EurekAlert! News by Subject: Social & Behavior - News by Subject: Social & Behavior

Social & Behavior

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 12-Dec-2025 14:11 ET (12-Dec-2025 19:11 GMT/UTC)

Investor attention on individual stocks can predict marketwide performance

University of Notre Dame
Peer-Reviewed Publication

When retail investors suddenly pay more attention to the stock market, returns over the next week tend to fall. But when institutional investors start paying more attention, returns over the next week tend to rise — especially when big news is about to come out, according to new research from University of Notre Dame finance professor Zhi Da.

Journal: Management Science

Study explores women's use of dance as a form of protest, resistance in Iran

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, News Bureau

Study explores how women in post-revolutionary Iran used audacious acts of dance in public spaces and on social media to resist unjust gender-based laws and cultural norms that disenfranchise women. The author explores the evolution of the "Woman, Life, Freedom Movement" as a reponse to oppression imposed by the Islamic state and how Iranian women's embodied protests were replicated by women around the globe.

Journal: Critical Sociology

Politecnico di Milano: Individual behaviour matters more than we think in spreading epidemics

Politecnico di Milano
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Simulations of Turin, Milan and Palermo reveal that individual behaviour affects the intensity and timing of epidemics spreading in urban areas.

Journal: Proceedings of the Royal Society A Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences

MIT researchers identified three cognitive skills we use to infer what someone really means

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Peer-Reviewed Publication

New research shows our pragmatic language abilities — which allow us to understand nonliteral expressions like sarcasm or metaphors — can be grouped together based on what types of inferences they require. MIT researchers identified three clusters of pragmatic skills based on understanding social conventions and rules, how the physical world works, and differences in tone.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Funder: Simons Center for the Social Brain at MIT, NIH/National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation

MSU study: How social media shapes tolerance and echo chambers

Michigan State University

A Michigan State University–led study looks at how social media can make echo chambers stronger or weaker by studying how rural students who leave for college, and their parents who stay home, use social media and form their attitudes.

Journal: Information Communication & Society

UC3M secures two prestigious ERC Consolidator Grants for research projects on space propulsion and intergenerational mobility

Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Grant and Award Announcement

The Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) has been awarded two prestigious Consolidator Grants from the European Research Council (ERC), one of the most competitive calls in the EU Framework Programme. The selected projects —ROCINANTE, focused on researching and developing disruptive space-propulsion technologies, and EXKIN, dedicated to studying social mobility and the persistence of inequality— will receive nearly €4 million in total funding over the next five years.

Funder: European Research Council

Study: Virtual reality tours make real difference in home sales

University of Texas at Dallas

Research sheds light on the contributions of nonimmersive VR, which does not require a user to wear a headset, and shows how the technology can be used in property sales, presentation and marketing pricier products.

Journal: Information Systems Research

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