Questions tagged [sociology]
The scientific study of society.
100
questions
7
votes
1answer
525 views
Do mass shooters tend to have been bullied as kids?
(Originally posted on Psychology.SE, it has been suggested that I post here instead)
The media frequently claims that mass shooters are or were bullied as children. Does the scientific evidence back ...
3
votes
1answer
191 views
Does fast feedback result in greater expertise?
There are swathes of blogs and books promoting the notion that we should seek the quickest possible feedback to develop ours skill. The most prominent example I can think of comes from Daniel Kahneman'...
9
votes
1answer
2k views
Did Margaret Mead say that a healed femur is the earliest sign of civilization?
A 1997 issue of the Bulletin of the American College of Surgeons, in an article I could not identify, contains the following story:
The noted, late anthropologist, Margaret Mead, was once asked, "...
0
votes
0answers
150 views
Does handling your food release digestive juices and enzymes that enhances the meal?
In a Google Arts & Culture article, Yẹ́misí Aríbisálà, "Nigerian essayist, writer and food memoirist", states the following:
There are scientific claims that fingers have powerful nerve ...
76
votes
3answers
20k views
Was Mohammed the most popular first name for boys born in Berlin in 2018?
German right-wing party AfD has recently posted this claim on its Facebook page:
++ Neugeborene: Mohammed auf Platz 1 der Vornamen in Berlin ++
Man höre und staune: Der häufigste Erstname für ...
7
votes
1answer
362 views
Does population growth stabilize when the mortality rate falls below 10 deaths per 1,000 people?
From Forbes in 2011:
In society after society, [Bill Gates] saw, when the mortality rate falls—specifically, below 10 deaths per 1,000 people—the birth rate follows, and population growth ...
9
votes
1answer
2k views
Could “Generation Z” be the most conservative one since WW2?
I've found several sources that explain that "Generation Z" could be the most conservative one since the end of WW2.
Some of the sources, are the ones that follow:
Dailymail: They don't like drugs ...
2
votes
0answers
272 views
Do women in all-women shops earn less then men in all-men shops? [closed]
Many women & men raise issues of equal pay for equal work, but a recent analysis of Uber Drivers showed that women earned less because of working less or driving slowly; Uber Payment system did ...
5
votes
0answers
328 views
Are people happier in the countryside?
Over and over again sociologists have found that people in the countryside report a higher happiness index than people who live in cities. Is this effect well received by all sociologists?
Source:
...
4
votes
1answer
720 views
Are women biologically (rather than culturally) equally inclined to take technical jobs? [closed]
Google fired James Damore for his memo about Google's gender diversity policies. Quoted are these parts of the memo that claim that in spite of significant overlap, innate biological differences ...
72
votes
2answers
23k views
Is Muhammad one of the most popular names for boys in England and Wales?
A number of articles describe how Muhammad is the most popular name in the UK for baby boys, topping William and other names.
A few links for reference:
2016 Independent article
Muhammad has ...
14
votes
1answer
553 views
Do team-bonding exercises promote distrust?
In Barking Up the Wrong Tree, author Eric Barker makes the claim:
You can't rely on HR team-bonding exercises; studies show they're only effective at building distrust.
-- Chapter 4
There is no ...
8
votes
1answer
1k views
Has the Americans with Disabilities Act reduced employment for disabled workers?
I recently heard someone claim that, despite its intentions, the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has actually reduced employment for disabled workers, because companies now fear lawsuits ...
13
votes
1answer
620 views
Is job experience a poor predictor of job performance?
I was shocked by an implicit claim in an HBR article.
The most shocking part to me there is that job experience came dead last among those predictors of job performance. Alas the graph is from a talk,...
4
votes
1answer
397 views
Is divorce caused (or influenced by) genetics?
From Independent headline:
Divorce does run in the family and could be genetic, researchers have suggested.
... the study – carried out by Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) and Lund University ...
28
votes
2answers
3k views
Do biological males who were castrated at birth and raised as females often behave like stereotypical men?
In "Google's Ideological Echo Chamber", James Damore wrote (emphasis added on claim):
On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways. These differences aren’t just socially ...
8
votes
0answers
694 views
Transgender teenagers grow out of it 75% of the time [duplicate]
Ben Shapiro writes:
Suicide Rates Among Transgenders Do Not Decrease Thanks to Sex-Change Surgery. The suicide rates among transgenders do not drop after surgery. 41 percent of transgender people ...
16
votes
3answers
2k views
Does having more women in a group increase its collective intelligence?
Various reputable media outlets have written articles down through the years to the effect that the higher the ratio of women in a group, the higher its collective intelligence.
Examples online:
...
6
votes
2answers
1k views
Are women in general more attracted to powerful men?
According to this quora post:
From an evolutionary standpoint, women are designed to make sure their offspring survive to reproduce. If they mate with a powerful man, their children will be strong/...
6
votes
1answer
549 views
Did Robert Putnam find that diversity has “incredibly negative consequences”?
According to a comment on this 9gag post about Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau welcoming immigrants:
queen_boxxy 1042 points · 28 Jan 2017
diversity has in fact incredibly negative ...
151
votes
6answers
27k views
Are people of Nordic Nations “happier, healthier” with “a higher standard of living overall than Americans”?
Ernest W. Adams wrote in the answer to the question "Why are people so negative about Nordic nations, especially Sweden?":
There are a lot of right wing Americans who have been preaching ...
12
votes
1answer
789 views
Did a disproportionate number of celebrities die in 2016?
There is a general claim being made that 2016 has had an unusually high number of celebrities pass away.
While the past few days may have had a cluster of celebrity deaths, is 2016 really an unusual ...
59
votes
2answers
18k views
Do 40% of U.S. Americans think that global warming is unproblematic since Christ will return soon?
Noam Chomsky states in a recent interview:
One of the difficulties in raising public concern over the very severe threats of global warming is that 40 percent of the US population does not see why ...
8
votes
0answers
493 views
Does small talk not build relationship and is it not great for our happiness levels?
I'm referencing this article: http://www.wired.co.uk/article/banning-small-talk
research has confirmed what most people know but don't practice:
surface level small talk does not build ...
10
votes
1answer
717 views
Is Bhutan an extremely happy country?
Supposedly Bhutan consistently ranks as one of the happiest countries in the world. Bhutan seems to have a reputation as a eco-friendly liberal paradise, and pages like this claim that their ...
10
votes
1answer
646 views
Are countries that have kings and queens empirically freer and more socially just than countries that don't?
Just listening to some thinking kind of stuff on YouTube and came across an interview with Stephen Fry, a highly respectable man in the "empiricist" and "rationalist" circles. I found most of what he ...
14
votes
1answer
1k views
Does swearing give people the impression that you are from a lower social class?
Kinja.com published an article called Swearing and Its Socioeconomic Baggage:
One of the most common complaint against swearing was the socio-economic baggage attached to it — simply put, that ...
16
votes
2answers
3k views
Did 'Key Parties' ever exist?
According to Wikipedia,a key party is a:
a form of swinger party, in which male partners place their car and house keys into a common bowl or bag on arriving. At the end of the evening the female ...
7
votes
0answers
129 views
Does legalizing drugs (controlled substances) actualy lead to a decrease in their use? [duplicate]
The two memes below make the claim that legalizing drugs will actually lead to a decrease in their use.
Image states:
Portugal, A Real Land of the Free. In 2001 Portugal decriminalized personal ...
3
votes
0answers
290 views
Does science advance “one funeral at a time”? [closed]
In an article in the Guardian about how ideas in nutrition science have advanced and have influenced dietary advice to the public, the authors quote Max Planck as having said, famously:
“A new ...
1
vote
1answer
495 views
Are 100 million sharks culled per year for safety reasons?
Are 100 million sharks culled per year for safety reasons?
Example claim
A woman has a 1 in 262,365 chance of being killed by a shark in her
lifetime.
In that very same lifetime she has a 1 ...
11
votes
1answer
1k views
Did 800 people estimate the weight of an ox within 1% in 1906?
According to Wikipedia,
At a 1906 country fair in Plymouth, 800 people participated in a contest to estimate the weight of a slaughtered and dressed ox. Statistician Francis Galton observed that ...
6
votes
1answer
353 views
Do 5 percent of cancer patients in the U.S. end up in a clinical trial?
Joe Biden's A Moonshot to Cure Cancer call claims:
5 percent of cancer patients in the U.S. end up in a clinical trial
Is that number true? The page doesn't give any reference.
8
votes
1answer
1k views
Do mirrors decrease perceived waiting time
There is a famous anecdote about a multistoried office building in New York in which occupants complained that the elevator was very slow. After installing mirrors in the lobby, the complaints ...
6
votes
0answers
191 views
Are these homeless people drug addiction figures accurate?
I'm sure you've heard the claim before that
Giving money to homeless men and women is just supporting their drug
addiction.
But how true is that claim?
In any instance where I've tried being ...
51
votes
1answer
3k views
Is ignoring a bully an effective means to prevent bullying?
It's a common belief among people such as teachers and parents or other carers/guardians that a good way to prevent being bullied is to simply ignore the aggressor, as that apparently gives them no ...
14
votes
0answers
563 views
Are beggars in the Nordic countries cities typically part of organised networks?
In Sweden and other Nordic countries, the presence of beggars on the streets is a relatively new phenomenon, with many beggars originating from new EU member states. There are frequent claims that ...
7
votes
1answer
2k views
Are there more Mormons in the world than Jews?
I notice on Wikipedia that it lists the total number of Jewish adherents at ~14 million, and it lists the number of adherents in the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormonism) at ~15....
0
votes
2answers
679 views
Is or was Australia an egalitarian country? [closed]
Australia is often seen as an egalitarian country, or as a country which used to be egalitarian, but whose egalitarianism is under threat
From the first source:
It would be fair to say that ...
13
votes
1answer
858 views
Did food industry make their instant cakes harder to cook in the '50s?
In a video against animal cruelty, a woman talks about the tricks food industry has been using for decades. One subject in particular intriges me.
In the 1950s there was a very important innovation ...
12
votes
1answer
522 views
Does “power posing” affect testosterone and cortisol levels?
Social psychologist Amy Cuddy gave a TED talk in which she claims that adopting certain postures:
can affect testosterone and cortisol levels in the brain.
Business Insider Australia summarised it ...
27
votes
1answer
2k views
Does staying married “for the kids' sake” benefit the kids?
The common opinion I have heard is that parental divorce has negative effects on children. Wikipedia has a section on "Effect of divorce on children" with all effects listed being negative, and ...
4
votes
0answers
281 views
Do private school students attain lower GPAs in college than “equal” public school students?
First, I realize this question is quite like this one, but I want to focus more on the college GPA and then relate it to two older studies.
There are a few decades old study which show that public ...
7
votes
0answers
470 views
Does student selection by private schools negatively affect nearby public ones? [closed]
I've heard several times that the existence of private or "charter" schools near public schools in the US harms public schools specifically because it draws "stronger"(grade-wise or socioeconomically) ...
26
votes
1answer
1k views
Is the US more tolerant of failure than other cultures?
I've come across several sources claiming that the US is more tolerant of trial-and-error than other cultures:
(The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb) "American culture encourages the process of ...
2
votes
0answers
535 views
How many people does it take to keep a secret? [closed]
On the Wikipedia entry on Vesna Voluvic, who holds the Guiness book work record on surviving the highest fall without a parachute, a conspiracy theory claiming the plane got shot by the army got ...
39
votes
3answers
5k views
Are 1 in 5 college women raped?
In this article, it is claimed that 1 in 5 college women are raped (at least around the 2013-2014 time period). I have heard the claim repeated from other sources (such as the BBC, which was ...
12
votes
2answers
2k views
Are discussions about suicide themselves suicide triggers?
Several online forums I've frequented have had discussions removed when suicide methods are mentioned. The reasoning have been that discussion about suicide themselves are suicide triggers. While it ...
7
votes
1answer
2k views
Does Islam lead to higher crime rates? [closed]
I live in a mostly atheistic country. I have often heard the claim that Muslim people commit more crimes than others, especially that they are thieves due to their religion. Is there is any truth to ...
10
votes
1answer
346 views
Is a better work ethic correlated to the level of education?
I've heard numerous times that less educated people have lower work ethics, but I've never seen any scientific papers on the subject. Is there any correlation between work ethic and level of education?...
