Nearly 40% of Americans surveyed for the study said politics is stressing them out, and one in five reported losing sleep.
“Quite a few of the numbers jumped out at me,” Kevin Smith, Olson Chair and professor of political science at Nebraska and lead author of the study, told Nebraska Today. “Twenty percent have damaged friendships because of political disagreements. One in five report fatigue. And it’s a small (proportion), but 4% of the people in our sample said they’ve had suicidal thoughts because of politics. That translates into 10 million adults.”
The research is the first to comprehensively examine the physical and emotional costs of paying attention to and participating in political discourse. Previous examinations have focused almost solely on economic costs, such as time lost from work to vote or the monetary costs of supporting a campaign.
The study was co-authored by John Hibbing, Foundation Regent University Professor of political science at Nebraska; and Matthew Hibbing, associate professor of political science at the University of California, Merced.
Stories on the research have appeared in more than 240 media outlets, including the Boston Globe, Fast Company, NBC News, Newsweek, NPR, the Miami Herald and Today.com. Articles have also appeared in at least eight Nebraska media outlets, including KOLN/KGIN and the Lincoln Journal Star.
- - -
Jeffrey Stevens, psychology, director of the Canine Cognition and Human Interaction Lab at Nebraska, was interviewed for a Sept. 2 Washington Post article on a new study showing that selective breeding has altered dogs’ brains. While calling the study’s premise “exciting,” he said there’s disagreement on how useful it is to map behaviors to breeds since there’s a lot of variation within breeds. He also noted the MRI scans used in the study weren’t performed as dogs were doing breed-specific tasks, making it difficult to draw big conclusions linking breed to behavior. The story was picked up by several media outlets, including the Boston Globe, Columbus Dispatch and San Francisco Gate.
- - -
Chigozie Obioma, English, has made the 2019 Man Booker Prize shortlist with his second novel, “An Orchestra of Minorities.” He also made the shortlist in 2015 with “The Fishermen.” Stories on the shortlist have appeared in more than 350 media outlets, including BBC News, The New York Times and NPR.
- - -
Jennine Capó Crucet, English and ethnic studies, discussed race, college, Disney World and her new book of essays, “My Time Among the Whites,” in a Vox interview published Sept. 4.
Crucet’s new essay collection was listed as one of six books to read in September by The A.V. Club.
- - -
Jay Storz and Tony Signore, both biological sciences, and colleagues have determined that breeding with the Tibetan wolf granted the Tibetan mastiff a hemogloblin architecture that catches and releases oxygen about 50% more efficiently than in other dog breeds. This allows the breed to survive the extreme altitude of the Himalayas. Stories on the research appeared on Live Science, Phys.org and Smithsonian.com.
- - -
A recent study co-authored by Kevin Smith, political science, was highlighted in a Sept. 9 article in The Atlantic. The study found that people’s moral codes don’t cause or predict their political ideology; instead, people’s ideology appears to predict their answers on a moral-foundations questionnaire. Smith said more research is needed to see if the findings hold up.
- - -
Dawn Braithwaite, communication studies, was interviewed for a Sept. 11 Deseret News article on results of the 2019 American Family Survey. Braithwaite, who researches family formation, said she isn’t surprised that a growing number of people think families can flourish without marriage. She said she doesn’t think different paths to family life devalue marriage, but she worries that “strident politics will harm family.”
- - -
A new study co-authored by Kate Lyons, biological sciences, shows that when large mammal species began going extinct roughly 12,000 years ago, many surviving species began going their separate ways. Stories on the research appeared on Before It’s News, Ecology Daily News, Phys.org and a few other websites.
- - -
Edward Schmidt, emeritus professor of physics and astronomy, recently discovered stars that exhibit the same flickering and dim behavior as a star commonly known as Boyajian's Star. Fifteen of the 21 newly discovered stars dim and flicker at the same rate as Boyajian's Star, while six are more rapid. Scientists are unable to explain the fluctuations, but one physicist, Freeman Dyson, has proposed an "alien megastructure" that works as a solar panel for alien civilizations. Schmidt's discovery was reported by Sputnik News and several other outlets.
- - -
Ari Kohen, political science, was interviewed for a Sept. 22 Chronicle of Higher Education article on the U.S. Department of Education’s threat to strip federal funding from a Middle East-studies program run by Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Kohen said no one is served by courses and programs that present only one side of an argument; however, he said, professors have to wonder how far the Trump administration might go to promote its agenda on campuses.
- - -
Raymond Hames, anthropology, was interviewed for a Sept. 30 New York Times article on controversial anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon, who died Sept. 21 at age 81. Hames, who studied with Chagnon and often accompanied him into the field, said accusations against Chagnon by journalist Patrick Tierney, were “lies.”
- - -
A 2017 study by doctoral students in the Department of Psychology found that the average age of boys’ first exposure to pornography was 13, before many would have had sexual health education classes to add context to what they were seeing. The study was mentioned in a Sept. 23 Washington Post article on teaching young children where babies come from and related topics.
