Overcoming impulses to enjoy here-and-now rewards in order to attain later benefits is fundamental to achieving goals. Such delaying of gratification is often measured by the well-known “marshmallow task” in which children must resist the urge to enjoy one treat now in order to get more treats later. Individual differences in this task predict important...
Culture
How Race, Gun Ownership, and Black Lives Matter Shape Americans’ Views of the January 6 Capitol Attack
A new survey shows Americans’ view of the January 6 Capitol attack can be predicted by their opinions on social movements, such as Black Lives Matter, but not as much by someone’s race or whether they own a gun except when the two are looked at together. The new study, based on a long-running survey of...
Roe V. Rap: Hip-Hop Artists Have Long Wrestled with Reproductive Rights
Hip-hop culture is often recognized as being born on Aug. 11, 1973. That was about seven months after Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that protected the right to choose to have an abortion. Accordingly, reproductive rights have long been part of the discourse in rap music, which has always sought to hold a mirror...
Where the Witches Were Men: A Historian Explains What Magic Looked Like in Early Modern Russia
The word “witches” makes many Americans think of women working in league with the devil. But that hasn’t always been the face of sorcery. Most of Catholic and Protestant Europe embraced the idea of magic as a satanic craft practiced by women, and strong, independent women were kept in line through such accusations. In Orthodox...
The Catholic Church’s Views on Exorcism Have Changed – a Religious Studies Scholar Explains Why
In September 2021, a 3-year-old was killed during an exorcism in a small Pentecostal church in San Jose, California. The child’s throat was allegedly squeezed and her head held down during the ceremony, which likely asphyxiated her. In May 2022, three members of the victim’s family were charged with felony child abuse. Several famous deaths...
Spatial Distribution of Anti-Asian Hate Tweets During Covid-19
In January of 2020, SARS-CoV-19 reached the United States. With it came an even faster-spreading virus—xenophobic rhetoric referring to the pandemic’s epicenter in Wuhan, China. Politicians flooded news outlets and social media with distrust of the Chinese government and labeled COVID-19 as the “Chinese flu,” “Wuhan flu,” “Kung flu” and more. The messaging that blamed...
Black Girls Commonly Have Negative Experiences Related to Their Natural Hair
Teasing and unwanted hair touching are just some of the negative experiences Black girls go through because of their hair, according to a new study. Research from the Arizona State University Department of Psychology shows how prevalent it is for young Black girls to have negative experiences related to their hair. The study, which is...
Denial of Structural Racism Linked to Anti-Black Prejudice
People who deny the existence of structural racism are more likely to exhibit anti-Black prejudice and less likely to show racial empathy or openness to diversity, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. However, there were no similar findings for people who claimed they ignore race, which was instead associated with greater openness...
Of Speech and Spatial Identity
Style and Polity in conversation with Benjamin A. Bross, an Assistant Professor of architecture and an urban historian at the University of Illinois, at Urbana-Champaign, discusses “Mexico City’s Zócalo: A History of a Constructed Spatial Identity,” San Martin de Hidalgo tequila’s featured title for the brand’s Fall 2022 Tequila Book Club. In his recently published...
NBA Sees Rise in Acts of Symbolic Violence
A new analysis of NBA basketball broadcasts from 1998 to 2018 reveals a decline in acts of physical violence, such as pushing and elbowing, and a rise in acts of symbolic violence, such as shouting, trash talking, and menacing displays. Assaf Lev from the Department of Sports Therapy at Ono Academic College in Kiryat Ono,...








