News by Subject Social & Behavior

In a report published by Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, University of Illinois Chicago researchers detail findings from three studies that explore the connection between political ideology, attitudes, and beliefs toward diversity.

A firm's focus on customers may be diminished when it lobbies. Firm focus can be reoriented to customers, but doing so requires intentional, marketing-focused efforts.

In the United States, climate change is controversial, which makes communicating about the subject a tricky proposition. A recent study by Portland State researchers Brianne Suldovsky, assistant professor of communication, and Daniel Taylor-Rodriguez, assistant professor of statistics, explored how liberals and conservatives in Oregon think about climate science to get a better sense for what communication strategies might be most effective at reaching people with different political ideologies.

Political anger in the U.S. has reached a fever pitch in recent years. Now, new research shows that ordinary voters may begin to mirror the angry emotions of the politicians they read about in the news.

Short-term financial difficulties prevent poor people in Germany from voting and participating in politics. Such are the findings of a study by Max Schaub, a research fellow at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center (WZB), published in American Political Science Review. Among individuals at risk of poverty, both turnout intentions and actual turnout are reduced by 5 percentage points when election days coincide with phases of acute financial hardship.

As places like Utah, Arizona, Michigan and Maryland gear up to hold local elections this summer and fall, history predicts that they will see an average of 29-37% fewer voters than they would were their elections held "on cycle," in tandem with state and

An analysis of the tone used in pandemic-related social media posts from U.S. Congress members over an 8-month period in 2020 finds clear partisan differences, with Democrats using a slightly negative tone compared with Republicans, who appeared to use more strongly positive language in their COVID-19 messaging. Democrats were also far more likely than

Facebook posts by members of the U.S. Congress reveal the depth of the partisan divide over the COVID-19 pandemic, new research shows. A study of all 12,031 Facebook posts concerning the pandemic by members of Congress between March and October 2020 showed that Democrats generally took a more negative or neutral tone on the issue, while Republicans were more likely to have a positive tone in their posts.

Why do some Europeans discriminate against Muslim immigrants, and how can it be reduced? The School of Arts & Sciences' Nicholas Sambanis conducted innovative studies at train stations across Germany involving willing participants, unknowing bystanders and, most recently, bags of lemons. His newest study finds evidence of significant discrimination against Muslim women, but it is eliminated when they show they share progressive gender attitudes.