In a recent article for Forbes, Christina Blanch, an instructor and doctoral assistant at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, discussed the results of a recent Pew Global Attitudes Project survey about gender. Her study found that, around the world, the idea of a career-oriented woman is becoming more and more accepted. At the same time, the study found that when the economy is shaky and jobs are few and far between, there is still a prevailing idea that men are more deserving of scarce jobs. This work can help us understanding worldwide perceptions of gender, which, in turn, influence real world interactions and phenomenon just as the gender pay gap and how people behave toward those of another gender.

Blanch then goes on to describe the highly unconventional medium through which she has been studying gender: comic books. Since the earliest issues of Superman, comic books have reflected shifting cultural attitudes toward gender. During WWII, Superman was a bastion of masculinity and Lois Lane was a strong and independent woman… who became a classic “damsel in distress” once the boys came back home. Even the characters’ body types represent cultural attitudes, with male heroes becoming hyper-muscular during the steroid boom of the 1990s. More recently, comics have ventured into hot button issues such as gay marriage, with Marvel Comics’ first openly gay character getting married in 2012. Comics are generally associated with escapism, so it’s simply fascinating to see them being used to better understand our complex—and very real—society.

In December’s award-winning article, Joanna Small of KSPR News used sociology to understand why people are less likely to intervene to assist someone in need when there are plenty of other people around who could also help. Sociologists call this the Bystander Effect, and due to Joanna Small’s great use of this concept to explain current events, TSP is happy to award her article, written up as a citing by board member Erin Hoekstra, the media award for December.

As we’ve said before, the choice of each month’s TSP Media Award is neither scientific nor exhaustive, but 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 encouragement for journalists and social scientists to keep up the important work of bringing academic knowledge to the broader public.

Providing sexual services in exchange for money is illegal in many parts of the world, “oldest profession” or not. And where prostitution is legal, it is often not regulated, leading to a whole new set of problems. On the other hand, being a long-term, extramarital lover may be frowned upon, but it’s generally not illegal. Sociologist and sex researcher Li Yinhe argues (as reported by the online edition of the South China Morning Post) that if mistresses and prostitutes are in the “same supply-chain”—that is, they essentially provide the same service—then prostitution should be decriminalized. In her talk at a “Love and Culture” forum, Li went on to discuss modern marriage, which she also sees in socio-economic terms:

…[T]he sociology professor said that judging from its current form, [marriage] would soon break away from its “shackles” and become more “free”… “The reason we had marriage was [traditionally] to bear children and allow each generation to inherit private property,” she said.

“If there are other uses for property and less cohabiting couples raising children, then the institution of marriage is likely to become extinct,” she added.

In TIME’s online Ideas section, Columbia’s Shamus Khan makes a reasonable proposition: let sick people stay home and get well. “While we typically look to doctors and medicines in a health crisis,” such as the current flu outbreak, “we should recognize that guaranteeing paid sick days to workers could do as much, if not more, to help moderate the impact…”

Khan goes on to cite the 40% of American workers who have no paid sick days and point out that “this is not just inhumane but a matter of public health.”

The jobs with the most contact with the public are the least likely to provide sick days… when you go to purchase a cup of coffee or eat at a restaurant, know that almost all (76%) of the people serving you are likely to show up to work sick, because not doing so means not getting paid and could mean getting fired. Scholars have a name for this—presenteeism: being at work when you otherwise should not for fear of losing your job or beng viewed by your boss as lazy or unreliable.

While New York’s leadership has declined to support paid sick leave policies, San Francisco has implemented one and saw higher rates of employment. “Paid sick leave works,” Khan concludes. Employees stay home and get well, spread less disease, and are less likely to visit emergency rooms (saving themselves and the wider healthcare system millions).

Like Hurricane Katrina and other natural disasters affecting urban areas, Superstorm Sandy reminded many that U.S. cities are unprepared for the effects of climate change. According to sociologist Eric Klinenberg in a recent issue of The New Yorker, the U.S. lags far behind other countries in “climate-proofing,” or investing in infrastructural developments that will protect cities and their inhabitants from increasingly-severe natural disasters and rising water levels.

Beyond investing in physical infrastructure, preparing for and surviving climate change, Klinenberg writes, will involve “recognizing the importance of social infrastructure: the people, places, and institutions that foster cohesion and support.” Harvard sociologist Robert J. Sampson has emphasized the importance of strong social ties during natural disasters. In their research on the 1995 Chicago heat wave that killed over 700 people, Klinenberg and Sampson found that neighborhoods with a strong sense of community and many churches and civic organizations—neighborhoods where people look out for one another—fare better when disaster strikes.

Although infrastructure investment and development play a major role in mitigating the effects of climate change, it may well prove that “civil society will ultimately determine which people and places will withstand the emerging threats from climate change.”

Heading off to college with a parent’s blank check in hand won’t help students earn high marks, according to sociologist Laura Hamilton. Hamilton’s study, published in the latest Annual Review of Sociology, finds that, regardless of the type of four-year institution they attend, students who receive greater financial contributions from their parents tend to earn a lower GPA along the way (even if they are more likely to complete their degree).

Hamilton says the effect on grades is “modest”—“not enough to make your child flunk”—but nonetheless “surprising because everybody has always assumed that the more you give, the better your child does.”

As the New York Times reports:

Dr. Hamilton found that the students with the lowest grades were those whose parents paid for them without discussing the students’ responsibility for their education. Parents could minimize the negative effects, she said, by setting clear expectations about grades and progress toward graduation.

“Ultimately, it’s not bad to fund your children,” [Hamilton] said. “My kids are little, but I plan to pay for them—after we talk about how much it costs, and what grades I expect them to achieve.”

Well, at least about dating, according to Dan Slater’s recent opinion piece in the New York Times.  Charles Darwin, who is famous for his theories of evolution, argued that through competition for mates, natural selection encouraged man’s “more inventive genius” while nurturing women’s “greater tenderness.”  So, he suggested that the gender roles he saw in Victorian England—men making money and women staying home—dated back centuries.

Decades later, social scientists applied Darwin’s theories to ideas about mating and concluded that men are less selective about whom they’ll sleep with, men like casual sex more than women, and men have more sexual partners over a lifetime.  These assumptions persist today, and many evolutionary psychologists have studied them and argued in their favor.  For example,

  In 1972, Robert L. Trivers, a graduate student at Harvard…argued that women are more selective about whom they mate with because they’re biologically obliged to invest more in offspring. Given the relative paucity of ova and plenitude of sperm, as well as the unequal feeding duties that fall to women, men invest less in children. Therefore, men should be expected to be less discriminating and more aggressive in competing for females.

Critics of this theory (and many other evolution-based theories) argue that cultural norms, not evolution, impact human behavior.  This argument is quite sociological, though it has also found support in the work of psychologists.

Take the question of promiscuity. Everyone has always assumed — and early research had shown — that women desired fewer sexual partners over a lifetime than men. But in 2003, two behavioral psychologists, Michele G. Alexander and Terri D. Fisher, published the results of a study that used a “bogus pipeline” — a fake lie detector. When asked about actual sexual partners, rather than just theoretical desires, the participants who were not attached to the fake lie detector displayed typical gender differences. Men reported having had more sexual partners than women. But when participants believed that lies about their sexual history would be revealed by the fake lie detector, gender differences in reported sexual partners vanished. In fact, women reported slightly more sexual partners (a mean of 4.4) than did men (a mean of 4.0).

A more recent study challenged the idea that women are more selective.  In speed dating, the social norm instructs that women sit in one place while men rotate tables.  In 2009, Psychologists Eli J. Finkel and Paul W. Eastwick conducted an experiment in which the men remained seated and the women rotated.  By switching the role of the “rotator,” they found that women became less selective while men appeared more selective.

Slater’s opinion piece, found here, cites several other studies that cast doubt on the notion that evolution dictates gendered behavior.  But, that doesn’t mean that Darwinians are backing down. The debate will likely continue, but Slater gives the last words to those who challenge Darwinian ideas:

“Some sexual features are deeply rooted in evolutionary heritage, such as the sex response and how quickly it takes men and women to become aroused,” said Paul Eastwick, a co-author of the speed-dating study. “However, if you’re looking at features such as how men and women regulate themselves in society to achieve specific goals, I believe those features are unlikely to have evolved sex differences. I consider myself an evolutionary psychologist. But many evolutionary psychologists don’t think this way. They think these features are getting shaped and honed by natural selection all the time.” How far does Darwin go in explaining human behavior?

Educators, parents, and politicians concerned with the bottom line have spent untold time debating the merits of year-round grade school. As the Associated Press reports, the U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan falls firmly into the “pro” camp, believing bringing the academic and annual calendars into line will help propel American students to the front of the global classroom. Duncan even announced a new national program adding 300 hours of school per year in select districts: “The three-year pilot project will affect about 20,000 students in 40 schools in Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and Tennessee.” Others plumping for a longer school-year point out that parents would rather arrange for 3 weeks than 3 months of childcare and say that disadvantaged students gain in everything from better nutrition (because they may eat up to two meals at school) to better test scores. The former head of the National Association for Year Round School in San Diego is quoted as saying “The only [kids] who don’t lose [over the summer] are the upper 10 to 15 percent of the student body. Those tend to be gifted, college-bound, they’re natural learners who will learn wherever they are.”

In the “con” camp come parents who enjoy the chance to let their kids daydream, travel, take specific summer courses to bone up in particularly needed areas, and play sports and go to camps. Groups like “Save Our Summers” “point out that states such as Minnesota and Massachusetts steadily shine on standardized achievement tests while preserving their summer break with a post-Labor Day school start,” and that districts are already strapped for cash—how will they pay for extra teachers to fill all those hours?

As it turns out, the calendar conservatives may have at least some research on their side. After outlining the many arguments for and against changing schedules, even profiling San Diego’s 40-year-old blended model (some of its schools are year-round, others aren’t), the AP comes down in the middle: “A 2007 study by Ohio State University sociologist Paul von Hippel found virtually no difference in the academic gains of students who followed a traditional nine-month school calendar and those educated the same number of days spread across the entire year.” So, while the number of classroom hours may make a great deal of difference in educational outcomes, how they’re spread out over the course of a year probably doesn’t.

As an American who is well under 50, I wasn’t too pleased to read a New York Times’ article published this week.

Younger Americans die earlier and live in poorer health than their counterparts in other developed countries, with far higher rates of death from guns, car accidents and drug addiction, according to a new analysis of health and longevity in the United States.

Researchers have known for a while that the United States fares poorly when compared against other rich countries.  But, most of this research has focused on the health of people of older ages.  This new study, conducted by a panel of experts convened by the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council, is the first to systematically compare death rates and health measures for people of all ages.

As the NYT article put it, the findings were stark.  American men ranked last in life expectancy among the 17 countries in the study, and American women ranked second to last.

Deaths before age 50 accounted for about two-thirds of the difference in life expectancy between males in the United States and their counterparts in 16 other developed countries, and about one-third of the difference for females.

Car accidents, gun violence, and drug overdoses were major contributors to years of life lost by Americans under age 50.  According to the study, 69% of all American homicide deaths in 2007 involved firearms, compared to an average of 26% in other countries.  Americans also had the highest infant mortality rate, and its young people had the highest rates of teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and deaths from car crashes.  In addition, Americans lose more years of life before age 50 to alcohol and drug abuse than people in any of the other countries in the study.

“The bottom line is that we are not preventing damaging health behaviors,” said Samuel Preston, a demographer and sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, who was on the panel. “You can blame that on public health officials, or on the health care system. No one understands where responsibility lies.”

To read more of the lengthy coverage of the article, click here.

No matter who you are today, you’ll likely be a pretty different person in ten years.

Don’t agree?  According to a recent study conducted by Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert, you’d be in the majority.  Most people generally fail to appreciate how much their personality and values will change in the upcoming years, even if they recognize how much they’ve changed in the past.

“I have this deep sense that although I will physically age—I’ll have even less hair than I do and probably a few more pounds—that by and large the core of me, my identity, my values, my personality, my deepest preferences, are not going to change from here on out,” says Gilbert, who is 55.

As NPR reported, Gilbert wanted to see if others felt the same.  So, he and his colleagues Jordi Quoidbach and Timothy Wilson analyzed data from over 19,000 surveys and found that people, whether they are teenagers or middle-aged, underestimate how much they will change in the future.  Life is a process of growing and changing that never really stops, but people of a variety of ages seem to think it does.

Personality changes do take place faster when people are younger,  says Gilbert, so “a person who says I’ve changed more in the past decade than I expect to change in the future is not wrong.”  But that doesn’t mean they fully understand what’s still to come. “Their estimates of how much they’ll change in the future are underestimates,” says Gilbert. “They are going to change more than they realize. Change does slow; it just doesn’t slow as much as we think it will.”

Gilbert and his colleagues don’t yet know why many of us seem to have an “end of history illusion.”  It might be really difficult to imagine a different future, or it might be difficult to think of unknown change.