News by Subject Social & Behavior

Racial disparities in student debt between blacks and whites may perpetuate the racial wealth gap according to a study in the online first edition of Sociology of Race and Ethnicity. The study is the first to evaluate how racial disparities in student debt change over one's life course -- from when young people first graduate or leave college in their early 20s to over the next 10 years, as they enter the job market, start families and transition into adulthood.

The age old adage of virtue being its own reward may not hold true in the corporate world -- in fact, honourable acts could lead workers to behave more selfishly later on, new research has shown.

What happens to those who behave unselfishly and make sacrifices for the sake of others? According to an interdisciplinary study by researchers from Stockholm University, the Institute for Futures Studies and the University of South Carolina, unselfish people tend both to have more children and to receive higher salaries, in comparison to more selfish people. The results have now been published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Recent research finds state pension plans would be better off avoiding external asset managers when investing their assets -- and would carry substantially smaller unfunded liabilities if they simply invested in a conventional index fund.

The mere presence of a pair of eyes on a sign requesting donations makes people more likely to give more. This is according to a field study in Springer's journal Human Nature. Lead author Caroline Kelsey of the University of Virginia in the US says the findings support the idea that people tend to act according to pro-social norms when they sense that they are being watched. It also suggests that eyes play a special role in promoting cooperation in humans.

For men, physical strength and political attitudes are linked. This is not the case for women. New research from Aarhus BSS shows that ancestral human instincts affect men's political reflections.

Lifestyle intervention delivered in churches by community-based health workers led to a significant reduction in blood pressure among African Americans compared to health education alone, according to a study led by researchers at NYU School of Medicine publishing online Oct. 9 in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.

Long-term oxygen therapy does not decrease the risk for hospitalizations or increase life expectancy for many patients with mild to moderate COPD, but may lower their quality of life, according to Mayo Clinic researchers published in The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association.

Latest research finds significant inequalities in cuts to council services across the country, with deprived areas in the north of England and London seeing the biggest drops in local authority spending since 2010.