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"Social Behavior - history"
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Power in movement : social movements and contentious politics
\"Social movements have an elusive power but one that is altogether real. From the French and American revolutions to the post-Soviet, ethnic, and terrorist movements of today, contentious politics exercises a fleeting but powerful influence on politics, society, and international relations. This study surveys the modern history of the modern social movements in the West and their diffusion to the global South through war, colonialism, and diffusion, and it puts forward a theory to explain its cyclical surges and declines. It offers an interpretation of the power of movements that emphasizes effects on the lives of militants, policy reforms, political institutions, and cultural change. The book focuses on the rise and fall of social movements as part of contentious politics in general and as the outcome of changes in political opportunities and constraints, state strategy, the new media of communication, and transnational diffusion\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Does Money Matter? The Effects of Cash Transfers on Child Development in Rural Ecuador
A large body of research indicates that child development is sensitive to early‐life environments, so that poor children are at higher risk for poor cognitive and behavioral outcomes. These developmental outcomes are important determinants of success in adulthood. Yet, remarkably little is known about whether poverty‐alleviation programs improve children’s developmental outcomes. We examine how a government‐run cash transfer program for poor mothers in rural Ecuador influenced the development of young children. Random assignment at the parish level is used to identify program effects. Our data include a set of measures of cognitive ability that are not typically included in experimental or quasi‐experimental studies of the impact of cash transfers on child well‐being, as well as a set of physical health measures that may be related to developmental outcomes. The cash transfer program had positive, although modest, effects on the physical, cognitive, and socioemotional development of the poorest children in our sample.
Journal Article
Persistent interaction patterns across social media platforms and over time
Growing concern surrounds the impact of social media platforms on public discourse
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and their influence on social dynamics
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, especially in the context of toxicity
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. Here, to better understand these phenomena, we use a comparative approach to isolate human behavioural patterns across multiple social media platforms. In particular, we analyse conversations in different online communities, focusing on identifying consistent patterns of toxic content. Drawing from an extensive dataset that spans eight platforms over 34 years—from Usenet to contemporary social media—our findings show consistent conversation patterns and user behaviour, irrespective of the platform, topic or time. Notably, although long conversations consistently exhibit higher toxicity, toxic language does not invariably discourage people from participating in a conversation, and toxicity does not necessarily escalate as discussions evolve. Our analysis suggests that debates and contrasting sentiments among users significantly contribute to more intense and hostile discussions. Moreover, the persistence of these patterns across three decades, despite changes in platforms and societal norms, underscores the pivotal role of human behaviour in shaping online discourse.
Long conversations online consistently exhibit higher toxicity, yet toxic language does not invariably discourage people from participating in a conversation, and toxicity does not necessarily escalate as discussions evolve.
Journal Article
Multitudes : how crowds made the modern world
In 'Multitudes', Dan Hancox celebrates the history of the crowd. The crowd is the human embodiment of democracy. It is a testament to the incredible things that happen when we gather with strangers in pursuit of a common goal - whether that is to throw a rave, or overthrow a dictator. We will see how crowds have the power to change history, and how joining crowds changes us for the better, too.
BOOK
Ancient genomes show social and reproductive behavior of early Upper Paleolithic foragers
Present-day hunter-gatherers (HGs) live in multilevel social groups essential to sustain a population structure characterized by limited levels of within-band relatedness and inbreeding. When these wider social networks evolved among HGs is unknown. To investigate whether the contemporary HG strategy was already present in the Upper Paleolithic, we used complete genome sequences from Sunghir, a site dated to ~34,000 years before the present, containing multiple anatomically modern human individuals. We show that individuals at Sunghir derive from a population of small effective size, with limited kinship and levels of inbreeding similar to HG populations. Our findings suggest that Upper Paleolithic social organization was similar to that of living HGs, with limited relatedness within residential groups embedded in a larger mating network.
Journal Article
Strangers at the gates : movements and states in contentious politics
\"This book contains the products of work carried out over four decades of research in Italy, France and the United States, and in the intellectual territory between social movements, comparative politics, and historical sociology. Using a variety of methods ranging from statistical analysis to historical case studies to linguistic analysis, the book centers on historical catalogs of protest events and cycles of collective action. Sidney Tarrow places social movements in the broader arena of contentious politics, in relation to states, political parties and other actors. From peasants and communists in 1960s Italy, to movements and politics in contemporary western polities, to the global justice movement in the new century, the book argues that contentious actors are neither outside of nor completely within politics, but rather they occupy the uncertain territory between total opposition and integration into policy\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
TESTING FOR ALTRUISM AND SOCIAL PRESSURE IN CHARITABLE GIVING
Every year, 90% of Americans give money to charities. Is such generosity necessarily welfare enhancing for the giver? We present a theoretical framework that distinguishes two types of motivation: individuals like to give, for example, due to altruism or warm glow, and individuals would rather not give but dislike saying no, for example, due to social pressure. We design a door-to-door fund-raiser in which some households are informed about the exact time of solicitation with a flyer on their doorknobs. Thus, they can seek or avoid the fund-raiser. We find that the flyer reduces the share of households opening the door by 9% to 25% and, if the flyer allows checking a Do Not Disturb box, reduces giving by 28% to 42%. The latter decrease is concentrated among donations smaller than $10. These findings suggest that social pressure is an important determinant of doorto-door giving. Combining data from this and a complementary field experiment, we structurally estimate the model. The estimated social pressure cost of saying no to a solicitor is $ 3.80 for an in-state charity and $1.40 for an out-of-state charity. Our welfare calculations suggest that our door-to-door fund-raising campaigns on average lower the utility of the potential donors.
Journal Article
Decoding Modern Consumer Societies
\"The history of consumption has experienced remarkable growth since the 1980s, driven by the interest of scholars in a variety of historical subdisciplines and other social scientific fields. This volume seeks to bring the resultant diversity of specialized approaches into one common discourse. It takes stock of what consumption history has accomplished in recent decades, what current research agendas are, and where research should go from here. Assembled and introduced by Hartmut Berghoff and Uwe Spiekermann of the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC, the volume brings together contributions from scholars in Europe and the United States, who discuss consumption patterns and their implications for the development of modern consumer societies. The geographical scope of these articles encompasses not only both sides of the North Atlantic, but also Argentina, Africa, and Japan. The articles are informed by a variety of approaches, including environmental history, political history, business history, the history of science, cultural history, gender history, intellectual history, and anthropology. The volume is aimed both at specialists in consumption and consumption history as well as at academic readers who wish to familiarize themselves with the field in the first place\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
IDENTITY, MORALS, AND TABOOS: BELIEFS AS ASSETS
We develop a theory of moral behavior, individual and collective, based on a general model of identity in which people care about \"who they are\" and infer their own values from past choices. The model sheds light on many empirical puzzles inconsistent with earlier approaches. Identity investments respond nonmonotonically to acts or threats, and taboos on mere thoughts arise to protect beliefs about the \"priceless\" value of certain social assets. High endowments trigger escalating commitment and a treadmill effect, while competing identities can cause dysfunctional capital destruction. Social interactions induce both social and antisocial norms of contribution, sustained by respectively shunning free riders or do-gooders.
Journal Article