News & Comment

Urban development combines the forces of dispersal and agglomeration, often facilitated by free market forces, and this results in different patterns and self-organised ways, with both positive and negative outputs. Globally, over 6 billion people will live in cities by 2050, and this would require at least an additional 1.2 million km² land to be built on. This huge expansion of the urban population and area requires construction at scale that avoids current urban problems such as urban heat island effects, carbon emissions, pollution, congestion, urban sprawl and excessive hard surfacing, while maintaining the physical and mental quality of life. Two basic approaches would be to let market forces freely shape our new urban areas or to impose a strong planning framework. This paper introduces a third way, Isobenefit urbanism that takes advantage of the two basic approaches to urban development. Isobenefit urbanism is a relatively recent urban development approach to shaping urban form, through an examination of centralities and localisation by a code whose implementation results in Isobenefit cities where one can walk to reach the closest centrality (where theatres, restaurant, schools, offices, promenades, shops…are located) and the closest access to green land regardless where one lives, and regardless the size of the city.

Citizen participation in water governance can improve the relevance, implementation, and effectiveness of public policies. However, participation can be expressed in a great diversity of forms, on a gradient ranging from mere public consultation to shared governance of natural resources. Positive outcomes ultimately depend on the conditions under which participation takes place, with key factors such as leadership, the degree of trust among stakeholders, and the interaction of public authorities with citizens. Social network analysis has been used to operationalize participatory processes, contributing to the identification of leaders, intersectoral integration, strategic planning, and conflict resolution. In this commentary, we analyze the potential and limitations of participation in water governance and illustrate it with the case of the Campina de Faro aquifer in southern Portugal. We propose that stakeholder network analysis is particularly useful for promoting decentralized decision-making and consensual water resources management. The delegation of power to different interest groups is a key process in the effectiveness of governance, which can be operationalized with network analysis techniques.

Behavioral researchers tend to study behavior in highly controlled laboratory settings to minimize the effects of potential confounders. Yet, while doing so, the artificial setup itself might unintentionally introduce noise or confounders, such as boredom. In this perspective, we draw upon theoretical and empirical evidence to make the case that (a) some experimental setups are likely to induce boredom in participants, (b) the degree of boredom induced might differ between individuals as a function of differences in trait boredom, (c) boredom can impair participants’ attention, can make study participation more effortful, and can increase the urge to do something else (i.e., to disengage from the study). Most importantly, we argue that some participants might adjust their behavior because they are bored. Considering boredom’s potential for adding noise to data, or for being an unwanted confound, we discuss a set of recommendations on how to control for and deal with the occurrence and effects of boredom in behavioral science research.

Should healthcare professionals use the term ‘patient’? A patient is a social construct, in a biomedical model, in which each actor has their role to play. This model has been criticised as belonging to an era of medical hegemony and (mis)represents an individual seeking healthcare as one who is simply a passive participant and recipient of care. The ‘Language Matters’ campaign, for people living with diabetes, has sought to address the role of language in interactions between healthcare providers. A key point raised in the campaign is whether someone who feels well, but has ongoing healthcare input, should be referred to as a patient? In this article, we address the concept of a patient and how its use can belie a particular mindset (or ‘discourse’) in which power is established in a relationship and can lead to individuals being defined by their condition. However, for some linguistic communities (such as nurses and doctors), a patient may be considered less as one over whom they have dominion, but rather someone for whom they have specific responsibilities and duty of care. Drawing upon the philosophical theories of language—that the meaning and inference of a word is dependent on its use—we argue that the context in which use of the term patient occurs is crucial. Without more fundamental cultural disruption of the biomedical model, word substitution, in itself, will not change perception.

Recent years have seen an increase in calls for ethnography as a method to study Artificial Intelligence (AI). Scholars from diverse backgrounds have been encouraged to move beyond quantitative methods and embrace qualitative methods, particularly ethnography. As anthropologists of data and AI, we appreciate the growing recognition of qualitative methods. However, we emphasize the importance of grounding ethnography in specific ways of engaging with one’s field site for this method to be valuable. Without this grounding, research outcomes on AI may become distorted. In this commentary, we highlight three key aspects of the ethnographic method that require special attention to conduct robust ethnographic studies of AI: committed fieldwork (even if the fieldwork period is short), trusting relationships between researchers and participants, and, importantly, attentiveness to subtle, ambiguous, or absent-present data. This last aspect is often overlooked but is crucial in ethnography. By sharing examples from our own and other researchers’ ethnographic fieldwork, we showcase the significance of conducting ethnography with careful attention to such data and shed light on the challenges one might encounter in AI research.

Parents’ beliefs and behavior act as both explicit and implicit ways of communicating the value of science and their confidence that their child can be successful in science-related classes. Using the NCES High School Longitudinal Survey (HSLS:09), we examined how parent beliefs and behaviors regarding their 9th grader’s science education predicted the students’ motivation in science. Using multiple regression indicates that the combination of parental education, beliefs, and involvement in science-related activities with their child are weak but significant predictors of students’ academic motivation in science (adjR² = 0.04, F(6, 14,933) = 26.32, P < 0.001). In particular, parent education and parent involvement have positive and significant effects on students’ science identity and science self-efficacy. These findings suggest that students may have a stronger academic motivation in science with parents who have higher levels of education, more confidence in their ability to help their child in science, and who engage in more science activities with their child.

It is widely documented that population growth is closely related to overall economic growth. Given the close link between the two, the global decline in fertility rates has led to an increasing number of governments implementing pro-natal policies aimed at encouraging childbearing. However, this article seeks to emphasise the significance of policy solutions that prioritise the needs, choices, and decisions of individuals. Rather than compelling people to have (or not have) children, it is imperative that the reproductive autonomy of individuals be respected and supported. In a global environment that demands continuous population growth, the spotlight should always remain on the people behind the fertility numbers. A shift in the pro-natal policy paradigm towards a rights-based approach is necessary to prioritise individuals’ family aspirations, break down institutional barriers, and promote equity in family formation.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been the scene of several epistemic battles at the science-society interface, creating deadlocks that have been hard to overcome. To cut through the paralysing elements of these discussions, we present an analysis of three epistemic battles, concerning empirical evidence, expertise, and model projections. Our analysis singles out a crucial factor that drives unhelpful disputes like these: the contested prioritisation of specific types of scientific knowledge, which are considered adequate for policy only if they meet predetermined standards. To move beyond these deadlocks, we introduce the conceptual tools of epistemic pluralism and contextualism, which give concrete indications in the three controversies we discuss and show us the way forward in debates on science-based policy.

Suicide, one of the top causes of life lost in developed countries, is a major health problem, especially today, with the dramatic increase in mental health difficulties that was triggered during the Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). Opportunely, the recent emergence of internet-based crowdsourcing platforms (e.g., Amazon’s Mechanical Turk) may accelerate research on suicide prevention, however, this type of suicide research online involves a difficult ethical challenge: how to keep participants’ safe without compromising their privacy. To address this ethical challenge, a consortium of experts from multiple research institutions was assembled. The consortium discussed the advantages and disadvantages for participants involved in crowdsourcing-based studies that address suicide risk. This discussion resulted in a consensual step-by-step protocol for researchers who wish to conduct suicide research online, using the crowdsourcing platforms. This article provides a detailed description of the protocol and outlines key ethical arguments that led to its formulation. Unresolved issues are discussed as well and other researchers are encouraged to implement the proposed protocol and suggest further improvements. It is our hope that the current protocol will facilitate the research on large and diverse populations online and thus contribute to the global efforts to reduce suicide rates around the world.

ChatGPT is a chatbot based on a large language model. Its application possibilities are extensive, and it is freely accessible to all people, including psychotherapists and individuals with mental illnesses. Some blog posts about the possible use of ChatGPT as a psychotherapist or as a supplement to psychotherapy already exist. Based on three detailed chats, the author analyzed the chatbot’s responses to psychotherapists seeking assistance, to patients looking for support between psychotherapy sessions, during their psychotherapists’ vacations, and to people suffering from mental illnesses who are not yet in psychotherapy. The results suggest that ChatGPT offers an interesting complement to psychotherapy and an easily accessible, good (and currently free) place to go for people with mental-health problems who have not yet sought professional help and have no psychotherapeutic experience. The information is, however, one-sided, and in any future regulation of AI it must also be made clear that the proposals are not only insufficient as a psychotherapy substitute, but also have a bias that favors certain methods while not even mentioning other approaches that may be more helpful for some people.

The recent debate about whether climate activists should employ disruptive tactics tends to conflate all forms of disruption. The debate typically focuses on the public’s reaction to protesters, yet the more important question is whether a given tactic imposes disruption on elite decision makers. Most external analysts, and many activists themselves, fail to specify what approaches are most disruptive of elite interests and which elite institutions the movement should target. They also often misinterpret the lessons of historical social movements. We reconsider one of those movements, the Birmingham civil rights campaign of 1963, in light of the current strategic debate. We argue that disruption is necessary, but that not all “disruptive” strategies are equally effective. In particular, we advocate a strategy that can impose sustained and escalating costs on the elite sectors that can force politicians to confront the climate emergency. Priority targets include financial institutions that fund and underwrite fossil fuels as well as corporations, universities, pension funds, and other institutions that consume and invest in fossil fuels.