Why Social Science?

Disproportionate police violence against minority communities, while not a new phenomenon, took on greater prominence in the national consciousness following the deaths of African Americans Michael Brown in 2014 and George Floyd in 2020. Like so many critical social issues that receive such focused attention, perceptions of racial bias in policing have become politicized and entrenched in re…

We live in an era of rapidly expanding economic inequality, humanitarian crises, chaotic deportation efforts, the militarization of U.S. cities, global conflicts and wars, burdensome labor practices that undermine work-life balance, and continued attempts to erode rights and protections of women, racial and ethnic minorities, and LGBTQ+ people. We also face ongoing environmental catastrophes…

When I was in elementary school, the way we studied geography was...not fun. It involved a lot of memorizing: state capitals, rivers and mountains, maybe a famous place from history or two. It wasn’t until many years later that I learned that places and names are just a fraction of what geography is all about. In fact, geography is a social science that explores much more than the points on …

The path from research to policy is rarely straightforward; it takes collaboration between researchers and policymakers at every stage. In child-centered policymaking, where the goal is to improve the lives of children and families, these partnerships are especially vital. Evidence helps policymakers better understand complex issues and identify effective solutions, while researchers gain th…

Wearing my hats as a social science scholar and academic leader, I have studied trends in the development of science over the past 150 years. Over that time, scholarly science has focused on the continual advancement of knowledge. As such, the science produced has become more precise—theoretically and empirically—more sophisticated in its methods, more interdisciplinary, and more connected t…

Nearly 40% of deaths in the United States are preventable through changes in behavior. Modifiable risk factors like smoking, poor diet, inactivity, or alcohol use are contributors to many cancers. For children and teens ages 1 to 17, the leading cause of death is not disease…it’s gun violence. These are not problems with strictly biomedical solutions. They are deeply embedded in how people l…

On March 24-25, 2025, over 70 social and behavioral science researchers, students, and advocates from 17 different states participated in Social Science Advocacy Day. This annual event brings together advocates from across the country to discuss with Members of Congress and their staff the importance of prioritizing funding for federal agencies and programs that support social and behavioral…

Where do you live? How old are you? Did you finish college? Are you married? Do you have any children? Have you recently moved? What type of job do you have? These may seem like mundane questions, but to demographers the answers yield data that are critical to understanding today’s society and predicting the future. For 95 years, the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) has used demographic da…

Every year on the third Thursday of February, we celebrate Anthropology Day —a chance to further our understanding of what it means to be human. Established by the American Anthropological Association, this day brings students, teachers, and professionals together to share how anthropology helps us explore cultures, societies, and human behavior. Anthropology isn’t just about studying ancient…

Future graduates face complex global challenges like climate change, as well as ethical, social and cultural implications of emerging new technologies like artificial intelligence. The urgency of these challenges — and the complexity of skills and capabilities needed to address them — has prompted a revisiting of the role of social sciences and humanities programs in equipping students for c…

At the heart of democratic governance is the notion that what government does should be responsive to what people want. To reflect citizens’ desires, political leaders need to have a sense of which policies most people would prefer, what kinds of concerns they have, and ideally why they are making the choices they are making. Public opinion polling is the primary vehicle through which the de…

For empirical researchers in the social and behavioral sciences who focus on children, adolescents, and young adults, high-quality survey data are an essential ingredient for studying important scientific and policy research questions. Such data are a public good and foundational infrastructure for the social and behavioral sciences. They are the equivalent of the Hubble Telescope for resear…

As the 2024 presidential election approaches, we are reminded that Americans are deeply polarized. But while the term “polarization” is widely used, with apologies to The Princess Bride, that word does not always mean what you think it means. The American public is not polarized in the sense that they are divided into two ideological camps with little middle ground (although that is the case…

Healthy democratic systems feature competing visions of a good society, and that competition can be beneficial for society as a whole. At the same time, democracies require tolerance, trust, and cooperation to avoid the kind of toxic polarization that puts democracy itself at risk. Increasingly, the extent of affective polarization threatens American democracy. Different social groups (such …

On April 8-9, 2024, over 60 social and behavioral science researchers, students, and advocates from 18 different states participated in Social Science Advocacy Day. This annual event, the 10th annual 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 pri…

Artificial Intelligence – “AI” – continues to be the subject of hot debate around the world as governments seek ways to regulate it to protect the public, and developers continue to push towards AI with more human-like capabilities. What’s at stake depends on who you listen to: some extoll the benefits of AI to “transform” the way we live and work, downplaying the potential for negative impa…

We know that social and behavioral science (SBS) has a hold on the conversation when institutional and government decision-makers parley over what goes into ‘policy.’ But oftentimes the SBS researchers whose own work goes into policy are unaware that they’re making an impact in the real world and are stymied from amplifying their findings or using them to advance their careers or fields. Wi…

There is a growing recognition in the scientific community that health research is richer when it incorporates the perspectives of those with lived experience. What is lived experience? It is the unique expertise provided by individuals who have been directly affected by specific health issues. It could come from a patient or their caregiver, or from members of a community who have experien…

For those reading nearly any media outlet during 2023, it is hard to miss the fact that Artificial Intelligence (AI)–in all its varied manifestations–is a regularized component of public discussion and debate. The celebrated and feared emergence of ChatGPT in late 2022, the Writers Guild of America strike and the concerns that writing would cease to be a human endeavor, and the recent firing…

An average full-time worker spends about 40 hours a week working. Assuming retirement at 67 years old, an average person will spend approximately 90,000 hours, or 10 years, of their life working. Given this, and the extent to which our work can shape our self-identities, it is not a stretch to say that psychologically healthy workplaces are critical for population mental health. That is, psy…