COVID-19: Narcissism & Machiavellianism predicted greater negative affect & perceptions of threat during the pandemic, while psychopathy predicted positive affect; conversely, sadism predicted greater positive affect

Is the COVID-19 pandemic even darker for some? Examining dark personality and affective, cognitive, and behavioral responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Benjamin S. Hardin, C. Veronica Smith, Lauren N. Jordan. Personality and Individual Differences, November 7 2020, 110504. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110504

Abstract: As the COVID-19 pandemic and interventions intended to minimize its spread continue to impact daily life, personality research may help to address the different ways in which people respond to a major global health crisis. The present study assessed the role of dark personality traits in predicting different responses to the pandemic. A nationally representative sample of 412 Americans completed measures of the Dark Tetrad as well as perceptions of COVID-19 threat, emergency beliefs, and positive and negative affect in response to COVID-19. Narcissism and Machiavellianism predicted greater negative affect and perceptions of threat during the pandemic, while psychopathy predicted positive affect. Conversely, sadism predicted greater positive affect. Dark personality also showed some predictive ability in explaining pandemic-related behaviors (e.g., more frequent cleaning) but not others (e.g., social distancing). Our findings provide evidence for differences in how dark personality traits predict individual responses to global crises.

Keywords: Dark personalityDark TetradCOVID-19Pandemic

High-status individuals had a stronger status motive, in part, because they were more confident in their ability to achieve (or retain) high status, but not because of other possible mechanisms (e.g., task self-efficacy)

The Possession of High Status Strengthens the Status Motive. Cameron Anderson, John Angus D. Hildreth, Daron L. Sharps. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, July 13, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167220937544

Abstract: The current research tested whether the possession of high status, compared with the possession of low status, makes individuals desire having high status even more. Five studies (total N = 6,426), four of which were preregistered, supported this hypothesis. Individuals with higher status in their social groups or who were randomly assigned to a high-status condition were more motivated to have high status than were individuals with low status. Furthermore, upper-class individuals had a stronger status motive than working-class individuals, in part, due to their high status. High-status individuals had a stronger status motive, in part, because they were more confident in their ability to achieve (or retain) high status, but not because of other possible mechanisms (e.g., task self-efficacy). These findings provide a possible explanation for why status hierarchies are so stable and why inequality rises in social collectives over time.

Keywords: status, social class, rank, desire, motive

Rats: Even under conditions of low food motivation, food sharing occurred on only 1% of the sharing opportunities, inconsistent with claims in the literature that rats are altruistically motivated to share with other rats

Wan, Haoran, Cyrus Kirkman, Greg Jensen, and Timothy D. Hackenberg. 2020. “Failure to Find Altruistic Food Sharing in Rats.” PsyArXiv. November 7. doi:10.31234/osf.io/pmbnh

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1325308739650527232

Abstract: Prior research has found that one rat will release a second rat from restraint in the presence of food, thereby allowing that second rat access to food. Such behavior, clearly beneficial to the second rat and costly to the first, has been interpreted as altruistic. Because clear demonstrations of altruism in rats are rare, such findings deserve a careful look. The present study aimed to replicate this finding, but with more systematic methods to examine whether, and under what conditions, a rat might share food with its cagemate partner. Rats were given repeated choices between high-valued food (sucrose pellets) and 30-s social access to a familiar rat, with the (a) food size (number of food pellets per response), and (b) food motivation (extra-session access to food) varied across conditions. Rats responded consistently for both food and social interaction, but at different levels and with different sensitivity to the food-access manipulations. Food production and consumption was high when food motivation was also high (food restriction) but substantially lower when food motivation was low (unlimited food access). Social release occurred at moderate levels, unaffected by the food-based manipulations. When food was abundant and food motivation low, the rats chose food and social options about equally often, but sharing (food left unconsumed prior to social release) occurred at low levels across sessions and conditions. Even under conditions of low food motivation, sharing occurred on only 1% of the sharing opportunities. The results are therefore inconsistent with claims in the literature that rats are altruistically motivated to share food with other rats.

Evidence from a Panel of Transition Economies: The flat tax reforms increase annual GDP growth by 1.36 percentage points for a transitionary period of approximately one decade

The Macroeconomic Effects of Flat Taxation: Evidence from a Panel of Transition Economies. Brian Wheaton. Harvard Univ., October 24, 2020. https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/wheaton/files/flat_tax.pdf

Abstract: Flat taxes have been the subject of policy discussion for decades, and such discussions have often come with bold macroeconomic claims. Yet the macroeconomic effects of flat taxation remains a mostly overlooked topic in the economics literature. To guide my analysis, I construct a simple model of investment decisions under varying income tax progressivity, and I show that decreased tax progressivity increases investment, which – under standard models of economic growth – should induce a transitionary increase in GDP growth. To test these implications, I turn to a natural experiment: between 1994 and 2011, twenty post-Communist countries introduced flat taxation on personal income. Since 2011, five of these countries have reverted to progressive income taxation. Using static and dynamic difference-in-differences approaches, I find that the flat tax reforms increase annual GDP growth by 1.36 percentage points for a transitionary period of approximately one decade. These findings are robust to multiple alternative specifications designed to deal with various identification challenges, including electoral endogeneity and correlated reforms. Entirely consistent with the model, this growth effect is operationalized through increases in investment (and labor supply), and it is driven both by the decreases in the average marginal tax rate and the reductions in progressivity resulting from the tax reforms. In short, tax progressivity can have important implications for macroeconomic outcomes.

Corporal punishment in schools increases educational attainment, increases later-life social trust & trust in institutions, leads to less authoritarian attitudes toward child-rearing, to greater tolerance of free speech, & decreases later-life crime

Petrova, Maria, Gautam Rao, and Brian Wheaton. “The Long-Run Effects of Corporal Punishment in Schools,” Harvard Working Paper, Nov 2020. https://scholar.harvard.edu/wheaton/publications/poppies-protest-and-demand-economic-and-political-effects-legalizations-and

Abstract: Corporal punishment is used in schools in about 70 countries, including in 19 states in the United States. Despite its prevalence as a tool to discipline students, it remains remarkably understudied. We leverage the staggered state-level bans of school corporal punishment in the United States over the past several decades in conjunction with data on social and economic outcomes from the American Community Survey (ACS) and the General Social Survey (GSS), using a difference-in-differences design to measure the causal effects of school corporal punishment.  We find that the presence of corporal punishment in schools increases educational attainment, increases later-life social trust and trust in institutions, and leads to less authoritarian attitudes toward child-rearing, and greater tolerance of free speech.  Additionally, exposure to corporal punishment in school decreases later-life crime.  We find no effects on mental or physical health.  These results hold up to dynamic difference-in-differences specifications – which reveal non-existence of pre- trends – and a wide variety of other robustness checks.  Observing that only a small share of students are exposed to corporal punishment, we argue that the effects primarily represent spillovers resulting from restraining the behavior of disruptive students.