Is Your Chatbot a Tourist or a Townie? Quantifying Geographic and Localness Disparities in LLM Representations of Place

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Proceedings of the ACM Human-Computer Interaction (2026) Authors: Zihan Gao and Jacob Thebault-Spieker Abstract: People are increasingly using Large Language Models (LLMs) for a sense of “localness,” yet their ability to accurately and equitably represent local knowledge remains unexamined. To investigate this, we conducted a large-scale evaluation using a benchmark of over 12,000 question-answer pairs spanning …

Eating Profiles and Health Among African Americans with Serious Mental Illness Who are Overweight

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Journal of Health Psychology (2026) Authors: Sang Qin, Lindsay Sheehan, Rachel Parson, Yen Chun Tseng, Sai Snigdha Talluri Abstract: African Americans (AAs) who have serious mental illness (SMI) and are overweight face elevated risk for emotional eating, yet the psychosocial predictors of this behavior remain understudied. We analyzed data from 212 AAs with SMI who …

When Policy Shapes Perception: The 2021 Child Tax Credit and Consumer Sentiment

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National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 35059 (2026) Authors: Jacob Bastian and Melody Harvey Abstract: Consumer sentiment influences household behavior in important ways, yet we lack causal evidence on whether government policies themselves shape these perceptions. We help fill this gap by studying the expiration of the expanded 2021 Child Tax Credit (CTC), which …

Developing the HeART: Tracking Racial Heterogeneity in Fiction Reading Habits

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Reading Research Quarterly (2026) Authors: Maya Rabinowitz, Abla Alaoui Soce, Nick Buttrick, Diana I. Tamir Abstract: Tracing the stories people have read may help us understand their beliefs and social attitudes. In this study, we develop and validate a scale to measure racial diversity in people’s fiction reading: the Heterogeneous Author Recognition Test (HeART). To …

Study Finds School-Based Class Discrimination Linked to Lower Grades

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There’s a large body of research that links social class to academic outcomes like GPA. However, we know relatively little about how discrimination related to social class impacts students’ success. A new study in the Journal of Adolescence by IDS affiliate Christy Starr, IDS graduate fellow Anna Veenendall, and Zena Mello helps us to better …

Byars-Winston named to Wisconsin Academy

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IDS Chair Angela Byars-Winston was among 16 Fellows inducted to the Wisconsin Academy on March 23rd. The Academy honors Wisconsinites who have demonstrated a lifelong commitment to intellectual discourse and public service. The 2026 Class of Fellows will join over 100 current Fellows from around the state. In addition to Dr. Byars-Winston, New Fellows include …

Stress Around Interracial Interactions May Be a Missing Link in Health Disparities Among Black Americans

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Black Americans face disproportionately high rates of chronic illness and mental health challenges compared to White Americans. A new study by Institute for Diversity Science (IDS) affiliate Morgan Jerald and colleague Milena Berestko suggests that stress surrounding interracial interactions may play a previously overlooked role in health disparities. Jerald and Berestko, with support from an …

IDS at the annual conference of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology

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IDS affiliates and graduate fellows from across multiple UW–Madison departments attended and presented at the annual conference of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology held February 26-28 in Chicago. The Society is the world’s largest organization of social and personality psychologists and includes researchers and practitioners from many academic disciplines. See a complete list …

Producing Meaningful Analyses of Racial Representations

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Reading Media (NYU Press, Eds. Ann Blair, Paul Duguid, Anja-Silvia Goeing, and Anthony Grafton, 2026) Author: Lori Kido Lopez Abstract/Introduction: In this chapter, Lopez discusses the challenges facing textual analysts to come up with novel insights, especially in relation to the subject of racial representation. Lopez suggests ways we can move beyond the reproduction or subversion of existing stereotypes, …

Housing and Consumption: Existing Tensions and Future Directions in Understanding Housing Search and Selection

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Research Handbook on the Sociology of Consumption (ed. Jennifer Smith Maguire) (2026) Author: Max Besbris