The era of bothersome consumer surveys and robo-calls may be coming to a close, as these shallow techniques of data collection just don’t cut it in the information age. In a recent article in The Atlantic, Graeme Wood describes a growing trend in market research: big business hiring social scientists to do fieldwork. Corporations have long researched the quantitative aspects of their sales, but qualitative knowledge about the use of the products has been somewhat limited. Social scientists and those business researchers known as “consumer behavior” (vs. “quantitative”) economists—long since part of the business discussions within academia—are now being hired to uncover how products are used, as well as who uses them and how those users feel about the products.

After realizing that they new little about the home consumption of their product, for instance, Absolut Vodka commissioned ReD, a forerunner in what we might think of as anthropological market research, to study the home party scene and the rituals and norms of drinking. One consultant on the project, former Yale anthropology Ph.D. student Min Lieskovsky, noted some party trends that Absolut quickly applied to their marketing:

‘One after another, you see the same thing,’ Lieskovsky told me. ‘Someone comes with a bottle. She gives it to the host, then the host puts it in the freezer and listens to the story of where the bottle came from, and why it’s important.’ And then, when the bottle is served, it goes right out onto the table with all the other booze, the premium spirits and the bottom-shelf hooch mixed together.’

The quality and status of the liquor seemed to be much less important to the consumer than their personal association with it. Despite years of market research, without this use of social science, the social significance and human connection of the product might have gone overlooked—and fewer bottles of Absolut might have gotten sold.

We are stoked to announce February’s winner of the TSP Media Award for Measured Social Science:

“A New Explanation for the Racial Gap,” Kevin Hartnett, Boston Globe’s Brainiac blog.

In her brief summary, TSP author Erin Hoekstra describes the sociological study from Hartnett’s blog which tests the causes of today’s white-black wealth gap. The findings? Around 27% of the wealth gap is caused by middle-income blacks who are offering informal loans to their family members in need rather than investing that money.

As we’ve said before, the choice of each month’s TSP Media Award is neither scientific nor exhaustive. We do work hard to winnow our favorite nominees.  And, while we don’t have the deep pocketbooks to offer enormous trophies or cash prizes, we hope our informal award offers cheer and encouragement for journalists and social scientists to keep up the important (if not always rewarding) work of bringing academic knowledge to the broader public.

When you’re regularly “weird,” you get used to others’ asking you to “just be reasonable.” However, a new trend in sociological approaches to economics and psychology suggests that our version of “reasonable” may be, well, pretty weird.

In a recent article for Pacific Standard, Ethan Watters reviews the work of Joe Henrich, Steven Heine, and Ara Norenzayan, three scholars whose work on the western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic mind suggests that “rational” thought means very different things to different people. As the authors watched games based on economic exchange play out around the world, the concept of getting a fair deal seemed to have everything to do with social context:

The distinct ways Americans and Machiguengans [indigenous Amazonians] played the ultimatum game, for instance, wasn’t because they had differently evolved brains. Rather, Americans, without fully realizing it, were manifesting a psychological tendency shared with people in other industrialized countries… Our economies hadn’t been shaped by our sense of fairness; it was the other way around.

Stranger still, it seems this assumption that the weird mind is normal has a huge impact on the practice of psychological research—not to mention our understanding of rationality in the social world.:

A 2008 survey of the top six psychology journals dramatically shows how common that assumption was: …96 percent of human subjects in these studies came from countries that represent only 12 percent of the world’s population.

Westerners (and Americans in particular) tend to reason analytically as opposed to holistically. That is, the American mind strives to figure out the world by taking it apart and examining its pieces.

And here is the rub: the culturally shaped analytic/individualistic mind-sets may partly explain why Western researchers have so dramatically failed to take into account the interplay between culture and cognition. In the end, the goal of boiling down human psychology to hardwiring is not surprising given the type of mind that has been designing the studies.

Who’s weird now? Probably everyone.

The lead article in the most recent Philadelphia Magazine, “Being White In Philly” by Robert Huber, has—to put it politely—spurred a lot of talk. Huber devotes his article to sharing the “true” voice of white people scared to speak their minds about the many struggles they face living among Philadelphia’s black residents. Since publication, Huber has been told in numerous venues that his piece ignores personal and institutional histories of racism, has an ugly, discriminatory core, and essentially perpetuates bigotry. Is Brotherly Love dead?

Charles Gallagher, chair of race and ethnic relations at LaSalle University, commented on Fox 29 News that indeed, everybody talks about race, whether privately or publicly. But, Gallagher says, Huber’s article only focuses on the opinions of white residents in a mixed neighborhood. What about people from minority groups? White residents across neighborhoods of varying segregation? Are there no “white voices” that enjoy living in a heterogeneous city? As a sociologist, Gallagher emphasizes that, beyond being offensive, Huber’s piece generalizes where it has no grounds to do so: there is no single voice of white Philadelphians.

Steve Volk, a colleague of Huber’s, crafted his response on one of The Philly Post’s blogs. In it, Volk dismantles the original piece to reach a refreshingly blatant conclusion:

[Huber] seems to miss the obvious here, which is that if white Philadelphians would like to be able to address race without being labeled “racist,” they should avoid saying racist things.

Hey fellas! Craving a little yogurt, but worried about your masculinity in the dairy section? What a dilemma. Luckily, Ned Resnikoff with MSNBC has some great news. A new product, Powerful Yogurt (aka, “Brogurt”), is being marketed just to men. One of the company’s ads heralds a new day in gender equality:

Your wife and sister aren’t the only ones who can take yogurt to work with them. Protein-packed Powerful Yogurt can help fuel you through your workday or even that pick-up game with the guys.

Resnikoff readily admits that he is new to “the sexual politics of fermented milk” and other nonsensical things so he cites an expert on the topic, Sociological Images’ Gwen Sharp, who has been tracking products that reinforce or create irrational gender stereotypes. As can be seen Sharp’s Community Page, Brogurt is just the latest product to be so heartily gendered it looks like a parody. (See also: manly candles in manly scents. For men.)

The proliferation and marketing of these products reinforces a stereotype problem. Needlessly gendered products are clearly trying to capitalize on gender norms we hope are well past their expiration dates.

Thinking about moving conjures images of moving up—for a better job, a cooler city, or even that deluxe apartment in the sky. However, a recent article from USA Today paints a much different picture about the reasons people in the U.S. pack up and go.

The report sums up a new analysis of Census data presented by the US 2010 project under the leadership of Brown University sociologist John Logan. It confirms our worst suspicions about the Great Recession: more people are moving down into cheaper housing, having lost their jobs or taken pay cuts. From the article:

“Typically, over the last couple of decades, when Americans moved, they moved to improve their lives,” said Michael Stoll, author of the research and chairman of UCLA’s public policy department. “This is the shock: For the first time, Americans are moving for downward economic mobility. Either they lost their house or can’t afford where they’re renting currently or needed to save money.”

In the face of the data, maybe it’s time to stop humming the theme from “The Jeffersons” and start listening to the words of Billy Joel: “If that’s movin’ up,” well, we’re just “movin’ out.”

It’s a common problem in post-recession America: you hate your job, but you also can’t just up and get a new one. We usually have social options for dealing with this, ranging from commiserating with co-workers in the breakroom to organizing for better working conditions. But if you work in the service industry, where the customer isn’t too keen on knowing you hate your job, bosses can try to bust up the social bandwagon.

A piece for MSNBC’s The Ed Show makes great use of Arlie Hochschild’s concept of “emotional labor.” The piece gives a handful of examples in which employees, from Starbucks baristas to Wal-Mart greeters, are increasingly burdened with managers’ attempts to regulate how much they demonstrate enjoying their work. The author even quotes one account of employees who could be fired for not touching each other frequently enough!

This raises some fascinating questions for work in the 21st century. We know all social interactions are governed by rules and institutions, but when work is a scarce necessity, do we have the luxury of “doing what we love,” or must we “fake it ‘til we make it”… to a better job?

The shifting ethnic and racial composition of the United States has social scientists and political strategists busy calculating the “new electoral math”. By 2040, Latinos will surpass 30% of the population, while whites will be a minority. A new study from the Pew Research Center suggests this could spell serious trouble for the GOP—children of Latino immigrants are more likely to lean Democrat than their parents.

Jody Agius Vallejo, a sociologist at USC, believes that the data is correct: Latino voters are going blue. She pushes back against the notion that the Latino vote will eventually break toward the Republicans due to “traditional values,” instead arguing that Republican policies like Arizona’s controversial SB1070 will continue to drive Latino voters to the left. She puts it bluntly:

Latinos are presently not attracted to the Republican party and there is no reason to think that Latinos will become Republicans just because a few Republicans support immigration reform.

Immigration reform figured prominently in both President Obama’s State of the Union address and Senator Marco Rubio’s GOP response. As the debate heats up in Congress, the increasing voting power of Latinos will certainly factor into how both major parties draw up their positions.

It seems like there’s never enough time: today’s workplaces demand efficiency and getting more done in less time. Workers cut down on breaks, vacation, and precious sleep. Luckily, Tony Schwartz brings good news in his op-ed for the New York Times:

A new and growing body of multidisciplinary research shows that strategic renewal—including daytime workouts, short afternoon naps, longer sleep hours, more time away from the office and longer, more frequent vacations—boosts productivity, job performance and, of course, health.

In a country where “more than 50 percent [of workers] assume they’ll work during their vacations,” “an average of 9.2 vacation days [go] unused,” and “sleep deprivation costs American companies $63.2 billion a year in lost productivity,” these midday renewals offer much needed relief. Schwartz cites study after study showing everything from a full night’s sleep improving basketball performance to naps improving memory test results and alertness and reaction time among air traffic controllers. Another study found:

Working in 90-minute intervals turns out to be a prescription for maximizing productivity. Professor K. Anders Ericsson and his colleagues at Florida State University have studied elite performers, including musicians, athletes, actors and chess players. In each of these fields, Dr. Ericsson found that the best performers typically practice in uninterrupted sessions that last no more than 90 minutes.

Next time you find yourself joking about needing a nap, pull up that carpet square, kindergarten style. Those kids know what they’re up to.

A social problem examined by sociologists for decades, the white-black wealth gap has widened to record highs during the recession, with the median wealth for white households at twenty times that of their black counterparts. On the Boston Globe’s Brainiac blog, Kevin Hartnett shares a recent study by Princeton sociology graduate student Rourke O’Brien. The study quantitatively tests the idea that this wealth discrepancy is due, in part, to giving or loaning money to relatives.

Middle-income blacks are more than twice as likely as middle-income whites to have a poor sibling and more than four times as likely to have parents below the poverty line. And because of these relationships, they’re called upon more often to provide financial assistance.

Whereas investments can be used to generate more wealth, gifts and informal loans to family members are usually spent  paying bills or covering immediate financial needs. O’Brien argues that informal financial support networks can account for roughly 27% of the white-black wealth gap.