This story from the BBC explores the phrase "latte liberal" and its use in the U.S. to associate milky coffee with left-of-centre politics.
The author refers to research from Michael W. Macy, the Goldwin Smith Professor of Arts and Sciences in the Department of Sociology, about the correlation between political ideology and lifestyle preferences.
"Unfortunately, it didn't include hot beverage preference," says Macy, whose forthcoming paper, “Why Do Liberals Drink Lattes?” will appear is the American Journal of Sociology. While two-thirds of those items listed did indeed have an association with political outlook, it was impossible to say if latte-drinking was among them.
Research about generosity from Michael Macy, sociology professor, is included in this article about practices to begin to live a better life.
Macy studied “pay it forward” situations such as drive-through customers who paid for the person behind them. They found that generosity can be contagious.
"We concluded that observing an act of kindness is likely to play an important role in setting a cascade of generosity in motion, since many people can potentially observe a single act of helping,” say Macy and doctoral student Milena Tsvetkova about their research. “But we found that it was receiving help that sustained the cascade as it spread through the group."
In recent years, social scientists have conducted experiments demonstrating that the effect of a single act of kindness can in fact ripple through a social network, setting off chains of generosity that reach far beyond the original act.
A new study by Michael Macy, sociology professor, and doctoral candidate Milena Tsvetkova shows that receiving and observing generosity can both significantly increase your likelihood of being generous toward a stranger, but that if you observe a high enough level of generosity, your willingness to help suffers — you become a “bystander” who feels that help is no longer needed.
Care este MOMENTUL MAGIC al zilei cand OAMENII sunt cei mai FERICITI!
Oamenii se trezesc dimineata intr-o dispozitie fericita, devenind morocanosi, pe masura ce ziua se scurge, potrivit unui studiu realizat pe o jumatate de miliard de mesaje scrise pe Twitter.
Esti NEFERICIT? Renuntarea la FUMAT iti DOPEAZA starea de dispozitie!
ZECE modalitati prin care poti sa FII TU INSUTI si sa FII FERICIT!
ZECE lucruri pentru care NU MERITA SA TE INGRIJOREZI daca vrei sa fii…
Are you old enough to remember when mood rings were a popular fad in the mid-1970s? According to Barbara Wyer, it’s been more than four decades since the mood ring craze swept America, taking us from low-tech jewelry to online social media gorilla Twitter as a way to predict moods.
Utilizing tweets to measure psychosocial trends, researchers have found people tend to spend the morning hours in a good mood, but gradually lose their positive attitudes as the day goes on. Further, work hours seem to be associated with more negative attitudes.
A popular and convenient communications tool, Twitter allows users to stay digitally connected in just 140 characters. The messages examined in this study were transmitted through personal cell phones, the Internet or email.
Scientists have been aware of these mood rhythms for quite some time, but measurable readings had been impossible until the emergence of social media, according to sociologist Michael Macy and sociology graduate student Scott Golder, the two researchers behind this study.
After sifting through celebrity news and political opinions, the researchers found a consistent pattern of human thoughts and behaviors. There was a significant amount of positive tweets on weekends, but the morning peak occurred nearly two hours later than on weekdays. The researchers attributed this fact to people sleeping in late.
By using language monitoring software, the study also found there were two daily peaks when tweets exuded a positive attitude – early in the morning, and then again around midnight. These patterns were detected in countries and cultures across the globe. A special computer program searched for words and phrases that indicated a positive attitude – brilliant, enthusiastic, happy – or a negative attitude – fear, anxious, sad. The researchers also studied global moods on a seasonal basis and were able to determine a correlation between relative daylight and overall happiness.
Some might believe that morning and afternoon rush hour traffic can explain the pattern. While it’s possible that stress related to work may have impacted the study’s findings, the same midday lapse also occurred on weekends. The pattern was attributed to the effects of sleep and the individual’s biological clock.
The researchers also analyzed tweets from the United Arab Emirates, a country where Friday and Saturday are the weekend as opposed to Saturday and Sunday. The same daily and weekend patterns held true despite the difference in cultures.
Previous studies had linked moods with the human biological clock, but were generally based on small groups of American college students. However, other unique aspects to Twitter could be skewing the results. Twitter users are generally younger than the general population, and they may be better educated and more affluent.
Researchers have studied Twitter to examine political campaigns, study emotions and predict cultural trends. The potential of social media as an analytical tool is significant. As social media continues to dominate daily conversations, it will provide vast, new opportunities for behavioral and social science in the next few years.
Barbara Wyer is the Chief Creative Officer of online reputation management firm Reputation Advocate and pursuing a masters degree in marriage and family counseling. An area of particular interest to Barbara Wyer is the ever-developing interaction and relationship between online social media and mental health.
El termómetro del tweet: buen humor en la mañana, malo al trabajar.
Un estudio basado en mensajes de la red social revela que el estado anímico se degrada a lo largo del día.
Un grupo de investigadores ha recurrido a Twitter para estudiar la evolución del estado anímico de 2,4 millones de usuarios de la red de microblogs en 84 países. El resultado más llamativo del trabajo, publicado este jueves por la revista Science, es que la mayoría de la gente demuestra estar de mucho mejor humor por las mañanas y que ese buen estado de ánimo se degrada a medida que pasa el día.
Los investigadores han seguido mensajes durante dos años y han concluido que el tipo de trabajo, el sueño y la duración de las jornadas son factores que explican el estrés, la alegría, el entusiasmo, la cólera y la angustia de los usuarios de Twitter.
Los sociólogos han descubierto dos momentos claves en el que los tuits revelan una actitud positiva : relativamente pronto por la mañana y por la noche, cerca de las doce. Estas fluctuaciones hacen pensar que el humor estaría condicionado crucialmente por el estrés laboral.
Los ciclos emocionales que retrata el estudio ya se conocían de sobra, pero hasta ahora los investigadores dependían para sus observaciones de pequeños muestreos homogéneos. Twitter les ha otorgado la oportunidad de seguir a poblaciones extensas durante un espacio de tiempo largo y en periodos prolongados. Scott Golder y Michael Macy, los responsables del trabajo y, respectivamente, investigador y profesor de sociología en la Universidad de Cornell (Nueva York, EE UU) aseguran que la llegada de las redes sociales ha permitido convertir en concluyentes unas hipótesis que hasta ahora no estaban completamente cimentadas.
Otro dato revelador es que los tuits positivos son más abundantes los sábados y domingos, con puntos álgidos durante la mañana, dos horas más tarde que la media semanal. Los datos son similares en todos los países y culturas. Los investigadores han establecido igualmente una relación entre el buen humor y la disminución progresiva de las horas de luz entre los solsticios de verano e invierno.
