On complex political issues, most Americans take shortcuts to simplicity
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 22-Oct-2026 11:16 ET (22-Oct-2026 15:16 GMT/UTC)
A core assumption in any democracy is that citizens with access to information will make reasoned decisions on political candidates and policy issues. But a new study by UC Berkeley social scientists finds that Americans usually don’t consider the full scope of difficult issues, instead basing their opinions on mental shortcuts that sidestep complexity. The paper offers striking insight into the differences in cognitive reasoning patterns among Americans. While some people in the study did closely analyze a range of issues before coming to an opinion, others did a quick back-of-the-napkin tally of plusses and minuses, or even more commonly based their opinions on just one factor, the authors found.
Social media can spark powerful responses when activists post a call to action, but people are searching for authenticity when they scrutinise an organiser’s underlying motives.
The area in which someone lives strongly influences their risk of developing type 2 diabetes, new research from Canada being presented at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) in Milan, Italy (Sept 28 – Oct 2) suggests.
A new study by an international research team provides the first systematic, cross-cultural comparison of how children help their peers. While previous research has mainly focused on how children help adults, often within the family, peer interactions play an equally important, yet far less studied, role in children's social lives across many cultures. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Sapienza University of Rome, Leipzig University, the University of Portsmouth, the University of Plymouth and Duke University studied 336 children aged four to nine from six different cultural groups: Germans, Wichí (Argentina), ≠Akhoe Hai||om (Namibia), Samburu and Kikuyu (Kenya) and Quechua (Bolivia).
As Florida considers dropping its measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine mandate for school attendance, a new University of Maryland study predicts that such a policy change could spark the largest measles epidemic in the United States in nearly 50 years.
A study based on publication data traces how researchers moved within Ukraine and across borders between 2009 and 2022, with conflict-affected regions losing scholars while others became increasingly important destinations. These shifts were already underway after Russia illegally annexed Crimea and fighting began in the Donbas in 2014, underscoring that scholarly mobility during conflict cannot simply be understood as a matter of free choice.
Nearly 40% of people with lung cancer experience depression, and many also face anxiety, hopelessness and questions about mortality after diagnosis. Researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James) and the Center for Psychedelic Drug Research and Education (CPDRE) in the College of Social Work (CSW) are leading a clinical trial to test whether psilocybin-assisted therapy can help reduce depression and emotional distress among patients with lung cancer.