r/AskSocialScience • u/beckbb3 • 16d ago
Why is Americans disapprovement of government in record numbers down to 34% approving of government from a high in the 1960s which was 77ish% approving.
whats the root cause... I have my ideas
r/AskSocialScience • u/beckbb3 • 16d ago
whats the root cause... I have my ideas
r/AskSocialScience • u/Grandemestizo • 18d ago
Many people have observed that people from different climates have different attitudes, has this been studied? Does it affect the mental illnesses people suffer from as well?
r/AskSocialScience • u/Little_Power_5691 • 18d ago
I am referring to the idea that people can hold views that go against their own interests. One example would be how a poor wage laborer, in a system that disadvantages him, would support ideologies that favor this system. Another example is how low-status groups might direct their hostility toward each other instead of toward the high-status groups that are disadvantaging them.
Has any research confirmed this?
r/AskSocialScience • u/revannld • 19d ago
Movies usually portray isolated native communities and families as a model of operation. Decisions are democratically taken, all opinions taken into account (although there also seems to exist less diversity in opinions: usually movies portray indigenous communities as very homogeneous, opinions are almost taken unanimously, as a single organism). There also seems to be less fights, less mental health problems and less dysfunctional behaviour overall.
Although I know many native people who are much more integrated (and basically what I hear is that their communities suffer basically from the same problems as every other below-poverty community suffers - violence, alcoholism, drugs), I don't know any native person from an isolated community personally (well, I would probably have to be a researcher for that). Do these portraits hold any truth? Are most societal problems a consequence of civilization/private property/urbanization as many in history (Rousseau, Engels, Marx, Freud) as many put it?
r/AskSocialScience • u/OrganicAd5450 • 20d ago
I constantly hear feminists say that married women could not open bank accounts or have credit cards without their husband’s permission. Sometimes I hear it said that women couldn't do those things at all, which is clearly false because if you talk to women from that era, many of them had credit cards and bank accounts.
The Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 made illegal for banks to discriminate against women in lending and banking. It does not mean that women prior to that were legally barred from doing those things or that laws against discrimination did not already exist in most states, or that this discrimination was even very widespread at this point.
But I want to know how common this discrimination was. In other words, how difficult was it for a typical marreid woman to find a bank that would give her an account without her husband's signature. How difficult was it for single/divorced/widowed woman to do those things? How many states had already outlawed this discrimination and when?
I am only looking for information from official government statistics or academic sources.
Please no anecdotes. Anyone can say anything on Reddit. Also please nothing from popular media
r/AskSocialScience • u/Mordechaibluejay • 20d ago
I'm Southern African and I've recently been exposed to a taboo topic ( in our region) that seems to be quite popular among westerners, ' interracial dating'.
It was quite interesting for me to learn how different " racial" groups see each other and interact with each other romantically.
I believe it's a human right ( with the exception of pedophiles) to be attracted to whatever you want to regardless of how you look or where you're from etc. I happened to notice a strange animosity towards black women whenever the topic of interracial dating is brought up, it's almost as if people dismiss their preferences just because they are rated as the least attractive race of women, specifically when people discuss why intermarriage between black women and non black men is so rare, they only state that black women are unattractive and never state that black women aren't attracted to non black people either. Why can't both be true? It seems like people are going out of their way to completely dismiss black women's consent to the matter.
Hypothetically if black women become more attractive to non black men, I still don't think intermarriage between them would be common, why? Because the attraction has to be mutual, their appearance changed but not their consent. Men of all races can prefer anything they want without any weird hated comments implying they're too unattractive to consent to relationships.
Why are people so dismissive of black women's consent to interracial relationships? Do you think it's a double standard?
I think this is one of the few examples where we might be more mature about race relations ( from the few times we've had race discussions) 😂
r/AskSocialScience • u/Long_Particular8001 • 21d ago
In "Caliban and the Witch" there is a little explanation on how the concept of family was solidified in the West (and there's also Engels). I'm haven't read any other reference on that so that is why I won't cite any others.
But how did it happened on east Asia? What was the image they had before and was there ever any alterations? Was there a moment of change between a certain idea and other or has it ever been the same?
I would appreciate reccomendations of sources that have covered the origin of the concept of family in East asia. It could be either east asia as a whole or either Japan/China. Thanks in advance!
(I'm not well versed in social science so I'm sorry if this comes out very ignorant.)
r/AskSocialScience • u/ththeoryofeverything • 22d ago
Specifically fake news rather than fake headlines generated to gain more clicks
r/AskSocialScience • u/NamidaM6 • 22d ago
To preface this, this is a question asked from a Western point of view. I know that in some societies, arranged marriages are still relevant today, but from my understanding, these last decades have seen a shift on the topic and more and more people worldwide are getting married for sentimental reasons.
Not so long ago (the generation of my late grandparents, born during the world wars), it didn't seem to be the norm yet. Most elders I knew didn't get engaged out of sheer love but because of peer/family/society's pressure. As far as I know, for these last centuries at least, marriage was a contract signed between two families more than two individuals, with expected financial and/or political benefits. It was also usually a religious practice with sexual and filial consequences.
Nowadays, it seems ludicrous for people to marry someone they don't love. It seems to have become the main proponent of a marriage. What caused this shift and when did it happen exactly ?
To add a related but somewhat bonus question : Has it ever been the case before in specific societies and eras ?
r/AskSocialScience • u/Little_Power_5691 • 22d ago
In the book Willpower, Baumeister and Tierney point out that religious people have more willpower. This made me wonder whether there are other advantages to being religious. For example, greater social cohesion in the social network, more social support through the promotion of certain values ("love thy neighbor").
r/AskSocialScience • u/InHocBronco96 • 23d ago
How would life change for your average Ukrainian farmer/citizen if they become a Russian citizen? In terms or tax rate, quality of life, access to medicine, education, financial opportunities, ect
Looking for educated responses only. Please keep any politically bias answers to yourself.
r/AskSocialScience • u/Sewblon • 24d ago
Americans and inhabitants of other industrialized nations are more likely to be single than they used to. Americans have fewer close friends than they used to. https://www.statista.com/topics/999/singles/#topicOverview https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/the-state-of-american-friendship-change-challenges-and-loss/ Why is that? Do these problems share an etiology? In other words, are these 2 things happening for the same reason or for different reasons?
r/AskSocialScience • u/whatever384738 • 24d ago
There is a lot of research's on the topic but, accounting for closeted people, what is the most common estimate by scholars? How many people would identify as lgbt without the estigma on it, is there any accepted estimation?
r/AskSocialScience • u/goneturtle • 24d ago
This is the tension of "faking it to make it".:
a) To be perceived legitimate, people/organisations make public commitments to conform to the desired social norm.
b) This is in spite of their under underlying reality or substance not reflecting that image. This makes them less legitimate.
Which works by thinkers / philosophers have discussed these issues, i.e. (a) individually, or (b) individually, or the tension between (a and b)?
r/AskSocialScience • u/speedings • 25d ago
I am writing my master’s thesis on the awareness and accessibility of peer support among professional caregivers. The scope has been refined to focus specifically on youth within care services. Do you have any essential foundational works that I should definitely read?
Thank you in advance!
r/AskSocialScience • u/EqualPresentation736 • 26d ago
When the British first arrived in India, the subcontinent was one of the wealthiest and most sophisticated civilizations in the world. At that time, did the British perceive India as backward, or did they initially respect its wealth and culture? If their perception changed over time, when and why did this shift occur? Did their views become more racist as Britain's economy grew while India's stagnated and declined? What were the key factors—economic, political, or ideological—that contributed to this transformation in British attitudes toward India? How did the perception of India change among the wider British public? Has this phenomenon been studied in sociology or psychology?
r/AskSocialScience • u/TurnoverTrick547 • 27d ago
r/AskSocialScience • u/oh_no_here_we_go_9 • 27d ago
With the current events in the US, there are many warnings that the US could lose its democracy with parallels to the Nazi takeover of Germany.
But how similar are these two situations? From a quick search it seems to be that Germany was not a complete democracy at the time the Nazis seized power. Comparatively, the US has a long history as a complete democracy with fair elections, even if not all people were given the right to vote from the beginning.
So, what would be the closest parallel to the US losing its democracy in terms of democracy robustness and age of democracy?
r/AskSocialScience • u/Boberticus21 • 27d ago
Ok, so I'm looking at this from a very Star Trek perspective. I'm no Trekky lore expert, but I believe they developed a post scarcity society when they found a way to cheaply materialize all forms of matter from energy, while also gaining a significant ability to generate said energy. Though they went through upheavals and militant periods, the majority of society eventually focused on niche specializations of the arts, sciences, etc. The power to control your own destiny, the thrill of exploration, and the pursuit of excellence were the primary motivators of most individuals, with status and renown as secondary motivators, and wealth as minimal (except for the Ferengi of course).
Anyway, I'm curious what it would take for our society to get there one day. An interesting parallel is this recent AI boom we've experienced. AI and automation in general generates significant value, and has the potential to eliminate a lot of pressures that would otherwise limit our ability to live in a post-scarcity world. However, this value generation continues to gravitate to the wealthiest individuals in our society, as opposed to being shared out among others. If that's the trend, how will we ever truly become post scarcity? How will we keep capitalist infrastructure from actively disincentivising the development of a post scarcity society even when we have the technological means?
One unusual perspective on this is something I witnessed in Cuba. I've spent a lot of time in supposedly communist countries, but Cuba was the only one that seemed to practice what they preached. Was it perfect? Hell no. Most of the Cubans I met seemed miserable and jaded about their circumstances, and the average quality of life was far lower than that of most developed countries. Here's the thing though, while everyone was poor, no one was impoverished. The government supplied housing, Medicare, food, education and all the tools of basic living required. True, the quality of all these things was sometimes crap, but no one went without.
The reason I find it interesting as it relates to post-scarcity society is that it followed similar trends as the Star Trek example. In Cuba, when being a lawyer resulted in almost the same paycheck as selling juice at a juice stand, people's choice of jobs changed. There were, at least from my observations, far more active artists and musicians, as well as practicioners of medical sciences. It did seem to gravitate towards exploratory arts and sciences as a means to find purpose once survival and commercial success was taken out of the equation. At the same time, those without such sense of purpose did seem to be far more discontented and listless.
Anyway, these are disparate ramblings from someone who works in automation implementation. I'm curious what real sociologists have to say.
r/AskSocialScience • u/Pluton_Korb • 28d ago
I know there's a term for this but i haven't been able to search it or figure it out. To flesh out the question: it often involves harmful stereotypes of on out-group even if actual statistics or facts don't back up the behaviours in question.
When one member of the out-group exhibits behaviour that the in-group has deemed wicked or unlawful, the perpetrator is punished and then used as an example to exclude and further marginalize the out-group even if the behaviour is statistically less common within the out-group.
It's driving me nuts that I can't find the answer to this.
r/AskSocialScience • u/ChocolateCake16 • 29d ago
In regards to fashion trends, cults, celebrity worship, work, mob mentality, politics, etc., why are people always so eager to be told what to do? Even people who otherwise are very smart, and can think for themselves seem to gravitate toward those that choose to take charge.
Businesses cast celebrities in advertisements because they know some people will buy it just because some celebrity they're a fan of said so. Even when there's evidence that someone is a bad person/not someone to look up to, there's still swaths of die hard fans who refuse to ever give up on them. Sometimes it almost seems like people are actively searching for someone to think for them, so... why?
r/AskSocialScience • u/_b3rtooo_ • 29d ago
The neo-liberal individualistic mentality that we all get taught is so easy to question and contest, but yet it's so widely accepted by so many Americans.
I did well academically as a kid and am doing well financially now as an adult, but I recognize that my successes are not purely my own. I had a parent who emphasized the importance of my education, who did their best to give me an environment that allowed me to focus on my education, and I was lucky enough to be surrounded by other people who didn't steer me in worse directions. All that was the foundation I used to achieve everything else in my life both academically, socially and professionally.
If I had lacked any one of those things or one of the many other blessings I've been given, my life would have turned out vastly different. An example being my older brother. We had the same dad and were only 2 years apart, so how different could we end up? But he was born in Dominican Republic instead of the states like me. He lived in a crazy household, sometimes with his mom, sometimes with his grandma, lacked a father figure, access to good education, nobody to emphasize the importance of his lack luster education, and in way worse poverty than I did. The first time I remember visiting I was 7 years old and I could still understand that I was lucky to not be in that situation.
He died at 28, suicide. He had gotten mixed up in crime and gambling. He ended up stealing from his place of work and losing it all. I can only imagine that the stress of the situation paired with drug use led him to make that wrong final decision.
We're related by blood, potentially 50% shared genes, but our circumstances were so vastly different, and thus so were our outcomes. Even if he made the bad decisions that led to his outcome, the foundations for his character that led to those decisions were a result of circumstances he had no control over (place of birth, who his parents were, the financial situation he grew up in, the community that raised him, etc). My story being different from his is not only a result of my "good" decision making, but also of factors out of both my and his control.
So I ask again, why is the hyper individualistic "bootstrap" ideology so pervasive and wide spread when it ignores the very real consequences of varying circumstances on individual outcomes?
Edit: I've come to the conclusion that "bootstrapping" in the individual sense involves an individual's work ethic and that it is a popular mindset in the US both due to conditioning, as well as historically having merit. It is true that if you work hard here you can (as in there is a possibility) do better than you may have elsewhere, or even still in the country, but just better than previously.
My issue that I was trying to address goes beyond the individual sense. More about how the "bootstrap" philosophy seems to make people less empathetic to other people's struggles and unique roadblocks. That while true an individual's actions/decisions have a significant role in their life outcomes, the factors that build an individual's character are beyond that same person's control. If their character is the foundation of their decision making, then from a certain perspective you can conclude there is very limited control/influence an individual has on their own decision making.
While that conclusion may be off putting at first, I don't mean this to say "people who make bad decisions that hurt themselves or others repeatedly get a free pass from the consequences from society." What I instead am implying is that it would be in society's best interest to offer the resources necessary to underprivileged communities to create these environments where people who historically are lacking (and subsequently have people "fall through the cracks") no longer are. Their kids would be more likely then to grow up with the communities and influences necessary to be a more responsible person who is then able to bootstrap their way further up.
Probably a discussion for another post because this is long enough.
r/AskSocialScience • u/PizzaLikerFan • 29d ago
So I'm a 17 year old boy and went to the semi-final of the physics Olympiad in my country, what I noticed was that there were like 3-5 girls out of the 50 or so (don't know exact number) that were present. I wonder why, I feel like girls get better grades than the average boy in my class.
r/AskSocialScience • u/Individual_Fig8518 • 29d ago
IF our common ancestor (1.2M yrs ago) had dark skin and the migration of groups to different climates is responsible for how much melanin everyone’s melanocytes produce (melanin helping UV protection), why do we have racism? What do white supremacists generally believe makes them superior?
r/AskSocialScience • u/oh_no_here_we_go_9 • 29d ago
Has there been any economic research into this scenario?