Tag: Social Sciences

‘Make every effort to connect—digitally—with other people’
While social distancing is key to slowing the spread of coronavirus, people can combat the isolation with technology, say two Rochester psychologists.

Can Twitter ‘sockpuppets’ actually get you fired?
A Twitter spat ended up causing a science fiction writer to lose his job. Rochester political scientist Bethany Lacina used data science to show how the incident was in part fueled by bots and “sockpuppets.”

Game theorist Scott Tyson puzzles over what makes autocrats successful
A new assistant professor of political science, Tyson has been studying political accountability in nondemocratic environments where government officials are sanctioned by nonelectoral institutions.

Seward Family Digital Archive project tops $1 million in grant money
The project brings together students in the humanities and computer science and retired volunteers to help transcribe the thousands of Seward family letters written in Victorian-era cursive handwriting.

A conversation with Rochester’s latest Nobel Prize winner
Recognized by the Nobel committee for his contributions to behavioral economics—a field that he helped create—Thaler’s research bridges the gap between economics and psychology.

University alumnus wins MacArthur ‘genius grant’
Historian Derek Peterson ’93 has been awarded one of this year’s John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation fellowships—commonly known as the “genius grant”—for his work in reshaping the understanding of African colonialism and nationalism.

Rochester graduate Richard Thaler receives Nobel Prize
Richard Thaler, who earned his graduate degrees at the University of Rochester, has received the 2017 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to behavioral economics.

Unmasking female-centered bullying in schools
An anthropology professor chronicles her multi-year foray into a suburban high school to study female-specific bullying, competition, and aggression, concluding that actions assumed to be benign should be reclassified as violence.

What really motivates us
Is it money, power, and fame? Or rather fear and punishment? For nearly 40 years Richard Ryan and Edward Deci, the founders of self-determination theory, have sought to answer the question of human motivation.

A new way to teach history in the 21st century
A “virtual” re-creation of early settlements on Smith’s Island, Bermuda, offers professor Michael Jarvis and his students immersive experience of the site they are working to excavate.