recent research

The every-now-and-then round up from Kevin Lewis' blog:

• Group membership in the US - and so "social capital" - is still on the wane.
• Higher status individuals are more trusting individuals.
• Human voices - as opposed to human texts - are great de-stressors (at least when they're mom's).
• Social proof (the idea that we do what every one around us does) can reduce bullying in middle schools.
• Not too shockingly, best friends influence best friends' behavior.
• More evidence that we conform to others' behavior - whether or not we think anyone knows.
• Legislators are swayed by their constituents' opinions - when they know them. Even so, lawmakers only follow majority opinion about 50% of the time.
• In another shocker, left-leaning newspapers tend to disproportionately report on Republican scandals (and right-leaning papers on Democratic ones).
• But, on the whole, the US newspapers tend to promote the views of the median voter. Although media bias may shift from year to year.
• Citizens don't completely follow their parties' leaders when it comes to policy preferences, but are able to consider factual information as well.
• How to beat a competing value: associate that value with a "extremist" group.
• It's unclear if information about policy effectiveness diffuses state borders - but there's evidence that info about policy viability does.
• Since primaries tend to elect more extreme candidates who could have a tougher time in general elections (as opposed to party-picked candidates), you'd expect primaries to exist more in solidly partisan districts - as they do.
• Why populism is so popular.
• What if campaign donations were completely anonymous? Unsurprisingly candidates would be less often swayed from their beliefs. Surprisingly, though, non-anonymous donations tend to make candidates more moderate.
• We perceive media bias through our own biases.
• We vote with our party - except when specific issues hit close to home.