affected. When people with an immigrant background are targeted, abusive police actions are perceived as less serious. This is the conclusion of a new international study published in Harvard Dataverse.... Read more

New research from the University of St Andrews has revealed that human readiness for intergroup violence is not a single or unified mindset. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the new study, spanning 58 countries and involving more than 100 researchers from various institutions around the... Read more

A study published in Contemporary Economic Policy investigated the extent to which a company's political investments influence their success in the competition for federal contracts.... Read more

In an era of nonstop headlines and growing political division, many workplaces still follow a familiar rule of thumb: Don't talk politics at work. New research from Washington State University suggests the issue is more nuanced, and talking about politicized news at work may help employees better manage stress and... Read more

For decades, scholars have estimated the ideology of members of Congress by analyzing roll-call votes, recorded tallies of each member's "yea-or-nay" on legislation. But a new study from the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy finds this method is likely skewed by "protest voting"—suggesting that polarization in Congress... Read more

A new study, led by the University of Nottingham and conducted by a team of 72 economists and psychologists across the world, has identified a potential "private solution trap" in problems requiring international cooperation such as climate change. Dr. Eugene Malthouse, Research Fellow in the university's School of Economics, led... Read more

Past behavior matters, especially in law enforcement where certain pre-hire misbehavior by law enforcement candidates sharply increases the likelihood of police misconduct once they are hired, according to research titled "The Importance of Not Looking the Other Way: Prehire On- and Off-the-Job Misbehavior Predicts Subsequent Police Misconduct," published in the... Read more

Trying to persuade people to abandon deeply held views often backfires, leaving groups entrenched and unable to move forward. A new study by researchers at the University of Bath in the UK proposes a strategy that is both surprising and more effective: encourage neutrality.... Read more

Computer simulations can help people gain a better understanding of the situation faced by migrants. This is shown by a new study in which 148 teenagers were assigned random migration pathways, with different start and end points. Along the way, they encountered unforeseen events that affected their journey. Experiences from... Read more

In recent decades, income and wealth disparities have widened significantly in many European countries. At the same time, support for populist parties has grown. Previous studies have already pointed out that rising inequality may be contributing to the growth of populist movements. But how can this correlation be explained? Why... Read more

AI systems are increasingly shaping public opinion, often in very subtle ways. A new study reveals that current legislation, such as the EU AI Act, is ill-equipped to handle this shift. The findings, authored by researchers from the Weizenbaum Institute, were recently published in the journal Communications of the ACM.... Read more

A prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most important oil shipping routes, could severely disrupt global supply chains and destabilize energy markets, potentially leading to far-reaching economic impacts, according to a new study conducted by the Supply Chain Intelligence Institute Austria (ASCII) in collaboration with... Read more

Jurors grappling with complex legal jargon are more likely to vote guilty while coming away less confident in their own performance and the judicial system, according to a new study published in the Journal of Applied Communication Research.... Read more

A new University of Missouri study suggests mental health policies can play a significant role in how Americans choose political candidates. Past scholarly research has found that most Americans say they support mental health policies. Jake Haselswerdt, an associate professor of political science in Mizzou's College of Arts and Science,... Read more

A new study on ancient societies from around the world is rewriting what we thought we knew about democracy. A team of researchers analyzed archaeological and historical evidence from 31 ancient societies across Europe, Asia, and the Americas and found that shared, inclusive governance was far more common than was... Read more

American politics is increasingly characterized by high levels of polarization and divisive rhetoric, despite stated preferences among voters for civility and substantive debate. Sean J. Westwood and colleagues sought to understand what might incentivize a politician to use divisive rhetoric by analyzing 2.2 million public statements from the 118th U.S.... Read more

The Asian community in the United States was microscopic six decades ago, for the wrong reasons. Because of discriminatory policies put in place that targeted the group—including federal legislation first enacted in the 19th century—Asian Americans in 1965 made up less than 1% of the U.S.'s total population, according to... Read more