Women, sexual minorities, and people 18–29 years old exhibited significantly higher rejection sensitivity levels than men, heterosexuals, and people 30–36 years old, respectively

Maiolatesi, A. J., Clark, K. A., & Pachankis, J. E. (2022). Rejection sensitivity across sex, sexual orientation, and age: Measurement invariance and latent mean differences. Psychological Assessment, Jan 2022. https://doi.org/10.1037/pas0001109

Abstract: Intergroup differences in personality might be determined by systematic variation in social status and social experiences across groups. Because of its close association with social experiences, rejection sensitivity (RS)—a tendency toward anxious expectations of, and hypersensitivity to, interpersonal rejection—represents one such personality disposition that might differ across social groups, with implications for understanding mental health disparities. After first evaluating measurement invariance of the Adult Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire (A-RSQ), the present research sought to assess whether latent mean differences in RS emerged across sex, sexual orientation, and age in a population-based sample of Swedish young adults (age 18–36; N = 1,679). Analyses revealed that the scale achieved full configural, metric, and scalar invariance across sex and sexual orientation and partial scalar invariance across age. As expected, tests of latent mean differences indicated that women, sexual minorities, and people 18–29 years old exhibited significantly higher RS levels than men, heterosexuals, and people 30–36 years old, respectively. Findings from the present research highlight the utility of attending to group differences in maladaptive personality dispositions and information processing styles and their potential role in contributing to persistent mental health hardships uniquely affecting women, sexual minorities, and younger people. Implications for scale administration and future research into the social causes and consequences of RS are discussed.

We measure a spatial region of the face upon which gaze can elicit a sense of eye contact in the viewer; this ‘zone of eye contact’ tends to peak between the two eyes, and extend across the face further in height than in width

Is there a ‘zone of eye contact’ within the borders of the face? Colin J. Palmer et al. Cognition, Volume 220, March 2022, 104981. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104981

Highlights

•We measure a spatial region of the face upon which gaze can elicit a sense of eye contact in the viewer

•This ‘zone of eye contact’ tends to peak between the two eyes, and extend across the face further in height than in width

•Eye contact judgements are more precise than the sense that one's face is being looked at

•These features are similar across Australian and Japanese university students

•Eye contact depends on recent experience: judgements about eye contact are influenced by adaptation and serial dependence

Abstract: Eye contact is a salient feature of everyday interactions, yet it is not obvious what the physical conditions are under which we feel that we have eye contact with another person. Here we measure the range of locations that gaze can fall on a person's face to elicit a sense of eye contact. Participants made judgements about eye contact while viewing rendered images of faces with finely-varying gaze direction at a close interpersonal distance (50 cm). The ‘zone of eye contact’ tends to peak between the two eyes and is often surprisingly narrower than the observer's actual eye region. Indeed, the zone tends to extend further across the face in height than in width. This shares an interesting parallel with the ‘cyclopean eye’ of visual perspective – our sense of looking out from a single point in space despite the physical separation of our two eyes. The distribution of eye-contact strength across the face can be modelled at the individual-subject level as a 2D Gaussian function. Perception of eye contact is more precise than the sense of having one's face looked at, which captures a wider range of gaze locations in both the horizontal and vertical dimensions, at least at the close viewing distance used in the present study. These features of eye-contact perception are very similar cross-culturally, tested here in Australian and Japanese university students. However, the shape and position of the zone of eye contact does vary depending on recent sensory experience: adaptation to faces with averted gaze causes a pronounced shift and widening of the zone across the face, and judgements about eye contact also show a positive serial dependence. Together, these results provide insight into the conditions under which eye contact is felt, with respect to face morphology, culture, and sensory context.

Under efficiency and redistribution channels and Utilitarian social welfare weights the optimal minimum wage is $15; under only the efficiency channel, the optimal minimum wage is narrowly around $8, robust to social welfare weights

Minimum Wages, Efficiency and Welfare. David W. Berger, Kyle F. Herkenhoff & Simon Mongey. NBER Working Paper 29662. Jan 2022. DOI 10.3386/w29662

Abstract: It has long been argued that a minimum wage could alleviate efficiency losses from monopsony power. In a general equilibrium framework that quantitatively replicates results from recent empirical studies, we find higher minimum wages can improve welfare, but most welfare gains stem from redistribution rather than efficiency. Our model features oligopsonistic labor markets with heterogeneous workers and firms and yields analytical expressions that characterize the mechanisms by which minimum wages can improve efficiency, and how these deteriorate at higher minimum wages. We provide a method to separate welfare gains into two channels: efficiency and redistribution. Under both channels and Utilitarian social welfare weights the optimal minimum wage is $15, but alternative weights can rationalize anything from $0 to $31. Under only the efficiency channel, the optimal minimum wage is narrowly around $8, robust to social welfare weights, and generates small welfare gains that recover only 2 percent of the efficiency losses from monopsony power.

Problems replication traditional mortality salience effect on national patriotism, democratic values, processing speed, psychophysiological responses, ingroup identification, and pro-sociality; effect of death reminders is less robust than assumed

Mortality salience effects fail to replicate in traditional and novel measures. Bjørn Sætrevik, Hallgeir Sjåstad. Meta-Psychology, Vol 6, Jan 17 2022. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8730-1038

Abstract: Mortality salience (MS) effects, where death reminders lead to ingroup-bias and defensive protection of one’s world-view, have been claimed to be a fundamental human motivator. MS phenomena have ostensibly been identified in several hundred studies within the “terror management theory” framework, but transparent and high-powered replications are lacking. Experiment 1 (N = 101 Norwegian lab participants) aimed to replicate the traditional MSeffect on national patriotism, with additional novel measures of democratic values and pro-sociality. Experiment2 (N = 784 US online participants) aimed to replicate the MS effect on national patriotism in a larger sample, with ingroup identification and pro-sociality as additional outcome measures. The results showed that neither experiment replicated the traditional MS effect on national patriotism. The experiments also failed to support conceptual replications and underlying mechanisms on democratic values, processing speed, psychophysiological responses, ingroup identification, and pro-sociality. This indicates that the effect of death reminders is less robust and generalizable than previously assumed.

Keywords: Mortality salience , death reminders, worldview defence , terror management , replication