The greater the discrepancy in performance of the top performer and the other group members in terms of number of ideas, the greater the positive impact on the other group members

Kenworthy, J. B., Marusich, L. R., Paulus, P. B., Abellanoza, A., & Bakdash, J. Z. (2020). The impact of top performers in creative groups. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, Dec 2020. https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000365

Abstract: The role of top or “star” performers was examined in an electronic collaborative creativity task. Participants worked in dyads on a series of four idea generation tasks and then participated in two different groups of four on two new idea generation tasks. The composition of the pairs and groups were changed for each new task. The top performers from the paired sessions, in terms of number of ideas or novelty, enhanced the number of ideas generated by the other members in the group sessions. The greater the discrepancy in performance of the top performer and the other group members in terms of number of ideas, the greater the positive impact on the other group members. This research suggests that top performers or “star” team members can have a positive effect on the creative performance of other group members over and above other predictors. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications for including high individual performers in groups.

Tyler Cowen summarizing... Elites are arguing from their class and demographic biases (a bias can be positive, to be clear), not from their expertise; that lowers the marginal value of expertise, at least given how our world operates

Re-Assessing Elite-Public Gaps in Political Behavior. Joshua D. Kertzer. August 3, 2020, Forthcoming in the American Journal of Political Science. Author's take: https://twitter.com/jkertzer/status/1298970729292222464

Full paper: https://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~jkertzer/Research_files/Elite-Public-Gaps-Web.pdf

Tyler Cowen's take: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/12/the-elites-really-are-worse-than-you-think.html

Abstract: Political scientists often criticize psychological approaches to the study of politics on the grounds that many psychological theories were developed on convenience samples of college students or members of the mass public, whereas many of the most important decisions in politics are made by elites, who are presumed to differ systematically from ordinary citizens. This paper proposes an overarching framework for thinking about differences between elites and masses, presenting the results of a meta-analysis of 162 paired treatments from paired experiments on political elites and mass publics, as well as an analysis of 12 waves of historical elite and mass public opinion data on foreign policy issues over a 43 year period. It finds political scientists both overstate the magnitude of elite-public gaps in decision-making, and misunderstand the determinants of elite-public gaps in political attitudes, many of which are due to basic compositional differences rather than to elites’ domain-specific expertise.

Verification materials: The data and materials required to verify the computational reproducibility of the results, procedures and analyses in this article are available on the American Journal of Political Science Dataverse within the Harvard Dataverse Network, at: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/LHOTOK

Just do it: Engaging in self-control on a daily basis improves the capacity for self-control

de Ridder, D., van der Weiden, A., Gillebaart, M., Benjamins, J., & Ybema, J. F. (2020). Just do it: Engaging in self-control on a daily basis improves the capacity for self-control. Motivation Science, 6(4), 309–320. Dec 2020. https://doi.org/10.1037/mot0000158

Abstract: Self-control is considered a crucial capacity that helps people to achieve important objectives in the face of temptation. However, it is unknown to what extent self-control is a stable disposition that is unaffected by how often people engage in self-control, or more like a skill that develops and grows over time. In the present study, we employed an electronic diary to examine how regular engagement in self-control practice affects self-control capacity. A diverse community sample was followed for 4 months while they engaged in daily practice of a self-chosen self-control behavior. Consistent with our hypothesis, regular practice led to an improvement of medium effect size in self-control capacity. Critically, the level of improvement was dependent on the actual times of practice during a specific interval, and largely independent from beliefs about self-control or self-efficacy. We conclude that “just doing” self-control is the underlying mechanism of increased capacity for self-control.

People tend to assume that karma will only overtake others, while they will fare well anyway

Mata, A., & Simão, C. (2020). Karmic forecasts: The role of justice in forecasts about self and others. Motivation Science, 6(4), 335–345. https://doi.org/10.1037/mot0000162

Abstract: Three studies show that people make karmic forecasts, expecting good things to come to those who perform good deeds, and predicting bad outcomes for wrongdoers. However, these justice-based forecasts only apply to others; when making forecasts about themselves, people tend to make optimistic predictions, regardless of whether they consider good or bad things that they did. This pattern emerged for both forecasts about the likelihood of experiencing positive versus negative events, as well as affective forecasts about how people will feel upon experiencing such events. Thus, there is a double standard for making forecasts about self versus others, with justice being a more fundamental motive in forecasts about others, and wishful thinking being a more fundamental motive in forecasts about the self.

Although the two sexes do not differ in average cooperation levels, men are much more likely to behave either selfishly or altruistically, whereas women are more likely to be moderately cooperative

Greater Male Variability in Cooperation: Meta-Analytic Evidence for an Evolutionary Perspective. Christian Thöni, Stefan Volk, Jose M. Cortina. Psychological Science, December 10, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797620956632

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1337284228069908481

Abstract: Do men and women differ systematically in their cooperation behaviors? Researchers have long grappled with this question, and studies have returned equivocal results. We developed an evolutionary perspective according to which men are characterized by greater intrasex variability in cooperation as a result of sex-differentiated psychological adaptations. We tested our hypothesis in two meta-analyses. The first involved the raw data of 40 samples from 23 social-dilemma studies with 8,123 participants. Findings provided strong support for our perspective. Whereas we found that the two sexes do not differ in average cooperation levels, men are much more likely to behave either selfishly or altruistically, whereas women are more likely to be moderately cooperative. We confirmed our findings in a second meta-analytic study of 28 samples from 23 studies of organizational citizenship behavior with 13,985 participants. Our results highlight the importance of taking intrasex variability into consideration when studying sex differences in cooperation and suggest important future research directions.

Keywords: cooperation, sex differences, decision making, evolutionary psychology