Social Science Research

Ancient cultures around the world spoke of a vast cycle of time with alternating dark and golden ages; Plato called it the Great Year. Most of us were taught in school that the dark ages were real but the golden age was just a universal myth. But new scientific evidence suggest this cycle of high and low ages may have some basis in fact. Now that the astronomical community has discovered that something massive is tugging on our solar system the stage is set for discovering the motion that moves us from high ages of enlightenment to low ages of darkness.

What was a Buddhist monk doing at the 2014 World Economic Forum in Davos lecturing the world's leaders on mindfulness? Why do many successful corporations have a chief happiness officer? What can the chemical composition of your brain tell a potential employer about you? In the past decade, governments and corporations have become increasingly interested in measuring the way people feel: the Happiness index, Gross National Happiness, well-being and positive psychology have come to dominate the way we live our lives.

For the last 10 years, psychologist Sam Gosling has been studying how people project (and protect) their inner selves. By exploring our private worlds (desks, bedrooms, even our clothes and our cars), he shows not only how we showcase our personalities in unexpected - and unplanned - ways, but also how we create personality in the first place, communicate it to others, and interpret the world around us.

This audiobook explains the divine female principle as the source of creation - both metaphysically and physically; the feminine dual nature of Isis with Nephthys; the relationship (and oneness) of the female and male principles; the numerology of Isis and Osiris; Isis’ role as the Virgin Mother; explanation of about 20 female deities as the manifestations of the feminine attributes; the role of Isis’ ideology throughout the world; the allegory of Isis, Osiris, and Horus; and much more. This book will fill both the mind with comprehensive information as well as the heart.

After spotting Netflix and the deep-pocketed Amazon Prime Video a decade’s head start, rivals from the tech and start-up realm (Apple, Quibi) and traditional media (Disney, WarnerMedia, NBCUniversal) all decided to move mountains to enter the streaming game. At a cost of billions, each went after their own piece of the market, launching five new services in a seven-month span. And just as the derby was heating up, the coronavirus pandemic arrived, a black-swan event bringing short-term benefits but also stiff challenges.

This book gives listeners access to the wide world of sex-specific medical issues as they play out in the research labs and doctor’s offices—and how women pay the price, with a close look at the impact that has on minority populations. It has been challenging to get individual researchers and practitioners to accept this, as well as research and medical institutions and manufacturers of medications and devices. The journey towards equal treatment and the understanding of sex and gender differences in prevention, diagnosis, and treatment is still unfolding.

The American child welfare system is bent toward protecting adults, not children. Kids in danger are treated instrumentally to promote the rehabilitation of their parents, the welfare of their communities, and the social justice of their race and tribe. It is time to stop letting efforts to fix the child welfare system get derailed by activists who are concerned with race-matching, blood ties, and the abstract demands of social justice, and start asking the most important question: Where are the emotionally and financially stable, loving, and permanent homes where kids can thrive?

In Winning Her Business, Bridget Brennan, advisor to some of the world’s biggest brands and businesses, provides a road map for selling in a world dominated by the rise of women’s economic power.

For centuries, economics was dominated by the idea that we are rational individuals who optimize our own “utility”. Then, in the 1970s, psychologists demonstrated that the reality is a lot messier. We don’t really know what our utility is, and we care about people other than ourselves. We are susceptible to external nudges. And far from being perfectly rational, we are prone to “cognitive biases” with complex effects on decision-making, such as forgetting to prepare for retirement.

We live in an era of tribalism, polarization, and intense social division - separating people along lines of religion, political conviction, race, ethnicity, and sometimes gender. How did this happen? In Conformity, Cass R. Sunstein argues that the key to making sense of living in this fractured world lies in understanding the idea of conformity - what it is and how it works - as well as the countervailing force of dissent.

The Israel lobby exerts incredible power and influence over America. While some informed voters know the US provides more foreign aid to Israel than any other country, the total flow of charitable, tax dollar, military aid, intelligence, and “opportunity cost” are unknown to those footing the bill - and the lobby is determined to keep it that way. Yet storm clouds are gathering over Israel’s lobby. Public opinion polls asking the right questions indicate Americans are nowhere near as approving as many Israel lobbyists insist.

Research is anchored by assumptions. How do we complete research—and why? This book—The Three Monkeys of Research—explores epistemology, ontology and methodology. Tara Brabazon explores how ideas become knowledge, and how arguments are verified, believed and disseminated to scholars, stakeholders and citizens.

In December 2009, Google began customizing its search results for each user. Instead of giving you the most broadly popular result, Google now tries to predict what you are most likely to click on. According to MoveOn.org board president Eli Pariser, Google's change in policy is symptomatic of the most significant shift to take place on the Web in recent years: the rise of personalization.

The greatest threat to privacy today is not the NSA, but good-old American companies. Internet giants, leading retailers, and other firms are voraciously gathering data with little oversight from anyone. In Las Vegas, no company knows the value of data better than Caesars Entertainment. Many thousands of enthusiastic clients pour through the ever-open doors of their casinos. The secret to the company’s success lies in their one unrivaled asset: they know their clients intimately by tracking the activities of the overwhelming majority of gamblers.

No one in America has done more observing of more people than Dr. Frank I. Luntz. From Bill O'Reilly to Bill Maher, America's leading pundits, prognosticators, and CEOs turn to Luntz to explain the present and to predict the future. With all the upheavals of recent events, the plans and priorities of the American people have undergone a seismic shift.

As fandom sheds its longtime stigmas of geekiness and hysteria, fans are demanding more from the celebrities and brands they love. Digital tools have given all organizations - from traditional businesses to tech start-ups - direct, real-time access to their most devoted consumers, and it's easy to forget that this access flows both ways.

Gay has made many important revisions to keep her foundational, award-winning text relevant for today's diverse student population, including: new research on culturally responsive teaching, a focus on a broader range of racial and ethnic groups, and consideration of additional issues related to early childhood education. This book demonstrates that all students will perform better on multiple measures of achievement when teaching is filtered through students' own cultural experiences.

Are we driving off a digital cliff and heading for disaster, unable to focus, maintain concentration, or form the human bonds that make life worth living? Are media and business doomed and about to be replaced by amateur hour? Both visionary and practical, I Live in the Future & Here’s How It Works captures the zeitgeist of an emerging age, providing the understanding of how a radically changed media world is influencing human behavior.

The idea that medicine is gender-neutral is a myth. This isn't inflammatory rhetoric; it's simply true. From the way pain is felt, to how heart attacks are diagnosed, to the very role society plays in the health of the body, the medical landscape in place today is one that was designed for, and by, men. This audiobook is about all the ways medicine is not gender-neutral, from research to treatment to diagnosis. Throughout history, flawed mindsets have paved the way for sub-par treatment, and the prevailing attitudes that exist today have had terrible repercussions for women.

Why do three out of four professional football players go bankrupt? How can illiterate jungle dwellers pass a test that tricks Harvard philosophers? And why do billionaires work so hard - only to give their hard-earned money away? When it comes to making decisions, the classic view is that humans are eminently rational. But growing evidence suggests instead that our choices are often irrational, biased, and occasionally even moronic. Which view is right - or is there another possibility?