Religion, moral attitudes and economic behavior. Isadora Kirchmaier, Jens Prüfer, Stefan T. Trautmann. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Volume 148, April 2018, Pages 282–300, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2018.02.022
Highlights
• Religious people are less accepting of unethical behavior and report more volunteering.
• Religious people are no more trustworthy in a trust game with an unknown person.
• Religious people have lower preference for redistribution.
• Parental religion correlates with their children's moral attitudes.
Abstract: Using data for a representative sample of the Dutch population with information about participants’ religious background, we study the association between religion and moral behavior and attitudes. We find that religious people are less accepting of unethical economic behavior (e.g., tax evasion, bribery) and report more volunteering. They are equally likely as non-religious people to betray trust in an experimental game, where social behavior is unobservable and not directed to a self-selected group of recipients. Religious people also report lower preference for redistribution. Considering differences between denominations, Catholics betray less than non-religious people, while Protestants betray more than Catholics and are indistinguishable from the non-religious. We also explore the intergenerational transmission and the potential causality of these associations.
Keywords: Religion; Ethics; Redistribution; Trust game
Monday, March 12, 2018
Reluctance to Benefit from Others’ Misfortune: Feeling that benefitting from it increases the likelihood that such harm will actually occur
Lelieveld, Gert-Jan, Yoel Inbar, and Erik van Dijk 2018. “Explaining Reluctance to Benefit from Others’ Misfortune”. PsyArXiv. March 12. psyarxiv.com/twmnp
Abstract: The current article investigates decisions where people are not causing harm to others, but only benefit from the harm. Specifically, we assessed people's willingness to benefit from other's chance-caused misfortunes. In five studies, examining real behavior of individuals in a television game show (Study 1) and using experimental betting tasks (Studies 2-5), we show that people are reluctant to benefit from the misfortunes of others. While in all studies participants' decisions were objectively unrelated to the likelihood of misfortune befalling others, subsequent analyses indicate that people erroneously feel that benefitting from others' misfortune increases the likelihood that such harm will actually occur. The results are discussed in relation to the literature on moral decision making and magical thinking.
Abstract: The current article investigates decisions where people are not causing harm to others, but only benefit from the harm. Specifically, we assessed people's willingness to benefit from other's chance-caused misfortunes. In five studies, examining real behavior of individuals in a television game show (Study 1) and using experimental betting tasks (Studies 2-5), we show that people are reluctant to benefit from the misfortunes of others. While in all studies participants' decisions were objectively unrelated to the likelihood of misfortune befalling others, subsequent analyses indicate that people erroneously feel that benefitting from others' misfortune increases the likelihood that such harm will actually occur. The results are discussed in relation to the literature on moral decision making and magical thinking.
Facial displays are not fixed, semantic read-outs of internal states such as emotions or intentions, but flexible tools for social influence. Facial displays are not about us, but about changing the behavior of those around us
Facial Displays Are Tools for Social Influence. Carlos Crivelli, Alan J. Fridlund. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2018.02.006
Highlights
. Like non-human animal signals, human facial displays are an important way that we regulate our social interactions, whether they are in public or in private, and whether our ‘interactants’ are real or fantasied people, non-human animals, virtual agents, or even inanimate objects toward which we attribute agency.
. Facial displays are not fixed, semantic read-outs of internal states such as emotions or intentions, but flexible tools for social influence. Facial displays are not about us, but about changing the behavior of those around us.
. The behavioral ecology view of facial displays (BECV) is an externalist and functionalist approach to facial behavior that reconceives it as signaling contingent social action.
Abstract: Based on modern theories of signal evolution and animal communication, the behavioral ecology view of facial displays (BECV) reconceives our ‘facial expressions of emotion’ as social tools that serve as lead signs to contingent action in social negotiation. BECV offers an externalist, functionalist view of facial displays that is not bound to Western conceptions about either expressions or emotions. It easily accommodates recent findings of diversity in facial displays, their public context-dependency, and the curious but common occurrence of solitary facial behavior. Finally, BECV restores continuity of human facial behavior research with modern functional accounts of non-human communication, and provides a non-mentalistic account of facial displays well-suited to new developments in artificial intelligence and social robotics.
Keywords: behavioral ecology; facial displays; social influence; diversity; emotion; evolution
Highlights
. Like non-human animal signals, human facial displays are an important way that we regulate our social interactions, whether they are in public or in private, and whether our ‘interactants’ are real or fantasied people, non-human animals, virtual agents, or even inanimate objects toward which we attribute agency.
. Facial displays are not fixed, semantic read-outs of internal states such as emotions or intentions, but flexible tools for social influence. Facial displays are not about us, but about changing the behavior of those around us.
. The behavioral ecology view of facial displays (BECV) is an externalist and functionalist approach to facial behavior that reconceives it as signaling contingent social action.
Abstract: Based on modern theories of signal evolution and animal communication, the behavioral ecology view of facial displays (BECV) reconceives our ‘facial expressions of emotion’ as social tools that serve as lead signs to contingent action in social negotiation. BECV offers an externalist, functionalist view of facial displays that is not bound to Western conceptions about either expressions or emotions. It easily accommodates recent findings of diversity in facial displays, their public context-dependency, and the curious but common occurrence of solitary facial behavior. Finally, BECV restores continuity of human facial behavior research with modern functional accounts of non-human communication, and provides a non-mentalistic account of facial displays well-suited to new developments in artificial intelligence and social robotics.
Keywords: behavioral ecology; facial displays; social influence; diversity; emotion; evolution
No Evidence for Desensitization in Empathy for Pain after a Violent Video Game Intervention in a Longitudinal fMRI Study on Non-Gamers
The Myth of Blunted Gamers: No Evidence for Desensitization in Empathy for Pain after a Violent Video Game Intervention in a Longitudinal fMRI Study on Non-Gamers. S Kuhn et al. Neurosignals 2018;26:22–30, https://doi.org/10.1159/000487217
Abstract
Background/Aims: It is a common concern in the research field and the community that habitual violent video gaming reduces empathy for pain in its players. However, previous fMRI studies have only compared habitual game players against control participants cross-sectionally. However the observed pattern of results may be due to a priori differences in people who become gamers and who not. In order to derive the causal conclusion that violent video game play causes desensitisation, longitudinal studies are needed.
Methods: Therefore we conducted a longitudinal fMRI intervention study over 16 weeks. Participants were randomly assigned to 1) play a violent video game (Grand Theft Auto 5), 2) perform a social life simulation game (The Sims 3) 30 min/day for 8 weeks, 3) serve as passive control. To assess empathy processing, participants were exposed to painful and non-painful stimuli (e.g. someone cutting a cucumber with or without hurting herself) either as real photographs or video-game like depictions in a 3T MRI scanner before and after the training intervention as well as two months after training.
Results: We did not find any evidence for desensitization in the empathy network for pain in the violent video game group at any time point.
Conclusions: The present results provide strong evidence against the frequently proclaimed negative effects of playing violent video games and will therefore help to communicate a more realistic scientific perspective of the effects of violent video gaming in real life.
Keywords: Violent video games; Aggression; Empathy; fMRI; Training study.
Abstract
Background/Aims: It is a common concern in the research field and the community that habitual violent video gaming reduces empathy for pain in its players. However, previous fMRI studies have only compared habitual game players against control participants cross-sectionally. However the observed pattern of results may be due to a priori differences in people who become gamers and who not. In order to derive the causal conclusion that violent video game play causes desensitisation, longitudinal studies are needed.
Methods: Therefore we conducted a longitudinal fMRI intervention study over 16 weeks. Participants were randomly assigned to 1) play a violent video game (Grand Theft Auto 5), 2) perform a social life simulation game (The Sims 3) 30 min/day for 8 weeks, 3) serve as passive control. To assess empathy processing, participants were exposed to painful and non-painful stimuli (e.g. someone cutting a cucumber with or without hurting herself) either as real photographs or video-game like depictions in a 3T MRI scanner before and after the training intervention as well as two months after training.
Results: We did not find any evidence for desensitization in the empathy network for pain in the violent video game group at any time point.
Conclusions: The present results provide strong evidence against the frequently proclaimed negative effects of playing violent video games and will therefore help to communicate a more realistic scientific perspective of the effects of violent video gaming in real life.
Keywords: Violent video games; Aggression; Empathy; fMRI; Training study.
Cosa Nostra and the Camorra: Assessment of personality, alexithymic traits, and attachment styles
Cosa Nostra and the Camorra: Assessment of personality, alexithymic traits, and attachment styles. Giuseppe Craparo et al. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, Volume 58, May–June 2018, Pages 17–26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlp.2018.02.010
Abstract: The Mafia (Cosa Nostra) and the Camorra are criminal organizations deeply rooted in an immoral familyism in which group interests are protected to the detriment of the individual. The aim of this study was to investigate the presence of personality disorders, alexithymic traits and specific attachment styles in a sample of members belonging to these two different organized crime groups. We carried out two studies adopting two different perspectives. In the first study, we recruited 20 participants (10 members of Cosa Nostra and 10 members of the Camorra) who were serving time in the Augusta (Sicily) prison for crimes they had committed as members of the two Mafia-type organizations. The age of the Cosa Nostra members ranged from 28 to 62 years (M = 47.40, SD = 10.25); the age of the Camorra members ranged from 45 to 68 (M = 55.30, SD = 7.06). We tested personality profiles, attachment styles, alexithymia, and psychopathy and compared the results between the two groups. In this study while we did not find significant differences between the two groups, we were able to identify some discrepancies in a few of the variables analysed. In the second study, we used the Structured Interview of Personality Organization (STIPO) to analyse the personality organization of 10 of 20 participants (5 members of Cosa Nostra and 5 members of Camorra). Analysing the results at the STIPO we found a significant presence of borderline personality organization in both groups. As regards attachment style, we found that Camorra-members' scores high (75°) on the Discomfort with Closeness (related to Avoidant Attachment Style) and Relationship as Secondary factors of the Attachment Style Questionnaire. The Data collected in our study were not sufficient to identify a specific personality disorder or a specific serious psychological condition in the two groups of participants. Nonetheless, thanks to use of the STIPO we were able to determine that in the sample analysed there was not one subject with a psychotic personality organization; we did however find the presence of borderline personality organization and neurotic personality organization in some of the subjects.
Abstract: The Mafia (Cosa Nostra) and the Camorra are criminal organizations deeply rooted in an immoral familyism in which group interests are protected to the detriment of the individual. The aim of this study was to investigate the presence of personality disorders, alexithymic traits and specific attachment styles in a sample of members belonging to these two different organized crime groups. We carried out two studies adopting two different perspectives. In the first study, we recruited 20 participants (10 members of Cosa Nostra and 10 members of the Camorra) who were serving time in the Augusta (Sicily) prison for crimes they had committed as members of the two Mafia-type organizations. The age of the Cosa Nostra members ranged from 28 to 62 years (M = 47.40, SD = 10.25); the age of the Camorra members ranged from 45 to 68 (M = 55.30, SD = 7.06). We tested personality profiles, attachment styles, alexithymia, and psychopathy and compared the results between the two groups. In this study while we did not find significant differences between the two groups, we were able to identify some discrepancies in a few of the variables analysed. In the second study, we used the Structured Interview of Personality Organization (STIPO) to analyse the personality organization of 10 of 20 participants (5 members of Cosa Nostra and 5 members of Camorra). Analysing the results at the STIPO we found a significant presence of borderline personality organization in both groups. As regards attachment style, we found that Camorra-members' scores high (75°) on the Discomfort with Closeness (related to Avoidant Attachment Style) and Relationship as Secondary factors of the Attachment Style Questionnaire. The Data collected in our study were not sufficient to identify a specific personality disorder or a specific serious psychological condition in the two groups of participants. Nonetheless, thanks to use of the STIPO we were able to determine that in the sample analysed there was not one subject with a psychotic personality organization; we did however find the presence of borderline personality organization and neurotic personality organization in some of the subjects.
Have wars and violence declined? It seems not.
Have wars and violence declined? Michael Mann. Theory and Society, February 2018, Volume 47, Issue 1, pp 37–60. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11186-018-9305-y
Abstract: For over 150 years liberal optimism has dominated theories of war and violence. It has been repeatedly argued that war and violence either are declining or will shortly decline. There have been exceptions, especially in Germany and more generally in the first half of the twentieth century, but there has been a recent revival of such optimism, especially in the work of Azar Gat, John Mueller, Joshua Goldstein, and Steven Pinker who all perceive a long-term decline in war and violence through history, speeding up in the post-1945 period. Critiquing Pinker’s statistics on war fatalities, I show that the overall pattern is not a decline in war, but substantial variation between periods and places. War has not declined and current trends are slightly in the opposite direction. The conventional view is that civil wars in the global South have largely replaced inter-state wars in the North, but this is misleading since there is major involvement in most civil wars by outside powers, including those of the North. There is more support for their view that homicide has declined in the long-term, at least in the North of the world (with the United States lagging somewhat). This is reinforced by technological improvements in long-distance weaponry and the two transformations have shifted war, especially in the North, from being “ferocious” to “callous” in character. This renders war less visible and less central to Northern culture, which has the deceptive appearance of being rather pacific. Viewed from the South the view has been bleaker both in the colonial period and today. Globally war and violence are not declining, but they are being transformed.
Abstract: For over 150 years liberal optimism has dominated theories of war and violence. It has been repeatedly argued that war and violence either are declining or will shortly decline. There have been exceptions, especially in Germany and more generally in the first half of the twentieth century, but there has been a recent revival of such optimism, especially in the work of Azar Gat, John Mueller, Joshua Goldstein, and Steven Pinker who all perceive a long-term decline in war and violence through history, speeding up in the post-1945 period. Critiquing Pinker’s statistics on war fatalities, I show that the overall pattern is not a decline in war, but substantial variation between periods and places. War has not declined and current trends are slightly in the opposite direction. The conventional view is that civil wars in the global South have largely replaced inter-state wars in the North, but this is misleading since there is major involvement in most civil wars by outside powers, including those of the North. There is more support for their view that homicide has declined in the long-term, at least in the North of the world (with the United States lagging somewhat). This is reinforced by technological improvements in long-distance weaponry and the two transformations have shifted war, especially in the North, from being “ferocious” to “callous” in character. This renders war less visible and less central to Northern culture, which has the deceptive appearance of being rather pacific. Viewed from the South the view has been bleaker both in the colonial period and today. Globally war and violence are not declining, but they are being transformed.
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