What is Emerging Trends?

Robert A. Scott

A mountain of information is produced daily in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. How do we make sense of this? How can we extract the threads that run through this research that will allow us to understand where research on promising topics is going? Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences is designed to help readers organize work in these fields that spans different disciplines and different levels of analysis. It is designed to provide a venue where experts from a wide range of fields and areas of study can share their views about topics that they believe will play a prominent role in shaping agendas for theory and research in the coming decades.

HOW ESSAYS FOR THE INAUGURAL EDITION
OF EMERGING TRENDS WERE IDENTIFIED

In planning this work, the founding Co-General Editors, CASBS’s Associate Director Emeritus Robert Scott and then-Director Stephen Kosslyn, invited leading researchers to discuss their views about the current state of the social and behavioral sciences — and where they see their areas of expertise going in the future. The authors of these essays were asked to explain their topic in language accessible to educated non-specialists from different fields, to explain why it is worth knowing about, to summarize what is presently known about it, and, most importantly, to informatively speculate about promising questions and lines of research going forward. In many instances, several different essays on the same topic were invited, in order to provide material that approaches the subject matter from different levels of analysis and disciplinary perspectives, ranging from genetics, biology, the brain, and the individual at one end of the spectrum, to culture, social relations, core social institutions, and other elements of social and economic structures at the other. Wherever possible, our aim has been to include the perspectives of the core disciplines of political science, psychology, social psychology, and sociology, together with select entries in. anthropology, economics, education, policy studies, and communications and media studies.

OUR INTENDED AUDIENCES

Emerging Trends is a rich resource for already well-established researchers, post-docs, and graduate students at every level, advanced-level undergraduates, journalists, and others. Readers can gain up-to-date knowledge on specific topics, presented in a format that enables them to discover information easily, often from other disciplines — including information that they did not know existed, much less know how to find.

 

HOW EMERGING TRENDS WORKS

Emerging Trends is published entirely online. Each entry contains a summary of what is presently known about a topic and identifies promising areas for future research. Hyperlinks accompany each entry, directing readers to other relevant entries in Emerging Trends; these entries present different aspects and viewpoints on each topic and often rely on different levels of analysis. The result is a unique tool for learning about developments in our fields, an intelligent, interdisciplinary, multidimensional, user-friendly, “smart” system of cross-referencing applied to important topics of study.

WHAT EMERGING TRENDS IS NOT

Emerging Trends is not an encyclopedia in the sense of presenting entries on an all-inclusive list of topics currently under study in the relevant disciplines, nor is it a standard run-of-the-mill reference work summarizing the history of research on particular topics and what is presently known about them. Rather, essays in Emerging Trends are forward-looking, identifying the topics and key questions about them that are likely to shape agendas for research in the years ahead.

CURRENT ITERATIONS OF EMERGING TRENDS

The work was launched in 2015 with subsequent updates in 2016, 2017 and 2018. The inaugural version of the work was under the editorship of Scott and Kosslyn; the subsequent additions were under the editorship of Scott and Professor Marlis Buchmann of the University of Zurich. The initial version of Emerging Trends consisted of 375 essays on topics drawn from the core social and behavioral science disciplines of political science, psychology, social psychology and sociology, with select additional entries in anthropology and economics. Approximately one-third of these entries were authored by current or former CASBS fellows, and others by scholars who had been selected for a CASBS fellowship. CASBS therefore played a key role in the evolution of the work, and for this reason it deserves inclusion in its Tyler collection. The subsequent iterations added new entries and topics from these core disciplines as well as essays from other relevant disciplines, such as education, communications and media studies, geography, human biology, genetics, linguistics, and history. Thanks to Buchmann’s involvement, these annual updates brought to the work a welcome and distinctive international presence.

HOW INITIAL ENTRIES WERE IDENTIFIED AND ASSEMBLED

To compile initial lists of topics for the inaugural version of Emerging Trends, and to identify authors to write informatively about them, Scott and Kosslyn adopted several approaches. Initially we appointed a team of 24 Consulting Editors, leading figures in each of the five core social and behavioral sciences disciplines, all but three of whom were former CASBS Fellows. They were invited to provide us with lists of important topics that they believed should be considered for inclusion in the work, along with suggesting names of appropriate scholars to write about them. Approximately half of the now 465 essays in this volume came about by adopting this approach. For additional suggestions of topics, we wrote to a select list of other leading scholars, many of whom were past Fellows with whom Scott had long-standing and close association, inviting them to suggest topics they believed warranted inclusion in the work.  In many cases these past fellows were also invited to write entries.

Invited authors were asked to write at a level that would make their essays generally accessible to well-educated, non-specialist readers. In preparing essays, we asked authors to address our basic questions but at the same time we afforded them wide latitude to decide how best to present their ideas. We adopted this approach rather than a one-size-fits-all template for two reasons: We realized that no one template can easily accommodate the range and variety of subjects encompassed by the vast territory spanning large, well-established disciplines and fields of study. In addition, we appreciated the fact that the authors are experts in their topic, and we relied on their judgment about how best to present their ideas. Thus, instead of a single template, we asked each of them: What is your topic? Does it warrant further study? If so, what is presently known about it? What are the important cutting-edge questions that are likely to dominate future study?

HOW ESSAYS IN EMERGING TRENDS WERE REVIEWED AND EVALUATED

Given the nature of the assignment we gave the authors — to speculate on the direction of future research — the customary form of peer review, which is best suited for evaluating research findings, did not strike us as an appropriate way to assess essays written for Emerging Trends. Required instead were assessments of two kinds. The first was to read entries closely to ensure that they did in fact speak to the questions the authors were invited to think about. Did the author explain the topic clearly and explain why he or she thought it deserves continued study? Did they summarize what is presently known about it and outline future directions of research that seem especially promising? In his role as Co-General Editor, Scott triaged every essay that was submitted for the inaugural version of the work, occasionally soliciting further evaluation by external reviewers who had been told about the purpose of Emerging Trends. In the 2016 and 2017 additions to the work Buchmann and Scott shared this function. In most cases, this triaging process resulted in requests for revisions, some of them relatively minor and others more extensive.

Once vetted in this way, all drafts in the first iteration of the work then underwent a second round of evaluation. We have said that one of our objectives was to ensure that entries be written in an accessible style. For this purpose, Scott appointed an informal seven-member Editorial Review Panel. Members — all well educated, some with post-graduate degrees — were selected because of their broad but nontechnical familiarity with topics in the social and behavioral sciences, persons whom we judged to be representative of our anticipated audiences of end readers. They were asked to read essays and tell us whether they were able to understand the basic arguments being presented. On the basis of these readers’ reports, authors were asked to make additional revisions to clarify obscure or overly technical sections of their papers, correct for a common tendency to focus heavily on past developments and current findings at the expense of the more challenging task of discussing cutting-edge work, and writing speculatively about promising future directions. Finally, once past these two stages of review, essays were passed along to the publisher for final copyediting.

The only exceptions to this review process were a few essays on research methods and statistics. In these cases, a certain amount of technical language and statistical terminology is inevitable. Our assumption is that the readers of such entries will be sufficiently literate in methods and statistics to be able to follow the technical terminology and formulas in the essay. For those who cannot, reading the abstracts, introductions, and conclusions should be sufficient to allow the reader to understand in a general way what the topic of the technical entry is about.

HYPERLINKS

A basic objective of Emerging Trends is to make it “smart,” a reference work that helps promote interdisciplinary and multi-layered perspectives on key topics by directing the reader’s attention to aspects of their topic that readers might never have heard of or thought about, much less know how to find. To do this, we created hyperlinks that connect each essay with others in the work that focus on other facets of the topic, often by authors from different fields of study and disciplines. Readers were urged to explore these hyperlinks so as to expand their own thinking about topics that interest them.

As an example of how hyperlinks work and why they are so valuable, consider the topic of globalization. Emerging Trends contains many essays about globalization written by anthropologists, economists, political scientists, psychologists, and sociologists. These essays cover topics such as culture and globalization, global economic networks, globalization “backlash,” immigration and globalization, globalization of capital, international conflict, globalization and terrorism, and how people think about and visualize globalization. These are all cross-referenced in hyperlinks attached to each of these essays.

However, one of the most relevant and interesting essays we have listed as a hyperlink to those on globalization might otherwise escape the attention of readers, simply because it scarcely uses the term “Globalization” at all. Titled “Organizations and the Production of Systemic Risk” it is authored by Yale sociologist Charles Perrow. By “systemic risk” Perrow means human-made and natural disasters within an organization or system of governance that impacts other organizations and units with which it interacts. His entry is filled with examples that highlight the fact that increasing global interdependencies mean that risks and dangers arising in one sector affect entire global regions in ways that are often totally unexpected. Some of these risks arise from the hazardous chemicals, explosives and radioactive materials that can potentially endanger whole nations and continents. Other risks result from drugs and foods that are improperly prepared or are distributed without thought given to the dangers they pose for users living elsewhere in the world. Still other dangers are due to the interconnectedness of world financial markets. Perrow’s point is that the modern world is full of complicated interdependencies, which magnify the impact of risky organizational behavior.

Perrow further stresses that many these interconnections cannot easily be foreseen. By way of example, he describes the role that China’s internal domestic policies played in the 2008 economic meltdown that hit the United States with such force. China does not have a strong social security program because historically, responsibility for looking after elderly parents fell to their children. But with the introduction of the one-child policy in 1979, this arrangement was no longer feasible. Families now had to save more, and they deposited their money in state-run banks. Given the immense size of its population, Chinese banks gradually accumulated enormous wealth, investing unprecedented amounts in foreign markets, especially the US. Capital became cheap for US mortgage banks and companies, which were able to lend freely to private citizens to purchase homes. But the behavior of the banks became increasingly risky through vehicles such as credit default swaps, and eventually a few such firms were doomed to fail. Because of the interconnectedness of the ever-larger and fewer-surviving financial institutions, the failures spread widely, affecting not just banks but also insurance firms and the bond market and eventually other nations. The housing bubble burst and the meltdown began —an indirect but completely unforeseen consequence of the Chinese population policy.

Perrow’s essay describes a perfect example of globalization, but if you did an online search for scholarly articles on “globalization” it would not appear. In Emerging Trends, however, it is hyperlinked to other articles about globalization, and you would find it.

Hyperlinks for individual entries are provided at the end of each essay in a section labeled “Related Essays”. Sometimes many hyperlinks are provided, underscoring the relevance of the topic for other topics discussed elsewhere in the book. Our process could not capture every relevant connection, but we did note enough of them to have the effect of greatly expanding the reader’s understanding of the topic in a manner that is genuinely interdisciplinary.

VIEWING TOPICS IN A BROADER CONTEXT

While scholarly work in our traditional disciplines is always emerging, so too are developments in the world at large that have an impact on the very phenomena we study. For example, the emerging technology of 3-D printing is beginning to transform major sectors of the worlds of manufacture and of work, as is the use of Artificial Intelligence. Developments in the field of electronic communications have already had major implications for education, for child rearing, and for how people relate to one another. Increasing life expectancy impacts financial, medical, and other sectors of society, expanding the scope of topics regarding the life course and intergenerational relationships. Continued terrorist activities and political violence have profound implications for systems of national security, for the ability of currently stable governments to govern, and for the preservation of basic human rights.

Perhaps most impactful developments of all are climate change and global warming. These include flooding due to rising sea levels, widespread drought in heretofore temperate and fertile agricultural regions, wildfires, dramatic weather events, rising temperatures, the extinction of plant and animal species essential for supporting human life, and a multitude of other similarly calamitous events projected to occur due to global climate change.

These anticipated consequences of climate change have enormous implications for the ways that we think about future research on many of the topics written about in Emerging Trends. Even a short list of obvious topics would include food supply, health and health care, migration, immigration, disaster relief, conflict between states, maintenance of civic order, preserving human rights, income inequality, disruptions to energy markets, “wealth shocks,” fiscal crises at every level of government, levels of violence and civil unrest, displacement of populations due to fires, declining air quality, disappearing sources of potable water, and a diminished quality of life for large segments of the population. Several recent reports estimate that within a matter of a few decades, more and more places throughout the world will become uninhabitable and others will be challenging to live in during large parts of the year – including the American South, where outdoor labor during daylight hours will no longer be feasible.

In this introduction, we cannot hope to provide a full discussion of all the implications of emerging developments in the wider world for the topics discussed in this work. However, we invite readers to be mindful of them and to think seriously about how newly emerging technologies, patterns of climate change, advances in medical science, and developments in other areas are likely to impact the topics that will structure future research in the social and behavioral sciences.

CURRENT STATUS OF EMERGING TRENDS

The inaugural and subsequent versions of Emerging Trends were issued as online works by John Wiley and Sons. Since the original version of the work was launched, the publishing world has undergone massive changes, greatly exacerbated by the pandemic. These developments impacted Wiley’s ability to give the work the resources, care, and attention we felt it required to realize its basic objectives. Therefore, Scott applied to Wiley for a full reversion of all rights to the work, which was executed in early 2021. In subsequent conversations with other publishers, it became clear that the changing market conditions for reference works and encyclopedias that Wiley was experiencing were felt by other publishers as well. For this reason, Scott approached CASBS, which had played such a pivotal role in the inception and subsequent development of Emerging Trends, with a request that the Center add it to their Tyler collection and host it on their website. Scott and CASBS agreed that it would be offered entirely free to any interested user, and that authors of all entries would have the right to use their entries in any ways they wish.

The original design for the work called for regular additions to it as new topics emerge, and for revision and updates of existing entries. This possibility continues to exist, but only if others now take up the reins of leadership of the project. Meanwhile, it remains a unique resource open and free to any and all users interested in learning about promising directions for research in a wide range of fields.

 

Acknowledgments

I wish to acknowledge several people who played especially important roles in helping to compile this work. Nancy Pinkerton served as Managing Editor to compile and organize the inaugural 375 articles, and she undertook this huge assignment with her characteristic thoroughness and diligence.

I also benefitted greatly from the sage advice of Donald Lamm, former President of W.W. Norton Publishing, who guided me through the challenging process of securing the reversion of rights to Emerging Trends from Wiley, making the present arrangement for the work possible.

I am grateful to the former Center Director Margaret Levi for her role in making Emerging Trends freely available to everyone by offering to mount it on the CASBS website. Center librarian Jason Gonzales advised me at every step of the way about how best to improve the formatting and presentation of the existing version of the work to make it more user friendly, and Bruce Young, the Center’s Information Technology Manager undertook with dispatch the arduous task of converting and reformatting the work in its entirety to make it fully accord with our original vision for Emerging Trends. And my thanks, too, to Communications Director Mike Gaetani for promoting it widely to potential users.

Finally, I wish to thank my wife Julia Fremon, who assumed the duties of Managing Editor for later versions of the work, bringing great energy, vision and organization to the project. Without her involvement, this edition of Emerging Trends would most likely not have seen the light of day.