Divorcees do not repartner with someone of the same personality as their ex-spouse, and they are in some cases constrained by marriage market forces to repartner with less stabilizing personalities

More of the Same? Comparing the Personalities of Ex-Spouse and New Partner after Divorce. Sascha Spikic, Dimitri Mortelmans and Dries Van Gasse. Soc. Sci. 2021, 10(11), 431; Nov 9 2021. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10110431

Abstract: The similarity of the Big Five personality traits of ex-spouses and new partners was examined post-divorce. The notion that divorcees replicate their partner choice (fixed-type hypothesis) was tested against the hypotheses that they learn to select a new partner with more marriage-stabilizing personality traits than their former spouse (learning hypothesis), or are constrained by marriage market forces to repartner with someone who has less stabilizing personality traits (marriage market hypothesis). Data was derived from a Flemish study that sampled divorcees from the national register. The sample consisted of 700 triads of divorcees, their ex-spouses, and their new partners. The analysis results rejected the fixed-type hypothesis and instead supported both the learning hypothesis and the marriage market hypothesis, with higher order repartnering supporting the latter. Women also seemed to validate both hypotheses, as their partner comparison showed decreases in both stabilizing traits (conscientiousness and agreeableness) and destabilizing traits (neuroticism and extraversion). Overall, the results seem to suggest that divorcees do not repartner with someone of the same personality as their ex-spouse, and they are in some cases constrained by marriage market forces to repartner with less stabilizing personalities, while in other cases they are able to improve their partner selection.

Keywords: Big Five; ex-partner; new partner; personality; divorce

Do chimpanzees enjoy a virtual forest? A pilot investigation of the use of interactive art as a form of environmental enrichment for zoo-housed chimpanzees

Do chimpanzees enjoy a virtual forest? A pilot investigation of the use of interactive art as a form of environmental enrichment for zoo-housed chimpanzees. Yumi Yamanashi, Kazuki Hitoosa, Nobuaki Yoshida, Fumihiro Kano, Yuko Ikkatai, Hidefusa Sakamoto. American Journal of Primatology, November 11 2021. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.23343

Abstract: Environmental enrichment is essential for the well-being of zoo animals. Recent advances in sensor and video technologies may contribute to improvements in enrichment in terms of their flexibilities and time constraints. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether interactive movie art can be used as a form of environmental enrichment. We implemented interactive movies designed by a professional artist, a visual art aiming to reflect naturalistic forest habitat, in an indoor chimpanzee enclosure at Kyoto City Zoo in Japan. Motion-tracking sensors embedded in buoys were installed at several locations around the indoor enclosure; the chimpanzees could change the movie contents by physically interacting with these objects. We recorded behaviors by observing entire troop of chimpanzees (six) between March 16 and 20, 2020 (control condition), then recorded behaviors when the interactive movie was presented (experimental condition) between March 21 and 29, 2020. Behaviors were recorded via direct observations and video recordings to examine any changes after the installation of interactive art. The chimpanzees spent more time in the indoor enclosures during the experimental condition than during the control condition. Activity budgets did not change substantially during the study period. There was no evidence of habituation to the movie during the study period. Three chimpanzees, including two young chimpanzees, interacted with the movie more frequently than the others; these young chimpanzees occasionally showed playful expressions when interacting with the movie and exhibited different reactivities to the movie scenes. These results demonstrate, first, that the interactive art did not negatively affect chimpanzee behavior, and second, that some of the chimpanzees indeed showed positive responses to the art. This study, therefore, introduces a novel possibility for environmental enrichment in zoos, involving a collaboration between science and art.

Research Highlights

.  We investigate whether technology-based interactive movie art can be used as a form of environmental enrichment by analyzing their behaviors.

.  The chimpanzees spent more time in the locations where the arts were presented and did not lose interest across the experimental condition. Two young chimpanzees particularly used it and showed play face in relation to the interactive arts.

.  These results demonstrate that the interactive art did not negatively affect chimpanzee behavior, and that some of the chimpanzees indeed showed positive responses to the art.

When and Why Does Gossip Increase Prosocial Behavior? When it is accurate rather than inaccurate; when targets are dependent on receivers rather than independent; when it is anticipated rather than actually experienced

When and Why Does Gossip Increase Prosocial Behavior? Annika S. Nieper et al. Current Opinion in Psychology, November 12 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.10.009

Highlights

• We review research on the effects of gossip on prosocial behavior.

• Empirical evidence shows that gossip can increase and decrease prosocial behavior.

• Gossip increases prosociality: 1) when it is accurate rather than inaccurate.

• 2) when targets are dependent on receivers rather than independent.

• 3) when it is anticipated rather than actually experienced.

Abstract: Understanding when people behave prosocially is integral to solving many challenges in groups and society. Gossip – the exchange of information about absent others – has been proposed to increase prosocial behavior, but findings are mixed. In this review, we illuminate the relationship between gossip and prosocial behavior, reconcile disparate findings, and suggest new directions for research. Our review reveals that gossip increases prosocial behavior to the degree that 1) it is accurate rather than inaccurate, 2) targets are interdependent with, rather than independent from, gossip receivers, and 3) targets anticipate that they might be gossiped about, rather than actually experience negative gossip. We discuss implications of our reviewed findings for understanding when gossip serves to uphold desirable behavior and when it inadvertently engenders undesirable behavior.

5. Conclusions and suggestions for future research

We reviewed empirical research on the link between gossip and prosocial behavior to illuminate when gossip promotes prosocial behavior and when gossip undermines it. Our review revealed three moderating factors that help to reconcile disparate findings: the accuracy of gossip, the interdependence structure between actors in the gossip triad, and whether gossip is actually experienced versus anticipated. The impact of these factors has so far been examined mostly in isolation. In future studies it would be interesting to investigate their joint impact as well as to identify further boundary conditions of the effects reviewed here. For example, we discussed how actually experiencing, rather than merely anticipating the possibility of, becoming the target of negative gossip lowers feelings of social inclusion in the group and thereby undermines prosocial behavior. Perhaps these effects are moderated by the perceived accuracy of gossip: If targets perceive the gossip about them to contain false information, they might feel that they have been wrongfully punished via gossip [38], which would reduce their prosocial behavior. Conversely, when targets perceive the gossip to be truthful, they might be inclined to attempt to repair their reputation by engaging in prosocial acts.

An additional moderator of the effect of actually experienced versus anticipated gossip might be the dependency on one's group members or the availability of alternative groups that gossip targets can join. If somebody learns that they have been gossiped about negatively by their group members, yet has no alternative groups to join, they may feel compelled to resolve the issues that sparked the gossip and restore their reputation rather than reduce their effort and detach from the group, which may result in targets increasing their prosocial behavior. In contrast, the presence of alternative groups might lead to reduced cooperation with the group in which one became the target of gossip and lead one to exit this group to join another group.

Another factor that might further influence the relationship between gossip and prosocial behavior is the visibility of prosocial behavior. If people want to restore their reputation or think they have been gossiped about negatively, they might be especially likely to decrease prosocial behaviors that are not very visible to others, while still trying to maintain visible prosocial behaviors that have reputational consequences. Future research could investigate such social dynamics to further understanding of how gossip influences prosocial behavior.

Going forward, we see a need for studies on gossip and prosocial behavior that combine experimental rigor with fine-grained analysis of gossip statements as they "naturally" occur. Such studies would allow researchers to examine how gossip senders construct gossip statements within different interdependence structures and provide insights into what elements of gossip statements lead recipients to be influenced by gossip, or rather, to discard it. As discussed earlier, to capture real-life gossip dynamics, researchers should additionally consider including a risk that gossip is transmitted to a relevant person when studying the consequences of gossip for the gossip target.

A final fruitful direction for future research is to examine what happens in situations in which prosocial behavior engendered by (the possibility of) gossip is harmful for society as a whole, for instance because it is unethical [[39], [40], [41]]. For example, in the case of corruption or "partnering in crime", helping another person has damaging effects for the broader collective. In such instances, gossip (or the threat thereof) could have adverse effects for society, because when gossip is present and people are therefore more concerned about their reputation [14,15], they are likely to act more in accordance with perceived social norms [21], potentially increasing prosocial unethical behavior. Furthermore, in terms of partner selection, gossip might enable corrupt people to find corrupt partners (e.g., when the Mafia seeks new members, gossip might inform them that someone is the right fit for their organization). Future research in those directions will help to further understand when gossip increases prosocial behavior and when it has adverse effects.

In closing, we have shown that gossip can but does not always stimulate prosocial behavior. Whether it does depends on gossip accuracy, the interdependence structure of the parties in the gossip triad, and whether gossip is actually experienced versus anticipated. We hope our review and research directions will spark new investigations that will further our understanding of when gossip increases prosocial behavior and when it does not.

We trace the origins of porn hypnosis, both in early cinema’s theorization of the hypnotic screen and also in mid-twentieth-century brainwashing paranoia, examining the ways that the evil hypnotist mythos built up during this period

Hypnosis and pornography: a cultural history. James Mackay & Polina Mackay. Porn Studies, Nov 11 2021. https://doi.org/10.1080/23268743.2021.1978312

Abstract: A major form of porn creativity in the digital age has been the ‘hypno video’: a user-generated film mashing up short clips from various porn sources, accompanied by hypnotic imagery and sound, often designed with the overt intent to alter the viewer’s gender, racial or sexual preferences. These videos are highly popular, judging from view counts, although in most cases their effectiveness as hypnotic inductions is dubious at best. In this article, we discuss the science of hypnosis, and the reasons why ‘reprogramming’ videos are unlikely to have any basis in hypnotic practice. To understand the prevalence of this form, therefore, we trace the deep connections between hypnosis and pornography, showing that the highly subjective practice of hypnosis has consistently been associated with the erotic over at least the last two centuries. We trace the origins of porn hypnosis, both in early cinema’s theorization of the hypnotic screen and also in mid-twentieth-century brainwashing paranoia, examining the ways that the evil hypnotist mythos built up during this period and then became a staple of hardcore cinema. Finally, we discuss the function of hypnosis in porn, and the ways that porn hypnosis enables the viewer to overcome shame.

Keywords: Hypnosispornographymicropornographyshamemind controltransgender

Behavior causes: Phylogeny, natural selection, & genomics (ultimate causes); maturation, sensitive period effects, & routine environmental effects (intermediate); & hormonal/metabolic processes, neural circuitry, and eliciting stimuli (proximate)

Nine Levels of Explanation — A Proposed Expansion of Tinbergen’s Four-Level Framework for Understanding the Causes of Behavior. Melvin Konner. Human Nature, Nov 5 2021. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12110-021-09414-8

Abstract: Tinbergen’s classic “On Aims and Methods of Ethology” (Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie, 20, 1963) proposed four levels of explanation of behavior, which he thought would soon apply to humans. This paper discusses the need for multilevel explanation; Huxley and Mayr’s prior models, and others that followed; Tinbergen’s differences with Lorenz on “the innate”; and Mayr’s ultimate/proximate distinction. It synthesizes these approaches with nine levels of explanation in three categories: phylogeny, natural selection, and genomics (ultimate causes); maturation, sensitive period effects, and routine environmental effects (intermediate causes); and hormonal/metabolic processes, neural circuitry, and eliciting stimuli (proximate causes), as a respectful extension of Tinbergen’s levels. The proposed classification supports and builds on Tinbergen’s multilevel model and Mayr’s ultimate/proximate continuum, adding intermediate causes in accord with Tinbergen’s emphasis on ontogeny. It requires no modification of Standard Evolutionary Theory or The Modern Synthesis, but shows that much that critics claim was missing was in fact part of Neo-Darwinian theory (so named by J. Mark Baldwin in The American Naturalist in 1896) all along, notably reciprocal causation in ontogeny, niche construction, cultural evolution, and multilevel selection. Updates of classical examples in ethology are offered at each of the nine levels, including the neuroethological and genomic findings Tinbergen foresaw. Finally, human examples are supplied at each level, fulfilling his hope of human applications as part of the biology of behavior. This broad ethological framework empowers us to explain human behavior—eventually completely—and vindicates the idea of human nature, and of humans as a part of nature.

I review, replicate and extend the analysis from seven econometric papers studying how events that happened to and values held by our ancestors affect their descendants several generations afterwards (intergenerational persistence)

Persistence - A critical review [abridged]. Jaime Sevilla. Nov 10 2021. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wWGi4jTNNMhz2pHhJ/persistence-a-critical-review-abridged. Full form: Persistence - A critical review

In short: I review, replicate and extend the analysis from seven econometric papers studying how events that happened to and values held by our ancestors affect their descendants several generations afterwards (intergenerational persistence). I argue that together the papers provide moderate evidence of the existence of long term causal effects mediated by parentage.

Keywords: persistence, cultural persistence, economic history, multiple hypothesis testing, post design power analysis, spatial autocorrelation bias, causality, natural experiments, instrumental variables.

Intergenerational persistence is an important topic for Effective Altruism, because it can help us understand how our actions today can affect many generations after. I undertook this research to help us shed light on whether cultural interventions (like increasing the degree at which present people value truth and cooperation) can be an effective way of affecting the long-term future.

The papers I review are:

• The long term effects of Africa’s slave trades (Nunn, 2008) 
• The slave trade and the origins of mistrust in Africa (Nunn & Wantchekon, 2011)
• On the Origins of Gender Roles: Women and the Plough (Alesina et al., 2013)
• The Church, intensive kinship, and global psychological variation (Schulz et al., 2019)
• Persecution perpetuated: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Semitic Nazi Violence (Voigtländer & Voth, 2012)
• Trade, Institutions, and Ethnic Tolerance: Evidence from South Asia (Jha, 2013)
• Long-term persistence (Guiso et al., 2016)

Highlights:

. I discuss a gold standard for cultural persistence studies, covering how to (1) identify robust long term correlations via regression studies under different sets of controls, (2) identify causal effects via natural experiments and (3) identify whether culture is a significant mediator via children-of-immigrant studies.

.  I find that many of the papers manage to find statistically significant results. A naive aggregation of the estimated correlation effect sizes suggests that future correlational studies might find effects of around β ≈ 0.28 (0.13) standard deviations per standard deviation of exposure variation. That is, future studies in similar topics should expect to find that one standard deviation of variation on an event would predict ~28% of variation in long term outcomes. However it is hard to rule out spurious correlations due to issues such as spatial autocorrelation or outliers.

.  Some of the papers attempt to study causation via natural experiments. While a couple of such papers arguably succeed in identifying a causal effect, we cannot discard that subsequent robustness checks will cast doubt on the results. We need better tools to study long term persistent effects. A naive aggregation of the estimated correlation effect sizes suggests that future causal studies might find effects of around β ≈ 0.11 (0.02) standard deviations per standard deviation of exposure variation. That is, future studies in similar topics should expect to find that one standard deviation of difference on an event would cause ~11% of variation in long term outcomes.

.  I find that children-of-immigrant analysis suggests the possibility of long term persistence of variation mediated by parentage. The authors of the papers tend to explain this persistence in terms of cultural variation, relying mostly on historical accounts as evidence.

.  Whether long term persistence of variation usually stays constant, wanes or increases with time is an open question. Studying better these dynamics of persistence would be critical to understand the very long-term impact of cultural interventions today.

These results suggest the possibility of sustained AI innovation under the Chinese regime: AI innovation entrenches the regime, and the regime’s investment in AI for political control stimulates further frontier innovation

AI-tocracy. Martin Beraja, Andrew Kao, David Y. Yang & Noam Yuchtman. NBER Working Paper 29466, November 2021. DOI 10.3386/w29466

Abstract: Can frontier innovation be sustained under autocracy? We argue that innovation and autocracy can be mutually reinforcing when: (i) the new technology bolsters the autocrat’s power; and (ii) the autocrat’s demand for the technology stimulates further innovation in applications beyond those benefiting it directly. We test for such a mutually reinforcing relationship in the context of facial recognition AI in China. To do so, we gather comprehensive data on AI firms and government procurement contracts, as well as on social unrest across China during the last decade. We first show that autocrats benefit from AI: local unrest leads to greater government procurement of facial recognition AI, and increased AI procurement suppresses subsequent unrest. We then show that AI innovation benefits from autocrats’ suppression of unrest: the contracted AI firms innovate more both for the government and commercial markets. Taken together, these results suggest the possibility of sustained AI innovation under the Chinese regime: AI innovation entrenches the regime, and the regime’s investment in AI for political control stimulates further frontier innovation.