Questions tagged [sociology]

The scientific study of society.

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In what way do developed countries drain trillions of dollars from developing countries? [closed]

On the advice of the monitors, I have reposted this question on Economics SE. According to the Guardian, rich Western countries drain large amounts of money from poor countries, much more than they ...
Riemann's user avatar
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3 votes
1 answer
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Is Rapid-onset gender dysphoria real?

Parent reports of adolescents and young adults perceived to show signs of a rapid onset of gender dysphoria. PLOS ONE describes ROGD as Conclusion Rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) describes a ...
pinegulf's user avatar
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1 vote
1 answer
654 views

Do most people like to talk about themselves?

There are numerous articles about people loving to talk about themselves. However, my experience has been very different. Is "everyone's favorite topic is themselves" a myth?
Kevin Kostlan's user avatar
13 votes
1 answer
4k views

Are young liberal women more likely to have a mental health condition?

Evie Magazine reports on a 2020 Pew Research study, in an article titled Over 50% Of Liberal, White Women Under 30 Have A Mental Health Issue. Are We Worried Yet? Conservatives label younger liberal ...
Lambert macuse's user avatar
54 votes
3 answers
10k views

Do Afghans keep track of their birthdays?

According to this article (not in English) (not paywalled version) (Google Translate translation) the man in the article has a problem with his visa because he used a fictitious birthdate (as advised ...
d-b's user avatar
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6 votes
1 answer
728 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 ...
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3 votes
1 answer
208 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'...
Rudi's user avatar
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1 answer
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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, "...
Avery's user avatar
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78 votes
3 answers
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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 ...
oliver's user avatar
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7 votes
1 answer
393 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 ...
Barry Harrison's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
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 ...
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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 ...
Prem's user avatar
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5 votes
0 answers
344 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: ...
geocalc33's user avatar
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4 votes
1 answer
792 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 ...
gaazkam's user avatar
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71 votes
2 answers
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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 ...
MBender's user avatar
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14 votes
1 answer
580 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 ...
Flimzy's user avatar
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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 ...
BradC's user avatar
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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,...
Fizz's user avatar
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4 votes
1 answer
419 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 ...
user5341's user avatar
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27 votes
2 answers
4k 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 ...
Tim Schimandle's user avatar
8 votes
0 answers
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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 ...
Eliyahu's user avatar
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15 votes
3 answers
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: ...
badroit's user avatar
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7 votes
2 answers
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/...
Sakib Arifin's user avatar
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6 votes
1 answer
613 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 ...
Malcolm's user avatar
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158 votes
6 answers
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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 ...
Sakib Arifin's user avatar
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12 votes
1 answer
851 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 ...
Larian LeQuella's user avatar
60 votes
2 answers
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 ...
Turion's user avatar
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8 votes
0 answers
503 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 ...
Celeritas's user avatar
  • 2,564
12 votes
1 answer
1k 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 ...
Malper's user avatar
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10 votes
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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 ...
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14 votes
1 answer
2k 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 ...
Christian's user avatar
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17 votes
2 answers
5k 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 ...
gnometorule's user avatar
7 votes
0 answers
135 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 ...
user32268's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
300 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 ...
matt_black's user avatar
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0 votes
1 answer
559 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 ...
Andrew Grimm's user avatar
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13 votes
1 answer
2k 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 ...
fi12's user avatar
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6 votes
1 answer
361 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.
Franck Dernoncourt's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
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 ...
Pål GD's user avatar
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50 votes
1 answer
4k 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 ...
user avatar
14 votes
0 answers
582 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 ...
gerrit's user avatar
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7 votes
1 answer
3k 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....
ShemSeger's user avatar
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0 votes
2 answers
761 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 ...
Andrew Grimm's user avatar
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13 votes
1 answer
967 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 ...
Einenlum's user avatar
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11 votes
1 answer
569 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 ...
Steven's user avatar
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27 votes
1 answer
3k 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 ...
rumtscho's user avatar
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4 votes
0 answers
295 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 ...
Pburg's user avatar
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7 votes
0 answers
478 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) ...
Scis's user avatar
  • 187
26 votes
1 answer
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 ...
cberzan's user avatar
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2 votes
0 answers
657 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 ...
Andra's user avatar
  • 1,013
39 votes
3 answers
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 ...
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