Stachl, Clemens, Quay Au, Ramona Schoedel, Daniel Buschek, Sarah Völkel, Tobias Schuwerk, Michelle Oldemeier, et al. 2019. “Behavioral Patterns in Smartphone Usage Predict Big Five Personality Traits.” PsyArXiv. June 12. doi:10.31234/osf.io/ks4vd
Abstract: The understanding, quantification and evaluation of individual differences in behavior, feelings and thoughts have always been central topics in psychological science. An enormous amount of previous work on individual differences in behavior is exclusively based on data from self-report questionnaires. To date, little is known about how individuals actually differ in their objectively quantifiable behaviors and how differences in these behaviors relate to big five personality traits. Technological advances in mobile computer and sensing technology have now created the possiblity to automatically record large amounts of data about humans' natural behavior. The collection and analysis of these records makes it possible to analyze and quantify behavioral differences at unprecedented scale and efficiency. In this study, we analyzed behavioral data obtained from 743 participants in 30 consecutive days of smartphone sensing (25,347,089 logging-events). We computed variables (15,692) about individual behavior from five semantic categories (communication & social behavior, music listening behavior, app usage behavior, mobility, and general day- & nighttime activity). Using a machine learning approach (random forest, elastic net), we show how these variables can be used to predict self-assessments of the big five personality traits at the factor and facet level. Our results reveal distinct behavioral patterns that proved to be differentially-predictive of big five personality traits. Overall, this paper shows how a combination of rich behavioral data obtained with smartphone sensing and the use of machine learning techniques can help to advance personality research and can inform both practitioners and researchers about the different behavioral patterns of personality.
Wednesday, June 12, 2019
Evidence that a specialized bluff detection mechanism exists, which is dissociable from cheater-detection and is only triggered by conditional costs deriving from a social agent
Do humans have cognitive adaptations for reasoning about threat? Evidence from the Wason selection task. Aaron Daniel Lenihan. Human Behavior and Evolution Society 31st annual meeting. Boston 2019. http://tiny.cc/aa1w6y
Abstract: Rational choice theory says people think about and respond to future costs and benefits using a single optimization algorithm. However, cost-benefit optimization is illsuited for situations where future costs and benefits are the conditional promises of other social agents. In these situations, one must not only weigh the promised costs and benefits, but also assess their sincerity. This task poses unique computational problems, requiring unique cognitive solutions. Interestingly, the problems and solutions are different depending on whether the conditional promise is a benefit (social exchange) or a cost (threat). Heeding conditionally promised benefits makes one vulnerable to cheating. This problem is solved by cognitive adaptations that detect cheaters. Heeding conditionally promised costs makes one vulnerable to bluffs. This problem should have selected for cognitive adaptations to detect bluffs. To test for the existence of a hypothesized bluff detection mechanism, I conducted an experiment using the Wason selection task to compare people’s ability to infer conditional rule violations for rules framed as threats with rules framed as social exchanges and natural hazards. Experimental results provide evidence that a specialized bluff detection mechanism exists, which is dissociable from cheater-detection and is only triggered by conditional costs deriving from a social agent.
Abstract: Rational choice theory says people think about and respond to future costs and benefits using a single optimization algorithm. However, cost-benefit optimization is illsuited for situations where future costs and benefits are the conditional promises of other social agents. In these situations, one must not only weigh the promised costs and benefits, but also assess their sincerity. This task poses unique computational problems, requiring unique cognitive solutions. Interestingly, the problems and solutions are different depending on whether the conditional promise is a benefit (social exchange) or a cost (threat). Heeding conditionally promised benefits makes one vulnerable to cheating. This problem is solved by cognitive adaptations that detect cheaters. Heeding conditionally promised costs makes one vulnerable to bluffs. This problem should have selected for cognitive adaptations to detect bluffs. To test for the existence of a hypothesized bluff detection mechanism, I conducted an experiment using the Wason selection task to compare people’s ability to infer conditional rule violations for rules framed as threats with rules framed as social exchanges and natural hazards. Experimental results provide evidence that a specialized bluff detection mechanism exists, which is dissociable from cheater-detection and is only triggered by conditional costs deriving from a social agent.
Lonely hearts and angry minds: Online dating rejection increases male (but not female) hostility
Lonely hearts and angry minds: Online dating rejection increases male (but not female) hostility. Luca Andrighetto, Paolo Riva, Alessandro Gabbiadini. Aggressive Behavior, June 11 2019. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.21852
Abstract: The present work explores the hostile tendencies elicited by romantic rejection in the increasingly common context of online dating. To empirically investigate this issue, we created an ad hoc online dating platform in which fictitious online dating partners romantically rejected heterosexual male and female participants. Results revealed that male—but not female—participants who were rejected by desired dating partners displayed increased hostility. This pattern of findings was consistent across different measures, which considered both aggressive tendencies against the rejecting partners and hostile attitudes against the opposite gender. Further, increased feelings of anger explained the relationship between online romantic rejection and increased male hostility.
Our work and its findings have both theoretical and methodological implications for the understanding of interpersonal processes in online interactions and the growing body of literature on online dating.
Abstract: The present work explores the hostile tendencies elicited by romantic rejection in the increasingly common context of online dating. To empirically investigate this issue, we created an ad hoc online dating platform in which fictitious online dating partners romantically rejected heterosexual male and female participants. Results revealed that male—but not female—participants who were rejected by desired dating partners displayed increased hostility. This pattern of findings was consistent across different measures, which considered both aggressive tendencies against the rejecting partners and hostile attitudes against the opposite gender. Further, increased feelings of anger explained the relationship between online romantic rejection and increased male hostility.
Our work and its findings have both theoretical and methodological implications for the understanding of interpersonal processes in online interactions and the growing body of literature on online dating.
Many animal species demonstrate a capacity for basic prospection of immediate outcomes; humans can deliberately shape their environment & future capacities; prospection is resource intensive, error prone & entails costs to wellbeing
Prospection and natural selection. T Suddendorf, A Bulley, B Miloyan. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, Volume 24, December 2018, Pages 26-31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2018.01.019
Highlights
• Prospection, or thinking about the future, has strong adaptive significance.
• Many animal species demonstrate a capacity for basic prospection of immediate outcomes.
• Complex prospection in humans can involve comparison of multiple and remote future possibilities.
• Humans can deliberately shape their environment and their own future capacities.
• Yet, prospection is resource intensive, error prone and entails costs to wellbeing.
Abstract: Prospection refers to thinking about the future, a capacity that has become the subject of increasing research in recent years. Here we first distinguish basic prospection, such as associative learning, from more complex prospection commonly observed in humans, such as episodic foresight, the ability to imagine diverse future situations and organize current actions accordingly. We review recent studies on complex prospection in various contexts, such as decision-making, planning, deliberate practice, information gathering, and social coordination. Prospection appears to play many important roles in human survival and reproduction. Foreseeing threats and opportunities before they arise, for instance, drives attempts at avoiding future harm and obtaining future benefits, and recognizing the future utility of a solution turns it into an innovation, motivating refinement and dissemination. Although we do not know about the original contexts in which complex prospection evolved, it is increasingly clear through research on the emergence of these capacities in childhood and on related disorders in various clinical conditions, that limitations in prospection can have profound functional consequences.
Highlights
• Prospection, or thinking about the future, has strong adaptive significance.
• Many animal species demonstrate a capacity for basic prospection of immediate outcomes.
• Complex prospection in humans can involve comparison of multiple and remote future possibilities.
• Humans can deliberately shape their environment and their own future capacities.
• Yet, prospection is resource intensive, error prone and entails costs to wellbeing.
Abstract: Prospection refers to thinking about the future, a capacity that has become the subject of increasing research in recent years. Here we first distinguish basic prospection, such as associative learning, from more complex prospection commonly observed in humans, such as episodic foresight, the ability to imagine diverse future situations and organize current actions accordingly. We review recent studies on complex prospection in various contexts, such as decision-making, planning, deliberate practice, information gathering, and social coordination. Prospection appears to play many important roles in human survival and reproduction. Foreseeing threats and opportunities before they arise, for instance, drives attempts at avoiding future harm and obtaining future benefits, and recognizing the future utility of a solution turns it into an innovation, motivating refinement and dissemination. Although we do not know about the original contexts in which complex prospection evolved, it is increasingly clear through research on the emergence of these capacities in childhood and on related disorders in various clinical conditions, that limitations in prospection can have profound functional consequences.
Social & Reproductive Success in the US: Results show that education & intelligence had negative relationships with number of children across birth cohorts during most or all of the 20th century; family income has only minor effects
Social and Reproductive Success in the United States: The Roles of Income, Education and Cognition. Gerhard Meisenberg. Mankind Quarterly, Volume 59, No. 3, Mar 2019. http://www.mankindquarterly.org/archive/issue/59-3/5
Abstract: Although the relationship between social dominance status and reproductive success is universally positive in those species in which the relationship has been studied, in human societies today the relationship is more often negative. The present study uses detailed information from the General Social Survey in the United States to address this apparent paradox. Results show that education and intelligence had negative relationships with number of children across birth cohorts during most or all of the 20th century. Family income has only minor effects, especially when marital fertility rather than total cohort fertility is considered. The results do not support sociobiological predictions that modern humans turn material resources into reproductive success. Religion, ideology and income are identified as factors that influence the relationship between intelligence and fertility. Results are discussed in the broader context of emerging knowledge in demographics and molecular genetics, especially with respect to the direction of biological and cultural evolution in the modern United States and in modern societies more generally.
Abstract: Although the relationship between social dominance status and reproductive success is universally positive in those species in which the relationship has been studied, in human societies today the relationship is more often negative. The present study uses detailed information from the General Social Survey in the United States to address this apparent paradox. Results show that education and intelligence had negative relationships with number of children across birth cohorts during most or all of the 20th century. Family income has only minor effects, especially when marital fertility rather than total cohort fertility is considered. The results do not support sociobiological predictions that modern humans turn material resources into reproductive success. Religion, ideology and income are identified as factors that influence the relationship between intelligence and fertility. Results are discussed in the broader context of emerging knowledge in demographics and molecular genetics, especially with respect to the direction of biological and cultural evolution in the modern United States and in modern societies more generally.
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