recent research

Notable articles from Kevin Lewis's log this week:

• America's hedometer: tracking our mood on Twitter.
• Facebook is good for your social well-being, unless you have low-self esteem to start with.
• Not all conflict negotiations are alike: they depend on whether you're battling over interests or values.
• A little study on how we cooperate and divide the spoils of cooperation.
• Are you shy? Your amygdala and hippocampus may just not be good at making faces feel familiar.
• When gossip is good for the group.
• We're generally conformists in groups, unless the group is made up of close friends.
• One reason groups are smarter than individuals: members actually learn from each other.
• Mixing communication, honesty and fairness to figure out when cooperation is produced.
• A neat little synopsis on all the reasons societies gain from - and so evolved to enforce - monogamy.
• An Oprah endorsement is worth approximately 1,000,000 votes.
• Does election day registration help Democrats or Republicans more? At least for one state in 1976, it was the Republicans that got the extra boost.
• Is the political fracturing of online news sending Americans off into ideological media silos? Some evidence says no.
• One way to get rid of negative ads: increase the number of candidates.
• The incredible short term memory of voters during campaign season.
• Ballot propositions can make voters smarter - but only if it's a social proposition. Or maybe all they're doing is polarizing voters.
• About how much does requiring voters to register decrease overall turnout? 2%.
• More evidence that our behavior determines our values (rather than values directing behavior) - this time among Belgian teens.
• A politically divided house doesn't necessarily fall, but it does create more politically engaged kids.
• In Finland at least, adding a couple years of required education doesn't increase citizen participation.
• But going "mobile" - if you happen to have a large network - can make you more politically involved.