Labor (and delivery) market

One of the biggest social problems highlighted by conservatives is birth out of wedlock. One of the biggest social problems highlighted by liberals is inequality. Let’s bring these two problems together. In an analysis of data from a nationwide sample of youth who were surveyed repeatedly into adulthood, researchers found that higher local household income inequality was associated with a lower likelihood of being married before a first birth, even controlling for age, race, parental education and family structure, local unemployment rate, local sex ratio (number of young men divided by number of young women), and region. This association was partly explained by a lack of decent-paying jobs for high-school graduates in the area.

Cherlin, A. et al., “Nonmarital First Births, Marriage, and Income Inequality,’’ American Sociological Review (forthcoming).

Sex and abuse

If you’re a male, chances are that you grew up calling others and/or being called gay-related insults. But according to psychologists with Florida State University, such derogation may be less about sexual orientation per se, and more about one’s “ability to contribute to the physical between-groups male coalitionary competitions that were common during the evolutionary history of humans.’’ This theory can explain why men — especially in traditionally masculine occupations — are more antigay than women, and why antigay sentiment is stronger for effeminate gay men than for lesbians or masculine gay men. In several experiments, when judging another man, men put more weight on the manliness of the other man’s interests and team contribution than his sexual orientation.

Winegard, B. et al., “The Coalitional Value Theory of Antigay Bias,’’ Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences (forthcoming).

Black and blue lives

Crackdowns aren’t just for Turkey. Apparently, even the New York City Police Department is susceptible to them. A sociologist with Yale University analyzed data from millions of stop-and-frisk encounters in New York City between 2006 and 2012 and found that police use of force against black suspects increased significantly in the days following shootings of police officers by black suspects, compared to similar stops before the shootings. There was no increased use of force against white and Hispanic suspects after these shootings, and there was no increased use of force for any group after shootings of police officers by white and Hispanic suspects. The crackdowns on black suspects did not appear to be explained by changes in suspect behavior, as there were no increases in arrests or contraband/weapon seizures from stops in black neighborhoods, nor were there increased reports of evasive or confrontational behavior.

Legewie, J., “Racial Profiling and Use of Force in Police Stops: How Local Events Trigger Periods of Increased Discrimination,’’ American Journal of Sociology (forthcoming).

Trump vs. Trump

For a positive negotiation experience, send in the doppelgangers. A team of business-school researchers conducted an experiment in which participants negotiated a business arrangement via instant messaging. Negotiators whose personalities were similarly high or similarly low in agreeableness or extroversion used more positive language with each other and as a result, experienced less conflict, reached agreement faster, and had a more positive impression of the other negotiator. Similarity in other traits — namely, conscientiousness, neuroticism, or openness to experience — was not associated with negotiation outcomes.

Wilson, K. et al., “Personality Similarity in Negotiations: Testing the Dyadic Effects of Similarity in Interpersonal Traits and the Use of Emotional Displays on Negotiation Outcomes,’’ Journal of Applied Psychology (forthcoming).

I can feel your pain, if you’d like

In normal people, certain parts of the brain become more active when seeing other people in pain. In a study of criminals, researchers found that there was only a limited response in these parts of the brain when viewing pictures of other people in pain. However, when the criminals were asked to increase their concern for the person in pain, there was a significantly stronger response in these parts of the brain, regardless of the criminal’s level of psychopathy. This brain activity was also significantly stronger than when the criminals were asked to decrease their concern, suggesting that it wasn’t simply the result of mental effort.

Arbuckle, N. & Shane, M., “Up-Regulation of Neural Indicators of Empathic Concern in an Offender Population,’’ Social Neuroscience (forthcoming).

Kevin Lewis is an Ideas columnist. He can be reached at kevin.lewis.ideas@gmail.com.