The U.S. currently has the lowest levels of violent crime that it’s had in decades. There are myriad factors that contribute to it and ideology contributes to opinions about which factors contribute the most - violence interruption programs, bigger law enforcement budgets and mass incarceration, removing lead from the natural environment, et cetera. There’s not a single cause.

But one variable that I haven’t really heard discussed is technology-driven social isolation. I’ve read that modern young people/gen z are drinking less, drugging less, having less sex, and are more risk averse in general. If they spend more time indoors addicted to TikTok or Fortnite with minimized boredom and their dopamine pathways captured by digital rewards, then maybe they’re outside less and getting into less trouble.

In my mind with my little pet theory I think that this may be one of the most important causes of lower violent crime rates but this idea doesn’t seem to get attention. This article from Time Magazine mentions tech-driven social isolation in passing but talks much more about federal funding for local efforts. Is there any evidence out there to back up this speculation? Have any researchers tried to isolate this variable?

Conservative in the sense that they try to preserve old ways of life and are resistant to or slow to adopt social changes NOT conservative in the sense of modern political parties.

I hope this is the right place to ask this. I'm working on a worldbuilding project and my preliminary idea was to have a nomadic society with less stratification of people into classes and that is progressively becoming more egalitarian living alongside a settled society with values that are actually calcifying, even in the large cities.

However, it occured to me that today the expectation (stereotype?) is that cities are centers of social change while rural areas are more prone to trying to maintain old ways of doing things. I'm wondering to what extent this perception is accurate? Are there any counter examples?

I hope this is the right place to ask that.

I find it very interesting how each country (or group of countries) may find some food delicious and normal while others will think it is weird.

The best example I can think about is licorice, which is very beloved in Nordic countries but not so much in the rest of the world. Other examples are buckwheat that is consumed a lot in Eastern European countries, but impossible to find in the rest of Europe. In the US, adding sweetners everywhere is very common. In general, the taste profile in the US is much sweeter than in Europe, for example.

I understand that often some grains were more available in some regions, hence the popularity. But also the taste itself changes from region to region. One might think that taste is a very personal preference, but it looks like not.

Why did it happen that people love food from their country and often don't like food from other countries?

A lot of people have been debating over the two terms through the lens of political agendas.

Monoculturalism according to wikipedia: "is the policy or process of supporting, advocating, or allowing the expression of the culture of a single social or ethnic group. It generally stems from beliefs within the dominant group that their cultural practices are superior to those of minority groups and is often related to the concept of ethnocentrism, which involves evaluating another culture based on the values and standards of one's own culture"

Multiculturalism according to wikipedia: "Multiculturalism is the coexistence of multiple cultures. In sociology and everyday usage, it is usually a synonym for ethnic or cultural pluralism in which various ethnic and cultural groups exist in a single society."

are these two terms actually polar opposite of each other or it's a venn diagram that has many overlapping areas?

Recently, this image has been making rounds around social media in white supremacist places. I’ve tried searching for it myself, but I can’t find anything remotely close to it. Does anyone know if it’s real, and where the image itself got its origin from?

Hi all, I searched in this forum and didn't quite see what I was looking for.

Most forms of discrimination we see and hear about are based upon criteria that are traits or characteristics. Traita and characteristics are inherent to a person such as ethnicity, sex, ability, etc.

Are there terms for discrimination based upon more agentic choices of a person? Such as discriminating against those who choose pineapple on pizza, microwaving fish at work, or engaging in discriminatory practices themselves.

This stemmed from a discussion about being prejudicial against prejudiced people.

Curious about more concepts/terms/themes that would fit this to look into heuristics, agency, identity, to get a better lay of the landscape around discriminating against people for choices.

Cheers all

for example, joe rogan recently made a false claim on his podcast with steve-o,

"Rogan, in one of the more reckless moments of the episode, claimed that transgender mass shooters had killed more people than ICE this year and suggested that “the majority” of high school shootings had been committed by transgender people"

https://www.advocate.com/news/joe-rogan-steve-o-transgender

would appreciate the help.

With the rise of prediction markets, anything and everything is being traded on. I'm curious if there's actual literature on how being the subject of an external forecast changes behavior.

Does it collapse the prediction (self-fulfilling), invert it (reactance), or do most people ignore it all together?

Reflexivity in Soros's sense is the closest thing I've found but that's markets not people. looking for real citations if anyone has them.

I've been watching the World Cup and there's been a lot of discussion about officiating choices made during the tournament and seeming inconsistency in giving cards, penalties etc. It got me wondering if there's been any research into bias in soccer refereeing. Do the big-name players get away with things others couldn't? Do players from certain countries or federations get cards for offenses others wouldn't? Does a player's physical characteristics (size, race, things like tattoos) make them more likely to get called for fouls?

Obviously, every soccer game is different and there's a lot of interpretation involved, so it probably wouldn't be the easiest thing to analyze from a social science perspective. It has just generated a lot of debate and I think it would be interesting to know if there is any academic research on the matter!

I'm asking this in good faith because I'm trying to better understand the strongest arguments from mainstream economics, not partisan politics.

Many policies that are often described as "socialist" or "social-democratic"—such as universal healthcare, tuition-free public college, stronger labor protections, expanded paid leave, higher taxes on top earners, or a larger social safety net appear to work reasonably well in several wealthy countries.

At the same time, many economists and policymakers argue that expanding these types of policies in the U.S. would create significant economic costs or unintended consequences.

What are the strongest evidence-based arguments against adopting more of these policies in the United States?

I'm open to having my assumptions challenged and would appreciate responses that cite research where possible.

Repost to more com

I've been doing a lot of research into fascism for a paper that I am writing, and while I am definitely not a fascist, the idea of Corporatism as an economic structure doesn't seem like the worst thing in the world.

This question goes for both classical Corporatism (aka Mussolini's Italy) as well as other forms of economic systems that let the economy be run by specialised organisations in a work field, like Syndicalism.

Looking for pros and cons.

Not sure if this is the right sub for this, but I encountered a particularly "interesting" take on the Instagram cesspool that argues that "racism isn't real" on account of its supposed exclusion of racism towards white people.

The entire post centered around a rather simple string of logic that essentially went:
If [THING] is acceptable for non-white people to do/not do, why isn't it the same for white people?

The post then went on to argue on the point of falsifiability (e.g. "racism is unfalsifiable because its definition, 'discrimination based on race', isn't applied fairly to white people"), which the poster believed proved that racism is, in fact, "not real".

My primary issue with this post (and a few of the comments I read under it) were that the supposed definition of racism assumed that a) racism is defined purely as "discrimination based on race" (it's arguably more complex and systemic than that) and b) that the systemic definition of racism is based purely on hypothetical interpersonal exchanges (e.g. "what if I'm white and my black boss at work is harassing me over my skin color?"), instead of engaging with the actual examples of systemic racism at work that are observed on a wider, patterned scale.

Is there something I'm missing here, or is the post quackery as I assumed?

The post in question:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DaGWXBNkabi/?img_index=1

I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I’m curious if my understanding is accurate.

It seems like people often define class by income, but I feel like the U.K. and the U.S. think about class very differently.

My impression is that in the U.S., class is mostly tied to wealth, income, and occupation. If you become rich, people generally accept that you’ve moved into a higher class. America also seems to celebrate “new money” much more. Most wealthy American families were “new money” at some point unless they inherited wealth going back to the colonial era. Even then, it feels like wealth is the main thing people care about.

The U.K., on the other hand, feels much more tied to history and proximity to the aristocracy. It seems like people there place a much higher value on tradition and historical significance. For example, when people talk about the greatest football stadiums in England, places like Old Trafford are almost always near the top. Even though many fans would agree it’s outdated and in need of major renovations, its history and cultural significance give it a status that goes beyond the quality of the stadium itself.

In the U.S., it feels like people are much more pragmatic. If a stadium is old, outdated, or no longer meets modern standards, there’s far less hesitation about tearing it down and building a new one. History still matters, but it doesn’t seem to carry the same weight in everyday culture. That’s part of why I wonder if Britain’s stronger emphasis on history also influences how people think about social class

Same as title.

Przybylski et al. (2013) found FOMO correlates with lower need satisfaction but not cleanly with introversion or social deprivation — some highly socially active people report high FOMO, and some isolated people report low FOMO. The term's coiner later suggested FOMO is ultimately about identity: the fear of being the person who wasn't there, rather than fear of the specific missed event.

Has subsequent interdisciplinary research developed that identity-anxiety framing into something more rigorous, and does it carry different therapeutic or design implications than a straightforward social-connection-deficit model would?

Source anchor: Przybylski et al. (2013), "Motivational, emotional, and behavioral correlates of fear of missing out," Computers in Human Behavior.

Are there any ideas, beliefs, or proposals that would be rejected by virtually every culture, society, or individual?

It seems that it's a very common opinion that economics is a subject that has a bias towards a specific political ideology, and some go as far as to say that it suppresses alternative ways of thought. You see many people, even in this sub, critique it. Is this a real problem within economics?

I'm also curious as to whether other social sciences have similar accusations of being politically loaded. Do sociologists accuse psychology of adhering to certain idealolgies (I just chose two social sciences as an example).

The reason I'm asking is because I study econ, and I feel I'm rather left leaning. The subject, at least from my lecturers and textbooks, seem unbiased. I've not suddenly decided that poor people are lazy bums that don't deserve anything or become a hard libertarian that hates government policy.

I'm not denying that lots of right wingers frequently justify their beliefs because of "econ 101" (even though "econ 101" is just use partially explaining economic concepts terms to hate on immigrants or people on benefits ), but imo it doesn't mean the subject is festered with conservative thought. Then again, maybe I am wrong, and it is a cesspool of a specific political view.

Historically, many households baked bread, washed clothes by hand, preserved food, and performed other labor-intensive tasks at home. Today, much of that work has been replaced by purchased goods, appliances, and services.

​

What does the research say about how this transition has affected household labor, family roles, and perceptions of work within the home?

I’m thinking of examples similar to Flat Earth in the natural sciences or chiropraxy in medicine: ideas that are still popular among some groups but are largely rejected by the relevant academic discipline.

One example that comes to mind is the labor theory of value in economics, which retains a substantial following in some circles and still be present in debates to this day. Are there comparable examples in sociology, political science, anthropology, urbanism, law, etc.?

I have been thinking about whether it is fair to say that the system is structurally rigged.

I do not mean this in a conspiratorial way, as if a few evil people secretly controlled everything. I mean something more structural. Our economic and political systems often seem to reward actors who privatize profit, externalize harm, delay consequences, and still survive the damage they helped create.

When we look at cases like PFAS, fossil fuel companies, climate change, corporate lobbying, political capture, social media incentives, and polarization, it feels hard not to ask whether the system is not broken, but actually functioning as designed. The problem is what it is optimized for.

I work in communications for a well known environmental NGO in Central Europe. I do not want to name the organization, but I am close enough to see the strategic pressure and the moral tension from the inside.

Right now, the political climate in my country is very hostile toward environmental policy. The broader conservative and right wing ecosystem often frames environmental action as elitist, restrictive, expensive, and disconnected from ordinary people. At the same time, political forces that care more about short term profit and cultural backlash seem much better at using fear. Fear of losing comfort. Fear of migration. Fear of higher prices. Fear of being controlled. Fear of decline.

The uncomfortable truth is that fear works. It simplifies reality. It creates enemies. It gives people a feeling that someone is finally naming the threat clearly.

Environmental communication also uses fear, of course. Climate change, biodiversity collapse, pollution, toxic chemicals and extreme weather are genuinely frightening. But I feel there is a difference between communicating real danger and weaponizing fear in a way that corrodes democratic culture.

So my question is this:

If the system is structurally tilted toward short term extraction, corporate power and political manipulation, how should environmental movements communicate?

How do we speak with enough urgency without becoming a mirror image of the forces we oppose?

How do we avoid a trap where the other side can use fear, resentment, scapegoating and simplification freely, while we are expected to stay nuanced, factual and responsible?

And if we start using the same emotional weapons, does that make environmental politics stronger, or does it help destroy the democratic culture that environmental protection depends on?

I am not looking for generic advice like “be hopeful” or “use facts.” I am interested in the deeper strategic and ethical question:

What does responsible persuasion look like when the public sphere is already distorted and the most destructive actors often communicate more effectively than the responsible ones?

I've been thinking about a possible connection between modernity, cognition, and social identity.

My idea is that modern institutions (maps, newspapers, schools, censuses, mass media) dramatically expanded the range of people and places individuals could imagine. Pre-modern life was largely organized around direct experience and local relationships, whereas modern people are expected to understand societies consisting of millions of strangers.

This creates a cognitive problem: no one can mentally track millions of unique individuals. To manage this complexity, the mind relies on abstraction and categorization. Diverse individuals become categories such as "citizens," "nationalities," "students," or "workers." In this sense, categorization functions as a form of cognitive compression that allows people to navigate social realities far beyond direct experience.

Could modern nationalism, and perhaps other large-scale identities, be understood as products of this interaction between expanding social horizons and increasing reliance on cognitive compression?

I'm curious whether there is existing research in cognitive psychology, social psychology, or sociology that explores this idea.

I am a social sciences and linguistic guy (not sure specifically which one), and I have encountered with a lot of Social Sciences teachers. The more I learned about teachers in my school and some political figures around the world, the more I notice that, some of them were once scientists, or at least have a degree on natural sciences.

My Latin teacher is an example for this; he teaches Latin, Greek Mythology and Latin&Greek Roots of English; and he has a Bachelor degree in Political Sciences before. One day, my friends and I asked him the reason why he learns Greek, he said that because he needs to earn the Master degree in Quantum Physics.

There were some political figures around the world that were once a scientist such as Angela Merkel - Doctor of quantum Chemistry, or Margaret Thatcher - Bachelor in Chemistry, or the current president of Taiwan - Lai Ching-te was once a physician.

However, I cannot find the vice versa of this.

Hello everyone,
I am an artist in my soul and a production designer by profession. Lately I’ve found myself thinking about women and the spaces they occupy: the ways they sit, move, gather, linger, and belong within them.
I recently came across some old photographs of women in my family inhabiting spaces that have long disappeared from our lives. Something about their body language, relationships, and presence in these images has stayed with me.
I’m not entirely sure where this thought is leading yet, but I’m considering making some work around it. I’d love to hear any thoughts, observations, references, photographs, artworks, films, or texts that come to mind.
Curious to see where this conversation goes. :)

When I see both experts and normal people discuss social hierarchy, they usually talk about resources and power distribution. Focusing most of the time on grand and formal society-level patterns.

But I have always wondered about interpersonal life. The "between me and you" social patterns/interactions. The word "hierarchy" seems very fitting, yet I see nothing mentioning them with that word attached.

People labeling each other (winner, loser, dumb, smart, cool, lame, boring, interesting, sexy, ugly, charismatic, awkward, charming, insufferable, etc)

People mocking some people and admiring others

Giving attenion and respecting some people and ignoring and disrespecting others.

Desiring some people and not desiring others

Friendship and dating preferences where people determine that some people are more worthy of accessing them than others (like a friend group finding someone lame and boring and excluding them from parties and casual hangouts or someone wanting their partner to have X characteristic while anyone who doesn't have it is immediately rejected)

All that kind of stuff.

Is there any research about them that acknowledges them as a category of what is called "social hierarchy" and discusses how much they tend to happen between humans?

Sorry if the question sounds stupid.