ScienceNews.com reports today on a recent sociological investigation into attitudes about global warming. Pollsters from Gallup asked groups of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents about whether they believe that ‘global warming poses a serious threat to the American way of life.’ The emerging results suggest that over the last 10 years, Democrats have increasingly said ‘yes’ (49% today as opposed to 31% ten years ago) while the share of Republicans saying ‘yes’ has grown more slowly (now 26% and previously 20%).

Science News reports: 

… While virtually half of Democrats currently view global warming as posing a serious threat within their lifetimes, only one-quarter of Republicans feel similarly, report Oklahoma State University sociologist Riley E. Dunlap (who’s also a Scholar for the Environment at the Gallup Organization) and sociologist Aaron M. McCright of Lyman Briggs Collegeand Michigan State University.

The pair argue that the polling data suggest Republicans and Democrats are becoming “more ideologically polarized,” at least on the issue of global warming. They attribute the increasingly divergent views on this issue to “party sorting” — that is, people choosing a party on the basis of its general views on this issue, or people within a party increasingly assuming the views on this issue that are espoused by leaders of their party.

Dunlap and McCright find that the tight correlation between party affiliation and attitudes about climate hold even after accounting statistically for other potentially confounding demographic factors such as gender, age, race, income and education. Moreover, they observe, throughout the past decade, “Republicans and Democrats who believe they understand global warming reasonably well [have been holding] more divergent views compared with their presumably less-informed counterparts.”

The bottom line? Democrats’ views about global warming have reflected scientific conclusions on climate change, while Republicans dismiss the scientific assessments.

Read on. 

Yesterday sociologist Dwight Lang wrote an opinion piece published in the Detroit Free Press. The University of Michigan professor offered commentary on the close presidential race this fall.

He writes:

Neither Democrat Obama nor Republican McCain will actually say “white working class,” but they do talk about “working” Americans or “blue-collar” workers as the backbone of America.

The critical importance of these voters is evidenced by the vice-presidential selections. We’ve heard how Joe Biden hails from an East Coast city where families struggle from paycheck to paycheck. He has worked his way up from humble roots and achieved the American Dream. His special appeal is to Catholics, who haven’t always voted Democratic in recent years. Sarah Palin’s modest background and straightforward style clearly speak to rural voters who identify with her version of the American Dream. Working women especially understand her efforts to balance career and family. 

He concludes:

Who wins this competition for millions of blue-collar votes may very well depend on who’s seen as capable of solving economic problems: bringing jobs back to America, reducing home foreclosures, and securing certain and bright futures for hardworking families.

Read the full piece.

This morning BBCnews.com posted an article entitled ‘The Path from Cinema to the Playground,’ which poses the following question to its readers: “A new film [Tropic Thunder] repeatedly uses the word “retard”. Can it be acceptable to use satirically or is it intrinsically offensive and a quick route to playground and workplace insults?”

Read the details of the use of this word in the film, here.

Reporter Finlo Rohrer writes:

For the opponents of Tropic Thunder, the path between film and television and “hate speech” is clear.

The UK provides an interesting crucible. While the word “retard” is extremely common in the US and crops up regularly in films, in the UK other epithets are more common. But it still has an immense power to offend, topping a poll by the BBC’s Ouch website for the most offensive disability-related words.

The sociologist weighs in…

If there are more school-children using the word “retard” in playgrounds this week, some might take that as an indicator of the malign power of the film.

“The media is very powerful, whether it’s films or comedy,” says sociologist Prof Colin Barnes, who studies the relationship between the media and disability. “Subliminal messages are distributed. ‘Spaz’ was popularised by Rik Mayall in the Young Ones. That really took off in the 1980s in schools.”

Read the full story at BBCnews.com.

The Telegraph (UK) reports today about a trend in universities in England to prohibit the use of certain words deemed offensive. Among them is the term ‘Old Masters,’ often used to refer to great painters, many of whom were men. Instead, the UK sociologists who developed the list suggest that this term discriminates against women and should be replaced with ‘classic artists.’ 

Telegraph reporter Martin Beckford writes:

The list of banned words was written by the British Sociological Association, whose members include dozens of professors, lecturers and researchers. The list of allegedly racist words includes immigrants, developing nations and black, while so-called “disablist” terms include patient, the elderly and special needs. It comes after one council outlawed the allegedly sexist phrase “man on the street”, and another banned staff from saying “brainstorm” in case it offended people with epilepsy.

Call in the sociologist!

…The list of “sensitive” language is said by critics to amount to unwarranted censorship and wrongly assume that people are offended by words that have been in use for years. Prof Frank Furedi, a sociologist at the University of Kent, said he was shocked when he saw the extent of the list and how readily academics had accepted it.

“I was genuinely taken aback when I discovered that the term ‘Chinese Whisper’ was offensive because of its apparently racist connotations. I was moved to despair when I found out that one of my favourite words, ‘civilised’, ought not be used by a culturally sensitive author because of its alleged racist implications.”

Prof Furedi said that censorship is about the “policing of moral behaviour” by an army of campaign groups, teachers and media organisations who are on a “crusade” to ban certain words and promote their own politically correct alternatives. He said people should see the efforts to ban certain words as the “coercive regulation” of everyday language and the “closing down of discussions” rather than positive attempts to protect vulnerable groups from offense.

Read the full story. 

CBNnews.com reports on a new study out of Baylor University’s Institute for the Study of Religion, which gathered American’s responses to questions about Christianity, religious beliefs and groups, as well as mystical experiences. 

In a poll of 1,700 adults, 55 percent answered yes to the statement, “I was protected by a guardian angel,” and 45 percent said they had at least two spiritual encounters in their life.

“I would never have expected these numbers. It was the biggest surprise to me in our findings,” sociologist Christopher Bader of Baylor University said. Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion conducted the study, which concluded that Americans’ religion is “remarkably stable.”

The Institute at Baylor University conducts this survey every two years and some changes have emerged since it was last administered.

In 2005, surveys showed that about 84 percent of Americans believe in Heaven or that Heaven could exist. Their most recent poll revealed about the same, but it also showed that 73 percent believe Hell absolutely or probably exists. About 46 percent said they were “quite certain” they’d go to Heaven, and 71 percent felt even the “irreligious” or non-believers had a chance at Heaven.

Read more.

This morning the Guardian (UK) reported on the battle over Proposition 8 in California. Proposition 8, also known as the ‘California Marriage Protection Act,’ is a proposed amendment to California’s state Constitution which will only recognize heterosexual unions, eliminating the right of same-sex couples to marry. The Guardian article describes this battle as emblematic of a larger cultural divide in the United States. 

The Guardian reports:

Conservative and evangelical groups were freshly mobilised by the California supreme court’s decision in May to overrule voters’ approval of a ban on same-sex marriages in 2000.

But the movement has its roots in the culture wars of the 1980s and 1990s, says University of California-Berkeley sociology professor Michael Hout.

“They got as far as they could on abortion and have embraced marriage laws as the next step in their agenda,” said Hout, co-author of The Truth About Conservative Christians: What They Think and What They Believe. “Their main agenda remains the reversal of Roe v Wade, but they’re trying to gain new allies who look askance at gay marriage.”

Not that it’s a purely Machiavellian manoeuvre. Proponents of bans on same-sex marriage are “truly concerned that the state should not be licensing immoral behaviour”, Hout said.

“In their interpretation of the Bible, they see a prohibition on homosexual activity. Gay marriage condones a lifestyle that’s ruled out by their reading of the scripture.”

Read the full story.

The Telegraph (UK) reported today on a new results from a survey by parenting website Netmums which revealed that one in six mothers favored one child over others. The website surveyed more than 1,000 parents, and found that nearly 20 percent of them said that they love one of their children more than the others. Netmums also revealed that one-third of parents said they loved all their children equally, and half said they love their children equally but ‘in different ways.’ And of course, they couldn’t resist seeking out sociological commentary…

The Telegraph reports:

There can be negative impacts to having a favourite child, however, which can lead to undesirable personality traits in later life for both the child itself and other siblings.

Dr Martina Klett-Davies, a sociologist specialising in families and sibling relationships at the London School of Economics (LSE), said: “If there is a favourite child, they probably become too spoiled and find it difficult in later life.

“But the imbalance could prepare siblings for unfairness in later life when you leave the family circle by teaching them to be fighters.”

The full story.

US News and World Report ran a story entitled ‘A Sociologist’s Take on Abortion‘ on Adam Voiland’s ‘On Men’ blog. 

Voiland writes:

Earlier this week, I blogged about a conference on how abortions impact men emotionally. I pointed out that there’s a dearth of dispassionate research exploring whether the controversial procedure affects men’s mental health. That’s very much the case, but I’d like to follow up with perspective, as well as some data, from one of the few academic researchers who has tackled the issue: Arthur Shostak, an emeritus professor of sociology at Drexel University. We weren’t able to connect before that post.

Since the early 1980s, Shostak has been periodically surveying and interviewing what he calls “waiting-room men”—the 600,000 or so guys who sit and wait each year as their partners undergo an abortion, and who help them return home afterward. Though firmly pro-choice, Shostak says he considers every abortion “a tragedy” and cites reducing the need as one of the reasons he studies how the procedure affects men. Thirty years ago, he went through an abortion with his partner; since then, he has surveyed upward of 3,000 waiting-room men about their experiences.

After reading about Shostak’s work, Voiland conducted an interview with him and posted excerpts on his blog. Read it here.

New York Times Op-Ed columnist David Brooks recently wrote about individualism and decision-making in a piece entitled ‘The Social Animal.’ In his analysis, Brooks discusses scholarly work that reveals the interconnectedness which informs our decision-making processes, even broadly highlighting the work of sociologists. Brooks’ piece is centered around political decision-making and the potential for both parties to learn from this knowledge about the influences on our individual behavior.

Brooks writes:

Geneticists have shown that our behavior is influenced by our ancestors and the exigencies of the past. Behavioral economists have shown the limits of the classical economic model, which assumes that individuals are efficient, rational, utility-maximizing creatures.

Psychologists have shown that we are organized by our attachments. Sociologists have shown the power of social networks to affect individual behavior.

What emerges is not a picture of self-creating individuals gloriously free from one another, but of autonomous creatures deeply interconnected with one another. Recent Republican Party doctrine has emphasized the power of the individual, but underestimates the importance of connections, relationships, institutions and social filaments that organize personal choices and make individuals what they are.

This may seem like an airy-fairy thing. But it is the main impediment to Republican modernization. Over the past few weeks, Republicans have talked a lot about change, modernization and reform. Despite the talk, many of the old policy pillars are the same. We’re living in an age of fast-changing economic, information and social networks, but Republicans are still impeded by Goldwater’s mental guard-rails.

Read more.

National Public Radio (NPR) commentator Dick Meyer reported on the work of sociologist Wayne Baker in his recent piece titled ‘September 11th and The Non-Crisis of Values’ as part of the series ‘Against the Grain.’

Meyer writes:

Baker is a sociologist at the University of Michigan and the author of America’s Crisis of Values: Reality and Perception(2005). I won’t bury the lead for you: The answer is perception, not crisis. It’s a useful big-picture view of American values at a time when it’s easy to be lost in the worm’s-eye view.

Baker is a wise social thinker who studies our values from the perspective of public opinion research, specifically data garnered from large polls conducted regularly all over the world called the World Values Surveys. He rightly notes that the idea that America faces a crisis of values, or “moral values,” is pervasive and is essentially assumed to be true.

But what exactly would a “crisis” of values entail? Would it be that Americans lost their traditional values? Or American values eroding in comparison with other countries? Are Americans deeply divided on fundamental beliefs? He answers no to each question; he found no crisis in America.

From a broad, global perspective, Baker examines human values on two planes. The first is a range of values from traditional to secular-rationalist. Societies with traditional values emphasize the importance of God and religion; of family and parenting; of national identity and pride; of absolute standards of morality, not relative ones. Secular-rationalist values are pretty much the opposite: nonreligious; open to abortion and euthanasia; skeptical of national pride or patriotism; tilted toward individualism over family, duty and authority.

The second axis of value runs from survival values to self-expression ones. In less developed and stable societies, survival values reign: Physical security and meeting basic material needs are paramount; cultural change, foreigners and ethnic diversity are seen as threatening; intolerance is exaggerated and authoritarian regimes tend to flourish. When material needs are well met, self-expression, self-realization, environmentalism, gender equality and creativity become more important.

Read on…