Society

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

Across Europe, education has become one of the biggest dividing lines in politics, and educational qualifications are now one of the best predictors of vote choice in Britain. This is particularly the case for new parties that compete more on cultural issues, including Reform and the Greens, who attract voters... Read more

Why do widely supported solutions to major problems, such as climate change, so often struggle to gain real traction? A new study suggests that part of the answer lies in understanding why people resist change, and how the combination of their preferences and social networks can help overcome that resistance.... Read more

Social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram and X, are accessed daily by millions of people worldwide. In the weeks or months leading up to elections, many political parties use social media platforms as part of their campaigns to promote candidates, raise funds, or disseminate their proposed policies.... Read more

During the National Prayer Breakfast on Feb. 5, 2026, Paula White-Cain, senior adviser to the White House Office of Faith, introduced President Donald Trump as "the greatest champion of faith that we have ever had in the executive branch." Taking the podium after her, Trump declared, "I've done more for... Read more

In a new analysis, racial and ethnic disparities in fatal shootings of U.S. residents by police varied widely between states. Roland Neil of the RAND Corporation in California, U.S., and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS One.... Read more

The news media is shaping reproductive narratives and stigma around childlessness, presenting it as a threat to national interests, a deviation from moral or cultural norms, as a risk and, sometimes, as a legitimate life path. In an article published in PLOS Global Public Health, Julia Schröders of Umeå University,... Read more

The climate measures currently in place are unlikely to meet Paris Climate Agreement targets. Whether further political measures can move us closer to the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees and combating climate change depends heavily on public opinion and political support. Researchers at ETH Zurich led by... Read more

Texas busing programs that transported newly arrived immigrants to Democratic-led cities boosted President Donald Trump's vote share in affected counties during the 2024 election, according to a new study from the USC Price School of Public Policy and the University of North Texas.... Read more

Indigenous people in the United States are at higher risk of fatal police violence in and around American Indian/Alaska Native (AIAN) reservations, according to the first comprehensive national study on the subject from researchers at Drexel University's Dornsife School of Public Health and the University of Washington. The study, using... Read more

The growing use of AI-generated scientific and science-related content, especially on social media, raises important concerns: these texts may contain false or highly persuasive information that is difficult for users to detect, potentially shaping public opinion and decision-making.... Read more

The Doomsday Clock—a symbolic device to signal an array of existential threats to the world since 1947—was recently moved to 85 seconds before midnight, the closest it has ever been to midnight. And that was before all-out war broke out in Iran.... Read more

During armed conflicts in Latin America, state forces, insurgents, and paramilitaries systematically employed massacres, torture, abductions, and targeted killings to dismantle social structures. The Comisión para el Esclarecimiento de la Verdad, la Convivencia y la No Repetición—CEV (Colombian Truth Commission) concluded that all armed groups in the country used homicides... Read more

The opening of trade borders under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 was accompanied by a significant increase in drug-related violence in Mexican regions that functioned as key corridors for drug trafficking. That is the result of a recent study by Erik Hornung, Professor of Economic History... Read more

Polls consistently show overwhelming support for measures like universal background checks and raising the minimum age for gun purchases. But Congress rarely acts. A new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences helps explain why.... Read more

A study involving the UAB has analyzed the effect of foreign trade and immigration on the success of both right- and left-wing populist parties. The analysis reveals how the importation of products that require low-skilled labor plays a key role in the rise of both types of populism, while immigration... Read more

As members of the public increasingly turn to AI chatbots to understand their world, even subtle latent biases in the underlying models could affect public understanding of the present—and past.... Read more

Australians routinely encounter misinformation in their everyday online lives, and it's not just limited to politics or pandemics, according to new research in collaboration with QUT's Digital Media Research Center. The study, "Everyday encounters with misinformation online: examining sources, topics and modes," has been published in Information, Communication & Society.... Read more

If you gathered every American with a prison record into one contiguous territory and admitted it to the union, you would create the 12th-largest state. It would be home to at least 7 million to 8 million people and hold a dozen votes in the Electoral College.... Read more

The COVID-19 pandemic introduced uncertainty, fear, and an unparalleled economic shock, resulting in the most extensive government stimulus package—totaling $2.9 trillion—in U.S. history. According to a new study, those stimulus checks more often went to the corporations that engaged in politics the most.... Read more

Like so many sectors of the economy, the news industry is hurtling toward a future where artificial intelligence plays a major role — grappling with questions about how much the technology is used, what consumers should be told about it, whether anything can be done for the journalists who will... Read more

In recent years, studies and media reports have blamed growing partisan hostility in the U.S. for shattered marriages, broken families, ruined holiday dinners, and increased stress. New CU Boulder research suggests it may have an even broader impact, hindering democracies' capacity to address climate change around the world.... Read more

People who prefer structured, rule-based explanations may find conspiracy theories appealing because they offer a clear, ordered explanation for events that feel chaotic. New research led by Flinders University has found that understanding how someone processes information can be a strong predictor of whether they are drawn to conspiracy beliefs... Read more

Yes or no? It's a simple question that now drives more than US$13 billion (£9.7 billion) a month on prediction markets—companies like Polymarket, PredictIt and Kalshi.... Read more

Mexico stands at a critical security crossroads following the confirmed death of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as El Mencho, the founder and leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.... Read more

American reports of individual well-being have remained relatively stable over decades, but confidence in the nation has sharply declined. James N. Druckman and colleagues analyzed long-term survey data from two projects: the General Social Survey and the American National Election Studies. The findings are published in the journal PNAS Nexus.... Read more

The COVID-19 pandemic was a major health crisis that challenged citizens' information management routines. Epistemic ideals guided how people scanned and filtered information, engaged with it and adapted their behavior accordingly.... Read more

A new study reveals that the image of a seamless global youth climate movement is fracturing as activists in the "periphery" feel increasingly sidelined by Western-centric leadership. By investigating why these local chapters face a "crisis of connection," the research exposes how national security threats, democratic backsliding, and political rifts... Read more

NLP offers powerful opportunities to support the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—including SDG2 (Zero Hunger). In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war, mounting climate change impacts, and other crises in the 2020s, global food security has suffered and progress towards meeting SDG2 has lagged. Urgent action, backed... Read more

When the federal government brings its toughest environmental enforcement actions against polluters, they tend to be in communities of greater wealth, not the most polluted places. That's the takeaway from a new paper co-authored by a Washington State University researcher that examined criminal prosecutions by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency... Read more

When lawmakers name bills after victims of tragedy—such as Megan's Law or the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993—public support surges, but this emotional boost may come at the expense of sound policymaking, according to research published in the journal Psychology, Public Policy, and Law.... Read more

Turning on the "For You" algorithm on X (formerly Twitter) may shift users' political opinions toward more conservative views, suggests research involving nearly 5,000 X users. These effects are shown to persist even after users return to a chronological feed, according to a new paper published in Nature.... Read more

For the first time in more than half a century, there are no binding restraints on the buildup of the largest nuclear forces on Earth. The New START treaty expired on Feb. 5, 2026, ending the last agreed limits on U.S. and Russian nuclear forces.... Read more

Fake news generated by AI is often perceived as more credible than texts written by humans. That worries linguist Silje Susanne Alvestad. In 2017, "fake news" was chosen as the new word of the year by the Language Council of Norway. But what are the linguistic features of fake news,... Read more

Messages intended to suppress votes can be precisely delivered to particularly vulnerable and consequential groups of people via social media and keep millions of them from casting ballots, according to a new study that is the first to quantify the effect of this kind of microtargeting on voter turnout. A... Read more

Bureaucratic hurdles and racial disparities restrict access to victim compensation for adult survivors of sexual assault, deepen justice system inequities and compound trauma. The absence of police verification of a crime is the primary reason for rejection, representing 34.4% of disapproved requests—which account for roughly 8 out of every 100... Read more

A vast majority of professional athletes believe they should be allowed to engage in political activism and intend to use their social media channels to raise awareness about racial injustice, according to a report issued today by the Race and Equity Center at the University of Southern California.... Read more

Americans are less confident in U.S. elections than they were a year ago—Democrats, Republicans and independents alike. In a national survey from the Center for Transparent and Trusted Elections (CTTE) at the University of California San Diego, produced in collaboration with the university's Yankelovich Center for Social Science Research, 60%... Read more

A global team of researchers, including Professor Stephen Reicher from the School of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of St Andrews, have produced a new World Bank Working Paper offering an innovative and integrative analysis of how collective hate develops and the strategies that can be used to counter... Read more

A new study published in Nature has found that X's algorithm—the hidden system or "recipe" that governs which posts appear in your feed and in which order—shifts users' political opinions in a more conservative direction.... Read more

Certain markers of high status may more strongly boost attitudes toward women versus men, and low status markers may more strongly worsen attitudes toward men versus women—with both findings more pronounced in countries with more conservative gender norms. Marie Isabelle Weißflog of Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany, and the University of York,... Read more

While there are plenty of historical topics U.S. citizens agree on—generally, events and figures from the Civil War up to the end of the Cold War—the birth of the nation isn't one of them, according to a new report from Johns Hopkins SNF Agora Institute and a nonprofit called Millions... Read more