Individuals steadily have grown less conscientiousness and more neurotic since the beginning of the pandemic

Berg, Cameron. 2022. “Personality Trends over the COVID-19 Pandemic.” PsyArXiv. June 8. doi:10.31234/osf.io/9mu46

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has exhibited significant psychological and behavioral impacts, but a precise account of the way that the pandemic has altered human personality is still highly uncertain. This investigation leverages a dataset of Five Factor Model (“Big Five”) personality results from 2.8-million US adults recorded throughout the duration of the pandemic in order to better understand the relationship between significant COVID-19 trends and population-level trait measurements. Using ordinary correlational and more sophisticated machine learning (ML) techniques, we find that (1) individuals steadily have grown less conscientious and more neurotic since the beginning of the pandemic, that (2) average population-level measures of trait agreeableness increased most strongly in response to shorter-term, transient worsening of the pandemic (e.g., hospitalization spikes), while average population-level measures of trait neuroticism increased most strongly in response to longer-term, cumulative worsening of the pandemic (e.g., total deaths), that (3) average population-level measures of trait openness significantly decreased in response to the shorter-term, transient worsening of the pandemic, and that (4) on average, ML-generated regression models were able to explain approximately half of the variance in population-level trait trajectories solely given regressors associated with the course of the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., the number of people admitted into the ICU for COVID-19 on a given day of the pandemic). Taken together, these findings are among the first to suggest that, at the population level, the COVID-19 pandemic exhibited specific, measurable, and durable impacts on human personality.

Stronger sex drive in men compared to women, with a medium-to-large effect size: Men more often think and fantasize about sex, more often experience sexual affect like desire, and more often engage in masturbation than women

Frankenbach, Julius, Marcel Weber, David D. Loschelder, Helena Kilger, and Malte Friese. 2022. “Sex Drive: Theoretical Conceptualization and Meta-analytic Review of Gender Differences.” PsyArXiv. June 8. doi:10.31234/osf.io/9yk8e

Abstract: Few spheres in life are as universally relevant for (almost) all individuals past puberty as sexuality. One important aspect of sexuality concerns individuals’ sex drive—their dispositional sexual motivation. A vigorous scientific (and popular) debate revolves around the question of whether or not there is a gender difference in sex drive. Several theories predict a higher sex drive in men compared to women, with some theories attributing this difference to biased responding rather than true differences. Currently, there is little consensus on how to conceptualize sex drive, nor does a quantitative summary of the literature exist. In this paper, we present a theory-driven conceptualization of sex drive as the density distribution of state sex drive, where state sex drive is defined as momentary sexual motivation that manifests in sexual cognition, affect, and behavior. We conduct a comprehensive meta-analysis of gender differences in sex drive based on 211 studies, 856 effect sizes, and 621,463 persons. The meta-analysis revealed a stronger sex drive in men compared to women, with a medium-to-large effect size (g = 0.69, CI95 [0.58, 0.81]). Men more often think and fantasize about sex, more often experience sexual affect like desire, and more often engage in masturbation than women. Adjustment for biased responding reduced the gender difference (g = 0.54). Moderation analyses suggest that the effect is robust and largely invariant to contextual factors. There was no evidence of publication bias. The discussion focuses on validity considerations, limitations, and implications for psychological theory and people’s everyday lives.

Jazz musicians were less conscientious and more open to experience than classical musicians

The musician’s personality: Do personality traits vary according to ensemble membership? Zahava L Heydel, Randyl D Smith, Nels Grevstad. Psychology of Music, June 6, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1177/03057356221096779

Abstract: Despite many decades’ worth of investigations into associations between music and personality, the empirical findings are quite scant and scattered. Perhaps, this is because musicians are a diverse group of people, with far-reaching musical interests and wide-ranging personalities. Little research, however, has investigated whether musicians’ choice of musical genre bears a relationship to their personalities. In this study, we explore the limited literature on the relationship between music ensemble membership and personality by investigating personality differences between jazz and classical ensemble musicians on the Big Five personality dimensions. Musicians (N = 221) were recruited from college music ensembles, an introductory psychology course, a Facebook page, and Amazon Mechanical Turk. Participants completed the Big Five Inventory (BFI), a validated self-report personality questionnaire, and analyses were conducted to compare the scores of jazz musicians to the scores of classical musicians. Significant differences emerged between jazz and classical musicians’ personalities, with gender playing a mediating role. These results may be beneficial for music educators and directors, as knowledge that specific personality traits predict music ensemble membership may help guide instruction techniques, communication, understanding between musicians of different musical genres, and general cooperation between music educators/directors and their ensembles.

Keywords: musicians, personality, classical musician, jazz musician, Big Five model

The evolutionary novelty of childcare by and with strangers: Net of education, earnings, sex, current marital status, and number of children, more intelligent British parents were more likely to resort to paid childcare at ages 33 & 42

The evolutionary novelty of childcare by and with strangers. Satoshi Kanazawa. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, Volume 221, September 2022, 105432. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105432

Abstract: Alloparenting by and with genetically unrelated individuals is evolutionarily novel; thus, the Savanna–IQ Interaction Hypothesis predicts that more intelligent parents are more likely to resort to paid childcare by strangers. Analyses of individual data (National Child Development Study) in the United Kingdom (Study 1) and macrolevel data from the United States (Study 2) and economically developed Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations (Study 3) confirmed the hypothesis. Net of education, earnings, sex, current marital status, and number of children, more intelligent British parents were more likely to resort to paid childcare at ages 33 and 42; net of female labor force participation rate, median household income, median cost of childcare, and mean education, U.S. states with higher average intelligence had higher proportions of children (ages 0–4) in paid childcare; and net of maternal employment, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, cost of childcare, and female educational attainment, OECD nations with higher average intelligence had higher proportions of infants (ages 0–2) in paid childcare. The results were remarkably consistent; both across the 50 U.S. states and 45 economically developed OECD nations, a one IQ point increase in the average intelligence of the population was associated with a 1.8% increase in the proportion of children in paid childcare. Contrary to earlier findings, there was some suggestive evidence that the experience of paid daycare might harm the cognitive development of children. The studies point to the importance of evolutionary perspective in developmental psychology and child development.

Keywords: Day careChild careIsraeli kibbutzimTaiwanese sim pua marriagesIncest avoidanceWestermarck effect