Hacker News with Generative AI: Social Science

A demanding work culture could be undermining efforts to raise birth rates (psypost.org)
China’s falling birth rate has become a major national concern, and a new study published in Biodemography and Social Biology suggests that the country’s demanding work culture may be partly to blame.
Demographics, Work Culture, China, Social Science, Parenting
8 points by ivewonyoung 2 days ago | 8 comments
Study: People select feedback to flatter others, except when they dislike them (phys.org)
People generally try to make other people feel good about themselves, but not when they dislike them. That's the finding of a new study by psychologists at the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania investigating the extent to which people promote "positive self-views" for total strangers.
Psychology, Social Science, Human Behavior
5 points by PaulHoule 2 days ago | 0 comments
Patience is a coping strategy, not a virtue (bps.org.uk)
According to a well-known proverb, patience is a virtue. According to a recent study in the Personality and Social Psychology Review, though, it's actually a coping mechanism that we employ to stop everyday frustrations from getting on top of us.
Psychology, Coping Mechanisms, Social Science
18 points by domofutu 6 days ago | 19 comments
Finland is the happiest country in the world (euronews.com)
For the eighth year in a row, Finland has been named the world’s happiest country in the World Happiness Report published on Thursday.
Finland, Happiness, World Rankings, Social Science, Reports
5 points by andrewstetsenko 13 days ago | 0 comments
World Happiness Report 2025 Dashboard (worldhappiness.report)
Happiness, Data Visualization, Social Science, Global Trends, Research
7 points by giuliomagnifico 14 days ago | 0 comments
Show HN: I made a worldwide sexual life dashboard (worldsexmap.com)
The idea of World Sex Map is to share data-based insights about sexual life.
Data Visualization, Sex, Social Science, Demographics
62 points by superderevo 15 days ago | 22 comments
Should Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment Be Retracted? (retractionwatch.com)
Philip G. Zimbardo passed away in October 2024 at age 91. He enjoyed an illustrious career at Stanford University, where he taught for 50 years. He accrued a long list of accolades, but his singular and enduring contribution to scholarship was the Stanford Prison Experiment, a simulation carried out in the university’s psychology department in August 1971. The research project became the best-known psychological analysis of institutionalization at the time.
Psychology, Research, Ethics, Stanford University, Social Science
7 points by leephillips 23 days ago | 0 comments
Marrying Up and Marrying Down (medium.com)
The most important decision we make is who we partner with, who we marry. However, for many, marriage isn’t an essential life choice … it’s a luxury item. I asked my friend, the social scientist Richard Reeves, to pen a post on the subject.
Marriage, Relationships, Sociology, Social Science, Personal Finance
9 points by hacsky 31 days ago | 4 comments
Men overestimate women's preference for masculinity (bps.org.uk)
Psychology, Gender Studies, Relationships, Social Science
30 points by domofutu 39 days ago | 32 comments
Emergence of collective oscillations in human crowds (nature.com)
Dense crowds form some of the most dangerous environments in modern society1. Dangers arise from uncontrolled collective motions, leading to compression against walls, suffocation and fatalities2,3,4.
Crowd Dynamics, Safety, Physics, Social Science, Human Behavior
95 points by shalg 53 days ago | 40 comments
A hexagonal-tiled cartogram for U.S. counties (jordanroga.com)
Mapping data isn’t just about geography - it’s about telling stories hidden in numbers. Recently, I created a cartogram that tiles all U.S. counties into a uniform grid of hexagons. This approach transforms our traditional view of the nation, offering fresh insights into population, density, and other socio-economic variables that are often obscured on conventional maps.
Mapping, Data Visualization, United States, Geography, Social Science
63 points by jordanhroga 57 days ago | 20 comments
Brits still associate working-class accents with criminals – study warns of bias (cam.ac.uk)
People who speak with accents perceived as ‘working-class’ including those from Liverpool, Newcastle, Bradford and London risk being stereotyped as more likely to have committed a crime, and becoming victims of injustice, a new study suggests.
Social Science, Linguistics, Stereotypes, Bias, Criminology
10 points by gnabgib 76 days ago | 3 comments
The Typical Man Disgusts the Typical Woman (betonit.ai)
Ever seen this famous OkCupid graph? The quick summary is just: “Men rate women more highly than women rate men.”
Dating, Gender, Social Science, Psychology, Relationships
36 points by jger15 80 days ago | 44 comments
Human Civilization at critical junction:authoritarian collapse or superabundance (eurekalert.org)
A new scientific study published in the journal Foresight concludes that human civilisation is on the brink of the next ‘giant leap’ in evolution. However, progress could be thwarted by centralised far-right political projects such as the incoming Donald Trump administration.
Politics, Civilization, Social Science, Technology, Future
31 points by clumsysmurf 94 days ago | 23 comments
The Global Loss of the U-Shaped Curve of Happiness (afterbabel.com)
There is a literature of at least 600 published papers suggesting that happiness is U-shaped in age and, conversely, that unhappiness is hump-shaped in age.
Happiness, Social Science, Aging
27 points by nsoonhui 95 days ago | 3 comments
Revisiting Stereotype Threat (michaelinzlicht.com)
Another day, another idol falls.
Psychology, Social Science, Stereotypes
101 points by systemstops 105 days ago | 110 comments
Santa Prefers Wealthy Sick Children (2023) (taylor.town)
It has long been thought that Santa Claus gives presents to nice but not naughty children. This is the first study, to our knowledge, to dispel the myth that Santa visits children based on behaviour and suggests socioeconomic deprivation plays a greater role in determining a visit. It raises important ethical dilemmas, such as whether children should be told and what should be done about Santa.
Social Science, Christmas, Research
66 points by surprisetalk 105 days ago | 27 comments
The Anti-Autism Manifesto (woodfromeden.substack.com)
I have always been skeptical of the high-functioning autism label. “Autism” was originally a very severe disability. Then all other psychiatric diagnoses for children with social difficulties were removed, so quite suddenly, also otherwise normal people with some social quirks are said to be autistic.
Autism, Psychology, Social Science
13 points by paulpauper 131 days ago | 7 comments
Revisting the Stanford Prison Experiment 50 years later (arstechnica.com)
In 1971, Stanford University psychologist Philip Zimbardo conducted a notorious experiment in which he randomly divided college students into two groups, guards and prisoners, and set them loose in a simulated prison environment for six days, documenting the guards' descent into brutality.
Psychology, Social Science, Experiments, Ethics
7 points by pseudolus 141 days ago | 0 comments
Bribery is largely subject to circumstance: study (elpais.com)
A year-long experiment was conducted at the self-service checkouts of a supermarket chain in Modena and Ferrara in Italy to test whether there was any link between corruption scandals and how honest consumers were with their shopping.
Ethics, Social Science, Italy, Consumer Behavior, Experiments
74 points by cainxinth 142 days ago | 138 comments
The Median Researcher Problem (lesswrong.com)
Claim: memeticity in a scientific field is mostly determined, not by the most competent researchers in the field, but instead by roughly-median researchers. We’ll call this the “median researcher problem”.
Science, Research, Social Science, Psychology, Academia
30 points by surprisetalk 145 days ago | 20 comments
The Obvious-Once-You-Think-About-It Reason Why Education Cuts Fertility (betonit.ai)
As education goes up, fertility goes down. This rule works within countries: High-education individuals have fewer kids than low-education individuals. This rule works across countries: High-education nations have fewer kids than low-education nations.
Education, Fertility, Demographics, Social Science
13 points by jger15 157 days ago | 20 comments
The Rise and Fall of IQ: The Cognitive Divide (onepercentrule.substack.com)
For most of the 20th century, IQ scores steadily climbed, a phenomenon so consistent it was named the “Flynn effect” after the psychologist James Flynn, who first documented it.
Intelligence, Psychology, Social Science
27 points by drcwpl 161 days ago | 63 comments
Philip Zimbardo, psychologist behind the 'Stanford Prison Experiment' dies at 91 (news.stanford.edu)
Philip G. Zimbardo, one of the world’s most renowned psychologists, died Oct. 14 in his home in San Francisco. He was 91.
Psychology, Stanford University, Obituary, Social Science
29 points by Jerry2 163 days ago | 16 comments
'Stanford Prison Experiment' Psychologist Zimbardo Dies at 91 – AP News (apnews.com)
Stanford psychologist behind the controversial “Stanford Prison Experiment” dies at 91
Psychology, Social Science, Stanford University, Research Ethics, News
10 points by Anon84 166 days ago | 1 comments
The illusion of moral decline (2023) (nature.com)
Anecdotal evidence indicates that people believe that morality is declining1,2.
Morality, Social Science, Psychology, Sociology
14 points by therabbithole 173 days ago | 10 comments
"Switzerland is as deeply polarized as the USA" (news.uzh.ch)
In many democracies, those on the left and right of the political divide are drifting further apart. Political discourse is increasingly spiteful and hostile. Silja Häusermann and Simon Bornschier from the Department of Political Science at UZH explain why this is the case and whether it poses a threat to democracy.
Politics, Polarization, Democracy, Social Science
15 points by sharpshadow 184 days ago | 16 comments
The Atlantic: Studies Show Short People Are Dumb, Poor, Criminals (theatlantic.com)
There are plenty of studies that claim it pays to be tall. A 2004 report found that each inch of height amounts to a salary increase of about $789 per year (controlling for gender, weight and age). Another concluded that taller people are flat out smarter. Indeed, no American president has been below average height since 1888.
Height, Social Science, Salary, Intelligence
5 points by popcalc 186 days ago | 0 comments
What the World Is Like: Who Knows It – and Why (1983) (chomsky.info)
You’ve written about the way that professional ideologists and the mandarins obfuscate reality. And you have spoken — in some places you call it a “Cartesian common sense” — of the commonsense capacities of people. Indeed, you place a significant emphasis on this common sense when you reveal the ideological aspects of arguments, especially in contemporary social science. What do you mean by common sense? What does it mean in a society like ours?
Philosophy, Ideology, Social Science, Common Sense, Noam Chomsky
8 points by yamrzou 187 days ago | 0 comments
Can Generative Multi-Agents Spontaneously Form a Society? (arxiv.org)
Generative agents have demonstrated impressive capabilities in specific tasks, but most of these frameworks focus on independent tasks and lack attention to social interactions.
Generative AI, Artificial Intelligence, Social Science, Research
48 points by geuds 198 days ago | 5 comments