On April 24-25, 2023, over 50 social and behavioral science researchers, students, and advocates from 11 different states participated in Social Science Advocacy Day. This annual event, organized by in the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA), brings together advocates from across the country to discuss with Members of Congress and their staff the importance of funding federal agencies and programs that support social and behavioral science research. This year was COSSA’s first in-person Social Science Advocacy Day since 2019. Below are reflections from three advocates who participated: Brenna Tosh, an undergraduate student at Cornell University; Dr. Nicole R. Stokes, Dean for Social Sciences and Professor of Sociology at Pennsylvania State University at Abington; and Dr. Deborah Carr, Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for Innovation in Social Science at Boston University.

America’s gun death rate is unacceptably high – it is well beyond that of any other developed country.  In 2020, there were 45,222 gun related deaths, with 24,264 (54%) of those being suicides and 20,958 (46%) being homicides.  Within America, gun violence is the leading cause of death for children (defined as persons being under the age of 18), and it is among the top 5 causes of death of those under the age of 44.  These staggering statistics are why many social scientists have labeled American gun violence a “public health crisis”.

While these numbers are staggering and the loss of life profound, there is good news. Gun violence is preventable and, in particular, the tools from the social sciences can help us reduce and prevent gun violence.  Social science offers a broad array of skills to inform solutions and each social science tool is necessary.  Due to the enormity and complexity of gun violence, the many disciplines of social science must be used in conjunction with each other to effectively prevent gun violence. 

Interventions designed to keep people safe can have hidden side effects. With an increased perception of safety, some people are more likely to take risks.

For example, some vehicle drivers take more risks when they are buckled up in a shoulder-and-lap belt. Some construction workers step closer to the edge of the roof because they are hooked to a fall-protection rope. Some parents of young children take less care with medicine bottles that are “childproof” and thus difficult to open.

Techniques designed to reduce harm can promote a false sense of security and increase risky behavior and unintentional injuries.

As civil engineers and applied behavioral scientists, we are interested in ways to improve workplace safety. Our ongoing research suggests that employers need to do more than provide injury-protection devices and mandate safety rules and procedures to follow. Job-site mottos like “safety is our priority” are not enough. Employers need to consider the crucial human dynamic that can counteract their desired injury-prevention effects – and tap into strategies that might get around this safety paradox.

Read the full article on The Conversation.

When it comes to opinion research, it sometimes isn’t just a matter of meeting scientific standards, but about assuaging doubts about whether measuring should be done at all. This is especially true these days when questions have been raised about the accuracy of scientific polling in recent elections. Some of the criticisms made after the 2016 and 2020 elections were helpful, and survey researchers responded as scientists —reviewing their methods and making improvements where necessary and possible. Other criticisms are often the result of disappointment with what public opinion research reports. Like election denial, disappointment with a preferred outcome causes some people to question legitimate results. Of course, we all know that polls are a snapshot in time and opinions can change — and have changed — dramatically following major events. In 2022, pre-election polls gave Americans an accurate sense of who was favored in the elections and how public evaluations of them were changing as the election approached. They also underscored those elections where polls were just too close to say what might happen (and the days of vote counting after November 8 underscored the accuracy of many close pre-election polls).

As a new school year begins, it is understandable that students, parents, teachers and the community at large experience both excitement and apprehension. Excitement about a new year of in-person learning, reconnecting with old friends and making new ones, but apprehension about the safety of the school environment. The possibility of school violence occupies the minds of many. While the risk of mass shootings in schools remains exceedingly low, it is essential that we draw on the best data and research available to prevent such events and mitigate all manner of threats to school and student safety.

As the directors of two federal agencies tasked with collecting crime and justice data and advancing scientific research to enhance public safety and the administration of justice, we want to highlight some of what we know about school safety and mass shootings.

Gun control legislation almost never passes Congress, even when there is widespread public support for action in the wake of mass shootings such as those in Buffalo and Uvalde. That’s why we did not expect that on June 25, 2022, President Joe Biden would sign into law a bill containing a set of gun reform provisions known as the “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.” Based on our expertise studying public opinion and the U.S. Congress, here are four reasons we believe some gun control measures got enacted this time around.

Read the full article on The Conversation.

Every day across the United States, more than 120 people die from firearm injuries. Tragic mass shootings in schools, grocery stores and places of worship, with increasing frequency, have highlighted the risk of firearm injury in every community. At the same time, daily tragedy plays out in events of interpersonal conflict that escalates between friends, intimate partners and in the form of suicide by firearm that often does not rise to the level of local news.

I have devoted the past 25 years of my career to researching this crisis. There are many facts that are known as we assess these tragedies.

We know that firearm injuries surpassed motor vehicle crash deaths in 2017 for the first time in over a generation, with firearms responsible for more than 45,000 fatalities in 2020. It is certain that firearms are now the leading cause of death among our children and teens, and that black Americans are disproportionately harmed by firearms, with data finding they are twice as likely to die by firearm than white Americans. We also know that suicide is a leading cause of death among adults over the age of 65, with 70 percent of suicides resulting from firearms. Firearm suicides also are particularly prevalent among veterans and active-duty military members with a suicide rate 1.5 times higher than the general population.

Do you ever wish you had a parenting handbook for raising your children? A guide to navigating a disagreement with your partner? A better understanding of your relationship with your in-laws?

For many of us, family is the cornerstone of our lives. Our family can also help us learn to navigate relationships and manage life’s challenges. Simply being in a family, however, does not mean we intrinsically know everything about building and maintaining healthy, well-functioning families.

Family science — the scientific study of families and close interpersonal relationships — helps us to understand all types of families and how family relationships affect us, our families, and society. Family science research shows us strategies to build strong relationships and marriages, ways to parent effectively, and so much more to support families’ well-being, which creates a better society for everyone.

Scientists across a wide range of disciplines agree that climate change is one of the biggest challenges currently facing our world. Climate change is now recognized as a dire threat to global public health, with a growing awareness of the mental health impacts. The discipline of psychology can contribute in multiple ways to the response to climate change, as described in the American Psychological Association’s recent report Addressing the Climate Crisis: An Action Plan for Psychologists. In this report, APA calls on psychologists to bring their expertise and experience to the fight against climate change and to collaborate with other disciplines and professions to magnify the impact of psychologists’ efforts. Psychologists have roles to play in helping society to mitigate climate change and adapt to it, as well as in building public understanding and attitudes and encouraging social action.

Mitigation, which is aimed at preventing further climate change, may involve the development of new technologies, alternative energy sources, and methods for removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere (e.g., large-scale tree planting, carbon dioxide filtering devices) along with new ways of living and working. New mitigation strategies also present untapped possibilities for incorporating psychological science, including the development of energy-saving smart home technologies that are sensitive and intuitive, ensuring ethical deployments of artificial intelligence, and identifying and breaking down the mental barriers to electric vehicle adoption. Psychologists will be essential to rethinking our world, from aiding the transition to remote work, to reshaping communities to encourage more emission free transportation, to helping people transition to plant-based diets. More broadly, psychologists can contribute to policy development and decision-making about climate change to facilitate acceptance and adoption of new technologies, environments, and routines.

The COVID-19 pandemic is being experienced by people—and without insights into individual and group experiences, real solutions are not possible.

Take, for instance, the selection of “Warp Speed” to describe the vaccine development initiative. A common fear in relation to medicine, including vaccines, is that anything developed quickly may not be safe. The use of “Warp Speed” exacerbated this. Had social scientists been consulted during the naming process, a more culturally acceptable title might have been chosen. Additionally social scientists could have advocated for a better explanation of the approval process—including the fact that all pharmaceuticals could be brought to market more quickly if the bureaucratic maze was cleared for them, as it was for the COVID-19 vaccine developers.

If you're reading this, you've probably already encountered transgender linguistic activism. When people introduce themselves, for example, it's increasingly common to share pronouns and ask what others use, instead of assuming the best way to refer to them based on appearance. Making self-identification an everyday practice is one of trans activism's most visible recent victories, particularly on campuses, and language is at the center of that change.

As linguists, we are particularly well placed to support the ongoing movement for trans rights. This is a brief survey of some current linguistics research that engages with transgender activism. There are all kinds of interactions between academia and activism: some document trans linguistic activism, others draw on linguistic expertise to inform activist discourse, and still others apply linguistics to develop practical interventions. Many also engage with trans activism to advance the state of linguistic knowledge. From syntax to sociolinguistics, and corpus linguistics to phonetics, scholars draw on trans discourse and experience to challenge our understanding of how language works.

Why introduce the social sciences into engineering education and practice? The intent of engineers is to “do good” – to improve the quality and security of life. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out this way, often because of a lack of appreciation by engineers of how technology affects and is used by people. For example, a new technology might promise and deliver great benefit to portions of society but harm certain groups. We call such results “unintended consequences.”

Examples of unintended consequences abound. Social media connect people and cultures, but they are also weaponized to marginalize individuals based on race, culture, and personal attributes and to spread false information. Remote learning and teleworking, essential in the age of Covid-19, have widened the gulf between the haves and have-nots. The potential benefits of artificial intelligence (AI) to society will be blunted if human biases find their way into coding. In designing urban infrastructure, economic and technical criteria should be balanced against social impacts, such as the isolation of underprivileged neighborhoods after the construction of a new highway or transit system. Good engineering cannot be separated from social awareness and deliberate consideration.

In February 2020, about a month before COVID-19 became an inescapable reality around the world, the World Health Organization issued a warning about another, related danger: an “infodemic.” As conspiracy theories about the origins of COVID-19, the severity of its threat, and possible treatments circulated on social media, WHO officials cautioned that spreading false and misleading claims would make the work of combating the virus and its spread that much more difficult. They urged Silicon Valley’s Big Tech companies—especially social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok—to remove or flag content about COVID-19 that wasn’t based on science. Many have done so in the months since. However, once disinformation starts spreading online, it quickly takes on a life of its own.

COVID-19 is just one of many recent crises that disinformation campaigners and other digital extremists have taken advantage of to sow chaos, destabilize the news media ecosystem, and mobilize individuals and groups to their causes. From presidential elections, to civil rights movements, to public health programs, extremists look for opportunities to spread inaccurate or outright manufactured information, manipulate media coverage, and further their own agendas. Increasingly, they rely on digital tools like social media, online forums, and “do-it-yourself” image, video, and audio production to accomplish their goals. Following the violence at Charlottesville, Virginia’s “Unite the Right” rally in 2017, UC Irvine’s Office of Inclusive Excellence launched “Confronting Extremism,” an initiative “dedicated to understanding the ideas and behaviors advocated far outside of alignment to the campus values for social justice and equity in today’s society.” As part of that initiative, we have developed a collection of six self-paced teaching modules titled “Confronting Digital Extremism” that we hope will not only raise awareness of extremists’ “digital toolkits,” but also inspire effective means of confronting extremism online.

On Sept. 25, 2015 the United Nations (UN) established a historic plan entitled “Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” which was agreed upon by the 193 Member States of the UN. The Agenda includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), each one addressing a critical world issue. Many of these, such as climate change, poverty, equal rights and quality education, are directly relevant to the field of psychology. Given the effort addressing the SDGs will require, it is important that psychology itself unite as a science and profession and join with other disciplines in order to reach the 2030 objectives.

How formidable is the challenge we are facing?

Recent data suggest it is extraordinary:

• The summer of 2019 was the hottest in history in locations ranging from Anchorage, Alaska to Paris, France.

• As of March of this year, the UN reported that only six countries truly give men and women equal rights.

• In many parts of the world, efforts to achieve global education are literally starting from the ground up due to a lack of classrooms, supplies, trained teachers and opportunities for children with disabilities.

• Progress has been made to end poverty, in that extreme poverty fell from 11% in 2013 to 10% of the world's population by 2015. That progress has, however, slowed and the goal of ending poverty by 2030 has been brought into question.

What do the opioid and obesity epidemics have in common? For starters, they are both public health crises in which the disease model is used to describe the condition and, theoretically, promote intervention and health behavior change. Although the American Medical Association (AMA) recognized addiction as a disease in 1987, it did not label obesity a disease until 2013. The identification of these epidemics as diseases garnered more medical attention and contributed to the way the medical community tackled the problems. As social scientists, we pondered if these labels also had any potential psychological consequences for the way the public and those living with these conditions confronted the issues.

Do labels matter?

The famous Shakespearean quote from Romeo and Juliet “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” suggests that labels do not matter. Is this statement accurate? As social scientists, we incorporated current methodological approaches to empirically investigate consequences of public health messages labeling addiction and obesity a disease. For example, does the disease message increase or reduce the likelihood that someone will seek treatment?