r/AskSocialScience

A lot of people have been debating over the two terms through the lens of political agendas.

Monoculturalism according to wikipedia: "is the policy or process of supporting, advocating, or allowing the expression of the culture of a single social or ethnic group. It generally stems from beliefs within the dominant group that their cultural practices are superior to those of minority groups and is often related to the concept of ethnocentrism, which involves evaluating another culture based on the values and standards of one's own culture"

Multiculturalism according to wikipedia: "Multiculturalism is the coexistence of multiple cultures. In sociology and everyday usage, it is usually a synonym for ethnic or cultural pluralism in which various ethnic and cultural groups exist in a single society."

are these two terms actually polar opposite of each other or it's a venn diagram that has many overlapping areas?

Hi all, I searched in this forum and didn't quite see what I was looking for.

Most forms of discrimination we see and hear about are based upon criteria that are traits or characteristics. Traita and characteristics are inherent to a person such as ethnicity, sex, ability, etc.

Are there terms for discrimination based upon more agentic choices of a person? Such as discriminating against those who choose pineapple on pizza, microwaving fish at work, or engaging in discriminatory practices themselves.

This stemmed from a discussion about being prejudicial against prejudiced people.

Curious about more concepts/terms/themes that would fit this to look into heuristics, agency, identity, to get a better lay of the landscape around discriminating against people for choices.

Cheers all

With the rise of prediction markets, anything and everything is being traded on. I'm curious if there's actual literature on how being the subject of an external forecast changes behavior.

Does it collapse the prediction (self-fulfilling), invert it (reactance), or do most people ignore it all together?

Reflexivity in Soros's sense is the closest thing I've found but that's markets not people. looking for real citations if anyone has them.

Does a major sports win for a country undergoing a surge of far right nationalism serve to embolden it and make it more dangerous or mollify and give it's base less to complain about and thus remove some of their motive to, just for example, tear down pride flags and burn down the homes of immigrants?

Yes this is an England/football question, because the thing is every major football tournament I root for england to lose because I hate when you can't go anywhere without hearing about football and england fans are particularly obnoxious. However we're also experiencing a wave of nationalist xenophobia right now and that made me think on how such waves are usually down to dip in the economy and national mood. So my question is essentially, would england winning the world cup make these people more or less likely to do mass violence?

I'm asking this in good faith because I'm trying to better understand the strongest arguments from mainstream economics, not partisan politics.

Many policies that are often described as "socialist" or "social-democratic"—such as universal healthcare, tuition-free public college, stronger labor protections, expanded paid leave, higher taxes on top earners, or a larger social safety net appear to work reasonably well in several wealthy countries.

At the same time, many economists and policymakers argue that expanding these types of policies in the U.S. would create significant economic costs or unintended consequences.

What are the strongest evidence-based arguments against adopting more of these policies in the United States?

I'm open to having my assumptions challenged and would appreciate responses that cite research where possible.

Repost to more com

I've been watching the World Cup and there's been a lot of discussion about officiating choices made during the tournament and seeming inconsistency in giving cards, penalties etc. It got me wondering if there's been any research into bias in soccer refereeing. Do the big-name players get away with things others couldn't? Do players from certain countries or federations get cards for offenses others wouldn't? Does a player's physical characteristics (size, race, things like tattoos) make them more likely to get called for fouls?

Obviously, every soccer game is different and there's a lot of interpretation involved, so it probably wouldn't be the easiest thing to analyze from a social science perspective. It has just generated a lot of debate and I think it would be interesting to know if there is any academic research on the matter!

I've been doing a lot of research into fascism for a paper that I am writing, and while I am definitely not a fascist, the idea of Corporatism as an economic structure doesn't seem like the worst thing in the world.

This question goes for both classical Corporatism (aka Mussolini's Italy) as well as other forms of economic systems that let the economy be run by specialised organisations in a work field, like Syndicalism.

Looking for pros and cons.

I am looking for social science literature regarding power vacuums created by regime change.

Specifically, what does political theory say about scenarios where the old ruling elite is dismantled, but the revolutionary faction intentionally abstains from seizing control?

Are there documented historical precedents of this, and what were the analyzed outcomes in those studies?

Not sure if this is the right sub for this, but I encountered a particularly "interesting" take on the Instagram cesspool that argues that "racism isn't real" on account of its supposed exclusion of racism towards white people.

The entire post centered around a rather simple string of logic that essentially went:
If [THING] is acceptable for non-white people to do/not do, why isn't it the same for white people?

The post then went on to argue on the point of falsifiability (e.g. "racism is unfalsifiable because its definition, 'discrimination based on race', isn't applied fairly to white people"), which the poster believed proved that racism is, in fact, "not real".

My primary issue with this post (and a few of the comments I read under it) were that the supposed definition of racism assumed that a) racism is defined purely as "discrimination based on race" (it's arguably more complex and systemic than that) and b) that the systemic definition of racism is based purely on hypothetical interpersonal exchanges (e.g. "what if I'm white and my black boss at work is harassing me over my skin color?"), instead of engaging with the actual examples of systemic racism at work that are observed on a wider, patterned scale.

Is there something I'm missing here, or is the post quackery as I assumed?

The post in question:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DaGWXBNkabi/?img_index=1

I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I’m curious if my understanding is accurate.

It seems like people often define class by income, but I feel like the U.K. and the U.S. think about class very differently.

My impression is that in the U.S., class is mostly tied to wealth, income, and occupation. If you become rich, people generally accept that you’ve moved into a higher class. America also seems to celebrate “new money” much more. Most wealthy American families were “new money” at some point unless they inherited wealth going back to the colonial era. Even then, it feels like wealth is the main thing people care about.

The U.K., on the other hand, feels much more tied to history and proximity to the aristocracy. It seems like people there place a much higher value on tradition and historical significance. For example, when people talk about the greatest football stadiums in England, places like Old Trafford are almost always near the top. Even though many fans would agree it’s outdated and in need of major renovations, its history and cultural significance give it a status that goes beyond the quality of the stadium itself.

In the U.S., it feels like people are much more pragmatic. If a stadium is old, outdated, or no longer meets modern standards, there’s far less hesitation about tearing it down and building a new one. History still matters, but it doesn’t seem to carry the same weight in everyday culture. That’s part of why I wonder if Britain’s stronger emphasis on history also influences how people think about social class

I’m a political science and Biology major, and I have asked many people questions about what they think is harder between STEM and humanities/social sciences classes. There was some disagreement, but generally the view that STEM classes were harder was pretty much the standard. As a partial Bio major I think it can depend somewhat(for instance I thought economics was just as hard as biology, but less difficult than organic chemistry). But overall I’d agree that my hardest class was a STEM class.

But personally, I don’t believe this is inherent to the subjects themselves. I also took a political theory and social/political philosophy class and both went over some incredibly complex topics and concepts(like Plato’s allegories, the veil of ignorance, base and superstructure, etc). So I think the concepts themselves can be very abstract and difficult to grasp(and it seems I was one of a small amount of students that did particularly well in my political theory class). But the point I’m getting at here is that I think generally there is a lack of rigor in humanities/social science classes, and personally I think that hurts students and the fields they get their degrees in.

For instance, one can skip a reading or not be totally familiar with a concept and be alright in a humanities/social science class, but if you aren’t totally aware of a concept and practicing the application of that concept for chemistry, trust me, you’re absolutely screwed.

I believe that more quizzes, and exams that focus on the logic and reasoning of an argument should be stressed, and that writing should be more analytical. I don’t believe that we should simply have a history exam for instance that says something along the lines of “Examine the causes of the Russian revolution,” but rather “Was the Russian revolution a socio-economic inevitability, or a preventable political disaster?”

One of the hardest exams in the world is Oxford’s All souls college entrance examination, and it’s a purely humanities/social science exam. And I think that the standards that we hold people there to, are the standards that all humanities and social science students should be held to. Personally I think that people view humanities and social science classes as easy A’s and that leads to a disparaging of the fields, which I think will lead to a growing decline in the respect people have for these fields, and the respect people have for people with degrees in these fields, and I believe that’s very problematic.

But what do you all think? are the humanities and social sciences find the way they are, or should they become more rigorous?

Same as title.

why do so many conservatives claim feminism makes women unhappy, when women in the world's most feminist countries report the highest rates of happiness and life satisfaction levels on earth? genuinely curious bc women have exceptionally high workplace participation and political leadership in that area

Are there any ideas, beliefs, or proposals that would be rejected by virtually every culture, society, or individual?

It seems that it's a very common opinion that economics is a subject that has a bias towards a specific political ideology, and some go as far as to say that it suppresses alternative ways of thought. You see many people, even in this sub, critique it. Is this a real problem within economics?

I'm also curious as to whether other social sciences have similar accusations of being politically loaded. Do sociologists accuse psychology of adhering to certain idealolgies (I just chose two social sciences as an example).

The reason I'm asking is because I study econ, and I feel I'm rather left leaning. The subject, at least from my lecturers and textbooks, seem unbiased. I've not suddenly decided that poor people are lazy bums that don't deserve anything or become a hard libertarian that hates government policy.

I'm not denying that lots of right wingers frequently justify their beliefs because of "econ 101" (even though "econ 101" is just use partially explaining economic concepts terms to hate on immigrants or people on benefits ), but imo it doesn't mean the subject is festered with conservative thought. Then again, maybe I am wrong, and it is a cesspool of a specific political view.

Hey everyone,

Something I come across very often in the media is the debate about masculinity and how supposedly conservative young men have become.

I’m a young man myself (22), and I think it’s important that we’re having these discussions because rigid gender roles and the patriarchy are harmful to both women and men.

That said, I’d actually argue that my generation seems to be the most progressive so far. Most guys my age seem to support gender equality. You can also see how the image of masculinity has changed: people are much more open about mental health, men are generally more relaxed, more physically affectionate with each other, and even more fashion-conscious than they were 20 years ago.
You see all kinds of people. A guy with painted nails and a muscular gym bro can be in the same class, and everyone gets along just fine. I mean even some Rappers nowadays have painted nails. There are also plenty of people who don’t really fit into any particular box. And I’m not just talking about some progressive “bubble” either—I saw this everywhere, from vocational schools to university.

At the same time, I’m aware that since COVID we’ve definitely seen a backlash against the more progressive politics of the 2010s. That’s why I’m wondering: is reality really the way the media portrays it? Sometimes I get the impression that, as a progressive or moderate “modern” young man, I’d actually be part of a minority.

In real life, though, it seems to me that the manosphere is just a loud minority, and that the broader shift to the right is much more moderate. I also think it’s mainly driven by two factors:

1. Dissatisfaction with progressive parties that have already been in power.

2. Many young men don’t fully identify with parties like The Left or the Greens because those parties haven’t really addressed young men as a voter group (apart from queer men).

I can understand that to some extent. I also know people my age who would vote for more conservative parties, and they’re neither sexist nor homophobic. They’re mostly voting that way as a form of protest. This is also my main point... does voting more right/conservative automatically mean we are on the same level of conservativism like 20 years ago? I mean I don't think that even gay republicans are a strong minority anymore

What do you think? What’s your impression? Is the manosphere just a loud minority, or have young people really become more conservative than the Boomer generation? And where do you think things are heading from here?

Przybylski et al. (2013) found FOMO correlates with lower need satisfaction but not cleanly with introversion or social deprivation — some highly socially active people report high FOMO, and some isolated people report low FOMO. The term's coiner later suggested FOMO is ultimately about identity: the fear of being the person who wasn't there, rather than fear of the specific missed event.

Has subsequent interdisciplinary research developed that identity-anxiety framing into something more rigorous, and does it carry different therapeutic or design implications than a straightforward social-connection-deficit model would?

Source anchor: Przybylski et al. (2013), "Motivational, emotional, and behavioral correlates of fear of missing out," Computers in Human Behavior.