A study commissioned by Anderson Cooper 360 found that the stereotype of schoolyard bullies preying on the weak doesn’t reflect reality.  Instead, the Long Island-based study showed students are involved in a constant verbal, physical, and cyber fight to reach the top of the school hierarchy.

“Kids are caught up in patterns of cruelty and aggression that have to do with jockeying for status,” explains Robert Faris, a sociologist whom “Anderson Cooper 360°” partnered with for the pilot study. “It’s really not the kids that are psychologically troubled, who are on the margins or the fringes of the school’s social life. It’s the kids right in the middle, at the heart of things … often, typically highly, well-liked popular kids who are engaging in these behaviors.”

Faris and his co-author, Diane Felmlee, also found that “bullies” and “victims” aren’t defined roles and can in fact be the same person.

“When kids increase in their status, on average, they tend to have a higher risk of victimization as well as a higher risk of becoming aggressive,” Faris says.

Many of these results mirror results from an earlier study that Faris and Felmlee conducted in North Carolina. Based on such similar findings in such different locations, Faris noted,

“Family background of kids does not really seem to matter in their aggressive behavior. Instead, what really matters is where they are located in the school hierarchy”….The patterns, “arise in a wide range of schools across the country regardless of what community they may be in.”

Yet, the authors remained hopeful for two reasons.  First, their study found that aggressive behavior does not actually elevate a child’s social status. Second, Faris thinks behavior is contagious.

When students are aggressive, there’s a higher likelihood that their friends will become aggressive. But Faris said, “there’s also the possibility that positive behaviors can also spread through social networks and that kids may be more likely to intervene in bullying situations if they see their friends stepping in to stop things, or if they see their friends discouraging that kind of behavior.”

We’ve all heard that there is no peace without justice and vice versa.  But, when policy makers and leaders discuss how to handle national and international conflicts, peace and justice are often pitted against each other.  Recently, the trial of Hosni Mubarak and the Internal Criminal Court’s opening hearings on Kenya have elicited many criticisms that prosecuting leaders who have grossly violated human rights will in fact undermine democracy and exacerbate conflict.  Political Scientist Kathryn Sikkink considers these claims in a New York Times Op-Ed.

Critics argue that the threat of prosecution leads dictators like Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya and Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan to entrench themselves in power rather than negotiate a transition to democracy. In El Salvador, where domestic courts have refused to extradite officers accused of murdering Jesuit priests 22 years ago, critics claim that such a prosecution would undermine stability and sovereignty.

But, Kathryn’s research provides evidence to question some of these concerns.

My research shows that transitional countries — those moving from authoritarian governments to democracy or from civil war to peace — where human rights prosecutions have taken place subsequently become less repressive than transitional countries without prosecutions, holding other factors constant.

Of 100 countries that underwent a transition from 1980 to 2004 (the period for which extensive data is available), 48 pursued at least one human rights prosecution, and 33 of those pursued two or more. Countries that have prosecuted former officials exhibit lower levels of torture, summary execution, forced disappearances and political imprisonment. Although civil war heightens repression, prosecutions in the context of civil war do not make the situation worse, as critics claim.

Kathryn believes that the possibility of punishment and disgrace deters future leaders from violating human rights.

From the final Nuremberg trials in 1949 until the 1970s, there was virtually no chance that heads of state and government officials would be held accountable for human rights violations. But in the last two decades, the likelihood of punishment has increased, and newly installed officials may be more cautious before deciding to murder or torture their political opponents.

So, while confronting the past may be painful and difficult, it could result in a better future.

For several months my husband has been trying to get me to read ESPN The Magazine.  So when he said, “Hey, a sociologist is cited in here,” I thought his ploy continued.  But, as he pushed the magazine across the table, I had to admit I was intrigued.

In the article, Shaun Assael asks, “Why do fans riot?”

You’ve probably heard or read about the uprisings in Buenos Aires over soccer and in Vancouver over hockey. What amazed me weren’t the images of violence that went viral, causing the word “hooligan” to pop as a trending topic. And it wasn’t even the fact that the riots followed historic losses — a playoff defeat for River Plate that demoted Argentina’s version of the Yankees to a lower division for the first time in 110 years, and a bitter Game 7 Stanley Cup loss that left the long-suffering Canucks still searching for a title.

No, what stunned me was the realization that this kind of violence rarely happens in American pro sports. We riot after wins.

To help understand why Americans can be better losers than winners, he turned to sociologist Jerry M. Lewis, who studies outbreaks of sports violence.

…Here are the three warning signs he’s learned to spot: a) a hotly contested championship final; b) watched by lots of young men; c) in a common urban gathering spot with a history of violence.

Lewis mainly focuses on celebratory violence and believes the prevalence of many professional sports and teams in America means that Americans don’t get upset about any particular one.  This contrasts to countries where a single sport, like hockey or soccer, dwarfs all others.

Read the rest here.

New research by psychologists Nicholas Christenfeld and Jonathan Leavitt shows that people enjoy stories more when they already know the ending.

This research actually made headlines a month ago, but it was highlighted in Steven Colbert’s “The Word” on September 6^th.   While Colbert then proceeded to share the endings of movies like The Sixth Sense or the Star Wars trilogy so that those who hadn’t seen them would enjoy them more, his coverage brought even more attention to research that ABC News covered after speaking with the authors of the study.

“I was surprised by the finding,” Christenfeld said. “I’ve spent my life not looking at the end of a book.” He and Leavitt had 300 volunteers read 12 short stories, including mysteries or tales with surprise endings by the likes of Agatha Christie, John Updike and Anton Chekov, and rated them on a scale of 1 to 10. Almost without fail, and by sizeable margins, the readers rated them more highly if the researchers inserted copy near the beginning, giving away how the tales would come out.

Though their study didn’t point to explanations for the finding, Christenfeld thinks that people enjoy a good story just as much as a surprise ending.

“Writers use their artistry to make stories interesting, to engage readers, and to surprise them,” Leavitt and Christenfeld said in their paper, to be published in the journal Psychological Science. “But giving away these surprises makes readers like stories better. This was true whether the spoiler revealed a twist at the end — that the condemned man’s daring escape was just a fantasy before the rope snapped taut around his neck — or solved the crime — that Poirot will discover that the apparent target of attempted murder is in fact the perpetrator.

A recent report released by Senator Tom Coburn accuses the National Science Foundation of wasting taxpayer money on questionable science projects.  Minnesota Public Radio (MRP) News offers some comfort to scientists, though.

Lawmakers and political groups like to point to government spending that seems wasteful — especially in tough economic times. And one popular target has been scientific studies that either sound silly or involve foreign countries or have to do with sex.

MRP News reviews several examples of research that, taken out of context, were deemed as inappropriate uses of government funds.

“They tried to say that about $9.4 million tax dollars was spent to study men’s penis size,” says Jeffrey Parsons of Hunter College in New York, referring to a study that was recently criticized by a group called the Traditional Values Coalition.

Parsons and his colleagues did publish a study on men’s penis size and its link to the risk of sexually transmitted disease — but Parsons says no tax dollars were used to collect the data.

While little if anything actually comes of claims like this, they do make some scientists nervous and influence their decisions.

People started to be very careful when they wrote grant proposals, Parsons recalls. “A lot of code words started to get used. We would talk about ‘highly vulnerable youth’ as a euphemism for lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered youth.”

Yet, scientists can take comfort in remembering past studies that were ridiculed.  Robert Kraut’s research on why bowlers smile was once given a Golden Fleece Award for wasting tax dollars from then-Senator William Proxmire, but it’s now considered ground-breaking research on how people communicate.

Kraut thinks scientists will always have to deal with this kind of thing. “Much of the policy debate in Washington, it’s all about appearances,” he says. “And it’s easy in sound bites to ridicule without presenting a full story.”

Many people put off talking about immigration reform until “America regains control of its borders.”  But, according to Douglas Massey’s recent CNN article, that moment has arrived. He says:

According to estimates from the Mexican Migration Project, which I co-direct, the rate of new undocumented migration from Mexico dropped to zero in 2008 for the first time in 50 years. This remarkable event partly reflects the drop in labor demand in the context of a deep economic recession, but it also stems from a massive increase in border enforcement.  Since 1990, the size of the Border Patrol has increased by a factor of five and its budget by a factor of 13.

While this increased enforcement surely contributed to decreased immigration, it also likely decreased the outflow of immigrants who were already here.

At present, therefore, new undocumented migrants are not heading northward; former undocumented migrants are coming back in very small numbers; and settled undocumented residents are staying put.  As a result of these trends, the population of undocumented U.S. residents peaked at 12.6 million persons in 2008 and fell to 10.8 million in 2009, according to the latest estimates from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.  Net undocumented migration is now slightly negative.

Many immigrants are also employed as guest workers; in fact, from 1990 to 2008, the number of Mexicans admitted with temporary work visas grew from 17,000 to 361,000 per year.  Many other migrants are becoming citizens.  For example, the number of legal Mexican immigrants attaining U.S. citizenship went from 18,000 in 1990 to 232,000 in 2008.

In sum, of the four principal components of comprehensive immigration reform, three have already been substantially achieved.   The border is now under control and net-undocumented migration has fallen below zero; a guest worker program has been created to bring in more than 360,000 temporary Mexican migrants per year; and legal immigrants have increasingly taken it upon themselves to “expand” the quotas by naturalizing and sponsoring the entry of immediate relatives outside of the numerical quotas.

According to Massey, one main accomplishment remains: the creation of a pathway to legalization for long-term, undocumented residents of the United States.

Somewhere around three million of these people entered the country as minors.  They did not make the decision to violate U.S. immigration law and should not be held responsibilities for choices made by their parents.  In the absence of a criminal record or other disqualifying circumstances, those who entered as minors should be given an immediate and unconditional amnesty and be allowed to proceed with their lives in the only country that most of them know.

For their part, undocumented migrants who entered as adults should be offered a temporary legalization that confers the right to live and work in the United States for some extended period, during which they would be able to accumulate points ultimately to qualify them for legal permanent residence.  Points would be awarded for socially desirable behaviors such as paying taxes, learning English, studying civics, holding a steady job, owning a home, parenting U.S. citizen children and generally staying out of trouble.  Once a certain minimum threshold of points is achieved, migrants would be allowed to pay a fine as restitution for violating the law and then, having paid their debt to society, get on with their lives as legal permanent residents of the United States.  We are much closer to the ultimate goals of immigration reform than most people realize.

Sarah K. Cowan, a sociology and demography  grad student at UC Berkeley, recently asked CNN readers, “What if a President served 42 years?”   That’s how long Moammar Gadhafi has been the leader in Libya, which could be equated to Richard Nixon still serving as President of the United States today rather than leaving office in 1974.

In a healthy democracy, citizens see multiple leaders of government in their lifetime. Doing so allows them to compare leaders, form political preferences and to participate meaningfully in the political process by voting in truly competitive elections.

But, in many countries, a large portion of the population has only experienced one leader.

…Seventy-nine percent of Libyans have lived their entire lives under Gadhafi’s rule. Before the revolution in Egypt, 60 percent of Egyptians had lived their lives under President Hosni Mubarak exclusively. Sixty-one percent of Zimbabweans have only known Robert Mugabe’s rule. By contrast, the longest American presidency was Franklin D. Roosevelt’s; he was elected four times, to serve for a total of 16 years, of which he served 12 before his death…

According to Cowan, two main factors have led to situations where much of the population knows only one leader.  First, that leader remained in power and disregarded or never established term limits.  Second, the populations in these countries are comparatively young.

Twenty percent of people in Mozambique have lived their entire lives under Armando Guebuza, and they are all under age 7. The population is so young because women in Mozambique have a lot of children — more than five on average — and people die young — at age 48 on average. (The age of the population can have a powerful effect on these calculations: If Libya had the same age profile as the much older population of the U.S., 57% of the population would have known Gadhafi as the only leader during their lifetime, compared with the 79% who actually did.)

Opinions on the benefits of long-standing rulers vary.  Some scholars argue that they create political and social vacuums and stunt economic growth, while others argue that, under the right conditions, long tenures may lead to economic growth.  Either way, Cowan says:

Leaving aside whether lengthy tenures are beneficial for economies, they violate democratic principles. It is a characteristic that distinguishes democracies from authoritarian regimes; in a democracy, the leader changes in a reasonable time frame. Term limits, confidence votes for parliamentary systems of government and regular and fair elections are all means by which to prevent “presidents for life.”

As California grapples with a recent Supreme Court decision that mandates the state to reduce its prison population, sociologist Joshua Page examines an alliance that speaks out against prison reform.

This alliance, between Crime Victims United and the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, has existed for over two decades, as both organizations have lobbied for harsher sentences and other “tough on crime” policies.

The union had a strong personal interest in developing the victims group, which it realized could be an effective ally in achieving the guards’ policy objectives: enhancing members’ pay and benefits, keeping private prisons out of California and promoting “tough on crime” sentencing laws. Crime Victims United shares the union’s commitment to lengthy, harsh mandatory sentencing laws such as “three strikes.” The alliance has been good for both partners.

And the two groups have become a powerful force.

But their success has had a downside. When Crime Victims United turns complicated criminal justice matters into simple choices between helping and hurting victims, reasoned debate and thoughtful policymaking are necessarily constricted. Lawmakers are reluctant to oppose advocates. . .for fear that they will be tarred in the media and targeted in future elections. No politician wants to stand against a woman whose daughter was murdered and be deemed soft on crime. With financing from the guards, the victims group has the resources to seriously help or damage a politician’s image and career.

So while Crime Victims United provides support to people who suffer crimes, their actions may also cause harm.

By claiming pride of place as “the voice of victims,” the group marginalizes alternative victims’ voices. Some victims’ rights groups in the state maintain that vengeful, ultra-tough penal policies do not help victims of crime but simply create more suffering and resentment. These groups say that challenging offenders to take responsibility for the harm their crimes cause through restorative justice practices and helping prisoners develop the tools necessary to live crime-free lives help prevent future victims. These alternative voices reject zero-sum logic; they do not reflexively pit offenders against victims — or, in Nina Salarno Ashford’s words, the “bad people” against the “good citizens.”

According to Page, both groups will likely ensure their voices continue to be heard.  “If policymakers continue to follow the voices of expressly punitive victims rights advocates and ignore the opinions of those who promote alternative, less punitive conceptions of justice, California will not shrink its $9-billion prison system or alleviate its correctional crisis. The status quo will prevail.”

Check out the entire Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times.

In a recent op-ed in the New York Times, sociologist Jaye Cee Whitehead shared her thoughts on economic arguments for gay marriage.

In a letter to the New York State Legislature last month, top business executives endorsed same-sex marriage on the ground that “attracting talent is key to our state’s economic future.” The signers — among them the banker Lloyd C. Blankfein, the financier Ronald O. Perelman, the real estate developer Jerry I. Speyer and the publisher Mortimer B. Zuckerman — declared that legalizing gay unions would “help maintain our competitive advantage in attracting the best and brightest people the world has to offer.”

This letter is one of many examples of promoting marriage equality as good for business.

States and cities are, as the New York executives pointed out, competing to attract talent in a globally competitive labor market. The wedding industry benefits, of course, when more couples are allowed to marry. And marriage equality is associated with revenue gains from sales taxes and license fees. Backers of gay marriage speak openly of the gains from “marriage tourism” in states that have legalized same-sex marriage.

So why shouldn’t gays and lesbians have equality and bolster the economy at the same time?  In Whitehead’s eyes,

. . . supporting marriage on economic grounds dehumanizes same-sex couples by conflating civil rights with economic perks. Americans should be offended when the value of gays and lesbians is reduced to their buying power as consumers or their human and creative capital as workers. . .Worse yet, this narrative neglects the most economically vulnerable gay and lesbian couples and plays into the inaccurate stereotype of same-sex couples (particularly male couples) as being mostly well-educated and affluent.

Indeed, many proponents of same-sex marriage often point out that legalizing same-sex marriage may reduce spending on welfare programs.  But, Whitehead explains why these and other economic arguments are problematic.

Supporters of same-sex marriage ought to acknowledge that marriage is not just a natural expression of human intimacy or a declaration of personal commitment; it is a form of governance. The vast expansion of the government over the past century has embedded marriage into all areas where the state and the individual intersect, from tax obligations to disability benefits to health care decisions to family law. As with any other structure of governance in a democratic society, we ought to think about its participants as citizens rather than consumers.

So if you support same-sex marriage, do so not because it brings in tax revenue and tourism dollars and prevents people from becoming a burden on the state, but because you value gay men and lesbians as citizens who deserve equal access to the rights and responsibilities of marriage.

After Sunday’s announcement that bin Laden had been killed, people gathered in front of the White House and Ground Zero in what many social scientists say was a rare moment of American unity. The Christian Science Monitor turned to social scientists to reflect upon these celebrations.

“It’s one of those things that is as close to what passes for a day of national unity in the U.S. as we can get these days,” said Peter Ditto, a psychologist at the University of California, Irvine who studies politics and judgment.

But, debates are already in full swing, as people consider whether flag-waving and chanting were appropriate ways to respond to a death.

At times, the scene seemed like that of a sporting event, with people climbing lamp posts and singing “Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye),” a song more associated with losing basketball teams than the war on terror. That’s not a surprising dynamic, according to Francesco Duina, a sociologist at Bates College in Maine and author of “Winning: Reflections on an American Obsession” (Princeton University Press, 2011). American culture is particularly competitive, Duina said.

“The percentage of Americans who embrace competition is higher than the percentage in any other industrialized country in the world,” Duina told LiveScience.

Duina also shared that to many people, bin Laden’s death is a confirmation that our approach to life is superior to his.  “That’s what’s being celebrated, and that’s why you see the flags.”

Political differences likely explain some differences in opinion regarding the appropriate way to respond to this death.  But, sociologists point out another—generational differences.  Many people in the crowds were college students, who often don’t have to work early in the morning.

But young people also experienced 9/11 differently than those in older age cohorts, said Andrew Perrin, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, who has studied the cultural aftereffects of 9/11.

“If you were 8 or 9 at the time, by the time you began thinking about world politics, 9/11 was a thoroughly interpreted, thoroughly understood, if you will, cultural event,” Perrin told LiveScience. “So you didn’t go through the same level of experiencing this unsettled time and doing the work of interpreting it. You experienced it as something that was thoroughly understood before it was presented to you.”