A cardinal and age-old question of social science is how human behaviour and attitudes are shaped by the social environment and, vice versa, how the social environment emerges from human action. While the classical question of the interplay between individual and environment has been investigated since the origin of the social sciences, it has seen a remarkable resurgence in the last decades. Theoretical and methodological advances have allowed social scientists to revisit a number of longstanding questions. For example, how neighbourhoods or workplaces impact individuals’ social mobility, as well as their political attitudes and social behaviour. Other important contextual sources of human behaviour include spatial diffusion of cultural norms (e.g. fertility) or criminal behaviour (e.g. attacks against refugees), or media imagery (e.g. fake news) shaping people’s perceptions on contested issues.

This course introduces students to the study of context effects in a broad sense by reviewing and discussing contemporary theories and methods to study these phenomena. The course deals with a range of topics including both political attitudes on, e.g., immigration, welfare redistribution, and homosexuality, but also concrete behaviour such as fertility, collective violence, voting, or educational choices.