People who recognize that they possess inconsistent personal qualities may nonetheless attain a coherent understanding of themselves by spontaneously developing a contextually-embedded sense of self

Personality coherence in acts and texts: Searching for coherence within and beyond trait categories. Mairéad McKenna et al. European Journal of Personality, June 12, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/08902070211022131

Abstract: This paper reports two studies that explore complementary aspects of personality coherence. Study 1 addressed cross-situational coherence in contextualized psychological response. Idiographically-tailored methods assessed individuals’ (i) beliefs about their personal attributes, (ii) subjective “mappings” of these attributes to everyday circumstances, and (iii) self-reported contextualized action tendencies. A novel index of idiographic–nomothetic relations gauged the degree to which the idiographic methods yield unique information. Participants’ mappings commonly deviated from the structure of nomothetic trait categories; people often grouped together contextualized action tendencies traditionally associated with different trait categories. The idiographic mappings predicted cross-situational coherence in action tendencies. Study 2 asked whether the contextualization of personal qualities would be evident when people merely are asked to describe their personal attributes in natural language. Participants wrote narratives describing positive and negative qualities. Narratives were coded for the presence of three linguistic features: conditional statements, probabilistic statements, and personality trait inconsistencies. All three occurred frequently. Furthermore, they co-occurred; among participants who described trait-inconsistent attributes, the large majority spontaneously cited conditions in which these attributes are manifested. People who recognize that they possess inconsistent personal qualities may nonetheless attain a coherent understanding of themselves by spontaneously developing a contextually-embedded sense of self.

Keywords: personality coherence, contextualized action tendencies, cross-situational coherence

While political polarization in the US is real, intense & increasing, partisans consistently overestimate its magnitude; this “false polarization” is insidious because it reinforces actual polarization and inhibits compromise

False Polarization: Cognitive Mechanisms and Potential Solutions. Philip M. Fernbach, Leaf Van Boven. Current Opinion in Psychology, June 17 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.06.005

Abstract: While political polarization in the United States is real, intense and increasing, partisans consistently overestimate its magnitude. This “false polarization” is insidious because it reinforces actual polarization and inhibits compromise. We review empirical research on false polarization and the related phenomenon of negative meta-perceptions, and we propose three cognitive and affective processes that likely contribute to these phenomena: categorical thinking, oversimplification and emotional amplification. Finally, we review several interventions that have shown promise in mitigating these biases.

 

Recognition of Masked Faces in the Era of the Pandemic: No Improvement, Despite Extensive, Natural Exposure

Freud, Erez, Andreja Stajduhar, R. Shayna Rosenbaum, Galia Avidan, and Tzvi Ganel. 2021. “Recognition of Masked Faces in the Era of the Pandemic: No Improvement, Despite Extensive, Natural Exposure.” PsyArXiv. June 18. doi:10.31234/osf.io/x3gzq

Abstract: Face masks became prevalent across the globe to minimize the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Previous research highlighted their negative qualitative and quantitative impact on face recognition. An outstanding question is whether these effects would attenuate following persistent natural exposure to masked faces in the era of the pandemic. This question also pertains, more generally, to potential effects of training on face recognition in natural settings. 1,236 participants were tested on masked, non-masked, upright and inverted versions of the Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT) at different time points over one year. The results showed persistent deficits in recognizing masked faces across time points. This was followed by persistent qualitative change, a reduced inversion effect for masked compared to non-masked faces. Together, these findings provide compelling support for the idea that the mature face processing system in humans is rigid in nature, even following prolonged, real-life exposure to altered faces.

Norway: Genetic Influences on Lifetime Income Increases with Gender Equality

Isungset, Martin Arstad, Tina Baier, and Torkild H. Lyngstad. 2021. “Genetic Influences on Lifetime Income Increases with Gender Equality.” SocArXiv. May 27. doi:10.31235/osf.io/e5wjk

Abstract: Over the twentieth century, the gender gap in income has decreased dramatically. We study whether the relative importance of genetic and environmental influences for lifetime income changed as gender equalization took place. We use data on 11,677 twin pairs from Norway born 1915-1991, linked with individual-level administrative data on the full population's incomes in the period 1967-2016. Our results based on genetically sensitive variance decompositions shows that as social constraints inhibiting women from earning income waned over the century, the heritability of lifetime income increased over birth cohorts. Genetic influences matter more for men than for women, and non-shared environmental influences matter more for women than for men. This indicates that women still face structural constraints to a larger degree than men. Even in a welfare state like Norway where gender equality has been a political goal since the 1950s, equalization, as measured by the heritability of lifetime income, did not manifest itself to a high degree until the latest cohorts were established in the workforce (1981-1991). Our study shows the importance of considering historical developments of ascribed statuses such as gender when investigating genetic influences, and that genetics can serve as a prism through which to study social change.