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- Grossmann, Igor, et al.
(författare)
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Insights into the accuracy of social scientists' forecasts of societal change
- 2023
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Ingår i: Nature Human Behaviour. - : Springer Nature. - 2397-3374. ; 7, s. 484-501
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- How well can social scientists predict societal change, and what processes underlie their predictions? To answer these questions, we ran two forecasting tournaments testing the accuracy of predictions of societal change in domains commonly studied in the social sciences: ideological preferences, political polarization, life satisfaction, sentiment on social media, and gender-career and racial bias. After we provided them with historical trend data on the relevant domain, social scientists submitted pre-registered monthly forecasts for a year (Tournament 1; N = 86 teams and 359 forecasts), with an opportunity to update forecasts on the basis of new data six months later (Tournament 2; N = 120 teams and 546 forecasts). Benchmarking forecasting accuracy revealed that social scientists' forecasts were on average no more accurate than those of simple statistical models (historical means, random walks or linear regressions) or the aggregate forecasts of a sample from the general public (N = 802). However, scientists were more accurate if they had scientific expertise in a prediction domain, were interdisciplinary, used simpler models and based predictions on prior data. How accurate are social scientists in predicting societal change, and what processes underlie their predictions? Grossmann et al. report the findings of two forecasting tournaments. Social scientists' forecasts were on average no more accurate than those of simple statistical models.
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| 2. |
- Vieira, Joana B., et al.
(författare)
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Acute anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with higher levels of everyday altruism
- 2022
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2045-2322. ; 12
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Prior laboratory research has suggested that humans may become more prosocial in stressful or threatening situations, but it is unknown whether the link between prosociality and defense generalizes to real-life. Here, we examined the association between defensive responses to a real-world threat (the COVID-19 pandemic) and everyday altruism. Four independent samples of 150 (N = 600) US residents were recruited online at 4 different timepoints, and self-report measures of perceived COVID-19 threat, defensive emotions (e.g., stress and anxiety), and everyday altruism were collected. Our operationalization of defensive emotions was inspired by the threat imminence framework, an ecological model of how humans and animals respond to varying levels of threat. We found that perceived COVID-19 threat was associated with higher levels of everyday altruism (assessed by the Self-report Altruism scale). Importantly, there was a robust association between experiencing acute anxiety and high physiological arousal during the pandemic (responses typically characteristic of higher perceived threat imminence), and propensity to engage in everyday altruism. Non-significant or negative associations were found with less acute defensive responses like stress. These findings support a real-life relation between defensive and altruistic motivation in humans, which may be modulated by perceived threat imminence.
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