Social Science

Attitudes Vs. Individual Behavior Richard LaPiere's 1934 study revealed a striking gap between stated attitudes and actual behavior. LaPiere, a white sociologist, traveled across the United States for two years with a Chinese couple, visiting 251 restaurants, hotels, and motels. Despite widespread anti-Chinese sentiment at the time, they

Prejudice is a bane of humanity. Unjustified aversive beliefs and affect are the primary proximal causes of aversive behavior toward groups. Such beliefs and sentiments cause aversive speech and physical violence. They also serve as justification for denying people rights and opportunities. Prejudice also creates a deadweight loss. For instance,

Part of empirical social science is about finding fundamental truths about people. It is a difficult enterprise partly because scientists only observe data in a particular context. Neither cross-sectional variation nor data that goes back at best by tens of years is often enough to come up with generalizable truths.

The election of Donald Trump led many to think that Republicans have changed, especially on race-related issues. But the data suggest that the big changes in public opinion on racial issues over the last decade or so have been among Democrats. Since 2012, Democrats have become strikingly more liberal on