Informal access to medical expertise and services (like being parents of a doctor) is not an important cause of differences in health care use and mortality

Artmann, Elisabeth, Hessel Oosterbeek and Bas van der Klaauw. 2022. "Do Doctors Improve the Health Care of Their Parents? Evidence from Admission Lotteries." American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 14(3):164-84. DOI: 10.1257/app.20190629

Abstract: To assess the importance of unequal access to medical expertise and services, we estimate the causal effects of having a child who is a doctor on parents' mortality and health care use. We use data from parents of almost 22,000 participants in admission lotteries to medical school in the Netherlands. Our findings indicate that informal access to medical expertise and services is not an important cause of differences in health care use and mortality.

Sleep deprivation led to larger impairments in those with higher fluid intelligence, evident for arithmetic ability, episodic memory, and a trend for spatial working memory

Balter, Leonie J., Tina Sundelin, Benjamin C. Holding, Predrag Petrovic, and John Axelsson. 2022. “Intelligence Predicts Better Cognitive Performance After Normal Sleep but Larger Vulnerability to Sleep Deprivation.” PsyArXiv. June 28. doi:10.31234/osf.io/qenm4

Abstract: It has been proposed that intelligence allows some people to cope better with stress than others. However, whether those with higher intelligence are also more resilient to the cognitive effects of insufficient sleep remains unclear. Participants (N = 182) were randomized to either a normal night of sleep or a night of total sleep deprivation. The Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices Test set E was used to estimate fluid intelligence prior to the experimental night. A sleepiness measure and a cognitive test battery were completed at 22:30h (serving as the baseline session for both groups), and the following day at 08:00h, 12:30h, and 16:30h after sleep manipulation. As per preregistration, sleepiness and measures of arithmetic ability, episodic word memory, simple attention, and spatial working memory were analyzed. At baseline, higher fluid intelligence was associated with fewer errors and faster calculations on the arithmetic test, and fewer episodic memory errors, but was not associated with spatial working memory performance, simple attention, or sleepiness. Sleep deprivation led to larger impairments in those with higher fluid intelligence, evident for arithmetic ability, episodic memory, and a trend for spatial working memory. Fluid intelligence did not predict vulnerability on any of the other tests or sleepiness. These data indicate that fluid intelligence is related to superior higher-order cognitive functioning under optimal sleep condition, but it does not protect against the deleterious cognitive effects of insufficient sleep. Further studies may test whether the cognitive benefits of intelligence are primarily limited to optimal situations.

To receive credit and to create favorable impressions, individuals need to share information about their past accomplishments; claiming credit to demonstrate competence, however, can harm perceptions of warmth and likability

VanEpps, Eric and Hart, Einav and Hart, Einav and Schweitzer, Maurice E., Dual-promotion: Bragging Better by Promoting Peers (June 3, 2022). SSRN: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4128132

Abstract: To receive credit and to create favorable impressions, individuals need to share information about their past accomplishments. Claiming credit to demonstrate competence, however, can harm perceptions of warmth and likability. In fact, prior work has conceptualized self-promotion as a hydraulic challenge: tactics that boost perceptions along one dimension (e.g., competence) harm perceptions along the other dimensions (e.g., warmth). In this work, we identify a novel approach to self-promotion: We show that by combining other-promotion (promoting others) and self-promotion, which we term “dual-promotion”, individuals can project both warmth and competence to make better impressions on observers. In two pre-registered pilot studies, including annual reports from members of Congress and an interactive lab study, we demonstrate that even when motivated to create a favorable impression, people rely heavily upon self-promotion. Yet across four experiments using workplace and political contexts (N = 1,510, pre-registered), we show that individuals who engage in dual-promotion consistently create more favorable impressions than those who only engage in self-promotion, an effect mediated by enhanced perceptions of both warmth and competence. These benefits also extend to behavioral intentions. In addition, we show that regardless of what colleagues and peers do, dual-promotion creates more favorable impressions than self-promotion, suggesting that sharing credit can be an optimal strategy across a variety of contexts.

Keywords: Self-promotion, Bragging, Credit sharing, Communication strategies, Open science
JEL Classification: D01, D03, D74, D81, D84