sociology
The annual rite of passage has always been more about the ambivalence of adults than the amusement of children.
Famed activist Bayard Rustin constantly faced the dilemma of coordinating collective pursuits among diverse groups of people.
In a world of rising cynicism, a celebration of our capacity to create, adapt, and thrive.
How “Catastrophe and Social Change” (1920) became the first systematic analysis of human behavior in a disaster.
What are we supposed to do when experts look at the same data yet reach starkly different conclusions?
Everyone has to learn about sex somehow. Today, billions of people are learning about it from porn.
And, more importantly, what’s being done to get them online?
In “Not Born Yesterday,” author and cognitive scientist Hugo Mercier makes the case that misinformation is overrated — and other human foibles are underrated.
Mental health awareness is more widespread than ever. Some professionals think it may have gone overboard — especially on TikTok.
Are fava beans and chianti really the best pairing for human liver?
Female physicians tend to practice medicine as it should be practiced: with care and compassion.
The “Shopping Cart Litmus Test” is a popular meme about morality. What does it really reveal about one’s character?
The Human Chronome Project finds that the average human sleeps for 9 hours but only works for 2.6 hours.
“Values emphasizing tolerance and self-expression have diverged most sharply, especially between high-income Western countries and the rest of the world.”
The majority of people in every country support action on climate, but the public consistently underestimates this share.
In the murder trial of Dan White, the defense touched on diet as a cause for White’s actions. It has become known as the “Twinkie defense.”
Public mass shooters almost always have worldviews shaped by the “3 Rs”: rage, resentment, and revenge.
A physicist, a psychologist, and a philosopher walk into a bar and discuss a framework for thinking better in the 21st century.
Susannah Fox, former chief technology officer for the HHS, explains how technology has empowered us to help fill in the cracks of the healthcare system.
The National Defense Education Act of 1958 meshed with white anxiety about the desegregation of schools.
Is it genes or their special bond that drives identical twins to offend at similar rates?
Genes are sometimes called the “blueprint of life,” but that doesn’t make them the behavioral playbook.
About three out of every four people arrested in the U.S. are men. That rate is similar across the world.
In 1924, sociologist and social reformer Caroline Bartlett Crane designed an award-winning tiny home in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Some of the world’s most satisfied societies are poor, small, and remote.
An MIT study finds the brains of children who grow up in less affluent households are less responsive to rewarding experiences.
Five times in U.S. history, American presidential candidates have ascended to leadership despite lacking the popular vote. Here’s how.
People who score high in “obsessive passion” can become rigidly consumed by ideological causes — sometimes dangerously so.
From Hogwarts to hashtags, kids’ reading habits have changed drastically in recent decades — but data suggests cause for hope.
Smaller family networks, more great-grandparents, and fewer cousins.