At Denmark's Institute of Basic Psychiatric Research is the Department of Psychiatric Demography. In addition to the rise of such professions as sports psychologists and motivational speakers, add pet psychologists. In sporting events, broadcasters explaining a dropped pass or a strikeout as the result of the athlete's loss of confidence, concentration, or psychological momentum. Perhaps the greatest demographic phenomenon the the past century has been the massive urbanization occurring throughout the world. Within these man-made environments new ways of thinking and acting have evolved.
Cities represent sizable populations, high densities, and considerable heterogeneity of residents.
They are also places, as Ferdinand T ennies observed in the 1880s, of weakened kinship ties, contractual relationships, extreme individualism, and where traditional bonds of shared sentiments and religious faith are replaced by monetary obsessions. Summarized below is the relationship between where one was raised and attitudes toward premarital sex both in raw percentages and when the data is standardized controlling for sex, age, religiosity, and education. Among the supposed hallmarks of the modern mind is the reliance on scientific ways of knowing whereby fiction can be separated from fact. Less than 50 percent of American adults understand that the Earth annually orbits the sun, only one in five could explain what DNA is, and but 9 percent knew what a molecule is. Let's examine the relationship between Americans' scientific knowledge and their confidence in the leadership of the scientific establishment.