recent research

(Still) Catching up with Kevin Lewis' listing of recent research:

• If you're going to take away someone's freedom and not get flack, do it absolutely.
• Why some countries leave social welfare in the hands of the government vs. nonprofit organizations: it's a matter of individualism and trust.
• Go ahead, delude yourself - it's evolutionarily advantageous. As is social-emotional pain (although that's more advantageous to the group than to you personally.
• Happy people are helpful people.
• One way to reduce prejudice: get people to wash their hands. Another: make sure to mention the negative as well as positive traits of the "out-group".
• Are people defined more by their language or their race? It depends on whether the definer is a 5 year old or a 10 year old.
• US politics may have become more polarized over the past four decades - but political donors themselves have not.
• Could there be no connection between money and lobbying success? One researcher had a hard time finding one.
• Past presidents were just as partisan as today, but perhaps in an under-stated way.
• More evidence that the powerful are a little too sure of themselves.
• False memories are not only easy to make - but hard to fade. Yet we'll shift our memories when they disagree with anothers.
• How face to face interactions build faith in fellow man (especially if you're a man).
• Taking a moment to reflect makes Utilitarians of us all.
  
• We not only feel kinship with people who hail from our nation - we also are more likely to warm up to American robots.
• The uninformed: the gullible who are easily manipulated by passionate extremists? Maybe not.
• Worrying about disease may not only make us more prejudice (see "washing hands" above), but more conformist.
• We are all Zeligs.
• It still may not be clear why yawns are contagious, but it definitely has something to do with empathy - at least judging by how how much more our friends and family make us yawn.
• Are some people staying home on election day 'cause they're not sure their ballot is secret? Could be. But maybe there's no re-assuring them.
• Close elections aren't just good for turnout - they actually make us learn and think more.
• More evidence that larger voter turnout doesn't really change much. And an argument for why it's not a problem.
• Two studies on the modest - and variable - benefits of mail-in voting.
• Politicians' tweets can make them more likable - but only among the socially reserved.
• Democracies are, indeed, more transparent.
• Evidence that public participation initiatives can instill faith in local government - but primarily for those who aren't sure how they feel about government in the first place.
• Power corrupts - or makes us less self-interested - depending on a little thing called morality.
• Genes, personality and political preferences: another attempt to map their relationship.
  
• Daron Acemoglu and friends take on another momentous project: modeling the evolution of democracy.
• Murtin and Wacziarg, meanwhile, look at national stats going back to 1870 to find that primary education, more than anything else, predicts who will democratize first.
• As advice seekers know, it's easier to be an idealist when giving advice.
• We're motivated to uphold and justify the status quo - except when we think we can do better.
• A new theory on what's caused political polarization in the US: our global standing.
• One of the popular explanations for polarization is gerrymandering (the political process of carving up election districts; Masket et al say gerrymandering is not all that.
• Alvarez and Sinclair advocate a different way to counter polarization: blanket primaries.
• Pragmatists just like us: politicians try to appeal to their ideological base and swing voters at the same time.
• Advice to the newly elected politician: don't enact any policy if you want to get re-elected.
• Even more papers about polarization.
• From the persuasion files: triggering "loss aversion" is effective in political persuasion too.
• Media attention can put policy initiatives in the legislative fast lane, but more often it'll slog those initiatives down.
• It's not just a myth: people avoid political conversations in (politically) mixed company, though that's less true for some personality types.
• Maybe it's a European thing? Study shows that opposition parties do better when they moderate their positions, while incumbents win by going more extreme.