Economic development may not reduce women’s murders by itself, but it can mitigate the effects of male backlash against women who challenge the status quo

Women’s Murders and the Interaction Between Gender (In)equality and Economic Development: A Subnational Analysis in Turkey. Kerim Can Kavakli. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, October 21, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260520967164

Abstract: Why are women’s murders (femicide) more common in some localities than in others? This paper addresses this question in the context of Turkey, a country with a high and rising number of women’s murders. It uses province-level data between 2010-2017 and the Negative-Binomial estimator to explore the importance of several socio-economic, cultural, and political factors. It finds that a province’s ethnic composition, divorce rate, gender equality in education, and level of economic development are significant predictors of women’s murders. The main result is that whether economic development reduces femicide depends on other factors: in poorer provinces, there is a strong positive correlation between women’s murders and equality in education and divorce rates, but in richer provinces, these associations are significantly weaker. These results are consistent with the idea that economic development may not reduce women’s murders by itself, but it can mitigate the effects of male backlash against women who challenge the status quo. The main policy implication of this study is that pro-development policies may save more lives if they target those poorer provinces that also carry these additional risk factors.

Keywords domestic violence, assessment, predicting domestic violence, homicide, femicide, economic development

People are even more outraged by a self-driving car that deliberately kills a less preferred group (e.g., an elderly person over a child) than by one that indiscriminately kills a more preferred group (e.g., a child)

Deliberately prejudiced self-driving vehicles elicit the most outrage. Julian De Freitas, Mina Cikara. Cognition, Volume 208, March 2021, 104555. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104555

Abstract: Should self-driving vehicles be prejudiced, e.g., deliberately harm the elderly over young children? When people make such forced-choices on the vehicle's behalf, they exhibit systematic preferences (e.g., favor young children), yet when their options are unconstrained they favor egalitarianism. So, which of these response patterns should guide AV programming and policy? We argue that this debate is missing the public reaction most likely to threaten the industry's life-saving potential: moral outrage. We find that people are more outraged by AVs that kill discriminately than indiscriminately. Crucially, they are even more outraged by an AV that deliberately kills a less preferred group (e.g., an elderly person over a child) than by one that indiscriminately kills a more preferred group (e.g., a child). Thus, at least insofar as the public is concerned, there may be more reason to depict and program AVs as egalitarian.

Keywords: Moral judgmentAutonomous vehiclesDriverless policyMoral outrage

No strong evidence for any steroid hormonal effects on mate atraction; further, found no compelling robust evidence for mate preference shifts across the ovulatory cycle

A longitudinal evaluation of ovulatory cycle shifts in women’s mate attraction and preferences. Julia Stern, Tobias L. Kordsmeyer, & Lars Penke. Univ. Goettingen, Dec 2020, accepted for publication at Hormones and Behavior. https://www.psych.uni-goettingen.de/de/biopers/publications_department/pdfs/manuscript_Cycle2_mate_preferences_bodies.docx.pdf

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1342731513717260288

Abstract: Are ovulatory cycle shifts in women’s mate attraction and preferences robust? What are underlying mechanisms of potential cycle shifts? These questions are the subject of a current scientific debate surrounding the good genes ovulatory shift hypothesis. Here, we report a large, preregistered, within-subjects study, including salivary hormone measures and conception risk estimates based on luteinizing hormone tests. In four sessions across one ovulatory cycle, N = 257 women (= 1028 sessions) rated the attractiveness of 40 natural male bodies, 40 natural female bodies and 40 objects. Multilevel analyses yielded weak evidence for ovulatory increases in women’s general attraction, specifically to male bodies, though they are not systematically related to changes in steroid hormone levels. Further, we found no compelling robust evidence for mate preference shifts across the cycle, as only one out of many different tests showed some weak evidence for such effects. Mechanisms regulating cycle shifts, the impact of our results on developing and revising cycle shift theories, and influences of different methodologies on results are discussed.

Keywords: ovulatory cycle, mate preferences, mate attraction, steroid hormones, fertility

The volume of traffic contracted sharply after COVID-19 lockdowns, but motor vehicle fatality rates, injury accidents, & speeding violations went up, and remained elevated even as traffic began returning toward normal

COVID Lockdowns, Social Distancing, and Fatal Car Crashes: More Deaths on Hobbesian Highways? Marshall W. Meyer . Cambridge Journal of Evidence-Based Policing volume 4, pages238–259, Dec 21 2020. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41887-020-00059-8

Abstract

Research Question: What happened to US traffic safety during the first US COVID-19 lockdown, and why was the pattern the opposite of that observed in previous sudden declines of traffic volume?

Data: National and local statistics on US traffic volume, traffic fatalities, injury accidents, speeding violations, running of stop signs, and other indicators of vehicular driving behavior, both in 2020 and in previous US economic recessions affecting the volume of road traffic.

Methods: Comparative analysis of the similarities and differences between the data for the COVID-19 lockdown in parts of the USA in March 2020 and similar data for the 2008–2009 global economic crisis, as well as other US cases of major reductions in traffic volume.

Findings: The volume of traffic contracted sharply once a COVID-19 national emergency was declared and most states issued stay-at-home orders, but motor vehicle fatality rates, injury accidents, and speeding violations went up, and remained elevated even as traffic began returning toward normal. This pattern does not fit post-World War II recessions where fatality rates declined with the volume of traffic nor does the 2020 pattern match the pattern during World War II when traffic dropped substantially with little change in motor vehicle fatality rates.

Conclusions: The findings are consistent with a theory of social distancing on highways undermining compliance with social norms, a social cost of COVID which, if not corrected, poses potential long-term increases in non-compliance and dangerous driving.