“There’s always someone more ignorant than you!” Ronald Burt, a professor of sociology and strategy at the University of Chicago’s prestigious Booth School of Business is definitely up for looking on the bright side. In fact, that opening mantra? It’s his way of saying maybe there isn’t anything new under the sun—but if it’s new to you? You can work with that.

According to the Chicago Tribune’s “Blue Sky Innovation,” Burt says there are two good ways to network that to support your ideas. Those who need to work on nitty gritty improvements—say getting production processes fine-tuned—need “closure,” or a tight social network of specialists. But those “charged with innovation need to branch out and build brokerage,” or a diverse network of people and insights from different fields and even different mindsets. more...

Forbes Magazine recently highlighted some shocking numbers. According to the USDA,

A child born in 2012 will cost his parents $241,080 in 2012 dollars, on average [in the first 17 years of life]… And children of higher-earning families drain the bank account more: Families earning more than $105,000 annually can expect to spend $399,780 per child.

That works out to about $14,000 a year on the low end. Now that, as author Laura Shin points out, is a big investment—especially when kids used to be contributors to the household economy, not drains on it. Today, NYU professor Dalton Conley calls on research from colleague Viviana Zelizer who says “kids are emotionally priceless and economically worthless.” And yet, “We think of them as our most important life project.”

In a hard economy in a country with high inequality, parental investment in children is truly important, Conley goes on. “We know… that investments at home in time, energy and from birth and before are what actually develop kids that are successful in terms of this knowledge economy.” And those successful kids will get into better schools, have better jobs, and maybe even be able to support their parents into old age. But how do can parents get the best return on this investment?

That question, Shin writes, is at least partially answered with Conley’s new book Parentology: Everything You Wanted to Know about the Science of Raising Children But Were Too Exhausted to Ask. Along with Conley, she goes on to boil down the how-to for investing in your child to ten easy (well, depending on means, time, and commitment) steps. Be sure to click on over for all the good stuff on number, timing, names, parental work decisions, public v. private school, bribes, ADD, and whether to “stay together for the kids.” In the meantime, Shin concludes, “The most important guideline is to make your actions speak louder than you words.” Parenting the Warren Buffett way!

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*Edited to better contextualize the USDA’s numbers and why parents’ investment might have an ROI at all (someone’s got to foot the bill for all those Golden Years we’ve heard so much about… particularly if we blew all our cash on soccer lessons). Another reader points out that it’s worth looking at all the sociology on how to maximize returns by minimizing investment (that is, not having children at all).

Is economic development compatible with environmental sustainability? Are “green jobs” the way of the future? Those questions are at the center of sociologist Andrew Jorgenson‘s research on the economic activity and carbon emissions of 106 countries.

Analyzing data from 1970 to 2009, Jorgenson calculated a ratio of carbon emissions to life expectancy at birth, and then compared it with each country’s gross domestic product. The results are not encouraging. Jorgenson found that in all regions of the world except for Africa, development is linked with an increase in carbon emissions. Africa may be the exception that proves the rule. Jorgenson noted that, since 1995, African nations have experienced much more carbon-intensive development in exchange for increasing life expectancies of their populations.

Achieving the three-legged stool of economic growth, reduced harm to the environment, and improved human health will not be easy, and Jorgenson is skeptical that technological advancements alone are likely to accomplish the task. “We need to start seriously thinking differently about solutions to these sustainability challenges and recognizing that hoping for technology and engineering solutions … is probably not the way to go,” Jorgenson said.

You can do a lot of things in 29 hours: work a part time job, watch 58 episodes of a sitcom, or listen to ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ about 435 times. According to a study from Bar-Ilan University, working moms spend 29 hours a week worrying.

This study, picked up by Babble.com, demonstrates the “cycle of guilt” experienced by working moms who “feel they are being bad mothers for going to work and bad workers when they put their children first.” Trapped in this catch-22, worry results in less time, not to mention mental energy, for sleep, work, and childcare for working mothers.

Professor Shira Offer suggests that women bear a “double burden” of worry due to the tendency of women to change their work schedules to accommodate family issues. For example, mothers are more likely than fathers to take a day off of work to care for a sick child. That’s not to say men are worry free. Working men are reported to spend 24 hours a week worrying, losing a whole day.

Worry does more than just take up time; it can also contribute to lack of focus and a decrease in performance. If we didn’t spend so much time worrying, maybe we wouldn’t have as much to worry about.

Every year when I watch the Oscars, I wonder about this elusive “Academy” that each winner thanks. It wields such power over which movies become classics and which ones fade away into obscurity. In the build-up to the awards, there’s always much speculation about winning strategies for getting the attention, and votes, of the Academy. UCLA sociologist Gabriel Rossman and colleagues have researched films that have won Oscars over the years and identified a number of predictors of award success, which Rossman recently shared with The Atlantic.

They find that serious roles and “meaty” dramas that are released towards the end of the year (during awards season) are more likely to get nominations. Furthermore, the sociological concept of “cumulative advantage” can be applied to the Oscars, in that talented actors who work with other talented actors are more likely to get an award, rather than one particularly talented actor within an otherwise mediocre film.

These predictors for getting a nomination may seem obvious and even formulaic, but Rossman argues that films must meet these criteria while avoiding the impression of trying too hard. He says, “It turns out that audiences dislike movies that are ‘trying’ to get Oscar nominations but really like movies that actually ‘get’ Oscar nomination.”

Rites of passage as a new college student often involve  wandering lost around campus, sampling the mystery meat in the dining hall, and – that first awkward social encounter – meeting your roommate. At least that’s how it used to be. The Atlantic shares a new trend in college life, the single dorm room.

More and more schools are offering single room options, bypassing the awkward roommate relationship navigation that has been one of the hallmarks of college life. One university even converted its double occupancy dorms into “super singles.” Having your own room does ensure privacy, personal space, and avoidance of bad roommates, but students and experts are lamenting the loss of the college roommate.

One student explains potential problems saying:

With a private room, it’s very easy to find yourself cut off from a social life. If you just go back to your room as soon as class is over, you’re never going to meet anyone new or have any experiences beyond those in the classroom.

There is more at stake than an invitation to parties; having a social life includes learning how to interact with people of many cultures and backgrounds. Learning how to navigate the social world is crucial for young adults. Sociologist and social sciences dean at New York University Dalton Conley agrees that the loss of the college roommate could be very detrimental.

“Roommates simply teach us to be tolerant and adapt,” Conley says. “In our increasingly customized, digitized, on-demand world, there are not many experiences that provide this sort of socialization.”

Marriage in the U.S. today: the best is better, but the average is worse, according to psychologist Eli J. Finkel in an opinion piece for The New York Times. (Without further clarification, this appears to be a discussion of heterosexual marriage.) Finkel reports that the happiest couples are happier both with their marriages and in general, while the average married person is less satisfied and likelier to divorce than in the past.

That’s because we are sizing up our spouses in the era of the “self-expressive marriage,” Finkel explains, drawing on the ideas of sociologist Andrew J. Cherlin and historian Stephanie Coontz. No longer are we satisfied with our family life as a means to filling our bellies, providing shelter, or even giving us love–many of us now expect marriage to yield “self-discovery, self-esteem, and personal growth.”

Marriages fall short of this ideal, Finkel argues, in part because people aren’t putting in the time with their spouses required for satisfaction. Whether it is working more or parenting more intensively, the average couple is logging hours elsewhere. And the divorce rate is higher for poor, less educated Americans, whose lack of time and energy for sustaining high-quality marriages Finkel attributes to exposure to trends such as “unemployment, juggling multiple jobs, and so on.”

Finkel devotes a quick sentence to government and workplace policy solutions (perhaps discussed in more depth in the forthcoming scientific write-up). As far as what individuals can do, Finkel’s advice boils down to a) spend more time together or b) if more together time isn’t possible, consider looking to marriage for love rather than for self-expression.

A recent incident where police officers removed elderly “loiterers” from a McDonald’s in Queens has sparked a debate over the phenomenon of spaces such as McDonald’s and Starbucks being used as impromptu senior centers. In her article for the New York Times, Stacy Torres makes excellent use of sociological ideas when defending the use of these spaces for socializing. She argues that the use of these public places as a sort of social club helps these Manhattan seniors avoid isolation and keep much needed social bonds. She turns to sociologists to explain the phenomenon:

Ray Oldenburg, a professor emeritus of sociology at the University of West Florida, calls these gathering spots “third places,” in contrast to the institutions of work and family that organize “first” and “second” places. He sees bookstores, cafes, and fast food joints as necessary yet endangered meeting points that foster community, often among diverse people. The Yale sociologist Elijah Anderson likens public settings such as Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia to a “cosmopolitan canopy,” where people act with civility and converse with others to whom they might never otherwise speak.

Torres explains that since many of the neighborhood places such as local bakeries or cafes have disappeared, these seniors are forced to turn to institutions such as these fast food restaurants in order to provide structure and routine to their lives.

You don’t have to carry your pet around with you in a purse for the special animal in your life to be like another member of the family. For those of us with pets, it is easy to forget that your furry friend is actually animal, rather than human.

Given our deep attachments to our pets, University of Warwick sociologist Nickie Charles encourages fellow social scientists investigating kinship and community to seriously consider humans’ relationships with their pets. Drawing on 249 qualitative responses regarding pets, she writes, “People turn to animals for companionship and intimacy; pets provide the ontological security which is no longer forthcoming from relations with humans, which are fragile, fluid and contingent.”

Beyond the role that pets play in the lives of their owners, examining these human-animal relationships may lead to a deeper understanding of the ways humans form relationships with one another.

When it comes to love, it’s what’s inside that counts…assuming you measure up.

Business Standard reports on the findings of Rice University sociology professor Michael Emerson, who found that women really do prefer tall men. Emerson’s study data showed that women preferred tall men for two reasons: feminity and protection.

One woman from the study said she wanted to feel delicate and protected at the same time. Sociologically, the preference for taller men seems to play into stereotypical gender roles and patriarchal society. Men weren’t as concerned with matters of height, but when they did weigh in, they preferred shorter women.

University of North Texas sociology professor George Yancy says, “The masculine ability to offer physical protection is clearly connected to the gender stereotype of men as protectors. And in a society that encourages men to be dominant and women to be submissive, having the image of tall men hovering over short women reinforces this value.”

In that case, instead of peering up into a man’s eyes this Valentine’s Day, I might just stand on a chair.