Tag: research

Research Shows 63% Of Workers Who File An EEOC Discrimination Complaint Lose Their Jobs
LIFESTYLE

Research Shows 63% Of Workers Who File An EEOC Discrimination Complaint Lose Their Jobs

Donald T. Tomaskovic-Devey, University of Massachusetts Amherst; Carly McCann, University of Massachusetts Amherst, and J.D. Swerzenski, University of Massachusetts Amherst People who experience sex discrimination, race discrimination and other forms of discrimination at work aren’t getting much protection from the laws designed to shield them from it. That’s our main finding after analyzing the outcomes of 683,419 discrimination cases filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from 2012 to 2016 – the most recent data available. We focused on workplace complaints filed related to race, sex, disability, age and national origin. Those are the five most common categories. We found that at least 63% of workers who filed a complaint eventually lost their job. That number was...
Labor Unions Help Lower The Risk Of Poverty – Research Shows
LIFESTYLE

Labor Unions Help Lower The Risk Of Poverty – Research Shows

Tom VanHeuvelen, University of Minnesota and David Brady, University of California, Riverside The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea Belonging to a union or living in a U.S. state where organized labor is relatively strong helps lower the likelihood that you will fall into poverty, according to our new research. In a peer-reviewed study, we examined how unionization is correlated with poverty. So we analyzed data on poverty and unionization rates from 1975 through 2015 using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, which is widely considered to be the gold standard for tracking individuals over time. We used a variety of poverty measures in our analysis. We found that households in which there was at least one union member had an average poverty rate...
New Research Finds Narcissistic People Aren’t Just Full Of Themselves – They’re More Likely To Be Aggressive And Violent
LIFESTYLE

New Research Finds Narcissistic People Aren’t Just Full Of Themselves – They’re More Likely To Be Aggressive And Violent

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea We recently reviewed 437 studies of narcissism and aggression involving a total of over 123,000 participants and found narcissism is related to a 21% increase in aggression and an 18% increase in violence. Narcissism is defined as “entitled self-importance.” The term narcissism comes from the mythical Greek character Narcissus, who fell in love with his own image reflected in still water. Aggression is defined as any behavior intended to harm another person who does not want to be harmed, whereas violence is defined as aggression that involves extreme physical harm such as injury or death. Our review found that individuals high in narcissism are especially aggressive when provoked, but are also aggressive wh...
New Research Shows – Police Academies Dedicate Only 3.21% Of Training Hours To Ethics And Other Public Service Topics
Journalism

New Research Shows – Police Academies Dedicate Only 3.21% Of Training Hours To Ethics And Other Public Service Topics

Police academies provide little training in the kinds of skills necessary to meet officers’ growing public service role, according to my research. Highly publicized cases of police violence – such as the 2020 murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri – often raise questions about police training, and whether officers are prepared to do the job that is expected of them. As a public administration researcher who conducts leadership training for law enforcement supervisors across the country, I set out to investigate what future police officers learn in basic training – specifically, whether they are taught the kind of public service skills that many people expect them to display on the job. How police are trained Police officers, like ...
Research Shows That The ‘Bystander Effect’ Is Real – When More People Witness Violence, It’s More Likely Someone Will Step Up And Intervene
IMPACT

Research Shows That The ‘Bystander Effect’ Is Real – When More People Witness Violence, It’s More Likely Someone Will Step Up And Intervene

The most powerful evidence for the prosecution at the trial of Derek Chauvin was a video showing the then-Minneapolis police officer pinning a pleading George Floyd to the ground by kneeling on his neck until he grew silent and then died. On the witness stand, the teenager who captured the incident on her smartphone, 17-year-old Darnella Frazier, expressed regret for not doing more on the day of the crime. As a professor whose major field of research is the application of psychology and game theory to ethics, I believe that Frazier’s regret about not physically intervening illuminates two major points: First, a witness to a troubling situation who is in a group may feel a lesser sense of personal responsibility than a single individual. Second, someone in a group of people who can see on...
Research Suggests – Here’s Why It’s A Public Health Problem That Nearly 60 Million Americans Don’t Drink Their Tap Water
ENVIRONMENT, VIDEO REELS

Research Suggests – Here’s Why It’s A Public Health Problem That Nearly 60 Million Americans Don’t Drink Their Tap Water

Imagine seeing a news report about lead contamination in drinking water in a community that looks like yours. It might make you think twice about whether to drink your tap water or serve it to your kids – especially if you also have experienced tap water problems in the past. In a new study, my colleagues Anisha Patel, Francesca Weaks and I estimate that approximately 61.4 million people in the U.S. did not drink their tap water as of 2017-2018. Our research, which was released in preprint format on April 8, 2021, and has not yet been peer reviewed, found that this number has grown sharply in the past several years. Other research has shown that about 2 million Americans don’t have access to clean water. Taking that into account, our findings suggest that about 59 million people have tap...
New Research Finds – Staying Active Throughout Adulthood Is Linked To Lower Healthcare Costs In Later Life
Journalism, VIDEO REELS

New Research Finds – Staying Active Throughout Adulthood Is Linked To Lower Healthcare Costs In Later Life

Exercise is good for your health at every age – and you can reap the benefits no matter how late in life you start. But our latest research has shown another benefit of being physically active throughout life. We found that in the US, people who were more physically active as teenagers and throughout adulthood had lower healthcare costs. These findings are especially relevant to people who live in countries without universal healthcare, such as the US. However, our findings apply indirectly to countries with universal healthcare, such as the UK, as a healthier population could result in lower costs for the healthcare system as a whole. For our study, we drew on data from the National Cancer Institute’s study on diet and health, which looked at over half a million adults. As part of this ...
Why Black Biomedical Scientists Still Lag In Research Funding Matters To All Americans
Journalism

Why Black Biomedical Scientists Still Lag In Research Funding Matters To All Americans

The statistics tell the story. People of color are more likely to be infected, hospitalized and killed by COVID-19 than white, non-Hispanic people. This grim reality is just one more illustration of an unacceptable truth: Science does not benefit all Americans equally. While part of the solution lies in making access to health care more equitable, I believe the key to real change is more fundamental. If science is to benefit all Americans, science first must be done by all Americans. As a Black woman in America and an academic biomedical engineering researcher, I have encountered racial, ethnic and gender discrimination and systemic racism at every stage of my life and career. Through these lived experiences, I have become deeply committed to addressing the “diversity problem” in the aca...
Research Shows Here Are Ways Self-Regulation Can Work If Big Tech Has The Will
TECHNOLOGY, VIDEO REELS

Research Shows Here Are Ways Self-Regulation Can Work If Big Tech Has The Will

Governments and observers across the world have repeatedly raised concerns about the monopoly power of Big Tech companies and the role the companies play in disseminating misinformation. In response, Big Tech companies have tried to preempt regulations by regulating themselves. With Facebook’s announcement that its Oversight Board will make a decision about whether former President Donald Trump can regain access to his account after the company suspended it, this and other high-profile moves by technology companies to address misinformation have reignited the debate about what responsible self-regulation by technology companies should look like. Research shows three key ways social media self-regulation can work: deprioritize engagement, label misinformation and crowdsource accuracy veri...
Filling Research Gaps Created By The Pandemic – Citizen Scientists
SCIENCE, VIDEO REELS

Filling Research Gaps Created By The Pandemic – Citizen Scientists

The rapid spread of COVID-19 in 2020 disrupted field research and environmental monitoring efforts worldwide. Travel restrictions and social distancing forced scientists to cancel studies or pause their work for months. These limits measurably reduced the accuracy of weather forecasts and created data gaps on issues ranging from bird migration to civil rights in U.S. public schools. A volunteer looks for waterbirds at Point Reyes National Seashore in California during the National Audubon Society’s annual Christmas Bird Count. Kerry W/Flickr, CC BY Our work relies on this kind of information to track seasonal events in nature and understand how climate change is affecting them. We also recruit and train citizens for community science – projects that involve amateur or volunteer scientists...